Community input needed: Removal of HL2 assets from TF2

ics

http://ics-base.net
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Jun 17, 2010
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Yeah i was afraid of this that removing stuff causes issues. It did when CS Source went to Orangebox engine and some older payload was removed from the content files. I found atleast 15 textures alone that i reported to Valve and they restored those at that time.

If this change is going through and they are going to remove 2 GB of files, i'm sure that if things are found that are broken, Valve can restore the files that the maps and mods use from the old depot and add in as new with old location.
 

Crash

func_nerd
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Mar 1, 2010
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There is too much and it's been in there for too long to remove it now. A significant portion of the uses will be from old defunct projects that are no longer updated, so they'd never be fixed. Most servers wouldn't bother to put in the effort to solve these issues, they'd just see a broken plugin/ map and move on.
 

Idolon

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Feb 7, 2008
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Some of the original six maps use HL2 content, so shipping with the HL2 files wasn't a mistake. As someone with a very Midwestern internet speed, I'd love to see the filesize of the game reduced in any way possible, but there's no easy way to cut this content without breaking something.

If you want to play the "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" card, you could remove dialogue sound files without breaking too many things. You could remove all the textures/models/sounds that aren't used in the current official map pool (or just pack those files into those maps and remove everything) but that goes against the philosophy that lead to any of that content ending up in any of the shipped content in the first place.

I'd be curious to see how many MB/GB could be shaved off by removing the less usable bits of HL2 content, but I think pushing for their removal isn't a significant battle to fight when you consider how much else the TF team has on their plate (and how few people would actually benefit from this, considering modern disk sizes and internet speeds).
 

Hotel Detective

L4: Comfortable Member
Dec 10, 2014
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Here's where I disagree. They shouldn't remove any of the models, materials, sounds and particles. SourceMod plugins use them.
Before I say this, please note I'm not actually siding with either side, I don't care either way:

I don't see why they should cater to SourceMod when it inconveniences a bigger portion of players.
It would be up to plugin authors to figure out how to make their mod work, it shouldn't mean VALVe has to keep their game unnecessarily cluttered to allow them an easier time. The majority of players wouldn't even notice. Especially 2 gb of sounds holy shit that's actually a lot if those are unused by default TF2.
 

Idolon

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Feb 7, 2008
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Here's where I disagree. They shouldn't remove any of the models, materials, sounds and particles.
Maybe I didn't write my post very clearly, but this is basically the same conclusion I reached.
I don't see why they should cater to SourceMod when it inconveniences a bigger portion of players. It would be up to plugin authors to figure out how to make their mod work, it shouldn't mean VALVe has to keep their game unnecessarily cluttered to allow them an easier time.
The problem is more one of deprecation. A lot of those old SourceMod plugins, maps, etc. that use this content are no longer maintained and would be pretty much permanently broken. The people who rely on them to work wouldn't necessarily have the skills to repair them.

(Also worth noting that the "it's more convenient for the players and not the modders" philosophy would've ended up with the Swamp Pack not in the game. It's a different scenario for sure (especially in the current day where packing a map with custom content is more or less the norm), but I would still caution against that line of thinking, since modding is about making content production as accessible as possible.)
 

Empyre

L6: Sharp Member
Feb 8, 2011
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Perhaps they could detect if you also have HL2 and not duplicate those files if you do.
 

hutty

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Mar 30, 2014
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Honestly I would like to see (the ones not used within the current map pool) removed. TF2 has a huge bloat problem, download size is a major barrier to entry when considering which game to start up with friends who don't already have it.

I would actually suggest going further and pulling some of the less popular maps from the install. CS:GO's model is pretty good, where you have a core map set that is improved over time. New maps are introduced in events and they bop out inferior ones from the install.
 

Infomaniac

L6: Sharp Member
Nov 29, 2015
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How many sourcemod plugins, exactly?
 

Muddy

Muddy
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Sep 5, 2014
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Honestly I would like to see (the ones not used within the current map pool) removed. TF2 has a huge bloat problem, download size is a major barrier to entry when considering which game to start up with friends who don't already have it.

I would actually suggest going further and pulling some of the less popular maps from the install. CS:GO's model is pretty good, where you have a core map set that is improved over time. New maps are introduced in events and they bop out inferior ones from the install.
Pretty sure they could remove arena_watchtower and literally nobody would notice
 

ics

http://ics-base.net
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Jun 17, 2010
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Hey little respect to the guy who made watchtower. Even if its not your favorite map, he spend a lot of time and effort to do it.
 

henke37

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Sep 23, 2011
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Ideally they'd remove a lot of mostly forgotten content and offer several levels of installing the game. On demand installs for non core content and full installs for those who want it all. Several MMORPGs do it this way.

But that is for content that is actually used in the unmodded game. Certainly worth exploring, but not the real issue here.
 

henke37

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Sep 23, 2011
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It is hardly too late. They actually took the effort to compress the voice lines in the game less than three years ago. Someone cared.
 

EArkham

Necromancer
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Aug 14, 2009
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Fwiw, I used a couple of the HL2 antenna pieces in snowycoast, and I don't think anyone noticed. A little satellite dish model, too. And I think a lot of the ambient sounds do get reused quite frequently in TF2 soundscapes, even in official maps.

Since custom content just gets packed into maps these days, I'd be in favour of just treating any HL2 content as that. While it might be a PITA for sourcemod writers to update and/or start including custom files, the vast majority of people who play TF2 simply do not need to download things like hound eyes and combine soldiers. Maybe skip removing the ambient sound effects since those truly are generic and would need to be replaced with equivalents anyway.
 

Vel0city

func_fish
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Dec 6, 2014
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If we're doing it for the sake of saving space, maybe we should start looking into repacking more stock maps and maybe make VPKs compress their content like a zip file.
 

fubarFX

The "raw" in "nodraw"
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Jun 1, 2009
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If we're doing it for the sake of saving space, maybe we should start looking into repacking more stock maps and maybe make VPKs compress their content like a zip file.
every map repacked is an update that needs to be rolled out, I'm assuming valve is trying not to update things for no reason. Any time they've had an excuse to update a map tho, it was repacked. So If you want maps repacked, your best bet might be to find and report issues, forcing them to update. Forcing everyone to redownload all maps in one go is likely not going to happen.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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It's not like any maps that have been abandoned by their creators and use HL2 assets won't get picked up, updated, and dumped onto the Workshop by someone who doesn't have the rights to them anyway. Hell, half of them were probably already dumped onto the Workshop by people who don't have the rights to them.

Failing that, I'm sure it will eventually become common knowledge that you'll need to copypaste your HL2 VPKs into the TF2 folder if you're having troube with missing assets on, what, all two of the dedicated community servers that managed to survive the era of QuickPlay?
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
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Dec 19, 2015
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trying not to update things for no reason
Why would storage space be a sufficient reason to remove a whole bunch of content but not to keep up with modern mapping technologies… I'll call repacking that for an exaggeration but you get the idea.
 

fubarFX

The "raw" in "nodraw"
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Jun 1, 2009
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Why would storage space be a sufficient reason to remove a whole bunch of content but not to keep up with modern mapping technologies… I'll call repacking that for an exaggeration but you get the idea.
Don't get me wrong, deleting hl2 content is just as bad an idea.

The only thing that can actually settle this once and for all is implementing an asset streaming service like many other games have, a sort of "download only what you need, when you need it" solution.