Wivenhoe: The Fall of Ravenholm Released

I am pleased to announce that Wivenhoe: The Fall of Ravenholm for Half-Life 2 is now exclusively available from PlanetPhillip.

All the details can be found here:
Wivenhoe at PlanetPhillip

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PlanetPhillip
http://www.runthinkshootlive.com/
Single Player maps and mods for all the Half-Life games

The images are stunning. I am not completely trustful of any maps that do not pass through this site but... Perhaps these ones are OK.

Be sure to post this news for the front page.

Good luck.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Okay, I downloaded it and the map is beautiful, even though the water is tiled pretty bad.

Anyways, I'm pissed. What the hell amI supposed to do? 1
Health and a crowbar vs. all those combine? Something's
awry...

That's probably the stealth part. If you go to the website it mentions:

[i]The mod uses three genres: stealth, action and horror. Playtests
show that the horror part actually is scary (it?s not a ?blood over
every wall and ragdolls everywhere? kinda scary), the stealth part
requires actual thought and patience by the player (they have zero
weaponry in that part) and the action is actually exciting.

[/i]So I guess you have to slip by unnoticed.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting farther and farther, but It's annoying playing the same part over 500 times.

I guess I'll struggle through it.

Hmm, fair mappack. It wasn't always clear what was going on (the voice acting was hard to hear) but there were some nice parts to this.
Overall, it lacked polishing in the gameplay department. Some parts felt way too hard, considering the weapons and ammo you had (though that did encourage running and gunning and using grenades - otherwise there was no way to get health or ammo) and in other parts, it wasn't really clear what was going on (like, why is blowing a car away taking 2+ minutes? Why does this battle feel so hard while it's only the 4th map?).
The stealth part was done well, but in the end it felt dumb: a Combine cop surely is going to notice an explosive barrel rolling towards his campfire, right?

But, visuals were nice and the story was decent enough to hold it up. The horror parts were done nicely, too. All in all, a fair mappack, but there's some things to learn here.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Like captainP said, that bridge part wasn't too great. Ok, so you have
a damaged bridge. You approach it, and a big chunk from it falls off. You
can't get across because of heavy debris (a car-wreck), which happens to
be sitting at the narrowest(/weakest) point of the bridge. So what do you do? Blow it up with explosives? Tsk tsk.

You guys do realise Planetphillip didn't make the map... hes just advertising it.

Quite funny how he got the outside shore bits of HL2 confused with Ravenholm...

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Isn't the point that you are trying to destroy some headcrab cannister launchers before the bombard Ravenholm? In other words, I don't think it is meant to be set in Ravenholm, but that the aim of the mod is to stop Ravenholm getting overrun.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

To get past the begining part, follow a zig zag pattern across the zone. When you reach the explosive
barel, hit it once with your crowbar, this will make it roll and hit
the last 3 combine patrols.

Admitedly the game looked nice, and had some nice gameplay moments, but
the last part turned me off. I mean yes a chunk of a colapsing bridge
fell off, now you need to blow it off to get across (not so smart to
do, but a good tension builder)), fine, but how long does it take to
plant a charge? What seemed like 5 min this person took to plant the
charge you are mowing down antlions that somehow spawn through the
tunnel on one side of the bridge, while simotaneouly fighting back
waves of combine from a drop ship on the other.

The concept was nice, but not realistic. Same went for the first part
of the game. I like the thought of stealthing through an area with
nothing but a crowbar and 1 hit point. But Eventually it got annoying
after the 50th time.

All in all I would rate it an 8/10. Defintitley worth checking out if
you have the DL speed of DSL (not so if you have dial up), but nothing
really "wow this map pack really set some standards for ameture mapping"

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Posting And You

What the heck are you ppl talking about? I found the stealth part
extremely easy.

<span style="color: black;">

Before jumping, I waited for the patrolling combine
soldier
to get past the broken rail, then I jumped in the water behind him and
introduced him to mr crowbar. I then crawled between the rocks in front
of me, slipped through a concrete tube while being careful not to get
shot-up by the sentry and followed the path of the rock wall
opposite of the player's start position without encountering any
opposition.



</span>

Guys. I doubt that I will get this thing, but what happened to the "Spoiler Tags?"

Geeze. :rolleyes:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Oopps.

Hehehe.

Indeed, Phillip didn't make this, for what I could make up from the comments on his site some Unreal mapper did, but hey, our comments aren't directed at Phillip, right? :wink:

Now that we talk about destroying canister cannons... did I actually destroy any cannon in this mappack? I don't remember having even seen a cannon... some canisters and all, yes, some being launched too, but no cannon...

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

The way I see it, the point is you attempt to stop the canisters but ultimately you have to fail because Ravenholm gets destroyed.

You know, I would love to go into a lengthly and constructive analysis of this mod, but I START WITH 1HP A CROWBAR, AND A 50 FOOT DROP INTO KILLER TURRETS. WTF???

Yes, I'm sure there is a way to get past this section, but after the 10th try, I said screw it and cheated to the level load - where my game crashed. I will play through this mod, for the sake of supporting other modders and possibly learning a thing or two (even if it's what 'not' to do).

It is quite obvious that the person who made this episode did not test the game with a subjective crowd (like snarkpit). It's a shame, because I know a ton of work went into this. I bet that 1 or 2 rounds of good ole Snarkpit criticism could have elevated this mod, and helped it achieve a real level of polish.

Maybe there's still time? Is the creator lurking around here? I would be 100% willing to give good solid, in depth feedback, if I felt there was a desire for it.

Uh wow. Not sure if I even want to download this, anymore.

There's no harm in giving it a try. It still offers valid lessons, and I'm hoping that it improves. I'll let you know after I go back to it.

I have to say though, that first level was not the best way to kick this off.

Andrei posted a sneaky way to get past the first bit if you get stuck.

No probs.... Sv_cheats 1 worked fine for me.

I got bored when I got to the bridge. It shows a level of perversion to
make the player start with 1hp and a crowbar. I got past the
sneaking part on the third try. The outside areas are good looking, but
there were some level geometry on the internals that seem like they've
been taken from some, how to put it nicely, earlier map. There were a
lot of oddities that didn't quite feel right. Like that bridge place
mentioned earlier. Seriously, why would someone want to plant
explosives on a bridge that is already ready to collapse? By the way
the gap is small enough to jump over, except that there's a clip brush
on the other side to prevent this. This mod could have used some early
critisism. I'd give 8/10 on the level geometry and 5/10 on gameplay
value.

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Nonetheless, the environements were large and beautiful, and I liked how the first and last maps were in the same place.

But I noticed some alaising that could've been avoided in the displacements of the canyon.

I also found the stealth part very easy.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying