Firstly, concerning the zombie in the security room that’s banging his hands and head on the window, consider swapping his actions prior to the map load with those following the map load. As it stands now, when you open the door you see and hear him banging on the window. As you move forward you trigger the next map load. After this occurs the zombie is no longer banging on the window. Instead, he wanders around within the security office, oblivious to your existence. He doesn’t react towards you at all, which is odd. Why not have him wandering around within the security office when you first open the door. Then, following the next map load have him cease his wandering and come to the window and start banging on it as a sign of his acknowledgement of your presence and his deep desire to separate your upper and lower torso. To add to the realism have a blood decal appear on the window once he starts banging on it. Yeah, I’ve asked you about inserting a blood decal here before, but you turned me down. Hopefully you’ll reconsider, if it is in fact doable.
Secondly, I wanted to echo my agreement with the sentiments expressed by jessiestorm88 in one of his earlier posts concerning ventilation shaft vents without grates covering their openings. Here’s his original comment and below is the screenshot that was attached to his post:
“I think it’s time to delete this ladder and make it a box jump puzzle kind of thing, but not as obvious. Also put an end on the vent that you have to break to get into. This would fit in a lot better with how the other vents are in black mesa and half-life in general. The way it looks now is a little silly. Why would there be a ladder going into an open vent into a mechanic garage? By the way consider adding a vent cap for the vent that goes into the gargantua area as well and if possible cut off the few inches that poke out past the wall making it awkward to get into from the pipe you’re on. Gordon is being sneaky crawling through the vents to get through the facility, it shouldn’t look like they are things people have been crawling through even before the disaster”.
For the most part, determining the proper path one needs to take in both instances mentioned above by jessiestorm88 are fairly simple to figure out. All the player needs to do is take a moment and study the environment. There aren’t numerous path options available for the player to consider. It just makes the world and gameplay more believable and challenging when the proper route is not made to be so obvious. The vent depicted in the screenshot even has the light adjacent to it illuminated as a further indication which path the player needs to take. Furthermore, the lights over doors 2 and 3 are not illuminated which serves as another additional clue. Player hand-holding overkill? Yeah, I think so. Don’t forget or lose sight of the comments and viewpoints expressed by Conti, a BM forums moderator, whom I agree with wholeheartedly, concerning the perils and dangers of providing too much player hand-holding and babysitting.
Please consider my feedback in your usual pragmatic and grateful manner.
