Provenance is a short singleplayer mod for Half-Life 2 where the player explores a section of the lab (known as Sector B) as Gordon Freeman. It’s purpose is more of a portfolio mod.
So says the author. I just wish all portfolio pieces were this good!
If youa re interested, there is an audio interview with Brian available on this site:
Audio Interview with Brian Roycewicz AKA Tundra_Cool It was posted 18 September 2009 and runs for just over 30 minutes.
- Title: Provenance
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-provenance.7z
- Size : 57.51MB
- Author: Brian Conrad Roycewicz AKA Tundra_Cool
- Date Released: 08 September 2009
The ReadMe.txt says you need both Episode 1 and Episode 2 to play Provenance. Due to the way I have organized the site it’s not possible for me to label it for both, so I choose to use Episode Two as the game. I’m hoping that with Episode Two and the Orange Box SDK installed it will run. Can anyone confirm this for me?
The PP downloads are for version 1.1 Version 1.1 contains just three material updates, less headcrabs in the gloryhole room, and some clarification on when the mod finishes.
- Copy the provenance folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- provenance should now be listed in your Library tab.
Please Note: Panoramic images only are available in full screen mode. You can either open one by clicking the image link above or by saving it to your computer and then opening it locally.
How to use: Once the image is open and your cursor is on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic image.
This panoramice taken from a position not attainable from within the mod and is also a huge spoiler.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 800 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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This was released nearly two weeks before I went on my holiday and I have no idea how I missed it. William mentioned on Podcast 17: Episode 16265 that it’s a very demanding mod and he is right. Whilst it never froze my very old system it certainly slowed it down in places.
Visuals
Brian really made the old place look great. I don’t think I could fault anything, although I was running around in an eye-candy daze to really notice the minor details.
The lighting seemed great and the proportions were excellent.
Gameplay
Okay, let me start with the things that really upset me and those where the two places where if you fell you died. I really dislike that gameplay mechanic because I truly believe it’s flawed in video games. All that happens is I simply reload from just before I died. anyway, this is not that place to discuss this.
The seemingly never ending Combine soldiers before you take the tram is a little tiresome, as was the fact that they appeared from empty rooms.
The tram ride was *way* too frustrating. I wanted to jump off at almost every opportunity.
Now, it seems that I really didn’t like this mod because all I have done so far is complain but that’s so far from the truth. Generally the gameplay is great and offers a variety of scenes to try out various tactics.
Another point I disliked were the flashbacks, not really my thing. Was I a Combne Solider in a previous life?
Layout and Design
It’s Black Mesa for goodness sake, so who wouldn’t love the layout? Seriously, Brian has done an excellent job of creating a part of Black Mesa, it has the same feeling of size and mystery as the original, just with better graphics.
I never felt bored and could have spent more time wandering around if I had had more time to play it.
Hall Of Fame Justification
It’s beautiful to look at and was a fun ride. I’ve only been so hard on the things I didn’t like because I loved the mod overall. Can’t see why anybody wouldn’t want to know about this mod.
Summary
I am incredibly frustrated to find that there are Easter Eggs available because I very rarely replay mods, but in this case I might have to.
The fact that this was created as a portfolio piece is very important because that sets the agenda for the whole mod. Portfolio pieces try to cram a lot of design elements into a short mod and often they feel strange. This one didn’t, it all felt right.
Who doesn’t like Black Mesa?
I’ve added a panoramic image.
Only had a short while to try this one out tonight, but I was very impressed with what I saw. A lot of slowdown (frame rate) in the starting area but where this mod seems to shine is in its nice scripted sequences.
I’ll play the whole thing and write a full review soon, but in the mean time I urge others to check it out.
So far I’m not impressed, very muddled and disjointed. I am sure the author has a clear vision of what he intended, however, I don’t. Apart from the frame rate issue and the need to up the brightness factor to the max, I not sure that the author’s ideas match his mapping skills, but what do I know of such skills.
The bottom line is that I am not enjoying this one, so may not bother to finish it.
The tram ride was broken. The gauss gun turret is functional but since you are stuck in the tram the whole time you don’t get to use it. This mod DID feel wierd.
I played this a few weeks ago. It’s okay, nothing more. Serious framerate issues. Seems like the author didn’t give a damn about optimizing it.
I for one applaud the author for taking the time to make this, and for bringing out some new ideas!
Thank You! Brian.
Sir? Are you Brian?
I’m not the map author. Just a regular visitor here.
the mod crashed for me at the part with the strider, when he makes that weird noise just before shooting his cannon, and by crashing I mean total computer freeze. I had to reboot
I did manage to make it past the crash point, but the strider just blows the tram car up with his cannon…
On Easy first play through I thought it was brilliant. Great imagination, lateral thinking and design. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Second play at middle skill. Frame rate in the headcrab room dropped to about 2 per sec’. Quit. Frame rate for normal programmes also slowed. Cold boot.
