Questions for the developers 1 Thread - SHλFT mod for Half-Life

Hello, I'm 4Simp, and I have some questions for all of you developers. Here is it:

1. How's SHAFT Greenlight (steam) going?
2. Will the E3 1998 and 1997 packs also includes different HUD? (yellow HUD in E3 1998 pack, green HUD in 1997 pack)
3. Will SHAFT include zoo_ maps where it showcases entities, models? (Like in the early Half-Life screenshots)
4. Will the multiplayer maps decompiled and used for the SHAFT campaign? (Datacore for Communications Center, Boot Camp for Surface Tension if I'm not wrong, some small parts of Subtransit for On A Rail)
5. Will the female scientist that wil betray you added in Communications Center?
   
   That's all for the questions. Thank you.

Hey ElectroShock.

1. Shafts greenlight was just a test to see how to steam community would react to it just being on steam

2. Maybe. (have to get back to you on that one)

3. Most likely no but you never know.

4. Decompiling maps is terrible. we make all our maps from scratch

5. If that's how the story went then of course.

Edited by: Michael_T

Thank you.

Can I post more questions?

Of Course Fire away

Okay, more questions.

1. Will SHAFT include the early Hazard Course recreation?
2. Will the game end with G-Man like the original, although using the speeches cut from the game (Such as gman_offer)
3. Will there be a Chumtoad weapon that replaces Snarks?
4. Will the demo maps of Half-Life Alpha (such as Maindemo, Silodemo, Techdemo) recreated? (Although in a modified state such as add new NPCs, etc)
5. Will the electricity part of Office Warrens removed (It wasn't there in Alpha and 1.07 gameplay footage by Gaben)

I have some questions

1 How is the development going

2 Are you gonna add more weapons props and you know (beta/alpha) stuff

3 And last Are the maps gonna get a cosmetic change like BlackMesa:Source

Hello ElectroShock.

1. Most likely not. first Release maybe. (Day one)

2. Spoiling is a terrible crime

3. The Chumtoad is a Separate weapon that is based off of the Raising the bar.

4. No.

5. Of Course

Replying to Tufas:

Tufas wrote:

1 How is the development going

Its going pretty good right now! We are currently moving from Spirit 1.9 to XashXT since XT has more features, and is more stable on Xash3d than Spirit. It also allows us to use the newest build of Xash3D for the least amount of bugs.

Tufas wrote:

2 Are you gonna add more weapons props and you know (beta/alpha) stuff

We are planing on adding in the saw for the Heavy, and the player to use. A flamethrower for a grunt to use, and the player. I currently don't plan on adding other weapons as of now, but you might see more to come in later releases!

Tufas wrote:

3 And last Are the maps gonna get a cosmetic change like BlackMesa:Source

We try to keep maps as accurate as possible, but then if anything looks real sloppy, or just empty and bland, then we will try to spruce it up to make it look more appealing.

Edited by: Magic_Nipples

I have more questions(last ones)

1 Are there gonna be more animations (skeletal for Npcs) or cutscene like the old man slipping and falling down(I only wished that the old man woud fall throu the glass.And die on impact)

2 Is there gonna be new voice acting,ambient sounds,weapon sounds etc

3 Will be the enemy AI more advanced regardless of the position or situations the player\s is

4 Can scientist use any means of defence against the aliens and gruts like : kicking,punching,using a pistol or crowbar(If you can do that I will be blown away Not

that I am not blown away right now

5 ,,Life will be Diffrent" how did you think of that(Its cool)

When you will release SHAFT teaser showing Anomalous Materials and the early Anti-Mass Spectrometer sequence?

In reply to Tufas:

Tufas wrote:

1 Are there gonna be more animations (skeletal for Npcs) or cutscene like the old man slipping and falling down(I only wished that the old man woud fall throu the glass.And die on impact)

We know that the npcs in the Day One demo of Half-Life have a bunch more animations that aren't in the SDK for the most part. So yes, you will see more sequences, and combat animations.

