Half Life 2 Beta - Mega Compiled/Patched Build

[Kralich]

Gonzo/Kralich from the PB team here (although not actually here on behalf of PB, just wanted to point out where I'm coming from).

After six months of hard-working tinkering, here is a fully-compiled, feature-packed build of the leaked HL2 Beta from 2003!

https://mega.nz/#!WBxnCSJI!3ZtZ_waQGcKWIWbFjPRve2QWTnhD13dMNpvb6oZF1wo

Within the zip is a readme.txt and credits.txt that are worth a read. There's over 1500 maps here, developed from 1999 all the way up until late 2003. A fair few are playable, although many of them are just flat compiles of the .vmfs from the WC Map Pack.

In the wake of Epistle 3, I thought it might be about time that as many people as possible were able to access this. No installation required - download the zip, extract, and then dig in with the first .exe shortcut you come across.

My hope is this motivates people who might be more skilled than me to do more map fixups like what some of those listed in the credits have done.

I'm not gonna say much more here as the readme.txt file explains more and I encourage you to dive in by yourself. Seeing as I know it's one of the first things people will want to try, the four properly playable Borealis maps are demo_arctic , e3_ship , devtest , and nov_bor_001 .

Most maps need loading via the console, but I assume you guys know that. There's a menu screen too with the cut air exchange chapter (fully fixed up) on it, as well as the E3 2003 maps from TAP.

I hope you enjoy! I certainly did

[VXP]

What the hell with this "compiled beta"? I see a bunch of garbage files like .dmp's, not working shortcuts, .nfo's, .sfv-s. It's just looks like you've put LeakNet and them TAP on the game. You haven't even removed hl1 folder from LeakNet, even though there's no resources for HL:S.
That was my quick look of this "feature-packed build"

[Ванька_Космобайкер]

This beta with compiled WC mappack? Sounds good...

[Kralich]

What the hell with this "compiled beta"? I see a bunch of garbage files like .dmp's, not working shortcuts, .nfo's, .sfv-s. It's just looks like you've put LeakNet and them TAP on the game. You haven't even removed hl1 folder from LeakNet, even though there's no resources for HL:S.
That was my quick look of this "feature-packed build"

With respect, you then haven't looked far enough. The maps folder contains every single WC Map Pack map, including all of the working ones I could find from both this site and many others. There's numerous other features such as adding the Air Exchange mod to the main menu, modifications of textures to better fit Beta material (like Alyx, for example), as well as pre-binded options for Impulse 101, with merged scripts from Leaknet and TAP to fix things like the brickbat, molotov, minithumper and rollerwand.

Effectively this is a pre-built and pre-packed feature-complete HL2 Beta build for anyone who doesn't want to go through the tinkering process I - a relative amateur at this - had to go through.

I also posted this to reddit, the PB discord, and Facepunch with the intent of making this all-round easier and more accessible to people.

[VXP]

What the hell with this "compiled beta"? I see a bunch of garbage files like .dmp's, not working shortcuts, .nfo's, .sfv-s. It's just looks like you've put LeakNet and them TAP on the game. You haven't even removed hl1 folder from LeakNet, even though there's no resources for HL:S.
That was my quick look of this "feature-packed build"

With respect, you then haven't looked far enough. The maps folder contains every single WC Map Pack map, including all of the working ones I could find from both this site and many others. There's numerous other features such as adding the Air Exchange mod to the main menu, modifications of textures to better fit Beta material (like Alyx, for example), as well as pre-binded options for Impulse 101, with merged scripts from Leaknet and TAP to fix things like the brickbat, molotov, minithumper and rollerwand.

Effectively this is a pre-built and pre-packed feature-complete HL2 Beta build for anyone who doesn't want to go through the tinkering process I - a relative amateur at this - had to go through.

I also posted this to reddit, the PB discord, and Facepunch with the intent of making this all-round easier and more accessible to people.

This is just a bunch of patches, maps and other unrelated crap (as I mentioned before) throwed up to one folder - anyone can do this easily if they're at least a bit smart.
And also, I don't think those WC maps are all properly fixed (if fixed of course, and not just compiled without any edits)

[Kralich]

Had anyone else done this and released it to the wider public yet? I didn't find any examples in the last six months, which is why I did this.

Everyone else I sent this to appreciated having it all compiled in one place so they didn't have to do it. People are both a. lazy and b. lacking in a lot of the knowledge that some of the rest of us have. It's hardly a bad thing to increase and spread the amount of people playing the Beta :p

[Витой]

lol, don't mind VXP, he's always too harsh about such things. Actually your work will be pretty usefull for newcommers who has no idea where to start.

Had anyone else done this and released it to the wider public yet? I didn't find any examples in the last six months, which is why I did this.

Well, I don't remember when exactly, but not long ago thedoctor45 released similar build of the HL2 beta with all custom maps and fixes he could find. The link is in those facepunch threads somewhere.
And I only know one other such user build, by ermak47, which he released here back in 2010 or 2011.

[Kralich]

lol, don't mind VXP, he's always too harsh about such things. Actually your work will be pretty usefull for newcommers who has no idea where to start.

Well, I don't remember when exactly, but not long ago thedoctor45 released similar build of the HL2 beta with all custom maps and fixes he could find. The link is in those facepunch threads somewhere.
And I only know one other such user build, by ermak47, which he released here back in 2010 or 2011.

I see. That being said, lego (one of the people I credit in the credits.txt in the zip) made recent updates - as recent as a week ago - to some maps he said he was fixing up, so I hopefully have snagged a few things in here that'll be new anyway.

Thanks, though I've been lurking on this forum for around six months now so I hope someone finds this useful.

[Pichi]

Im late but the file is no longer available i need a new link cuz im new on Beta