Third play at middle skill. Noclip through the headcrab room (I did not want that bother again). Strider chasing on the tram – HL2.exe crashed immediately followed by computer crash. Cold boot again. Map BSP, AIN, and Soundcache deleted.
Had to get Steam to sort out all HL2 files (just in case)
Brilliant map but there is something very wrong somewhere.
I am glad tundra_cool made that I finally had a chance to put my tram model to use in such a great mod.
Now about that zombie for Quiver. 😉
But really, I have no idea about the crashes and lock-ups. Neither me nor my totally rad playtesters experienced anything so terrible so I’m just going to brush it off as another awesome Source feature.
OK well I was actually a lot closer to the end than I thought. This mod is quite short, but that’s fine because it’s a quality, closely-crafted experience and that takes time to make.
I didn’t experience any crashes on my fairly powerful PC, but there was noticeable slow down in several main areas. I assume this is due to poor level optimisation on the author’s part as these areas did not look particularly complex or detailed. I put this down to a lack of knowledge about Source mapping so this could probably be rectified quite easily with an updated version.
The mod was a bit difficult in the combat areas. The shotgun soldiers are notoriously powerful, especially in close quarters. The strider encounter was exhilarating but was followed up by some annoying instant death spots. It was hard to understand exactly why I was dying and how I could avoid it but I somehow managed in the end.
The atmosphere and use of sound and music was fantastic, particularly in the Combine POV parts and the scripted sequences. As Phillip said though, it was unclear how the faceless Combine soldier related to Gordon’s situation. Perhaps this will be revealed in future instalments.
This mod is not without its faults, but the attention to pacing and atmosphere is something you really should experience. This mod differentiates itself from the crowd by focusing on areas that other mappers neglect, and that’s something I’d love to see more of.
I loved playing this mod and getting that old school feeling back. I personally didn’t care for the combine sections and felt they should have been removed for a separate mod. Maybe it will all come together in later installments.
I played the first release and ran into the game crashing continuously during the end sequence. I believe the reason it crashes was sound related. The turret gun mixed with the strider shooting repeatedly seemed to do it. And I only use on-board sound. Just a theory. Also the first area was poorly optimized and my computer never has problems with max settings.
That may have sounded negative but this mod is well worth your time and a nice showcase for the author. Looking forward to seeing more.
I LOVE THIS MINI-MOD, No Question.
I enjoyed the entire aspect of returning to black mesa to find it a total wreck. At First I was a bit confused because I didn’t know what was going on Until I found a light switch. Anyway, Playing the flashbacks of the combine solider where also interesting, It added sort of a FEAR style storyline of being somewhere else that you didn’t know what or why you where there, but you just had to keep playing to find out. But alasis.. such awesome visions and mini mods must end, I hope there’s an episode 2..
I’m not going to tell the entire thing, but I can tell you this.. PLAY IT NOW! “You won’t regret it”
With a heavy heart I must relay four stars instead of five. Despite incredible brushwork, unique experiences and alternate-character gameplay, and the small battalion of brand-new soldier skins that look like they belong in the Half-Life universe, the technical difficulties I ran into echo across many fans and leave me feeling depressed.
The brushwork looks and feels like Black Mesa in many ways. From the detailed computer rooms and makeshift soldier checkpoints to the derelict maintenance chambers and extensive monorail network, the doomed facility is given a second shot at life in Source. This looks like something that was built to smack Black Mesa: Source’s sloth-like progress in the face.
It is my opinion that the presentation of the Combine moments are the best in the game, far outshining the rest of the mod. Custom overlays and a combination of well-executed outdoor landscapes and nearly perfect scripted scquences made me feel like a bad-ass. It is a downright tragedy that there were so few of these incredible scenes.
Irresponsible programming of some kind is no doubt responsible for the crashes we all encountered. It is a terrible scratch in the mirror finish of this Rolls-Royce of a mod. There were a few strange objects built into the mod that were functional but inaccessible, which confused the hell out of me. Why not let the player use the gauss gun turret!?
It’s like Gabe Newell said about all of Half-Life design: “Cmon, people, you cant show the player a really big bomb and not let them blow it up.”
Gawd… I couldn’t even make it out of the crab room.
Really starting to miss a good playable mod that feels like HL2, with the run and gun, fighting striders, some puzzles, cool worlds, etc.
It seems like because there’s a more powerful engine to use now, the idea is to make it next to impossible to do. Don’t misunderstand, I love a good challenge. But mods where I have to constantly look for the one suspicious brick in a wall of thousands just so I can get moving, is a little exasperating after a while. I’m just hoping we don’t enter a trend where the storyline and gameplay take a back seat to “difficulty” and endlessly running around in the dark just to make it more ‘difficult’. I love to see the artwork of a place, not just get beat up in the dark by fast zombies, etc. I’m not into having to “noclip” all over the place…
Just a little tip, enable cl_showfps 1 at the beginning of the map. Because I didn’t get any slowdowns, I had 60 Fps all the time in the room. It seemed that it was a lot of slowdowns but it was only because it was in slow motion.
