Xen is Very Poorly Designed

[Jofoyo]

For the first few stages, Xen was great, it was gorgeous, had new enemies, and took my breath away. Once it got indoors though into the factories, everything turned sunnyside down. The puzzles for starters are just plain awful, I was bumbling around the whole time without a clue as to what I really should be doing, and the levels just flat out play and navigate awfully.

They lengthened Xen out because the original game planned to, but didn't due to time constraints. After the first stages though, once it went into the factories, it just looked and felt like everything was vomited out due to time constraints. The cycle continues.

They honestly should've just kept it short and sweet, as the original game did, the long wait and all the delays were just not worth it past the first section, I honestly couldn't even finish the game just because it just left such a bitter taste in my mouth, and I just couldn't even feel bothered to go further, like I could've been doing something else. That is not what you want from a game.

The map devs are obviously artists, but I cannot say they know their way around making their own levels.

Addendum: Editing this because at the time of writing I was quite upset and was mostly venting, and though I still do think Xen is a big mess, I like for you to take into consideration this.

[That just happened]

Publicado originalmente por Dralkkin:

Just because I can't find it in a several hundred page book that I can't ctr+f through doesn't mean it's not in there. I distinctly remember it along with descriptions of how Xen was at one point going to be the inside of a giant being that was carried over into Interloper's redesign. And it's not a copy of Pandora. Lush alien worlds have been a thing in media before Avatar. And besides, it's much darker and grimier. Stop expouting subjective design comparisons as fact.

Here's tons of stuff Mark has said about how Valve doesn't care about expanding on Gearbox's story 'ideas'
http://web.archive.org/web/20170601110755/http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=28753478&postcount=1

And you're right, Laidlaw himself didn't write for Alyx, but Eric Wolpaw did. Someone with just as much say over Half-Life's canon.

Dude, pls make sure you properly read a post before you reply. Or your claims would look inconsistent and shallow - just like now. I specifically said it's my opinion based on expirience with HL universe - thats how I see this and it has nothing to do with you and doesn't mean you need to dispute it. But if you start to, make sure to google proper meaning of words, if you don't know them. Copy and copycat are very different words. Lush alien worlds are nothing new indeed, yet again they are very different by design. And can you name at least few that have so much media impact, popularity and recognizability as Avatar and that have similar visual design features that we see on Pandora and Xen swamp? Or plainly can you name any other alien world desing that comes in mind when you look at Black Mesa Xen swamp?

I will read the link, but if we stick to what you've said already, then "doesn't care" isn't the same as "doesn't consider canon". So maybe you should be the first to "stop expouting subjective" judgments as facts?

And stop bringing unrelated things to argument. We talked about canon and not about people who write story. Cause for all we know Eric Wolpaw could be considering HL1 addons as hard canon and what then? It's just unrelated.

[Dralkkin]

Publicado originalmente por That just happened:

Dude, pls make sure you properly read a post before you reply. Or your claims would look inconsistent and shallow - just like now. I specifically said it's my opinion based on expirience with HL universe - thats how I see this and it has nothing to do with you and doesn't mean you need to dispute it. But if you start to, make sure to google proper meaning of words, if you don't know them. Copy and copycat are very different words. Lush alien worlds are nothing new indeed, yet again they are very different by design. And can you name at least few that have so much media impact, popularity and recognizability as Avatar and that have similar visual design features that we see on Pandora and Xen swamp? Or plainly can you name any other alien world desing that comes in mind when you look at Black Mesa Xen swamp?

I will read the link, but if we stick to what you've said already, then "doesn't care" isn't the same as "doesn't consider canon". So maybe you should be the first to "stop expouting subjective" judgments as facts?

And stop bringing unrelated facts to argument. We talked about canon and not about people who write story. Cause for all we know Eric Wolpaw could be considering HL1 addons as hard canon and what then? It's just unrelated.

Look, I don't really care anymore. I didn't intend to get into a lore discussion over things I read half a decade ago. The point I was trying to make, was that adding a swamp area to Xen wasn't some out of left field decision that the devs did on a whim. If you think it looks like Avatar, fine. I didn't, and I doubt it's what it was based on.

