Comments

Kinda

Is this a Doom reference?

Should be fixed now

OH I know what missing I will fix this one sec

I'm getting an error: "Fatal Error. WARNING: couldn't open dev_pack.wad" BSPViewer also says "dev_pack.wad not found."

I opened the MyHouse directory and I couldn't find a dev_pack.wad. Maybe that's missing?

Being a massive Half-Life: Uplink fan myself I had to give this a try, it was an enjoyable experience.

It's a very interesting feeling going from the easily recognizable revamped areas to places that were reimagined, most noticeably the sewer and the Lambda Reactor Complex, the sense of having being here before but things are now different and then being suddenly hit with something unexpected kept me intrigued through the maps.

I liked that there were new textures for the containers, I also appreciated the locked door for the watch tower so now it makes sense for that soldier to be up there.

The enemy encounters when you return after setting the transmitter to the USNRC were good too, having alien slaves on top of crates and adding houndeyes to spice things up, but the thing I enjoyed the most was the Gargantua chase and that little section in Xen where I thought the lighting was cool.

My only complaint is that the func_tank with rockets wasn't present, and I always thought that turret was a memorable moment in Uplink.

That's one of the coolest things I've read this week, must have felt surreal walking around a map you've made that long ago, glad you were able to recover the files and compile it again. Thanks for sharing this story and the map.

Thank you for playing and taking the time to write a lengthy review, I really appreciate it. I'll go through some of the points you brought up.

The cafeteria: actually a few moments before I released this on the vault, PsyWarVeteran had just suggested me to include some chairs or another table since it felt empty and I do agree with both of you.
The reason I didn't include any more props in that area was because I didn't want them to interfer with the houndeyes path especially considering one of them sometimes randomly decides to stand still (still have no idea why this happens).
There are info_nodes in there but they can still be a bit unpredictable, anyways I also thought of placing the chairs next to the stairway or against the wall (was going to use the orange chairs that appear in the administrator office from the third map) but in the end I decided to leave it as it is and release it.

The difficulty: this is a tricky one, I wanted this to be an experience that could easily be completed by anyone who is new to Half-Life or doesn't play old shooters often (hence why the recommendations and hints section in the readme assume you aren't very used to the game). Also back when I started the project I mainly wanted my friends to play it (some of them have only played HL1 once) and when I got some playtesters they kept dying over and over, so I made sure to include enough HP and armor so that no one could possibly have trouble finishing it and so that they would focus on the atmosphere instead.
Problem is that experienced players would be finishing this without taking any damage at all (on normal at least), so I thought that maybe they could play it in Hard, then I quickly realized how difficult it was to balance healthkits, batteries and chargers placement for them to make sense and be balanced for both Normal and Hard. I don't know how other mappers do it but next time I'll try to make something for the experienced player.

Anyways I'm glad you got some enjoyment from it and that you liked the little details, I wonder if everyone was able to find the secret weapons or if they have spotted both of the gman sightings (so far some people spot the first gman but no one has spotted the second one)

Overall this experience has made me appreciate other mappers work way more than ever before, as now I realize how hard it is to make a level that has both good combat and good puzzles while at the same time looking pretty

A very nice little map pack. Short, sweet and channelling the feeling of the early map packs of the 2000s. I love the little details dotted throughout, though there are spots where things look a little bare. The cafeteria for example, with only a single table and no seating.

Combat encounters throughout are pretty nice and we fight quite a large selection of enemies from Half-Life's roster, including the alien grunts in the later sections.

It would be nice to see some more verticality as you have already said yourself, but it was nice to see some sections where you could catch the enemies by surprise, or the occasional spot where areas were repopulated with enemies for return trips. I will say that playing on medium, I didn't find it particularly challenging. I was practically tripping over health kits that I didn't need and I had plenty of suit power meaning if I ever did get hit the damage was negligible. Giving some enemies like the HECU more room to manoeuvrer and to get around the player and flank them, or perhaps just increasing the enemy count in some places would do wonders to upscale the difficulty a little.

Thanks for the kind words both of you.

The ending is abrupt indeed, for my next project I'll try to make a longer experience, my workflow at the moment is very slow and I honestly just wanted to be done with it hah.

Other things I'd like to improve are: more verticality in the level design, varying depth/details on the walls and ceiling and better npc encounters since I feel the HL enemies really shine when there's more opportunities for them to ambush and flank you while as of now the arenas don't have any obstacles or things like pillars and they are just kind of standing still in open places.

On ModDB: for now I'd rather this to only remain hosted in TWHL.

