Issue 1:
I like the idea of making this room more important than it was and spicing it up. Do make the turntable and also make it an elevator. This room is obviously an important room so continuing on to yet another room with an elevator makes no sense. If you do make the elevator add an extra floor or something with multiple other closed off tunnels in different directions. This will help to make the elevator-turntable setup seem more practical. So this chamber is like a central transit area that leads to multiple areas. Visually it will also benefit. I would like to have a large vertical space here. OaR is a pretty dark and cramped up place and having a beautiful large spacious chamber will help keep me sane.
Issue 2:
I like the idea you have for the ambush. It will be epic. I can just imagine your tram coming to a stop on the turntable in a well lit chamber when suddenly!!! Lights off and a massive ambush in the dark and a lot of confusion…
And done, it’s crude, and maybe incoherent, but it’s hard to explain. Think QE ambush, but on a larger scale.
I would have to say go with the radical approach, but with a slightly more annoying approach as well.
Lay out:
The rail yard in Power Up would be a prime room to base that room off of. It’s a rail yard, and if set up right, would be an excellent place for tactical combat between a squad of HECU and the player. The trams docked in are nothing more than static props, and if you do that, giving the player the impression that said trams were under maintenance before all hell broke loose wouldn’t hurt either. Prop/turret placement is up to you, just make sure there’s PLENTY of cover in for the player, maybe some stashes of goodies if the player’s willing to risk getting nailed for the MP5 ‘nades, satchels, etc.
Rail Yard:
Ambush spicing:
Snipers, while people disagree, I don’t think I saw enough in ST. Having some snipers (1-4) hiding inside of an especially dark catwalk, hole(s) in the wall, or overhang, in the backround wouldn’t hurt imo.
3 rounds of grunts;
1: Initial ambush power goes out, player can’t see anything. (4-5)
2: reinforcements for round 1 (3-4)
3: After power’s restored and the player descends on the tram elevator, the power gets knocked via an explosion, mid-transit on the elevator, player ascends again to check it out, gets ambushed (again) by a lesser squad (2-3 grunts at the most) who got there late, the power box is fried this time, some sign should be nearby indicating the player can use a crank of some sort to descend the rest of the way, said crank placement can be your choice.
TL;DR: It’s a lot to throw out there, but would make things interesting. Basically, the power gets cut, you get ambushed, take care of two squads HECU, and a couple of snipers, then restore the power from the far corner of the room, descend, power gets cut again, you have to ascend via maintenance hatch to figure out what’s going on, take care of the last squad, then figure out a crank is needed and use said crank to make the tram elevator go the rest of the way. – the last part may be a bad idea, but I’d love to see that ambush.
If the ambush room and twin elevators are merged, how would you handle the activation of the train lift? Maybe have the train be stopped by a barrier at the room’s entrance just before the lift, which raises when the power’s turned back on (also restoring the lights)? Or have the train able to travel all the way onto the lift, which would immediately raise after restoring power and necessitating use of the passenger elevator?
I’m a bit ambivalent about the merge.
On the one hand, both the ambush room and the elevator topped with explosive boxes (the latter being the only place in the game that plainly encourages satchel use) are extremely memorable sequences, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to mess with them too much (also, I love the switchable turntable idea for the non-merged build).
On the other hand, BM’s rising train lifts feel samey to me after the turret-topped one, so having one that requires powering and is in the middle of an action-packed room would benefit from standing out from the others. This version also wouldn’t suffer from two-switches-one-room syndrome.
The ambush is a tremendous idea, providing that you get the chance to take a good, long look around the room while it’s well lit (after the ambush). Otherwise it might hurt the memorable… ness. So long as there’s a task on the other side of the room from the power switch, that shouldn’t be a problem.
(How about this: you could move the health charger down to the bottom of the room where you first come in, in plain view of the soldiers - this way, the player has reason to come back down to the entrance after you’ve restored the lights, seeing the room with the lighting and angle that you first do in HL.)
