Les Grossman's Final Submission

[Les_Grossman]

Transmission

DOWNLOAD:

---> Sendspace <---
---> zippyshare <---
---> speedyshare <---

[marnamai]

I really liked the setting and athmosphere, I got s.t.a.l.k.e.r. vibes from most of the area's (which is a good thing!)
The gameplay was a little lacking, but you made it up with exploration.

The ending was very unexpected but amazed me.

I found 1 bug, if you climb the radar dishes via the slanted truss, you can rotate the dish by hand.

[Jim_Partridge]

This doesn't appear to work for me. Place into sourcemods folder. when i try and run this from steam it shows the loading screen and then crashes before it gets to main menu...

[Les_Grossman]

I found 1 bug, if you climb the radar dishes via the slanted truss, you can rotate the dish by hand.

Haha, I didn't expect this. I walked on those radars thousand times.
And I even had other beta-testers. Nice find

This doesn't appear to work for me. Place into sourcemods folder. when i try and run this from steam it shows the loading screen and then crashes before it gets to main menu...

I didn't changed the basic settings for the mod.
Do you have Source SDK 2013 installed? Did u launched it at least one time?
My friend had problem with this mod too, and what helps him (surprisingly) was HL2 deinstallation (Ep2 still installed).

[Gambini]

Good map! plenty of clever stuff and a nice concept. I didn´t like that it follows on that tendence of not providing the player with weapons. Half life 2 is a shooter.

[Sarwia]

The whole feel of the map was just incredible. Good work! I was a bit unsure at times when I didn't find any weapons, but after some time I got used to it. I have to agree with marnamai on the ending - awesome!

[AniCator]

Very awesome map. I was ok with the lack of weapon variety because you made up for it with atmosphere and pacing.
The ending was awesome!

[Major Banter]

Ran through your map with absolutely no issues, and from an entirely subjective point of view (as in, it was totally up my alley) I enjoyed it.

I will let you know my thoughts and feelings once the results have been released.

[Ade]

My thoughts on this:
- the connection with the game is really well done in the beginning, but soon after I feel stuck, and it seems it's the case of yet another custom cfg...
- feels a bit low fps and a spark on the fence would've prevented me from hurting myself
- first zombie encounter (1 of them was floating btw) made me feel I missed a weapon and you give the player quite a bit to explore before finding one, including the next puzzle which stressed the idea I needed a weapon
- entering the tunnel gave a slight fps freeze
- nice headcrab hidden in plain sight and nice use of barrels
- I never had to crowbar a poison zombie but it was fun! (I kept missing with the nades and said f*** it; oh and why does everyone complain about lack of weapons?... there are 2 and you can't finish the mod without them)
- well the outdoors look great, I think we can all agree on that
- health is a bit in abundance all throughout the map, with barely any combat, as the combine were already dead when I got there, and everything could've been enclosed better, first area too, instead of all the invisible walls, just put the walls higher but lower the ground before them so I can still see the sea beyond them
- the zombies spawning out of the blue felt weird, they didn't seem to have teleported there
- what was THAT that I launched? in the final part the things going round were also going inside the metal thingy, was weird to watch
So I'm guessing I was duped to send out a transmission, but called the aliens back, instead? haha nice twist to it all. Looking at the screens again I see I missed the tuned vehicle so went back to re-play that area. I can see why I missed it, in a large area I usually check the edges for ways out, then the center, and that was the transmission building, and the vehicle just blended in. I guess it can be a neat side game as they spawn before you launch the actual transmission. This entry has small bits of gameplay that's well done overall but without something really standing out fun-wise, and it focuses too much on looks.

[Vicpop]

I liked this one a lot. I feel like it captured the mood of the HL2 coast really well, especially the feeling that you're exploring an abandoned area that doesn't seem designed perfectly for gameplay but more like a place that already existed that you're finding a way through. Only having a crowbar kept combat situations interesting, trying to avoid waking zombies up instead of just shooting everything you see.

My only complaint is the final battle. The airboat is cool but the sequence felt trivial because none of the enemies seemed to be a real threat. At the end of a wave you end up driving around looking for the last couple enemies and the fight slows to a stop before suddenly starting up again. Also, the hunters at the end wouldn't fire darts for some reason.

Awesome ending though. Also, nice Twin Peaks reference in the basement.

