He’s probably here to make sure the mod deviates as little from the original game as possible, full of exploits & what have you.
Where did I say that it was dealt with in the last 18 days?..
I said I was sure they addressed it, for all you or I know that could have been months or years ago. This debate may have started now but that hardly means this is the first time the devs have addressed this.
Oh and you don’t want to smoke my stuff, yours obviously has a higher hallucinogenic value.
Oh don’t get me wrong, he’s been part of the discussion for sure, I just don’t appreciate the sarcastic comments. If there’s nothing constructive to say then say nothing.
And by figuring it out, I’ve given a suggestion that is simple and easy to implement which hasn’t yet received any criticism that breaks it. I’d like to hear some. Whether the developers take it or not is up to them, I don’t care that much - but that’s what the suggestion box is here for.
I’m not really interested in this debate, whatever it is, but this jumped out at me while I scrolling through this shit:
That’s a gross generalization, and even as a generalization, it doesn’t hold up very well. I can understand that this may be your general opinion, but you say it as if it’s an objective fact.
When Half Life was released, no one thought the graphics were shitty - in fact, everyone thought they were awesome.
Graphics and animations will continue to improve, and in some years, you may say that contemporary games (games released in 2012) had to compensate for shitty graphics, but that’s not the dynamic between gameplay and graphics now and it wasn’t then either.
Johnyo summed it up pretty nicely. And Raminator posted that 18 days ago fyi.
Sorry, Johnnyo, but I see your point.
I wasn’t going to suggest an idea, but I have one that may work.
A controller enters the room that Vortigaunts are passive in. It does something, and the Vortigaunts shudder and quiver. Then, if the player shoots the Controler (before the scene is complete) and none of the Vortigaunts die, the Controler stops the animation and looks at/attacks you. Then a Vortigaunt attacks. Then another one and then multiple attack at once. They then turn to you and are passive. (Possibly an animation now? They could just look at you…)
It works right?
It shows the player in and of itself that the Vortigaunts are not at peace with the Controlers.
It shows that the Controlers have control over the Vortigaunts.
It shows that the Vortigaunts want to rebel.
Now what if the Controler is killed before he does that animation? The Vortigaunts could do an animation, such as raising their arms in triumph. They then could walk to each other and make their usual noises, only more frequent now. Glancing at the player and back to eachother.
As for earlier parts: I know when you get onto Xen earlier (I’m assuming the Gargantua and Tentacle is the first part with Vortigaunts) in the game you only see Vortigaunts inside this house-like area. If this part was furnished with props in such a way as to make it seem more house-like, then the player could realise that he was charging into a house. As for the HEVscientists in there… If there was a line of blood leading to that spot, indicating that they did not die there it would make it look like Vortigaunts didn’t kill them.
I’m afraid I don’t have much else to say about the other Vortigaunt scenes.
EDIT: Ok. Enemies that sometimes don’t attack you is not a very good idea. But enemies that will always attack you and enemies that don’t attack you unless attacked can be done. Simply show a reason why they don’t attack you. Normaly it’s done with cutscenes but it can work with Half-Life too.
Take the house scene for example. Make it so the Vortigaunts won’t persue you if you exit the house. The failsafe would be if you kill one of them or damage/kill one or more them outside the house (sniping/gernades). The first time (within 1 second of first hit, so SMGs work) they get hurt and they retreat so that the player must enter the house to kill them. Any further damage or a death at any stage results in them acting as normal and persuing the player.
It works, right?
^no. Because you know Half-Life. You know what’s going on, how the Vortigaunts behave and why. Everybody who hasn’t played Black Mesa (or Half Life for that Matter) will become irritated. I think Raminator explained it pretty reasonable and they won’t change it. It would be perceived in a false way. Besides - even the original Half Life didn’t do a great job in imaging the Vorts as peaceful. Sure, there was the Scene in Interloper where they didn’t attack you, but on my first playthrough i was used to them as hostile aliens and so I shot them when I saw them. I realized their passive behaviour only when they had a tactical advantage (in the next room where you drop in the “water”), standing above me so I wouldn’t be able to attack them before they shoot me and they didn’t shoot unless there was a controller in this room. After browsing the Half Life Wiki and studying their Behaviour i was like 
But this was occasional empirical knowledge. I also could’ve thought: “Hell, fucking glitch” or presumed that the Vortigaunts didn’t see/recognized you.
