General Xen Chit-Chat Thread

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#581

When I was looking over the cut enemies the only 2 I thought had any real worth was.

Kingpin - but he is not really an enemy he is plot driven. But he is a bit of a missing link. Design is solid. Based off the Guild Navigator from David Lynch’s Dune. He may have had some sort of purpose to do with the xen teleports given what he is based off folding space and so on.

Stukabats - the absence of these actually hurts the gameplay, i would even go as far to say “on a rail” is pointless without this enemy. The design is solid. Based off monster Vampire Bats.

Flocking floaters - another cut flying enemy but I think they look rubbish design is also bad. I think what we can safely assume though is tbat not enough flying enemies. I would swap actually change this enemy to be HECU flying sentry drone with small underside gun. Similar to man-hack from Half life 2. Scary Tecnology.

Probably would ignore everything else apart from Human Sergant he would make a good HECU boss fight. Typical action one on one fight.

I think Black Mesa focusing on variants is a good way of handling the lack of different enemies to fight over quite a long game. Flying enemies is really what is missing from Half Life and certainly a plotless Xen.

Chumtoad is a weapon.

#582

Shawn Olson (developer of Wall Worm and Technical Artist for Black Mesa) showed a couple of slides with screenshots from Xen during his talk at GDC:

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He also had three slides showing some very early Xen concept art by Chris Horn.

A video of his talk can be found via this tweet:

EDIT:

One of the slides had an interesting animation of a Vortigaunt:

and the Gonarch:

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#583

Looking again at the flocking floater…

You know what it reminds me of?

Alien Ressurection’s (4) DNA experiments on Ripley to resdurrect her for the purpose of having an Alien queen. Those weird incubation tubes which are half ripley half alien.

Then I remembered ah, Niahlanth is the last of his kind, he can’t reproduce or is he attempting to reproduce?

If the flocking floaters were simply in liquid chambers like Alien Resdurection this might have been their purpose to show an attempt at reproduction, Niahlanths DNA mixed with something else (almost like a sea horse and a mini Niahlanth). Even if simply aesthetic it could make for an interesting room in the game. Niahlanths effort to not become extinct.

Perhaps it is the case we have never seen them in the correct context before, and perhaps this is part of the factories purpose also to breed a continuation of Niahlanths race.

Just putting 1 + 1 together… Flocking floaters in Healing showers?

If that was the original idea then I imagine you would kill the flocking floater and take the healing energy.

Thieves you are…all thieves you are…

#584

Xengine (cu5) is showing up on steamdb. Has anyone given it a whirl?

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#585

It’s just a copy of the current public-beta, which was last updated in December (same build IDs).

They’ve probably just made a rollback point for the current version of the Xen Engine Update from last year, so that the public-beta branch is now freed up for future betas.

However, they said the Technical Beta would be a “stealth release”, so they’ll probably create a separate branch for it (instead of pushing to the public-beta branch.)

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#586

I saw it, it’s says cu5 (content update 5), it will be a content update!

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#587

The download was 0 bytes and the build id has not changed which leads me to believe they are just getting things lined up before they hit go.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines
VROOM Vroom vroom

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#588

Betting it will go live either tomorrow, or early next week.

#589

Xen & Gonarch only…

#590

I suspect we will first see activity in the closed developer branch before anything gets released in the wild.

#591

I hope the technical beta releases today.

#592

What am I missing? Why would it release today, of all days?

#593

Just be patient.

It has been said this device which has no real purpose in the original game will make a return.

Again and I myself personally am looking for what the unimplemented reason for this actually was meant to be?

I suppose this is again a bit David Lynch Dune inspired we can perhaps infer it was meant to attract an enemy away similar to the thumpers attract the sandworms or in half life 2 it would be the thumper attracts the insect arachnids starship troopers type enemies.

My initial thought would be it was meant to allow you to pass tentacles as this is the most worm like enemy and obviously like sandworms were attracted by sound. It would actually be interesting to see the device finally realised to do something rather than “just for show” and failed implementation.

