• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Half Life Alyx - No VR mod is shaping good

Crayon

Member
So you're telling me it could work for me as well? That would be awesome! I guess I was misinformed.

In theory, yeah. It reacts to super tiny movements of your head so you will get that constant micro parallax effect. I could cover one eye in VR and my depth perception would be kinda bad, but not gone. A lot of the effect is that the lenses let your eye focus out 10-20-30 feet even though the display is right there. There's actually a lot going on to create the effect that has nothing to do with binocular vision or even good vision in general. I'm sure there are cases were it wouldn't work right, but it's probly worth a shot.
 

Orta

Banned
I might get it out of curiosity but would vastly prefer the proper VR experience being familiar with the tech.

Is it supposed to be that slow without the headset? Don't think I could put up with it if so.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
I might get it out of curiosity but would vastly prefer the proper VR experience being familiar with the tech.

Is it supposed to be that slow without the headset? Don't think I could put up with it if so.
That's exactly why I think it's a disservice to avoid the VR. Everything is tailored to VR and the controllers. It takes time to reload! You have to eject the magazine and insert a new one. You get surrounded & flanked by enemies and your movement speed, head-turning are dictated by your real world physical state. You have to physically duck and move and take cover in Alyx. When you are in a dark corridor and you hear enemies but cannot see them yet, it is a whole other level of experience to the same scenario on a flat screen with a mouse & keyboard. You have to use a flashlight in one hand and your gun in the other while looking all over to make sure your back is not exposed to enemy attack. It gets intense at parts. And of course, being developed by Valve, the whole package is the highest level of quality.

Wait for the VR if you can. It will be worth it.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


This is the next update for my open source HL:A NO VR Script! With this update you can finally reach the end of the official campaign! In this video you can also see some of the new features I've been working on, like weapon upgrades and the gravity gloves for non VR. Expect a first full release in the near future!



  • This is the 6th update for the Half-Life Alyx NoVR Script which makes it possible to play the official campaign without a VR headset.
  • The update enables the player to complete the official campaign and introduces new features such as weapon upgrades and non-VR gravity gloves.
  • The developer also promises the first full release soon.
  • The development build of the script is available on GitHub, and the project now has a Discord server.
  • The comments are generally positive, with many expressing excitement for the mod, thanking the developer for their work, and asking questions or making suggestions for improvements.
  • Some of the suggestions for improvements include hands for reloading animations, less floaty guns, adding swinging to the weapon, and adding the character's hands and animations.
  • Others wonder if the script has a console like the old Half-Life games, if it will be modifiable, and if RTX features will be added in the future.
  • The developer is congratulated for making the mod fully playable in a short amount of time and for giving people without VR headsets the opportunity to experience the game.
  • Some express excitement to finally play the game, while others question what campaign will be next to showcase the new mod features.
 
Let me help you, there are two scenarios:

A.- The game is not worth it without VR.
B.- The game is worth it even without VR.

Both cannot be true at the same time.
What? The game is built around being vr it’s an integral part of the experience. Games not built for VR and converted to it can be fine but they really don’t work nearly as well. That’s like saying if this 3D game isn’t good as a 2D side scroller then it’s bullshit.

Anyway, this will suck. But maybe it’ll get people to buy into VR so they can have the actual experience. Probably the best gaming experience of my life
 

lukilladog

Member
What? The game is built around being vr it’s an integral part of the experience. Games not built for VR and converted to it can be fine but they really don’t work nearly as well. That’s like saying if this 3D game isn’t good as a 2D side scroller then it’s bullshit.

Anyway, this will suck. But maybe it’ll get people to buy into VR so they can have the actual experience. Probably the best gaming experience of my life

Oh, I get that you wont get to be impressed or have fun with the vr part of the game, but are you saying that the game will break in some way or that it cannot stand by itself as a 2d game?.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Playing Alex without VR is like eating a well-done steak. You've destroyed the experience by removing the best parts.
Having played it in its intended format, I would agree. But on the other hand, I don't always wanna play this in VR, and many players don't want to play it in VR at all so it's nice that the option will be there. I don't think anyone should be kept from being able to play this game because it has so many qualities that can be enjoyed regardless of how you play it. I can't wait to see how this game looks on a 4k screen instead of through blurry lenses of Quest 2.
 
Oh, I get that you wont get to be impressed or have fun with the vr part of the game, but are you saying that the game will break in some way or that it cannot stand by itself as a 2d game?.
most of the game is the VR part is what I’m saying. I guess it’s not fundamentally broken if you played it another way, I just think you’re missing out
 

Justin9mm

Member
I agree that playing Alyx without a VR headset would be a waste. This game made me: lie down on the floor to peek under doors, jump on a few occasion, crouch to look for cover, physically hold a bucket for a whole level in order to stash my grenades, etc and I loved every minute of it. Also, the gravity gloves are really fun to use with the finger flick and I wonder how it would work outside of VR. IMO the game would lose a lot of its magic.
^ Wait, what.. I didn't even think of doing that!? Mind Blown!!!
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Oh, I get that you wont get to be impressed or have fun with the vr part of the game, but are you saying that the game will break in some way or that it cannot stand by itself as a 2d game?.

It would be pretty mediocre as a regular Half-Life game. It's not designed or tuned that way. As a VR experience it's the top of the pile.

