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

I think in those places the identical song NEVER repeats.

I wonder if the HEV suit will be upgraded again. If there was any place to upgrade the HEV suit it would be White Forest, especially as it is a heavily fortified laboratory bunker that was a Black Mesa facility on top of that.

i wonder if the long-jump module will ever return.

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39334016]I wonder if the HEV suit will be upgraded again. If there was any place to upgrade the HEV suit it would be White Forest, especially as it is a heavily fortified laboratory bunker that was a Black Mesa facility on top of that.[/QUOTE] It's on the wrong half of the planet to be a part of Black Mesa. It's just an old Soviet missile silo base.

[QUOTE=Neo Kabuto;39334136]It's on the wrong half of the planet to be a part of Black Mesa. It's just an old Soviet missile silo base.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Half Life Wiki]The base is installed in an aging Cold War base bought very cheap by Black Mesa to develop some projects in response to budgetary and oversight problems associated with basing all work in North America.[/QUOTE] Though the source for this is that they made this backstory but scrapped it in-game due to it slowing the game down, so it may not be canon anymore, though this is line is also posted in the Marc Laidlaw vault. It can possibly be assumed canon until proved otherwise, or has complications.

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39334304]Though the source for this is that they made this backstory but scrapped it in-game due to it slowing the game down, so it may not be canon anymore, though this is line is also posted in the Marc Laidlaw vault. It can possibly be assumed canon until proved otherwise, or has complications.[/QUOTE] The wiki is actually possibly wrong here. The cited source says they ditched that idea: [QUOTE=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/181620/features/the-orange-box-dissected-with-valve/?page=2]"In early drafts of the episode, Eli and Kleiner had warmed up White Forest all by themselves, somehow, in the brief time after fleeing City 17. This seemed ridiculous, so we developed a backstory in which Black Mesa had acquired an extremely cheap Cold War bunker and developed some projects in response to budgetary and oversight problems associated with basing all work in North America. "Again, all the explanatory matter bogged down the game, so we ditched it. There may still be some old lines hanging around in the .wav files, but I haven't looked..."[/QUOTE] I'm not really sure where this should be taken into consideration, since they didn't say the idea is totally gone, but it's not in the game either.

[QUOTE=Neo Kabuto;39334402]The wiki is actually possibly wrong here. The cited source says they ditched that idea:[/QUOTE] I think that means they ditched the idea of explaining all of this in-game, not scrapping the concept.

[QUOTE=Neo Kabuto;39334402]The wiki is actually possibly wrong here. The cited source says they ditched that idea: I'm not really sure where this should be taken into consideration, since they didn't say the idea is totally gone, but it's not in the game either.[/QUOTE] As I mentioned in my post, I believe it should be considered canon until it can be proven in some way not canon, either through complications or explicitly said. Even if it isn't a black mesa location, it is still a very viable place to upgrade the HEV suit.

I like the difference in how Black Mesa and Aperture are coming along after the Resonance Cascade.

[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;39334439]I think that means they ditched the idea of explaining all of this in-game, not scrapping the concept.[/QUOTE] I guess we'll need to email them about it and hope for a response, then. The base still had signs in Cyrillic in-game, so it doesn't seem like any official Black Mesa presence changed much. [editline]23rd January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=hogofwar;39334458]Even if it isn't a black mesa location, it is still a very viable place to upgrade the HEV suit.[/QUOTE] It definitely is, since it's safe enough, has the top researchers around and has tech available for it.

What if there is a new gravity gun similar to the portal gun that can shoot localized gravity distortions? Need to get up there? Just shoot some anti-gravity. Combine on your ass? Shoot some increased gravity their way and watch them get crushed.

[QUOTE=Neo Kabuto;39334489]I guess we'll need to email them about it and hope for a response, then. The base still had signs in Cyrillic in-game, so it doesn't seem like any official Black Mesa presence changed much. [editline]23rd January 2013[/editline] It definitely is, since it's safe enough, has the top researchers around and has tech available for it.[/QUOTE] I already emailed, I hope it wasn't unnecessary but I couldn't find anything specific about it anywhere else.

Maybe this time, the HEV suit will include a helmet.

[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;39334672]Maybe this time, the HEV suit will include a helmet.[/QUOTE] And cover up that ponytail? Nah.

