I realise the leak... (SPOILERS!!)

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herbster

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...(beta/alpha/executable code) is old news, but if were actually allowed to talk about it now, then I would like too.

I was wondering if there were any completely different maps or creatures not present in Half-Life 2 (the ichthy counts, to me, as unavailable in HL2). I have the best anti-piracy protection on my computer, a 56k, so I dont know anything. Although I, in the distant past did see a no-spoilers review (now gone) on google. I need gory details. Sorry or thanks, depending on who you are.
 
i want that leak... but it is nowhere to be found :( it seems kickass
 
o the leak is still everywere

i have know idea what i was thinking when i deleted it when hl2 came out
 
Ok, but was there any contact with the morphs (or whatever the citadrl production lin was making) or levels that didnt make the final cut in some drastic way.
 
Ok, but was there any contact with the morphs (or whatever the citadrl production lin was making) or levels that didnt make the final cut in some drastic way.
Click to expand...

Nope. As far as I know, there were just unfinished or alternate version of some of the levels from the final game.
 
Wouldnt suggest it with 56k personally, it can be pretty big depending on what version you get. And theres lots of different things, no guarantees with any of them. Not sure if itd be worth it. Plus, it is still illegal.
 
Despite there being quite a few things not in the final game, I still don't recommend downloading it. Not because it's illegal, but purely because it's complete bollocks compared to the final game. It's a waste of bandwith IMO.
 
But ehat kind of things arent in the game that people bother remembering?
 
Theres literally hundreds of uncompiled maps, if my memory serves me correctly.
 
When you speak of maps, are you talking about the places between loading screens or Route Kanal type sizes. Why wouldnt they be used in the full game?
 
I mean maps, actual maps, places between load times. Chapters also, if you put them together.

Most of them were scrapped due to storyline changes, its not uncommon you know.

Anyway i think we best end the convo right here, as it comes under "Leak talk" and its strictly forbiden on the forum, or at least it was.
 
When I played it, it had about 30 or so maps. Maybe 5 or so where mildly playable, everything else was rather unfinished. Some just being giant cubes...

Yep, wasnt really much to do in the beta... except RAGDOLLZ. Dear lord they kept me busy for hours. In that e3 map oh man, the physics where such a hoot. I loved to make things with the physgun. Yeah we have it now... but it still is not as magical as it was a year or two ago with the beta...

Any way, a torrent is probually your only bet for finding it, it's how I got mine... though there isnt much point now considering all the beta weapons code is there and you can just mod it in. (wheres my oicw valve? i was looking foward to getting a more accurate rifle somewhere in the game... but noooooo :|)
 
When I played it, it had about 30 or so maps. Maybe 5 or so where mildly playable, everything else was rather unfinished. Some just being giant cubes...
Click to expand...

Most of them are the maps you see in the actual game, the rest were uncompiled and hidden within the depths of hammer.
 
well, there were bullsquids, and a huge boat level, and a bunch more weapons
 
Even though the crossbow rocks, I still wish they'd kept the sniper rifle.


And man... I saw a couple pictures of the Stalkers as a fighing enemy. OMG.....those were the scaryest pictures I'd ever seen of HL2. They had friggn' laser eyes!!! I know that might sound corny, but jesus!!! It was god damn scary! If you look in some of the sound files you'll see under stalker they have 2 flesh burn sounds.
 
Samon said:
Theres literally hundreds of uncompiled maps, if my memory serves me correctly.
Click to expand...
Yep, and those were all an incomplete bag of shite as well, much like the rest of it. I don't know how people dare compare the two to be honest. And yeah sure, there were weapons missing, but did you really need a big assault rifle, a fire extinguisher or an ice-axe during the game? What would actually be the point?

And the Hydra, so what, all it was good for was one scripted sequence that looked "a bit cool" during a tech demo.

Oh, and the E3 levels. Valve said not long after they first appeared at E3 with Half-Life 2 that those levels wouldn't be in the main game. They were a tech-demo all along.

There was a lot of crap in there and I for one am glad they got rid of most of it.
 
