What Has happened to the Oceans?

[Mr.Magnetichead]

I know personally if I were in Valves position pretty much everything you see in the game would have significance. You have to remember that making a game is just like drawing a picture. Nothing is there without you wanting it to be there because you have to knowingly put it there.

 

[bat_lyubo]

I know personally if I were in Valves position pretty much everything you see in the game would have significance. You have to remember that making a game is just like drawing a picture. Nothing is there without you wanting it to be there because you have to knowingly put it there.

true and thats wat makes the game unique, but I find that sometimes there is too much of an abundance of mysteries and it can get just a bit annoying, because you know you won't get many answers from the expansions packs.

 

[Laivasse]

I didn't attribute much meaning to all the beached ships and low water levels and stuff. I didn't think is it was meaningless either, but I just kind of associated all the beached, rusted vessels with mankind losing its grip on the planet due to it becoming too inhospitable, and I just connected the low water levels to that kind of desolate feeling you get at low tide.

 

[ríomhaire]

Too Star War'ish.

Sorry to flame, but are you absolutly thick! Star Wars is set in 1 Galaxy, not more than 1, let alone more than 1 universe! While HL revolves around the concept of more than one universe. The RC triggered portal storms between Earth and Xen(Another universe) and the Combine are beings from another universe!
Again, sorry to flame.

 

[iMMuNiTy]

I was being sarcastic. Right...

 

[ríomhaire]

I was being sarcastic. Right...

For the love of God don't use sarcasm alot on the forum, we can't exacly hear what your tone is
[SARCASM]use the tags[/SARCASM]
put this at the end of your post /sarcasm]
or use an apropriate smile:dozey:

 

[Steve^]

1. Xen is not another planet. It's another dimensional. The portals are interdimensional rifts.

I thought it was another planet IN another dimension?

 

[Mr.Magnetichead]

I thought it was another planet IN another dimension?

How can you class clumps of rock and biomass as a planet?

 

[iMMuNiTy]

For the love of God don't use sarcasm alot on the forum, we can't exacly hear what your tone is
[SARCASM]use the tags[/SARCASM]
put this at the end of your post /sarcasm]
or use an apropriate smile:dozey:

I did put this smile at the end of my sentence. But you're right, I'll use the tags next time.

 

[ríomhaire]

I thought it was another planet IN another dimension?

I believe it's a nebula.

 

[Mr.Magnetichead]

Or a spore cloud.

 

[r2000]

My head just exploded from thinking about the fact that Xen is another dimension, which means that there was no "physical route" to reach it. In other words, it was only accesible from a dimensional rift. Which means the Combine beings from yet another dimension, never made contact with Xen. But when the Earth Xen dimensional rift occurred, they moved in, and got Earth. But wait, that means *head explosion*

 

[15357]

My head just exploded from thinking about the fact that Xen is another dimension, which means that there was no "physical route" to reach it. In other words, it was only accesible from a dimensional rift. Which means the Combine beings from yet another dimension, never made contact with Xen. But when the Earth Xen dimensional rift occurred, they moved in, and got Earth. But wait, that means *head explosion*

*BSOD*

 

[Epsi]

Although the Combine use a dark matter reactor, or whatever, it could be a similar thing to say, the Space Shuttle's engines, which use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel. However, that hydrogen had to be made somehow, either by electrolysis of water, or a process on oil. Either way, you're using up another fossil fuel. The combustion of liquid hydrogen just provides more power (energy per second) than fossil fuels.

Same could be true of Combine tech. They need their fancy dark whatsit reactors to provide the juice for teleportation, but maybe for day-to-day usage, and to make the fuel for their more powerful reactors, they're fusing hydrogen.

And yeh, hydrogen is the most plentiful element, but it's not exactly dense or easy to get at. The gas giants are tricky to mine, stars are just too damned hot, and interstellar hydrogen is not plentiful.

Although, they could just want the water. Or the oxygen. Who knows.

 

[Mr.Magnetichead]

Wow, You really have NO clue what dark matter is do you.