It can work in reverse when you convert the old games to VR because you're just trusting the player to be able to handle that level of action physically. Alyx has less going on overall than previous titles because it requires the player to physically move, shoot, duck, aim etc. and a lot of the little details are based around that idea. It's not super exciting to throw a grenade through a window accurately in an FPS. In VR it feels like you actually made the shot yourself.
 
Last edited:

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
It would be pretty mediocre as a regular Half-Life game. It's not designed or tuned that way. As a VR experience it's the top of the pile.
Easy analog more people might (or should) understand is a lightgun game. It's one thing to point and click with a mouse or drag some crosshair around your screen and over terrorist heads or whatever with an analog stick and a completely different thing to play with crosshair off and an accurate lightgun that means you have to make the shots yourself, slowly and aiming down the sights where appropriate (falling leaf in Point Blank or sniping sections in Ghost Squad or something) or in hectic situations try to be just as accurate on reflex and instinct (as in your average Virtua Cop or Time Crisis). Even lightgun games that have crosshair on in the arcade because they aren't about accuracy and skill but more target prioritizing or whatever like L.A. Machineguns are much more fun if you're waving around a machinegun instead of go back to stick or mouse. For such a crosshair dragging game to work as not-a-lightgun-game then it needs to be made completely differently like a rail shooter like Star Fox or Sin & Punishment or Panzer Dragoon, they aren't anything like Virtua Cop (and hence while still niche performed much better on home consoles than lightgun game ports).

And yes the reverse works much better because even if the game's not made for VR elements like making your shots (which is why made for VR games tend to still have less action and slower movement like comparing Alyx to HL2VR it's a much less intense game) or the immersion of being there are added. You add elements rather than take away elements as you do when you convert something from VR to flat (which can still be okay if it's like, an adventure game with not much actual gameplay, so you lose on immersion but maybe the story, puzzles and whatever else is still decent).

For VR FPS to work out of VR they need new gameplay to replace the one in VR so the AI should work differently, the gunplay needs to actually be assembled and balanced with all other elements, AI, enemy hit reactions, gun recoil, reload method and speed and all the stuff that are manual in VR like the gravity glove item gathering in Alyx. To my knowledge they aren't doing anything of the sort here, they just utilize existing engine features so you have the most basic gun mechanics possible and none of the rest of the elements are reworked to work with that in a fun way if at all possible.

But this is all common sense really, it shouldn't be debated 7 years after 2016 where VR in its current form came around, whether you've experienced it or not it's not hard to understand just by looking into it superficially.
 
Last edited:

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
...and imagine just pressing a button to reload, instead of experiencing the real situation in the game where you'll be pushing shells into your shotgun frantically one at a time while a headcrab zombie shambles closer.
 

Melon Husk

Member
A released mod is better than no mod. The recently released mod is different from OP. SoMN paused development and never released their mod, which is a shame because it had more polished features.
edit: I tried the "update #6" version and I liked it. It works.
 
Last edited:

SnapShot

Member
The mod showcased in SoMN's videos looks so much better than the recently released one, I had to use some sort of driver mod to play it without VR last time I played it but good to know a much better alternative exists now.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
This is the pinnacle of VR experiences.

Idk how well it would be to recommend without it.
The game is specifically made for portal jumping, enemy behavior is tailored around that, including the environments. Playing this without VR will indeed spoil the intended experience. But if you've never tried it in VR at least you kinda don't know what you're missing even after feeling a bit empty.
 
Last edited:

fart town usa

Gold Member
This is like playing Mario 64 modded to be a 2D snes game. Or an easy mode on a Souls game.

#ShotsFired

loop ooo GIF
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


Change Log:

Collisions

a). In the original HLA build, when you run it by using the novr command, the player clips & teleport clips (invisible walls that blocks the player from accesing some not-allowed areas) are not working properly. A fix was made at the engine level in order to solve globally this issue.
b). In the original HLA build, there are parts (in mostly all the maps) in which the player gets completely stuck, and you need to use NOCLIP in order to restore the player position. This was fixed by resoring the original engine function that checks for player "stuckness".
c). In the original HLA build, the doors trespass the player. Now all the door entities should collide in a proper way with the player collision bounds.
Script Generated Ladders
In order to get working novr ladders (on the original HLA build), you need to add a specific "ladder" texture to a specific entity and then re-build the map. This can be a heavy and long process due the map compilation time. In this mod we're not re-building or modifying the game maps, everything is being done by using a combination of LUA VScript, C++, and other tools. That's why I decided to write a small ladder system that's using some existing functions in the engine to get working the novr ladders in this way.(this is possible due the dll-injection).

Panorama Menu

The main menu/pause menu is fully functional now. In the original HLA build the menu is appearing outside of the map bounds and it has a lot of issues like:
-You cannot interact with the menuy
-Panorama is not working when the game is paused
-Mouse input is not working
-The menu is flickering and changing to different positions constanly
All of those issues were solved:
-Now the menu appears in front of the player's eyes position.
-Mouse input is working (including clicks)
-Panorama menu is not flickering and the position is not chaning anymore

Interactions

No VR Interaction system for the animprop_interactable entities were re-written, now all the interactions should be smoother and work "almost" properly (I say almost, because there are some specific entities that are not working at 100% yet).
 
Top Bottom