On the ambush room and elevator area being combined. I thought the elevator part where you send up a trip mine to set off the explosive crates was very memorable so I would really like to see that part recreated. It was a nice little puzzle because if you didn’t do that and instead rode the turntable up on the tram you were faced with multiple marines shooting you as you went up rather than clearing them out individually. It also sounds like it would end up looking completely different with these areas combined so I’m a little iffy on it considering how drastically different this uncut already is from the original maps albeit being awesome.
The ambush room seemed to very clearly be an unloading/loading dock area and personally I would like to see it themed as that. There’s a large garage door in the original right next to where the trams park. Keep this and add in a crane hook thing overhead also crates scattered throughout the room. The trams would have then continued or have come from the turntable elevator and if needed the personnel could have used the other elevator to bring up lighter boxes. I thought that area was actually pretty logical. If you can combine them and still keep the familiarity aspect and general themes of both areas then by all means do it.
On the ambush room lighting thing. I completely agree this would be awesome and was something I was actually already thinking of. The catch would be that it might not be all that fun to fight against a 50cal. in the dark and honestly that was also a pretty memorable part. Mounting the 50cal on the first floor and using it to fight against the H.E.C.U. 50.cal and the soldiers was awesome. This was the only part in the whole game where you had a 50 cal standoff.
Dock? Elevator? Why not both? Here’s my idea for that section:
Instead of a boring old elevator, have one of those 'train elevator’s from Black Mesa’s A (the one you have to fix the power for), but have the base of this on a rotating track. The loading area would be the ground floor branches where the other trams are parked (you could have several tram-trains parked here), since this setup wouldn’t be crane friendly, you could either make the area level with the tram tracks, or have each branch able to elevate itself high enough to make the flatbeds forklift accessible (like the car lifts, but longer and for loading / unloading trains).
As for the Soldiers, you could make them come in 3 ‘waves’. The first wave will be hiding around the area, they’re the ones that turn out the lights and attack. They could be hidden behind boxes using the “leanwall” animations, then quickly pop out once the assault has started. The second wave comes from above, one of the blast doors on the second or third floor may open and 2 Soldiers rappel down the wall (EP1 style) to where the fighting is. The third arrives near the end when a tram with 2-4 Soldiers arrives outside the ‘base’ and the soldiers dismount and enter the area.
Lastly, make extra sure this area has lots of health for the player, it was a somewhat nasty place in Half-Life and I can’t imagine it’ll be any easier here (if anything I expect it will be much harder due to BM’s Marines and the area layout). And for the record, I’m not entirely opposed to the Vort idea, but some additional balancing might be needed to make it work.
I disagree with merging the ambush room with the elevator room. In HL 1, they were linked to two distinct events: the dock ambush and the elevator ambush. IMO, merging the two would make the event feel a lot shorter and would throw too much at the player at once.
I say stay true to the original HL format of having the dock on the side and the elevator tunnel in front. That way, the player can enjoy two fighting scenes instead of one. Nostalgic fans such as myself would also enjoy solving the puzzle with the explosive crates blocking the elevator entrance.
Full thumbs up for the power cut ambush. That would be epic. Just don’t make a habit out of merging rooms too much, or else OAR Uncut won’t be that uncut.
I like the idea of merging the ambush room with the elevator room. It makes perfect sense to me.
Mr. Someguy has an amazing idea: After fighting the first wave that turns off the lights have a second wave ambushing you by roping down from a floor or two above. Quite similarly to the fight in the lobby of QE. I think it will make it even more memorable. Also do implement the flares so that it’s not to dark. Make the ground floor where the ambush is a loading cargo area and the elevator will take you up to a area that has different directions but cut off due to collapsed tunnels or blast doors. I see there is a difference in opinion to whether to combine the elevator or not. By means do what you feel is the best, but then combine the two floors with open floor areas (or a bridge type effect) to give this area a nice spacious feeling.
Lights out and ambush. Cool. Wanna put a soundtrack here?