[QUOTE=DevinWatson;39334539]What if there is a new gravity gun similar to the portal gun that can shoot localized gravity distortions? Need to get up there? Just shoot some anti-gravity. Combine on your ass? Shoot some increased gravity their way and watch them get crushed.[/QUOTE] There was that weapon in ep1 that was removed I think, the one that let you make a temporary black hole kind of thing. Maybe they could expand on that.

We still have a Portal megathread y'know

[QUOTE=ojcoolj;39334717]We still have a Portal megathread y'know[/QUOTE] And? Let it die a peaceful death.

It'd be cool if an object was too heavy for the gravity gun to lift/was stuck, it would move the player towards it instead. It'd be great for puzzles and shit if you had a gravity grappling hook.

[QUOTE=ojcoolj;39334717]We still have a Portal megathread y'know[/QUOTE] This is the Half Life and Portal discussion thread, we can discuss portal as much as we please now.

[QUOTE=Zeos;39330808]G-Man just took the perfect time to send him in, the time and place where the Doc and Barney would be.[/QUOTE] What if Barney was never meant to intercept him, maybe he was placed there to be shipped to Nova Prospekt. They would have flagged him up as a mystery before being discovered as Gordon Freeman. Breen would have then likely have taken him to the citadel where he would have been used as a pawn to bring Eli to the Combine view and break the Resistance while working with Mossman to redevelop teleporter technology. Going with this Mossman could have very well sent Gordon to Eli or Kleiner.

Got a response from Marc about White Forest, seems to confirm it is a Black Mesa base. [QUOTE=What I Sent]Hello! Just a quick and simple question: Is the backstory composed for White Forest still canon? The backstory in question: "In early drafts of the episode, Eli and Kleiner had warmed up White Forest all by themselves, somehow, in the brief time after fleeing City 17. This seemed ridiculous, so we developed a backstory in which Black Mesa had acquired an extremely cheap Cold War bunker and developed some projects in response to budgetary and oversight problems associated with basing all work in North America." In the interview I found this in, it was mentioned that the explanation was ditched in game. Even though it was ditched can it still be considered canon? Thank you[/QUOTE] [quote=Marc's reply]Yes, that was our thinking, we just didn't want to spend time on tedious backstory explanations delivered in the game...I think we had them at one point but they were among the many things that got cut to streamline the story.[/quote]

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39335415]Got a response from Marc about White Forest, seems to confirm it is a Black Mesa base.[/QUOTE] Well, that's settled. Hopefully they'll go into it more in the next game before we leave the base.

There'll probably be a new temperature meter on the suit, which will determine how long you can be in a certain area before freezing. Would make for interesting puzzle opportunities.

This is coming from a guy who hasn't even finished HL2, but I would think it would be cool to return to the remains of Black Mesa, whatever is still there, that is. [sp]If this has already been done I will feel like the biggest moron ever.[/sp]

[QUOTE=TectoImprov;39336864]This is coming from a guy who hasn't even finished HL2, but I would think it would be cool to return to the remains of Black Mesa, whatever is still there, that is. [sp]If this has already been done I will feel like the biggest moron ever.[/sp][/QUOTE] i'm pretty sure that they considered the nuking in Opposing Force to be canon to the storyline. If you were to go back it'd most likely be rubble with a few Barney's hanging around.

[QUOTE=Ki11aFTFW;39336976]i'm pretty sure that they considered the nuking in Opposing Force to be canon to the storyline. If you were to go back it'd most likely be rubble with a few Barney's hanging around.[/QUOTE] Never returning to Black Mesa was the reason they consider the ending of OPF canon in the first place. Though it would make for an interesting concept to return to a bunch of rubble wth a few unmodified original barneys and scientists scattered around.

so any thoughts about e3?

[QUOTE=Minelayer;39334034]i wonder if the long-jump module will ever return.[/QUOTE] It can be a power boost module the rebels made that you can use to jump over crevices and holes in the Borealis' hull! It's all set up too perfectly...

I wonder if in Ep3 we'll get the suit's helmet back. I know Laidlaw has stated Gordon was wearing one in HL1.

[QUOTE=Ereunity;39340540]I wonder if in Ep3 we'll get the suit's helmet back. I know Laidlaw has stated Gordon was wearing one in HL1.[/QUOTE] It doesn't matter because you cant see it anyways.