PC Half Life: Alyx "Playable" without VR thanks to new mod

[Mr.Vic20]

https://wccftech.com/half-life-alyx-new-mod-no-vr/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

Its only been 5 days since the game's launch so this is impressive! I have every intention of playing this in VR as it was meant to be played, but its cool someone is making this happen and the speed of mod's release is just really impressive! 

[Keyser_Soze]

As @Greatoneshere foretold

[Dre801]

Not surprising.  People have been bitching about it being a VR only game since it was first announced, maybe they'll stop whining now.

[Keyser_Soze]

10 minutes ago, Dre801 said:

Not surprising.  People have been bitching about it being a VR only game since it was first announced, maybe they'll stop whining now.

 

Probably the same people who wanted Artifact to be free and let it fail.

[TwinIon]

It doesn't surprise me that some mildly playable mod happened so quickly. I haven't tried any of them, but there are a lot of accessibility options. It mirrors an undistorted display by default, complete with a HUD that doesn't exist in VR. You can play seated, with one hand, and use buttons for everything. I feel like a twitch stream of a VR player might even be a better overall experience than playing it with a mod like this, but I won't begrudge anyone who gives it a try. 

[Reputator]

3 hours ago, Dre801 said:

Not surprising.  People have been bitching about it being a VR only game since it was first announced, maybe they'll stop whining now.

 

Why would people like myself stop "whining" when this mod doesn't really make the game playable in any real sense? The game was designed from the ground-up to exclude 99% of PC gamers, and this mod doesn't change that.

[Xbob42]

Sounds like a miserable way to ruin a great game.

[Moa]

1 hour ago, Reputator said:

 

Why would people like myself stop "whining" when this mod doesn't really make the game playable in any real sense? The game was designed from the ground-up to exclude 99% of PC gamers, and this mod doesn't change that.

 

Occupy City 17!

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, Reputator said:

 

Why would people like myself stop "whining" when this mod doesn't really make the game playable in any real sense? The game was designed from the ground-up to exclude 99% of PC gamers, and this mod doesn't change that.

hi plz make your vr game not work well in vr because not everyone has headset even though you're trying to make headsets a desirable thing and more popular thx

[Reputator]

7 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

hi plz make your vr game not work well in vr because not everyone has headset even though you're trying to make headsets a desirable thing and more popular thx

 

mischaracterizing people's viewpoint to score an easier win! 

[Xbob42]

1 minute ago, Reputator said:

 

mischaracterizing people's viewpoint to score an easier win! 

Please, elucidate!

[Reputator]

1 minute ago, Xbob42 said:

Please, elucidate!

 

I've posted in the other thread my issues with it. It's not uniquely mine, but here it is:

 

Half-Life fans for the last 13 years: PLEEEAASE CONTINUE THE HALF-LIFE FRANCHISE VALVE!!

 

Valve: Single-player dead, hats make teh moniez

 

HLF: PLLLEEEEEASE

 

Valve: K, heres new Half-Life game, btw you cant play it! 

 

want to innovate VR? sure, but don't do it using a franchise with millions of fans who have been clamoring for new entry for over a decade. The barrier to play this game is hardware costing several hundred dollars, this is not trivial

[Xbob42]

Alternative take:

Valve: How bad do you REALLY want new Half-Life?

[Reputator]

Just now, Xbob42 said:

Alternative take:

Valve: How bad do you REALLY want new Half-Life?

 

"Would you kill your own brother for it??"

[Reputator]

Also Valve:

 

 

[Xbob42]

As someone who generally hates exclusives, I get it. But my one exception with exclusives is when it's the hardware that makes it possible. If something absolutely HAS to be on certain hardware, then I'm AOK with it. And if this is the creative spark Valve needed to get back into Half-Life and single-player games in general, then I think in the long-term it's good for everybody. Yeah I imagine it's pretty frustrating right now. Not just a big VR tentpole release, but Valve's return to a beloved series.

 

I know that pain, the sting of frustration when you can't afford (or don't want) a certain piece of hardware and that's where something you REALLY want is. That's basically my entire life up to about 6 or 7 years ago. Always a console behind, or getting it late in the generation and then I can only afford one and of course that means I miss out on exclusives on the other two. That's where a large portion of my distaste for exclusives comes from to this day.

But this would be a far lesser game if it were just ported, even by Valve, to non-VR hardware. VR is clearly what got them interested. They've always been big on pushing tech, I can tell that from picking up a security card in a building and looking at it under different light, and literally seeing every fucking detail of fingerprints on the card and how they reflect less light than the (matte) plastic surface, all the little bits of ink flecked off around the edges of the card where it gets the most use, I stared at a fucking security card under different lighting conditions for minutes yesterday, so I know that Valve was passionate about this tech.

Of course, then you can say "Well why didn't they just do that with a non-VR game!" and I think they've already answered that: They just didn't know where to go, what to do, they don't like to release games like Half-Life just because they haven't done so in a while. They like to have a big push, a reason, a vision. I don't want a Half-Life game that Valve doesn't want to make. Period. If that means it takes years between each release, so be it. A new CoD comes out every single year and I almost never give even half a shit. A new Half-Life game is basically a guarantee that if nothing else, I'll be enjoying some crazy new tech. And the physics on display (and how you can interact with them) just put to shame everything on the market, just like Half-Life 2 did. In many ways it's more subtle, until you really get into it.

