Detailed re-working of all maps into co-operative

If converting Half Life 2 into co-op was a simple process it would have been done by the community, long before Merciless Development began working on follow freeman. Indeed there are many coop mods which have attempted it.

The main problem is the maps, all of them were designed to be played and viewed by one player from one location, so valve use various tools to optimize level like (area portals) and map features which only work in one direction and one instance (eg the lift in the Eli labs level). We needed the levels to work from every location for multiple players.

We decided to tackle the huge task of reworking every map to not only make them work technically but to also make all map features work in a way that gives greater control to the players.

This reworking of the original content has been central to the smooth game-play and freedom of movement of the players to be able to play as they wish. All applicable map devices and scenes (lifts and other map features) have been reworked to allow players to freely enter the game and move through the levels under their own control. We have followed valves latest design ethos, shown in ep1 of allowing the players to take greater control of their game-play experience and we have not used the usual work arounds (like the coop trigger) included in other coop mods as we felt they limited the players ability to cooperate. If the players do not have freedom then they cannot choose to cooperate.

As an example lets look at the reworking of the lift in the Eli labs level, In single player this lift only goes down and is under the control of an npc.

The normal way to handle this would be to have a coop trigger so when all players enter the lift the scene begins. So what happens if one player is afk or uncooperative?

The other players are now essentially stuck.

The lift also only goes down and only once so what happens if a player dies and is re-spawned or a new player joins the server.

Then that player is stuck.

Say for arguments sake there is a bunch of zombies at the bottom of the lift and one player has hardly any health and the others are fully loaded. In real life the wounded player would wait while the strong players go down and clear out the zombies. The coop trigger does not allow for this type of freedom of cooperation and strategy.

So we decided to give the players control and re-engineer the scene so the lift is controlled by the players pressing the lift button (a simple idea but complicated to implement). We added buttons to call the lift back so any following players can use it to catch up. And finally we had to rework the scripted scenes based around the events triggered by the lift to take into account that players now controlled the advancement of the level.

This unique approach has been applied to every map in Follow Freeman, it gives the players a higher degree of freedom, strategy and co-operation. And makes the levels work in all directions simultaneously for all players.

The task of the detailed reworking of the maps has now been realized and in testing has exceeded our expectations.