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Half-Life Alyx players, do you see a non VR mod feasible
- Thread starter cnorwood
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Thank you! I did not know about the "screen mode" you are talking about but yeah I was wondering if something like that was possible. I haven't played a VR game yet that I didn't think wouldn't work at all in flat mode it would just be a mess or not fun. This is even more apparent as I have played many flat to VR converts that play extremely well but can still get a feel for the flat game. I think it does speak to VR as I like tons of genres in VR I do not like in flat gaming. Many things you would want to be an animation is fun to mime in VR and that is more broad than just an action like reloading, even peeking around corners, taking cover, looking at an NPC while they are talking, leaning into a turn while driving and so much more.
Half Life Alyx in non VR is a solid hell no.
This game isnt like RE7 where its built traditional gameplay controls. Litteraly everything is meant and built for VR as it should be.
This game isnt like RE7 where its built traditional gameplay controls. Litteraly everything is meant and built for VR as it should be.
Only played 3 hours, but I don't think so.
I'm sure some one/team will mod it to be "playable" on kb/m or with a controller but it wouldn't work right. It wouldn't be special and would be clunky as fuck to control (there was a tweet or something with Boneworks "playable" on kb/m and the amount of shit that needed to be done to press a button that you just hit with your hand was staggering).
I'm sure some one/team will mod it to be "playable" on kb/m or with a controller but it wouldn't work right. It wouldn't be special and would be clunky as fuck to control (there was a tweet or something with Boneworks "playable" on kb/m and the amount of shit that needed to be done to press a button that you just hit with your hand was staggering).
I'm playing through Alyx now. It's an above average VR game, but if you took away the VR it'd just be an average FPS.
But yeah with a little work it could be made into a non VR game. Would require a few changes, but structurally there's nothing unique or new about Alyx. It's a half-life game. Would probably seem very short as a regular FPS, since VR slows everything down. Searching rooms, traveling, fighting, everything takes longer in VR -- so the biggest challenge would be preserving the pacing of the game after removing the VR.
But it's all academic, I just don't think Valve has any desire to do any of that. I'm confident they will never do it. They don't need to sell copies to make money, they already make money on every game being sold by anyone. On the rare occasion that they make a game they do it because they want to and for no other reason
But yeah with a little work it could be made into a non VR game. Would require a few changes, but structurally there's nothing unique or new about Alyx. It's a half-life game. Would probably seem very short as a regular FPS, since VR slows everything down. Searching rooms, traveling, fighting, everything takes longer in VR -- so the biggest challenge would be preserving the pacing of the game after removing the VR.
But it's all academic, I just don't think Valve has any desire to do any of that. I'm confident they will never do it. They don't need to sell copies to make money, they already make money on every game being sold by anyone. On the rare occasion that they make a game they do it because they want to and for no other reason
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Yes, it will absolutely, technically happen. Just like Boneworks it will be a completely broken unplayable shell of a game that no one will bother with after watching ninety seconds of a YouTube video.
I don't think so, especially because people kept saying for years that there's nothing that really takes advantage of VR. This is it. I don't own it, but it's making me wish I did. And that's very good.
It will be a huge undertaking and I know someone will try but I just don't see how a non-VR version of that game would be any good.
This is an excellent analogy. I'm tired of seeing variants of this exchange:
- "They should make a non-VR version of the game."
- "But it would lose everything that makes it special..."
- "Then it wasn't a good game to begin with! Checkmater VR fans."
... yet (I hope) nobody would be so dumb as to make the same argument with Ouendan games and such.
Half the people responding to this thread are talking about the motion controls. You guys do realize motion controls without VR is a thing that's possible, right?
It will absolutely happen. But from what I have seen it will play hilariously bad and be buggy as shit and likely require cheats on top to be completable. Very much built for VR and VR only
Sure. And it will play as bad and complicated as Trespasser.
I swear each time Alyx talked about her ammo count I got Trespasser flashbacks lol
I swear each time Alyx talked about her ammo count I got Trespasser flashbacks lol
It's not a matter of if, but when. And it will be terrible and incredibly easy given the mouse use. But, modders will make it happen. It won't "be the same game" in the same sense that Stepmania is not the same game as DDR, but modders will have players getting through each set piece from start to finish.
