Xen Wildlife

Jandor

Jandor

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I have made a site about Xen Wildlife, located at: www.freewebs.com/jandor

Basically, it needs two things, a better host and finishing off.
I do not know how to code HTML and as such I think I'm stuck at freewebs, also, people might disagree with things on my site, so basically, I want peoples opinion of my site, what they think I should change, and maybe an article or two to fill in the gaps I have.

Cheers.

Jandor.
 
a lot of thoes are cut from the game,

I'm not sure whether to include them or not
 
Very nice, you've got a knack for writing.

Although, Panthereyes had no ranged attack , except in some SvenCoop maps, but that was because they were used as model replacements for Vorts. They were supposed to pounce alot in the original game, though. And the red one is a later version than the blue one :P

"Freinoplu" (Mr. Friendly to us common folks) was supposed to knock you down with it's tentacles, and bum you. Yes, bum you. Horrid. And they threw up on people rather than shot spikes :P

The kingpin was supposed to be an intelligent form of Xen life, for future reference, so I'm not sure it's appropriate to label them as animals. Oh, and you missed off the 'Charger' (included at the bottom of my post)

I'm good at picking things apart. Thumbs up to the site though, you've got a good writing style. Just make sure you don't mix in too many player mod sources for some of the creatures (i.e. third party Sven-Coop maps)

-Angry Lawyer
 
Mmm-k, I'll re-write the Panthereye description. also, I might replace the Kingpin with the Charger if you can provide some information about it.
 
I don't agree with your headcrab ideas. i think you should only use info from the 5 games, not stuff that was cut out.
 
Leapers also naturally thin their population out, due to the fact that (if you believe the Combine mutated them) the Combine gave them no way of feeding. They'd starve after eating the majority of their host, as the host has no way of feeding.

I wrote up a description of the Charger ages ago, but the person I made it for never used it. I'll post it here if I can find it.

-Angry Lawyer
 
The site would be far more barren then ;) .

EDIT: I'll put notes on everything that was cut.

EDIT: I'll update the leapers.
 
Yeah Mr. Friendly was the creature design that got Ted Backman his job and nearly made him lose it. According to Raising the Bar, he described it to Gabe Newell on his first day as this horrendous monster that pounded on the ground with it's tendirl arms then would pull you in to the point of "fatal copulation". (I'am not making this up.) Ken Birdwell was freaked out by Ted having suggested Ted to Gabe and wondering how to stop the trainwreck until Newell pipes up with liking the idea. Since after all weird sexual innuendos are more frightening to the target audience than monsters with guns for hands. :thumbs:
 
I have your site bookmarked BTW. Nice job.

But don't you think the tiny Gonome is too young to just jump to the Gonarch stage?
 
One thing - the Combine haven't stopped using the leaping headcrabs. There's a spot in either Anticitizen one or Follow Freeman where fast headcrabs come out of an artillery shell that has just landed.
 
Yeah, because Fast Headcrabs ARE efficient. When they zombify something, they starve, as they don't develop maws.

-Angry Lawyer
 
I've changed the whole headcrab section. except for Poison and Assassin zombies.

I've also done a Barnacle section, though I feel I may have rushed it.
I'm going to put the Antlion pictures up, but the description wont be up until I feel I have time to do it justice.

anyone got any information on the other animals? Stukabats? Leeches? Archers? Snarks? Hmm, Hmm.
 
About time you creat a thread for the site,I read the whole thing already,pretty cool ^_^.
 
there lack of speed is not so much of a crippling disability.
Click to expand...
I think that mawvorts -as I like to call them- would have be able to run properly. The reason that a mawman is so slow is due to the headcrabs being used to the motor funtions of a vortigaunt. human and vortigaunt legs are very different.
And a mawvort's claws would be neat and and even, unlike mawman's monsterous bloody claws that tear out of its fingures.
[img=http://img237.exs.cx/img237/8030/y6sc.th.jpg]

Edit: I can't imagine the way you described the gonome becomig a gonarch. Can you make an artist's imprestion?
 
You know the crab? that incredibly difficult position to assume where you bend your arms back and point your chest into the air. Well imagine that, but the bones are broken and re-shaped so it is more natural. Then the Gonome increases in size etc. etc.
 
Your saying that the gonome, not the headcrab becomes the gonarch. I never would have thought of that, a bit like Aliens then.
 
In my opinion the Headcrab never actually changes, it's the host that goes on to become a Gonarch, the headcrab dies once its work is done.

EDIT: I've just hit a wall, I've reached my maximum allowance of images :(

Note: Actually, dosn't matter, after a bit of extensive re-jigging I can use my other domain (Jandor1) to meld the two sites seamlessly together :) .