Chris_D said:
And the Hydra, so what, all it was good for was one scripted sequence that looked "a bit cool" during a tech demo.
Click to expand...
I think that's a bit of an understatement. As much as I respect Valve's descision to cut the creature out of a gameplay consideration, when I talked to anyone who saw those videos back in 2003, the Hydra was the defining moment of the whole presentation, just like the Green Tentacle dragging the Scientist into it's lair defined the E3 videos for HL1. It wasn't "a bit cool" at all, It looked downright amazing. The trouble is, with that little to go on, people have become fanatical about what in reality was a one-trick pony.

But damn what a trick that was :)
 
Ok, fair enough, it was pretty amazing. But I'm not at all disappointed that it was cut.
 
well, there are lots of creatures, weapons and levels that almost made it to the final version. It could've been cooler if they included it also.
 
Give examples and then give examples of how it would have made the game better.

The only reason Valve didn't include them was because they didn't make the game better.
 
Originally posted by Chris_D
Yep, and those were all an incomplete bag of shite as well
Click to expand...

Quite right, i was just answering the mans question :D

And yeah sure, there were weapons missing, but did you really need a big assault rifle, a fire extinguisher or an ice-axe during the game? What would actually be the point?
Click to expand...

Ultimatley, if they had slapped in every single one of those weapons then it would have completley over - weighed the game (so to speak). Its common knowledge, that the game itself isn't particulary lenghty, and if you think about it, marching through 14 chapters equipped with Molotovs, ice axe's, guass gun's, strange grenade things or whatever else was in there, then it would have been a disaster IMO. The current selection is quite sufficient.

Same goes for cut enemies, i mean you can't just pour idea's and enemy assortment's into chapters, it over balance's things.

As for the Hydra, well, i dunno, it did look 'Cool', but i never fought against it, so i wouldn't know, therefore i don't really care! Well, yes ok i do, but overall has it really effected the game that much? If at all.
 
Well, HL2 is already a cool game. Adding those will make the game longer to finish, more weapons at your disposal and ofcourse... more enemies to bash. Especially the ice breaker level... i've seen screenshots of it and it was cool!
 
The icebreaker ship did look cool, very cool. But were back to square one arn't we?

It looked cool

Whatever the case, they were cut for a reason, and in the long run half life 2 is better for it.
 
Well, I just hope that wit will be available for download someday atleast...
 
I honeslty doubt they will release original maps for download, what purpose will some cobbled together, textureless Air Exchange maps provide you :p

Theres a strong possibility however that we will see the Ice breaker in future expansions.
 
I can't believe no one has mentioned them yet... They're everywhere...

BIOZEMINADES!​
 
dekstar said:
I can't believe no one has mentioned them yet... They're everywhere...

BIOZEMINADES!​
Click to expand...

Shhh! Thats worse to talk about than the leak! ;)
 
Chris_D said:
Yep, and those were all an incomplete bag of shite as well, much like the rest of it. I don't know how people dare compare the two to be honest. And yeah sure, there were weapons missing, but did you really need a big assault rifle, a fire extinguisher or an ice-axe during the game? What would actually be the point?

And the Hydra, so what, all it was good for was one scripted sequence that looked "a bit cool" during a tech demo.

Oh, and the E3 levels. Valve said not long after they first appeared at E3 with Half-Life 2 that those levels wouldn't be in the main game. They were a tech-demo all along.

There was a lot of crap in there and I for one am glad they got rid of most of it.
Click to expand...
well put, i agree with you completely. and whoever posted about the stalkers as enemies, theres still a viable chance that well see them (as well as other new enemies) in an expansion.
 
I miss to tunnel levels, the wasteland levels, the borealis levels, eli's presentation about just what the hell has been happening the last ten years, the kraken base, the air exchange, the weather control. etc. etc.
The hydra, cremators, crab synth, mortar synth etc. etc.

How can we be sure that they were cut because they wern't fun? The game was taking millions to produce, they wanted it out and it was put out, they were cut because there was no time left and for me that isn't a good reason to cut them. Yes Kraken base should have gone, Combine Guards, dont need them, etc, but what about Prowlers? Combine Assassins? Cremators? Icebreaker Ship? Hydra? Air Exchange?

They fully modelled all these things then went: No, there crap, changed my mind. I dont think so, at least not with all of them, they cut them because they didn't have any time left. I would rather have waited another six months and got all the extras fully polished.

Bullsquid? why where they cut? You can't say they dont fit? The freaking water hazard could have had them! all those radioactive areas!? less ****ing zombies more ****ing bullsquid!!

and Houndeyes!? and Snarks!? and your happy with about nine weapons are you!? what about Snarks!? what about AK47!? what about Sniper Rifle!? what about Manhack Grenades!? (you see Combine using them).