[Les_Grossman]

Nice feedback guys, thanks

but soon after I feel stuck, and it seems it's the case of yet another custom cfg...

To be honest i don't know what do you mean by "another custom cfg" I didn't change anything in cfg.

- first zombie encounter made me feel I missed a weapon and you give the player quite a bit to explore before finding one, including the next puzzle which stressed the idea I needed a weapon

About the start. After so many years of playing HL2 and mods I think that standard zombies aren't any threat to player in open area. I added them just to bring something new to player

- entering the tunnel gave a slight fps freeze

Yeah i have this too, but i thought it's just me, since i have those freezes on every hl2 mod. None of my beta-testers informed me about this

- health is a bit in abundance all throughout the map, with barely any combat,

Yeah, i have to delete some healthpacks

- the zombies spawning out of the blue felt weird, they didn't seem to have teleported there

Those spawns are just the result of lack of time to make something more convincing
But there are teleport effects (blue beam particle and spawn sound from HL1) on every zombie/antlion /hunter spawn. At least they shoud be.

- what was THAT that I launched?

That thingy on the sky? It's one of the Combine's Citadels

So I'm guessing I was duped to send out a transmission, but called the aliens back, instead? haha nice twist to it all.

Well, yeah i have to agree that I didn't make the ending as clear to player as it should be.
I bet that nobody suspects, that during the final, player is calling Citadel just to mess with Combine. Ofcourse everything is organized by G-Man.
Player is sending an interference signal to direct the Citadel to wasteland (and maybe crush it), instead to another city.
There should be a sequence where Citadel is going to fall over player, but again I run out of time (bad priorities ).

Looking at the screens again I see I missed the tuned vehicle

The entire point of zombie spawns, arena-like segment, was to play with the airboat

Thanks for feedback Ade

=================================

Also, the hunters at the end wouldn't fire darts for some reason.

Yep, I don't know how to fix this. It looks like hunters won't attack player in airboat. There is probably no code for that in the game, because airboat is absent in Ep2.

Also, nice Twin Peaks reference in the basement.

Finally someone found it. Props to you
It's not easy easter egg to understand.

[Ade]

"another custom cfg"
I meant a lot of mappers left their custom cfg in the mod and was only able to move in 2 directions instead of 4 because some of the keys were different. I just re-downloaded the mod and indeed a config.cfg is there with:

bind "m" "+moveright"
bind "n" "+moveleft"

"standard zombies aren't any threat to player in open area"
The zombies CAN be a threat if I'm entering one of those 3 houses and one comes after me while I'm weaponless... Unless I can lure them into radioactive soup, a barnacle, fire, turret sight or some environmental puzzle that destroys them in the end, any enemy is a threat if I'm weaponless.

"fps freeze"
maybe you didn't have enough testers or they didn't think much of it, I suggest The Beta Testers Collective hehe

You're welcome and GL in future releases, hope to see more from you.

[Les_Grossman]

I meant a lot of mappers left their custom cfg in the mod and was only able to move in 2 directions instead of 4 because some of the keys were different. I just re-downloaded the mod and indeed a config.cfg is there with:

bind "m" "+moveright"
bind "n" "+moveleft"

Yeah, that's my bindings, but that's odd.
Why nobody else complain about this?

I don't really get how those cfg files work because when I'm playing mods I always have my bindings automaticly (and they are very diffrent from standard WASD). But that's only if I'm in online mode, they are probably from steam cloud?
Did you played in offline mode maybe?

[Ade]

The mod you shipped has a config.cfg in it, you simply have to remove it (or place a default one) before archiving.

[Riomaki]

I don't mean to necropost this, but I just played this entry in the PlanetPhillip pack and it was my favorite of the bunch. I just wanted to thank the author. There's so much atmosphere in this one and the ending - awesome. I have to admit, I also got the sense that I was "duped" into summoning the Citadel or some other Combine weapon. The whole thing with the slide projector and creepy dial-up modem noises feels remarkably eerie. Who left these instructions here? It's like the guy in BioShock - I'm cursed to follow orders from an unseen source and, oh my gosh, what have I done?

The only thing I might suggest is whatever damage volume you have hooked up to your Airboat, you should set it to do Slice damage. It forces the game to cleave the Zombies in two when it hits them and make that characteristic cutting noise. It's easy to do - on your trigger_hurt, turn off SmartEdit and change the DamageType to 5 (it's not part of the list Hammer reads).