Originally released in 1998, it has become one of the best
first-person shooter games of all time. This has to be my all-time favorite game
to play. But since the release of Half-Life 2 in November 2004, I will be
playing the newest version more than the original.
Switching over to Steam
*Since August 1st, 2004, WON Servers are no more. Things are being converted
over to Steam for login authentication now. Things run a little better now under
Steam. When Half-Life 2 comes out, it will also run under Steam for online
play. From start of Steam to when you are in a game, it takes about one minute.
But the ping in the games I think is usually lower for you.
2. When installing, install it on the same drive as your previously installed
Half-Life folder, that way it will be quicker to copy files over to the new
installation.
3. Sign up for your free Steam account. Need a username and password. You can
set it up to remember your login so you don't have to enter it everytime.
4. Next you need to enter in your CD key from your Half-Life CD. I have the
"Game of the Year" Edition, and with one CD key, it enables me to play
Half-Life, Opposing Force, Counter-Strike, Ricochet, Day of Defeat, Team
Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, and an option for a Dedicated Server, and
a new little game called Codename Gordon.
5. Once Steam is installed, and you have configured Steam itself, completely
close Steam down. Time to transfer files over.
6. Wherever you installed Steam, the folder hierachery looks something like
this:
\steam\SteamApps\(your login) -- In this folder you have your installed game
folders, half-life, opposing force, etc.
To copy over your previous Half-Life settings, go into the 'half-life' folder
from here. This half-life folder is just like the previous \SIERRA\Half-Life
folder. Copy files from old Half-Life folder over into this new half-life
folder.
In the new half-life folder, there is a valve folder. Do the same here, copy all
old files from \SIERRA\Half-life\valve into the \steam\SteamApps\(your
login)\half-life\valve
7. Now all your old maps, models, sounds, sprites will work with the new
Steam. Since your configuration files will be copied over as well, any binded
keys will remain the same. The only thing that is changed for me is the in-game
font, I had a easy to see one before, but now have a default Steam font instead.
But this new font is very easy to see.
8. Now, if you had a customized spray logo, there is a trick to get it to
work again. Before, it was located at \SIERRA\Half-Life\valve\pldecal.wad Now
copy that file into \steam\SteamApps\(your login)\half-life\valve. Make another
copy of your pldecal.wad in the same folder. Change the 2nd copy's name to
tempdecal.wad. So now you have a pldecal.wad AND a tempdecal.wad files. Make
both of those files READ-ONLY.
9. Now when you open up Steam, you should have a small window in your bottom
right corner. Under My Games, there will be a list of games that you CAN play,
but if they are dimmed, you must install the appropriate files for them to run.
To do that, just double-click on the game, and it will say how big the files are
and will copy them over to the correct place. When a game is installed, it will
be lit up, not dimmed, and simply double-click on them to run them.
10. Now that should be it. If you try playing a new game, like Opposing
Force, after you download the files it needs, it will have to be configured.
Each game has a different configuration. If you have played any of these in the
past, you can do the same thing here, like you did with your Half-Life folder,
to copy over the configurations of these games.
Multiplayer
Here is where I usually am when I play
multiplayer, my favorite servers:
66.214.129.239:27016 --
[KING] Kastle III
64.35.55.74:27016 -- Amateur's Practice
24.191.181.227:27015 -- Hell Spawn Newbies
(These are a lot of fun too. The last 2 may SEEM like noob
servers, but some of the best people in Half-Life play on these
servers to mop up competition. Noob's don't stay long on these
servers)
To add these to your favorites inside Half-Life,
you must first find them on the Servers tab, then right-click
them, and Add to Favorites. Now they will be listed under the
Favorites tab. If you try adding them while in the Favorites
tab, they will not be saved, you must find them on the Servers
tab, then add them to Favorites.
My customized spray is Towelie with my name on
it, see pic
here
Customized .wav file
There is a trick you can do with Half-Life, that
when you press a certain button, it will play a wav file over
your microphone for everyone to hear. It is really fun, and most
people don't know about this trick, so you look like a pro to
others, hehe. But it can only be heard in multiplayer games, and
the server you are playing on must have microphone enabled. Here
are the steps...
