Half-Life and Portal series, general discussion (v6) - Games

[QUOTE=GoldAssassin;48892274]I have an idea about how they would do that open-world/rpg Half-Life stuff that's been going around. Maybe in one point of the game we are supposed to explore an open arctic area and visit some places. Let's just say in that open world arctic area there is some tasks we should do such as: 1. A Combine weapons storage which Gordon and the rebels have to raid 2. A machine hidden in a cave that prevents the rebels from reaching their objective later in the story that Gordon must destroy. 3. Some kind of communications centre for the combine to call backup which Gordon must destroy My thought is Gordon can explore the open arctic area and choose which task to do in any order, so he rides his vehicle down to where the mission is supposed to be, and when he reaches there the mission plays in a linear style like the rest of the series. Once we finish that mission, we get back into the open arctic area and we can choose another task. Maybe we can encounter numerous things/people in the open arctic area, such as a lost rebel in the snow asking for a ride to a near rebel station, a hidden suply cache, or some other things similar to the random encounters in GTA. After all of the 3 tasks are done, the game goes back to proceed with the story in a linear style.[/QUOTE] So...basically a hub world?

Like the original System Shock, we could have Gordon in a large area with objectives that lead him to other places and require certain weapons/technique and often revisiting old places with new weapons. If that doesn't float your boat, instead of levels having one distinct linear path, what about each chapter being a fairly open area to explore. Imagine Ravenholm with fewer roadblocks and as one map and you just had to wander around with little direction. Which reminds me, survival in Ravenholm would be a great small game in and of itself.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;48893039]Like the original System Shock, we could have Gordon in a large area with objectives that lead him to other places and require certain weapons/technique and often revisiting old places with new weapons. If that doesn't float your boat, instead of levels having one distinct linear path, what about each chapter being a fairly open area to explore. Imagine Ravenholm with fewer roadblocks and as one map and you just had to wander around with little direction. Which reminds me, survival in Ravenholm would be a great small game in and of itself.[/QUOTE] As someone who made a map like this none too long ago, I can promise you, it either gets old fast, or insanely difficult fast. Mainly depends on the number and type of zombies spawning. There's no happy middle ground, because you can only shoot so many zombies in the same area so many times before you want something different.

[QUOTE=Butthurter;48889514]imagine having a massive ego trip over reddit users freaking out about the slightest indirect half-life references by valve or something as inconsequential[/QUOTE]I think it'd get quite tiring after 8 years.

[QUOTE=yellowoboe;48892290]"Upon inspection I have concluded that this is in fact a text document."[/QUOTE] Damn, I was hoping it was actually an image which upon further inspection contained the numbers "1267", which when pressed on the Episode 2 statistics page would emit a sound which is actually someone importing a text file into audacity which when converted back to a text file reveals the location of a hidden box 5.2 miles south of Valves headquarters, which must be opened by a key obtained from an Egyptian trader with one eye on the 3rd tuesday of a month. The box then contains a secret phrase, which, when said at 5:25PM on the 27th of November will open a vault on the south pole of mars unleashing an asteroid which will come plummeting to earth, containing the number 3. I guess it's just a text file though.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;48893039]Like the original System Shock, we could have Gordon in a large area with objectives that lead him to other places and require certain weapons/technique and often revisiting old places with new weapons. If that doesn't float your boat, instead of levels having one distinct linear path, what about each chapter being a fairly open area to explore. Imagine Ravenholm with fewer roadblocks and as one map and you just had to wander around with little direction. Which reminds me, survival in Ravenholm would be a great small game in and of itself.[/QUOTE] Father Grigori simulator would make an excellent indie game!

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;48893039]Like the original System Shock, we could have Gordon in a large area with objectives that lead him to other places and require certain weapons/technique and often revisiting old places with new weapons.[/QUOTE] So, the concept behind a Metroidvania game, but applied to a more open Half-Life game? I like it. Might work nicely, hypothetically, with Gravity Gun upgrades.

