Half-Life & Portal series, general discussion (v3) - Games

[QUOTE][B][I]even though it could teleport onto normal walls, maybe glados made a modification? As crazy as aperture is, they wouldn't waste all their funds on that much moon dust if it wasn't important.[/I][/B][/QUOTE] I never said you need moon dust for portals to work, I said it helped if a material had moon dust on it. I thought the white surfaces in portal chambers had moon dust in them though, but this might be faded memory.

[QUOTE=supersoldier58;39279696]I never said you need moon dust for portals to work, I said it helped if a material had moon dust on it. I thought the white surfaces in portal chambers had moon dust in them though, but this might be faded memory.[/QUOTE] I wasn't really complaining specifically to you, but just in general because people tend to misunderstand that.

[QUOTE=BigJoeyLemons;39279629]Aperture's portals aren't [I]only[/I] conductive on moon dust. The portal device was used before the 80's, which was when Cave discovered that it "makes an excellent portal conductor". Then they used that dust to make conversion gel. Portals conduct on most non-metal surfaces. I don't know where people got the idea that you need moon dust for portals to work.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=supersoldier58;39279696]I never said you need moon dust for portals to work, I said it helped if a material had moon dust on it. I thought the white surfaces in portal chambers had moon dust in them though, but this might be faded memory.[/QUOTE] The PTI video does show them making panels using a "Lunar Materials Fluidification and Firing" process, but the video isn't canon in the main story universe. In any case, it's probably just that it works better on moon dust than anything else.

[QUOTE=Neo Kabuto;39279759]The PTI video does show them making panels using a "Lunar Materials Fluidification and Firing" process, but the video isn't canon in the main story universe. In any case, it's probably just that it works better on moon dust than anything else.[/QUOTE] I was under the impression that the actual content in the videos is canon, just Cave Johnson narrating wasn't.

[QUOTE=Neo Kabuto;39279759]The PTI video does show them making panels using a "Lunar Materials Fluidification and Firing" process, but the video isn't canon in the main story universe. In any case, it's probably just that it works better on moon dust than anything else.[/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7rZO2ACP3A[/media] Here is the video mentioned in the above post.

[QUOTE]Sorry, can’t comments on unreleased story elements. I can only say they tried to get in.[/QUOTE] I hope this gets expanded on.

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39280174]I hope this gets expanded on.[/QUOTE] Where is that from?

[QUOTE=danharibo;39280991]Where is that from?[/QUOTE] The Marc Laidlaw vault in response to a question asking about the combine and aperture.

[QUOTE=halflife_123;39276396]What's to say that Aperture didn't create planar and spherical portals? If the Borealis teleported to the arctic through a planar portal then they would need something to put the portal on. This is also assuming that they didn't use something like the portal gun because they hardly placed one portal beneath the Borealis and then trekked to the arctic to place the other one (although it does sound wacky and that does fit in with Aperture's attitude).[/QUOTE] We haven't seen any evidence of aperture creating spherical portals though. Their planar portals can adjust for a certain margin of error on surfaces. The wall panels in most of the game are covered in little bumps similar to a golf ball. Glacier walls can be pretty flat, and if there are any lakes nearby they could have used the ice on the surface. [thumb]http://www.rosssea.info/pix/big/Commonwealth-Glacier-Face.jpg[/thumb] [QUOTE=PHrag;39276748]F-stop for camera is actually a ratio of the lens's focal lenght to the diameter of the entrance hole, it has nothing to do with shutter[/QUOTE] I haven't used a good camera in a while, so I'm starting to mix up the terms. I saw a video of a concept that better explains how variable portal sizes would work a long time ago, but the closest I was able to find is this gif. [img]http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/VZ5o7-1.gif[/img] The dude that made this has a ton other videos similar to it with other weird concepts, such as walking through the portals to shrink themselves or using a camera-like portal to bring objects from alternate times to the current one.