Doing what you're suggesting is like us using Nuclear Reactors every now and then and using dry leaves and sticks to make fire most of the time.

 

[r2000]

Well. considering all the Earth has been wrecked by the Xen creatures, read Raising the Bar. They mention that the wasteland is Earth, and all Earth has been basically destroyed by Xen creatures. Which means that the oceans probably had a similar bout.

 

[Asknoone]

Well. considering all the Earth has been wrecked by the Xen creatures, read Raising the Bar. They mention that the wasteland is Earth, and all Earth has been basically destroyed by Xen creatures. Which means that the oceans probably had a similar bout.

That is the most likely explanation. I sure wouldn't like to go for a paddle in the Ichthyosaur infested waters

 

[Epsi]

Wow, You really have NO clue what dark matter is do you.

Doing what you're suggesting is like us using Nuclear Reactors every now and then and using dry leaves and sticks to make fire most of the time.

Well, that's more or less the problem, no-one really knows what dark matter is, could be neutrinos, or WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles). No-one really knows. All we know is that it's there (we can see the effects it has on other matter due to gravity) but we can't see it.

Interestingly enough, neither WIMPs nor neutrinos would make very good fuels. They interact only very, very weakly with normal matter. There are hundreds of neutrinos flowing through you right now, for example.

 

[15357]

That is the most likely explanation. I sure wouldn't like to go for a paddle in the Ichthyosaur infested waters

off topic but:

When did you become a member of the Inner Party, General?

 

[DoctorWeeTodd]

I've never really bought the drained oceans thing, since all the references were cut. Could be low tide?

What kind of low tide leaves hundreds of rusted ship skeletons on a completely dried up valley? Go to the beach during the low tide you would see :the sand is either wet or fine and not cracked and hardened like a desert. The stuff we saw in HL2 takes decades of intervention from a force equivalent or greater to only man and nature.

The Oceans aren't completely drained of course you can still see them in game. To whoever said "they're gone" They're just infested with hostile xenoforms like anywhere else.

 

[Asknoone]

off topic but:

When did you become a member of the Inner Party, General?

Classified information.

 

[Laivasse]

What kind of low tide leaves hundreds of rusted ship skeletons on a completely dried up valley? Go to the beach during the low tide you would see :the sand is either wet or fine and not cracked and hardened like a desert. The stuff we saw in HL2 takes decades of intervention from a force equivalent or greater to only man and nature.

The Oceans aren't completely drained of course you can still see them in game. To whoever said "they're gone" They're just infested with hostile xenoforms like anywhere else.

It's not as unbelievable as you make out. I know beaches where the water pulls back for what looks like miles at low tide. Even discounting that, you don't need a low water level to end up with beached ships. Who knows what happened out at sea during the portal storms? It could be that there were a lot of sailors who just made a beeline straight for the nearest shore.

I don't remember any beached ships in 'completely dried up valleys'. Do you mean Sandtraps? IIRC all the ships in the game are very close to some kind of body of water.

The wet sand thing is a fair point, but how are they going to convey the difference graphically? Even if Valve could have done, they may have figured it was just not worth the effort for such a small detail.

 

[ríomhaire]

Yeah, maybe during the PS loads of water was transported to Xen?

 

[Laivasse]

Yeah, maybe during the PS loads of water was transported to Xen?

That was one of the ideas from Raising the Bar, anyway. Supposedly a certain ocean was being drained by a huge portal that had appeared in it.

I tend to go with the idea, however, that what we don't see in the game isn't there, despite what might have been planned. Same as how they originally intended there to be an air exchange, with all the citizens wearing gas masks too, but there's no reason to believe there was one in the HL2 world from looking at the final game.

 

[DoctorWeeTodd]

The wet sand thing is a fair point, but how are they going to convey the difference graphically? Even if Valve could have done, they may have figured it was just not worth the effort for such a small detail.

All they have to do is make the texture darker and add a reflection map and it'll be effective enough. IIRC there actually is wet sand at the edges of the visible beaches as the water pulls back.