And the second point I was trying to make was that just because you and like 50 other people didn't like it because it wasn't slapped together like the original Xen, something that not even its original creators are proud of, doesn't mean that the collective fanbase agrees it wasn't what they wanted. That's what I took issue with. Not your opinion as a whole.

At the end of the day, There's no further point in complaining about it. All level designs are now final. They're just going to have to accept that they're part of the vocal minority that doesn't like it because it's "different" and "Change = Bad"

[CrypticPassage (Is/Eum)]

He may have his personal opinion and you can support it if you like, but it's still nothing without Valve's word. Also, Half-Life: Alyx has nothing to do with Marc Laidlaw, but it's canon now. :gordon:

^ This

[Dralkkin]

Publicado originalmente por TheUnstableNutcase ✪:

He may have his personal opinion and you can support it if you like, but it's still nothing without Valve's word. Also, Half-Life: Alyx has nothing to do with Marc Laidlaw, but it's canon now. :gordon:

^ This

Great. I challenge Valve to prove me wrong, then. Use any of Gearbox's plot threads in a new game. But they won't. Because as far as HL2 and its Episodes go, they didn't happen. You miss absolutely nothing by not playing them. In fact you're better off because you don't have to endure Gearbox's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ level design.

[Olde]

Publicado originalmente por Ciaran Zagami:

More is not always better. The chapters in Xen are so long that it starts to create problems. The Designers begin running out of ideas and recycling puzzles or stretching sections out to fill run time. (the aforementioned infinite HP infinite ammo conveyor belt sequence springs to mind)
Or look at HDTF, every single level is stupid long but nothing ever happens cause the levels are just void of content.

Scale is one of many problems with Xen's design but its probably the easiest to explain and definitely the least contentious.

I agree with all of this, except that the designers ran out of ideas. In fact, I think they had too many ideas, or they wanted everybody to have an equal amount of input, and so instead of rejecting ideas they may have wanted to include more and more. Not just to pad out the runtime but also to make up for the fact that it took them so long to release.

I've said this in other places that Interloper definitely needs cuts, but on thinking about it, Xen (the chapter) would probably also benefit from cuts. There's really no story reason for the third and fourth maps. I even admit I think they're visually pretty but let's be honest, what do they add? Is there a reason you need to solve a three-branch puzzle to stop some leaves from blocking your path? Is there a reason you need to long-jump through a cave and leapfrog from lilypad to lilypad over beneathacles? What do those sections actually add?

Interloper has much more noticeable problems because it's visually straining for a long period of time and the combat scenarios are repetitive. I'd wager that in Black Mesa's Interloper, you fight at least twice the number of controllers that HL1 had in total from Lambda Core to Interloper. And at the end of the day you don't really gain much from the bulk of Interloper (maps 3-5) except the knowledge that they're manufacturing agrunts and controllers are enslaving vortigaunts to run the machinery. That's really all the takeaway there is. I enjoy some sections like riding the grunt pod through lasers, but the value that many parts add simply don't justify their protracted length. You don't need to spend 2.5-3 hours in a factory when the summation of that experience is a couple of sentences. Point Insertion conveyed all it had to about City 17 in a matter of minutes; BM's Interloper is an exercise in patience and frustration, and if I'm being brutally honest, it comes across to me as self-indulgent navel-gazing. I don't even know how much I'd say is an improvement over the original. At least the original Interloper wasn't long and didn't make 90% of fights boil down to infinite gluon spam.

I get that they want the journey from the bottom of the tower to the top to be impressive due to the scale of the tower shown in maps before the factory, but as Ciaran Zagami said, more isn't always better.

[Dralkkin]

Publicado originalmente por Olde:

I agree with all of this, except that the designers ran out of ideas. In fact, I think they had too many ideas, or they wanted everybody to have an equal amount of input, and so instead of rejecting ideas they may have wanted to include more and more. Not just to pad out the runtime but also to make up for the fact that it took them so long to release.

