On A Rail Uncut - Re-Adding Cut Areas/Scenes (Expansion Project)

General Development Source 1
#561

The very first time you see a soldier…I’M TIRED OF PLAYING THESE GAMES FREEMAN!!! Yeah. The hecu aren’t exactly the strong point of black mesa. I also remember reading that the direction the devs wanted to go with their voices was akin to an action movie bad guy.

The yore dead sign was actually in a side room in the original and not somewhere you had to go so in a way it was kind of a joke easter egg. It was also written by spray can that you can see on the ground so you can assume that it’s more like graffiti compared to the other more serious signs written in blood and the marine writing it possibly intentionally spelled it that way. Pic related. Also even if he was just a solo idiot I don’t see how that would make every other marine one as well, but meh it doesn’t bother me either way. The message in blood next to the dead security guard in black mesa is done well.
https://i.imgur.com/B8TSt.png

Now for something different. What would you think about adding a gman sighting into the uncut at some point? I always wondered where he was in this chapter because you see him in Power Up and Apprehension, but in OaR he’s just nowhere to be found unless I missed him. Considering the length between when you see him last, at the very start of power up and then again midway into apprehension and how long oar is going to be with the uncut added I don’t think it would be that unreasonable to add another sighting somewhere in between.

#562

It’s about the portrayal, the spray reflects the HECU as a whole, and since they’re already portrayed as extremely incompetent and goofy this time, the spray should be a bit more serious.

#563

You know, this is an excellent suggestion or rather analysis of the moral and ethical implications of the entire incident, which HL1 could have investigated a lot more than it did but didn’t (most likely due to time and technological constraints).

Too bad, it is not even remotely feasible, though… :wink:

#564

One of the things I thought HL1 could have explored better was the relative morality in play here.

This was certainly one of the weirdest things about Black Mesa’s approach. The HECU voice and direction was an attempt to seriously shy away from any questionable morality, by painting them as evil and stupid, yet they kept in lots of aspects from HL1 which painted the HECU as not necessarily being evil (such as the speech on OaR where the guy’s upset about killing scientists, or even their expansion of QE to make it seem more “questionable”). It’s a weird, unfocussed approach, if I’m honest.

I too think it would have been nice for the BM Team to portray the HECU a little more - deeply I guess. It’s a bit of a problem with the video game medium for storytelling as a whole, I suppose. I would have really liked to see an HECU letting some scientists go alive because he doesn’t want to kill them, or a commander barking at a lowly grunt who disobeys orders to kill scientists, telling him that he doesn’t know half of the horrific shit that’s gone on in Black Mesa and how disgusting the scientists and their experiments are. Or just another conversation between two Marines about some of the fucked up shit he’s seen in the labs and how the world mustn’t find out about it for the greater good. They could have also actually blamed Freeman for the alien invasion which again, would have made the questions of morality a whole lot more interesting. It’s way more hard hitting when there’s a possibility the HECU might actually be in the right, but just taking a very heavy handed approach for the greater good. It was something that HL1 very lightly touched on and something which Black Mesa totally ran away from, and I think that’s a bit of a shame really. A missed trick. Even if the player thought that the HECU might possibly actually be correct, it’s not going to make the player sympathize with them wholeheartedly now, is it? After all, they’re still, at the end of the day, trying to kill you.

About the one spray “tarnishing” the HECU image thing you brought up - if all you see throughout the game is signs of HECU stupidity and incompetence, everything colours and compounds the overall picture, including the graffiti. I already perceive it as being a pretty serious issue in Black Mesa, I’m not sure if I want to make it “worse,” so to speak.

As for a G-Man sighting, I don’t know. There wasn’t one in HL1 OaR, it seems like it might be a bit unreasonable to add one where it didn’t exist before, especially as they’re a pretty important story element. It’s not something I’d necessarily be comfortable with doing, in all honesty.

#565

It actually kinda makes their portrayal more realistic, in a way. A lot of soldiers enlist to protect people. However, others are just sadistic fucks who enlist so they can rape and murder without being punished. This is true for basically all military forces.
Also, I imagine that if the US government were to assemble a force like the HECU, they’d try to go for the latter as much as possible, because they’d be less likely to question or disobey orders to do “cleanup” of civilian targets like Black Mesa.
BM shows both sides, like Half-Life did. (though to a lesser extent, because HL had a slightly smaller amount of scripted scenes with grunts)
They’re both out to get you.

