Half-Life Guide

Brief introduction into Half-Life modding (with links and recommendations) for Half-Life

Brief introduction into Half-Life modding (with links and recommendations)

Overview

A brief guide for anyone who’s new into Half-Life modding. This guide includes installation instructions, links to useful sites, and few recommendations

Introduction

This guide will serve as a compilation of links that newcomers may find useful for getting into Half-Life modding. It will contain a download and installation instructions, links to places to download mods from, and a few recommendations. My next guide will include 50 Half-Life mods I personally highly recommend playing, so stay tuned.

Where to download mods from?

  • RunThinkShootLife [www.runthinkshootlive.com] – The biggest site dedicated to Half-Life singleplayer mods, hosts many classic Half-Life mods, with new mods being uploaded regularly. Users may also leave their reviews and ratings. Great starting point to look for mods.
  • ModDB – The biggest modding-orientied website, an obvious choice for anyone looking to get into modding of any sort. Any Half-Life mod can be found here, even obscure and lesser-known ones.

    Please note, that many mods posted on RTSL are often repacks of archives previously uploaded to ModDB, and vice-versa. It usually doesn’t matter where to download mod from, but sometimes one version may be superior to the other. And while RTSL usually uploads the latest versions of mods and updates them if new version is released, ModDB may have further data like patches and addons. Consideration is advised.

  • The Whole Half-Life [twhl.info] – The largest mapping and level-design site for GoldSrc games. There you may find many useful tutorials and resources, in case you want to get into modding yourself. They also hold various competitions and community projects, and a big collection of deathmatch maps and singleplayer mappacks.
  • Half-Life.Loess [hl.loess.ru] – Russian resource dedicated to archiving Half-Life mods (including many obscure ones) and Half-Life related materials and links. Also hosts archive of City17.ru, which was one of the largest Russian review site, and was quite popular for its time.

How Half-Life folder is structured

First you may need to know how Half-Life is structured. For Steam version, your Half-Life is located in “…steamappscommonHalf-Life” directory. Base “Half-Life” folder contains hl.exe launcher and “valve” folder, which contains all the Half-Life files, like maps, models, sounds, etc. If you have Opposing Force and Blue Shift installed, there will also be “gearbox” and “bshift” folders. Mods usually come in such folders too, from there they will be referred to as “[modfolder]”.

An example of an unmodified “Half-Life” folder on the latest Steam version. Along “valve” folder there are also “valve_addon” for addons, and “valve_russian” for your language (Russian in that case). hl.exe is also clearly visible.

A classic Half-Life mod USS Darkstar, here is represented by “darkstar” folder.

The SteamPipe patch, released in 2012, added “[modfolder]_addon” and ”[modfolder]_downloads” folders, which prove to be useful in installing additional content without too much clutter to “valve” or other mods’ folders. Further information of SteamPipe patch can be found here, and more on SteamPipe directories here. This is not the case with early Steam versions, which didn’t have those folders. WON version also had all of its content packed in .PAK files inside “valve” folder.

What version of Half-Life should I use?

Normally, the latest Half-Live version present on Steam should run mods with no or little new content just fine, but the SteamPipe patch was notorious for breaking many mods with custom code for new enemies, weapons, and map features. If a mod doesn’t work properly with latest Steam version, has some features broken, or doesn’t work at all, chances are, it was broken by SteamPipe.

If that’s the case, you may want to download Yalter’s GoldSrc Package 2.4[forums.sourceruns.org], which includes client .DLLs of earlier Half-Life versions, including pre-SteamPipe Steam version, and even .DLLs for WON version. This package was mainly developed for speedrunners to play on most preferred version without hassle, but it can also be used to launch mods. A registered Steam copy of Half-Life is required to run this package, so it is not considered piracy.

Alternatively, you may search for patches on respectable ModDB pages. Many mods have official or fan-made patches made to keep them up to date with latest Steam versions.

If you look hard enough, you may find clean installations of pre-SteamPipe and WON versions, but for obvious reasons, I’m not giving recommendations on how to find them.