This seems an obvious answer but having stuff in the original game which is by and large unfinished content that is just there but not fully realised or technical hurdles that could not be overcome is honestly what i am looking forward to most. It is a chance to finish off what could not be completed in 1998. There is an awful lot of things that have little reason or depth in the original game.

I also wondering about those diamond shaped switches that let out puffs of smoke if they might show up…

Thinking a bit more on Kingpin and guild navigator similarity there has to be a consumption based mechanic. Guild navigator eats spice / Kingpin eats vortigaunts? Humans?

But obviously i am not bothered wether kingpin shows up or not but we can infer based on what it is designed on there would have been a consumption based mechanic and that it teleports away.

Soul sucking? Are the protozoa floating things like lost souls? Or first form of some type of xen life ancient. But the soul sucking was mentioned by laidlaw so i just imagined that was perhaps the consumption mechanic.

I have a funny feeling Alien Grunts might not just be Alien Grunts…

#594

And we are, it changed versions 3 or 4 times yesterday.

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#595

You know I thought the Blue flowers were sticking out a bit but now I finally get it…

Substance D.

Reference - A Scanner Darkly (Laidlaws favorite Phillip K Dick Novel)

I think there is a bit of G-Man attached to the Bob Arctor character but it’s not a carbon copy by any means. But perhaps G-Man is very much aware of others and what is going on, on multiple levels but he is not aware of himself and / or his actions and is controlled by his “employers”.

#596

A little bit of trivia

When they released the Xengine Update back in December, 2017, it took 3d 17h 20m 24s and nine updates to the developer branch before the final build went live on the public-beta branch on December 24, 2017 – 01:38:23 UTC.

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#597

I’ll give you credit when I plagiarize it. :wink:

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#598

Something I just remembered from way back… The limping Houndeye animation.

Concept - Compassion for a Houndeye.

The Houndeye Limps through a part of the level Gordons gun drops when pointed at the poor injured houndeye.He can’t bring himself to finish the animal off. The Houndeye reaches a healing pool… After about 5 seconds It now once again becomes an enemy and attacks.

I thought it might make an interesting player interaction sequence that is psychological and emotional.

It could become your Pal but that too much work perhaps and goes against every other Houndeye.

Been thinking a bit about the console design that you showed and I think rectangles and square screens look too human… I like the total recall reference though for the Hand switch on the stargate type console.

https://www.deviantart.com/menel-gfx/art/Alien-Style-Orb-252839382

I would suggest you go orb shaped and more fantasy than sci-fi for any screens but it still looks good but if vorts have one eye and we know they have warped or fish-eye lens then their screens would be warped over a dome to accomodate their vision. Assuming it is Vort control panels.

Perhaps actually it would be correct a inverted dome or cup / sunken orb seeing the interior of the orb not the outside of the orb for how their fish eye vision works.

Look at cronenberg also like existenz and videodrome.

Just realised Half life 2 kleiners lab the magnify lens so valve gave you the prop already :wink:

I would even go as far to say the orange liquid cylinders are for the flocking floaters or atleast DNA experiment like Alien Ressurection. So yeah fallen into place it has.

If you look at the image on the left posted in the reddit this is the design basis for the diamond shaped switches seen in the beta interloper maps that let out the puffs of smoke.

Vortex math - Vortigaunt.

#599

I only got half way through the houndeye bit before I stopped reading. WORST IDEA EVER IN A SHOOTER.

You do not want to take away a players ability to shoot a hostile even stun mechanics are bad in a shooter especially a single player one.

Sure a sun mechanic can work but what your suggestion reads like is just bad.

#600

Darkone although the Houndeye would be following a path track scripted to animate the limp in the AI relationship you state the Houndeye to “Like” Gordon although it would come off as sympathetic when the AI is set to like Gordon lowers his gun.

It is a trick that would last about 15 seconds… An Illusion of sympathy you could satchel or nade the poor injured houndeye if you could not wait to kill it.

But it shows the player how healing pools work so it is a tutorial of sorts.

Last thing I have to say but those fast zombies when they have no headcrabs on sure look drained of everything and a bit mutated.

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.