1. You need to put a tweak into
your autoexec.cfg file which is located here...
Open it up with something like Notepad, and add
the following lines to it...
//console speak
alias "+voicewav" "voice_inputfromfile 1; voice_loopback 1; +voicerecord;
echo playback on"
alias "-voicewav" "-voicerecord;voice_inputfromfile
0;voice_loopback 0;echo playback off"
bind "o" "+voicewav"
echo "now use o key to toggle voice wav"
Save and close the file.
2. Next step to do is get a wav
file of your choice. Something funny from a song, movie, or
whatever, preferrably a short one, because you have to hold down
the key the whole time to play it. Once you have one picked out,
you need to change it to a certain format that Half-Life can
work with. Open up your Sound Recorder located in Accessories
under your Start menu, and then use it to open up the wav file
of your choice. Now you can trim off any excess of the wav file
if desired. Once you have it exactly like you want it, you need
to save it as a new file. It must be in .wav format, and be in
8.000 kHz, 16 Bit, Mono for Half-Life to play it. This will cut
down on the quality of it, but Half-Life won't play any higher.
(If anyone knows how to make Half-Life play higher quality wav
files, let me know).
3. Once that is saved, you need
to put it in your valve folder, and save it as "voice_input.wav"
4. Now when you are in a
multiplayer game, just press and hold the "o" key and it will
play the sound wav you have made. If you see your speaker icon,
but it doesn't play, then that server probably have microphone
access disabled. You can change the button to whatever you want
by editing it in the autoexec.cfg file. Where it says
bind "o" "+voicewav", change the "o" to whatever you
want. And after messing around with this, you can only bind one
wav file, even if you change the name of it, and assign it to
another button, it can and will only play one wav file during
gameplay.
Model
Changer
You can bind a key to change models easily, and
while during gameplay. Open the following file with Notepad...
//model changer
alias "transform1" "model spawn;echo "Spawn model loaded"; bind
m transform2"
alias "transform2" "model gman;echo "G-Man model loaded"; bind m
transform3"
alias "transform3" "model scream;echo "Scream model loaded";
bind m transform1"
bind "m" "transform1"
Now from looking at this, you can add more
models or less if you want. Where it says model spawn, where the
spawn is, you can put any model name you want that you have.
Just edit the code to your liking, and you can change the binded
key as well. Then save and close.
Only bugs I know about this, is that on some
servers, it won't echo the status of what model you are showing.
If you need to know which one you are, find a dead body of
yourself, stand in front of it, and keep hitting your binded
model changer key till you see yourself as the desired model.
Insult
Generator
You can bind a key to say a series of quotes in
a continuing cycle. These can be insults or whatever you want.
Open the following file with Notepad...
//insult generator
alias dis1 "say You suck; bind k dis2"
alias dis2 "say OUCH; bind k dis3"
alias dis3 "say Ha ha; bind k dis4"
alias dis4 "say Do I know you?; bind k dis5"
alias dis5 "say Sucka; bind k dis6"
alias dis6 "say Who's yo daddy?; bind k dis7"
alias dis7 "say Respect my authority!; bind k dis8"
alias dis8 "say YO MOMMA; bind k dis9"
alias dis9 "say Where you at?; bind k dis1"
bind k dis1
Now you can change the quotes to anything you
want, and add more or less by editing the commands. At the end
where it says bind k, you can change this to any key you want.
Also with this code, you could change things up so that you had
a certain quote dedicated to a certain key. So then you could
have a set of keys that when pressed would automatically say
certain things. Example, "Nice shot!", binded to u, "Great to
see you again", binded to i, "Gotta go, be back soon", binded to
o, etc.
Now during gameplay, with a simple smash of the
key, it will spit out one of these lines, and with each smash of
the key, it will spit out the next one. Only bug I know about
this one, is that the first line it spits out isn't always the
first one or top one, it can be random. But this works on every
server I've tried it on.