Editing Greg Fulton/Fanstratics Newsletters/16 (section)

== HoMM3 Recollection: Half-Life: Day One ==
It was early November 1998, when [[Mark Caldwell]] popped into my office.  Without a word, and a smirk on his face, he whipped out a CD held in a square white envelope.  I took it from his hand.  Looking through the transparent plastic peekaboo window, I saw the orange CD label...  Half-Life: Day One.

 Mark, “I know you like shooters and thought of you.  I think it’s a demo.”

Prior to [[New World Computing]] (NWC), I had worked at Activision and DreamWorks Interactive (DWI).  At these two stops, gaming after work hours was a big deal, as it was the only way to play networked games via LAN: Doom, Duke Nukem, Descent, Command & Conquer, Warcraft 2, Quake Deathmatch, Quake Capture The Flag, and Quake Team Fortress.  These unofficial, after hours LAN parties, typically involved a significant number of office employees.  In my first few weeks of employment at NWC, I quickly learned... NWC was different.

While there were occasional games of Starcraft and Ultima Online, I was one of the few employees who consistently played FPS games.  More often than not, I ended up on my own, going outside of the company, to play high-ping games on public servers via QuakeWorld.

Prior to its release on November 19th, 1998, Valve bundled a demo of Half-Life with a variety of sound and video cards.  This demo was called Half-Life: Day One.

 Me, “Where’d you get this?”
 
 Mark, “It came with the system I’m setting up in the meeting room.  It’s got a 3Dfx card.”

Most people have forgotten... but Quake, Unreal, and Half-Life did not require a 3D card.  First person shooters were originally played in software, and a 3D card was considered a luxurious addon.  At the time, both my home and work systems did not have a 3D card.

 Me, “Can I play this on the meeting room computer?”
 
 Mark, “After I get it cleaned up.”
 
 Me, “Tonight?”
 
 Mark, “Try tomorrow.”
 
 Me, “Okay.”

Mark darted out of my office, leaving me there... sitting... holding the CD in my hand.

I had no intention of waiting a full day to play the demo.

Technically, at this stage of HoMM3’s development, the team was ‘crunching’.  We had been staying late for several weeks, and Monday through Friday, I would come to work around 9:00 AM in the morning, and leave somewhere between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM.  This night, however, after I ate dinner in the break room, I went back to my office, with the intention of playing Half-Life: Day One.

While there was a considerable amount of hype surrounding Half-Life, especially after E3, I honestly didn’t know much about it.  I’d seen screenshots depicting soldiers, security personnel, and aliens, but hadn’t bothered to read any in-depth articles.  What more did I need to know?  It was an FPS, and I was thirsty to play any new shooter.

After installing the demo to my hard drive, I started the game, and looked over the available options.  ‘Hazard Course’ seemed like the logical thing to do, so I started there.

It was... well... unusual.

Characters spoke and interacted with me.  I practiced various skills and was taught to use different tools.  In the end... ‘shooting’ was only a small part of the experience.

Somewhat perplexed, I started a New Game.  Left-hand... WASD.  Right-hand... three-button mouse.  I was ready for action.

Fade in...

 “Good morning and welcome to the Black Mesa Transit System.”

For the next 5 minutes, I was trapped in a moving monorail car, while different story elements were communicated through various sounds and visuals.  This was unlike any FPS I had ever played.  For roughly the next hour... I pressed forward... and was thoroughly absorbed.  When I was finished, I wanted to play more... but it was over.

I collected my things and departed from my office.  By this time, most of the office lights were off, and NWC was relatively empty.  As I passed his office, I waved goodnight to [[Jon Van Caneghem]], who sat at this desk, either playing a game or browsing the web.

In my 30-to-60-minute drive to my apartment (depending on traffic), I thought about Half-Life: Day One.  It was quite literally... a game changer.  It’s wasn’t a first-person shooter, but a first-person action adventure.  It had more in common with the Legend of Zelda than Doom, Quake, or Unreal.

Friday was the next workday.  While we were still ‘crunching’, there was no expectation of coming in on Saturday.  Where people stayed late the day before, today you could expect people to not eat late at work, but instead... go home for their dinner.  When 5:00 PM rolled around, about an hour before dinner, I grabbed the Half-Life: Day One CD.

Just beyond the NWC Reception Area, near the front of the office, was the large and relatively central Meeting Room.  Two of its four walls were composed of floor-to-ceiling windows, and anyone who walked the halls could easily see what was happening inside.  In the middle of the room rested a long table with 8 to 10 accompanying chairs, with more positioned up against the perimeter glass walls.  Opposite the glass walls, were two opaque walls, and up against the one of these walls... was a desk.

On the side of this desk, on the floor, was the new Meeting Room computer Mark had set up the previous day.  It was a full tower PC, with a basic keyboard and mouse, five surround sound speakers, and a ‘humongous’ 21-inch monitor (versus my 17 inch monitor).  Its purpose was to showcase NWC games to potential visitors, and while it didn’t look like much on the outside, it was the most powerful computer in the office.

Walking into the Meeting Room, I closed the door behind me, grabbed a chair, and sat down in front of the Meeting Room desk.  I installed Half-Life: Day One, and when it was finished, I skipped the Hazard Course, and jumped right into a New Game.  For the second time in two days, I progressed through the demo.  With surround sound and silky-smooth frame rates, at a high resolution 640x480, my enjoyment was refreshed.  Once again, I was... absorbed.