It's finally up, nice job. Like I said before, this is a pretty sweet and nicely polished mappack. It can pass as an early 2000s release and I say that as a big compliment

Be sure to upload it to ModDB also to get more publicity.

This is an actually very good mappack, it definitely has the look and feel of old school TWHL. My only complain is that the ending was a bit abrupt.

if we get a new half life it'll problaby be called or aftermath or just half life 4, maybe hl3 but who knows

Here to clarify what "loading screen" means. It's the moment after the game entered fullscreen and before the main menu shows. It's actually not the time when the maps are loading (I tested) so you're actually only seeing it for a fraction of a second tops. No wonder nobody bothers making a custom one.

It's alright. Some good ideas and fine enemy encounters, i agree with AfroApe on that one crate stack, took me a good few minutes to find that. The architecture of each room is very bland but you do have some pretty okay brushwork on the props in the room.

Keep up the mapping, you will only get better with time and experience.

Not a bad little map this one. It starts with you meeting Barney in a side room and then you have to lead him through the labs. You'll find yourself navigating vents and leaping over lasers in order to help him get through. The map even reloads if you get him killed and ends when you reach your goal. Something I'm used to not seeing in early mapping attempts.

If I had to criticise anything I would say the looks are a little bland and the layout makes little sense in-universe. The player starts in a dead end hallway with no form of entrance behind them. A tank busts through a wall, having been seemingly parked in an otherwise inaccessible room. Also, there are some spots like Barney's room where there is no node graph, so you have to carefully guide him through the doorway.

Appearance wise, I'd put more effort into giving the rooms an in-universe purpose, as well as experimenting with some height variation for combat/exploration, and some different lighting in places. Definite improvement here though. Nice work.

Nobody can take away your free will. People are always who they want to be

我想我不能完全同意@Stojke您的观点，时势造人，在世界和社会这两所“大学”里，我很想看看未来会发生什么。

I think the whole idea of "loving" a job is not right in the first place. How can you love a dead thing? You can love people, and people can love you back.

It depends on how you define a job. To some people, a job is merely a contract. To me, a job is some paid activity + people relevant to that activity. So indeed if I love that job, I love the people, and I love performing the activity partly because of passion and partly because of the people.

I guess the only thing 100% certain , and unchangeable , is death. Everything else can, will and must change regarding of the situation it is in. I studied , and finished schooling, for a computer programmer, yet my expertise is servicing electronical components , most of the time Hi-Fi , for a living. - It matters not what one does, but the way one does things.

I had to accept and change regarding my situation, and as life will show so must everyone else, unless one wants to needlessly suffer for all the wrong reasons. Harsh truth is - It is always your fault if you cant find a job that matches your academic direction. Either you are not expert enough, or not determined enough. No matter where the expert is, the employer will come to them.

您说的应该是更高层面的东西，我没在说那个。我说的是找一份与学业方向对口的工作。

I think the whole idea of "loving" a job is not right in the first place. How can you love a dead thing? You can love people, and people can love you back.
A job is a job, only one way to do it if you want to do it right. Nobody likes responsibility especially if it has to cover someone else, and that can cause a lot of stress, so the best thing to do it is to simply take it for what it is - a timely process that has to be done precisely in order to get payed - or in short - a job

您是对的，我也是这个意思。

Translation: "It's hard to find a job..."

It is kind of easy, I'd say. The hard thing is to find a job that you love.

Pretty good. I liked scripted sequence at the beginning. Nicely detailed crates, but put some clue that there is a path behind that one crate stack. Also they have too much life, somone might think that there is no point in bashing them.

In overall solid start, you can always try to tinker with rooms so they look less squere - "props" won't do the whole job

Short but fun, gargantua escape at the end was nice touch

I would prefer a community that is nice to talk to.

I would prefer a community where nobody says thanks over a community where anyone is forced to say thanks.

I see Bruce would prefer a community where nobody says thanks

Funny ending! I had to noclip around the scientist in the vent because I get an "ed_aloc: no free" error when he gibs.

The transparent texture for the holes on the shotgun looks a bit bad, I would rather see some low poly holes but I think there should not be a problem with more polygons. Half-Life originally doesn't have models with transparent textures too, since transparent textures for models were added to the engine with a certain patch.

The field of view trick was probably more useful back in the day when monitors were very small, since if you used a natural field of view on a small monitor, as in the game looking like the real world, you would end up with a tiny field of view and see very little of the world. Nowadays when many people have big monitors, setting the field of view to a realistic one should get rid of things looking small. Not for me though, I'm stuck with a 17 inch one right now.

