The Citizen: HL2 sp Created 17 years ago2007-11-08 18:18:15 UTC by Kasperg

I feel like I should at least have a crowbar by now.

Well, yes and no. You could find one legitimately by then.....there are various paths through that level

It's possible to beat the first level with zero combat. After that map, what to do does become a bit more obvious.

If you want to make things a lot easier .... don't press that button !!

No. He can't have the crowbar by that time. He has to leave that room (one way or another) to get it.

No. He can't have the crowbar by that time.

Dude, he can. Didn't you find it?

I guess a PM is in order.....hehe

I got to the garage on the other side of the street without any combat if that's where you're talking about.

It took me a while, but I eventually cought on that she

[b]EPIC SPOIILZ LUL:[/b]
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is wearing a different top than the others
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Yup, good observation skills will help a lot in the first map

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHH!



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I'm stuck, on the first level.

maybe you should make her gesture to you when you walk near her?

I don't think she's the main issue. For me, the issue is that the damn cop who spots you breaking lockdown frags my defenseless ass.

When I get the nerve to, I'll give it another shot. It seems like a few more playtesters could have helped iron out these difficulty issues. People seem to be frustrated with things others found quite easy.

We did consider it, but It makes more sense having to make the player take that first step. After all, all of the citizens seem to be concentrated listening to Grigory.
Edit: If you are more careful while playing, you'll find out what makes the metrocop turn hostile towards you. It's not like he shoots you when you enter the room...

I don't think it's a difficulty issue, as the map is very, very easy to complete if you do it the right way.

The right way is difficult to find. Hence: The map is difficult.

perhaps a glowing neon sign protruding from her forehead saying "follow me, i'm a stranger and Gregori is fucking annoying on repeat"

put her in less clothing than the others. that will make every single damn player run up against her pressing the use key repeatedly. Guarantee it.

I suppose you could look at it that way too.

what makes the guard spot you? I've tried everything and he always sees me.

You haven't tried everything

Have you tried not going too close to him?

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he's right under me, it's kinda hard to avoid him.

I jumped on that guy and he died. Not sure if that's how your supposed to do it.

I lol'd when it worked, though.

I'll give that a shot.

Edit: Nope. First time I died, second time neither of us did. I'm going to try a few more times though.

I jumped on that guy and he died.

That's one way to do part of it We were wondering how long it would be before someone tried that. Pssst. Throwing stuff on him works too. But obviously, only stuff that's going to hurt. Don't try throwing that boot that's lying around though. That'll just piss him off

it's kinda hard to avoid him.

It isn't. It really isn't. Think about it. Remember. I know exactly what you have to do to alert him. At what exact moment did the guard attack you? Was it when you first saw him? No, it almost certainly wasn't. So what did you do after you saw him? Run right up to him and shake his hand?

Well, i threw the tv with the infinitely long magical cord that goes through floors on his head and that didn't kill him either. I'm getting ready to just noclip it.

I'm getting ready to just noclip it.

You want to be careful with that.

Seriously.

infinitely long magical cord

That used to happen to me but I thought I fixed it. It hasn't happened to me for ages now! adds to bug list Thanks.

that didn't kill him

Out of all the objects you could use, the TV is the toughest to aim, I'll admit. But you can do it. I tested it many many times. I laughed every time.

Dude, why do you even have to kill him?
Did you kill every metrocop at the start of Half-life 2? Probably not...

Also, some objects will kill him if you break his neck. No-one dies because a crate touches their knees.

Well, I'm making a pile of every physics prop I can find outside the door so I can save and have a quick spot for retrying.

Hehe, I wish you could make a video of that...

There are some oil drums hidden in there.....they usually smash that cop good.

You don't have to kill him at all though.

If I didn't have to before, I do now. I'm going to tear that bastard to PIECES and then EAT HIS CHILDREN.

You'll like map 13

And in case anyone wonders; no, you don't get to eat metrocop children in map13.

Ok so I snuck by him but I found a wierd bug. When on top of the spiral staircase, the transparent grate textures that are farthest away appear over the ones that are closest. It's pretty trippy actually. I'll take a screeny if you want it, but i'm not sure it's important at all.

I'll screenie any bugs I see and keep em if you want.

Some textures seem to have preference over others in the Source engine. Sometimes it depends on the entity they are part of (func_detail vs func_illusionary), the place they are in (skybox, world) or what they are (for example the smg models seem not to be affected by glass when you see them through it, while the npc holding the weapon looks the way it should behind the glass).
I always find little things like that when I get stuck in some area in a game too!

