If you post it, they will come...

[TechnoHippyChic]

Make threads so it won't be deadz
Posting replies would be pretty fly

"They'll come to ValveTime for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your forum, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your site as innocent as children, longing for the past.

"Of course, we won't mind if you look around," you'll say. "It's only twenty infractions per person." They'll pass over the threads without even thinking about it. For it is content they have and peace they lack.

And they'll click over to The Lounge, and post in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved usernames somewhere among the userbase, where they posted when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll play the games, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come, ValveTime.

The one constant through all the years, ValveTime, has been the users.

The site has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But community has marked the time.

This site, this forum -- it's a part of our past, ValveTime. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, ValveTime. People will most definitely come."

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Fun fact:

Boanthropy is a psychological disorder in which a human believes himself or herself to be a bovine.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

WHERE'S PART 2, @Vegeta897 ?

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Don't drink the water. I forget why...

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Lb is an abbreviation of the Latin word libra. The main meaning of libra was scale or balance, but it also was a shortened form of the ancient Roman unit of measure libra pondo, meaning “a pound by weight”. We have the word “pound” in English from the pondo part of the libra pondo but our abbr. comes from the libra. The libra also gives the symbol for the British pound, £ - an L with a line. The Italian lira also used that symbol (only with two lines through it), the word “lira” itself being an abbreviated version of libra.

“Ounce” comes from the Latin uncia, the name of both the Roman inch and ounce units of measurement. The word passed down into English from Anglo-Norman French, where it was unce or ounce, but the shortened form was borrowed from Medieval Italian, which used onza. Today the Italian word is oncia, and the region once covered by the Roman Empire long ago switched to the metric system.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

pfft, cat got no keys n3wb.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Citadel under construction in New York

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Spoiler

V:

Spoiler

D:

Spoiler

Spoiler

​

Spoiler

ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

Spoiler

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

I had gamed a bit since the 80's, but Half-Life was a Revelation. It was a new form of entertainment, like living a movie. I remember shortly after getting laser trip mines, I heard a team of grunts up a couple flights of stairs. I placed one right at the base and jumped over it, cautiously creeping upwards. I was right behind them before they noticed me. I leapt up and ran back down, jumping at the last second. From behind I hear an "Oh, shit!" and a satisfying explosion. It was a 3 man squad, the mine took out 2 of them, and I made short work of the third. It was a triumph, huge success.

I'm eager to do another playthrough of Black Mesa once they get it fully finished up, seems they're relatively close. I also can't wait for Operation Black Mesa and Blue Shift, but I guess I'll have to.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

They're waiting for you Gordon... in the TEST chamberrr...

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

After the last couple of posts, I've decided I have to play Opposing Force, like right now. It's an undeniable compulsion. It doesn't matter that I have other things to do. It must be done.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Itch scratched ^-^!

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

It's a goddamned tragedy that the greatest game series of all time is left unfinished, abandoned, forgotten. It's like:

If da Vinci sketched out and half-painted Mona Lisa, and said: "Eh, good enough".

If NASA stopped doing lunar missions with Apollo 8, tantalizingly close, yet never quite reaching alien soil.

If the ancient Egyptians just made trapeziums, some half-hearted landing pads for Goa'uld that would never come.

If the Allies in World War II fought to the edge of Germany, and said: "Eh, no need to push to Berlin".

If Shakespeare just wrote:

Oi, Half-Life is just like this game, innit?
And all the men and women merely players;
They 'av their saves and their loads,
And one man in his time plays two parts, right?
His acts being six ages, and no moah.

 

[Vaapukka]

If Valve were to come out with a new Half-Life game (obviously hypothetical), would you consider it a new entry in the series or more of a soft-ish reboot? I think nearly all of the original devs of the series have left (or have been chosen to leave) Valve. I really doubt that the original feel of the games would remain. Even great fan projects like Black Mesa ultimately feel very different in key areas like the gameplay and the visuals.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Yeah, it would definitely have a different feel, and they would have to spend some effort to reestablish and reintroduce the world. There are 12 year old gamers today who weren't even born when the last bit of Half-Life lore was released, much less the original. I'm sure if they did it, it would be something great, but I fear for its ongoing relevancy.

I do really like Black Mesa, though, it was a much needed graphical update, and I thought it was quite faithful to the original. It just needs the ending done to be the full modern Half-Life 1 fan package. They only have 5 maps to go, so at least the end is in sight for that.

 

[Vaapukka]

Regarding Black Mesa, I think there has been some kind of an open beta -thing regarding the Xen levels. I haven't seen much outside of a couple screenshots because I want to play it when the full game is actually finished and not a moment earlier. I think the beta should be in some kind of a complete state before the end of the year, but I have no idea about the actual "the game is done at last" -date. At least they are not rushing things, dear god.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Agreed about waiting, I played I guess back in 2015 when they first released, it was awesome but without the end it left that "unfinished" frustration us HL fans are so familiar with...