My new HL2 art, that I want show to you guys. [img]http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/3074/jf71016078.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Copperbotte;39281973]We haven't seen any evidence of aperture creating spherical portals though. Their planar portals can adjust for a certain margin of error on surfaces. The wall panels in most of the game are covered in little bumps similar to a golf ball. Glacier walls can be pretty flat, and if there are any lakes nearby they could have used the ice on the surface. [thumb]http://www.rosssea.info/pix/big/Commonwealth-Glacier-Face.jpg[/thumb] I haven't used a good camera in a while, so I'm starting to mix up the terms. I saw a video of a concept that better explains how variable portal sizes would work a long time ago, but the closest I was able to find is this gif. [img]http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/VZ5o7-1.gif[/img] The dude that made this has a ton other videos similar to it with other weird concepts, such as walking through the portals to shrink themselves or using a camera-like portal to bring objects from alternate times to the current one.[/QUOTE] this was in portalized i miss that

[QUOTE=d3m0l1sh3r;39283341]My new HL2 art, that I want show to you guys. -god's gift to humanity-[/QUOTE] Welp, time to change my desktop background.

[QUOTE=Chrille;39277121]In Portal 2 suspension of disbelief also comes quite easy because it's an immersive game, until you remember that it's supposed to fit into the already existing and serious universe we see in the Half-Life games. Aperture has portable portal devices that works even to a degree (they build test courses around it) and also has involuntary time travel in 1952, while Black Mesa needs a nuclear reactor to do it in the 21st century? [B]It defeats the point of Aperture being the second place because their science is simply too fantastic. Black Mesa must have had some serious shit back then to come out on top. Also makes you wonder why and if Aperture hadn't been able to develop the technology further in all that time space.[/B][/QUOTE] Their technology may have been fantastic, but their safety was non-existent. The reason the government didn't want to do anything with them was because they didn't know what they were doing in the first place, hence [I]"throwing science at the walls"[/I]. Its like trusting a five year-old with an assault rifle rather than a trained marine with a pistol for protection. Keep in mind that Black Mesa had [B]Inter-dimensional[/B] portal devices, which Aperture didn't research until 1988, and by then the company was already falling apart following Cave's death. The portals they made weren't even reliable at the time, constantly closing in on their participants midway, while Black Mesa had fully functional inter-dimensional travel. Aperture's technology was amazing, but were never more than prototypes. That is why they failed to impress.

[QUOTE=d3m0l1sh3r;39283341]My new HL2 art, that I want show to you guys.[/QUOTE] Were you the one that made those other 3 hl2 posters with the different phases of the citadel?

[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;39283723]Aperture's technology was amazing, but were never more than prototypes. That is why they failed to impress.[/QUOTE] Like that old guy in that episode of Jimmy Neutron who never finished any of his incredibly dangerous inventions, Finbarr Calamitous. [sp]why am i suddenly recalling jimmy neutron villains[/sp]

[QUOTE=Copperbotte;39281973]I haven't used a good camera in a while, so I'm starting to mix up the terms. I saw a video of a concept that better explains how variable portal sizes would work a long time ago, but the closest I was able to find is this gif. [img]http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/VZ5o7-1.gif[/img] The dude that made this has a ton other videos similar to it with other weird concepts, such as walking through the portals to shrink themselves or using a camera-like portal to bring objects from alternate times to the current one.[/QUOTE] Oh, you mean [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/nullsquared/videos?view=0]this guy[/url]?

[QUOTE=BigJoeyLemons;39283833]Why am i suddenly recalling jimmy neutron villains?[/QUOTE] Well, you never did before. This is just because they're so [I]similar[/I]. By the way, don't use spoilers when they aren't spoilers, alright?

snip

[url]http://www.pseudoform.org/[/url] Thats what portalized is now [editline]19th January 2013[/editline] the copyright includes 2013. i'm gonna check it out.