I've said this in other places that Interloper definitely needs cuts, but on thinking about it, Xen (the chapter) would probably also benefit from cuts. There's really no story reason for the third and fourth maps. I even admit I think they're visually pretty but let's be honest, what do they add? Is there a reason you need to solve a three-branch puzzle to stop some leaves from blocking your path? Is there a reason you need to long-jump through a cave and leapfrog from lilypad to lilypad over beneathacles? What do those sections actually add?

Interloper has much more noticeable problems because it's visually straining for a long period of time and the combat scenarios are repetitive. I'd wager that in Black Mesa's Interloper, you fight at least twice the number of controllers that HL1 had in total from Lambda Core to Interloper. And at the end of the day you don't really gain much from the bulk of Interloper (maps 3-5) except the knowledge that they're manufacturing agrunts and controllers are enslaving vortigaunts to run the machinery. That's really all the takeaway there is. I enjoy some sections like riding the grunt pod through lasers, but the value that many parts add simply don't justify their protracted length. You don't need to spend 2.5-3 hours in a factory when the summation of that experience is a couple of sentences. Point Insertion conveyed all it had to about City 17 in a matter of minutes; BM's Interloper is an exercise in patience and frustration, and if I'm being brutally honest, it comes across to me as self-indulgent navel-gazing. I don't even know how much I'd say is an improvement over the original. At least the original Interloper wasn't long and didn't make 90% of fights boil down to infinite gluon spam.

I get that they want the journey from the bottom of the tower to the top to be impressive due to the scale of the tower shown in maps before the factory, but as Ciaran Zagami said, more isn't always better.

Because the point is to enjoy being in the world? Why is anything in the game? Why does it have hallways, we should just cut those and place the rooms directly together. Why do the chapters have more than one map, let's just condense those into core ideas. Why does the game have combat, that interferes with telling a story. Let's just make the game a corridor with a button at the end that wins the game. In fact, why make the player put effort in. Let's just make it all a cutscene. /s

You can't just arbitrarily determine what adds value and what doesn't, because every player places a different amount of importance on different things. I'm sure some people would be perfectly happy if the entire game was shooting HECU. Others would probably rather just take in the atmosphere and not fight anything. I personally happen to like exploring Xen and taking in the atmosphere, occasionally fending off the wildlife.

The boat and car sections of HL2 aren't exactly my favorite parts of HL2, but I would't want them removed or cut down. The only reason there's even complaints is because CC is slightly less clandestine than Valve is. If this was released by Valve with no changes, I guarantee there wouldn't be half as much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ as there is now.

[WELSH_GAMER_99]

Publicado originalmente por Dralkkin:

Publicado originalmente por WELSH_BOI_99:

Um that's inaccurate. Valve never said anything about the Gearbox games being non canon. Plus nothing in those games contradict the main games.

Mark Laidlaw has. He's stated that he doesn't take Gearbox's expansions into consideration when writing for Half-Life, so as far as Half-Life's main writter is concerned, Race X, Adrian Shephard, and Blue Shift's Barney don't exist.

Marc Laidlaw literally never said anything remotely similar to that. Hell Laidlaw doesn't believe in canon

[WELSH_GAMER_99]

Publicado originalmente por Dralkkin:

Publicado originalmente por TheUnstableNutcase ✪:

^ This

Great. I challenge Valve to prove me wrong, then. Use any of Gearbox's plot threads in a new game. But they won't. Because as far as HL2 and its Episodes go, they didn't happen. You miss absolutely nothing by not playing them. In fact you're better off because you don't have to endure Gearbox's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ level design.

You don't have to use Gearbox elements in another game to make them canon lol. They can perfectly exist as standalone events within the universe.

[WELSH_GAMER_99]

https://youtu.be/jFNUUtrBSmU folks should really watch this video. It puts a ton of things into context (And what Laidlaw actually meant) while providing explainations for the Gearbox games vadility.

