Half-life 2 Cut Content - Is it me or dose the cut content look better than what we got? - Games

[QUOTE=95Navigator;46209285]Im talking about this tunnel [url]http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/File:Borealis_s02.jpg[/url] It cannot exist within the ship, because it goes through the engine rooms.[/QUOTE] And I thought the ship was, more or less, a recreation of USCGC Polar Sea. Or was it just the exterior and stuff like engine models, doors, etc. with nothing to do with the ship's internal structure?

[QUOTE=95Navigator;46209158]Well... I just discovered the... supposed Valve way of entering the Borealis (through the flooded tunnel with the hanging soldier ragdoll) is, infact, impossible. That tunnel goes through the engine rooms. Im actually curious to know if MI bumped into this problem.[/QUOTE] Yeah there's a lot of things that doesn't make sense with the Borealis. We thought about changing it but we had already delayed the release about a year. I keep thinking about the Borealis, and things that we could make better (we wanted Odell to follow you through the entire ship but that's a lot of content that needs to be made), but I'm not touching it, I'm fairly certain people have had their fair share of Borealis (and e3).

there's some impossible spaces in retail HL2 as well. The second stair well in the apartment building you go though at the start is one of them.

Well since we're touching that subject, it goes all the way to HL1. In Blast Pit, if you try to put the levels together the flooded tonnel with a bullsquid clips straight through the fan shaft making flawless level combining a bit impossible. As to the Borealis, the brushwork on its maps is simply disgusting at times (I mean Hammer- and optimisation-wise, not aesthetics).

They managed to make a pretty nice concave surface for the head of the ship though, regardless of how many brushes its made of.

[QUOTE=Cvoxalury;46211019] As to the Borealis, the brushwork on its maps is simply disgusting at times (I mean Hammer- and optimisation-wise, not aesthetics).[/QUOTE] The leak maps are full of this type of shit, brushwork that doesn't make even the smallest bit of sense for something so simple like a wall.

You know, I wonder; How come Alyx, Captain Vance, the Conscripts, Consul, Kleiner, Barney, and all the important characters doesn't need gas mask despite being there when AirEx is still active? Not to mention no Gas Mask Citizen sound files too. Also, anyone found out what the background voice in the consulcast sound files is saying? It doesn't seem like background chatter because I'm sure c17pa1 the background voice ends with saying City 17 in English. How do you guys think HL2 would originally end? I figure there would have been an Advisor fight before G-Man whisks you away again.

[QUOTE=PikaCommando;46213008]You know, I wonder; How come Alyx, Captain Vance, the Conscripts, Consul, Kleiner, Barney, and all the important characters doesn't need gas mask despite being there when AirEx is still active? Not to mention no Gas Mask Citizen sound files too. Also, anyone found out what the background voice in the consulcast sound files is saying? It doesn't seem like background chatter because I'm sure c17pa1 the background voice ends with saying City 17 in English. How do you guys think HL2 would originally end? I figure there would have been an Advisor fight before G-Man whisks you away again.[/QUOTE] I imagine that was actually a major reason AirEx was cut. If all the major characters had to wear gas masks because of it, the player wouldn't be able to differentiate between any of them except through maybe their voice and basic body structure, because their faces would covered up by a friggin' mask for most (if not all) of the game. Secondly, if proper lipsynching and Faceposer had been intended as a major feature near the start of any real development, keeping the masks (and AirEx by connection) would have ended up being becoming antithetical to that design choice. As for the consulcast, I think it's supposed to be some sort of subliminal message, but from what I'm hearing it sounds almost like the exact same message the Consul speaks in English, but in Spanish instead or something. Why they overlap, I have no clue.

[QUOTE=PikaCommando;46213008]You know, I wonder; How come Alyx, Captain Vance, the Conscripts, Consul, Kleiner, Barney, and all the important characters doesn't need gas mask despite being there when AirEx is still active? Not to mention no Gas Mask Citizen sound files too.[/QUOTE] My theory is that though there are lots of concept pictures of citizens allegedly wearing the masks 24/7, this wasn't the case. You'd have to take the mask off at some point to both wash and eat, and I think that these masks are for certain periods of time when perhaps the pollution caused by the Airex increases to a point where it isn't safe to breath without an aide. Perhaps via smog or cloud cover, or during/after rainfall.