Also someone over at HL2World is fixing up the Borealis, scoff all you want about HL2World but most of them are good people.

they've already fixed up most E3 maps, including docks, tunnels (without Hydra ;( ,) c17 strider, etc.




So yeh, Go Beta, it contains tons of good stuff if your interested. if your not interested then you'll think it's crap. That's that.

By the way, Cremators rock, Combine in trenchcoats with acid spraying guns, a concept that should NEVER have been cut :D.




P.S. I've been drinking, sorry for the poor presentation. :thumbs:
 
Jandor said:
I miss to tunnel levels, the wasteland levels, the borealis levels, eli's presentation about just what the hell has been happening the last ten years, the kraken base, the air exchange, the weather control. etc. etc.
The hydra, cremators, crab synth, mortar synth etc. etc.

How can we be sure that they were cut because they wern't fun? The game was taking millions to produce, they wanted it out and it was put out, they were cut because there was no time left and for me that isn't a good reason to cut them. Yes Kraken base should have gone, Combine Guards, dont need them, etc, but what about Prowlers? Combine Assassins? Cremators? Icebreaker Ship? Hydra? Air Exchange?

They fully modelled all these things then went: No, there crap, changed my mind. I dont think so, at least not with all of them, they cut them because they didn't have any time left. I would rather have waited another six months and got all the extras fully polished.
Click to expand...

You can't blame Valve for doing something you think they did. Gabe has said that Valve were willing to spend another year on HL2, just to get it perfect. They implemented features, monsters etc, didn't like them, and so changed them or got rid of them completely. It happens in a lot of games, as well as any other creative ouput; ideas are thought up, tried out, and then scrapped if they aren't up to standard or don't fit in. Is it that hard a concept to understand?
 
not really, it's just I wish they'd left them there to cheat with, create_npc and map commands etc. I least I could have seen them then.


I've sobered up a tad now ;)
 
I have written a summary of interesting stuff I found in the leak which isn't in the final game. The purpose of this is just to give ppl an idea of what there is in there, and maybe someone will get ideas for stuff that would be cool to put in a mod ;) . Please note that I did not spend any time compiling maps or making test maps or anything like that. A lot of stuff just crashed or would not load, either maps in the game or models in the model viewer. I know for a fact that some people were able to get the high quality (compared to the rest of the leak) e3 maps loading, whereas with me the game would crash if I tried. So, some may have a better idea about everything you can see in there than I have because they spent longer playing with and tweaking it. That said, I will begin...

Monsters from the leak:

Stalkers - look pretty similar to teh final stalkers tho the model and skin is of slightly lower quality. The cool thing about the beta stalkers was the actual working ai, they would fire a borg-like continuous laser beam from their eyes.

Bullsquid - nice model but the ai is unfinished (you can tell by some dodgy animations). They would attack headcrabs like in hl1. Spit effect looks a bit crap and probably a placeholder for something better.

Hydra - I didn't manage to load the e3 maps without the game crashing but I belive the hydra is in there and basically just does the scripted thing you see in the videos.

Monsters for which there are models present but I didn't find in any of the compiled maps. Some of these models are also included the hl2 gcf.

Cremator - synth in a trenchcoat :O . With a flamethrower. Cool.
Combine guard - dude with massive gun, looks like some UT2K4 character in heavy armor
Combine super soldier - maybe an old model for the combine elite, sort of beige armor with black spikes on it.
Wasteland scanner - orange scanner that appears in one of the concept art pieces.
Antlion grub - maggot like creature
Female assassin - the grey armoured assassin also from the concepts, looks deadly.
Zombine assassin - this monster works in the game and clearly became the fast zombie. But its model is different and I liked it because it actually looked deadly :thumbs: .
Digger - I can't tell whether this was supposed to be something that attacks you or a vehicle you can drive, or just a prop. It's a sort of small truck with a rotary rock cutter.
Gonarch/bigmomma - an intriguing model I found in the props section looks like the combine have somehow acquired Gonarchs huge egg sack and transplanted it onto a machine. Guess this is how they can breed headcrabs and use them as bioweapons!

