Tentative working title: Half-Life: Vortigaunt

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Working Title: Half-Life: Vortigaunt (HL:V)
Document Copyright: SavannahLion planethalflife.com
Applicable Copyright: Valve Corporation
Document Version: 3

Primary Location: Vortigaunt Homeworld prior to Combine invasion
Date: ~50 years before the events at Black Mesa (Half-Life)

Introduction:
This mod will place the player into the body of a Vortigaunt on their native homeworld just prior to the invasion of the Combine. This mod attempts to tell the story leading up to, and including, the Black Mesa invasion. The player will battle more exotic Xen and Combine creatures as well as the re-introduction of Race-X as well as see additional worlds other than Xen and Earth.

The story and ideas are open to suggestion and improvement.

FAQ:

What will the player play as?
Tentatively, we've elected to use a Vortigaunt.

What locations will the player go to?
The game will send the player to, in no particular order, Xen, Vortigaunt Homeworld, Race-X Homeworld (Working title is Planet X), and at least two other worlds.

What kind of creatures will the player encounter?
A selection of creatures including, but not limited to, those found in Opposing force, Blue Shift, Half-Life, Half-Life 2. Most of these creatures will make classic appearances (Headcrab, Houndeye, Vortigaunt), others will have additional work done to integrate the enemies better (Shock Trooper) or to introduce new game play ideas (Ichthyosaur). The Combine will be, "regressed," to a point before the Earth invasion. Other creatures will be re-introduced, such as the Chumtoad, to assist in Gameplay issues. Few, if any, new creatures will be created exclusively for this mod.

What will <insert world name here> be like?
Except for Xen and the Xenian Homeworld, the worlds are currently undetermined and open to interpetation at this stage.

What kind of weapons will we see?
Most of the biological weapons will make a comeback including the Snark, Hive Hand, and Spore Launcher (Baby Shock Trooper). Mechanical weapons may also make an appearance, however they will be carefully designed to mesh well with the existing story.

Any tools (ie Flashlight)?
Yes. Some tools will be incorporated into the game.

So this is like Point of View (POV)?
No. The issues that Dav tried to address about the Vortigaunts are not addressed in this mod. POV takes the position that you are a Vortigaunt during the attack on Black Mesa. HL:V will take the position of a Vortigaunt before the events at Black Mesa. The game will also avoid answering some of the questions (answered in POV) to avoid the, "pffft, that's not right," response from gamers.

You're going to use old Half-Life/Opposing Force/Blue Shift models in this game along with Source models?!
Not exactly. All the older models will be recreated for the Source engine. Some Source models will also be modified to better fit in a pre-Black Mesa game.

What about the Vortessence?
Vortessence will be incorporated into this game, however it is undecided just how extensively or what part Vortessence will have. If Vortessence is done as a woven tapestry connecting everything, this would make the gameplay unbalanced and uninteresting as everything would be visible to the player regardless of the location. Some care and compromise will be made to incorporate the idea of Vortessence in some fashion.

Will the Vortigaunts communicate telepathically?
Since it is commonly accepted that they communicate telepathically, some idea of telepathic communication will be carefully incorporated into the game. Again, gameplay balance will be a major consideration here.

Will the GMan be involved?
That's been undecided.

How are you building this mod?
I'm trying to locate other interested parties willing to work with me on this mod. I'm intentionally keeping the story vague and open ended to elicit ideas and input from my team members and from the community at large. By taking this tactic, I've managed to pull together at least two new viable weapon ideas, a new GUI interface, and some new story elements that will be incorporated into the game.

How can I contact you?
By sending email to me (at) savannahlion planethalflife.com

What about a Website?
It's GSI. If you're laughing at my expense, I've already paid. All jokes aside, the old site for an old project is at http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~hlpd A redirect to the will appear once my administrator gets the shipment of pure caffeine I sent him. You can also indirectly contact me at http://www.forumplanet.com/planethalflife.
 
I think I've seen this mod somewhere before... not quite sure... Was it an HL1 mod? Or maybe I stumbled across your website.... who knows. This is a pretty unique idea and covering the life of a Vortigaunt is pretty cool. I wish you luck!
 
Well, I'm willing to offer storyline advice and coding pointers to any resident coders you have. Just send me a PM whenever you need advice.

Vortessence could act as a psi system, using energy points to do things such as clairvoyance, which would reduce the overpowering omniscence element.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Well, I'm willing to offer storyline advice and coding pointers to any resident coders you have. Just send me a PM whenever you need advice.

At this point, I am the resident coder. Unfortunately I ripped apart my old Windows box for some reason or another.

Angry Lawyer said:
Vortessence could act as a psi system, using energy points to do things such as clairvoyance, which would reduce the overpowering omniscence element.

I have an idea that incorporates Vortessence but lacks any energy points. I'd like to hear your idea anyways.
 
Coder? Amazing! Still, I'm pretty competent with how certain things work, so if you get stuck, I'm willing to give a few pointers (no pun intended).

Still, I'm adding you to MSN.

-Angry Lawyer
 
The only publicly available work from my portfolio is my port of Nemesis' HLLib (for GCFScape) to Linux which no one seems to be interested in. The only visible work is a Wiki (at the URL above) that I had to kill because Valve decided to port VERC to the Wiki format.

I'm currently working on a new version of GCFSlave (the KDE equivalent to GCFScape) so if you want to help with a few pointers on it, have at it. :P It will get a new page and updated information once Cpaulv finishes with the new site.
 
As a member of this team, I would like to give some of my thoughts considering this immense project we will be facing. The story, ideas, weapons, and other aspects that have already been discussed are making this mod look more and more amazing each day. I would also like to say that I don't think any of our ideas so far are too far-fetched to be incorporated into a game.

That being said, it would be a sheer dissappointment for our team and you the public for this mod to wither away (though I doubt it could- I wouldn't let it!). So, I beg you to show your support for us by dropping comments off here and giving us feedback on anything we share with you. And when our site kicks off, I hope you will pile on into our forums and talk with us more directly. We value your input and will answer any questions or concerns you may have. Also, your ideas are more than welcome. So thanks for the support already shown here and I hope to see more of you in the near future!
 
At this point, we're looking for a web designer to flesh out the web appearance with us so we can bring it forward. It's PHPNuke so the entire backend is up and running. But the appearance is generic, we'd like something that helps define our mod for what it is.

The site is currently hidden away, but the correct URL is now http://half-lifepd.planethalflife.gamespy.com

You can contact me through my ultra long email address at [email protected]

In a bizarre twist of irony, my multi-zone work address is actually shorter than the GSI one. Go figure.
 
IRT StAtiC

Have you tested your Virabear: Source website under Firefox? I can't read anything on it, doesn't render correctly :(
 
I would love to see xen and other worlds rendered in the source engine, this was one thing I missed in half-life2, and if a mod such as this was based around this part of existence, I'd surely be interested with it's progress.
 
This mod looks very good indeed. I look forward to it. (BTW, silly question, but it is a HL2 mod right? Only my Steam is predijuced against HL1 mods.)
 
You just bumped a thread that's almost exactly a year old.

-Angry Lawyer
 
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