Information Half-Life: New America - Announcement

[Raspberry]

To begin with everyone is going to be a citizen. If you have a particularly good idea, post an auth. But nobody is going to be a pre-established rebel. Nobody starting in the outlands.

 

[Scouser]

the boys heading to the outlands for the first time

 

[BMY]

Characters not knowing what city they're in is kind of silly considering not everyone was just born and even those who were can hear about the past from others. Players not knowing what city we're in is just annoying. Let's just call it Chicago. Valuable city to the Combine, lake access if we want to do open water events (throwback to Bones), rural farmland a short trek away.

 

[baby]

south side chicago with the homie Decepti

 

[BMY]

Or anywhere in Chicago. We can do the map city number = precinct number thing. i17 as the North end because beach for example.

 

[Cindy]

eighteen years of defacing cities and mass-relocating populations and shuffling everyone around all over the place would be pretty effective at disorienting people into wondering where the hell they are

might be a bit easier if the city was nyc or chicago or cincinnati but whats to say that the city isnt one of those major, recognizable cities? you wouldnt know.

city 17’s location was hidden for the longest time until people aligned the HLA streetmap perfectly with sofia, bulgaria. its not something players are conceptually unfamiliar with

 

[Raspberry]

Maps aren't sorted but god help us if we end up back on i17 again. I'd like to keep it vague, you can take cultures from multiple cities and do what you want. It opens up more opportunities to be in more places, you're not restricted by 'ah but thats too far to go to on foot from chicago' or something similar. Also anyone who isn't American probably wouldn't be able to tell.

 

[BMY]

Even if not a single person knew the architecture and geography of a city I can't imagine no one saying "Lake? Chicago." Or "River? St. Louis."

 

[Cindy]

think lakes and rivers would look pretty different considering the combine have been draining them

 

[Raspberry]

I get your gripe BMY and I would probably have the same one if it were set somewhere close to me in Canada, but nothing is stopping you from saying it is wherever you think it is IC, I just don't agree that pinning us down necessarily adds anything.

 

[BMY]

In HL2 the game the whole sea was drained like 15 feet and you could see pretty clearly where the water was due to the banks and docks. I imagine that would be the case again. And when you're talkint about Chicago it's massive shipping yards that wouldn't get missed.

 

[BMY]

I get your gripe BMY and I would probably have the same one if it were set somewhere close to me in Canada, but nothing is stopping you from saying it is wherever you think it is IC, I just don't agree that pinning us down necessarily adds anything.

Honestly on TRP the exact whereabouts at any time has been important to a character that I played and surely has been important to people involved in the various Western factions. Even if you insist that no characters can tell what city they're in, just picking one OOC gives us a foundation for coming up with backstories, bits of culture, etc.

 

[Puffin]

I don't really get this premise that people would recognize the city they're in. It's pretty much a hl2 staple that the citizens have no fucking idea what they're even doing. You literally get your reasoning for this in the first level of hl2... it's a combination of constantly moving humans around in the few remaining (combine protected cities), drugging their water supply and over 20 years of suppression of culture, identity and anything remotely old world. Half life alyx goes further with this by showing a globe marked up from where the CCA has shifted people about. The best a bunch of Harvard and MIT graduates can do is say they're somewhere in Eastern Europe in hl2, as shown with alyx putting eastern Europe in a big circle.


The only citizens who show any semblance of awareness is the 'don't drink the water, they put something in it to make you forget. I don't even remember how I got here" guy and the "the trains are always arriving but they never have anyone on, but they're always leaving but no one ever gets on..." guy, both of whom would likely be seen as nutters. They clearly stopped taking their drug laced beverages, but it's still left them with no idea where they are because they've been subject to years and years of constant relocation.

There's actually historical precedence for this as well, the Chinese and Soviet governments under their more Stalinist Communist regimes were well known for constantly moving people around to keep them from being too 'comfortable' as to incite political concern. It's completely plausible.

Furthermore I think we see a pretty pacified outside in hl2, but America was the very heart of the Xenian catastrophe. Without a doubt, America would be absolutely unrecognizable. Cities wouldn't just be unrecognizable, nobody would care lol. It'd be like people giving a shit about a pile of rubble. I mean the best we could say is... identifying nearby water, but...why? Why would that matter when the old world is literally fucked?

 

[Mr. Bagel™]

Someone needs to be fallout Ulysses, talking about them old world blues. Wait nvm, that'll be literally everyone.

 

[Denicide]

It's fine that most people don't know which city we're in. Obviously there are a few original residents left who definitively know, but there's probably just as many people speculating and repeating wrong rumours so that very few people are sure.

