[rn freeman]( Gordon Freeman )
[MIT Physics PhD]
[Staff member of the Black Mesa Black Mesa Research Center ]
As game development progressed, the engine was finally fully completed.
The protagonist's identity was also determined at this point.
A... scholar.
In the past, to ensure that the protagonist's rampage was logical, games often set the protagonist as some kind of super soldier, or simply made him look like a soldier from an American action movie.
Just like in Wolfenstein 3, the protagonist is a typical soldier.
But Gordon Freeman is different.
The group gathered around the table, looking at the concept art of a guy wearing extremely rigid black-rimmed glasses, sporting short, choppy hair, and sporting a goatee.
Compared to his previous roles, this character really lacks the presence a protagonist should have.
He's more like a typical Nergen nerd. Could someone like that really survive an alien invasion of the Xen world, Combine invasion of Earth, and a special forces purge?
"Nnn, friends, I assure you, this is the perfect image for Gordon Freeman."
Hearing everyone's chatter, Lin Lixin waved his hands repeatedly.
" Black Mesa Base is a research institute. Even if it's for the sake of the plot, he should be a researcher to better fit the core of the story. Besides... who says a scholar can't be a fighter? He just lacks a suitable weapon."
Hideo Kojima pondered for a moment and then offered his thoughts:
"Oh... how about a 9mm pistol? It has balanced firepower, not too strong to ruin the immersion, and provides sufficient self-defense capabilities."
After all, it's a "director-driven FPS," Kojima unusually had a lot of say in this project.
"I actually think the revolver is better. It has a slower rate of fire, but higher single-shot damage, which is very compatible with our current controller aim assist mode and can help players quickly adapt to the new direction."
Sam has a completely different view on this.
He personally experienced several iterations of the aiming assist algorithm and has a clearer understanding of this aspect.
"I don't think so. The submachine gun would be a better choice. The dense bullets and low damage coefficient maintain the smooth gameplay while allowing players to feel the tracking of the aim assist more clearly, without being too powerful."
Carmack, on the other hand, is a typical "traditionalist," sticking to the ISFARE style. Forget about this and that, prioritize the most basic, satisfying shooting experience before considering anything else.
Can a gun that fires in fits and starts still be called an FPS?
When it comes to FPS games, it has to be a hail of bullets flying everywhere.
"YS, calm down, I have a better idea."
Lin Lixin gestured for everyone to listen to him first.
"As a narrative FPS, its gameplay isn't linear. At the beginning of the story, before the game reaches its climax and players are fully immersed, we certainly need to provide combat abilities, but don't forget, Gordon is just an 'ordinary physicist.'"
"S?"
"So... we'll give him a crowbar."
Upon hearing this, the crowd, who had been arguing endlessly about their own opinions, froze on the spot.
"Pry... crowbar? at?"
For an FPS game, a crowbar is like a bicycle to a goldfish! It's incredibly important, bro, seriously important.
"I understand what you're thinking, but what Gordon experienced was that the Black Mesa Base project went wrong, Xen was invading reality, and he was just a researcher."
For a narrative-driven FPS game, factors such as shooting feel and graphics determine its minimum performance level.
With veterans like Carmack at the helm, this game is at the very least going to be a masterpiece.
However, immersion, narrative style, and atmosphere creation determine its upper limit.
The ability to get players to accept the world's setting and immerse themselves in it, truly being drawn into that world to experience the game's story, is crucial for this project.
"This is a gradual process. Furthermore, I don't want players to immediately associate this game with the symbol 'fps' in their minds upon first playing it."
Lin Lixin said.
Giving someone a crowbar first has one inconspicuous advantage.
The crowbar has no durability and no magazine.
This means that players have almost unlimited time and opportunities to try interacting with the entire world.
This encouragement allows players to quickly realize how this world differs from previous FPS games: a physically interactive miniature world.
Compared to the traditional formulaic design where players start with a gun and progress through each level one by one, Half-Life successfully breaks through the dullness caused by aesthetic fatigue.
More importantly, as a non-consumable melee weapon, the crowbar is naturally suited for inclusion in resource management systems.
Weak enemies can be swept away with a crowbar instead of wasting ammunition.