About 45 minutes into the demo, I arrived at the Office Complex.  During a hostile encounter, an NPC stepped into my line of fire, got shot, and killed.  A second NPC immediately barked at me, telling me to ‘leave him alone’.  As I was in the middle of a fire fight, I instinctively wheeled about and shot the second NPC, in the face, with my shotgun.

To my surprise, a cascade of laughter erupted behind me.  Startled, I turned and looked over my shoulder.

Behind me, between 15 to 20 NWC employees had quietly snuck into in the Meeting Room: Mark Caldwell, [[John Bolton]], [[Gus Smedstad]], [[Jennifer Bullard]], [[Marcus Pregent]], and a collection of other testers and artists.

Either standing along the glass walls, or sitting in the chairs around the Meeting Table, each had taken up an ‘audience’ position to watch me play through this new and fascinating game.  My entertainment had become their entertainment, and I was completely unaware of their presence.   As I was now aware I was being observed, Mark couldn’t help but reenact the absurd incident with a laugh.

 Mark, “Hey!  Leave him alone!  Blam!”

Caught off guard, and embarrassed by my lack of situational awareness, I had lost track of time.

 I addressed Mark, “What time is it?”

Mark pointed to the clock on the wall, just above me, which I had clearly missed.

 Mark, “Almost six.”

I ‘escaped’ to the Main Menu, and stood up from my chair.

 Turning the people in the room, I said, “Sorry, but I gotta go.  Does anyone want to continue my game?”

People slowly turned to leave, quietly shaking their heads ‘no’.  Work was over, people wanted to get home, and no one wanted to be the center of attention.

After quickly gathering my things from my office, I got in my car, and made a trip from Agoura Hills to Van Nuys.  It was Friday night... and I wasn’t finished gaming.

During my time living and working in Los Angeles, one of the people I met, and became friends with, was [[Dustin Browder]].  Both Dustin and I had worked at Activision.  Where my project, a reinvention of Planetfall, had been cancelled, Dustin had managed to design MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries and Heavy Gear.

In the year prior to Heavy Gear landing on retail shelves, Activision had experienced a great deal of success publishing games from ‘outside’ developers (Hexen 2, Quake 2, etc.).  Eventually, someone decided they could replicate this more cost-effective success by pushing all the ‘internal’ development teams ‘out of house’.  Only one politically connected team survived the subsequent ‘internal purge’.

Dustin, like many others, was left without a project.  While Dustin eventually found his way to Westwood Pacific, where he designed Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, his time between jobs was tough.

During his unemployment, almost every Friday night, I would make the trip from NWC, in Agoura Hills, to Van Nuys, to Dustin’s apartment.  After eating dinner with Dustin and his wife, she would retreat to her office to work on her PhD, while Dustin and I would occupy his office.  There, we would game until the sun came up.

On this particular occasion, when I rang the doorbell, I was arriving late, with KFC in one hand, and Half-Life: Day One in the other.

 Dustin’s wife opened the front door, welcomed me inside, and pointed upstairs, “He’s already started.  Go on up.”

Entering Dustin’s office, I took a seat in a chair behind him and his desk.

 Dustin turned to me, “Hey, man.  What we playing tonight?”
 
 Me, “I’m thinking Starcraft.  But while I eat, I thought you could play this.”

I gave to Dustin, the Half-Life: Day One CD.

 Dustin pulled the CD from the square sleeve, “Is this the full game?”
 
 Me, “No.  It’s a demo.  Came bundled with a new computer from work.”

He looked it over and shrugged.

 Dustin, “Okay.”

As I pulled potato wedges and a chicken sandwich from my KFC paper bag, Dustin installed Half-Life: Day One onto his system.  After starting and completing the Hazard Course, Dustin spent the next hour playing through the demo.  I watched him play.  How quickly would he solve the different puzzles?  How would he react to various in-game moments?  Would he find the demo as enthralling as myself?

When he had finished, Dustin quietly exhaled, ejected the CD, turned around, and handed it back to me.

 Impressed with the experience, Dustin squinted in my direction, “Wow.”
 
 I nodded in agreement, “Yeah.”

For the next 30 minutes, Dustin and I discussed the game, but truthfully... there wasn’t much to say.  This demo of Half-Life was something special, and we both knew it.

Looking back, the 1990’s were arguably a golden age for PC gaming.  On the hardware front, there were VGA Cards, Sound Blaster cards, and 3D Cards.  On the software front, there was 3D gaming, LAN gaming, internet access, and ultimately... internet gaming.  Almost every month, it felt like a classic PC game was being released, and the choices were wildly varied: FPS vs RPG vs TBS vs RTS vs ADV vs SIM.

New developers in the PC ecosystem were experimenting with new technologies and new gameplay, and while it wasn’t expressly stated... you could feel the excitement.  On one hand... it was exhilarating.  On the other hand... it was terrifying.

While Half-Life: Day One only scratched the surface of the medium’s true potential, it put a spotlight on the growing irrelevance of older developers like Bullfrog, Interplay, LucasArts, Maxis, Microprose, Origin, Sierra, Sir-Tech, Westwood, and... New World Computing.

Ultimately, I found myself wondering, “Was there still a market for a 2D, turn-based, strategy game?  Was there still a market for Heroes of Might and Magic 3?”