Half Life 2 - City 13 Announcement

bennet

Roleplay Department Administrator
May 22, 2011
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The year is 2024, nearly two years after the fall of the Spires of North America, and with them, the prospects and aspirations of the Universal Union’s operations across the continent. Reeling from the disastrous material and industrial loss, the Combine’s first step in recuperating was ensuring the reorganization and reallocation of their mass of human livestock eastward. The urban centers of Europe were struck with a tidal wave of confused and dazed masses, some being resettled, others doomed to be transferred beyond to parts unknown. This wave of resettlement called for immense expansion and development, with entire populations being sent to key central cities which had already been long transformed by the Combine across the continent.

One of these sprawling urban centers which had become a prime candidate for resettlement was City 13.

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City 13 is a city of contrast, regarded from the outside as one of the final sprawling vestiges of old world luxury, adorned by towering palaces and crumbling castles, all the while regarded from the inside by the common citizen as a dungeon of morals and ambitions. What had once been known as Prague has now been turned into something far beyond what one could ever have imagined, an ever-pumping totalitarian heart of monolithic industrial megastructures and bio-engineering facilities embedded upon a concrete graft which has consumed much of the city, now known as the New City, its outlets spewing toxic waste into the barely-habitable outskirts and wastelands beyond the walls, canals and pipelines carrying the rest off to vast industrial complexes only just over the horizon. These outskirts, referred to at times as the Old City, embody the antiquated war torn ruins and scars of the 7 Hour War, home to the dejected and outcasts surviving just barely beyond the Combine’s central reach, sandwiched between the outer walls and the wasteland, infested with wandering Xenians peering for weaknesses and paths through the walls.

No matter if they live in the tallest tower, or in the lowest sewer tunnel, all residents find themselves living within the panopticon that City 13 has become, the towering alien superstructure overseeing all of the residents of the eternally darkened city from its bright, walled off heart.

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Through the streets of the city is an emanating, dream-like feeling of dead elegance, the skeletal remains of a time long gone and the lingering spirits trapped within them, what's left to be inhabited by the few lucky enough to be allowed the chance to experience it. Beyond the dimly lit towers and grand administrative halls, those walking astray through these empty streets travel with a sense of foreboding as they walk beneath series of imposing Gothic spires, standing against the nightmarish backdrop of the city's dull, deep red evening skies.

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City 13 is a new setting in TnB's universe which will serve as the main hub of our next, official iteration of HL2RP. Whereas City 107 was a frontier town on the Combine's peripheral, City 13 serves as a grand amalgamation of conquest and post-war development, a city partially built over by the Combine in the wake of the 7 Hour War.

Despite a more active and totalitarian presence by both the Administration and CCA, City 13 is not a safer place to live in by any means, either. The city itself is a Gothic, industrial hellscape, with the only temporary escape being provided by the finer cafes, bars, and tucked away clubs in the shadier parts of the city; the average person is as trustworthy as the cop who beat you last week, and the Xenian infestation, though dealt with quickly when discovered, has come to establish itself as a common problem, even among the urban clutter deep within the city.

Our intention with City 13, and this iteration overall, is a hybrid approach. Both a return to form in the sense of a traditional HL2RP environment and another stab at a new style, we seek to emphasize a more industrial, gritty atmosphere, one which will encourage heavier interaction among the various echelons of society to be found on the server through the sheer state of life and society in such a decaying, yet boisterous metropolis, and the ensuing fallout following the Combine’s collapse in North America.

With us veering back towards a more firmly totalitarian atmosphere with City 13, we will also be adopting more themes and aspects of Half-Life 2’s earlier development builds, notably making more use of cut synths, content, and details which we find the most suitable for TnB’s interpretation of Half-Life 2’s universe, all to provide a more varied and memorable experience compared to the often limited lens which we tend to approach HL2RP with. In all, we will be greatly expanding the scope of what is to be expected and be seen on a regular basis, from synths, to equipment, overall concepts, and likely even maps going forward, and hope to maintain this variety and experience beyond just the occasional one-time eyecandy side-event as we have done in the past.

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Characters from the previous iteration will, as we have typically done with past HL2RPs, also be able to be carried over well into the new iteration. How they ended up here is up for you to decide, though the most likely cases would be that they had been swept up amid prior and currently ongoing mass evacuations of North America. The primary methods of coming to Europe would have been either via the Combine's Trans-Atlantic Railway network which spreads on across the expanded northern arctic, or by ships, these characters processed through a coastal transit hub and relocated further into Europe to bolster the industrial workforce.

More questions to be answered in a follow up FAQ thread.​


Credits - Decepti & Skyrim
 
Just as I am writing another chapter in the CIC survival guide... After that, I'm gonna write an interlude.

This was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

If you guys need help if you decide to revive the CIC faction (I think there are things we can improve in terms of CCA relations from last time after all), or just need a builder, by all means I am ready and willing to help.
 
This sounds really cool. Unfortunately I never really got the chance to play on TnB before, let alone during a HL2RP period, so I'm looking forward to this. When's it happening?
 
FOR THE GLORY, FOR THE MIGHT OF THE BENEFACTORS, UNITE MY LABORERS, LET US REJOYCE IN THE GIFT OF WORKING FOR A BETTER TOMORROW WJERE HUMANITY IS FREE OF BASE AND VULGAR INSTINCT.
 
Oh boy, time to infiltrate the CEC again! Nothing bad will happen this time!

Unlike last time, I hope you guys have plenty of time to develop the script before launching the server.
 

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