7-Hour War Portion (Part1)

[Reaper21]

<Spoiler Warning> <Get off Forum if you just wanna be suprised>
Ok this is a thread mainly for the first part of the mod, the 7-hour war... I have the whole main idea in my head and I'm gonna post it here... I still need ideas for little diversions/sub plots things to make the 7-hour war seem more like... 7 hours. But as for the overall story this is what I've got.

After main intro (We're keepin that a secret no matter what =P) shephard wakes up near a crashed helicopter, looks at his surroundings a bit notices some kinda strange activity ahead, as if the very horizen was shifting, grabs some weapons like the MP5 and such and not long after a large portal starts to open as combine pour out and a strider heads for shephard's location.

Fights strider some more fighting exploring at this point shephard's pretty confused and is just fighting for his life, is forced to dive into a cave-like hole in the ground from... bad stuff (not tellin you everything) fighting through the cave for awhile finds some new weapons, gets spooked by some zombies and sees some antlions burrowing (at this point player should be like... umm antlions + underground.... uh oh. Antlions + zombies + underground... o crap...) and heh I've got a reason for zombies being in the antlion nest and you'll probably realize when u play.

An epic suprise ladada eventually u see a bright light and crawl out of the claustrophobic cave and see inside of a city. Next chapter... come down and marine quickley tells you whats going on only to be shot by strider... huge battle going on city gets bombared gunships flying, synths bombarding striders make it feel like war of the worlds killing citizens and marine everywhere. Theres enough stuff going on with few enough rockets to make player have one instict left: Run. You get into a jeep drive for a little bit down a road while all hell is breaking loose and portals opening with combine coming everwhere your kinda forced to drive through all this debris under a strider to get through only to get hit by a huge explosion throwing shephard (when i say shephard instead of player there will be a sorta cinematic camrea showing shephard instead of player) into a river... looks like shephard's had it but a combat medic comes near as shephard floats to other shore and rescues him.
In marine camp the same medic (We're calling him Jack Jenkins right now don't ask...) tells his segeant (calling him Sgt. Williams right now) his tags say his name is shephard and hes part of the HECU arising suspsion with the marines (shephard is unconcious at this point) and medic says hes been through hell and stuff. Shephad wakes up, sergeant tells him whats going on more in-depth and points to big citadel far behind them saying we need to assault that and stuff. Camp gets attacked, marines get slaughtered player/shephard stalls them a bit saving williams and jack (kinda the sub plot side characters we got going on).

Now theres going to be some fights and diversions (ideas i need) in between this... and when shephard and marines get to citadel (or almost get to it) and see Dr. Breen's surrender where marines don't feel like giving up williams tells shephard not to give up ect. and kinda trusts shephard at this point more than anyone else and tells him to run and williams jack and others try to hold off combine coming in to arrest them and something will happen (another idea) tying this with part 2 (the black mesa part) we're thinking something happens to shephard, takes off his gear or something people think hes a citizen (basicly its starting to feel like city 17) and player subtley gets forced into a line of people volenteering to be CPs and gets sent to black mesa ladada read other thread for more info.

So any comments on the 7-hour war story so far I'll listen to but really I need help filling that big gap inbetween Assault and Surrender and the tranistion of this to Black Mesa part.

[brokentripod]

Quick question: Do you have models for like...modern APCs/tanks?

Because if you don't we could make some. It would look a bit more convincing to have tanks/APCs and aircrafts around while humanity is getting the beatdown from the Combine...

I've got a few ideas, but I'll post them tomorrow or...later on sometime. Got to finish my homework stuff and I'm also offline for a good two or three days, unfortunately.

[xxghostkillxx]

Antlion caves are in a desert setting so it should be based at a desert. To be more specific Nevada or Death Valley Park, California. Mostly California since it has U.S Marine bases there, since Shephard is a marine. After you make your way out of the antlion cave, you appear near a city. Where in your trailer the city part would happen. After making your way through the city. Which probably takes 2 hours in game time. 4 hours pass, and you see a military brigade pretty much what is left of the human forces in the west. Or maybe instead of the city you can make a trip to Area 51. Which has military forces in it. And for the apc models ask Sven Viking from Sven Co-Op mod. He's starting Sven Co-Op 2 as a HL2 mod look it up on ModDb. He has a working APC in the game though they haven't currently started making the game yet. So ask him if you can use his vehicle.

[Reaper21]

We already discussed this, its going to be in New Mexico shephard is not going to california =P

[brokentripod]

BT is back.

Anyway, no California/Nevada, since that just means we've got to have more travel in the game, and considering that only a few groups have functional teleporters, it's hard to get that far in a game without the game getting boring. La de da.

Post more, people. I work best when responding to stuff, I think. Active forums lead to more productiveness from me.

[yzaxtol]

1)
hey i'm new but an awesome fan of Shephard my ideas would be:

Half way to the Citadel probably via a Jeep through the streets , they'll come to a sub-way entrance where civvies are pouring for all places to run into the subway ... and as you pass it 3 striders burst through the skyscrapers infront of you and 2 from behind, forcing you to run into the subway

Someone dares to utter the words "Whew we're safe!"

Buuzzz , wheeeeeee , zzzzzzzzz

And about 30 Buzzers fly into the subway, but thankfully it's quite narrow and you should have the SAW (classic) by then.

2) (edited)

Probably later on after you've frog leaped back providing cover for each other further down the subway, the entrace'd collapse and you'd walk past all the civvies in the flickering lights of the subway, and then look at a map and head to the citadel on foot. Que Zombies dark scary stuff etc etc.

3) (edited)

they exit the subway (probably emergency exit) Right into the middle of a convoy of marines, with tanks/apcs on their way to attack the citadel themselves, jeeps drive underneath the striders avoiding their main gun firing rockets(Shephard helps with the rockets) Tanks/apcs hang back providing support with shells.

4) (edited)

at 1 point Shephard loses all his guns in a fight(probably..) all the marines are pinned and can't counter attack, it's up to Shephard to use his only weapon. (knife?) to run between strider legs, dodging bouncing orbs to stab something important and just as shephard reaches the object g-man appears saying something like "We're on a tight schedule Mr. Shephard, we can't be having fun on the job now can we?" and teleports him to Black Mesa.

- oops didn't read the 2nd topic.. well the 4th one could be inside the citadel

[brokentripod]

Welcome to the forums yzaxtol!

Some of those ideas are pretty good. I'll find out if Reaper21 can figure a way to incorporate some of those ideas into the mod. I'm not sure how well Source could handle a bunch of NPCs running into the subway, though, with lots of other stuff happening.

In any case, I'm sure Reaper/Me could figure out an alternative way to do it.

Having Zombies in the subway sounds like a decent idea, since Headcrabs seem to like darker/underground places.

If you have any more ideas, feel free to post more!

[Reaper21]

hmmm some details like the knife and gman probably not but i like the idea of having to take cover in a subway to get through the city and me and Soul_Reaper (my co-mapper) could use our imaginative minds to make a scary envirnment > hmmm getting ideas. Things like this is what I need cause latley things been going slow unfortunatley between school and I keep getting blank ideas as to "what should I map next?" and i'm still searching for a modeller for hire but more ideas like this could get us moving faster so thanks yzaxtol i appreciate it.