Comments - SophieBaybey

Just saw the trailer, can't wait for Beta 3! Has the amount of crashing for Beta 3 been reduced so far from Beta 2?

Yeah nah, I played a bit and it was definitely still crashing LOL

Just wondering aloud, but does anyone know if the crashing is reduced ever since the engine upgrades that came with the 25th Anniversary update?

Also, mostly unrelated question: Is there any way to make the strafe act how it normally does in base Half-Life, maybe through a console command? Trying to strafe while also moving forward barely has any horizontal movement in the current build for me

I actually had plenty of ammo for the desert eagle funnily enough. Also I wanna clarify, the ammo scarcity wasn't a problem, I absolutely loved it.

This mod was fantastic. Absolutely the best full campaign mod to ever come out for Half-Life. Half-Life has been my favorite game since I played it when I was 12, and this is the best experience with the world I've had since playing the original.

I'm not without my nit-picks, though, so I wanna give all my thoughts on this, both good and bad.

- Level conveyance could use some serious work. There was a number of times which I was lost on where to go. This was especially bad in the latter half of the game.

- The first half of the game, as well as some levels in the last half, are far too dark. I had my night vision goggles on for pretty much the entirety of gameplay up until the point where you lose them entirely. I can't stand the GoldSrc night vision effect, either. I do appreciate the inclusion of the Counter-Strike Night vision effect, but it's not enough. I think going over the first half of the levels and adding more light sources would be a good idea.

- I loved the ammo scarcity in the first half of the game. I ended up needing to use the crossbow, hive hand, and pretty much anything I could get my hands on. There was plenty of times where I only had one or two magazines left for my pistol, and that was it, but I never completely ran out. Excellent job here.

- You gave tons of aspects of Opposing Force time to shine. Your improvements to the squad AI, barnacle grappling segments, and the Black Ops sections all were elevated far beyond the heights they ever reached in OpFor. My absolute highlight of the entire mod was surely in the episode FIELD INTENSITY, running through wide open areas as my squad of 10+ soldiers gunned down alien after alien. My only wish in this regard was that we got more AI companions when the Black Ops were present. I would have loved a massive shootout between dozens of Black Ops vs my own squadmates.

- The maps were absolutely stunning. You simultaneously managed to keep everything looking suitably Half-Life, while also creating unique environments. There were dozens of areas that feel exactly at home with Half-Life. A lot of mods like Azure Sheep often stray too far from the visual feel of the original game. Your maps are the perfect balance between new and old. The Xen maps in particular were beautiful and unique.

- This is a mild nitpick, but tons of elevators throughout the game have working buttons, but don't actually activate the elevator. When you press them, they make the "positive" beep sound, as if to say the elevator is coming down, then it never does. If an elevator doesn't work, you should give it the "negative" beep sound, used for locked doors.

- Fights were just incredible across the board. The difficulty was higher than Half-Life and its expansions, but that's exactly what I think a mod like this should strive for. Every fight had loads of enemies, often with in-fighting in the midst of it all. Enemy placement was excellent and made very good use of the environment. Verticality was also very good, especially with the use of Black Ops snipers late in the game.

- My biggest issue by far is your narrative. Your environmental storytelling was fantastic, easily on-par with Half-Life's official games, but the player's "Thoughts" and objectives menu were wholly unnecessary in my opinion, as well as the communication with Kevin. Half-Life and its expansions had the goal of making the main character a vessel for the player, and telling the player your character's thoughts undermines that. Let the player think for themselves. The character of Kevin also didn't add much to the game, the voice acting was sub-par (sorry!) and the twist at the end was kind of silly.

Obviously many story elements are explained through Kevin, such as regrouping with certain squads, so removing him is out of the question, but I think the game would stand to improve if the ending twist was cut (having Kevin fully disappear after being attacked by Black Ops) and the voice acting was improved. There's plenty of voice actors who would love to do this kind of work, if you want to find someone feel free to DM me and I can see about getting you connected.

Kevin disappearing after dying to the Black Ops would serve to make the player feel truly alone, letting the severity of the situation sink in. The twist at the end where you've gone crazy and he's talking to you feels cartoonish, and also doesn't work if you consider the main character is supposed to be a vessel for the player. If the main character has gone crazy, but the player is lucid, there's a level of narrative dissonance which detracts from the experience.

THANK YOU for making this, and for taking the time to read this. With a bit of polish, this could easily be on-par with the official Half-Life expansions.

And finally: please add an option for the low-quality models. The HD models are very ugly. Thank you.

HIT

Hey, so I'm progressing through Episode 2 and I wanted to give a bit of feedback. SPOILERS for those who haven't completed it yet.

There's a section during a flashback scene with Lee in which you read her diary, and things in there get... really graphically sexual. It just feels kinda exploitative, it's a very different mood from what's in the rest of the game, and it doesn't feel like a very authentically written piece from what we've seen so far from Lee's character. Not to mention the characters seem pretty young, living with their parents and whatnot, and while their ages aren't specifically stated they seem to be at the very least teen-coded in the flashbacks, and reading that diary just made me feel skeevy in an otherwise excellent experience.

I hope you guys will consider re-writing that piece of the game. It's small, maybe a little inconsequential, but I've been really hooked with the story you've been telling and that part just took me right out, and truthfully made me a bit uncomfortable.

No worries!! Thanks so much for the reply, good luck with Episode 3!

This mod is absolutely fantastic. Incredible production quality across the board. I gotta ask, is it possible at all to have the gameplay changes (ie. weapons, enemy AI, etc) ported over to the main Doom 3 game? I just can't go back after playing this.

Side note, is there any way to adjust the pistol to move it to its default position away from the center of the screen? I can appreciate it as a nod to classic Doom, but it practically blinds you whenever you shoot it with it being where it is.