New Theory..City 17 is inspired from...

[BWMASTER]

ROMANIA..
And i have alot of proof to make my theory more beleivable than others.
First off here is why Romania had alot of influence in the artist's sketches and inspiration.
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=14716

Quote:
"HomeLAN - There are any number of directions you could have taken the story of Half-Life 2. Why did you decide to take the story to a fictional Eastern European city?

Gabe Newell - Within the story, there are reasons why you are in City 17. Outside of what is happening in the story, two factors influenced our inclusion of City 17 - the first was that Viktor Antonov grew up in ROMANIA and without really intending to he got a bunch of the artists excited about an art direction that drew heavily on eastern European source material, and the second was that thematically present day eastern Europe exists at a really interesting crossroad between the past and the future which resonates with what goes on in Half-Life 2. "

Gabe comments how cities in eastern europe are in an intresting crossroad between the past and the future which is exactly true with cities in Romania.

Now i just realised that the cars in the HL2 demo are possibly modeled after a car in Romania called "Dacia" and happens to be the most popular brand there so you see it alot on streets.

http://brasov.free.fr/images/dacia006.jpg
http://brasov.free.fr/images/dacia008.jpg

Here are some pictures from Romania:

http://www.geocities.com/ciprian_mioc/Ro109_Buc16.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/ciprian_mioc/Ro001_Con01.jpg
*Copy the geociities link in adress bar for it to work*
http://www.fototur.com/romania/timisoara/284+2944251+Timisoara-Victory Square-1.JPG
http://www.fototur.com/romania/timisoara/284+9317612+Timisoara-Liberty Square-1.JPG
http://www.fototur.com/romania/iasi/26+842206+1.jpg
http://www.fototur.com/romania/iasi/677+2863404+35.jpg

Now in a specific city (and some others) called Iasi we have what its called a "tramvai" which is a method of transportation inside urban areas on rail tracks. When gordon zooms in on the people in the last scene of the big movie you can see such a vehicle heading away from gordon.

In this low quality picture you can see the tramvai which perfectly resembles the one in the movie. Also notice the ground in the pic?PERFECT
http://physics.bu.edu/~crissteg/images/image_ro_05.jpg

Here are the tracks on which the tramvai roams. Just noticed the trees look simmilar to the ones in the video ??
http://www.fototur.com/romania/iasi/634+9818844+DSCF0057.JPG

:cheers:

 

[Cleric]

not quite sure if its a perfect match but it is very close, thing is alot of citys in europe look very similar so not much point in guessing!!

 

[BWMASTER]

Well the coincidence is pretty big. First of all Gabe mentioned it. Plus not all cities in Europe have tramvais. The cars look simmilar too.
I'm just saying that they were mostly inspired from the architechture of Romanian cities and the game shows it.

 

[[Matt]]

Im not that bothered about where the games set so long as it plays like a dream. The part of that interview that really got my attention was this part...

In the MOD SDK we'll include a room where everywhere you look, move, and do something that characters will react and respond to show MOD authors how to use the acting system.

Seems we will get to play around with the game a little before release!

 

[BWMASTER]

The MOD SDK will only be released to select serious modders and not to the public.
~IRC HeRe wE COmE

 

[[Matt]]

 

[derby]

I'm sure it will be leaked. Unless valve tag on some really serious non disclusure agreement. Enough software gets leaked from employees, imagine a group of amatuers holing out on the 'holy grail' of modding......

 

[baldrik]

on one side i want "the holy grale" and on another I think it'll ruin part of the game. So its gonna be hard deciding wether to play it or not if its leaked.

 

[BWMASTER]

the holy grale would prolly be 1 gig or more so dont get too exited

 

[The Mullinator]

It sucks having dial-up. I will have to get the "Holy Grail" by ordering a CD from filePlanet. :x

 

[Insert]

its Africa!!! not sweden, not russia or some other ....whatever.

ITS AFRICA, or maybe Greenland..

 

[righte0us]

I think we all kinda figured it out by now that City 17 might be Romania, according to the Homelanfed interview

 

[Punisher454]

I was walking by the TV the other night and heard DIO doing "Rainbow in the Dark" I had to stop and watch of course. Anyhow during the video I seen those horses up on the poles just like in the square in the demo. And while I watched the rest of it I couldnt help but think" This city must have been used for inspiration in designing City 17"
Wish I knew where it was, somebody posted before that they saw those horse statues in Amsterdam though. And it does seem a likely place for metal bands to hang out while in Europe.

The Punisher

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Originally posted by BWMASTER
The MOD SDK will only be released to select serious modders and not to the public.
~IRC HeRe wE COmE

How will they distinguish between 'real' modders and some guy who just wants to put it on kazza?

If you say 'Real modders have a website' then thats gonna be annoying because i dont have the money at the moment to afford a website.
Now if they just have to 'apply' then anyone could do that.

How are they gonna do it?

 

[righte0us]

dude that's bullshit. the SDK will be released online before Sept 30th. you're probably confusing the Mod Expo that Valve will give help and show all of the stuff in the SDK to various modders.

 

[Straylight]

I imagine it will be given to whoever shows up at their mod expo (for deciding who is serious)... and furthermore I'm not sure where you guys are getting the idea that they will not release it for DL also at some point. I mean no one would have guessed that Gooseman was a "serious" mod team. He's just one man.

-Straylight

 

[Mr.Reak]

Originally posted by Straylight
I imagine it will be given to whoever shows up at their mod expo (for deciding who is serious)... and furthermore I'm not sure where you guys are getting the idea that they will not release it for DL also at some point. I mean no one would have guessed that Gooseman was a "serious" mod team. He's just one man.

-Straylight

See what happens, the same thing with Carmak, everybody thinks he is a god, but people tend to forget he has a team, who helped him, but didn’t get as much credit as Carmak did. Gooseman didn’t work alone, he got help from many people.

 

[Straylight]

I'm sure he did but don't short change the guy. I mean it was his idea and stuff and I believe he did most of the work. Certainly all of the weapons and player skins and I think almost all of the codeing as well. Help or not that's pretty impressive. Many teams of many more people have done much less.

The point I was driving at is that valve, if they were releasing the source code to only people they thought worthy would overlook someone like that because he doesn't look as "real" a mod team as an actual team.

-Straylight

 

[Mr.Reak]

Well maybe so.

I don’t really think that Valve will overlook them, they will give Hammer to everyone I think, for free download. But remember Gabe talking about licensing an engine will be open to modders (is it even a word)? Well this will be limited only to mods that took off and have a good team to back it up, so I yeah I agree with you about one guy team.

 

[NiteStalker]

I stick to my swedish trams=)