I have a terrible memory, and it’s not just age.
I can remember the very first SP FPS game I tried (and hated) Kingdon Honor Guard, the next FPS I tried (and LOVED!) Unreal Tournament and the first SP game I played all the way through: Unreal.
I even remember walking around a PC store and seeing Half-Life but not wanting to try it because I was worried I would lose my love of Unreal.
But one thing I can’t remember is the first map or mod I played for Half-Life.
Can you? (Remember yours, not mine!)
The Poll
If I remember right and although a demo really it was called uplink I believe
ahh yes, uplink. I don’t think it’s a mod though but I remember playing that and me and my friend thought it was the full game. Half-Life made such a big impression and still I have fnd memories of that game. pure epicness.
My first mod must have been rocket arena 2 for quake two. The first hl1 mod was counter strike. Back in the day when it still was new and fresh. ahh good times, yes.
Redemption for HL1 was the first unofficial singleplayer mod I played.
It came in some sort of pack with counter-strike, wanted, ricochet and other multiplayer mods, so at that time I didn’t really know what was official and what wasn’t.
For a time I thought Valve had made that mod, even though it was very strange at times and the themes were too odd (amusement park, Tibetan monastery etc).
conundrum half life 1 was the first I remember downloading it was not like half life at all but a puzzle game which was very well recieved as a number 2 followed soon after I think and as kasperg said redemption was one of the large files first brought out in the early days 1998 I guess
Oh, yes, I think it was Half-Life: Visitors. It is a very good mod, you all should play it.
Pre HL, some ‘mission” packs for Quake but I don’t think they count here.
For HL 1 Opposing Force and Blue Shift but they aren’t really mods either (within the meaning of the question anyway). So no HL 1 mods at all.
For HL2 it was either Minerva Metastasis or CtA and what a hard and demanding introduction to mods they were.
Made me improve my strategies and tactics though.
Uplink, From VALVe yes XD, funny times
Yeah back in the day it was Counter-Strike 1.5 after that I started going to lan houses to play CS 1.5 in lan alot, every saturday morning from 10am to 14pm, and then I got HL and played it all and it was awesome. Then I came to PlanetPhillip when it wasn’t in a blog layout, when it was a full list with many mods and then I downloaded eh … well of course I also played TFC, Ricochet (only twice), etc . But if cs counts, well that was my first HL mod ever.
That all around 2002 or 2003, Planetphillip might remember the website layout I think it has a grey baackground, or blue…
You did say “first game/fps ” ?? For me it was the original “Doom” on 3 1/2 floppies, which I still have! 🙂
first Mod you played for half-life.Last 2 lines of the topic.
Ditto.
I got a pirate version of Doom 1.666 on 4 3.5 disks. Still have it. Then I bought the game and collected every single wad I could gather on the net. About 15 CDs stored now. Haven’t played them in a long time.
I still favor the shotgun in HL2.
Hell yeah. Used to stay up all night playing Doom on a local BBS. I cannot remember the very first mod but one of the most memorable was Boothill for Doom 2.
Mine was Duke Nukem 3D, and later the Platinum Pak.
There were also some good user maps and mods written for the game, but the names I cannot remember now.
First mod I had played was a multiplayer mod for Half-Life 1 called Cold-Ice I think, that was probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a game, playing over lan.. That was the good life, probably at least 9-10 years ago.
the earliest “mod” I can remember trying was that Penthouse level for duke3d 1.3D, and also some huge shopping center map.
That game pretty much got me into mods…I mean duke3d had TONS of mods and maps back then
AHH!, you still remember that one! The full name was “Duke Nukems PentHouse Paradise!” 😉 I still have it in my collection.
I remember playing a few mods for Doom back in the day, including one or two based on Alien / Aliens… later, I went through several mods for Unreal, for about a year after it came out.
My first HL mod was a multiplayer: CounterStrike, of course!
I’ve started with really good mod. It was Coastline to Atmosphere for HL2.
The first mod I ever played was Union for Ep2.
The coolest thing is that the creator is starting to redux the mod and perhaps release a V.2 of it. I’m really looking forward to it. The next mod I played was Nightmare House, then Minerva.
If I don’t count Uplink that I played before full game and training of CS 1.0 (I didn’t know I can play over the internet), it was multiplayer of Wanted! with bots and singleplayer Redemption.