#566

The HECU are a bunch of DOOM fanboys

#567

Black Mesa added a gman sighting in QE. You can add a gman sighting in the dynamite scene through a window. He will leave after the grunt blows the dynamite. Is that Okay?

#568

The G-man sightings are a very unique and important part of the HL universe and you really don’t want to overdo having to many of them. Just enough sightings to let the player know he’s always watching. The reason the BM Devs added one in OE is because if you look at the original HL theres a HUGE gap between seeing him in Apprehension and Lambda Core. They just added him in between those to levels to fix that gap which is good they did because… there was gap. So putting him in OaR would put to many encounters in the first part of the game and wouldent really be that unique or original.

#569

Their lack of development of any sort of character was one of the major complaints when that gameplay video leaked a while back before release. It wasn’t so much that the voice acting sucked, it was their reason as to why they couldn’t care less about the HECU voices. That they weren’t interested in making them out to have some personality, or hell, conflicting personalities.

But then, it’s like you said, other parts of the game clearly show that that was somewhat part of the goal, such as that line in OAR or otherwise. I never did quite understand why they’d put so much time in making the game feel more like an actual real-life place, and the people act like real-life people (for the most part) and then say ‘fuck you’ to the HECU enemies. True, we’d spend more of our time fighting them, but that characterization really would have helped flesh things out.

And then the voice acting, where they decided to make them sound like they were trying to do Duke Nukem impressions just to further express that point. It’s actually kind of ridiculous when you think about it. I’ve thought about what it’d be like to get Mr. Dravean (HECU VA) to voice some lines for new scripted events in existing maps just for things like this. It’s possible, but I’m not sure if anyone would actually be interested enough to try it out.

#570

Decided to replay OaR in HL:Source for the second time. Played through the entire game once just before/after I did BM (got to office complex chapter, then did BM then finished HL). The first time made me want to cry.

The second was actually pretty damn enjoyable, especially going “oh hey this is xxxxx map, I love what they did in BM”, for example the outdoor scene with the rocket and whatnot. Less confusing (I have a terrible memory so I didn’t remember the right way to go anyway) and just fun. Really looking forward to the full uncut now.

I love how the BM team made the TOW more realistic, but now I’m sad that there isnt any more “run and duck” bits. Those were fun.

#571

There’s really not much to it other than just having a very short and hard to even notice scene where he’s observing you then walks away or teleports out. It wouldn’t be any different than his current story. You’re right though it didn’t exist before and that’s fine if you don’t want to add one in. It was something that I noticed in surface tension as well. It’s a very long chapter with the uncut added and you don’t see him the whole time. If you did decide to add one they are usually placed either before something big happens or in a way that guides you to where you’re ultimately going, but haven’t reached yet.

#572

-snip-
Wrong

#573

I’m pretty sure that was in Opposing Force, not Half-Life.

#574

Ah you’re right.
Woops.

#575

Do eet! The replica voices are a great replacement for the grunts.

#576

@ Mr. Someguy: Wow, the non-Commander voices seemed so much more… Realistic. I love the voice acting, actually. I just love how these grunts still have a bit more personality, in a way that doesn’t make you want to shoot them in the face. In fact, it kind of makes me feel bad for shooting them. Thank you for uploading it, as I will most certainly download it now. Here is a video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So-RgEt9L20

It is so fun to listen to. I strongly advise everyone to download this soundpack.