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Portal story discussion

Now these points of data make a beautiful line
And we're out of beta, we're releasing on time
So I'm GLaD I got burned, think of all the things we learned
For the people who are still alive

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

In 202(4), Half-Life (3) will be released. It will come with a free Index (2), and cost (1) thousand dollars.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

I stopped eating seafood in 2011 after Fukushima Daiichi. Then, in December 2016, I saw an article titled "How To Make Your Own Honey Baked Ham At Home For Cheap!" or something to that effect. I had been a meat eater for decades, never thinking about it much. There were graphic pictures of raw, severed pigs legs, still recognizable as parts of a recently living, breathing being. A switch flipped in my soul, and I knew I could never eat another animal again. I've been a vegetarian ever since.

I quickly lost 30 pounds without even trying, then another 25 over the next year or so. I have more energy, a better all-around mood, I wish I'd had this realization years ago. Makin' sgetti tonight...

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

​

Found Amongst The Threads - a link to Allie Brosh's (Hyperbole and a Half) great piece on a difficult subject, presented in an insightful and delightfully humorous way:

Adventures in Depression and Depression Part Two​

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

It's been interesting monitoring what the bots have been crawling over from what I've kicked up. Threads and posts and profiles that are surprisingly relevant, others not so much. There's SO MUCH on almost every conceivable subject over 16 years...

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Notable figures of history.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

I voted!

Let Freedom and Democracy Ring

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

On my way back from voting earlier, I stopped by Taco Bell. There was a G-Man quote on a sauce packet:

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Xen / Combine conjecture and assjets

Arguments against the Combine/Xen Connection

1. Xen and the Combine controlled worlds look and feel completely different. Xen is organic... its defenses are the very trees that grow and their weapons are either symbiotic creatures or a part of the individual who wields them. Most light on Xen is provided by living plants, there are countless indigenous races that have set up hierarchies, from headcrabs to snarks to tentacles. Serene healing pools sanctuaries are everywhere, as is organic goo, organic lights, organic rocks... everything from local transportation to teleportation to the factories to their weapons seems to have a mystical organic feel to it in some way. Many of the very ground-platforms that make up Xen seem to be organic on some level of their own. The more advanced races seem to have a mystical feel about them, from a hive mind outside of time to the ability to teleport to a seeming lack of dependence on anything physical anymore.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

In The Epistle,

At this point, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, a Certain Sinister Figure appeared, in the form of that sneering trickster, G-Man. For once he appeared not to me, but to Alyx Vance. Alyx had not seen the cryptical schoolmarm since childhood, but she recognized him instantly. “Come along with me now, we’ve places to do and things to be,” said G-Man, and Alyx acquiesced. She followed the strange grey gentleman out of the Borealis, out of our reality.

Huh? Why would she do this? Why would she abandon Gordon to his fate, without objection?

 

[Vaapukka]

In The Epistle,


Huh? Why would she do this? Why would she abandon Gordon to his fate, without objection?

Mind control, probably. Like when she went "prepare for unforeseen consequences."

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Mind control, probably. Like when she went "prepare for unforeseen consequences."

You're probably right. She's unconscious when he implants that suggestion in her mind, though. While the Vortigaunts are otherwise occupied healing Alyx, the G-Man slips in to Gordon's mind and "extracts payment for his survival". It's transferred to her through the weaving of their vortessence.

It's interesting to note Episode 1 opens with the Vorts "stealing his investments", he plants the suggestion that leads to Eli and Alyx wanting to destroy the Borealis, which gives him the opportunity to steal her back at the planned end of Episode 3, nicely bookended by Marc. I guess he's done with Gordon by that point though, but saved again by the Vorts.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Indiana Jones and the Disappointments of 2008

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Oh my god this looks so fun:

Garry's Mod / Half-Life 2 in Virtual Reality on the Oculus Quest
Go to about 4:27 to skip most setup and see gameplay

This guy is a straight-up murderous mofo tho, lol ​

Also Lambda1VR for Half-Life 1, looks flawless

Makes me want to buy one, I've just got one of those Gear VR things for my phone at the moment.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

I fully endorse this product and/or service:

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

So I finished Entropy : Zero last night, where you play as a Metrocop in City 10. It's so good! Great story, clever puzzles, it's really polished and you can tell they put a lot of loving work into it. Awesome music, too. If you missed this earlier like I did, go get it!

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Public hearings on the impeachment inquiry start tomorrow, remember to watch them if you are interested. Should be available pretty much everywhere including C-Span, PBS, etc. MSNBC starts off in the morning with Nicole Wallace. I like her, but my fav for coverage of this stuff is Rachel Maddow in the evening. Girl breaks it down.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Holy f*ck, you're alive?

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Alive and kickin it.. I was gone for a minute, butt I'm back bby!

 

[Vegeta897]

Well this is a pretty good thread.