2 things:
Firstly, and perhaps more urgently - don’t expect the alpha for the A maps to be this weekend, it’s now looking highly unlikely. I just discovered an important presentation I thought was on Tuesday (and was planning on spending Monday working on while I mapped over the weekend), has turned out to actually be on Monday, effectively shutting down my weekend. I’m gonna work on the A maps this evening so in the extremely unlikely event that I do get very far, it may still yet happen - but probably not. Next weekend is looking far more likely.
Secondly, I’ve thought of kind of a nail in the coffin for the merging of the two areas idea for the B1 map, which is a shame because it was pretty cool concept. I’ll probably have to stick with my first idea of having it just be a usable turntable which leads to a small tunnel connected to the elevator.
The main issue is that with the turntable in the center of the room being an elevator - it doesn’t have a logical design. Whenever someone on a tram wants to go to the higher floor, the part connecting the entire room together gets raised and thus the rest of the room becomes inaccessible. During its operational lifespan where the tunnel was supposedly used heavily, this design flaw would cause horrible inefficiencies - those tunnels could not be used while the elevator is in use. This design oversight is most probably too large to overcome unless anyone has any bright ideas. The only solution I could think of which could work is to have a series of tunnels around the room connecting the ends together - but then what would be the point of having the turntable elevator in the middle in the first place?
As a result, the turntable in the center of the room will probably not be merged. I may still expand that scene upwards though for cool effect.
The scene with the explosives and the other elevator would still be left in as well, it would just be moved to that large room. It would be like in HL1 - you can choose to go up the lift with the tram and face the gauntlet of Marines waiting for you on the various levels, or take that side route.
As for the line: “Just don’t make a habit out of merging rooms too much, or else OAR Uncut won’t be that uncut,” I think that’s a pretty unfair thing to say. I’m trying to improve on the design of the original. This requires expansion where ideas could be built upon, and condensing where the original was too convoluted or confusingly designed. It’s not fair to say that OaR Uncut won’t be that uncut as a result of me merging two small areas, especially when you take into acount the massively expanded office complex on A2. If I’m increasing the length of one map by 50%, and shrinking another by 20%, there’s still more “uncut” content. I have to pick and choose, and make compromises.
Solid concept, but not without its problems. It feels like that would be throwing too much at the player - even if I alleviated that by having loads of healthpacks around, the encounter would still feel really busy. Which is a shame, because I actually like the 3 stages you discussed.
I might be able to have this 3 stage battle by throwing Vorts into the mix. Perhaps as they rappel down Vorts start to appear and throw the focus of the battle off just a little bit. Having 3 waves of Marines fighting just the player would be very tiring and probably too difficult, and solving that by having health everywhere would feel a bit dumb.
As for that area being unfriendly in HL1, tell me about it! My last HL1 playthrough (Hard difficulty), I ended up making a save just outside that room with 3 HP. Suffice to say, winning that fight took me MANY attempts.
I was originally looking to that area from Power Up for inspiration, but its design and concept are too radically different from that room’s design in HL1 to be usable, I think. I’ll stick the actual layout of the room and its aesthetic fairly close to HL1, as I really liked that room. As for the whole Sniper thing, I think a Sniper in that room would be really out of place. While I agree that Snipers in general in both HL1 and BM were underused, using one indoors would feel a bit jarring and out of place - particularly as this would be your first Sniper encounter in Black Mesa if I implemented it.
I would quite like to make this an ambush on the scale of the QE Ambush. That might be pretty cool.
I’ve addressed most of the concerns here, I’ve pretty much decided on having it closer to HL1’s version now, except with a operable turntable and the path to continue actually being part of the room instead.
As for the 50Cal not being fun to fight against in the dark - having it illuminated by a sparking light fixture could look really damn cool. Think about it - most of the room in darkness with the red flares lighting up some areas. The light from the firing 50 Cal lighting up that entire corner combining with the light from the sparking light fixture. Could be really dramatic and memorable.