[QUOTE=Kahgarak;48899452]So, the concept behind a Metroidvania game, but applied to a more open Half-Life game? I like it. Might work nicely, hypothetically, with Gravity Gun upgrades.[/QUOTE] Exactly, though it may be a bit harder to find an excuse for that type of gameplay in the HL2 setting, the idea would've worked spectacularly in BMRF. They did at one point plan on needing keycards didn't they? I played System Shock with the gog release not long ago and it very quickly had become one if my favorite games ever. I'm a little inclined at the moment to think everyone should follow its example to the letter.

[QUOTE=Kahgarak;48899452]So, the concept behind a Metroidvania game, but applied to a more open Half-Life game? I like it. Might work nicely, hypothetically, with Gravity Gun upgrades.[/QUOTE] Yeah, that and maybe some suit upgrades too.

Ah, I miss good old Metroidvania style games. One large map that requires you to explore and do things in a certain order to move the story along. Castlevania: SotN and all the games after it before the reboot were my favorite games to date.

Theoretically, you could probably turn the Borealis and perhaps some Xen dimension or Combine home world into hub/Metroidvania areas, but it'd take some work without outright explaining everything via a convenient radio to guide the player back through previous areas. That's why the Half-Life series works as it is, always guiding the player along without the need for handholding or overly-blatant game cues for progression.

It's not like small hub areas are foreign to Half Life. Blast Pit and Lambda Core are both very hub like though simple. I think the problem is that metroidvania doesn't work as well with larger environments since the backtracking gets big and it could be hard to remember every detail. Metroid, Castlevania SotN and System Shock do it well because it's contained to one explorable location. Trying to stretch it over white foreforest or highway 17 might get annoying. But smaller contained locations like Ravenholm or hypothetically Borealis would work pretty well I think.

I'd love to see the game take you back to Black Mesa. Call me crazy or something but I don't believe that a single nuclear warhead could take out an entire facility that is allegedly huge to a mindfucking degree, especially when large parts of it are at different elevation.

I don't really see why you'd go back to black mesa though other than possibly going back to Xen (assuming Kliener's lab or the Borealis doesn't have the technology) or you're looking for some sort of material.

Well Kleiner did rebuild the teleporter, so he didn't necessarily need anything from Black Mesa. But it'd be interesting none the less. They had a lot of technology and information that the combine would love since even they lacked the ability to teleport like Black Mesa and Kleiner could. And I'd love to see the Gluon Gun brought back just because death lasers are awesome.

[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;48903879]Well Kleiner did rebuild the teleporter, so he didn't necessarily need anything from Black Mesa. But it'd be interesting none the less. They had a lot of technology and information that the combine would love since even they lacked the ability to teleport like Black Mesa and Kleiner could. And I'd love to see the Gluon Gun brought back just because death lasers are awesome.[/QUOTE] It was like the ultimate ghostbusting experience

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;48903621]It's not like small hub areas are foreign to Half Life. Blast Pit and Lambda Core are both very hub like though simple. I think the problem is that metroidvania doesn't work as well with larger environments since the backtracking gets big and it could be hard to remember every detail. Metroid, Castlevania SotN and System Shock do it well because it's contained to one explorable location. Trying to stretch it over white foreforest or highway 17 might get annoying. But smaller contained locations like Ravenholm or hypothetically Borealis would work pretty well I think.[/QUOTE] It also works kinda well for Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Those games are pretty Metroidvania, even if they aren't Metroid Prime.

i saw this awhile ago and stumbled upon it again. has there ever been a real consensus of what this is? [video=youtube;46bF5oFF1YI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bF5oFF1YI[/video] maybe if you decode it it will tell the release date of half life 3 :v:

It's the song that plays for [URL="http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/half-life/images/1/18/D3_c17_020018.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20090612013521&path-prefix=en"]this GMan sighting[/URL], don't think there's anything more to it than that considering it's been the same since HL2 released.