More importantly, most citizens probably don't care to play detective with geography. For them, their only experience with the city is as City 107, and particularly for those immigrants from outside the former US it may as well be any Midwest City. It doesn't really matter what it was twenty years ago since it doesn't affect their lives today.

 

[BMY]

I don't really get this premise that people would recognize the city they're in. It's pretty much a hl2 staple that the citizens have no fucking idea what they're even doing. You literally get your reasoning for this in the first level of hl2... it's a combination of constantly moving humans around in the few remaining (combine protected cities), drugging their water supply and over 20 years of suppression of culture, identity and anything remotely old world. Half life alyx goes further with this by showing a globe marked up from where the CCA has shifted people about. The best a bunch of Harvard and MIT graduates can do is say they're somewhere in Eastern Europe in hl2, as shown with alyx putting eastern Europe in a big circle.


The only citizens who show any semblance of awareness is the 'don't drink the water, they put something in it to make you forget. I don't even remember how I got here" guy and the "the trains are always arriving but they never have anyone on, but they're always leaving but no one ever gets on..." guy, both of whom would likely be seen as nutters. They clearly stopped taking their drug laced beverages, but it's still left them with no idea where they are because they've been subject to years and years of constant relocation.

There's actually historical precedence for this as well, the Chinese and Soviet governments under their more Stalinist Communist regimes were well known for constantly moving people around to keep them from being too 'comfortable' as to incite political concern. It's completely plausible.

Furthermore I think we see a pretty pacified outside in hl2, but America was the very heart of the Xenian catastrophe. Without a doubt, America would be absolutely unrecognizable. Cities wouldn't just be unrecognizable, nobody would care lol. It'd be like people giving a shit about a pile of rubble. I mean the best we could say is... identifying nearby water, but...why? Why would that matter when the old world is literally fucked?

The precedence in our HL2RP has been that it's not that hard to catch word of where you are. But the water's a good point, maybe more of us should have been roleplaying memory loss.
I still really think it would be beneficial for us as players to know where the city is though.

 

[Cindy]

we discussed this in length while planning and determined there are a lot more benefits for leaving the location vague than there is specifying it

as raspberry said you’re free to assume its X or Y. but dont expect it to be named at least not until much, much later.

 

[Nenko]

Honestly on TRP the exact whereabouts at any time has been important to a character that I played and surely has been important to people involved in the various Western factions. Even if you insist that no characters can tell what city they're in, just picking one OOC gives us a foundation for coming up with backstories, bits of culture, etc.

People didn't have the same problem when people were in City 17. What gives?

What stops you from simply just playing somebody originally from Chicago if you wish to pursue that character so much?

We had Bulgarian characters awhile back that never knew City 17 was canon wise in Sofia, Bulgaria. There was rumors of it before Alyx even confirmed it.

So why wanting it so much to be anchored down to one place when we haven't shown a single river or lake? I wouldn't know. Hey, we could be in Michigan. Or Canada?

And why would we want to put so much emphasis on people being fully ingrained in the geography of the area when the Combine specializes in moving people about to the point where even a place like Sofia is literally crowded with Americans. I say these questions to you as answers, because that's what made us reach to that conclusion of letting it be vague. America is a different beast as well. Don't get too comfy with the familiar. The whole continent can be very different. It can be theorized as ground zero of the whole Combine invasion, and who knows what happened to the country entirely?

If you want answers, find out in RP. We may just find out ourselves along with you.

 

[Puffin]

I actually think that's been kinda a flaw BMY in past iterations. It's way more Combine-y and terrifying to have this overbearing force break down your ability to even know where you are than to go "Haha yeah we're in Tokyo. Haha we're in Reykjavik" that other iterations have done. Don't get me wrong it's not like...critical, but it does help create a sense of unstoppable behavior from the CCA side of things. The CCA just becomes a visiting force imo when we do that.

Of course narratively I'm more than positive there'll be plenty to bite into in bread crumbs left behind to help nail down a general location of things.

 

[Nenko]

I want to say that I'm glad BMY's asking things like these so that we can address them and you know, see how ya'll feel about things.

I ain't here to tell you, no, that's the wrong way to have fun. Or no, you're wrong. Here's the counterargument. Here's what we experienced personally. I'm listening to your feedback. We're gonna take it into account and keep it in mind. So, while this thread isn't a Q&A - especially since I don't want to even potentially throw about any spoilers - don't feel shy to say or ask anything, and when the server comes, I hope you enjoy being there. A lot of people are breaking their backs for this one, and they don't need pity commendations because you're gonna see the fruits of their labor. You've seen some of it already.

I've never seen a team so damn motivated.