The author of this mod have a little problem with the entities of the map, he used a lot of smoke particles causing a lot of crashes and lag, this can be avoided making that the props that you not gonna touch make non-solid like at the scene of the train, the 50% of the entities can be non-solid causing less lag, at my opinion the design of the map is a 4/5, I think he need nodraw more things to reduce the lag, and the most important part, he SHOULD put a lot of areaportalwindow or just areaportals, that reduce 75% of lag, then, the map could be excellent without this little issues, in my opinion obviously
You check out my website (www.phallus-palace.com) and download the source files in the Maps section if you’re ever bored. Watch out, they might surprise you.
ok, ill do it, I forgot to comment that your mod provenance is v1.1 I mean, a lot of things can be fixed and im sure that you are thinking it about, im sure in a few days will appear v1.2 or smthing like that.
nice,i’ve visited your website, and, I see your effort, for example at the level designs, they are very good done, so I hope provenance upgrades to that. ^^
(sry for my english)
At first I thougth, should I really play a mod of a guy which websites name is “phallus-palace” ?
Good that I did, this thing is one of the most exciting mods I ever played!
It is great how the gameplay turns so fast but still never feels crowded. I was especially surprised by the sneak part, would like to see more of this!
It’s a good balance between slow and heavily fast and exciting moments.
The visuals are also awesome, just the first room is already godlike (those spidernets, great!). Never got any harder slowdowns, but two crashes when I started driving the tram.
Just some things I didn’t like were the scratchy voices and the story, especially I had no idea what these flashbacks mean now, do I see (and play) how the combine went into black mesa or am I a combine who went there??
‘Brilliant” doesn’t BEGIN to describe the quality and atmosphere of this mod. It is realistic and convincing. If what follows is as good as this, it will by far surpass the original game.
Well made but more of a showcase map than a mod because if you get started to be enthused it’s already over which is extremly disappointing.
Yo dude, you got me like “o_O” at almost all times! And look, I’ve been a HL and HL2 engine player for almost 7 years. I can tell by far if that mod was “complete” it ultimately would be the most awesome piece of mod I’ve ever seen.
I’ve never played HalfLife(1), so I appreciated this little look back. There were lots of unique experiences here, but some of the coding wasn’t quite ready for prime time. The rail cars at the end were the worst behaving mechanic, with a slew of sudden, unavoidable deaths by striderblast ruining an otherwise excellent (but by no means perfect) game.
Go on, and play it now. You’ll appreciate Provenance, in spite of a few glaring glitches.
I added the link to the audio interview.
OK – I’m in the head crab room! — what do I have to do to progress?
There is one headcrab lurking in one of the holes, but I can’t kill it! Cos” I can’t reach it.
I can set the gas cylinders sailing about, and I managed to explode them without killing myself,
Tried allsorts, and can’t think of what else to try!
Presumably I need to open the door????
forget it!!! Sorted it! Hmppf!
I tried again but the framerate issue makes it unplayable for me.
This is the most frustrating Mod I have ever played. Everything about it looks so nice and well put together that I seriously wanted to keep going, but I seriously cannot get past the second combine scene where the Combine are storming what looks like black mesa and they shoot a zombie.
I was able to play portal and HL2:ep2 without any major issues, even if I did have to turn my settings down to low, but EVERY time I get to that point, the game just STOPS. I haven’t had any issues with slowdowns, but the game ALWAYS crashes at that point. No matter where I am or what I’m looking at or whether I’m shooting or not, it doesn’t matter.
Sorry, I can’t understand how the devs could have missed something that severe, but it’s there and I have no clue what is causing it. If this were fixed, this could easily be a play it now or possibly even a personal favorite, but as it stands, Maybe is the best I can give this.
I had one crash to desktop somewhere near the beginning however otherwise it was playable. Well, up until the strider and the tram, which in my opinion was a grossly dumb artificial experience. Hopefully that was near the end when I finally decided to have sworn at the game enough and quit, and then I can say I played most of the map!
This game rocks! Sadly… When is the next part done? At the end, it says: To Be Continued.
If the author ever produces a ‘mod” in the conventional sense I will be eager to play it. Clearly very talented in the area of graphic arts. The detail and the atmosphere generated in the early silo scene was better than any I can remember in any game including the Valve originals.
