Opposing Force

[Yellonet]

Played through HL and Op4 recently, to freshen up on the story and monsters and stuff. Well, one thing that struck me was how short Op4 was... It took me about a week to beat Half-Life, playing a few hours a day. It took me 3 days to beat Op4... Oh well, it's still a gread addon :cheers:

Anyway... will we see any of the weapons from Op4 in HL²? Probably not huh? I would really like to see the M-249 though :sniper:

 

[Harryz]

I assume you mean Half-Life 2, not Half-Life? I really doubt we'll be seeing any of the Opposing Force weapons, would be cool though.

 

[Yellonet]

I assume you mean Half-Life 2, not Half-Life?

Hrrm... yes

I really doubt we'll be seeing any of the Opposing Force weapons, would be cool though.

Because Op4 isn't made by Valve no doubt :|

 

[Harryz]

Hrrm... yes

Because Op4 isn't made by Valve no doubt :|

Yeah its created by Gearbox.

 

[kiwii]

Hrrm... yes

Because Op4 isn't made by Valve no doubt :|

Okay, lets pretend im Gabe now.
Me: No, but you could mod it. :farmer:

 

[Yellonet]

Okay, lets pretend im Gabe now.
Me: No, but you could mod it. :farmer:

That wouldn't be very fun... If a weapon isn't supposed to be in the game (sp) I don't want it.

Edit: Is there going to be any new weapons in HL²?? Except for the throw-a-ball-and-the-ant-lions-a-comin'...

 

[Asuka]

Okay, lets pretend im Gabe now.
Me: No, but you could mod it. :farmer:

Lol! :rolling:

 

[kiwii]

That wouldn't be very fun... If a weapon isn't supposed to be in the game (sp) I don't want it.

Edit: Is there going to be any new weapons in HL²?? Except for the throw-a-ball-and-the-ant-lions-a-comin'...

that greande trowhing thingy. its in the movie where thoose mines follow you.

 

[DrPowers]

I liked OpFor more than the original HL. Not sure why..... Gordon is a better character but the gameplay was more fun in OpFor.

If you want to see short play blueshift. It took me one sitting to beat it but you get to play AS barney which is cool.

 

[Asknoone]

I am sure everyone knows my opinions on op4 by now

(but if you dont i think its awful)

 

[DrPowers]

I am sure everyone knows my opinions on op4 by now

(but if you dont i think its awful)

how is it awful? I think it stayed true to the HL name while introducing mor aliens, weapons, and characters. The thing I liked most was when I ran into gordon along the way.

 

[Yellonet]

that greande trowhing thingy. its in the movie where thoose mines follow you.

Oh yeah... that thing that shoots flares?
Now that you mention it, wasn't there some kind of energy weapon in one of the vids?

 

[Yellonet]

how is it awful? I think it stayed true to the HL name while introducing mor aliens, weapons, and characters. The thing I liked most was when I ran into gordon along the way.

Try to throw in someting about HL² in the mix ey... otherwise they'll move this thread

Yep, Opposing Force was a good addon. A new Op4 could be done, but with the player as a Combine Soldier, I just can't see how a regular army could exist in the HL² world. Maybe I've got it all wrong but it seems as though there are no goverments or states any longer, just one big ball of anarchy with a few exceptions like city 17 where The Administrator makes the law. Maybe some humans are in cahoots with the Xeniens... Probably all wrong
But in Op4-2 you could actually be Adrian Shepard.. he might have been offered(coerced?) to join the Combine after his "detention".
After all, he's not an all good guy... He was out to kill Gordon.
But the soldiers might have been told some lies about Dr. Freeman of course... hmm...
It's fun to theorize about HL :E

 

[Tyrsenus]

Does anyone know if and how Op4, Blue Shift and Decay will factor into the plot of HL2? for instance, at the end OP4, Black Mesa was nuked. Is that going to affect the plot of HL2, or has Valve effectively thrown out what Gearbox has done?

 

[Yellonet]

Does anyone know if and how Op4, Blue Shift and Decay will factor into the plot of HL2? for instance, at the end OP4, Black Mesa was nuked. Is that going to affect the plot of HL2, or has Valve effectively thrown out what Gearbox has done?

We'll probably hear a few things about BM as there are some characthers in HL² that were there when it happned, so to speak.

 

[Tyrsenus]

We'll probably hear a few things about BM as there are some characthers in HL² that were there when it happned, so to speak.

True, but are they gonna say "Hey Gordon, glad you got out before they nuked the place?" Or have the events that occured in the expansions been removed from the HL Bible?

 

[DrPowers]

There isnt a reason for the Black Mesa security guard to be there either but there he is.

They were prob picked to be sent to BM just like Gordon was.

