Half Life thread - Discussions about Valve's FPS magnum opus(es) and any related content (spin offs, expansions and etc)

[herefortheactualthreads]

bla bla bla mr. freeman.

 

[NSJAP]

I imagine if this happened that the Combine would eventually just get fed up and call in their actual military reserve reinforcements from the Overworld to use some overpowered space magic EMPs or something to fry her in the facility. Unless she can find a way to stop the reinforcements from arriving I guess, because the only real win condition for humanity is permanently severing the Combine's ability to reach Earth.

If I made a fan animation depicting the Combine's invasion of Earth, I would want to heavily demonstrate how the Combine you fight in HL2 are equivalent to skeleton crew mall cops with stun batons by showing how powerful and full on cosmic horror-tier their real forces are. Well, even the ones who go to Earth are not the full-scale forces but a "recon squad". Like, a local time freeze and human soldiers and military hardware inside that bubble are slowly beginning to spaghettify, something like that. And never show real Combine units in the frame, just the devastation and aftermath of their actions.

 

[The handsome tard]

Didn't the guy who organized this game get a job a blizzard afterwards or some shit, no wonder all new blizzard games are dogshit.

Actually it was the creator/director who was an incompetent fuckhead all the way to the point it begged the question where how much of it was truly inexperience/incompetence vs maliciousness. Some of the staff did say he was a decent dude to interact with and that maybe he was just in over his head spearheading a project this big with so little experience but the fact a good number of staff members hadnt been paid really makes you wonder if the "decent dude" attitude wasnt just a front.

And yes, he somehow failed upwards to working on Activision and yes, everyone made the same joke when that was announced. And everyone also made the same comments over how unfair is it that he fucking screwed over many honest folks and pretty much scammed fans interested in the project and was able to get away from this shitshow pretty much unscaved. He fell out of the public eye but Im sure that its exactly what he was wanting to happen by that point.

He really demonstrates to me the power of having connections to spearhead these sort of projects from nowhere and then to bail you out in case they fail.

If I made a fan animation depicting the Combine's invasion of Earth, I would want to heavily demonstrate how the Combine you fight in HL2 are equivalent to skeleton crew mall cops with stun batons by showing how powerful and full on cosmic horror-tier their real forces are. Well, even the ones who go to Earth are not the full-scale forces but a "recon squad". Like, a local time freeze and human soldiers and military hardware inside that bubble are slowly beginning to spaghettify, something like that. And never show real Combine units in the frame, just the devastation and aftermath of their actions.

The HL3 from the the original writer would show the Combine has a fucking Dyson sphere. Once a society achieves that thing, it means they literally colonized SUNS.

Even Gordon admitted right there that it was fucking over.

 

[Coolio55]

The HL3 from the the original writer would show the Combine has a fucking Dyson sphere. Once a society achieves that thing, it means they literally colonized SUNS.

I assume that the depressing crap ending is yet another reason why 3 was never finished.
Couldn't Marc have just written "and then Humanity used portal technology to escape to a parallel earth where the Combine don't exist ...even if they may find a way to invade one day" or is that too shitty an ending as well?

 

[The handsome tard]

I assume that the depressing crap ending is yet another reason why 3 was never finished.
Couldn't Marc have just written "and then Humanity used portal technology to escape to a parallel earth where the Combine don't exist ...even if they may find a way to invade one day" or is that too shitty an ending as well?

I mean, not sure if a Deus Ex Machina would be that much better. The key would find a way to keep the Combine from returning to Earth for good (since defeating them is out of the table realistically) and HL2's ending implied that we were off to find that wild card key in the form of the Borealis.

The way to "win" against the Combine is to make things so difficult for them to GET to you that they decide the juice aint worth the squeeze and thus have them leave Earth alone. Then I'd imagine its a clean up job in dealing with the remaining forces on Earth and then hope you can rebuild society "somewhat" with the resources that the combine didnt take/destroyed.

