# Half-Life - Issues Here's a list of things that we'd fix in Half-Life, given the opportunity. ## Bug: You can `+use` through walls. No game assumes that this behaviour is accurate. In fact, in certain mods (such as The Specialists, where the role-play map fiskcity comes to mind) it can be used to escape the bank vault when you're trapped within. This is not by design. ## Bug: Snarks attack func_wall entities Seen in rapidcore.bsp, what the heck? If they're trying to chew through entities, check for .takedamage being DAMAGE_NO first or whatever the Half-Life equivalent is! ## Bug: You can drop empty satchels. Do this in multiplayer: Take up a Satchel Bag and place them all until you're at 0. Then die - and pick up your ammo canister. You'll receive the Satchel Bag in your inventory, but with 0 ammo. ## Linux: Underscores look like white space In the console, all underscores look like whitespace. This makes choosing maps or using the auto-completion system in console rather annoying. The font needs to be closer to MS Sans Serif anyway. ## Linux: Mouse input breaks when loading a map from the command-line In your Steam launch options, do the following for Half-Life: `+map c1a0` ...and when trying to use the menu it becomes unusable. The only solution is to open the console and to issue `quit`. ## Linux: Weird SDL input behaviour Scroll wheel is really flaky and sometimes doesn't work. Using system version of SDL fixes it. Everything just feels really rough and messy. ## Proton: Filesystem issues People will want to play Half-Life mods. Many of those are only for Win32. Using Proton after installing the Linux version will create a lower case titled version of the game directory and it results in namespace conflict related bugs. The game might not launch anymore, etc. Switching between Proton and Native in general is very finnicky and the user has to resort to manually deleting the game directories on their filesystem. Will have to be fixed outside the engine obviously. ## Fluff: Gluon: There's supposed to be a sprite that hits the wall. It never shows up - except when you're watching another player use it on a func_wall type surface - it's that broken. FreeHL has it. Go copy that. ## Fluff: Gauss: Doesn't use the dedicated decals. They're in the decals.wad. ## Accessibility: Better Controller support The menu is hard to use with a controller. It should really be a lot better for playing on Steam Deck. ## Accessibility: Don't do the Crouch+Jump timing thing for Longjump Make it hold down crouch + tap space. Makes it easier for controller users to use and less of a worry for carpal tunnel syndrome. ## SDK: Outdated code The code at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife seems to be outdated. If you [manage to fix up and compile the code](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/issues/3133) (newer toolchain/buildsystem would be appreciated) under Linux, you'll notice how the mouse input code within cl_dll/in_camera.cpp will need to be updated quite heavily in order for mouse input to work properly. Someone has already drafted a Pull Request for this years ago: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/pull/1900 ## Inconsistency: Check HQ multiplayer models by default The 'Use high quality models' options under the multiplayer menu is never checked by default. If you're going to make the HD models the default, then the higher quality body groups for the multiplayer player models should be used as well. ## Quality of Life: Teamplay really sucks The whole model based approach isn't very good. Nobody enjoys this. At the very least employ a VGUI interface to let users choose the teams before spawning. ## Bug: Player firing animation for shotgun is missing?!!!!! ## Quality of Life: cl_autojump 0/1 Accessibility feature, a way to jump repeatedly automatically. Supported by various third-party Quake engines as well. ## Quality of Life: Mods Win32 DLL loading Valve ships Proton. Make it so the native Linux version can load Win32 dlls. It's something we've talked about before and some people have successfully tested - it'd be interesting to pursue but kind of a pipe dream. ## Improvement: Support old backgrounds Old mods ship with backgrounds for the original MFC version of the Half-Life menu. Check if a splash.bmp is in the current game dir depth and not one of the VGUI menu based .tga files. The video card requirements on Steam + Half-Life was raised high enough that no GPU that can only load 256px textures into video memory can run the engine anyway. Might as well store