@Bruce I changed it of my own free will. It's a creative decision.

A lot of these are great but the glock and the MP5 look a little off in game. They're missing the trick Valve used to counter the fisheye lens effect in Half-Life, making the barrel end of the model larger. As it stands the barrel of the MP5 and Glock in this pack look a little small in game. The 357 and Shotgun are perfect examples of what I mean. They look great.

This was not a request from TWHL staff. The user reposted their link on the Discord server stating:

I made it sfw. It is now milk.

Wow, what's with this renaming? The old name was witty and funny, now it's disgusting. The old name by the way was "Hunt Down the Semen". And there's nothing wrong with it, first graders should be taught what semen is.

I really hope this was not a request from the staff.

that spas is absolutely adorable, nice work!

I broke it too by pressing the elevator button before taking the suit.

You wasted a lot of hard drive space by including those .wad files, you should learn to use wadinclude compile option, then unused textures will be stripped.

I found it amusing. It's not that bad. There's voice acting, teleporting monsters, backtracking, scripted sequences.

@UrbaNebula Bold of you to write a real review for a level called "Hunt Down the Semen"

Review
Incredibly basic in every regard. Levels are blocky and lack any detailing, lighting almost appears fullbright in certain spots for some reason. Combat throughout is unchallenging, I took zero damage during my playthrough. The mod essentially boils down to running down empty hallways to push a button, then running all the way back to push another button. I figured it was going to be a comedy themed mod but... there's nothing of any value here, unless words like "fuck" and "semen" make you laugh.

Couple of things to note:
1. Don't include your config.cfg with your mod release. Your control and video settings are not my control and video settings.
2. It is also possible to softlock the entire thing if you pick up the HEV and don't immediately run for the elevator in map1.

You're a Valve's own Nostradamus haha!

Unfortunately, I did have the curiosity to scroll and see if I left a comment. I did. The image is not available anymore but I know exactly the photo which prompted a short expedition through dusty folders on a dusty backup drive where I had an imageshack backup (that service is long gone I think).

The image was this:

[EDIT] Well on a sober 2nd thought, maybe not.

I have no idea....

Necromancy! That's what it is!

OKBuddyHalfLIfe

The mod did looked promising, but its actually dissapointing. First off, this is a joke mod and clearly very little effort was put into this. There are too many enemies in some parts of the map, and while the map gives you a lot of ammo and health it can be very difficult to progress without the help of cheats, even on Easy mode. Some parts were excellent, like the NFT parkour and some miserably sucked, like the maze with all of the ichthyosaurs. Some, if not all of the maps textures were just random HL textures and memes, wich made locating stuff like doors and ladders very frustating. In some other parts, it wasn´t very clear on where to go (at least for me).

But again, this is a joke mod, so its very low effort and poorly done in some parts. Id recommend you to check out Crack-Life, another joke mod that is actually very well done.

I wasn't ready to realise it's already almost 16 years since Ep2, gosh.

As you say, at least we've gotten a new HL game already, even if it wasn't HL3. 😄

Thanks for the feedback! I have a new shotgun reload animation in the works; it'll be much closer to the original view model reload. I'll also provide an optional version without the rack. My intent is to edit the player & world models so that everything matches, but, that's low priority at the moment.

time saver.

You seem to think that merely discussing behaviour means establishing new rules, which it inherently isn't. A proposal for a rule may be brought up during a discussion, but that's not what has happened here. If you're worried a community is going to establish excessive or unnecessary rules, the best thing to do in that case is to discuss it and address the cause for why those rules were proposed in the first place.

The rules already in place on the site (and the discord you keep bringing up for whatever reason) are few and non-intrusive. As the context here is this community, are these the rules you view as "completely useless, dictatorial and rude"?

And no, I'm not here to educate anyone on social behaviour. I'm simply just airing my thoughts about a specific part of how we behave in this community, since I'm a part of it.

I answer mapping questions for decades and I don't mind if they never thank. Someone else might ten or twenty years later. But only if you use the forum, not that disposable abomination. Evil is both. Too many rules are creeping upon people these days. Rules that are completely useless, dictatorial and rude. If you want to educate people on social behavior then become a kid's teacher in the primary school.

I actually played that func_vehicle invade-the-building one! It had some unique gameplay combined with the jankiness of the goldsrc physics which made it a very fun map 😄

Not that bad, it feels like a map someone would make to try to learn how scripted sequences work and such.