South Park mod for Doom
Todesangst for Half-life
But one thing I can’t remember is the first map or mod I played for Half-Life.
Can you? (Remember yours, not mine!)
Read the question people.
I remember that Zombie Panic! Source was a great mod when I tried it out.
Many months later, I’m hooked on mods.
It was most likely the Orion Nebula Project.
For Descent.
The first mod I played was Wanted which was a western style modification for HL1. I played it back when I was still playing CS 1.5, however it was before I got my own computer. It was so awesome back then!
The first mod I played on my own computer is probably brainbread. That was fun too though I ran out of things to do after a while.
I know the first custom map I played for HL2 was one called All Your Base, which I was unable to finish.
The first HL2 mod I played was Mistake of Pythagoras, which is undoubtedly a must play mod.
Mistake of Pythagoras for HL2 (I was a late starter). My brain is still recovering…..
My first mods were for HL2 and dl’ed from this site: Das Robot, Boathouse, and one I can’t remember the title of, where one part consisted of locating batteries… I think it was called Nuclear Plant or something similar. I thought all three were brilliant! I couldn’t believe they were free! 🙂
It was some Quake mission pack IIRC. I wish I could find it again. I also remember playing countless Duke Nukem 3D (which were awesome)/Doom addons before Half-Life.
I think my first Half-Life addon was Drug Barons by Maverick Interactive (creators of Redemption), or USS Darkstar by Neil Manke (and his team). Early mods I remember playing are: Deliverance (by Kevin Lockitt), Mission of Mercy (short, nice addon), DAV’s levels, Barry Bollinger (this guy released a tons of stuff for Half-Life, including prefabs), Freeman’s Revenge.
well the first MOD I played was zombie master, but at the time I didn’t know it was a “MOD”… a few weeks later I found this site, after watching a video of another mod on youtube and clicking on the link in the video description.
Insurgency. I still kinda play it today lol.
Hell yes! It was Counter-Strike 1.5! I did not even know that it was a mod. The only thing I knew was that you have to start Half-Life first. I hadn’t even played Half-Life when I played Counter-Strike!
Few of the first fps games I played were
Duke Nukem 3D
Unreal1
Chasm
Half-Life1
The first mods were for Unreal & Half-Life1 in good old modem and ISDN days but don’t ask me for the titles of those mods I don’t remember.
First FPS game: Wolfenstein 3D
First mod: Action Quake 2 (Quake 2 mod)
First MP mod for HL: Team Fortress Classic
First SP mod for HL: They Hunger
First custom map for HL: Manhunt by Scary One
Doom 1 & 2 would have been the first SP FPS I played, although I never bought either, followed by Quake 1. I believe Quake 2 was the first I purchased along with the sequel retail releases until Unreal came along.
Unreal I thought was a big stepping stone in the development of SP FPS games, given us the big outdoors and one, if not the first, to break away from the confinements of enclosed combat and encounters.
For me it was a big disappointment when both Quake and Unreal went MP, although both included what was then known as BOT options, however the story line had gone alone with the adventure.
I never originally bought HL1 having been off work and recovering after a major operation, a friend purchased the game for me, and I have never looked back since.
As for custom mods, it was the pursuit of more HL experiences that drove me to search for more of the same, in those days there was no PlanetPhillip and a much lower lever of releases.
It was the gaming magazines that were the chief source of information, such mags has PC Gamer included articles on custom mods and links to online sites that covered HL1 and offered downloads. The magazines were one of the biggest sources of custom mods and included cds most months with both demos and custom games.
The first time I came aware of custom mods was when looking through a bin fall of cheap cds in a retail stationery and book chain store called The Works, to my surprise I found cds containing Quake, Unreal and HL custom mods, most of which in those days were small and basic.
My next line of source became the online sites these included, and here only abbreviations of their names remain in my records, F-Eden, H-King, EH/10, Pixel, H16, and LM, with H16 i.e. Hanger 16 being the most popular at the time and I can recall downloading many a mod from this site. Often starting the download late at night then going to bed and hoping by the morning all had worked ok, so long were the download times in those days.
This of course was the beauty of the give away magazine cds, longer mods were now easy to load as author got more ambitious, also the online site begin to dry up as site owners found the task of updating too time consuming, also MP was taking over online, we are lucky to have Phillip.
