Valve news, and… no, it's not him. The wait for a certain theoretical physicist wielding a crowbar continues, but what we found today takes us back to Valve's origins, and even a bit earlier. After the release of Quake, one of its most popular multiplayer mods was Threewave, which virtually created the 'Capture the Flag' mode. Apparently, Valve wanted to publish a port of Threewave compatible with Half-Life, but it was canceled in 2001. Fifteen years later, two Half-Life fans discovered a copy of the mod on a Vietnamese server, fixed its errors, and published it.
The Quake Mod That Defined a Genre
Welcome to a new case of 'gamer archaeology', and this time we have an excellent opportunity to dust off all those old copies of Half-Life (unless you have the game on Steam thanks to a previous deal) and start a very unusual multiplayer match. The story tells us that the first Quake debuted on June 22, 1996, and from that point on, FPS games changed completely.
The Quake community grew at an alarming rate, and the first mods soon appeared. One of the most popular, and according to a great number of fans, something like the father of the modern Capture the Flag mode, is Threewave, a creation of David Kirsch, 'Zoid' in the community. This mod began its adventure in October 1996, and its popularity was so great that when Valve redesigned Quake's Deathmatch under the Half-Life engine (now known as Deathmatch Classic or DMC), it had plans to design a port of Threewave… but that never happened.
The Lost Port for Half-Life
Fast forward to 2003, when Valve's servers were attacked and a famous incomplete copy of Half-Life 2 leaked to the web. Of course, at that time everyone was crazy to know the state of one of the most anticipated sequels… but very few paid attention to a small folder that contained a copy of the Threewave mod for Half-Life. Unfortunately, Valve never finished the work, and any attempt to run that mod ended badly, either hanging the game completely or showing texture errors.
The Discovery and the Fix
Tyler McVicker, in charge of the 'Valve News Network' YouTube channel and creator of the video shared above, learned of the existence of Threewave in February and obtained a copy of the mod inside a Vietnamese FTP server. At that time, he requested help from his friend and programmer known as PistonMiner on Steam, who fixed the most severe errors on the mod in 24 hours, but the work of the last months was focused on integrating all the missing textures. Today, Threewave for Half-Life works without problems, as do its servers.
Download Threewave for Half-Life
Those who want a copy can download it from here, or visit the video description and take the link. I only have to say that Half-Life multiplayer sessions bring back many memories, and good ones.
