The December Update, Part 2

Welcome to December Update, Part 2. You can read Part 1 of our reveal about the December Update here.

Important Point:
This update WILL NOT contain Xen. We are hard at work on Xen and are preparing media to show to you guys. But there will not be a release of Xen soon and we still do not have a timeframe for it.

Here are some more interesting details for what’s to come in December’s Content Update 2. This list is not exhaustive. The update is huge and there’s going to be A LOT of stuff.

Godrays
Godrays (also known as Crepuscular Rays if you want to be more scientific) are the first of the new graphical features we have written with Xen in mind. We’re testing them by deploying them publicly on our existing singleplayer and multiplayer maps. Very pretty, and highly customisable per level - useful for modders and level designers.

Shell Ejection
Marines and other players in multiplayer now eject weapon brass when firing. Seems like a small touch, but in a big firefight with multiple Marines it can actually add quite a lot to the atmosphere!

AI Tweaks
We’ve started our first round of AI tweaks. There will be more to come. One big one was tweaking the way Marines react to Alien Grunts. They used to use grenade avoidance behaviours to try and escape the Alien Grunt’s Hornets, which led to some very odd behaviours in fights between them. They now no longer do that. They would also try and avoid their own grenades which led to some odd behaviour too. They don’t do that anymore, either.

Multiplayer Tweaks and Changes
Multiplayer has seen quite a bit of love for this update, though there’s plenty to come for you singleplayers too!

Firstly, all of the base multiplayer code was completely rewritten from scratch. This is HUGE. MP should now be far more responsive, better performing, and less buggy/crashy.

  • Fixed prediction/lag compensation on the Crossbow. Zoomed fire should now be extremely responsive and reliable.
  • Added subtle spawn effects/sounds for weapon and player spawns.
  • Added a “walk” function.
  • Unlocked all movement related cvars to allow us to better tweak movement and feel to match HL1.
  • Removed some Taus and ammo from most maps, to better match the fact that the Tau is really, really powerful now.
  • Better colours on the scoreboard/coloured killfeed and coloured chat for better clarity.
    And many more! We may reveal more later!

Bugfixes

  • Fixed .357 Guard being unable to fire.
  • Fixed Hivehand falling through the elevator on C2A5E.
  • Headcrabs now properly inherit momentum when shot off Zombies instead of just falling to the ground.
  • Crossbow’s lowered sensitivity when zoomed in now works properly. No more weird feeling.
    And many more! We may reveal more later here too!

Crossfire, and a Singleplayer Update
Next part, we will talk about the main MP focus of the update: Crossfire! That’s right, Crossfire is coming in the December Update, better than ever! And we also have a Singleplayer Update lined up for Content Update 2, which we suspect a lot of you have been anticipating and excited for (reiteration: it is NOT Xen!)


Work in Progress. Map is still being polished!

Join us soon for the next part!

Good job, man!

I feel so… emotional.
It looks and sounds amazing this far. After the game became available on Steam you didn’t just disappear with your new earned $$$ but here you are updating the game to another level of beauty and flawlessness. I thank you!

yup, that looks really nice! Can’t wait to discover what else is gonnabe on the update!
And thanks for writing this update up, text! Despite the shitload of stuff you have to do to for the update! Veeeery much appreciated!

Flashy stuff. I’m excited to play with some godray values and see how they look in BM and my maps (though I am not excited for the dozens of compiles to get it right :stuck_out_tongue: )!

Please stop, I can only get so excited. Can’t wait for december guys. This stuff looks really good.

Tears run down my cheek. Tears of joy.

Will the god-rays be in every SP Map?

We have some handy dandy console commands to tweak values which saves on having to recompile (unless you’re adjusting the sun values rather than the ray entity)

Every map where you can see the sun will have rays.

guys, this is huuuuuuge ! thanks a ton ! Is it okay if I’m feeling like touching myself now ?
T

Oh, thank heavenly Hell. Love you all!

I don’t think there are enough developer posts in this thread for the amount of likes I want to give for this.
This is gonna be sweeeet.

This just keeps getting better and better, can’t wait till december :slight_smile:

I wonder in Single Player if the gun ejects weapon brass, there is a possibility it stays on the ground and not just disappears in thin air

where is a hype train gif.

EDIT: could we get atleast one screen shot of the single player thing even if it has no context for location.

The god rays are making me barf rainbows.

The gluon gun looks ultra-impressive in that screenshot. I look forward to seeing this update released!

Oh em gee. That’s the first time there’s ever been some sort of news about Xen. Now that is exciting! Mediaz!

God rays!!! Yes, just what a Source game really needs. :slight_smile: Finally, some Xen news coming too… :smiley:

I hope for gibs to be disintegrated by a Gluon kill… :slight_smile:

I do hope VOX for Lambda Core returns.

Sounds all super nice. Looking forward to play the next build. Keep up the good work!

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.