[QUOTE=Amaurus;48903823]I don't really see why you'd go back to black mesa though other than possibly going back to Xen (assuming Kliener's lab or the Borealis doesn't have the technology) or you're looking for some sort of material.[/QUOTE] The real reason is always fan service, my friend. Reasons behind that reason are always sketchy. Especially in this particular case, because, you know, Black Mesa was NUKED. Btw they could pull off Ratman #2 and make you haunt for a crazy scientist that SOMEHOW survived there for 20 years. Or just sent you back in time to rescue a particular scientist. Or... maybe... hmm, sent you back in time [I]even further[/I] and bring back a particular scientist. Possibilities are endless!

[QUOTE=Trixil;48904292]i saw this awhile ago and stumbled upon it again. has there ever been a real consensus of what this is? [video=youtube;46bF5oFF1YI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bF5oFF1YI[/video] maybe if you decode it it will tell the release date of half life 3 :v:[/QUOTE] hmm i'm not sure we should email marc about this...

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[QUOTE=Painkilla;48905992]The real reason is always fan service, my friend. Reasons behind that reason are always sketchy. Especially in this particular case, because, you know, Black Mesa was NUKED. [B]Btw they could pull off Ratman #2 and make you haunt for a crazy scientist that SOMEHOW survived there for 20 years. Or just sent you back in time to rescue a particular scientist. Or... maybe... hmm, sent you back in time [I]even further[/I] and bring back a particular scientist. Possibilities are endless![/B][/QUOTE] I'd rather get punched in the throat than this to be what are we gonna do in the next Half-Life game.

I'd rather not go back to Black Mesa. I'm pretty sure them making it canon that it was nuked to hell means they have no intention of bringing it back.

[QUOTE=Sand Castle;48903656]I'd love to see the game take you back to Black Mesa. Call me crazy or something but I don't believe that a single nuclear warhead could take out an entire facility that is allegedly huge to a mindfucking degree, especially when large parts of it are at different elevation.[/QUOTE] Much of the facility wraps back around itself, though, even when not counting overlaps between HL1 maps. Contrast Aperture Science, a facility so vast its interior has its own 3D skybox.

I'd like to go back to BM in the sense that we see more of what's going on during the incident.

[QUOTE=Sand Castle;48903656]I'd love to see the game take you back to Black Mesa. Call me crazy or something but I don't believe that a single nuclear warhead could take out an entire facility that is allegedly huge to a mindfucking degree, especially when large parts of it are at different elevation.[/QUOTE] I've always thought that the rift actually absorbed most of the nuclear warhead's kinetic energy and just got bigger, and that roughly half of the facility is still left intact, but it is now highly irradiated.

I asked Laidlaw a question yesterday, so if you are wondering why all zombies have ripped out stomachs here is your answer: [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/fprOW0h.png[/IMG]

It's also interesting to note that a fast zombie still has, despite rather decayed, muscle tissue. So in theory it...could move I guess? You know what I really don't understand is [I]why[/I] the fast zombie looks like it does. Even in the HL2 universe, that's not something that's possible...all of the zombies would theoretically rot while "alive" and become useless at some stage...infections, disease and all that which affect the host, while it doesn't concern the headcrab, it does, because its the slave host thats dying lol Ah I'm thinking too much into it. I like to think of HL2 zombies as no more than a few weeks old, fast zombies are a mystery. Poison zombies probably just create extreme tumours that other poison headcrabs use to feed and grow...

[QUOTE=Cinnamonbun;48909397]I asked Laidlaw a question yesterday, so if you are wondering why all zombies have ripped out stomachs here is your answer: *laidlaw answer*[/QUOTE] In HL1, Headcrab Zombies are clearly seen feeding on scientists with their chests. [t]http://combineoverwiki.net/images/1/14/C1a1b_zombie.jpg[/t] It can be easily assumed that they undergo the same process in HL2 to acquire subsistence.