GoldSrc

Last updated

GoldSrc
Other namesGoldSource, Half-Life Engine
Developer(s) Valve, id Software
Initial releaseNovember 19, 1998;25 years ago (1998-11-19)
Written in C, C++, Assembly language
Predecessor Quake Engine
Successor Source Engine
License Proprietary

GoldSrc (pronounced "gold source"), sometimes called the Half-LifeEngine, is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's Quake engine. It made its debut in 1998 with Half-Life and powered future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, including Half-Life's expansions, Day of Defeat and games in the Counter-Strike series.

Contents

GoldSrc was succeeded by the Source engine with the releases of Half-Life: Source , Half-Life 2 , and Counter-Strike: Source in 2004.

Development

The basis of GoldSrc is the engine used in the video game Quake , albeit with heavy modification by Valve. While the engine served as the basis for GoldSrc, Gabe Newell said that a majority of the code used in the engine was created by Valve. GoldSrc's artificial intelligence systems, for example, were essentially made from scratch. [1] The engine also uses some code from other games in the Quake series, including QuakeWorld and Quake II. [2]

In 1997, Valve hired Ben Morris and acquired Worldcraft, a tool for creating custom Quake maps. [3] [ better source needed ] The tool was renamed Valve Hammer Editor and became the official mapping tool for GoldSrc. The engine supports skeletal animation, which allowed for more realistic body kinematics and facial expression animations than most other engines at the time of release. [4]

The GoldSrc engine initially had no real name and was simply called the Half-Life engine. When the need arose for Valve to work on the engine without risking introducing bugs into Half-Life's codebase, Valve forked the code, creating two main engine branches: one gold master branch, "GoldSrc", and the other "Src". Internally, any games using the original branch were referred to as "Goldsource" to differentiate it from the second branch, while the "Src" branch evolved into the Source engine. [5]

Valve released versions of the GoldSrc engine for OS X and Linux in 2013, eventually porting all of their first-party games using the engine to the platforms by the end of the year. [6] [7]

History

Half-Life series

Half-Life was Valve's debut title and the first to use GoldSrc. It received critical acclaim, winning over fifty PC Game of the Year awards. [8] The game was followed up with two expansions, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift , both of which ran GoldSrc and were developed by Gearbox Software. [9] [10] Half-Life: Decay , an expansion pack for Half-Life only released on PlayStation 2, was released in 2001 alongside Half-Life's debut on the platform. [11] Unlike other games in the series, it never received an official version for Windows, however an unofficial version of the game was released by independent developers in 2008. [12] [13] [14] Half-Life: Decay was the final iteration in the Half-Life series to run on GoldSrc, with all future entries in the series using the Source and Source 2 engines. [15] [16]

Other Valve games

Valve developed several games using the GoldSrc engine, many of which were based on original user-made modifications. Valve's Team Fortress Classic , released in 1999, was developed primarily by two of the developers of the Quake mod Team Fortress . [17] Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat were also originally Half-Life modifications that Valve purchased the rights to and re-released as standalone titles. [18] [19] Counter-Strike evolved into its own series with the debut of the Japanese arcade game Counter-Strike Neo in 2003 [20] and Valve's own follow-up in 2004, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero , both of which run on the GoldSrc engine. [21] [22] Although Valve's further installments in the series starting with Counter-Strike: Source use the newer Source engine instead, Counter-Strike Online and Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies , two spinoff titles released by Nexon in 2008 and 2014 respectively, use GoldSrc as their basis.

Third-party games and modifications

The GoldSrc engine was also used for a variety of third-party games and modifications not directly developed by Valve. Rewolf Software used the engine for the game Gunman Chronicles in 2000, and the PC version of James Bond 007: Nightfire was developed by Gearbox Software using a modified version of GoldSrc in 2002. [23] [24] [25]

Unofficial, community-made modifications of GoldSrc have also been produced. Notable games include Natural Selection , Cry of Fear and Sven Co-op , with Valve's Team Fortress Classic, Counter-Strike, and Day of Defeat all being based on GoldSrc mods of the same names. Sven Co-op have since been released for free as a standalone game on Steam, which use a licensed derivative of the engine with their own customizations.

