Talk:Half-Life and Portal universe

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Dr. Arne Magnusson retcon[edit]

User:Klow, I don't understand why you reverted my edit (Added back a mention about Arne Magnusson). In Episode Two, Dr. Arne Magnusson clearly talks about an event that happened right at the beginning of HL1. What's more, the in-game commentary also mentions HL1 as inspiration for him. (see this comment, which wasn't written by me) Finally, the article Arne Magnusson#Behind the scenes mentions about HL1. So, why did you revert my edit? --CrazyTerabyte 14:47, March 14, 2010 (UTC)

You may get a quicker answer by placing this on his talk page. Erickos 21:52, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
Just to mention that this issue has already been fixed, and the retcon section has been expanded into a full article: Retcons --CrazyTerabyte 12:48, April 4, 2010 (UTC)

[edit]

Could I use that Half Life Universe Picture in my Mod? --86.143.240.233 17:02, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

Yes you can, as long as you credit the author (me). Klow 17:03, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

Article still refers to Portal 2 as an unreleased game[edit]

In the last paragraph of the "Spin-offs" section, the last sentence reads "...whilst a Portal 2 has also been confirmed for a 2011 release." This is obviously outdated; could this be fixed by someone with a little more knowledge of the franchise than me? I don't even have the game myself, and I don't want to accidentally put a ton of misinformation into the article (not to mention I haven't the attention span to do this right now...)

Thanks in advance. Eevables 01:34, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

Counter-Strike[edit]

The first Counter-Strike game released in retail was outright titled Half-Life: Counter-Strike, and it had Black Mesa logos clearly visible in its maps. This is not merely an accident or the result of the game sharing assets with Half-Life; there are models without those logos for generic containers/vehicles/walls/etc. in other maps (for example, Siege contains an SUV that's the same as the model I posted except with no logo), showing that the inclusion of the Black Mesa symbols in some maps was deliberate. Global Offensive also contains a reference to Portal 2. Shouldn't Counter-Strike be noted as part of this universe, or at least the first one?--Randomguy (talk) 12:45, 13 March 2019 (MSK)

Prior to going retail, all Counter-Strike maps were developed by members of the community, one level even being a direct Goldeneye 64 ripoff. Even after going retail, the rest of CS's maps were only developed by outside contractors. Valve never had any say in CS's canon, and indeed each map author simply did his own thing, presenting their own unique storylines in every map since there was never any overarching goal or serious plot attempt for the mod/game. We can easily write off the use of Black Mesa materials appearing in the original CS, including the Black Mesa scientists themselves as hostages, as merely being conveniently reused assets or Easter egg references (a la GO's Portal 2 mention which was confirmed an Easter egg). As for the title "Half-Life: Counter-Strike", this is on record as being purely a marketing move to utilize and build on the success of Half-Life's name. It simply denoted that the game was an add-on. You can find that Valve was even calling Team Fortress 2 "Half-Life: Team Fortress" at this point in time.
In short, there's no sensible reason to believe CS is part of the HL canon in large part due to the fact that CS barely has a canon, certainly much less so during its wild beta and early retail days. Marphy (talk) 06:28, 14 March 2019 (MSK)
What does it matter if they're Easter eggs? An "easter egg" in this context, per the Oxford Dictionary, is simply "An unexpected or undocumented feature in a piece of computer software or on a DVD, included as a joke or a bonus." That doesn't mean it's not viable. Ditto for the purpose of Half-Life: Counter-Strike's original title: it may have been done for marketing reasons, but that doesn't make it any less real. On the subject of Team Fortress, interestingly Valve actually WAS going to tie the Team Fortress characters to Half-Life with an expansion before it got canceled (supposedly due to fears of an oversaturated market), which may give us a peek at their line of thinking back then. Additionally, while some of the maps with Black Mesa logos, vehicles, and scientists in them were originally fan-created, they were still deemed official maps included with the base retail, and thus count as official material and part of the game itself.--Randomguy (talk) 02:45, 15 March 2019 (MSK)