For a time TenFour became my only source of HL1 downloads and while this site still exists, least it did last I looked, its updates became few and far between.
I am not sure how I find PlanetPhillip, think it was a response to browsing and the joy of finding a site that had not been over taken with MP.
The hardest part of all this is trying to remember the first custom mods I played, after 10 or 11 years the mind is rusty and with 420 plus HL1 mods under the belt I just don’t remember, I do remember finding the work of Barry Bollinger in the early days who gave us the Resistance series and Dark Operations, it would be nice to find out what became of these early authors, maybe a project for Phillip, not that he has much else to do, joking.
the first mod? opposing force, but we could really call that a game. real mod was case closed for half life 1.
I’m pretty sure the first Half-Life mod I played was Absolute Redemption. Remains one of my all-time favorites to this day.
Azure Sheep, Todesangst 1, Deliverance, Poke 646, Assault on Roswell, for HL1..
These were the first 5 mods I’ve ever played, I’m pretty sure about that, but which one was THE first, I don’t know 🙁
Well, come to think of it, if CS is considered a mod, then.. that’s the first 😐
Challenger Deep (HL1) at least I think it was called that….might have to go back and look for it in the PP archives, as if I remember little else. it was fun!
It’s been a long road since then, and I hardly play any HL1 Mods nowadays, unless they get a good recommendation on here. It’s at times like this that I think we all should be reminded just what a gold mine Phillip maintains here!
Simply the only place to check when trying to find a HL 1 or 2 Map or Mod….definitely the best!
I’d also like to do that, but unfortunately most of the Half-Life 1 download links died with FileCloud.. 🙁
It was Azure Sheep which is a masterpiece.
A good start in mod playing and a good reason to continue
I’ll have to second Olrick on that.
Azure Sheep was probably the first, or if not then close to it. I think I discovered mods by reading about Blue Shift that Azure Sheep was what it should have been.
Sounds to me like Azure Sheep would win a poll on the best first hl1 mod :))
There are better HL1 mods out there. I actually like USS Darkstar and Sweet Half Life better, but Azure Sheep has its moments, managing to tie itself into scenes from HL1, Opposing Force, and possibly even Blue Shift, as well as tying into sections of Point of View, which is a very decent HL1 mod that lets you play as a Vortigon.
My personal favorite HL1 mod is still going to stay as The Trap. That was sheer brilliance.
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First FPS Game: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.
Even though it probably hasn’t aged too well, for the time it was released (only a year after Quake) and taking into account that it was a console FPS, it had excellent controls and surprisingly decent graphics. I still take it out to mess around for a bit, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten further than beating the 3rd level without at least having the Unlimited Ammo cheat activated. I forget where I found out about RBNSMTH, but it pretty much became a staple of playing that game.
First Intro to Modding: Baldur’s Gate 2.
Technically, my first mods were two that I made myself by removing two files from the override folder that the WindowsXP patch for the game included; clck26.itm and contigx.2da. Removing clck26.itm changed the cloak of spell deflection back to the cloak of spell reflection that it originally was. Removing contigX.2da allowed a Wild Mage to put 2 castings of Nahal’s Reckless Dweomer into a Spell Sequencer. Casting this sequencer would lock open the spell selection of the wild mage and allow him unlimited access to cast any of the spells in his spellbook as many times as desired until another action type was chosen (making a physical attack, finding traps, moving to a new level, maybe talking)
As far as fully packaged mods, that would most likely be Weimer’s Tactic’s Mod, though I don’t even use it at all anymore. Alternately I might have first used Weimer’s Item-upgrade mod which I still use to this day. My favorite mod specifically for BG2 is Revised Hell Trials that is now part of Ding0’s Quest Pack. BG1tutu is my favorite mod when considering the entire Baldur’s Gate series, since it allows you to play BG1 using the BG2 engine and rules.
First Public Mod I’ve Made: Grey Acumen’s Kit Improvements. (which actually seems to be down now, I’ll need check into getting that posted back up)
It’s nothing huge, but I had always been bugged by how weak the Beastmaster and Wizard Slayer kits were, not just in terms of power, but in terms of how poor they were at their supposed specialties. I changed the Beastmaster to be a better melee fighter and have better influence over animals, and the Wizard Slayer has abilities that would actually make it worth using in battles with Mages both directly and by assisting team members. This Mod also adds a Mime kit to the Bard class, which silences enemies in place of the bard song. The mime kit also has a number of special spells granted through magically infused pantomime.