How to install mods?

Installing Half-Life mods is pretty straightforward, but it depends on a content of package you’ve downloaded. Readme files usually contain all the needed information, but if not, package content should be examined to determine how to install it. The package may contain files like mod folder, few .BSP files, single .PAK file, or an .EXE installer. Depending on what is it exactly, different actions have to be applied. Also, if you download mods from RTSL, it provides all of necessary instruction right there on mod page.

Before installing any Half-Life mod, consider disabling HD pack. You can disable it by unchecking “Enable HD models if available” tick box in video options. HD models sometimes break specific animation sequences some mods rely on, rendering them glitchy or even impossible to complete.

  • The most common way of distributing mods is inside [modfolder]s. Those should be simply dropped in “Half-Life” folder. Restart Steam after installation, and now mod should be listed in your Steam Library.
  • .EXE files are usually the simplest to install. You just specify path to Half-Life base folder and install it there. If you’re not sure what and where exactly it’ll install, you may install it to some other folder first, and then examine the installed files. Restart Steam after installation, and now mod should be listed in your Steam Library.
  • .PAK files are mostly obsolete, bus some of the oldest mods still use them to store their content. It should be installed in “valve” folder, with number starting with 0, and not higher than 7. Therefore, if there’s already “PAK0.pak”, the next one should be named “PAK1.pak”. The mod then can be launched through console with “map [FirstMapOfMod]” command.
  • Simple mappacks come in form of one or several .BSP files. They should be installed in “[modfolder]_addonmaps”. Depending on if it’s a mappack for Half-Life, or a mappack for some other mod, these should be installed in “valve_addonmaps”, or in “[modfolder]_addonmaps” folder for respective mod. The mod then can be launched through console with “map [FirstMapOfMod]” command.

Installation process for WON version of Half-Life is mostly the same. Mods can be launched from “Custom Game” option in main menu or with “…/Half-Life/hl.exe -game [modname]” command through hl.exe shortcut. Mappacks should be launched through hl.exe shortcut with “…/Half-Life/hl.exe hl +map [FirstMapOfMod]”. Console in WON version can be enabled by launching hl.exe with “-console -dev” parameters.

Which mods should I play?

Here’s the list of people’s recommendations, may be a good starting point. Please note, that those lists based on author’s personal opinions, which may or may not match your own. The best way to form an opinion is to play mod yourself. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

Which walkthroughs should I watch?

In case you’re stuck, or want to check out some mod before trying it yourself, you may want to watch a walkthrough. Luckily, there is no shortage of walkthroughs for many of well-known or obscure mods:

  • https://www.youtube.com/user/ParkJinSung2509– Your go-to Half-Life walkthrough channel; plays with no commentary, from start to finish, and finding all the secrets they can. Played practically every well-known Half-Life mod, even many lesser-known ones, and their walkthroughs are very informative.
  • https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMegatonBomb– Similar to ParkJinSung2509; plays from start to finish with secrets and no commentary, but instead focuses more on obscure mods not many people have played, including multiplayer mods. Also provides a short information on mods they’re going to play.

These two upload the most popular and detailed walkthroughs of HL mods, but you may want to also check out the following honorable mentions:

  • Etalikor – Uploads walkthroughs for less-known Half-Life mods, including mods for Opposing Force.
  • GamePlayShare – Dedicated to walkthroughs of various games, they sometimes play Half-Life mods too, usually the more popular ones.
  • 2muchrubik – Made a very informative series on the secrets of Hazardous Course 2.
  • DarkShift – Made an in-depth walkthrough of one of the most extensive HL mod – Residual Life, and also plays less-known and obscure mods from TWHL.
  • Moti Ragnarokum – Made a walkthrough series of Residual Point, and also plays less-known and obscure mods.

Conclusion

If you have any suggestions, or you noticed a problem, feel free to tell me via comments, private messages, or Discord. Suggestions will be implemented and problems will be fixed!

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