See the problems ?
Well… when you think about it, this is what Half-Life was always about.
You see some aliens, they’re too shocked to see you to have any reaction.
You see a headcrab, it’s busy digesting some smart schmuck’s head.
You see a barnacle, it’s busy being a barnacle.
You see a bullsquid, it’s busy falling to its death.
You see a houndeye, it’s either scampering around or sleeping.
You see a couple of zombies, they’re busy munching.
You see another bullsquid, it’s chasing around some cold schmuck.
You see a soldier, he’s busy murdering a scientist.
You see an automated gun, it’s busy shooting headcrabs.
You see an ichthyosaur eating a scientist before you fall in the water.
You see a huge alien, it’s burning some soldiers.
You see an alien grunt, it’s stuck behind some glass.
You see an apache, it’s clearing the dam of organic invaders.
You see a jet. (I guess it didn’t see you.)
You see some mantas, they’re dropping off some alien grunts.
You see some jets, they’re blowing up some alien grunts.
You see a whole bunch of soldiers, they’re fighting a bunch of aliens.
A lot of Half-Life was letting monsters be busy with things other than attacking the player. The player was oftentimes an observer instead of the focus of the game… it made the world feel more alive, these “scripted sequences”. It’s what made Half-Life better than Doom and such, where every sprite is shooting at you.
…
I don’t understand why a few alien slaves aren’t allowed to tinker with their devices despite the player’s presence. The drones in question were meant to seem unaware of the conflict outside the hive.
Is it hard to communicate motive to the player? Sure… but the possibility of being disengaged is what helps keep Half-Life so darn interesting.
Let an eating bullsquid lie.
im waiting to see if you fucked up bms or not. half life is what got me into gaming, so its an inherited interest, champ.
shiny new graphics are great. gameplay is essential.
fact of the matter is if you fuck up the game play, everyone will just go back to playing half life.
all the HD screen shots in the world wont make up for a game that plays like gunman chronicles.
bms is more or less Raminator’s Half Life. just like when old movies are remade and reinvisioned by talentless directors who dont understand why the movie he is recreating was so great in the first place.
EDIT: the choice given between either killing scientists or not and not having any direct consequences was the game changer. not the graphics that were awesome at the time.
i 100% agree
but in a technical sense, there was a golden period between about 1997 and 2003 where graphics and game play met at a golden ratio. one was not favored over the other because both graphics and gameplay at the time had equal faults and advantages that contrasted each other.
valve knows the value of wabi sabi. so do i. idk if raminator does.
You’re giving Raminator too much credit. He’s not the only one calling the shots.
“I used to make remakes of Half-Life but then I took 7 years doing it and still haven’t released it yet.” - Raminator
i hope for bms’s sake youre right.
Besides, is a small detail like that going to ruin the game for you? I bet most people just straight up shot the Vorts when they reached that part, because that’s what they did for the whole game.
BTW, I made up that quote, Ram never said that.
There were also plenty of shitty games and games that wouldn’t have qualified as having that ‘golden ratio’, however you may define it (probably not as Φ), and likewise there are plenty games released since 2003 that surely would qualify as that. You’re a HL fan, did you enjoy HL2? The L4D games? The Portal games? Come on, man, you couldn’t possibly think the gameplay mechanics of the Portal games are shitty.
Wabi sabi! That’s a good use of that term. But you haven’t even played the game yet, you can’t know anything about the gameplay. (other than the vort issue being discussed).
And, yeah, sorry, I know my comment was completely off-topic - that old school/new school thing just caught my eye, and i just wanted to toss in a quick aside.
+1
You bastard you beat me to it!
That’s like the original Xen idea VALVe had. Gordon had to “create” a rebellion with the vorts against the Nihilanth and his controllers. The only problem was that 80% of the players would shoot the vorts at the very moment they saw them. That’s why Valve often used…
If we simply want that 80% players group see that the vorts ain’t hostile before they waste all their precious MP5 Ammo, we need scripted sequences. If we don’t use them, well at least the 20% will know what’s really going on.
[COLOR=‘Black’]Never evil grinn
It’s not that everyone’s mixing it up. It’s just that people who got the idea don’t post about it.