First Intro to Valve Games: Portal First Slice – I’m a Valve gamer of less than 2 years yet. I first signed up for Steam for this demo in Jan “08. I later was gifted HL2:e1, which was perhaps the best intro to the Half Life series for me. It wasn’t too long, but gave me the gravity gun(AND SUPER GRAVITY GUN) to play around with right off the bat, and then let me take out both a gunship and a stalker. It really wet my appetite for the entire rest of the series.
I later got HL1 during the 10th anniversary deal, and then Opposing Force and Blue shift during the Xmas deal for a total of $3. It was in the middle of all of this that I discovered I could use -dxlevel 81 to improve the bad framerate that Portal:first slice and HL2:e1 were getting. With this knowledge I finally decided it was worth purchasing a physical copy of the Orange Box sometime in or just before Jan “09.
First Source Mod: Uncertain. The Flash Version Map Pack for Portal, Portal: Prelude, Union or Awakening are the earliest mods I can remember. I have over 40 now, probably verging on 50 source and goldsource mods.
At first the only thing I knew about looking for mods was using steam’s mod list, and I also only wanted to play mods that passed themselves off as being part of Half Life cannon.
Then once I finished all of these I started hunting down more, browsing through “Best Half Life Mods!” lists and the like. These led to gems like USS Darkstar (which I think was the first mod to really break me out of the need for the mods I played to be connected to the Half Life storyline), They Hunger, Point of View, Sweet Half Life, Redemption, etc.
Finding Source mods was a lot more difficult. There still isn’t any really comprehensive search method for Source Games and there are thousands of them out there that aren’t worth the time it takes to download them. I still manged to stumble across gems like Minerva, Research and Development, and The Trap based on recommendations by other people. Then I stumbled into Planet Phillip and have only just started finishing off the last of the “Mod of the year” lists.
In the past year I’ve probably gotten nearly 1000 hours of gameplay(and still counting) from an initial investment of only $33. I don’t think I’ve EVER gotten that quality and amount of content for such a low price before.
The first mod I ever played was an RP mod called “Lugormod” for Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Good times…
My top HL1 mods are;
Poke646
Azure Sheep
The Xeno Project 1
The Xeno Project 2
They Hunger 3
Time Line II: Iced Earth
Todesangst2
USS Darkstar
Counter strike, when it was still a mod ;).
i really can’t remember which mod I played first, to be honest don’t I play that much mods/mappacks. only those who really look interesting to me I do give a change.
thing is, there are so many good new games out there that even for playing them I don’t have time.
i don’t lie when I say that on my game shelve I still have at least 7 to 10 games laying around, waiting to be played. I do think that I can remember for which game I played the first mod, this will probebly be soldiers of fortune2, (still a great game, specialy one of THE best one qua sp-missions !!!!)
leon
I only got into playing FPSs on the PC fairly recently compared to how long I’ve played RTSes and I don’t think I ever played a Age of Empires mod so the first mod I ever played was for Dawn of War, and it was probably the TTRU mod.
*thinks long and hard about it*
Simpsons Doom.
That or Christmas Doom.
The first Quake One hook / rune mod prior to it’s being incorporated into CTF.
Does it count, when I tried to play some bonus maps for an illegal portal version? 😀
The first mods I tried to play on Steam were either:
-Capture the Flag
-Riot Act
-Lost Ravenholm Chapter
I think only Riot Act worked, but even that crashed a specific point. That was because I tried to install these mods on the SteamAppiDs of HL2DM or the episodes… I didnt own hl2 back then. I also only found this answer by finding the website I asked at HOW to install mods for steam. XD
Oh, and besides Source I tried a few GTA: San Andreas Mods…
First mod I ever played was Minerva:METASTASIS and I must say, I was thoroughly impressed.
G mod, that’s also the first video game I ever got, that’s how I ended up getting HL2, and now I am a developer, crazy how the world works…
I think the first mod I ever played was BrainBread for HL1.
T’was Half life INVASSION for HL1 and loved it altough I succeded install it just by luck I was so ignorant in sp mods that didn’t know how to install them propperly ;o