Episode 3 Discussion and Information.

Half-Life Series
#381

I’m thinking what will happen is

  1. HL2 ep 3 will open with a rehash scene like its predecessors.
  2. the game will start aboard the helicopter, alyx waking gordon up as they pass over the Borealis or a nearby camp
  3. the chopper will get shot out of the sky by something and careen to the tundra below
  4. the player (through gordon’s narrowing vision)will view a stranger, Possibly the one valve has been talking about (the deaf one), drag alyx back to an encampment or mountainous village. fade to black
    dunno about the rest thoug eventually they’ll get onboard the Borealis
#382

who?

EDIT: ahh.

Trying to get info on what’s happening with Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is kind of like getting stones to bleed red blood. However a new YouTube video, created and uploaded by Samuel Sandoval, managed to get a few drops of info; the clips, which were taken from a focus group at Valve, show Gabe Newell and a deaf interpreter talking about using a deaf character in the long awaited game.

Apparently, Valve is thinking about introducing such a character as a long lost crush of Half-Life 2’s kick-butt female character Alyx. That character would have taught sign language to Alyx who then uses it as a form of silent communication in the game with her faithful robot DOG. It’s interesting that Valve is reaching out to the deaf community for the game (by the way, the embed feature for this video was disabled so you have to click on the source link below to check the video out).

This sounds interesting. A long lost crush of Alyx’s? Hmm as if Gordon had enough pressure on him already.

#383

oops

#384

Gordon has to sleep during long transportation. It’s the only time he can get some sleep and rest.
Thats why he always wakes up on either a tram or a train. Waking up in the chopper when they are close to the destination would make sense.

#385

What needs to happen-

Hunters that camouflage into the snow. In general, enemies should adapt to the cold climate and use ambush tactics on the player to keep them off balance. Perhaps Gordon would be covering the deaf man taking Alyx to a nearby Resistance encampment and a squad of three hunters and infantry support would ambush the player. It would be mean, but it would mean HL2 would finally be making more tweaks to it’s AI.

#386

I want the ice to be important with areas melting away with fire and the ice craking so you have to be very carefull about what sort of weaponry you have to use.

#387

Valve updates the engine with a system similar to that of red faction but for ice?

Anything is possible, I mean it’s VALVe.

#388

I’m hoping for gordon to somehow get the Aperature Science Handheld Portal Device.

#389

I know there was an entity in EP2’s particle benchmark called npc_surface that seemed to be cubemapped moving glob of metaballs. It may be a sign that they were working on volumetric water/ice, or maybe just that they’re working on some kind liquid NPC (the hydra).

Then again it could just mean someone was dicking around in their spare time.

#390

I wonder if valve has any plans for the supposedly late Dr. Breen?

#391

Interesting… Valve is known to dick around with their community alot. God, I wish they would just give us a teaser already.
[COLOR=‘DimGray’]
Also funny how your L4D2 boycott sig is now replaced by “and nothing of value was lost”

#392

there was discussion of this in another thread

#393

Why so dismissive, whorfin? Did Dr. Banzai foil another one of your schemes?

#394

you misunderstand, and misspell, but thats ok. I was merely pointing out a statement of fact. There is in fact a whole thread on the good doctor in this very sub-forum that can be found with the search function and has nothing to do with Dr. Banzai and his band of rock and roll playing scientists. That, and the fact that many of the nerds here fear speculation that does not agree with them. Read the breen thread and see. Thats all.

#395

Adrian Shepard is in the bitter wilderness. Him, Gordon Freeman and Barney are each sent corresponding rings by the Guardians of Oa giving them the power of the emotional spectrum in order to combat the Combine, and save the Green Lantern Corps. Barney is given the Blue Ring of Hope, Adrian Shepard is granted the Green ring of Will, and Larfleeze subjugates Gordon into becoming an Orange Lantern Construct. With the help of an aged and embittered Batman- Gordon, Barney, and Adrian will save earth!

This is, probably the best speculation I can give. Their business practices suck but Valve does a very good job at surprising me. Not like Episode 2, which, from playing Episode 1 first day you could probably foretell to the last detail all the way up, and stopping just at, the end.

Whatever happens, there’s probably going to be a physics puzzle somewhere in it.

#396

One thing i’ve pondered was the possible absence of antlions, and what that entails. Since i don’t think a barren arctic environment would be suitable for any giant insect to thrive (insects seem to die in cold habitats), i think it would make sense that you may not encounter them this time around. But the Antlions have been a pretty consistent class of cannon fodder in HL2 so far, usually altering the gameplay somehow (pherapods, hole-plugging, goopy caverns, etc).
So do you think it’s possible they might introduce some sort of new “swarm-type” enemy? Either as a fresh replacement, or just a gameplay successor? I dunno, it’s hard to speculate since we don’t know exactly what sort of terrain is involved (rock/ice), but it seems possible. maybe some sort of snow burrowing synths that the combine drop, like the cut hl2 sackticks, or the shit-weasels from Dreamcatcher. I don’t think they’d just drop that class altogether.

#397

Something like that may be logical but you know how Valve hates to throw in new content where it’s not necessary. I can easily see, however- it becoming 5 hours of the Citadel with different coloring. But then again this is a completely new arena- Combine repelled, forces at bay and dwindling with worldwide uprisings, there’s oppertunity there for them to completely flip the bitch and take us somewhere we haven’t been before.

As I see it- we’re going to go through a snowy section of teleported building with headcrabs and zombies, eventually we’ll run into overwatch and hunters, we’ll go into the Borealis with Alyx, see some relics and travesties committed by arpature science to the sound of a synth machine puking, Alyx will say ‘Oh my god’ a couple times. And custom animation walk up to a console containing information and explain what’s going on. Kleiner will sound distressed and explain more stuff.

Anybody could guess all that, I really am just waiting on what revelations are tied to Gman over anything.

#398

I just hope that they bring back the Borealis (practically confirmed) and Kraken Base, and maybe have a new enemy and/or weapon.

#399

They’ll probably have a little enemy guy that’ll be featured in promotional materials or a new type of combine/synth/alien dude who’s an adopted native to whatever cold-ass part of the world the game will take place in.

You know what’d be cool as all hell but will most definitely not happen?

Glimpses or the factoring in of Xen. I, for one, would lose my fucking mind at that, for it to come full circle like that.

#400

Perhaps they might have some apsci Military androids (as mentioned in the level with the turrets in Portal) pulling their exceeedingly rusted and patchwork chassis out of snowdrifts to attack Gordon.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.