Games using GoldSrc

YearTitleDeveloper(s)Publisher(s)
1998 Half-Life Valve Sierra Entertainment, Valve (digital)
1999 Half-Life: Opposing Force Gearbox, Valve
Team Fortress Classic Valve Valve, Sierra Entertainment (digital)
Sven Co-op Sven Co-op teamSven Co-op team
2000 Counter-Strike Valve Sierra Entertainment
Gunman Chronicles Rewolf Entertainment Sierra Entertainment
Ricochet Valve Valve
2001 Deathmatch Classic
Half-Life: Blue Shift Gearbox, Valve Sierra Entertainment, Valve (digital)
Half-Life: Decay Gearbox Sierra Entertainment
2002 James Bond 007: Nightfire Eurocom, Gearbox Electronic Arts
2003 Day of Defeat Valve Activision, Valve (digital)
Counter-Strike Neo Namco Namco
2004 Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Valve, Ritual Entertainment, Gearbox, Turtle Rock Studios Sierra Entertainment, Valve (digital)
2008 Counter-Strike Online Valve, Nexon Nexon
2014 Counter-Strike Nexon: Studio Valve, Nexon Nexon

Related Research Articles

<i>Counter-Strike</i> (video game) 2000 first-person shooter video game

Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was initially developed and released as a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe in 1999, before Le and Cliffe were hired and the game's intellectual property acquired. Counter-Strike was released by Valve for Microsoft Windows in November 2000, and is the first installment in the Counter-Strike series. Several remakes and ports were released on Xbox, as well as OS X and Linux.

<i>Quake II</i> 1997 video game

Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake. The game's storyline is continued in its expansions, including one tying in Quake II and the first game, and Quake 4.

<i>Half-Life</i> (video game) 1998 video game

Half-Life is a 1998 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It was Valve's debut product and the first game in the Half-Life series. The player assumes the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who must escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility after it is invaded by aliens following a disastrous scientific experiment. The gameplay consists of combat, exploration and puzzles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valve Corporation</span> American video game company

Valve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the game franchises Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Dota.

<i>Team Fortress Classic</i> 1999 video game

Team Fortress Classic is a first-person shooter game developed by Valve and published by Sierra Studios. It was originally released in April 1999 for Windows, and is based on Team Fortress, a mod for the 1996 game Quake. The game puts two teams against each other in online multiplayer matches; each member plays as one of nine classes, each with different skills. The scenarios include capture the flag, territorial control, and escorting a "VIP" player.

<i>Day of Defeat</i> 2003 video game

Day of Defeat is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game set in the European theatre of World War II on the Western front. Originally a modification of the 1998 game Half-Life, the rights of the modification were purchased by Valve and released as a full retail title in 2003.

Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the releases of Half-Life: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, and Half-Life 2. It is most well-known for its usage by Valve, but the engine has been used both by small teams and individuals to create modifications of Valve games, and other studios creating distinct games, notably Troika Games' title Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Valve continued to create incremental updates to the Source engine after its 2004 release, most of which coincided with games created by Valve. In the late 2010s, Valve created the Source 2 engine to replace Source, with it publicly debuting alongside Half-Life: Alyx. The Source engine is most well-known for its advancements in physics, AI, and graphics.

<i>Counter-Strike: Source</i> 2004 video game

Counter-Strike: Source is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve and Turtle Rock Studios. Released in October 2004 for Windows, it is a remake of Counter-Strike (2000) using the Source game engine. As in the original, Counter-Strike: Source pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won either by completing an objective or by eliminating all members of the enemy team. The game was initially bundled with all retail and digital copies of Half-Life 2, before being released standalone.

<i>Counter-Strike: Condition Zero</i> 2004 video game

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero is a first-person shooter video game developed by Ritual Entertainment, Turtle Rock Studios, and Valve, and published by Sierra Entertainment and Valve. The follow-up to Counter-Strike (2000), it was released in March 2004 for Windows. Condition Zero utilizes the GoldSrc engine and has a multiplayer mode, which features updated character models, textures, maps and other graphical tweaks. It also includes two single-player campaigns; Tour of Duty and Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes.

Minh Le, also known by his online nickname Gooseman, is a Vietnamese Canadian video game programmer who co-created the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Jess Cliffe in 1999 and started the Counter-Strike series. He was later employed by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, and worked for 8 years in Korea on the multiplayer first-person shooter Tactical Intervention. He is a contractor on the multiplayer survival first-person shooter Rust. In the small-team games that he has worked on, Le has been a programmer, modeler, and designer.

<i>Day of Defeat: Source</i> 2005 video game

Day of Defeat: Source is a team-based online first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve. Set in World War II, the game is a remake of Day of Defeat. It was updated from the GoldSrc engine used by its predecessor to the Source engine, and a remake of the game models. The game was released for Microsoft Windows on September 26, 2005, distributed through Valve's online content delivery service Steam. Retail distribution of the game was handled by Electronic Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valve Anti-Cheat</span> Anti-cheat software

Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) is an anti-cheat tool developed by Valve as a component of the Steam platform, first released with Counter-Strike in 2002.

