Half-Life Fallout: Episode 3 Discussion Thread - Half-Life Fallout

DyingTickles, on 30 April 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

They'll probably cook some fake trailer up to make everyone think that...or at least I would because I am an asshole.

For everyone who forgot how the story goes, and does not have time to play HL1, HL2, Ep1 & Ep2 before the release of HL3:

shampo0o, on 03 May 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

Good vid except for BM being blown up in a nuclear explosion, OF is not isn't apart of the HL story arc why don't people get that?

I always tought OF was a part of the story arc, only thing they fucked up with those black-ops. In HL1 they we're on the same team as the marines. And those new aliens are a bit misplaced.
Hmm, maybe you are right
And I hated that in OF the marines changed from bad-ass shouting killing machines to soft-ass pussies.

Quote by Marc Laidlaw about race-x:

Originally Posted by Marc Laidlaw
Race X was purely a Gearbox creation that doesn't figure at all in my thinking about the world. Understand, they wanted to come up with a set of creatures that would create gameplay they knew how to make. They could have been making an original title or an add-on for some other franchise, and plugged racex into that--the reason being that they had gameplay they wanted to explore and needed the freedom of their own race of critters to conduct those experiments with. If Gearbox had kept making HL games, I suppose we might have seen these threads develop. Since blackops are not a Gearbox creation per se, but an opportunistic use of existing real-life elements, I don't see how the idea of canon applies to them.

wait wait, that video got it wrong, the vortigauns were enslaved by the Combine, their leader was captured and controlled the portals and the vortigauns

suicide_mission, on 07 May 2012 - 01:10 AM, said:

Actually I think it's stated that the Combine couldn't reach Xen. There's also a Laidlaw quote/email that said that the Nihilant and his minions escaped the Combine, it might have been a product of the combine, but when you meet him it's not part of it.

Berrie, on 07 May 2012 - 03:36 AM, said:

you may be right, but it makes no sense to me. Xen was converted into an army production facility, and its not clear to me how they were escaping to earth. Not only that, its clear that the vortigauns & nihilant were forced slaves and directed their effort at earth through the resonance cascade as a starting event.

True, but Laidlaw said it so that's word of god on this. I'll see if I can find it. There is one place they've collected these, but that's *shudders* Halflife2.net *shudders*

Also the Nihilant isn't a benevolent master to his subjects.

EDIT: The Laidlaw Vault which is Steampowered and not a site we shan't name again.

mrfox, on 06 May 2012 - 06:52 PM, said:

OF isn't part of the story arc, but Laidlaw accepted BM being blown up by a nuclear bomb as canon, simply because it meant that the Half-Life story never goes back to Black Mesa.

I think the whole canon/non-canon is incredibly frustrating; even the developers and writers seem unsure and finicky about the whole thing, believing that fans should just believe what they like about the backstory.

jdowny, on 09 May 2012 - 02:31 AM, said:

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the story telling method itself. With the Half-Life series, Valve has always focused on 'less is more', where there's no tangible, traditional narrative to follow. There's no 'big reveal', or points where things are explained to the player. This is partially due to them wanting to keep the game from Gordon's perspective. What Gordon knows is all you're supposed to know, and thus Gordon only knows what he is told. Everything else, everything you work out, is also Gordon working it out. Valve likes an element of vagueness and discovery to their plots. Stuff for people to think over. Surprisingly, a lot can be worked out, even if nothing is explicitly told to the player. For example, it's never explained what the Combine want or why they're on Earth, but you can work it out if you listen to Breen's speeches and note the design of their military force, along with their behaviour.

The second reason is that, at the end of the day, Valve makes video games first, stories second. They're open to restructuring and rebuilding the plot to better fit game mechanics if they need to. Establishing a strict canon runs the risk of fucking up later down the track when you need to change that canonical element, something much easier to do if that element was originally vague. Valve constructs plot elements around the game itself. Like the slow teleport. That became a somewhat important element of the Combine's technology, and a massive story point to advance Alyx and Gordon to the final push by the resistance. But the only reason it came about is because Valve ran out of time and couldn't work out how to get Gordon and Alyx from Nova Prospekt back to Kleiner's lab and logically advance the story towards a war. The levels weren't there, nor the time development. So they forced in the slow teleport idea to fill that hole.

jdowny, on 08 May 2012 - 05:31 AM, said:

I know, that's what I said, but it never said officially in HL2 or any of the episodes that BM was blown up...maybe, I'm 90% sure, I haven't played in a long while.

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This doesn't make any sense. Things in the HL universe has had big reveals and explained things to the player there is just more unexplained than anything which leaves the story open, which I think is a good thing, it gives valve some flexibility in how to tell the story rather than come up with a good idea only to have it shot down because it wouldn't make sense in the plot. But that's me projecting my own opinion, valve may have not done it that way for that reason.

mrfox, on 09 May 2012 - 02:27 AM, said:

I know, I was agreeing with you; there was a comma there, not a full stop. The only source of confirmation of OF's canonicity is a question asked of Marc Laidlaw, but as I said, he's still quite vague about it.

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Crowbar...
Hitted 3 times...
Man with nauseating goatee asks "Hey, is that about ready"?
Gabe looks up and replies "These things... They take time"!

Touchee gabe, nice troll.

http://www.youtube.c...eature=youtu.be

why don't the links ever work for me

Milhouse, on 10 June 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

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el oh el

Oh Gabe, you hurt me and make me laugh at the same time.