Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch splash screen Half-Life 2: Deathmatch splash screen
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Engine	Source engine
Platform(s)	PC Windows
Release	November 30 2004
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, abbreviated as HL2DM, is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation. Released on Steam on November 30, 2004, the game was offered as a free download to all Half-Life 2 owners.

Gameplay

Special Techniques

In addition to the basic gameplay elements, there are several important advanced techniques often used by skilled players.

• Gravity Jumping: By standing on top of a physic object and firing straight down at it with the Gravity Gun's primary fire, a player can boost into the air several feet or more. This can be used to move to areas that are otherwise difficult or impossible to reach quickly.
• Fast Balls: By shooting an orb from the ar2 rifle and immediately switching to the Gravity Gun whilst hitting primary fire, the orb can be given an extra boost of speed.
  • Note: A fast ball, once caught, cannot be returned at high speed.
• Grenade Cooking: After using secondary fire to drop a grenade, the player quickly switches to the gravity gun and picks it up. The timer on the grenade resets, giving the player additional time to aim and fire it. This technique is often more effective than simply tossing a grenade because it allows the player to have greater control over where exactly it will explode.
• Bunny Hopping: A type of movement used to move silently, jump over large gaps, and travel even more quickly than sprinting. It is performed by sprinting into a circle jump and then remaining in the crouch position while bunny hopping.
  • Note: In HL2DM bunny hopping is also commonly called strafe-jumping, speed skating, and overbouncing.
• Fast Physics: A removed exploit that enabled players to shoot physics objects much faster and more forcefully than with a normal Gravity Gun shot. To do this, primary fire was held down while very quickly switching between the Gravity Gun and another weapon using the "last weapon used" key. This caused the Gravity Gun to shoot repeated bursts of energy at the object, giving it the ability to travel farther and kill opponents much more easily.
• Fast Shotgun: Another removed exploit that allowed players to fire a shotgun at a higher rate of speed than the default. This could be accomplished by repeatedly pressing reload after firing each round; with good timing, this would unload a clip of ammo about twice as fast as normal.
• Rabbit Punch:Causes similar actions as Fast Physics this technique can fire a single object 3-5 times but only in a point blank capacity and doesnt leave your gravity gun, it can be used to renew a orb or grenade timer but with a higher possibility of hitting your opponent with a physical object or orb.
  • Note: This is a hardly used much less known technique

Weapons

Main article: List of weapons in Half-Life 2

Note: Not all weapons found in the above link can be used in HL2DM.

The weapons in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch are identical in most cases to those in Half-Life 2, with the addition of the Combine Stunstick and the Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM) mine.

By default, a player will spawn with a Gravity Gun, 9mm pistol, submachine gun, and two grenades. In addition, players using a Rebel model will receive a crowbar and players using a Combine model will receive a stunstick. Other guns and ammunition are collected as the player moves around the map. Damages listed are for shots that make contact with any part of the player model besides the head. A 3x headshot bonus is applied individually to each bullet of the 9mm pistol, .357 magnum, submachine gun, pulse rifle, and shotgun.

Maps

Official Maps

Official Half-Life 2 DM maps

Name	Release date	Author	Setting
dm_lockdown	Nov. 30 2004	Valve (Adrian Finol)	Nova Prospekt
dm_overwatch	Nov. 30 2004	Valve (Adrian Finol)	City 17 (Follow Freeman!)
dm_steamlab	Feb. 17 2005	Valve (Jess Cliffe)	Concrete laboratory
dm_powerhouse	Apr. 13 2005	Third-party (Michael Schulz)	Generic Industrial
dm_resistance	Apr. 13 2005	Third-party (Jonathan Linker)	"Bodies" from Blood
dm_underpass	Apr. 13 2005	Third-party (Scott M Jordan)	City 17 railway
dm_runoff	Apr. 25 2005	Valve (Jess Cliffe)	Water Hazard