I do agree that HL3's ending from Marc, the one with Gordon left on a future so distant that Earth might not even exist anymore, was rather unfilfilling (tho I dont discard it was a placeholder ending since the project was barely progressing on the development end). Its possible "Ep 3" was just one version of events Marc had and he never had an "official" one but he was rather jaded that the Valve he knew ceased to be so he decided to "leak" this, much to his eventual regret (some interpret the melancholic ending as his way of expressing his feelings over Valve's changes over the years along with his departure).

 

[Star Classic]

Some gutsy mofo managed to get operator rights to the Hunt Down The Freeman Steam page and repository and is steady at work forging it into an actually enjoyable game. Godspeed you, crazy diamond.

Well, if somebody's gotta be the "I did not care for the godfather" guy about this then I suppose I will. Usually I'm in favor in projects like these but I find this one to be meh. I just think that there are way too many factors working against it, and from some of the footage it seems they're doubling down on it at least in regards to art design. I think the premise itself is weak as well and using full third person cutscenes just feels so antithetical to Half-Life. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing to salvage with HDTF.

Above all, no matter how good this revamp is its not going to surpass whatever lulz I got out of its launch. maybe some people want something more out of it, but I'll take so-bad-its-good over so-mid-its-unremarkable any day of the week.

I assume that the depressing crap ending is yet another reason why 3 was never finished.
Couldn't Marc have just written "and then Humanity used portal technology to escape to a parallel earth where the Combine don't exist ...even if they may find a way to invade one day" or is that too shitty an ending as well?

"B-but muh lovecraftian ending! Muh nihilism so deep!"

Laidlaw himself said he wrote Epistle 3 when he was "deranged" so in all likelihood it was written as a giant FU to Half-Life. Also just completely forget the fact that both Episode 1 & 2 were both pretty positive and had a very clear "fighting insurmountable odds and winning" feel to their stories. Whatever, Laidlaw doesn't like it anymore and to be honest I never really did either.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Some gutsy mofo managed to get operator rights to the Hunt Down The Freeman Steam page and repository and is steady at work forging it into an actually enjoyable game. Godspeed you, crazy diamond.

It will be the greatest video game in time.

 

[Michael Wade]

This is what's going to happen this week.

 

[Captain Dipshit]

Hopefully they get a voice actor who knows how to pronounce "Mesa" this time.

 

[Yak-130 Mitten]

Some of the staff did say he was a decent dude to interact with and that maybe he was just in over his head spearheading a project this big with so little experience but the fact a good number of staff members hadnt been paid really makes you wonder if the "decent dude" attitude wasnt just a front.

He is a fucking turk, there are no decent roaches.

 

[Deus Exica]

The HL3 from the the original writer would show the Combine has a fucking Dyson sphere. Once a society achieves that thing, it means they literally colonized SUNS.

Even Gordon admitted right there that it was fucking over.

I am honestly not going to weep if they change this ending. I don't want something quite that unpleasantly bleak.

As far as I'm concerned there's nothing to salvage with HDTF.

HDTF is one of those things where if you were to try and fix it you'd basically have to rip everything out and completely make it into your own thing anyway. If you made me pitch an idea I'd say keep the Opposing Force idea but make the protagonist the dude from that game, have him experience the 7 hour war, and completely rework all the Metal Gear shit into him either working with the combine for some reason or leading his own little rebellion to support Freeman in a different part of the world.

The Half Life universe has plenty of potential for other adventures and characters. No need for this overly dramatic Big Boss shit.

 

[Star Classic]

I am honestly not going to weep if they change this ending. I don't want something quite that unpleasantly bleak.

HDTF is one of those things where if you were to try and fix it you'd basically have to rip everything out and completely make it into your own thing anyway. If you made me pitch an idea I'd say keep the Opposing Force idea but make the protagonist the dude from that game, have him experience the 7 hour war, and completely rework all the Metal Gear shit into him either working with the combine for some reason or leading his own little rebellion to support Freeman in a different part of the world.

The Half Life universe has plenty of potential for other adventures and characters. No need for this overly dramatic Big Boss shit.

I would just outright omit the 7 hour war.

I'm sorry but no, maybe not even Valve themselves, can do that concept justice.

