Ok but really, what's with the Half Life stuff in Hollvania Mall?

[Varzin13]

For those who missed it, the Hollvania Central Mall relay appeared during the Tennocon stream and stayed accessible on Earth for about a week after that. It was a simple social space where players could preview the next new hub area coming in the Warframe 1999 update. For some reason, you could find several cardboard cutouts of Gordan Freeman around the mall as well as posters showing the famous Half-Life lambda symbol. Now when I say Gordan Freeman I don't mean a legally distinct dude in heavy orange armor, I mean literally the man himself. And this wasn't just one thing shoved in a corner, the Half-Life imagery appeared sporadically across the entire space of the mall.

So...what's with that?

I'm asking this as someone who has never played Half Life but I know enough to recognize it's iconography and influences. To that point I can see where the setting of the sequel game likely was a large influence on that of WF 1999. Think about it, a devastated (likely European) city under siege by both an alien(?) military force that has literally walled off entire buildings with their tech while at the same time dealing with a parasitic infestation? Again, never played Half Life but I know a City 17 reference when I see one. 

So is that it then? A cheeky nod to a game that likely inspired some of 1999's setting while also showcasing a game that was popular during the time period of the stories events? Part of what really gets me about this is the fact that this isn't some legally distinct reference, this is straight up Half Life imagery in Warframe. Did DE need to get permission from Valve to include this? Or perhaps did Valve approach DE? Not to get anyone's hopes up but...could this be a hint towards something more? It could be that WF 1999 might have serendipitously been the perfect opportunity for Valve to start advertising something and they jumped on it. I realize that that is some real tin foil hat thinking and I am myself not actually convinced it's the truth, just something that came to mind.

What does everyone else think? Just a neat reference or something more? If I'm getting any facts wrong here, particularly about Half Life, please feel free to correct me.

[(PSN)Lollybomb]

It's probably just a reference, and nothing more.  Valve is actually pretty permissive with their IP from what I've seen.  When someone set out to do for Half-Life 1 on the Source engine that everyone hoped Valve would do (a proper port that actually made use of the new engine, rather than just sitting on it like a lump on a log), the only issue Valve had with it was that they were calling it Black Mesa Source.  Once they dropped the word Source from the name, Valve was totally fine with it, even letting them sell it on Steam right along side the original.  So it's not too hard to imagine that DE thought "What was a super iconic game in 1999?  Ah!  Half-Life!" and then went to Valve and asked for permission, to which valve just said "Sure.  Go nuts."

[Varzin13]

4 minutes ago, (PSN)Lollybomb said:

It's probably just a reference, and nothing more.  Valve is actually pretty permissive with their IP from what I've seen.  When someone set out to do for Half-Life 1 on the Source engine that everyone hoped Valve would do (a proper port that actually made use of the new engine, rather than just sitting on it like a lump on a log), the only issue Valve had with it was that they were calling it Black Mesa Source.  Once they dropped the word Source from the name, Valve was totally fine with it, even letting them sell it on Steam right along side the original.  So it's not too hard to imagine that DE thought "What was a super iconic game in 1999?  Ah!  Half-Life!" and then went to Valve and asked for permission, to which valve just said "Sure.  Go nuts."

Oh, well I guess that solves it then. I never would have imagined a company being so chill about others using their IP like that. Thanks for the info.

[Chewarette]

15 minutes ago, Varzin13 said:

Oh, well I guess that solves it then. I never would have imagined a company being so chill about others using their IP like that. Thanks for the info.

The fact Warframe is mostly played through Steam is also a way to pay that off with a cool tribute I guess 

[Zahnrad]

In another thread, it was speculated besides the time frame, it could also be because both Half Life 2 and Warframe's 1999 seems to take place in Eastern Europe.

[dwqrf]

il y a 36 minutes, Varzin13 a dit :

 asking this as someone who has never played Half Life

I was there, 3000 years ago.

Half-Life wasn't just another game. It was 'the' game. Everybody went insane with it. At this time, we had Doom, Quake, and Unreal which were a lot of pew pew. And Valve created a FPS with a deep story, dialogues, scripts, interactable environnement, scenes, animations, with many unique enemies, weapons, landscape.

This game changed the whole business model ; there was a before and a after.

These people making Warframe (who made Unreal Tournament a year after) had also to live through that. And they went full multiplayer pew pew (which was really good) instead of trying to compete story-wise at that time as Half-Life was probably setting the bar too high for everyone else.

A good multiplayer experience from UT99 and a good engine from Half-Life (gold source) led to an explosion of FPS from mods (like Counter-Strike) and a lot of new studio learnt from Half-Life to deliver insane new games (like Halo).

And then Digital Extreme, idSoftware, Valve, and Epic Games kept improving their own engine, competing with each other in a healthy ways, and released a few games to sell their product.

That's what I think.

It makes me really happy to see good ol' Gordon in Warframe.

[Rixuel]

28 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

I was there, 3000 years ago.

Half-Life wasn't just another game. It was 'the' game. Everybody went insane with it. At this time, we had Doom, Quake, and Unreal which were a lot of pew pew. And Valve created a FPS with a deep story, dialogues, scripts, interactable environnement, scenes, animations, with many unique enemies, weapons, landscape.

This game changed the whole business model ; there was a before and a after.

These people making Warframe (who made Unreal Tournament a year after) had also to live through that. And they went full multiplayer pew pew (which was really good) instead of trying to compete story-wise at that time as Half-Life was probably setting the bar too high for everyone else.

A good multiplayer experience from UT99 and a good engine from Half-Life (gold source) led to an explosion of FPS from mods (like Counter-Strike) and a lot of new studio learnt from Half-Life to deliver insane new games (like Halo).

And then Digital Extreme, idSoftware, Valve, and Epic Games kept improving their own engine, competing with each other in a healthy ways, and released a few games to sell their product.

That's what I think.

It makes me really happy to see good ol' Gordon in Warframe.

 

I want custom maps in Warframe! (not counting Dojo lol)

[RobWasHere]

I dont have a source of this (hehe) but apparently Valve gave permission to do this.

[VisionAndVoice]

Because Half-Life is a multiversal constant. In all universes that exist, existed, will ever exist, or never come into existence, there is Half-Life.

[Zahnrad]

58 minutes ago, Rixuel said:

I want custom maps in Warframe! (not counting Dojo lol)

Same. I wish we could have a form of TennoGen for pre-existing Tilesets. People make a custom tile and DE check if it's suitable to be added. Spice up the game a bit by having more tiles added to the game which reducing the workload DE has to do besides testing.

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

I wonder why DE didn't put the Unreal Tournament as a reference instead of Half Life there. UT was released in 1999 by epic games and DE.

[Hobie-wan]

47 minutes ago, (PSN)ATreidezz said:

I wonder why DE didn't put the Unreal Tournament as a reference instead of Half Life there. UT was released in 1999 by epic games and DE.

We've got the weapon skins, but they've only been available a few times for a limited window you could grab them instead of being permanent. Maybe Epic said no. Maybe someone just had HL on the brain and Valve said yes. Maybe we'll know more when the update drops. Who knows if Gordon will still be in the internet cafe at that time.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I'm more of a Glass Half Dead kind of person. 

[0_The_F00l]

I would say it's an homage ,

Half life was the pivotal moment in gaming history (I would recommend anyone not yet played it to play it , though .... You may want to check some mods for it , the graphics may put many off) 

Calling it iconic would not do it justice , trend setting and ambitious are too tame.

And to top it off it opened up modding to an extent that was unknown before then. 

Half life is THE game that defined valve , and if you want to have any 1999 gaming references that is the most suitable one.