There were a few other models I couldn't even open in the model viewer :( tho they did sound interesting from the model names, such as houndeye.mdl, spore.mdl, child_worker.mdl and maybe a few others.

Weapons:

Weapons are probably a lot quicker to develop than entire monsters and it seems that at one stage Valve created huge numbers of stupid weapons either for testing or fun. Most of these in the leak are not well developed so the models are placeholders or unskinned. I'll try to list them in rough order of interest.

Physgun (uses pistol model) - everyone wants the chance to play with this fun little toy and luckily it is no longer necessary to use the buggy and crash prone beta implementation of it. Go download jb/garrysmod.

Sniper rifle - a fully skinned sniper rifle, I can't tell if its based off any real-world gun or not. It works in the game, and you can zoom as you would expect it to.

Gauss gun - Fully modeled skinned and working, looks similar to the buggy mounted gun. I'd like to see this weapon reintroduced to deathmatch.

Heavy machine gun - a m60/m249 ish weapon with a slightly rubbish skin.

Irifle - Looks exactly like the OPR but fires flares that ignite people.

Ice axe - A fully skinned ice axe, works in game.

Guard gun - model is done but skin is not, fires a spiky green electricity beam that sets things on fire.

Stun baton - you will see this soon in DM anyway.

Flame thrower - there is an unskinned 1st person model for the cremator's flame thrower but I don't think yo could use it in game.

OICW - pretty much the MP7 with zoom and a different model.

Slam - I think this is supposed to be a detpack, you can use it in game but it uses some unidentifiable placeholder model. Soon it will be in DM so you can find out exactly what it was supposed to be.

ak47 - errrhhmm, lets see how many weapons we can rip from counterstrike :)

Missile launcher - just a slightly different model from the RPG you know.

Weapons with models but don't seemt to do anything in game - binoculars, flaregun, fire extinguisher, cremator's head (lol wtf), headcrab (yes, he's holding a cute little fast headcrab in his hand).

Brickbat, molotov, bottle, manhack - weapons with only placeholder models that don't seem to do anything in game either.
 
The whole "Look but can't touch" feel of the pre-release videos and screenies, and the content from the leak (Never touched it, didn't want to risk ruining it for myself at the time. And I've got dailup, hoorah.) makes it feel like there's a whole other game to be played.

It really makes me wonder if the old stuff is stored somewhere on a backup server in Valve HQ, gathering electronic dust, or being used as an ideas base for future work.

I just wish I could gather together all the pre-release videos and watch them again. Nostalgia for the days waiting fervertly for the game to be released. Good times.
 
leak maps..LoL..wonder if they are the supposed "ATI Levels?" Seeing how the E3 ;eve;s were supposed to be just techdemos, then it would make sense to make the correllation between the two.
Of course, lots of things were cut for "gameplay" issues, during the last year of "playtesting"...and with the remarks in the interview that was in the news section today, I'd say that I'm right...and that based on this comment:
I'm working on a presentation on these maps describing what we were trying to accomplish (sort of a "Making of ..." piece).
Click to expand...
it's going to be soon...real soon.
 
Cremator - synth in a trenchcoat . With a flamethrower. Cool.
Click to expand...

They didn't wield a flamethrower, it was a Organic dissolving spray hose thing.

Gonarch/bigmomma - an intriguing model I found in the props section looks like the combine have somehow acquired Gonarchs huge egg sack and transplanted it onto a machine. Guess this is how they can breed headcrabs and use them as bioweapons!
Click to expand...

It was originally going to be used in the facility which dispenses the shells. But for story reasons, it was cut.
 
LordBug said:
It really makes me wonder if the old stuff is stored somewhere on a backup server in Valve HQ, gathering electronic dust, or being used as an ideas base for future work.
Click to expand...
I'd say almost certainly yes, especially given that both the wieldable stunstick and the "slam" will be resurrected from the early game and put in HL2DM.

Now that Valve are doing their own expansions, it would suprise me less to see some of this stuff in the Expansions, especially enemies and weapons. The better weapons could easily substitute in for the weapons we have in retail HL2, to ensure that we get a whole load of weapons to mess around with. Perhaps this was Valve's intention all along, to develop as many weapons as possible, then to narrow them down under "craptacular", "retail HL2" and "HL2 Expansions / Mods" (eg. CS:Source may have been conceptual when they knocked up the AK47)
 
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