Quote from Cyclone on May 7, 2008, 6:29 pm

This map broke Portal for me. Seriously, my reticle has disappeared. I got through the first couple tests, noticed that it was gone. Saved, quited, reloaded... still gone. Fired up a different map; no good. My reticle is gone completely. Even the main chambers (the original 0 to 19 that came with the game) now do not show any reticle at all. The maps look great, but honestly, this sucks. I can't play without seeing where I'm aiming.

Can anyone tell me how to reverse the damage?

Quote from taco on May 7, 2008, 6:30 pm

Open you console using the ~ key and type "crosshair 1".

Quote from Cyclone on May 7, 2008, 6:35 pm

Ah, thank you, that worked. Not sure why that happened, but when you have a community good enough to reply within one minute with a working fix... that's more than awesome enough to forget it.

Now, to the maps!

Quote from dvlstx on May 7, 2008, 7:37 pm

Hooooly crap...
My map was about to be one of the 'biggest' custom map, (it has 8 test chambers and a 'special' ending,) and then you!! YOU come along, making me feel puny!!

Btw, how long did this take you to make? Like a year perhaps?

With Great Respect Towards You,
-DvlStx

Quote from appunxintator on May 7, 2008, 10:10 pm

I just finished this and I must say, this is not a map pack at all. This is an entire re-imagining of the Portal storyline.

This is one of the only maps that actually gave me trouble at a few parts. I'm not talking about the 'I want to smash my computer' trouble, I'm talking about the kind that keeps you thinking for a few minutes then you feel smart.

Of course, nothing is perfect. In the chamber that rellikpd showed the picture of, [spoiler]the area with the ball launcher is too dark,[/spoiler] so I didn't see it at first.

Also, [spoiler]when you get the cake, maybe you should have put some hints as to where you have to go, because I had to noclip to find it.[/spoiler]

Anyways, great job. This must have taken an extremely long time to make.

Quote from Cyclone on May 7, 2008, 11:58 pm

Well, I just finished the map pack, and, before I get to the individual components of it all, let me say that as a whole, I admire this map pack simply for the effort that went into it. The beginning was great. The ending was superb. The middle... well, it was kind of a mixed bag. For one, things got repetitive very quickly in the third and fourth maps. Pretty much every puzzle had you shooting through holes and dodging turrets to get to cubes. And at first, its great - that's what Portal is all about.

However, having us do it three or four times in a row with very little break can get tiring. Plus, the layouts of some of the later puzzles were so confusing that I spent five minutes just figuring out what I needed to do, and five more actually doing it without getting killed by a turret ambush, ceiling crusher, lightning corridor, energy ball ambush, or something else.

And then there were the parts that, in my opinion, were simply a lack of effort. For example, in the part where you [spoiler]crawl through the cube tube, the tube[/spoiler] is simply surrounded by a dark void. Seriously, would it have killed you to put a texture there? And on the [spoiler]ride of death with the WCC[/spoiler] you put invisible walls preventing us from reaching the turrets. My first instinct was to [spoiler]jump into the ledges where the turrets were, using the WCC as a shield, knock out the turret, and hop back on.[/spoiler] But no, instead, you have us fall to our deaths for no good reason. Come on, you designed an entire game mechanic [spoiler](the fizzy blue fields)[/spoiler] that did effectively the same thing, only without the humiliating and quite frankly stupid death by invisible barrier. Finally, the portal-friendliness of surfaces. Something would be totally resistant to portals, then something would happen, and suddenly we can put a portal on it? You could at least give us some indication that it's changing, rather than making us try everything every time something changes. The [spoiler]elevator ride after the cake[/spoiler] was the worst part of the map pack. You don't let us shoot, even though we logically should be able to, and when we can, one of the surfaces we need to put a portal on doesn't become portal friendly until the very last possible second - again with no indication of when, how, or why.

I could go on, but instead, I'll focus on the positive. The plot was awesome, the ending was great, and the final boss battle was superbly done. Some of the "shock moments", such as the [spoiler]mounted portal surface breaking off and coming crashing down[/spoiler] were pure adrenaline. The music was well used, as were GLaDOS quotes. I also like the "epic moments" you included. Seeing the [spoiler]Borealis[/spoiler] and the [spoiler]Chell clones[/spoiler] just gave me this awesome feeling, like I was playing this part in something really big, witnessing, and even causing, some seriously influential events. Truly, epic. Oh, and to reiterate, the ending rocked.

Overall, like I said, for the amount of time and effort you put in to this, only the highest accolade can be given. But know that there is a great deal of work to be done - a little polish for some of the map packs rougher edges, and major overhauls to the parts of the game that made it hard just to get the vaguest clue what I was supposed to be doing, as well as those that almost literally gave me deja vu (go through this maze of portal holes, find the cubes, put them on the buttons... for the next hour). I look forward to any future work you produce - it's sure to be even better.

Quote from rellikpd on May 8, 2008, 5:38 am

Cyclone its "spoiler" not "spoilers" just fyi...

Cyclone wrote:

And on the [spoiler]ride of death with the WCC[/spoiler] you put invisible walls preventing us from reaching the turrets. My first instinct was to [spoiler]jump into the ledges where the turrets were, using the WCC as a shield, knock out the turret, and hop back on.[/spoiler] But no, instead, you have us fall to our deaths for no good reason. Come on, you designed an entire game mechanic [spoiler](the fizzy blue fields)[/spoiler] that did effectively the same thing, only without the humiliating and quite frankly stupid death by invisible barrier.

yeah i had forgotten about that. that was my instinct too. i tried to [spoiler]hide behind my cube (crouched) until i was near enough to the ledge to jump on and grab that sumbitch turret... but nope. i fell to my death.[/spoiler] i guess the rest of the map was so ammazing that i forgot to bitch about that. but it is very annoying and i bet MOST people would try to solve it that way instead of just [spoiler]sitting there and waiting to pass the turrets...[/spoiler] coulda put a fence infront of the bitch or some sort of force field.

i'm gunna have to replay this thing (someday) and see if there are any other parts that annoyed me at the time, but were forgiveable do to the rest of the map/game being awesome.

Quote from Ricotez on May 8, 2008, 8:29 am

Yeah, that was what I liked most about this map pack. Certain parts were annoying, but the rest was so much fun I soon forget about the annoying parts.

Quote from Browen on May 8, 2008, 4:27 pm

Ricotez wrote:

[spoiler]I believe that ship is the Borealis-prop of HL2:Ep2. You probably also need Ep1 and Ep2 to make it work completely correctly.[/spoiler]

yeah i have those games too