Friends, think about it, what exactly is a crowbar?
"It can pry things open, dismantle wooden planks, smash crates, and even wreak havoc... It's actually a very versatile gadget."
Due to its unique shape.
Compared to pure steel pipes, crowbars have more functions and naturally possess a kind of engineering aesthetic.
It is not a killing tool, although it is certainly very good at it.
Gordon Freeman, too, was a scientist hero who defied convention.
While everyone else in the world wields magnificent and powerful weapons, Gordon roams the world with a crowbar. This contrast is itself a way to shape the protagonist's image.
"What we need to do is create a classic IP character that players will never forget after just one look, not just another typical FPS hero protagonist. Black-rimmed glasses, EV suit, and a crowbar—that's all we need." Once Gordon successfully wields the crowbar and pierces through Xen Space, players all over the world will forever remember the legend of the crowbar.
This is a true... holy sword.
The holy sword of physics.
As a theoretical physicist, it's perfectly normal to carry a crowbar with you, right?
But...
The true essence of the crowbar will only be revealed after the Headcrab appears.
When you know the Headcrab is there, but you lack the means to do so remotely, it's truly difficult to be unafraid.
Even if a few blows would be enough to kill the opponent.
You know you can beat it, and you know there's nothing to be afraid of.
But you're still afraid.
...32-bit true 3x3 acceleration p.
This would be enough to make any game developer drool.
Despite its 32-bit architecture, it boasts superior underlying architecture and Amenva's proprietary memory chip technology.
The P processor used in nvafsin is absolutely ahead of its time in terms of performance.
Full Penl graphics library acceleration, massive video memory.
With today's graphics resolution, which is at most 480p, running 3D World isn't difficult.
But this doesn't mean the development team can really do whatever they want.
Without proper optimization, even the strongest performance is meaningless.
As a 3D narrative FPS game, Half-Life demands a very high level of precision in its environments.
It's impossible for it to rely on a lot of procedural elements like it did with Spore.
It is essential to ensure that the character models, scene models, and other such items are sufficiently detailed.
Otherwise, the immersive experience would be greatly diminished. Fortunately, compared to Spore, it has its own unique advantage.
Linear FPS, the entire process is completely controllable.
Designers can completely predict what will happen in advance.
Therefore, finding an optimization strategy is not difficult.
If we turn back the clock to the Biohazard era, the answer was already written on paper.
Anything that can be preprocessed should never be calculated in real time.
That's right.
What's quite counterintuitive is that, as a narrative FPS game that emphasizes real-time presentation, Half-Life actually makes extensive use of pre-rendering and pre-baking techniques for optimization.
All the lighting, sound, AI, textures, model animations, map cropping, etc. that you see in the game...
In fact, they are all pre-calculated.
To further conserve resources, the vast majority of scenes in the game take place in indoor miniature gardens.
Whether in a corridor or a specific room, the map is largely connected by doors, elevators, and other structural elements.
The advantage of doing this is not only that the game only needs to manage one small miniature at a time, which greatly reduces the amount of resources required.
An even greater advantage is that with plenty of walls obscuring the view, the game can render only what the player can see.
At this point in time, doing so is indeed a last resort.
The capabilities are never enough!
Even if you upgrade to a new model, this will not change.
However, if handled properly, helplessness can be turned into a unique feature.
Compile everything that can be known in advance.
Eliminate everything that cannot be seen.
Remove anything static from the update process.
Bake everything that won't change.
Reduce the resolution of everything that is far away. Prepare everything that might be needed in advance.
Finally... that's when we get to the part where the machine itself needs to perform real-time calculations.
A clever optimization engineer can reduce a game's performance overhead to its limit, down to one percent or even one-thousandth of its original value.
Even the AI's pathfinding can be done in advance.
Real-time pathfinding calculations are an absolute huge expense for AI.
But the maps are fixed, so can't we pre-calculate them?
The answer is yes.
Back in the days of Command & Conquer, Lin Lixin and his team had experimented with "flow field pathfinding" technology, which used a similar idea.
As long as the map is fixed, all feasible paths can be calculated in advance.
What was originally a complex pathfinding process has been reduced to... essentially a table lookup.
I said the ultimate goal of optimization is table lookup.