I personally thought that only city air was polluted to critical levels, because of industrial machinery, not because of AirEx. Wasteland's air could be at least torelable to breath.

What would the Air coming out of Air-Ex be? Just them burning shit, or doing some chemical reactions?

Maybe burning some shit, maybe making Earth ready for Combine, like in Doctor Who and ATMOS, but slower. Or as told by RtB - replacing oxygen with some gas, but were only in beginning of process (that could be shown somehow, like graphical screens, or something)

So if you want science... I don't know how many Combine Factory's there are on earth, but I can just say that there's probably a fuckton of them, This means that the CD level would go above a thousand parts per million, (Basically a shitton of Carbon Dioxide the earth doesn't need) And the Thermohaline circulation would shutdown, thus making all the weather in the world either stop or change pretty drastically. Then the oceans (Which probably have some parts not entirely drained yet) would turn into black, oxygenless, stagnate pools of a certain type of bacteria that produce Hydrogen Sulfide, this is important because Hydrogen Sulfide is what is so deadly, making everyone wear masks. So once the entire world is coated in Hydrogen Sulfide, firing a gun would catch the entire atmosphere on fire because Hydrogen Sulfide is really flammable and explosive. So basically, the Airex wouldn't serve any purpose either than to pollute the world with green shit. But we can't NOT have oxygen, because if we didn't have Oxygen then all of the worlds concrete would crumble, everyone's inner ear would burst, and generally the world would be fucked. So I'm assuming that the Airex creates Oxygen, laces it with the existing Hydrogen Sulfide, and spits it back out for human breathing. So the best thing Gordon could do would be to re-engineer it to create Oxygen and NOT lace it, because if it was destroyed then the earth would be doomed. Make of that what you will.

Well, reingeneering it would count as sabotage, right?

If you were to try to fit Air Exchange back into a storyline, you could do a similar thing to Metro 2033/Last Light, where being outside requires a mask to breathe comfortably, but inside buildings there's systems that filter the air and make it safe to breathe. That way you wouldn't have the characters needing to wear masks inside buildings when you're trying to have conversations happen.

[QUOTE=Megadave;46214596]What would the Air coming out of Air-Ex be? Just them burning shit, or doing some chemical reactions?[/QUOTE] Burning is a chemical reaction itself. But they're probably synthetising some new toxic gases there. Or what Thevaultkid said. Maybe burning stuff is invloved as well. Seeing as most of observed surface is a dry wasteland, it could be that the Combine caused globall warming with water vapor and carbon dioxide (products of burning), and maybe that's why they needed the climate control, to stabilise the temperature. Or maybe it's all just conincidental and wasn't taken into account at all during writing.

[QUOTE=PikaCommando;46213008]You know, I wonder; How come Alyx, Captain Vance, the Conscripts, Consul, Kleiner, Barney, and all the important characters doesn't need gas mask despite being there when AirEx is still active? Not to mention no Gas Mask Citizen sound files too. [/QUOTE] I thought of this too and one of the solutions that I came up with was that the gasmask citizens were only to be found working in the industrial part of c17. The rest of the city and the rest of the game was breathable because the Airex didn't produce toxins per-say, everyone just had a hunch that it was doing bad things to either citizens or the air or something and that's why it needed to be blown up. The problem with this is that it breaks canon a little with the first train ride with Samuel. My other solution was that the Airex was pretty brand new to the area when Gordon arrives. I think I like this solution best. The Airex is new and being new means that the facility would be turned on intermittently for testing purposes or something. The resistance could see the threat of a facility like this already witnessing what it did in short bursts when it was turned on for testing. They know what harm it causes and want it to be blown up or disabled permanently before it is fully operational. It could have finished a testing cycle right before Gordon arrives which lead to all the smog around the city. Later while Gordon is busy kicking ass in the chapters leading up to the Airex, it could be turned on permanently or for another test cycle which is why Gordon sees it turned on when he arrives. Another idea is that the Airex is always on and has always been on but only in the city. Maybe the combine used the Weather Control to divert all of the Airex smog directly into the city and nowhere else. That could make the actual wasteland more breathable and not necessary for wearing gasmasks. I think most of the character dialogues happen indoors anyway and the main characters are all introduced indoors too which could mean that the Airex always being on is still an option which means we could just stick to the idea that it's always on, it's everywhere, and it needs to be stopped. What do you guys think?