Thats going to take a while.
 
I dont know how to gague what is wildlife from Race-X and what is a bio-weapon/sentient. I havn't done Xen Wildlife 3 yet, I know. ;)
 
Thaughts about the hydra:

The hydra is a combine genetics experimant combinening the terran cniderian (hydra) with some growth genes from various xen animals as well as some other hormones to produce other changes, as such the hydra, while at first sight xen wildlife, is actualy modified earth wildlife....
 
To me the hydra us like a tentacle/robot thing, kind of like the drop ships. You know bio engineered and stuff.
 
To me the hydra us like a tentacle/robot thing, kind of like the drop ships. You know bio engineered and stuff.
Click to expand...

Thing is, why would it attack the Combine in that case? I don't think even Valve thought the hydra concept through very thoroughly.
 
How do I get a free website like yours?
About the image thing, you have 4 headcrab pics joined to eachother. Merge them and that will clear up a few more pics for you to use. you could do that for the bullsquid ones aswell.
 
The only Race-X wildlife you see in the HL series are:

Shock Roaches.
Shock Troopers.
Pit Drones.
Pitworms.
Geneworms.
Voltigores.
The little spore things that grow all over the place.
The green biomat that clings to walls, that Barnacle tongues seem to cling to.

The rest is more than likely to be Xenian. To me, the Hydra is simply a native Xen thing with an affinity for watery places. Or possibly a juvenile tentacle thing from HL1.

-Angry Lawyer
 
I'm pretty sure that zombie assassin was just a combine assassin that got headcrabbed, they cut it out cause there were no assassins in the final game. Also I think the hydra is just a xen creature that dwels in watery places. It loks like it would blend right in ith one of those healing pools, so something that comes along looking for some refreshment gets impaled instead.
 
Just because something wasn't used, doesn't mean it didn't have a place. They didn't cut the Hydra for storyline reasons, but gameplay ones.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Just because something wasn't used, doesn't mean it didn't have a place. They didn't cut the Hydra for storyline reasons, but gameplay ones.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

Hmm, I'm a bit split on this. While the E3 vids and RtB give us great insight into what *could* have gone into the game, and good background on what *is* in the game, I don't think we should assume that stuff that *isn't* in the game but was in a vid or RtB instead is still part of the HL2 universe.

The only thing we should really look to to illustrate the HL2 world is the game itself IMO. If there's stuff in the game that RtB gives more info on, then fair enough, but if it didn't make it into the games then let it lie. Like the Air Exchange - they cut it from the story of HL2, but didn't say if it was cut from the HL world completely. As it is, there are no citizens wearing gasmasks and there's nothing in the game to point to the existence of an Air Exchange, so we should just assume that it isn't part of the world (although it might turn out to be, later), like the hydra which we likewise don't see.

Anything you say exists, has to have a background, and if Valve never finalised a background themselves then it just becomes more and more an exercise in fanfiction. Let's not go down the road of the Combine on Xen theorists :upstare:
 
Ah, but the thing is, with the Combine on Xen theorists, they didn't even have a basis in Raising the Bar, or any other source. They just made a false assumption, and that assumption got built on.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Oh yeah, those wacky guys :laugh: Bless em. Combine on Xen also complicates the entire background of all Xen wildlife (token non-OT comment).
 
I've spent today coming up with a slightly disturbing theory of how antlions bread.
 
What game are you using to get these screenshots?
Click to expand...

Model Viewer for HL2 animals, Scoured Google for HL1 Pictures.

I included the cut animals to make the website more full, and I validate there existance using a comment similar (read: Identical) to what Angry Lawyer said.

I've spent today coming up with a slightly disturbing theory of how antlions bread.
Click to expand...

Do tell, theres no shame here. Although I was thinking of going with a worm like Antlion King breeding them by impregnating an immobile egg-sack, which is grown using King mucus.
or something like that, I dont really have anything to go on, so making it up all the way :) .


I have an article about the Charger..etc...
Click to expand...

Did you find it?
 
There are many antlion queens and 1 antlion king in a colony. Every spawning season the antlion queens grow an eggsack. the king who has been building up sperm for a while goes to each queen and he sticks his ass into their eggsacks and ijects it with his sperm. The antlions grow inside this and rip out of the eggsack. After the spawning season is over the eggsack is in ribbons and the queen eats it.
Each queen gives birth to 1 queen in their life. About 10 years after maturing. When a king is dieing he goes to the oldest queen and ijects her eggsack with a special sperm. This grows a new king that takes up the entire sack and kills the queen on birth.
The 3 diffrent antlion skins in the game are due to different queens.




Does anyone else think that a friendly looks like a headcrab?
 
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