Thanks. Email screenies to me, address is in the readme. When we get a big enough pile of stuff to fix, I'll fix 'em.

So what happens when you cheat? Did you code it to crash hl2.exe? > _ >

You know we're more subtle than that!

I'm stuck, again. Some guy tells you to go down a tunnel, so when I press the button to open the entrance, I get killed instantly!

what button? One of those "Do not Press" buttons?
They guys is pointing at a trapdoor. He specifically tells you not to mess with his car

the dialogue there is fantastic btw.. All gunna be mentioned in my review, but i had to point it out.
"Oh great.. now i'm gunna have to clear that mess up before the cops arrive" or something. I was grinning. There's a lot of moments like that.
G-man singing in the shower.. Or singing about G-man..

Most of the dialogue is actually quite good. Some of the actors really stand out amongst the others.

singing about G-man..

That's me singing, that is

Thanks for the nice comments

okay, sit down for this one :

fisrt of all, the one thing that sttod out for me was the fact that at the begining of the game, before the player has any weapons, you spawn manhacks. thats really not fun.

Your brushwork is pretty good, impressive in some areas, but all your arcitechture is far far too small, buildings are too small, streets, rooms everything. it feels cramped and it doesnt feel like theres a work outside the mod. Ill come back to this point later.

The voice acting is down right bad. you can see the thought is there, good dialouge, accents, but every single word sounds wodden, spoken as. if. there. WAS. a. serious. PUNCTUATION. issue. the sound quality is all right but the acting is bad. however I will easily let that slide as you actually HAVE voicve acting. go in the end thats a plus.

there where loads of general bad spots mapping wise, jagged displacements in the middle of a roag Im trying to drive down, shitloads of phys enabled crates where the player wont see them. snipers EVERYWHERE for no good reason. once again, cramped cramped areas. the airboat scenes where rediculous in this regard. bouncing off the walls either side, and only traveling about a metre before having to get out again. driving sections should be BIG. with plenty of space.

Health and ammo was sparse causing me to run around on 10 hp for most of the time. you released the mod with your own personal control layout including god knows where the jump button was and inverted mouse. most obvious gman placement ever. everywhere seems to be high contrast or something. (full brightness, LCD moniter). I had to noclip when I got stuck in a wall.

all that said, scripted sequences where very good. and there where alot of nice ideas in place. also, this is hardly a fair review as I didnt finish the mod. I got too fed up with it. :/

sorry for being a bit harsh, its by far better than most mods, but these are the crits. its not bad, but theres alot that could do with fixing, or at least bearing in mind when you move on to your next project, no doubt you will just get better and better with source as you carry on.

Let's address some of your issues.

at the begining of the game, before the player has any weapons, you spawn manhacks. thats really not fun.

This is absolutely false. YOU spawn the manhacks by pressing a button you shouldn't, destined for metrocops. You didn't get the joke, we're sorry, and you're not the only one.

but all your arcitechture is far far too small, buildings are too small, streets, rooms everything. it feels cramped and it doesnt feel like theres a work outside the mod. Ill come back to this point later.

That is just false. We used the correct HL2 dimensions and built the world to look bigger. There's quite a bit of scenery everywhere, and all the maps that can have a skybox do.

The voice acting is down right bad. you can see the thought is there, good dialouge, accents, but every single word sounds wodden, spoken as. if. there. WAS. a. serious. PUNCTUATION. issue. the sound quality is all right but the acting is bad. however I will easily let that slide as you actually HAVE voicve acting. go in the end thats a plus.

Well, at least you noticed the voice acting was there for a reason. Your opinion is very subjective. A lot of the dialogue is spoken really good. So that doesn't help us much.

there where loads of general bad spots mapping wise, jagged displacements in the middle of a roag Im trying to drive down, shitloads of phys enabled crates where the player wont see them

You were supposed to dodge things while moving. That was the idea and it isn't terribly difficult to do.

. snipers EVERYWHERE for no good reason.

Two snipers in 16 maps and you say EVERYWHERE? That kind of takes away any credibility from your review, I'm sorry to say.

the airboat scenes where rediculous in this regard. bouncing off the walls either side, and only traveling about a metre before having to get out again.

Probably half a meter, judging by how you measured things while playing.

driving sections should be BIG. with plenty of space.

There's no rule for that. You just made it up. And you answered yourself before. It's not a driving section, you need to get out quite a few times.