 

[Terranboy]

They could not count op4 as part of the story. I believe that when Barking Dog made the Cataclysm expansion of Homeworld, Relic didn't include the events of Cataclysm in Homeworld2. So its possible, maybe the expansions are just for fun.

 

[DrPowers]

They added Barney (or was BS developed by valve?)

My guess is that all relevent characters will be in HL2.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

True, but are they gonna say "Hey Gordon, glad you got out before they nuked the place?" Or have the events that occured in the expansions been removed from the HL Bible?

Well, Marc Laidlaw wrote both Half-life, OP4 and BS, and HL2. So My guess is OP4 and BS will be part of the "official" HL universe.

 

[YourMom]

Opposing Force: Source
-----------------------------------
1. Extract bsp files, models, textures, etc from the op4 gcf file.
2. Convert bsp files to .map files.
3. Convert hl1 type files to source type files. (ie bsp->vbsp)
4. Slap it all together.
5. Result: Opposing Force: Source

There. Now you have HL2 content in this thread.

 

[Yellonet]

True, but are they gonna say "Hey Gordon, glad you got out before they nuked the place?" Or have the events that occured in the expansions been removed from the HL Bible?

I don't think that Valve will ignore the accomlishments of Gearbox... hopefully.

 

[Brian Damage]

Well, as has been said, Barney Calhoun from BS is in HL2...

And the original PC Gamer article did mention that the barnacle grapple from OP4 was returning. But that may have changed by now...

 

[Feath]

Well, as has been said, Barney Calhoun from BS is in HL2...

And the original PC Gamer article did mention that the barnacle grapple from OP4 was returning. But that may have changed by now...

Really? I thought that they just mentioned that it was back as in the ceiling hanging inplementation, not the weapon.

As for Laidlaw's input into the expansions, here's what he's actually said.

"We had a lot of conversations with Gearbox concerning the creation of Opposing Force and Blue Shift, and I supplied them with various documents that fleshed out background elements that hadn't been woven directly into the foreground of Half-Life. The place where you see this most clearly is in Barney's odyssey to Xen, where a bit more light is shed on the Xen-relay teleport experiments. Some of the reason for the overlapping narratives was that it made sense for Gearbox to reuse existing content, such as textures and design motifs, since they had limited schedules for producing these games. Most of the moment-to-moment gameplay and story decisions were left in Gearbox's hands, and we merely tried to make sure they dovetailed with our own designs and didn't create any huge conflicts. Gearbox, as fans of the original, had a good eye for places where their stories could overlap with Half-Life, but even so, they took plenty of liberties with the story for the sake of making a fun game. Fun in a game is ultimately more important than consistency."

I'm pretty sure that Gearbox won't have blown up Black Mesa unless it was in Valve's original documents. I mean, Valve would've been pissed off if they were designing Half-Life 2 to take part in Black Mesa, wouldn't they? Also, the blowing up of Black Mesa wasn't really integral to the story of Opposing Force, they could've just left the bit at the end.

Anyway, the Valve website hints that Valve intended to blow up Black Mesa:

[Gabe Newell's] most significant contribution to Half-Life was his statement "C’mon, people, you can’t show the player a really big bomb and not let them blow it up."

 

[Loopy]

Given Laidlaw's last sentence in that quote above I'm guessing Half-Life 2 won't make any of the major plot elements from OpFor and Blue Shift irrelevant. The destruction of Black Mesa by the nuke is an obvious example, and Race-X and the significance of those yellow crystals in the scientists' teleportation experiments might be a couple other pieces woven into Half-Life's continuity. Characters like Otis and Dr. Rosenberg I doubt would be totally discounted either, though none of this means that Valve is obligated to put any mention of OpFor or Blue Shift stuff in HL2. I'm confident that however they do or don't manipulate story consistency it'll make sense in the end.

 

[Lanthanide]

What I didn't like about Op4, and I suspect many other's didn't like either, were the abundance of scripted and 'cool' sequences just for the sake of being 'cool'.

For example the part near the beginning when you go into the room that starts to get flooded by radioactive goop and the floor gets destroyed - it was really very contrived and felt stupid and out-of-place, IMO. The garm worm (that's it right?) was pretty derivative of Blast Pit, too. It gets better later on in the game, but those parts still pop up everynow and then in it.

Parts that I did enjoy a lot however were the sewer system with the big slug things and the Xen habitat/biodome areas. They were well thought out and generally well executed (although parts of the Xen biodome looked pretty wooden/unrealistic).

 

[sHm0zY]

op as a combine huh.

 

[Brian Damage]

Here's the excerpt, Feath:

Your own weapons will again be a mix of contemporary pistols, shotguns, rocket launchers and grenades, plus experimental earth wepaons and organic alien guns, including a version of Half-Life: Opposing Force's barnacle gun grappling hook.

... but like I say, PC Gamer aren't exactly renowned around here for having accurate HL2 info...