I just don't think the 7 hour war has the same impact if you show it versus being an unseen Lovecraftian event that happened a long long time ago

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

He is a fucking turk, there are no decent roaches.

But but... I :transheart: @NvII iS 8ulLt f0R 88C.

 

[Deus Exica]

I just don't think the 7 hour war has the same impact if you show it versus being an unseen Lovecraftian event that happened a long long time ago

I think being a pov during the war could be fairly impactful still, as an event where you mostly just try to survive and aren't actively fighting on the frontlines.

 

[Star Classic]

I think being a pov during the war could be fairly impactful still, as an event where you mostly just try to survive and aren't actively fighting on the frontlines.

Maybe, Laidlaw wanted to do an "observer" type thing with that failed VR game, I think that might be the only I would want to see.

Like everything in life it probably wouldn't match up to imagination, I think its better that some things don't get depicted outside of the mind.

 

[crowabunga]

I imagine if this happened that the Combine would eventually just get fed up and call in their actual military reserve reinforcements from the Overworld to use some overpowered space magic EMPs or something to fry her in the facility. Unless she can find a way to stop the reinforcements from arriving I guess, because the only real win condition for humanity is permanently severing the Combine's ability to reach Earth.

Given that GLaDOS is a comedic take on an AI takeoff scenario (where, thank God for everyone outside the facility, its terminal goal is to perform limited "testing"), I imagine there's probably some calculus the Combine did: "alright, we know this superintelligence is at a metastable level of growth, we can leave it alone while we finish sucking Earth dry or try and nuke it and risk catalyzing the emergence of a competing hegemonizing superintelligence. We'll just leave it alone." Also, given that GLaDOS and aperture seem to have a better grasp on portal tech than Black Mesa (source: alt-universe Cave Johnson's commentary on the acquisition of Black Mesa), and given that Black Mesa has a better grasp of some portal tech than the Combine, it seems plausible that GLaDOS may be able and cognizant to deadlock the Combine in one way or another.

(Really though I'm just ruminating too much over a dark comedy puzzle game)

 

[Creative Username]

[sperging]

and perhaps the combine has no idea aperture exists

 

[thhrang]

Given that GLaDOS is a comedic take on an AI takeoff scenario, I imagine there's probably some calculus the Combine did: "alright, we know this superintelligence is at a metastable level of growth, we can leave it alone while we finish sucking Earth dry or try and nuke it and risk catalyzing the emergence of a competing hegemonizing superintelligence. We'll just leave it alone." Also, given that GLaDOS and aperture seem to have a better grasp on portal tech than Black Mesa (source: alt-universe Cave Johnson's commentary on the acquisition of Black Mesa), and given that Black Mesa has a better grasp of some portal tech than the Combine, it seems plausible that GLaDOS may be able and cognizant to deadlock the Combine in one way or another.

Remember what GLaDOS says referring to the Combine in Portal 1:

I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them.

This kinda implies she doesn't particularly know or have a plan to actually deadlock them on a global scale. Perhaps she could come up with one if there was an extended engagement, but her at base level could probably be caught off-guard with some hypothetical superweapon that the Overworld probably possess.

(Really though I'm just ruminating too much over a dark comedy puzzle game)

Overanalyzing this stuff is a guilty pleasure of mine, I love this shit.

 

[Creative Username]

Remember what GLaDOS says referring to the Combine in Portal 1:
This kinda implies she doesn't particularly know or have a plan to actually deadlock them on a global scale. Perhaps she could come up with one if there was an extended engagement, but her at base level could probably be caught off-guard with some hypothetical superweapon that the Overworld probably possess.

she may well be using some aperture science laboratory hiding gel (or something) to hide the laboratory from the combine or something

Overanalyzing this stuff is a guilty pleasure of mine, I love this shit.

this thread is MADE for autistic loresperging and by god we should do that as much as we damn well please!

 

[NSJAP]

I cannot grasp why people try to "fix" HDTF. Berkan shat out a giant turd that unjustly elevated him to position in Blizzard and in response people try to polish this turd.