 

I hope that this 1. sparks Valve's creative vision for the franchise as a whole and fast-tracks us to Half-Life 3 since they know they can still make a killer Half-Life game and Source 2 is done and 2. helps drive a lot of VR sales and bigger VR games, making the tech cheaper, more user-friendly, and smaller.

[Nokt]

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

2. helps drive a lot of VR sales and bigger VR games, making the tech cheaper, more user-friendly, and smaller.

This is kind of where I'm at. I'm pretty frustrated that I can't play it and I really don't want to go spend $400-$500 dollars on a single game that I'll blow through in a couple hours. 

If VR really is the future or is at least going to be a bigger part of gaming, Valve is probably one of the best people that you can have in your corner. 

 

In the meantime I'll either just watch someone play it on twitch or hopefully play it in the near future where I can buy a VR headset hopefully at a less premium cost. 

[Keyser_Soze]

11 hours ago, TwinIon said:

 I feel like a twitch stream of a VR player might even be a better overall experience than playing it with a mod like this, but I won't begrudge anyone who gives it a try. 

 

Well if SirActionSlacks is still playing it you're in luck!

[Reputator]

I remember when Half-Life 2 came out, and caused a similar push for new hardware purchases. Only then that push was for faster processors and graphics cards, particularly DirextX9 capable cards like those from ATI, at the time heavily promoted alongside the game. But those kinds of hardware purchases benefited more than just one game, and would ensure a great experience with all games throughout 2004 and beyond.

 

Imagine if the only thing that motivated Valve to create a new single-player game in the Half-Life franchise was the R-Zone, a horrible mid-90s headset made by Tiger Electronics that used shape-based LCD screens. The idea that "whatever motivates Valve to make a new Half-Life game is fine by me" is a pretty easy strain of logic to pick apart.

 

Now I'm not saying that VR is the same as the R-Zone, but a more appropriate example would be the Novint Falcon, a force-feedback 3D controller released in 2007. HL2 Episode 1 & 2 were actually patched to support it, but the idea was a peripheral separate from the core performance hardware of your PC that would enhance the immersion of your games. In essence, the same concept as VR, just with the latter being a lot more robust. Now imagine if following the support of the first two episodes, Episode 3 released with exclusive support for the Novint Falcon, dropping the keyboard and mouse. It doesn't help any other games and the barrier-to-entry is bulky expensive hardware that, aside from Valve's game, is novel and under-supported.

 

Valve wants this series to push the envelope, but I feel this time their free-spirited designers have revealed how out-of-touch they've become in the intervening decade plus, and the result is alienation through offshoot innovation rather than pushing baseline gaming technology that would benefit everyone. Again, if it were anything but Half-Life, it wouldn't feel like such a blight.

 

Would we all love to have the chance to experience it? Sure, but for average folks it's about as out-of-reach as it comes, and though I probably shouldn't mention it, the timing couldn't be more inappropriate given the new economic strain many are facing at this moment in time. It sort of comes off as the rich flexing in the face of an increasingly squeezed middle class, and the parallels to ageless classism problems are unavoidable.

[Spork3245]

If you watch a YouTube play-through and mimic the movements of the person playing it’s like next- level VR and no extra hardware is required!

[ShreddieMercury]

I can't speak for Alyx, but my hope is that Valve is just as motivated to push the envelope in regard to game design as they are technology.  Portal and Portal 2 certainly didn't herald a new era of gaming tech, but they (particularly 2) remain some of the best examples to me of radical gameplay innovation.  Graphics, and to an extent VR, have a fairly limited impact on my enjoyment when playing games, and there are all sorts of ways to drive video games forward without the seeming sole focus of higher specs, faster drives, and augmented control methods. 

 

I get that this is what inspires Valve, and I'm just happy that they might be interested in making games again.  Whatever it takes to deliver Left 4 Dead 3.

[TwinIon]

42 minutes ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

I can't speak for Alyx, but my hope is that Valve is just as motivated to push the envelope in regard to game design as they are technology.  Portal and Portal 2 certainly didn't herald a new era of gaming tech, but they (particularly 2) remain some of the best examples to me of radical gameplay innovation.  Graphics, and to an extent VR, have a fairly limited impact on my enjoyment when playing games, and there are all sorts of ways to drive video games forward without the seeming sole focus of higher specs, faster drives, and augmented control methods. 

 

I get that this is what inspires Valve, and I'm just happy that they might be interested in making games again.  Whatever it takes to deliver Left 4 Dead 3.

They've been pretty explicit in that they made Alyx in VR specifically to push game design forward. They felt that VR is where the greatest room for innovation existed, so that is the place they wanted to explore. 

 

I understand the frustration that people have when it comes to wanting something to exist that doesn't, but I think reading Alyx's existence as Valve's desire to push hardware forward is completely wrong. The Index represents that, but Valve went far out of their way optimizing Alyx to work with as many VR systems as possible.

[Keyser_Soze]

I think a good compromise for people who can't afford the headset is just be able to make the game use motion controls (everyone loves those) that way you can still do things like use the hands and dump buckets out with your hands instead of a mouse making it semi immersive.

[Greatoneshere]

On 3/28/2020 at 10:19 AM, Keyser_Soze said:

As @Greatoneshere foretold

 

People really should listen to me more often.  

[Bloodporne]

Every time this game is brought up, my avatar feels really appropriate.

[Moa]

24 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

Every time this game is brought up, my avatar feels really appropriate.

 

[Bloodporne]

23 minutes ago, Moa said:

 

[Keyser_Soze]