Health and ammo was sparse causing me to run around on 10 hp for most of the time.

That's wrong, and you can't back it up. There's plenty of ammo and hidden spots where you can get even more ammo.

you released the mod with your own personal control layout including god knows where the jump button was and inverted mouse.

We're sorry. I also had to configure the Ep2 controls when I installed it, yet I didn't cry about it.

most obvious gman placement ever.

That means you missed the rest of his placements, right?

everywhere seems to be high contrast or something. (full brightness, LCD moniter).

There's a lot of contrast to create the desired ambience. You can probably change settings inside your HL2 and monitor configurations to get it right without having to cry about it.

I had to noclip when I got stuck in a wall.

It doesn't help us if you don't tell us where.

all that said, scripted sequences where very good. and there where alot of nice ideas in place. also, this is hardly a fair review as I didnt finish the mod. I got too fed up with it. :/

That gives even more credit to your review.

sorry for being a bit harsh, its by far better than most mods, but these are the crits. its not bad, but theres alot that could do with fixing, or at least bearing in mind when you move on to your next project, no doubt you will just get better and better with source as you carry on.

We're sure the good outweighs the bad somehow, yet judging by your comments, we've done one of the most terrible pieces of hl2 mapping TWHL has ever seen.

Kasberg, every most of your points is correct. I thought the voice acting was excellent. It wasn't that usual stuff where you can tell it's one kid trying to sound like 4 different characters. I think it's a very well done mod, nothing different, but it's more of the (great) same.

Now about the manhacks. The mod starts off with a very ambiguous path. It's not as nebulous as Myst, but it's a pretty far out "way forward" compared to the hallway that is Half-Life 2. I didn't like this myself (Minerva sucked).

The config file that was included should've been with default bindings. That's a basic presentation thing.

Yeah the config file was annoying, for all of the ten seconds it took to fix.

Our mistake was indeed not reverting the config file to default. But we HAD to include one because things like Chapters locked/unlocked are described in that file.
Speaking again about the Do Not Press buttons, it's a thing of common sense. The fact that you have a gun and an explosive oildrum nearby doesn't mean you have to make it blow up in your face. The fire symbol on the oil drum is a warning. The "Do Not Press" signs are also warnings. It's still kind of fun to ruin your building-mates's lifes by releasing them. We should've added some custom lines for that...

Also the manhacks don't kill them, so that makes for some real opportunities for custom lines.

Yeah the config file was annoying, for all of the ten seconds it took to fix.

Lucky you. My copy of Half-Life 2 has a funky settings menu. If I try to do it by the GUI, the settings don't stick, or the game crashes (along with Steam and Explorer).

A lot of the dialogue is spoken really good.

Gold.

May download this later if I can be bothered.

sorry, but this mod blows chunks. the mapping is good, and it has voice acting - big deal.

nearly every gameplay decision you made is HORRIBLE. after navigating several boring conversations and picking up useless things, you are told to avoid the combine in the next building. this is IMPOSSIBLE. the only way is to run as fast as you can, and run through a door with a button next to it that says "you need a key card" and then opens anyway when you touch it.

do you know a mechanic called a GATEWAY? it's something that stops the player from missing that fucking crowbar on the road, and the suit in the other door. look it up. seriously. after progressing to the buttons which the only way to get past is to press randomly until you stumble upon the correct sequence, and turning a wheel that does nothing except give you a key that in turn does nothing, you find you need a crowbar to proceed, which I DIDN'T HAVE. i stumbled around for a while until someone on IRC told me that i needed the crowbar which WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET. cheats saved me closing the game right then and there.

and there is definitely not enough ammo or health. the DO NOT PRESS buttons are stupid, the voice acting is LONG WINDED AND BORING. there are definitely more than two snipers. i got to about map 12 before hl2 did its crashy thing, and i had encountered 5 snipers by that time, three hidden in windows that are clipped, making the grenade BOUNCE RIGHT OFF and fall onto the useless ground.

after hl2 crashed, i have no inclination of finishing this mod, although i may force myself to in the near future. this is the least fun i've ever had playing a mod. tacked on attempts of humour failed to make this mod enjoyable. i'll give my opinion on the last bits of the game when i get around to forcing myself to listen to that boring 10 minute speech again.

this, in terms of gameplay, is one of the most terrible mods TWHL has ever seen.

That's gotta sting a bit.

From that review, I'd say it sounds a lot like The Gate.