 

[Asknoone]

Most of the main story descisions were left in gearbox's hands...I knew it...dam race X

 

[Rocketman9mm]

I liked Op4 a lot, was satisfied with it besides the bizarre final boss. anyway, did you all know that it is possible to play HL1 with the OP4 hud and weapons? I'm not sure if I remember exactly how it worked, but I think it was you start op4, then in the console tell it to load a map llike map a1a3 or something like that and it would load the HL1 level, but you'd still be in "op4 mode" Now sure you are then just playing half-life and you'd need to impulse 101 to get all the op4 stuff. I don't know if that is no longer possible with steam, but if you want to, install the origional games from cd in a different directory, steam free and see if it works.

 

[Rocketman9mm]

but the only possible connection i could see with op4 in half-life 2 is if you run into adrian as gordon at some point along the way and team up with him to accomplish some mission that requires some "military experience." If I'm not mistaken, the G-man recruited Shephard as well as Freeman, correct? Not likely to happen cuz they are probably saving any A.S. storyline for another ad-on or something.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Most of the moment-to-moment gameplay and story decisions were left in Gearbox's hands, and we merely tried to make sure they dovetailed with our own designs and didn't create any huge conflicts.

So, Marc Laidlaw himself approves of all Gearbox's decisions, except the ones that create continuity errors. It also looks like Valve gave the important major plot details, and left the individual action sequnces up to Gearbox.

As far as I can tell, there are only two continuity problems between all the games.
1) Between events in Decay and Op4, the Hazard Course magically repairs itself. (This is easilly explained away by just assuming that there are two hazard courses though.)

2) Gearbox pictured Gordon without a helmet, even though it is more likely that he used one.

Everything else fits together nicely.

 

[Griever]

If I'm not mistaken, the G-man recruited Shephard as well as Freeman, correct?

Not quite..

Gman to Shephard:
While I believe a civil servant like yourself understands the importance of... discretion, my employers are not quite so trusting and, rather than continually subject you to the irrestible human temptation of telling all, we have decided to... convey you somewhere you can do no possible harm... and where no harm can come to you. I'm sure you can imagine there are worse alternatives...

So, I don't think Shephard is going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[cylyk]

speaking of nuked black mesa... how COOL would it be if in HL3 you had to go back to the busted up black mesa while it's all broken and musty and filled with horribly mutated radioactive zombies? that would be sweet.

 

[alan8325]

speaking of nuked black mesa... how COOL would it be if in HL3 you had to go back to the busted up black mesa while it's all broken and musty and filled with horribly mutated radioactive zombies? that would be sweet.

Yeah that would be cool if there is a short section in HL2 (or 3) where you teleport back to some semi-intact corner of Blackmesa. Maybe it could be to retrieve some piece of equipment that a scientist needs, or maybe it could be unintentional, like through a rift that is accidentally created. Either way it would be a pretty creepy experience if done well by the map designers.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Opposing Force: Source
-----------------------------------
1. Extract bsp files, models, textures, etc from the op4 gcf file.
2. Convert bsp files to .map files.
3. Convert hl1 type files to source type files. (ie bsp->vbsp)
4. Slap it all together.
5. Result: Opposing Force: Source

There. Now you have HL2 content in this thread.

decompiling BSP files is actually illegal according to the DMCA.

Decompiled BSP files usually don't compile correctly anyway, due to the way that the map file has every brush subdivided into triangles.

The custom code for Opfor is unlikely to be present in the DLLs for HL2

So basically, no.

 

[Yellonet]

If I'm not mistaken, the G-man recruited Shephard as well as Freeman, correct?

Freeman was recruited, Shepard was "detained". He could therefore be coerced or offered to join the Combine, If they have anything to do with the G-Man's employers that is, this would make Opposing Force 2 a possibility

Wouldn't the Manipulator work as a grapple-hook too?

 

[Lanthanide]

Not like the one in OpFor.

Theoretically (heh, it's a sci-fi weapon...) the manipulator -could- be used to pull yourself closer to walls and such, but this is not the way it works in HL2.

The gravity gun (with the blue beam in the tech demo) would be closer to a grappling hook, but even so it's not the same.

 

[Yellonet]

Not like the one in OpFor.

You're right. It wouldn't bite.

Theoretically (heh, it's a sci-fi weapon...) the manipulator -could- be used to pull yourself closer to walls and such, but this is not the way it works in HL2.

The Manipulator doesn't work on walls. But if an object that can be manipulated is fastened somewhere you should be able to pull yourself closer to it.

 

[Lanthanide]

Yes, theoretically, but I don't believe this is the way it works in HL2. It's been said that it has a weight limit, and when you try to select something too heavy, the arms won't open up. So if you point at a car, firing at it won't pick it up/pull you towards it, but it'd just knock it about a bit (see the buggy cliff-line video with the shock mines, for example).