Major sound changes of interest to all users:

• All known sound-related crashes have been fixed.
• Steam issues causing auto_soundlist.txt to be downloaded repeatedly have been remedied.
• The sound engine is now much more error-tolerant than in Half-Life.
• Ambient sounds are now automatically refreshed for new players joining the game.
• Added distinct footstep sounds for walking on Wood and Flesh materials, and added a new 'Snow' material type.
• Changed priority levels for game music / player weapon sound effects to keep them from cutting out.
• Fixed most cases of turrets' sounds not working correctly.
• Fixed fan sounds' pitch not ramping up during func_rotating's spinup sequence.
• Improved sound engine compatibility with some sound cards.
• The in-game media player now supports all of the following sound types (including tracker formats) :
  • AIFF, ASF, DLS, FLAC, IT, M3U, MID, MOD, MP2, MP3, OGG, S3M, VAG, WAV, WMA, XM

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Sound changes primarily of interest to mappers:

• The following sound formats are now fully supported for use in maps:
  • AIFF, ASF, DLS, FLAC, IT, M3U, MID, MOD, MP2, MP3, OGG, S3M, VAG, WAV, WMA, XM
• Non-WAV sounds (excluding some tracker formats) no longer loop by default. This means they can easily be used as weapon sounds, monster sounds, etc.
  • (A legacy hack prevents this from adversely affecting existing maps)
• Added a way for mappers to set material types (vent, dirt, grate, metal, slosh, tile, wood, computer, glass, flesh, or snow) for custom textures. Affects footstep sounds, impact sounds etc.
• Ambient_generics can force sounds to 'Loop' or 'Play Once' with a simple setting.
• You can also force a sound to loop by adding "_loop" to the end of its filename, e.g. "mysound_loop.mp3". Useful for monster sounds etc.
  • Looping WAVs can be forced to play once by adding "_once" to their filenames.
• Optional 'Linear Rolloff' options have been added to ambient_generics, allowing specific Minimum Radius and End Radius values to be defined.
  • These give mappers fairly precise control over sound radii. Sounds play at maximum volume within the specified Min Radius and can't be heard at all from outside the End Radius. Especially useful for music.
• The global sound-replacement file (globalsoundlist) can be set in map CFGs, now, as an alternative to worldspawn.

 

• At least two new maps.
• Client-side prediction for the M16 (it's no longer delayed by lag)
• Switchable fog. Fog can be enabled, disabled, or have its properties changed mid-map, instead of having to be the same throughout the entire map as in earlier versions.
• The trigger_vote entity. This allows maps to give players choices that they can vote on.
• Repairable func_breakables. This allows for breakables that can be repaired using the wrench. Useful for objectives that players need to defend from monsters. Using a trigger_condition to check a breakable's health, mappers could create things like structures which players must build and keep in repair in order for them to perform a function (like manufacturing weapons or allies).
• HUD Info for func_breakables. This allows a breakable's health (and name if it has one) to be shown in the same way as for monsters. This is especially handy for repairable objects -- which show as Friendly -- or brush-based enemies.
  
• Legacy support features preventing existing maps from being adversely affected by new sound engine changes.
  

 

• The sound engine can now ignore missing/non-precached files without problems. This would have caused the game to shut down in HL1/SC3.0, or a total loss of sound in SC4.0x.
• Mappers can prevent Sniper Assassins, HWGrunts and Shocktroopers from dropping their weapons via a simple option (Shocktroopers already had this feature, but it could not previously be used from squadmakers).
• Friendly monsters can now be commanded to move to & guard a specific location.

• Fixed monsters sometimes running in circles or running in place (separate issue).
• Fixed Slime and Lava from dealing damage incorrectly.
• Fixed linked doors occasionally causing massive lag when blocked.
• Fixed monsters sometimes shooting at corpses.
• Many other miscellaneous fixes and improvements to AI, maps, models, weapons, etc.

• No more sound-related (fmodex) crashes, and other major stability improvements
• Full compatibility with non-English language settings
• No more endless reconnect/retry loops when joining servers
• All ambient sounds working correctly
• Advanced new mapping features allowing for impressive gameplay customizations
• Two new weapons
• Many new and improved maps
• Beta Opposing Force storyline support
• A secret monster ability
• Literally hundreds of smaller additions, tweaks, and bugfixes