But I digress…

@Text: One thing that I personally think is a great lighting effect is the blue glow of the BSOD screens from the computers. I think that this could be a good way of showing an ominous feeling in terms of an execution. Maybe move the execution to the rail gate room, where there is only a blue light and a dim flickering light to provide lighting. Also, one thing that you could do is provide a sound clip of the execution. One thing you could do is reuse the sound of the scientists dying the the elevator early on in Unforeseen Consequences. The “Oh shit” for a male scientist and the “I don’t want to die” of the female scientist before being ruthlessly gunned down could provide a very strong emotional effect. I feel that the sound from the We Got Hostiles execution didn’t utilize the “The HECU are stone cold killers” persona to its full potential. With the introduction of this, it may provide a very memorable scene. Also, I feel that the line from later on in OAR :“Killing aliens, hell yeah… but civilians?” would actually fit here better, but that is simply wishful thinking. Lastly, one thing you should do with the cafeteria is turn the down lighting. The cafeteria is abnormally bright compared to the rest of the offices, so it feels out of place. Two things that you should change are the lighting (so more sparse lights, with some not working) and the cleanliness of the cafeteria (so feature both alien and human blood, with dead scientists and stuff on tables, and some blast marks, and scattered cans, plates, and other junk). Thats all I really got to say. Keep up the good work. If you chose not to implement any of that, I can totally respect your decision.

If you need any clarification, don’t be afraid to ask.

#577

I don’t mind. Your house, your rules. I think we’ve said all that needs to be said so maybe it doesn’t even need to be moved, but in the end I don’t really mind.

Figured I’d bring up a design issue I’ve been wrestling with for a while which as of yet remains unresolved. It related to the age and relative use of the B sections, as a method for explaining the differing lighting/slightly different architectural scheme.

In HL1 this transition is slightly ambiguous and not terribly clear cut. The sectors become better lit (though the lighting scheme remains the same there are in general far more lights during the E-G maps), and quite a few of the tunnel walls gain coloured strips running along them. The tunnels are thematically distinguished from the previous maps but it’s unclear whether they’re older, newer, or simply just different from the other tunnels constructed. As for the Apprehension tunnels, in HL1 their age difference is ambiguous too, though to me the Apprehension tunnels (along with the tunnels on G) in HL1 appeared to be newer (they had a much CLEANER wall texture and were generally much higher, curvier, and more spacious).

Black Mesa iterated this fairly ambiguously too - it’s never fully clear, at least in my mind, whether the Apprehension tunnels are supposed to be newer or older than the rest of the OaR tunnels, despite their large thematic difference. I think Black Mesa’s Apprehension tunnels lean more towards the appearance of a newer, more in use, tunnel segment, however. I say this for a number of reasons:

  1. The tram used is clearly more advanced than the one used throughout OaR.
  2. The tunnels, although using a colder lighting scheme, are better lit overall than the rest of OaR.
  3. The side areas (such as the inaccessible side doors) tend to look far more advanced than those throughout the rest of OaR (they are mostly automated doors).

I think people say that Black Mesa’s Apprehension tunnels are supposedly older because Apprehension itself is undoubtedly an old, crappy part of the facility, so their reasoning is that the tunnels connected to them should be too. I’m not sure precisely how sound this logic is, however, for reasons already stated.

For now, my plan is to stick with slightly newer looking tunnels for the B1 maps, using Apprehension’s lighting scheme too. This helps to explain why the rail system is more active, and is also consistent with HL1’s newer looking Apprehension tunnels. Again, thanks to the magic of Visgroups, these changes can normally be undone with the tick of a box, so if it turns out poorly transition wise, I can always change it back with a minimum of effort. Until then I figured I’d throw the debate out there one final time to see what the community thinks.

Are the Apprehension tunnels in Black Mesa an older or newer part of the facility?

Should the B map’s tunnels represent an older or newer part of the facility (EITHER way I will make them appear more active)?

#578

Just to show you, this is roughly what I had in mind for the player discovering the dead bodies of scientists. I think it makes it a lot more dramatic and moving than just having them in plain sight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7jo7fkPvoPU#t=568s

#579

I’m not sure what’s older, or newer, it’s hard to tell. When I saw it, compared to the rest of the place, my first thought was that it’s more industrial, more active, better maintained, while the OAR segment has a more ‘lazy’ feel to it, being mostly transport and storage, but not necessarily abandoned. For all we know, the Apprehension tunnels are even older than the OAR tunnels (they certainly look reinforced, as an old bunker would be), but were possibly renovated sometime before the RC, while the OAR system was simply just maintained.

#580

Moved the posts about the FEAR soldiers radio chatter here for continued discussion.

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.