Yes, it's possible, and it would be the way to go if they did do a flatscreen version. As far as I know, there are no motion controls that do 6 DoF (degrees of freedom), i.e. your hands would be stuck as two pointers on a flat vertical plane, pretty much emulating the limited possibilities of two mice on a screen. Also, with no actual depth perception and the inability to use your head to turn, it would be a huge pain in the ass.
But even still, having to shoehorn motion controls onto a flatscreen version of alyx would go against the already seemingly pointless reason to mod to non-VR. You still get a severely hamstrung version of the intended product, and still have to use a peripheral to play. Like, just buy a shitty used windows mixed reality headset for 100 bucks for gods sake!
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You realise that it's really not simply just motion controls. It's all linked to your position and ability to move within that 3D environment with the different perspectives you're able to get via the HMD.
If you think it's equivalent to motion controls (e.g. Wii, PSMove, Kinect) on a flat screen, you're very much mistaken.
Controls in VR are 1:1 with the real world, motion controls on a flat screen are only 1:1 in certain directions, it's more like a mirror.
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1:1 hand tracking is very different from motion controls. My in-game hands and real-world hands are tracked close enough to perfectly to make no difference. Grabbing an item in the distance, flipping it up so it flies towards me, then grabbing it out of the air feels like me doing it, rather than going through a series of commands to perform the same action. That's why Alyx won't work outside of VR. VR motion controls are to Wii-style motion as a the Dual Shock 2 was to the original PSX game pad.
Motion controls does not mean VR, it's only a subset for it.
I can't imagine this game being even close to being as enjoyable in 2D, by just adding a mod to work with mouse and keyboard/controller with a fixed view.
Honestly, it would be really easy, boring, and lack all the intensity it has in VR, which makes it so good. Running around and aiming at the enemy with a mouse would nullify a lot of the game. Having to manually reload and aim in VR has created the most suspenseful moments so far.
Hearing a heavy gunner Combine soldiers footsteps approach you as you frantically try to drop a clip and reload has been great. Pressing R would kill all of that. The interactive puzzles would have a massive drop in quality as well. People would just say the game was over hyped and not good if they played it that way.
It's almost impossible to get this point across to people that haven't tried VR or at least Alyx.
Hearing a heavy gunner Combine soldiers footsteps approach you as you frantically try to drop a clip and reload has been great. Pressing R would kill all of that. The interactive puzzles would have a massive drop in quality as well. People would just say the game was over hyped and not good if they played it that way.
It's almost impossible to get this point across to people that haven't tried VR or at least Alyx.
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Valve's Robin Walker seems to think so while also believing that it will demonstrate why the game was made for VR in the first place.
Valve believes Half-Life: Alyx will be modded to play without VR
It’s a question of when, not ifwww.polygon.com
This is my feeling on it as somebody who once made a thread on this forum asking non VR-owners if they would consider playing a fan-made demake of the game, and as someone who is currently 7 hours into ALYX and thinks it's the best VR game I've played: there absolutely will be a "flat version" of ALYX made by the community... and it won't capture an inch of why the game is so incredible. I'd much rather encourage anyone just wanting to see the story to watch a no-commentary playthrough instead.
Also, someone's probably already making this game in Dreams.
I think an interesting question would be how would the game play if you could interact with VR controllers (Any of them) but playing it on a flat normal screen. I know you would instantly lose the depth perception which would make everything hard to do, but there are people who can only see from one eye and I think exploring more options would be cool for them. I mean, why would they need a VR headset at all if you are only looking at one of the screens? A hybrid where you interact with VR controllers taking advantage of all the inputs wouldn't work even if you lose everything else?
Maybe a dev could shed some light into this, I might be missing something. As someone with a problem in my right eye (I can see but not perfect) I'm interested in this because everytime I tried something in VR I lost the depth perception every few minutes but it was still cool as hell to play.
Maybe a dev could shed some light into this, I might be missing something. As someone with a problem in my right eye (I can see but not perfect) I'm interested in this because everytime I tried something in VR I lost the depth perception every few minutes but it was still cool as hell to play.
Nope, there's really no way this game could work without the VR. It's so deeply built into it. It wouldn't be the same game at all.
