• Black Mesa V7 - 'Where the fuck is Xen' Edition
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https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/217968/a50bee55-1ec4-476c-96f7-5592198b708d/image.png
My first thought was that the tower is the nihilanth gate ie: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/205958/a7b6a088-5ca6-4beb-80f8-83aa17841641/Teleport_Nihilanth.jpg
RIP black void and disconnected nightmare Xen, I loved you more than anyone else
I hope they find a way to reincorporate it, like the floating islands void could be encompassed in a giant black hole-looking barrier that you pass through and can't go back
Optimistic: Maybe that's the teleporter to void room.
I really hope some sort of On a Rail Uncut can still be implemented.
As long as the mod works I'm good.
If this is indeed what they're going for then I couldn't be happier. I imagine Valve would've much preferred having a more continuous Xen layout instead of breaking it up with teleports but I get this feeling that time restrictions kind of forced them to awkwardly join all the distinct maps together with teleports. Re: the portal, I too will miss the black void room but let's face it. That Nihilanth portal could not possibly be improved in any way. It's peak heavy metal. Better if the team just does something unique with the concept instead.
Incredibly hyped! Can't wait for all the Xen assets and the batshit bonkers Xen-based custom multiplayer maps we'll be getting.
the red orb the nihilanth is holding seems to be the other side of the portal on top of the tower, you can see the prongs also when he says "comes another" at the end, the top of the tower's glowing intensifies in time with the words, further supporting that it's the nihilanth portal
That reminds me: when I did my hat achievement run, I punished myself for no good reason by having that mod installed. (The hat does not like the rail carts at all. It slips off very easily, and then because of a glitch it becomes a static prop until you shoot it with a gun and grab it in mid air. I lost count of how many times I had to do this before I finally got to the end of the fucking chapter.)
I'm really torn between this new dazzling and lively eye-gasm Xen design, and the bewildering, outlandish Giger-esque fever-dream that scared the shit out of me back in the day.
Has anyone figured out what Nihilanth says at the end? All I can hear clearly is "Come", followed by something garbled starting with 's'.
I think its just the blue and orange skybox that has been shown which seems to be familiar like from Earth. Some people would mod the old skies back to get that disturbing look anyway. Besides didn't they tell before that they have the green sky in the game later in the game?
"Comes another", it's a quote from HL1
Once again the waiting is getting worth it. Remember: you can't rush art.
Yep, when you first drop into Xen, before you have time to properly orient yourself, you hear "Comes another..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTiU-nzCHUo Really set the tone for me, even if Xen ends up being a rather weak chapter.
I feel like It will get progressively more disturbing as you approach nihilanth's(?) meatstick in the distance. The texture on it as well as the surrounding clouds of gore-fumes(?) look really fucking gross (in a good way) and makes me glad you can't smell the game. I could be wrong, and it might turn out that nihilanth is just a big fan of roger dean, but I feel like the final levels are going to be much more meaty. If you take a look at the concept art they released for interloper (see below) It kind of supports this. Of course, they are probably not done with the art assets or overall design (which is probably why they didn't include the fleshy walls in the trailer) and they could have decided to make these levels look more relayer than brain salad surgery, but I doubt it. https://i.imgur.com/lRnuK5S.png https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/8672783/9c5b82236870e7789af91b75b02e8eaf33c61527.jpg
In case anybody was curious, the footage shown was only from the Xen chapter and the first map of Gonarch. Looked like a ton of environmental variety out of just those sections and it probably only accounts for around half of the content Here’s the link
Question, does Black Mesa currently come with Surface Tension Uncut?
Yep, it was added back in 2016.
Well not quite
Yeah, didn't TextFAMGUY1 say licensing was problematic, since he wasn't the part of the original mod team? Can you elaborate?
They revamped Surface Tension, but it wasn't just a copy of a mod.
That wasn't it. The issue was more that the mod stuff I'd created was very far below quality level for the team, and was built using decompiled VMFs, which were less than ideal for use in a finished product, particularly a retail one. This is why when we decided to do ST:U officially, we went with making the maps from scratch again, but built upon the best ideas from my mod version, throwing in a bunch of new stuff too. I still built it myself mostly and did a significant chunk of the mapping for it, though there was obviously a huge amount of team and level designer input overall, so I can't really say it's mine - but I can call it my vision at least. So yeah, for all intents and purposes, the retail release comes with Surface Tension: Uncut. That was what we called it too, seeing as it was so well known among the community. It's superior in every conceivable way to my old mod version, and IMHO is some of the best content in our game. I'm super proud of what my humble lil' ol' fan mod ended up becoming. --- On another note, been really fun sitting here watching you guys speculate/talk about Xen. Absolutely thrilling, in fact!
You guys did a wonderful job with surface tension. What really sells it is a lot of the background dialogue and ambiance like how soldiers radio chatter is filled with panic and desperation or how it feels like you're in the middle of a war all gone wrong.
I just noticed that red light in the tower pulses to match the dialogue at the end of the trailer as nihilianth says "comes another" That is definitely the entrance to his place
Man with all this going on maybe I should upload my Vortigaunt sound pack to the workshop. I never bothered to figure out how the workshop works though. And I need to reinstall the game since anyway.
I was curious. Will those tf2 promo items come with the full release of the game (as in, after xen vomes out)?
if i have just one quibble with new xen it's that its a bit less fungal and wholly organic than before but that's okay. rocky xen is probably much more readable. i did especially like the way the islands felt like huge, peaceful inter-dimensional boogers tho.
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