Scripted sequences missed

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

I’m noticing quite a few scripted sequences I totally missed on my first playthrough. Makes me wonder how many other things I’ve missed due to bad trigger placement.

I’d mentioned almost missing the houndeye beam in bridge destruction scene from Unforeseen Circumstances and suggested moving the event trigger… now I’m thinking you may wish to rethink a lot of the scripted event triggers throughout.

A couple I totally missed were one from Surface Tension when you push the button to open the big door into the sniper\mine\electrfied broken tower level. You are in a room, push button and door opens… you are no where near door so it’s very easy to miss the event triggered. I had to reload twice, purposely bee-lining to the door just to catch what happened (alien ship dropping three vorts and being chased by jet) I’d suggest you go into that room to turn on power (or something) but have to operate the switch to open the door, at the door.
The other I missed was the second alien drop ship in the level with the major weapon catch. It gets triggered while you are still in tunnel, but if you happen to stop at that point (like I did) you miss the alien drop followed by the bombardment… after my playthrough I thought you all had just dropped that scene… and of course the one that starts up the Osprey unloading sequence should be moved until you actually get up the ramp.

I’m sure you put a lot of work to setup those scenes, sure be nice if all the folks playing your MOD actually got to see them :wink:

#2

That’s the thing about Half-Life games, they don’t have cutscenes so it’s entirely possible to miss things.

People miss the most obvious scripted sequences because they pay attention to a lot of different things, it happens in all the games.

#3

Or if you’re like Valve and have a Ph.D in subtle psychological manipulation, you can actually cause everyone to notice (almost) all of the major important ones. :evil:

Valve has tons of experience doing that though, and it shows more in their more recent games than it did in the original Half-Life, where it’s easy to miss a bunch of things.

#4

can you please post a video of both? I’m really not sure which do you mean… I might have missed it as well

#5

I know the areas he’s talking about they’re in like 20 minutes of each other. like 1 map leads into the next. What he’s talking about in surface tension before you go into the trip mine level where you walk around the building avoiding mines and snipers stuff like that. When you first enter the level, manta rays come in and drop vortigaunts into the area, some of which are blown to smithereens by the mines.

Subsequently after getting the hive hand 20 minutes later, you meet a security guard after coming down the elevator saving him from marines. Then you head out through the tunnel, taking the security guard along if you want to. near the end of the tunnel there’s a turret in the back of an army truck that you have to deal with. then when you leave the tunnel, manta rays fly in and drop alien grunts into the battle. seconds later they get bombed by jets, and a door at the other end of the road opens up and the marines come running out with a tank.

(I haven’t actually seen them myself but I’ve played half life so I can put together what happens pretty quickly)

#6

^Yep. These sequences are pretty much the same as in Half-Life. Almost no alterations.

#7

Weird, I didn’t notice any Mantas in that Vorts ones, just saw them spawning there on mines

#8

like I said, I haven’t actually seen them, but I have heard them. I’ve noticed Black Mesa handles the manta rays dropping by warping the a grunts or vorts in while the mantas fly over, because I’ve seen a green warp as an agrunt come in after ducking behind cover as a manta flew over.

#9

Yeah. I think they decided that it looked weird for the aliens to drop from the underside of the Ray’s belly.

I would have liked to see them spawn from higher up though.

#10

Obviously doing scripted sequences instead of cut-scenes risks the player missing out but I think not if it’s done correctly… I bet almost nobody missed the jet bombing run at the end of the cliff section. It’s all about timing and that could be tweaked in a few areas to help insure the sequences get noticed.

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