[QUOTE=Milkyway M16;46215621]I thought of this too and one of the solutions that I came up with was that the gasmask citizens were only to be found working in the industrial part of c17. The rest of the city and the rest of the game was breathable because the Airex didn't produce toxins per-say, everyone just had a hunch that it was doing bad things to either citizens or the air or something and that's why it needed to be blown up. The problem with this is that it breaks canon a little with the first train ride with Samuel. My other solution was that the Airex was pretty brand new to the area when Gordon arrives. I think I like this solution best. The Airex is new and being new means that the facility would be turned on intermittently for testing purposes or something. The resistance could see the threat of a facility like this already witnessing what it did in short bursts when it was turned on for testing. They know what harm it causes and want it to be blown up or disabled permanently before it is fully operational. It could have finished a testing cycle right before Gordon arrives which lead to all the smog around the city. Later while Gordon is busy kicking ass in the chapters leading up to the Airex, it could be turned on permanently or for another test cycle which is why Gordon sees it turned on when he arrives. Another idea is that the Airex is always on and has always been on but only in the city. Maybe the combine used the Weather Control to divert all of the Airex smog directly into the city and nowhere else. That could make the actual wasteland more breathable and not necessary for wearing gasmasks. I think most of the character dialogues happen indoors anyway and the main characters are all introduced indoors too which could mean that the Airex always being on is still an option which means we could just stick to the idea that it's always on, it's everywhere, and it needs to be stopped. What do you guys think?[/QUOTE] Based on e3_strider, it seems that wearing a Gas Mask is absolutely vital on the streets, and that the toxic gas has not dissipated yet even after the destruction of AirEx. Also, from Samuel's lines, it implies that wearing a gas mask at all times is a must because the atmosphere is so toxic that one step outside without it can cause some real damage. The fact that going on the Express with a mask is a must may mean that even the Wasteland is extremely toxic, although that can also imply a choice of not wearing the gas mask when not on the Express. Also, why would the Combine provide an Oxygen for a species they could care less about? They seem to be only interested in milking the Earth dry, and that the Citizens surviving till now is all up to the Consul. An alternative theory is that the main characters are so GAR that they breathe toxic fumes for oxygen.

The idea of Airex being used in conjunction with Weather Control sounds like it would be a good idea, perhaps you could even explain that it's being used in that way as a sort of suppression device. Nobody's going to want to (or be easily able to) go outside to undermine the combine if the air is toxic. Could be used to help enforce curfews and lockdowns and that sort of thing. Though, if the Combine can control the weather, it seems a little odd that they'd use it soley for the purpose of blowing toxic air over City 17 instead of just building the thing that emits the air right in the middle of the city instead.

[QUOTE=PikaCommando;46216060]Based on e3_strider, it seems that wearing a Gas Mask is absolutely vital on the streets, and that the toxic gas has not dissipated yet even after the destruction of AirEx. [/QUOTE] I don't think poisonous gas would dissolve in a day or two that passed between destruction of AirEx and getting back into City 17.

[QUOTE=DrAkcel;46216147]I don't think poisonous gas would dissolve in a day or two that passed between destruction of AirEx and getting back into City 17.[/QUOTE] Except it does, the sky is already clear when we get to the Weather Control. The gas is probably unstable and has to be continuously pumped in the atmosphere by the Airex. The e3 maps and demos and models don't mean anything. The script>the content.

Or maybe AirEx was really re-programmed to clean out the gas, instead of pumping it.