I experienced some crashes though also. Error message:
instruction Ox12f2cu2f references memory OxOb00454 This cannot be read
This mod was entertaining and well built it’s only problem was that it was small. I like the brush work and detail put into each level, also the puzzles were fun to beat. Another thing this mod has going for it is the way it unfolds I found it interesting to play through the eyes of a Gordon freeman then switch to a combine’s perspective. (SPOILER) I also enjoyed the encounter with the military, the tram ride was enjoyable as well. Overall this mod an enjoyable experience and is short enough that everyone should have time to play it.
OK-I really liked this one. Just wish it was longer. The author has a good mod but should have waited and added about 3 more hours of playtime before launching it. The only thing I found that needs fixing is the train ride that blows up for no reason. I was shooting at the strider but the train would keep exploding for no reason. Finally it played through and then it was over 30 seconds later. I had no problem with framerates. There is a slo-mo section but thats done intentionally. It’s not an error.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record but I did defrag the game and shut off all background programs before playing and once again it played perfect. I can’t say enough about how good the free program Game Booster works. It defrags and shuts down all but the game and it makes them work really good. Best free tool I’ve found- Get it here and then try the mod again-
http://iobit.com/gamebooster.html
Change of reccommendation.
I had aleady played version 1 (Aug 22nd 2009) and commented based on that experience.
I only found out about Version 1.1 because it had been bumped up recently at another site. Version 1.1 is on PP.
Great mapping, good Gun & Run combat, no tactics needed (a pity for this player!). You absolutely must keep firing at that Strider with the mounted gun and then your own weaponry or die.
No frame rate issues, no crashes and now you know when it ends.
Great short mod! I enjoyed the HL1 atmosphere very much… The fights were hard but fair and the whole mod looks great with quite detailed locations. Highly recommended!
Too bad, even with the “get mod working” modification, the mod isn’t functional 🙁
I get Engine Error : SetupArrayProps_R : array prop “(null)” is at index zero.
Anyone with any ideas, or getting the same problem?
yup me too.
Since the HL2 update, this mod seems to be unplayable and will require a patch.
You can get it to run by using the Ep2 mod fixes shown here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1289845 (the info is from PlanetPhillip, but it’s easier to see in the thread). However, even after getting it to run there are many missing models and textures, and even visible wire frames.
Provenance is still being tested, so you might want to check the thread in a couple of days to see if there’s any good news.
You can play it with the fixes, but there are still some missing models and textures (and particles, at the beginning), and wireframe visible on the floor.
Using quickload during battle locked up on me even before the update.
I LOVED this mod sooo much! This is my Second best mod ever in my little brain!
I Really need help with this mod because I really want to play it!, so guys please tell me how did you do to get this mod working??, i’ve changed the 214 parameter to 218, and the mod runs, but the textures and material are just horrible, (purple and black square paterns in the walls and floor), I have to mention that iv’e alrredy copy all the content of “models” and “materials” HL2 ep2 folders to the propper ones into the provenance folder, but that doesn’t solve the problem, so please anyone can help, or this mod doesn’t have solution anymore??
please heeelp!!!!, or this mod had not soluttion anymore???, thats a shame a big loss of a great mod due to the steam updates trouble what a shame!!, oh steam what have u done!
From what I’ve read here, the mod could be very cool, but due to the broken engine mount I’m not going to play it until a fix is released.
I tried to launch it with the Half-Life 2 engine, but there were mssing textures, models and wireframes everywhere, and I’m not very interestet in playing such mods.
I hope the maker will fix it someday, because it would be a shame if this gets lost 🙁
Sadly, it is very obvious this modification is unfinished, but the first Chapter had a really good set-up for the continuation of the modification. They showed just enough content to get the user interested in wanting to play the modification, but not too much to spoil the next episode.
Pros:
1.Cut-scenes
2.Decent Introduction To The Modification
3.Interesting Approach With The Level Design Such As The Frozen Head-crabs And Breakable Spider Webs
Cons:
1.The Pistol Doesn’t Seem To Work On The Soldiers
2.You Will Probably Need To Use God Mode To Get To The End The Developer Made A Mistake. I Don’t Think The Strider Was Meant To Kill You Just Shake Up The Tram A Little. The Strider Does An Attack That Does Over 100% Damage So That Must Be A Mistake.
so, i’ll post a complete review in a bit,
but i’m having trouble with not being able to attack the HECU Marines/Citizens, when i aim at them, my weapon is lowered, and if i shoot, they take no damage,
now, in order to install the mod, i had to change the gameinfo.txt,
(my personal laptop is a late-2013 MacBook Pro, 15inch Retina, 16gb RAM, 628 SSD)
so in order to play mods intended for Windows, i have to modify that particular document, but that shouldn’t affect Player/AI relationships, could it?
the Combine Soldiers in the first two flashbacks behaved as if i was a friendly,
any ideas on how to fix this? what i was able to see of the mod before encountering the HECU was beautiful!
I was in a fight with combine and HECU. Combine die but HECU were impervious.