[Dralkkin]

Publicado originalmente por WELSH_BOI_99:

Marc Laidlaw literally never said anything remotely similar to that. Hell Laidlaw doesn't believe in canon

Yes he literally has. I linked to a huge page where he mentions that Gearbox did their own thing and how he doesn't pay attention to it.

[WELSH_GAMER_99]

Publicado originalmente por Dralkkin:

Publicado originalmente por WELSH_BOI_99:

Marc Laidlaw literally never said anything remotely similar to that. Hell Laidlaw doesn't believe in canon

Yes he literally has. I linked to a huge page where he mentions that Gearbox did their own thing and how he doesn't pay attention to it.

Yes you linked the thread without providing any specific context to what he actually said. Basically what he meant that the gearbox games don't figure into his thinking of the world since they don't affect his own works or writing on the games. Again Laidlaw's view on canon is really loose.

https://youtu.be/jFNUUtrBSmU

This video really helps put the quotes into context. I mean hell Valve did considered returning shephard into the series along with adding references to Blue Shift in Half-Life: Alyx

The canon argument for Half-Life is pretty arbitrary since Valve never really went out of their way to explicitly say one game is canon or non canon. Their canon is VERY loose and it's filled with retcons and the gearbox games exist in their own version of events where they can be both considered canon and non canon

[Dralkkin]

Publicado originalmente por WELSH_BOI_99:

This video really helps put the quotes into context. I mean hell Valve did considered returning shephard into the series along with adding references to Blue Shift in Half-Life: Alyx

The canon argument for Half-Life is pretty arbitrary since Valve never really went out of their way to explicitly say one game is canon or non canon. Their canon is VERY loose and it's filled with retcons and the gearbox games exist in their own version of events where they can be both considered canon and non canon

Okay, but they didn't, and so, no official Valve game even references the expansions unless you want to count the extremely loose keyboard easter egg in Portal 1. And so, since the Gearbox expansions are bad and Race X is stupid, there's no point in considering adding them to Xen or Black Mesa at all. Which was the original point.

[WELSH_GAMER_99]

Publicado originalmente por Dralkkin:

Publicado originalmente por WELSH_BOI_99:

This video really helps put the quotes into context. I mean hell Valve did considered returning shephard into the series along with adding references to Blue Shift in Half-Life: Alyx

The canon argument for Half-Life is pretty arbitrary since Valve never really went out of their way to explicitly say one game is canon or non canon. Their canon is VERY loose and it's filled with retcons and the gearbox games exist in their own version of events where they can be both considered canon and non canon

Okay, but they didn't, and so, no official Valve game even references the expansions unless you want to count the extremely loose keyboard easter egg in Portal 1. And so, since the Gearbox expansions are bad and Race X is stupid, there's no point in considering adding them to Xen or Black Mesa at all. Which was the original point.

I don't care for your opinion on the expansions or adding gearbox elements to Black Mesa. I just wanted to put things right regarding the canon.

Plus why should Valve reference them to confirm their validity? They can still exist separately without future games constantly having callbacks to them. I don't want Race X to return to the series as long as there is a good reason for them and so far Opposing Force kind of made sure of them not returning

(although I wouldn't mind some characters returning like Dr Rosenberg from Blue Shift)

[WELSH_GAMER_99]

I mean if you don't want to view them as canon that's fine. Both can work two ways. But don't say they are officially non canon because Valve or Laidlaw never really said anything to support them being non canon but rather both. Laidlaw went out and said "canon is not canon" within Half-Life so it's really pointless.

[Dralkkin]

Publicado originalmente por WELSH_BOI_99:

I mean if you don't want to view them as canon that's fine. Both can work two ways. But don't say they are officially non canon because Valve or Laidlaw never really said anything to support them being non canon but rather both. Laidlaw went out and said "canon is not canon" within Half-Life so it's really pointless.

I'm just saying that Valve hasn't referenced them in 2 and 2/3 games now, so it's pretty clear they aren't considering them. They could release Half-Life 3 and prove me wrong, but as it stands right now, they might as well not exist.