My take is that the Weather Control is a Combine Research Center of sorts, used to study our planet and the human species, and for the development of new Combine weaponary and prototype units (The Combine Guard is one of them). The name itself is meaningless: it could be either a codename or something. Since this facility is extremely valuable to the Combine, proper camouflage and protection are needed. So the Combine came up with this: creating an artificial ecossystem of a constant and extreme snow storm, both hiding the facility and making its acess extremely difficult. This solves many problems: it answers the question of why such a weather when the player is just a few miles from City 17 (a... considerably warm place), gives a valuable purpose to an otherwise unknown installation, and it justifies a whole Conscript mega-assault to it. I want to hear opinions on this.

[QUOTE=Cvoxalury;46216369]Except it does, the sky is already clear when we get to the Weather Control. The gas is probably unstable and has to be continuously pumped in the atmosphere by the Airex. The e3 maps and demos and models don't mean anything. The script>the content.[/QUOTE] Except that the script are just first passes for mappers to make maps based on them, and we're not even sure if Weather Control survived beyond the vignette.

[QUOTE=95Navigator;46216765]I want to hear opinions on this.[/QUOTE]No sir, I don't like it. It has nothing in common with the original Weather Control aside from the name & a shoehorned in excuse for the weather.

[QUOTE=PikaCommando;46220191]Except that the script are just first passes for mappers to make maps based on them, and we're not even sure if Weather Control survived beyond the vignette.[/QUOTE] This isn't about what mappers do. This is about what you use to put the 'original storyline' together. The book is more legit because it was published, it's official, its concepts and drafts are official. There were probably thousands of maps made and it's not because the script was constantly being adapted for mappers; it's because mappers were adapting the gameplay and player navigation. E3 maps mean especially nothing because for all we know both the sky texture there (which isn't exacly smoggy and all) and the cits could be placeholders. Modelers just made that one gasmask citizen model and then used it everywhere because there was no sense in making additional models at the moment; anything was a subject to a change. While pieces in the script sometimes contradict each other (e.g.: Eli says you can 'hardly breathe' the new air, Samuel says you'll be coughing blood in a matter of seconds), the script is still>the content. P.S. You, yourself can do whatever you want, but I'm past the days when I was trying to put the content above the script and make some coherent conclusions from maps and models, NPC spawners and info_nodes. For me, this path just doesn't lead anywhere.

[QUOTE=Cvoxalury;46221228]This isn't about what mappers do. This is about what you use to put the 'original storyline' together. The book is more legit because it was published, it's official, its concepts and drafts are official. There were probably thousands of maps made and it's not because the script was constantly being adapted for mappers; it's because mappers were adapting the gameplay and player navigation. E3 maps mean especially nothing because for all we know both the sky texture there (which isn't exacly smoggy and all) and the cits could be placeholders. Modelers just made that one gasmask citizen model and then used it everywhere because there was no sense in making additional models at the moment; anything was a subject to a change. While pieces in the script sometimes contradict each other (e.g.: Eli says you can 'hardly breathe' the new air, Samuel says you'll be coughing blood in a matter of seconds), the script is still>the content. P.S. You, yourself can do whatever you want, but I'm past the days when I was trying to put the content above the script and make some coherent conclusions from maps and models, NPC spawners and info_nodes. For me, this path just doesn't lead anywhere.[/QUOTE] I was talking about Valve's mappers. The vignettes are just there to give them a general idea of how that part of the game should be like. The proof that the script isn't static is the many changes made to it, mainly Quarry to Traptown, Vertigo to Palace, the cutting of Air Exchange, among other things. These alone are enough to support a possibility that the Weather Control didn't make it far into development. Hell, I'm pretty sure the book itself says that there isn't one complete original storyline together everything shown were from different periods of development, and game is still just a mess of content when Valve was just throwing stuff to see what stuck on the walls.

Honestly, I am more surprised that Weather Control battle was cut so early, but Manhack Arcade was even detailed, and got sounds + scene with Barney, which means the decision to remove it was rather late.

I wonder if Metrocops controlling manhacks of their own conflict with the Manhack Arcade, where Citizens are unknowingly killing people of their own kind.

I hear that if it weren't for the book, we would have never known the existence of the Metrocop Elite. I wonder what other stuff out there that are not revealed? I'm sure they would be of great use to those recreation modders.