You install the SDK through Steam, then you let it install CS:Source and HL2:DM, then you launch the SDK through Steam and then you launch Hammer from the SDK, then you make your map, then you've got to configure your Hammer setup so all the paths are correct, then you try compiling and see if the paths were correct, then you play the map and murder a kitten. 

Doom3 is a long game, how is HL2, compared to D3? 

I beat both in roughly the same amount of time, HL2 took a little less time for me than Doom 3. I liked Doom3 more, but HL2 had a much better ending. 

HL2 was weird for me in the length department. I thought some parts of the game were too drawn out, i.e. the airboat and bits during the buggy stuff. Beyond that I thought the game was wonderfully paced.

Doom 3 felt longer, but that's probably because I couldn't play that game in long sittings. I'd really get too hyped up, anxious, nervous, upset to play that long. Generally I still think Doom 3 was able to create much more tension and real emotion than HL2. Except when Barney was around, God he's a hottie.

I think they are both quality titles though that really can't be compared that well to one another. I think that you'll see more mods for Half-Life 2 in the end however. Content creation is just so time consuming for D3 I'd assume I'd grow bored with it. If I ever go through with this mod I'm writing a doc for, it'll be for Half-Life 2.

Fun wise, I enjoyed myself more playing Half-Life 2, but at the same time enjoyed being scared during Doom 3. 

i wasn't the only one who thought the vehicle bits were too long. i would have prefered half the length of both with more regular walking maps... 

The airboat took waay too long, and I was motion sick for about half of it.

On the other hand, they could release an expansion pack, Half Life 2: Buggy Exodus and I'd snap it up. It made me wish there was an entire open world of coast to explore, just me and my buggy. And my Ant Lion friends. 

yet.

How does the buggy portion of the game stack up against the FarCry (so far my favorite FPS this year) jeeps? 

Do you play Far Cry multi at all? 

At home I only have dial up. 

my cable package would only be 12 dollars more with an internet connection. Maybe after Christmas. 

between the two... i'd say i liked the handling on the FarCry vehicles more, but the actual gameplay involving the buggy in HL2 *is* pretty fun. there are lots of places to stop in between for some shooting action. it was much better than the water part anyway. 

Just ignore him, you're only encouraging him. 

You know, since we're supposed to be an editing community and all; This pace is pure gold:
http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/ 

Who is editing for Half-Life 2? I'm working on a test map currently to play around with stuff and get some solid ideas for my mod's direction. I'd be interested to see what people are coming up with. 

i'm still trying to get used to this hammer thing. no hope of GTKRHL2 i guess... 

...is there any similarity between the map files created by Hammer for HL2 and the files created by a Quake1 edtior. Anyone that far down the road yet? Conversion possible?

Having just read some of the Hammer Documentation, it looks very interesting. In particular, Displacement Surfaces seems to be a far better way to get my terrains laid out than the method I currently use :-)

It also has some visual similarities with BspEditor, which was created by Yahn Bernier for Quake1, who then went to work on HL2.

Just a thought... 

You can convert from q1 to source pretty nicely I think, just open .map in old worldcraft, save as .rmf and open that in new hammer.
I believe it would be very hard to convert from source to any other game, because hammer and the compilers use ONLY their own .vmf format, (yes, the compilers read the .vmf files directly) so there is no way to export to .map as there was in previous worldcraft/hammer.

(... 1 minute later...)

Actually, I just opened up a .vmf file in textpad now, and I was expecting to just see a binary mess like the .rmf files were, but these are very nice and clean text files, very much more readable than the q1 .map files. I think a skilled programmer (hello aguirRe!) could convert these to quake1 fairly easy, maybe even perhaps the displacement surfaces too.
And frankly, the displacement surfaces here would be the only thing making hammer for q1 even vaguely interesting. 

It also has some visual similarities with BspEditor, which was created by Yahn Bernier for Quake1, who then went to work on HL2.

Ben morris, author of Worldcraft, was hired by Valve for HL1. Which is why WC2 was for HL, not Q1; it's what Valve themselves used to make HL1.

Yahn Bernier was hired I-don't-know-when, but presumably for similar reasons.

I tried both WC and BSP when I started, and prefered WC by a long way. Dario Casali, otoh, used BSP to build Prodigy SE.
One wonders who polishes whose ego now they all share the same office space :P 

i think it would be more complex than converting q3 to q1 format or whatever. while some syntax is sort of the same (classname, angle, etc) the actual layout of the brushes looks wierder than before... each face has settings and things like that... 

04:17:11 Zombie : ydnar: if you were to do anything in the way of a HL2 bsp compiler
04:17:22 Zombie : start with the vis tool it's shocking
04:17:48 Zombie : I've got really basic geometry which would normaly take lik 5 seconds in q3map2
04:17:58 Zombie : takes about 2mins in HL2's vis tool
04:22:08 Mr : hmm maybe that explains my 5+ hour compile that I had to stop because it was taking so god damn fucking long.
04:22:19 Mr : It was on 2.. for about 3 hours straight. 

http://www.zhlt.tk/

beta source engine compilers for those interrested, but I didn't look at the details... 

http://www.student.itn.liu.se/~troja881/cookie/ 

Here's my impressions. It starts out rather rhetorical but I wrote this to be posted at a non-gaming forum anyway...

http://www.phait-accompli.com/crap/hl2/hl2.php 

That's a short essay. I'm just not willing to read through so much junk I already know. Can't you just sum it up in a few controvertial sentences people can fight over or something? 

The physics and lighting are more impressive with this game but I still got the feeling of been-here-done-that with even just the demo gameplay.