Maybe something in the snow is good at conducting portals? New theory, maybe Aperture science had known about the combine before the rest of earth and had met them first hand back in 1970. It is said by Breen that the combine home world has "gas giants inhabited by vast meteorological intelligences". One of the backup intelligence's lines in Portal 2, the one about the animal king that talks about emergency plans about what to do if the world is taken over by various things, including "sentient coulds". Speculation is that these "coulds" are the combine race in it's pure form. This may also explain multiple details of HL2's advisors. It could be that the combine are a race of these "sentient clouds". This may be why the advisors seem like overinflated worms. Because they are overinflated worms, containing the sentient clouds that are the combine. The air in earth is probably poisonous to them, which is why they take on these sack worm forms, they are like a bio-technological space suit. This could also be how the advisors fly around with such ease and may explain the ghostly "telekinesis" of the barn adviser from EP2. In fact, the meeting of the combine by Aperture science may also explain how the combine know about the borealis and it's secrets. In one expedition, they may have captured an aperture scientest and used that tongue thing to extract information about this world. In fact, that might even explain the origins of the Gman and his Xen crystals. He could have been a scientist taken over by the combine gas, or an illusion of it. he is sent through with a few Xen crystals too, a substance used by the combine for it's cross-dimensional properties. This man then moves on to Black Mesa, a facility more keen on interdimensional teleportation than Aperture. He uses these crystals to impress workers there, and eventually, using one of them, causes the resonance cascade, allowing the combine to blow through from Xen straight into this new resourceful and easily conquerable place we call earth. The Gman being a different variation of an advisor may also explain his supernatural ways.

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;39285369]Maybe something in the snow is good at conducting portals? This may be why the advisors seem like overinflated worms. Because they are overinflated worms, containing the sentient clouds that are the combine. In fact, the meeting of the combine by Aperture science may also explain how the combine know about the borealis and it's secrets. In one expedition, they may have captured an aperture scientest and used that tongue thing to extract information about this world.[/QUOTE] So the tongues are like evil tube balloons.

Maybe the Borealis accidentally went to Xen, and returned to Aperture all filled with Xen shit, and then they permanently sealed the vault because they knew not to unleash Xen creatures to the world. Then the crew members aboard the Borealis are left to die, so they rig it up to teleport them again. This teleport was much weaker due to how they had to use auxiliary power to accomplish it, so it takes them a few years to show up in the middle of the arctic. The Combine knew about it because it landed on Xen, and one of the crew members was a Black Mesa spy who managed to get out before they sealed the drydock with a few Xen crystal samples and the schematics for how to teleport to Xen. Then Black Mesa figured out how to make the teleportation better (with orb portals) and they started to research Xen wildlife in a logical manner. All that's really unlikely, but hey, it's fun to think about.

[QUOTE=Maestro Fenix;39276725][video=youtube;GyfJ2YUFL1A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyfJ2YUFL1A&t=14m18s[/video][/QUOTE]Why are Portal 2 co-op LPers always british?

[QUOTE=Minelayer;39285540]So the tongues are like evil tube balloons.[/QUOTE] They're more on the phallic leech side of things. Like I said, they aren't totally balloons, they are also a sort of biological shell.

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;39286280]They're more on the phallic leech side of things. Like I said, they aren't totally balloons, they are also a sort of biological shell.[/QUOTE] Evil can cover "phallic" and "Leech"

[QUOTE=BigJoeyLemons;39285703]Then Black Mesa figured out how to make the teleportation better (with orb portals) and they started to research Xen wildlife in a logical manner. All that's really unlikely, but hey, it's fun to think about.[/QUOTE] Black Mesa uses [i]Displacement Field Technology[/i], Aperture Science uses a [i]Quantum Tunnelling Device[/i] They're two completely different areas of research, Aperture's mostly being made up and unexplained whereas Laidlaw often attempts to ground Black Mesa's tech in reality a little.

[QUOTE=Milkyway M16;39283764]Were you the one that made those other 3 hl2 posters with the different phases of the citadel?[/QUOTE] Yes, that were my work too.