I do think it's possible, but it would create a massively worse play experience. I'm not just saying this in regards to the immersive qualities of VR and such, but like, you would lose the ability to multitask in the ways you are intended to, some interactions that are enjoyable in VR would be insanely rote with a mouse and keyboard. I don't doubt someone will make one, but I think it will end up playing like a bad Half-Life game without VR unless stuff is altered in major ways.
People say this, but it's akin to demaking Mario 64 in 2D, or OoT in 2D. And sure, there have been projects that have tried to do both over the years. But they never launch or finish, because the job is herculean. It is essentially making an entirely new, unrelated game.
People are so sure that a mod will come out to "de-VR" HL:A, but the history of similar projects shows these kinds of demakes are super rare.
Everyone that has played first person shooters has reloaded guns millions of times, but having to physically do the mechanics of reloading a gun in VR, similarly to how you would in real life makes all of the difference in the world. It completely changes how it feels to do something you have done millions of times by pressing a button to play an animation that looks the exactly the same, every single time. Just today I was playing the 3rd chapter and there is a section where you have several headcrabs following you. While I was trying to nervously put a shotgun cartridge in the chamber, I dropped it. That was an incredible and memorable moment for me right there, and I see it as imposible to recreate that experience on a 2D version of the game, where you would just be looking at a screen and pressing a button to reload. That is completely different to feeling you have a fucking headcrab jumping at your physical face and you have to physically reload your gun as fast as possible.
The people not to be underestimated are toxic VR haters. Some people cannot accept that VR is not for them and will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it. Today I was arguing with a dude that said VR should be ILLEGAL because it doesn't work for some people, and that Alyx is the most anti consumer game ever made.
Yep. Or playing Wii Sports tennis with traditional gamepad controls. I'm sure someone could mod it but it'd be pointless.
Lemme tell you about a gameplay experience I had in Half Life Alyx. You couldn't really replicate this in VR. Spoiler tagging this for minor gameplay spoilers.
The whole game (so far as of two hours) is just filled with experiences like this. It would require a lot of compromises in order to make them work in a non-VR environment, and each would require different compromises. It's just not feasible to do that.
So early-ish on, there's a side room you can go into. There''s an ammo clip that's easily spotted and pulled to you. But, inside the room there's a handful of crates as well. If you physically go up and, with both hands, tilt these crates over, you'll discover Resin for upgrading your weapons. There's no way to see the Resin except by physically moving the objects around in the game world until it either comes into view or falls on the floor.
The whole game (so far as of two hours) is just filled with experiences like this. It would require a lot of compromises in order to make them work in a non-VR environment, and each would require different compromises. It's just not feasible to do that.
The changes you mention are literally things that make VR unique. Games have rules that differ from reality because the extent of the player's interaction is whatever can be mapped to a button press, VR closes that gap by making interaction with the world intuitive and easy to understand, you move a box by reaching out and picking it up, you open things by grabbing and opening them, you toss things by actually throwing it, etc, everything is something you do, not an action that happens by itself after a button press. Changing these is changing the entire game. Of course it would be just another normal game then, it's literally taking out what makes VR different to flatscreen games.
I don't expect the whole game modded or converted to traditional non VR FPS game. At the very least, I just expect there are capable people that able to port or even recreate the whole HL:A maps into Half Life 2 or Garry's Mod or other game engines like Unreal for example. That's at least the minimum experience that people can have with HL:A. Though I have no doubt that there are very capable and enthusiastic modders out there who might be able to do total conversion.
But after playing this game, I don't think I would want to play it non VR and I highly recommend to people to not play it that way. The whole game has VR features in mind and there will be severe lack of fun and gameplay challenge when playing it like normal FPS game.
Don't want to spoil any part of the game, but let's just say it won't be fun and people will be heavily disappointing if they play it in non VR.
But after playing this game, I don't think I would want to play it non VR and I highly recommend to people to not play it that way. The whole game has VR features in mind and there will be severe lack of fun and gameplay challenge when playing it like normal FPS game.
Don't want to spoil any part of the game, but let's just say it won't be fun and people will be heavily disappointing if they play it in non VR.
That's not even enough money for the first month of expenses for the type of rework you're asking for.