I’d quite like to have a song here, but there really isn’t anything good that I can put there. I’ll see what I can dig up.
Well it was worth a shot, I’d love to see what you come up with.
For additional lighting, why not have some small holes in the floor (or roof/wall) to allow light from a tunnel below (side/above) to show through, similar to that light effect in Blast Pit:
Dunno how much of a pain in the ass that’ll be, but it’d look epic if done right.
How are the soldiers going to stop your vehicle, if the ambush is part of the track itself? I’m saying so because I’ve noticed there is a distinct lack of interaction between enemies and the environment in scripted sequences. While in HL this was understandable, HL2 and the episodes had greatly improved setpieces because of this.
Maybe a soldier could kick a big box or something into the tracks to stop you, for example? Or something along those lines. It’s just a little suggestion.
Then I’m happy!!!
I’m assuming you go onto a turn table, and that’s where the tram stops. I could be wrong, but that’s the most likely place imo.
He has put these lights in st uncut before. so he could do it…
Yeah! thats cool idea… a soldier/a group of soldiers pushing/kicking crates onto the rails… maybe the player must remove it to proceed…
you lose your tram by a soldier with a mp5 grenade, and the tram destroys crates easy. think the best way to environment interaction would be a soldier using explosives to blast the track like they do later in the level.
Okay I am sold on the no lights ambush and have some fresh ideas. Firstly I think this is one room where it would be acceptable to have a door close behind you over the track once you’re far enough inside or even have the H.E.C.U. trigger a crane with a crate over the tracks to drop in place behind you effectively locking you in for the ambush in the same way that the door behind you closes in the QE ambush. There probably won’t be any real reason to backtrack on the tracks at this point anyways.
I also think you could toy with the idea of having the room initially dark when entering it instead and have the flares thrown once you’re far enough inside. This would give it a bit more of an ominous feel and it wouldn’t really make sense for the 50.cal to not just shoot you as soon as you come in if it’s a brightly lit room already. Instead it could wait for you to be lit up with the flares thrown.
If you’re going to add vortiguants to this fight you might add some dead vort bodies already in the room giving the impression that they had tried to teleport in before and were slaughtered by the 50 cal, but once you and the H.E.C.U. are mid fight they would come in again for the situational advantage. Their beams could also look really cool in the dark.
HECU must be in nightvision! Also make one vort ruin their ambush and could give confusion.
Hey, uh, if you’re trying to create a variety of styles, then would it work to take inspiration from the rail scene towards the very beginning of Blast Pit?
Well, from what I can tell, the QE ambush works like this:
3 Soldiers rope in, when one is killed a third ropes in, followed by a 4th. When one of the Soldiers above is killed, the door opens and a fireteam (4 soldiers) enters the lobby. It’s actually a pretty smart design, now that I think about it. It gives the feeling of a continuous assault, without completely overwhelming the player. Perhaps you could do something like this?
Example: 4 Soldiers initiate the ambush at the intersection, when 2-3 are killed, the second wave “begins” as 2 Soldiers begin rappelling* down the wall from an above area to the ground. When 1-2 of them are killed, the tram spawns with 2-4 additional soldiers and begins moving toward the area. As the trams arrives and the soldiers dismount, Vortigaunts spawn and distract them, giving the player some time to find his bearings before picking off stragglers.
- Do not confuse with fast roping, where the soldiers quickly slide down ropes while attacking. In this case, they will be scaling down the wall like climbers do on cliffs.
Extra note: Wave 2 and 3 (including Vorts) may to switched around if it proves necessary for balance. My fear with my current plan is that if the player deals with the first soldiers too quickly (Explosives anyone?), he’ll be able to pick off the ropers before they hit the ground, then be free to finish off the tram guys before they get into any sort of fighting position.
Also, originally I was going to call for an LAV-25 to replace the sandbag turrets (since the sandbag turret was basically just a mounted autocannon covered in sandbags and the LAV behaves identical to it) but that might be way too might to handle at once.