Tufas wrote:

2 Is there gonna be new voice acting,ambient sounds,weapon sounds etc

We would like to have new voice acting so its a maybe. Yes for ambient and weapon sounds.

Tufas wrote:

3 Will the enemy AI be more advanced regardless of the position or situations the player is in.

I really can't say I've improved the AI any. I've made them turn much quicker so they aren't spending a century trying to turn around to attack you. I also plan on adding in the extra combat animations for the grunts like strafing, running and shooting, and strafing and shooting, which should make them seem more intelligent.

Tufas wrote:

4 Can scientist use any means of defense against the aliens and grunts like : kicking,punching,using a pistol or crowbar(If you can do that I will be blown away Not

that I am not blown away right now

We would need to set up animations for it, but it is a possibility.

Tufas wrote:

5 "Life will be Different" how did you think of that(Its cool)

Its an old tag line from promotional art work for Half-Life, and I decided to use it.

Edited by: Magic_Nipples

I have a question.

1. Will shaft include cut weapons that was originally supposed to be In the beta?

2. Is it ok if I can port shaft into the source engine when it's fully released or do you prefer not to port shaft into source?

3. Will it also include cut chapters from the alpha version?

4. Will you show screenshots of xen in the future?

XxBronyBoyxX wrote:

I have a question.

1. Will shaft include cut weapons that was originally supposed to be In the beta?

2. Is it ok if I can port shaft into the source engine when it's fully released or do you prefer not to port shaft into source?

3. Will it also include cut chapters from the alpha version?

4. Will you show screenshots of xen in the future?

1. Yep.

2. Uhm....I don't know? Maybe?

3. Mhm. Most likely.

4. That's very far in the future, but when we get to it, probably.

Edited by: ✟Brian_Dacote✟

I got a few questions myself

1. Will you do anything with the very early original purplish/blue headcrabs?

2. Any plans for the ichthyosaur? There is the muddy concept but I don't see much differences from retail and the beta version

3. Since you're doing barney zombies, will you be doing grunt zombies, and poison headcrab zombie variants?

mrbrodster wrote:

I got a few questions myself

1. Will you do anything with the very early original purplish/blue headcrabs?

2. Any plans for the ichthyosaur? There is the muddy concept but I don't see much differences from retail and the beta version

3. Since you're doing barney zombies, will you be doing grunt zombies, and poison headcrab zombie variants?

1. Hmm. It's kinda unlikely.

2. No idea. We'll probably keep the Icky the same. Maybe we'll do a variation of textures. That's always fun.

3. That's definitely a possibility. Not sure about that poison zombie. That thing is an abomination atm haha.

I have 3 questions:

1) How different will the tram ride at the beginning of Shaft be from HL1?

2) Since we'll have some variation packs with different skin I'm really curious about something: Did you also make different HEV suits? (red for red hands, Ivan's armor etc.).

3) From what I've read on the HL Wiki, Blast Pit wasn't initially going to include the tentacles, and the point of the chapter was entirely different. How's it going to be in Shaft?

Edited by: BossN00b

In reply to BossN00b

BossN00b wrote:

1) How different will the tram ride at the beginning of Shaft be from HL1?

It might not be as long as Half-Life's tram ride. And one of the things of the tram ride was to show to player what the Goldsrc engine was capable of. Well I will add in some things to show what XashXT can do.

BossN00b wrote:

2) Since we'll have some variation packs with different skin I'm really curious about something: Did you also make different HEV suits? (red for red hands, Ivan's armor etc.).

While the HEV suits aren't done. A red HEV will exist for the default red arms. Ivan's suit for the Ivan pack, and well Not sure for the bare arms one. Maybe just a helmet or something

BossN00b wrote:

3) From what I've read on the HL Wiki, Blast Pit wasn't initially going to include the tentacles, and the point of the chapter was entirely different. How's it going to be in Shaft?