<i>Half-Life</i> (series) Video game series

Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter (FPS) games created by Valve. The games combine shooting combat, puzzles and storytelling.

<i>Sven Co-op</i> 1999 video game

Sven Co-op is a co-op variation of the 1998 first-person shooter Half-Life. The game, initially released as a mod in January 1999, and created by Daniel "Sven Viking" Fearon, enables players to play together on online servers to complete levels, many of which are based on the Half-Life universe but include other genres. In addition to the cooperative gameplay, Sven Co-op includes improvements from the original Half-Life, including improved artificial intelligence for both enemy and allied non-player characters.

Counter-Strike (CS) is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror while counter-terrorists try to prevent it. The series began on Windows in 1999 with the release of the first game, Counter-Strike. It was initially released as a modification ("mod") for Half-Life that was designed by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe before the rights to the mod's intellectual property were acquired by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, who then turned Counter-Strike into a retail product released in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Source 2</span> Video game engine

Source 2 is a video game engine developed by Valve. The engine was announced in 2015 as the successor to the original Source engine, with the first game to use it, Dota 2, being ported from Source that same year. Other Valve games, such as Artifact, Dota Underlords, Half-Life: Alyx, and Counter-Strike 2, have been produced with the engine.

Based on Id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.

References

  1. ↑ Bokitch, Chris (August 1, 2002). "Half-Life's Code Basis". Valve Editing Resource Collective. Valve. Archived from the original on March 1, 2007. Retrieved February 12, 2011.
  2. ↑ "Half Life: Interview With Gabe Newell". GameSpot UK . 1999. Archived from the original on July 23, 2001. Retrieved March 22, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Valve Press Release". Valve. Retrieved May 12, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Modeling and Animating for Half-Life (Interactive Graphics Lecture 22 notes, Professor Denis Zorn)" (PDF). NYU Math Dept. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  5. ↑ Johnson, Erik (September 1, 2005). "Talk:Erik Johnson". Valve Developer Community. Retrieved February 12, 2011.
  6. ↑ "Counter-Strike 1.6 Beta released". Valve. January 28, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
  7. ↑ McWhertor, Michael (January 25, 2013). "Valve releases original Half-Life for Mac and Linux". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. Retrieved January 25, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Awards and Honors". Valve. Archived from the original on January 8, 2014. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Half-Life Expands". IGN . April 15, 1999. Archived from the original on November 9, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  10. ↑ Trueman, Doug (August 30, 2000). "DC Half-Life Includes Blue Shift". GameSpot . Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  11. ↑ C. Perry, Douglass; Zdyrko, Dave; Smith, David (September 19, 2001). "Half-Life Preview". IGN . Archived from the original on November 8, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Half-Life: Decay - Valve Developer Community". Valve Software. Valve. September 6, 2011. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
  13. ↑ Dzhura, Vyacheslav; Zhatov, Denis. "PC:Decay". Half-Life Creations. Dimension Force. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
  14. ↑ Hoaxer. "ModDB Half-Life Decay". ModDB . Retrieved July 14, 2016.
  15. ↑ Butts, Steve (May 8, 2003). "Half-Life 2 Preview". IGN . Archived from the original on November 11, 2013. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  16. ↑ Machkovech, Sam (January 22, 2020). "Valve opens up about Half-Life: Alyx, Source 2 engine on Reddit". Ars Technica . Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  17. ↑ Craddock, David (March 16, 2018). "Threading the Needle: The Making of Quake Team Fortress". Shacknews . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  18. ↑ Wolfe, Clayton (November 22, 2000). "Counter-Strike". IGN . Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  19. ↑ "Valve signs with Activision, exclusive Day of Defeat screens". GameSpot . April 4, 2003. Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014. The first Valve game to be released through Activision will be Day of Defeat, a Half-Life-powered first-person shooter set in World War II.
  20. ↑ "ナムコ、「カウンターストライク ネオ」のβテストを実施" (in Japanese). GAME Watch. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  21. ↑ Greg, Kasavin (March 25, 2002). "Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Preview". GameSpot . Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  22. ↑ "ナムコ、「Counter-Strike NEO Ver.2」を今夏に全国展開新コンソールデザインを発表 βテストは今春を予定" (in Japanese). GAME Watch. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  23. ↑ Varanini, Giancarlo (September 1, 2000). "Sierra Unveils Gunman Chronicles". GameSpot . Archived from the original on February 26, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  24. ↑ Blevins, Tal (December 4, 2000). "Gunman Chronicles". GameSpot . Archived from the original on February 26, 2014. Retrieved February 26, 2014.
  25. ↑ Amer, Ajami (July 18, 2002). "James Bond 007: NightFire Preview". GameSpot . Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.