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Half-Life

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.

1. First thing's first, download Steam here

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:

216.98.150.234:27028 -- The Bastard's Steamed Rat Fetish
217.157.188.36:27015 -- Tuffy's STEAM HLDM Server
(These 2 servers are the one's I play the most)

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.

Here is my all-time best score EVER, click

My mad skillz winning with horrible lag, click

My main Half-Life model is Spawn, see pic here

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...

\steam\SteamApps\(your login)\half-life\valve\autoexec.cfg

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"

\steam\SteamApps\(your login)\half-life\valve\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...

\steam\SteamApps\(your login)\half-life\valve\autoexec.cfg

And type, or copy and paste, and put these in...

//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...

\steam\SteamApps\(your login)\half-life\valve\autoexec.cfg

And type, or copy and paste, and put these in...

//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. 


Copyright © 2005 djdingo All Rig

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Half-Life

The best game...ever!

This page last updated:
Monday, May 16th, 2005