[QUOTE=DohEntertainmen;39283723]Their technology may have been fantastic, but their safety was non-existent. The reason the government didn't want to do anything with them was because they didn't know what they were doing in the first place, hence [I]"throwing science at the walls"[/I]. Its like trusting a five year-old with an assault rifle rather than a trained marine with a pistol for protection. Keep in mind that Black Mesa had [B]Inter-dimensional[/B] portal devices, which Aperture didn't research until 1988, and by then the company was already falling apart following Cave's death. The portals they made weren't even reliable at the time, constantly closing in on their participants midway, while Black Mesa had fully functional inter-dimensional travel. Aperture's technology was amazing, but were never more than prototypes. That is why they failed to impress.[/QUOTE] You realize that the Department of Defense would have nothing to gain from interdimensional teleportation, right? Both Black Mesa and Aperture were working on local teleportation. The way Black Mesa's worked, they had to have a relay on Xen so that they could slingshot (Mossman's words) the subject back to their destination on Earth. But their ability to do (half-way) inter-dimensional teleportation was discovered by accident. This ability to do local teleportation was also a huge plot point in Half-Life 2, because the Combine wanted it. And Aperture had this in 1950. A different way of doing it, sure, but it was still working local teleportation. It doesn't even matter that it was faulty back then, there's no reason they couldn't improve upon until Black Mesa got their technology in the 21st century, except maybe a huge gaping plot hole. And they evidently did continue to work on it, because they kept making test chambers.

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;39285369]Maybe something in the snow is good at conducting portals? New theory, maybe Aperture science had known about the combine before the rest of earth and had met them first hand back in 1970. It is said by Breen that the combine home world has "gas giants inhabited by vast meteorological intelligences". One of the backup intelligence's lines in Portal 2, the one about the animal king that talks about emergency plans about what to do if the world is taken over by various things, including "sentient coulds". Speculation is that these "coulds" are the combine race in it's pure form. This may also explain multiple details of HL2's advisors. It could be that the combine are a race of these "sentient clouds". This may be why the advisors seem like overinflated worms. Because they are overinflated worms, containing the sentient clouds that are the combine. The air in earth is probably poisonous to them, which is why they take on these sack worm forms, they are like a bio-technological space suit. This could also be how the advisors fly around with such ease and may explain the ghostly "telekinesis" of the barn adviser from EP2. In fact, the meeting of the combine by Aperture science may also explain how the combine know about the borealis and it's secrets. In one expedition, they may have captured an aperture scientest and used that tongue thing to extract information about this world. In fact, that might even explain the origins of the Gman and his Xen crystals. He could have been a scientist taken over by the combine gas, or an illusion of it. he is sent through with a few Xen crystals too, a substance used by the combine for it's cross-dimensional properties. This man then moves on to Black Mesa, a facility more keen on interdimensional teleportation than Aperture. He uses these crystals to impress workers there, and eventually, using one of them, causes the resonance cascade, allowing the combine to blow through from Xen straight into this new resourceful and easily conquerable place we call earth. The Gman being a different variation of an advisor may also explain his supernatural ways.[/QUOTE] The combine aren't a race.

[QUOTE=Chrille;39288147]You realize that the Department of Defense would have nothing to gain from interdimensional teleportation, right? Both Black Mesa and Aperture were working on local teleportation. The way Black Mesa's worked, they had to have a relay on Xen so that they could slingshot (Mossman's words) the subject back to their destination on Earth. But their ability to do (half-way) inter-dimensional teleportation was discovered by accident. This ability to do local teleportation was also a huge plot point in Half-Life 2, because the Combine wanted it. And Aperture had this in 1950. A different way of doing it, sure, but it was still working local teleportation. It doesn't even matter that it was faulty back then, there's no reason they couldn't improve upon until Black Mesa got their technology in the 21st century, except maybe a huge gaping plot hole. And they evidently did continue to work on it, because they kept making test chambers.[/QUOTE] We don't know when Black Mesa discovered their teleportation technology, and i don't think it was actually said Aperture didn't get any funding for their Aperture Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device, was it? What Black Mesa was working on was much more useful - If you wanted to move anything with the Portal gun you'd have to physically take the gun to both areas, or at least be able see where you want to place a portal, so it would only work for moving things short distances. They may have had some sort of functioning portals in the 50s but the device used was massive, heavy, potentially very unsafe and 50 years later Aperture was still being tested. A retcon is not a plot hole. If what Black Mesa was working on was more promising, then they would or received more money, and I don't think it has actually been said Aperture didn't get any funding for theirs.