• dm_lockdown: This map is set in a dilapidated prison as seen in the single-player's chapter, Nova Prospekt. As one of the first two officially released maps, it is by far the most often played, especially in league and clan matches.
• dm_overwatch: The other map released with the game, this is the most common "king of the hill" style map, especially common in public servers.
• dm_steamlab: Based on the map dm_datacore from Half-Life: Deathmatch, this map was released during an update to help introduce the newly released weapons of crowbar, stunstick, and SLAM.
• dm_underpass: The winning map of Valve's map creation contest.
• dm_resistance: The first runner up in Valve's map creation contest.
• dm_powerhouse: The second runner up in Valve's map creation contest.
• dm_runoff: A map particularly suited for teamplay because it has team-specific spawn points. The map also features the ability to call in an air strike that will kill all players trapped outside the slowly closing gates of the main central building.

League Play

Like other online first person shooter communities, there are leagues in HL2DM which clans use to competitively play team deathmatch matches against each other. North American and European teams must participate in their own leagues, due to differences in ping between the two regions.

• STA: Short for Stronger Than All, STA has hosted tournaments for other games, including the original Half-Life and Quake 3. Stronger Than All was considered to be the most competitive North American league, as most major teams from that continent participated in the league. STA had several formats: 2on2 team matches, a 1on1 league, and its most popular mode of play, 4on4.

• CAL: A division of the Cyberathlete Professional League, holds 2on2 and 4on4 Half-Life 2: Deatmatch leagues. CAL is the second primary North American league. Due to declining interest in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, CAL temporarily suspended its HL2DM tournaments. However, after a resurgence in the game's popularity, CAL reopened its Half-Life 2 division.

FiOS Grand Tournament

Commencing in June of 2006, Verizon's FiOS Grand Tournament was the one large competition in the history of HL2DM. Over 6,000 people signed up to take part in the two week long online 1vs1 competition that would determine the final 64 players entered into a single elimination bracket. Once only eight players remained, these contestants were flown to Los Angeles to participate in a two day double elimination tournament bracket for a chance to win the grand prize of $100,000.

The tournament was sponsored by Verizon in order to beta test and advertise their new Playlinc game client as well as their FiOS internet service. They and Valve worked in conjunction with CAL, which coordinated rules for gameplay and provided administrators for both the online and final live events.

The maps used for the competition were dm_lockdown, dm_overwatch, dm_powerhouse, and dm_steamlab.

Demo Playback

The Source Engine allows you to record and play back demos. A demo is basically an in-game recording of your POV, which you can view at a later stage.

However, in order to play the demo, you need the same version of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch which the demo was recorded in. Due to the Steam platform and its automatic updating system, this has become quite a difficult problem to overcome.

As of the 9th of January 2007, there have been three updates to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch which "broke" the demos. However, the first update was actually a Source Engine update, which meant demos from all other Source Engine games, such as Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source also "broke". The other two updates were updates to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.

There is already a way to playback all the demos, but the “startmovie” command is not 100% functional. It will not record the audio, so you will need a separate program to dump the audio.

There is a complete fix to get the two previous Half-Life 2: Deathmatch demos working, but it has not yet been released. It should be released to the public within a weak.

Movies

There are quite a few movies created by members of the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch community. For a full list of Half-Life 2 movies, head over to own-age.com.

Here are a few which stand out:

• The RFC mandated Experience HL2DM by Alexander “netrex” Evensen

• Team Cynosure - The Art of War by Definetely Rhid Studios

• Master Viktory - The Movie by Master Viktory

• iXKa @ HL2 Deathmatch by iXKa

• OFF THE DOSE by Grant “TMx Cleric: JOHN PRESTON” Blackburn

• hl2dm done by drag0? by VDuS drag0?

External Links

• FiOS Grand Tournament: Main FiOS website with tournament information and results.
• Own-Age.com: A directory of Half-Life 2 movies.