It will be like E3 1998's version with the tentacle. However the bottom of the pit will be the room from the alpha leak which you never really could get to unless you viewed the map in the object viewer.

Thanks for the answers , I have one more question (although I may not get an uber great answer):

How are the Xen chapters going? You said somewhere in the comments when I asked there that there's quite a lack of images from Xen. How's the work going so far? Do you have something specific in mind for the chapters? What can you tell us about them ^^?

In reply to BossN00bGuyMan

BossN00b wrote:

How are the Xen chapters going? You said somewhere in the comments when I asked there that there's quite a lack of images from Xen. How's the work going so far? Do you have something specific in mind for the chapters? What can you tell us about them ^^?

There has been no development of Xen yet. Even the teleport to Xen during the resonance cascade sequence isn't even done. We've also had little to no ideas on Xen yet. It's just too far off, and just don't have enough formation yet to make any content. Trust me when I say that we will show media of Xen when we get to it. Its not going to be hidden like in Black Mesa. But major changes or additions to Xen will be kept under wraps for you all to find out!

Edited by: Magic_Nipples

1) How's for the skyboxes? Will the cliffs in skyboxes recolored to yellow (very yellow) to achieve a beta effect?

2) In CombineOverWiki there's a page itself about "Office Complex" and it also contains some rare pictures of beta Office Complex from 1997 to E3 1998. Maybe you could use the pictures as a reference.

3) Will you merge Half-Life: Uplink to Communications Center? In the HL sound files I find an unused scientist sound file that has "c3a1_" in the beginning and it appears to be from Uplink.

4) For Surface Tension, one of the alpha screenshots (I found it on Half-Life Wiki) shows the cliffs visited during nighttime. Will it be visited in nighttime, or keep the original (daytime)?

5) Will you also use Dank and Scud comics for references in maps? Dank and Scud comic features beta places, etc...(it was done in E3 1998 build of Half-Life if I'm not wrong)

Oh...one more

6) For the train in the train ride (Inbound) scene, will it use the traincar from In Deep or a slightly modified default Half-Life one?

In reply to Electroshock

4Simp@ElectroShock wrote:

1) How's for the skyboxes? Will the cliffs in skyboxes recolored to yellow (very yellow) to achieve a beta effect?

Since Xash allows for much higher resolution skyboxes. I plan on trying to make, or bump up the existing skyboxes. They will be colored, or made to look like the beta ones.

4Simp@ElectroShock wrote:

2) In CombineOverWiki there's a page itself about "Office Complex" and it also contains some rare pictures of beta Office Complex from 1997 to E3 1998. Maybe you could use the pictures as a reference.

Not a question, and we already know.

4Simp@ElectroShock wrote:

3) Will you merge Half-Life: Uplink to Communications Center? In the HL sound files I find an unused scientist sound file that has "c3a1_" in the beginning and it appears to be from Uplink.

Yes.

4Simp@ElectroShock wrote:

4) For Surface Tension, one of the alpha screenshots (I found it on Half-Life Wiki) shows the cliffs visited during nighttime. Will it be visited in nighttime, or keep the original (daytime)?

Time passed more slowly in the beta story from what has been observed in photos. It should be dusk when you start Surface Tension, and dark around the time you finish it. Completing the second day in correlation to our release plan.

4Simp@ElectroShock wrote:

5) Will you also use Dank and Scud comics for references in maps? Dank and Scud comic features beta places, etc...(it was done in E3 1998 build of Half-Life if I'm not wrong)

Yes, and no. We've already been doing this for how certain areas looked. But not for everything since certain shots were from rooms not part of the mane scene. Example is when they are in the room with the turret, and one of them turn it on. The button wasn't in that control room. It was under the shelving like in retail.

4Simp@ElectroShock wrote:

6) For the train in the train ride (Inbound) scene, will it use the train car from In Deep or a slightly modified default Half-Life one?

Its a combination of both.