a non-power-of-two image like that in as a fallback if no VGUI menu files exist. ## Quality of Life: add `find` console command from Source Or maybe just make the console nicer to use in general. It's really not that great to use. ## Quality of Life: HUD scaling We need this really bad. Anyone with 4K screens is having a hard time reading anything. ## Quality of Life: HUD aspect Like with Half-Life 2, HUD aspect ratio would be well desired to have. Of course some screen effects need to keep taking up the whole screen. ## Quality of Life: Different fov calculation modes The standard fov mode which highly detests widescreen resolutions. People have made entire modelpacks to fix viewmodels to look right in widescreen. This is silly and should be replaced by a calculation that is based around a 4:3 horizontal axis projection with padding. You'll find those in custom Quake engines like QuakeSpasm and FTEQW (cvar: scr_fov_mode) ## Quality of Life: VPK/PK3 archive support For over 2 decades, people have been sharing maps, mods and addons in a variety of frustrating ways. Install an addon and you're the janitor - cleaning up the base install of Half-Life is so annoying you better just remove the game and re-install it. Add support for pak style loading of zip files (also commonly seen in id Tech games with the extension of .pk3 and .pk4 (indicating compressed zips)) within the game directory and people can finally delete a map by issuing a command as simple as: ``` rm map-JohnDoe-dm_partybus.pk3 ``` ...and that would take care of it all. The directory structure within the .zip should be as if you could run `unzip` on the file and it'd organize itself inside the game directory. Choosing zip and recognizing the .pk3 and .pk4 extensions would make it easier for people to package the files for the virtual filesystem. Valve may choose to also use their own .vpk format if it would benefit things like Workshop support. ## Quality of Life: Workshop support With once major websites having been shut down over the years, there is a need for Valve to help in preserving maps and addons by making them discoverable through the addition of a Steam Workshop. VPK/PK3 archive support within the virtual filesystem would need to be completed first, then the workshop integration would be rather straightforward. ## Quality of Life: Rich Presence While you can join games, it's not easy to see who is playing actively on a multiplayer game. It'd be very beneficial if we could see which game mode they're playing ([the gameAPI exposes this to the engine](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/blob/c7240b965743a53a29491dd49320c88eecf6257b/engine/eiface.h#L462)) and which map they're playing on. ## Quality of Life: Community features Valve has created some high quality artwork for Half-Life's Steam Community thing. Like wallpapers, emotes and stuff - the trading card shenanigans. It should probably be used. ## Quality of Life: Better voice codec Use Opus over CELT/SPEEX. ## Fluff: Bring back the GLQuake shadows Some mods like to use them. [They also were used in advertising for the game](https://combineoverwiki.net/images/a/ac/Houndeye_video.png) so it would be appreciated to bring them back. ## Fluff: The viewmodel bob is incorrect Half-Life had added a slight roll to the viewmodel from the bob calculation. When Half-Life SDK 2.0 came out this broke as a result changes that were intended for Team Fortress Classic, since the client shared code between the two games at one point. The logic that needs to be restored is along the lines of: ``` viewmodel.angles[ROLL] += bob ``` Noting that the model tilts to the left, which means you may have to reverse the direction of the applied bob depending on how the engine interprets angles. ## Fluff: Bring the EAX audio back (s_eax in CD-ROM Half-Life) Originally, Half-Life supported EAX audio. You can experience it these days with Wine-Staging and its EAX emulation with the original patched CD version. OpenAL has the EFX extension set, which is compatible with this. This would enable Half-Life to get its original soundscape back. ## Fluff: Proper scoreboard Counter-Strike has a much nicer scoreboard than Half-Life does. We'd basically port that over. ## Fluff: Visual artifacts One example: Go into a multiplayer match, pick up the .357 Revolver. Then use the Quick-Switch key to switch between the 9mm Handgun and back to the Revolver. You'll be able to see the cut Silenced Glock for a split second. Tthe animation gets swapped before the model gets exchanged and the bodygroup swapped.