I'd have to agree with you on 99% of the cases.

However, there's that 1% of games, such as Soldier Of Fortune 1, that I'd rather have in the factory-upgraded variant (e.g. Platinum Edition)

But let's take the original Half-Life and look at what they did to it when this steam garbage was starting to take over. Furthermore, even before steam, only the very earliest version had that weird secret map, and I don't remember exactly when they killed model shadows (not that I miss them; they were awful), so that would be an example of a game that craves to exist in it's crudest form, even if you'll eventually end up patching it up.

Personally, I'm more concerned about data integrity, archiving and proper preservation of 1:1 ImageDisk/CloneCD binary copies.

the crappy GLQuake holdover model shadows were deprecated in 1.1.0.X when they had that big protocol change (that regressed about every mod that existed, some never updated post-1.1). It was done to prevent clipping cheating. as shadows could render through walls etc

PAK0.PAK was never modified by any patch so all the original release data is still left alone.

What is this "weird secret map" that Lo Wang speaks of? I only have the platinum edition copy of Half-Life. Steam and WON.

Half-Life is actually the game that got me started with this obsession due to reasons explained above, and thus I have done a lot of research on this specific game. My most recent discovery is that there are two versions of the package that includes both expansions in Europe. Earlier versions were like two keep cases fused into one, while some later ones were in one thick case with updated discs.

leileilol wrote:

PAK0.PAK was never modified by any patch so all the original release data is still left alone.

I'm also curious about Quake. I've seen many sources that state Quake 1.01 was the first full version of the game, but I'm pretty sure that shareware versions long before that (0.91?) included an order form for the registered version. Intuition tells me that there are registered versions below 1.01, unless customers had to wait for weeks or months.

In the US the Platinum Pack was a series of four CDs:

Half-Life GOTY which is HL patched to around 1.0.0.9 IIRC

Half-Life Opposing Force

Team Fortress Classic, which is literally the Half-Life 1.1.0.4 patch installer on a disc as the only file

Counter-Stirke which is a separate product, contains CS 1.0 and FireArms RC 2.4, Wanted HL Beta, Redemption, Opposing Force CTF (strangely not part of opposing force itself) and a stripped down Half-Life for deathmatch. Also has TFC and Ricochet (hl patch contents)

silikone wrote:

I'm also curious about Quake. I've seen many sources that state Quake 1.01 was the first full version of the game, but I'm pretty sure that shareware versions long before that (0.91?) included an order form for the registered version. Intuition tells me that there are registered versions below 1.01, unless customers had to wait for weeks or months.

Preordering 😀

1.00 existed in shareware form but was quickly replaced. You can still mix the PAK1.PAK from 1.01 with it to gain a full 1.00 though. PAK1.PAK isn't updated in future versions.

0.9X had a different BSP format with half the lightmap depth and an unfinished end level, no way they would have released that to the public.

I never quite understood the point of the TFC CD as Half-Life since 1.0.0.9 already includes TFC, and the Counter-Strike CD also contains a patch for Half-Life anyway. There's even that special budget version of Half-Life that includes Day One and TFC.

Quake III Arena versions pre-1.20 are another keeper too due to 1.20's protocol changes similar to HL 1.1's regressions. Fortunately most mods did actually update. Mods post-1.20 can work in every newer version and in source ports.

1.20 itself (not later) is interesting for having Team Arena stuff accidentally compiled in there many months before TA's release, hidden. You could give yourself null-looking TA items 😀

Speaking of protocol changes. Unreal was quite notorious about that, and there are people still trying to get pre 224 stuff working under 224 and beyond.

And that's really weird about platinum collection CD. I always wondered why those mods were on the CS disc.

DracoNihil wrote:

And that's really weird about platinum collection CD. I always wondered why those mods were on the CS disc.

Ricochet didn't come with Half-Life until 1.1.1.0, so am I wrong to say that it was a Counter-Strike exclusive for a time?

I'm talking about "FireArms RC 2.4, Wanted HL Beta, Redemption" not Ricochet.

silikone wrote:

DracoNihil wrote:

And that's really weird about platinum collection CD. I always wondered why those mods were on the CS disc.

Ricochet didn't come with Half-Life until 1.1.1.0, so am I wrong to say that it was a Counter-Strike exclusive for a time?

I've played Ricochet before 1.1.0.4 in around July/Aug 2000 so nope.

DracoNihil wrote:

What is this "weird secret map" that Lo Wang speaks of? I only have the platinum edition copy of Half-Life. Steam and WON.

From what I recall it was an unused map you were able to access from the console, and only certain 1.0.0.5's had it. I don't have any more info on this because my CD doesn't have it either.

Reminds me a lil bit of that alleged early Blood2 CD with the credits going off on some guy who didn't give enough of a good rating to a preview version, and it was later patched up to remove the childish comments.

I'm also interested specifically in the earliest, unmodified, Level 1, cassette version of the original game bundle for the TRS-80 Model I. I contacted Ira Goldklang about this years ago, but even he didn't have it. Not that it was some kind of rare thing, but apparently nobody took it on himself to sample it and preserve it. What a shame. I myself I'm guilty of stuffing old cassettes...but that was a long time ago.

That reminds me, some of you might be in possession of software nobody else might have. Just like my grand-grand mother used to say, if it don't stink, keep it 🤣

DracoNihil wrote:

Speaking of protocol changes. Unreal was quite notorious about that, and there are people still trying to get pre 224 stuff working under 224 and beyond.

Unreal is actually a good example to preserve old/different versions.
PowerVR support (PowerSGL Direct) is only available with earlier releases (I think it disappears with 224).
S3 Savage support (S3 MeTaL) is not available in the first release, I don't know which patch introduces it.

Are there downgrade-patches for Unreal? Usually Unreal Gold is is what can be found everywhere, including GoG.

No, the only way a "downgrade" patch could exist is if the 224v and 225f patches existed without the delta compression method. ut436nodelta patch is the only thing that can overwrite a GOTY version of UT99 to make it appear like a retail version, for example.

Lo Wang wrote:

From what I recall it was an unused map you were able to access from the console, and only certain 1.0.0.5's had it. I don't have any more info on this because my CD doesn't have it either.

I have a hard time believing this. Even if they are in the exe, there would be a large size difference after patching. Are you sure it's not just a myth?

silikone wrote:

Are you sure it's not just a myth?

I believe this was discussed on the official Half-Life forum and at least another member confirmed the guy who started the thread. Nevertheless, this happened a long time ago and even the memories I had of the screenshots he posted have already faded considerably.

For all intents and purposes you could call it a myth because I can't confirm it, but it's not as simple for me having seen what I saw.

is it worth using anything except the steam version? I do have HL on CD, but used the serial number with Steam rather than installing it, as it automatically gave me access to Blue Shift and Opposing Forces, neither of which I had bought.. They're available cheap, though.

I heard there's some EAX functionality lost in Steam, and I do have a suitable retro PC (Pentium 3, S3 Virge GX, Voodoo 2, AWE32) to run the DOS version if need be. I've still not finished Half Life (last point was the very large fire spouting monster, following the tentacle monster stuck in the shaft) so it'd be good to choose the best option.

An AWE32 isn't going to be much use for EAX, is it? I also have more modern PCs running Windows with either an Audigy 4, or an X-Fi. I do have an SB Live! that I can put in the retro PC, if need be, possibly other cards too..

ynari wrote:

to run the DOS version if need be

That's wild!

Well, ish, looking at it, it's much better to use Windows. Still, I'd like to know if there's a big disadvantage to using the Steam version