Talk:Creatures of Half-Life

Merge more from removed content.
There are more creatures that no longer have seperate pages, that should be merged into here. See them at Talk:Half-Life (series)/merge 74.4.235.219 (talk) 21:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Especially the Tentacle creature from the original game (the one that only reacts to sound), seems to be missing from the article. — erudition FISH 19:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eruditionfish (talk • contribs)

Pictures
I am disappointed to see that no pictures of the stated subjects are present in this article. There should be come. Why are all the screenshots deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.81.212.119 (talk) 21:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Seconded. I would grab at least a few, if I still had the game installed. Perhaps I'll get around to it later, but if there are any takers, please go for it. -- oKto  siTe  talk  00:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I was going to upload images to this article, but considering Wikipedia's rigorous bureaucracy regarding the upload of images, and the lol worthy questions,

it's more or less pointless to even attempt to upload an image here..

--Byzantios (talk) 17:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a low quality article
The person who wrote this lacks knowledge from Half-Life 2. They have horrible grammar at certain points (alot, upahead). They miss important information and are wrong at certain parts. For example, the city scanner can take damage which the original writer claimed it couldn't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.155.11 (talk) 21:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

This list feels much more like a game guide than a Wikipedia article. Many of the descriptions include combat strategies, which are just not necessary or relevant here. I also encountered numerous run-on sentences, redundancies, inconsistent and muddled organization, irrelevant (and sometimes questionable) information, sections that are too short (such as the Barnacles section), and a loose, messy writing style more fit for a message board. I was able to correct some of these things, but to give this article the major overhaul it needs will require a lot more work. I also think some pictures wouldn't hurt because they would illustrate the creature descriptions.209.102.237.218 (talk) 04:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I am annoyed that the highly detailed pages describing each different variant of Combine soldier have been removed. I found them interesting, because they had speculations on origin, physiology, training, tactics, and equipment/clothing information for each variant with pictures included. They have been replaced by dismissive one-to-two paragraph entries on each type with no pictures. Why was this done? Bring back the old articles! -Osiris355. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Osiris355 (talk • contribs) 04:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately the reason you found them interesting is very likely the reason they were removed, Wikipedia is not the appropriate venue for speculation. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and any speculations could be completely wrong. Moskevap (talk) 23:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
I'm going to clean this article up a little and remove all the unverified claims, add pictures, etc. Right now there's alot of faulty information that needs to be fixed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Denmon0728 (talk • contribs) 16:21, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Snarks
Amidst all the other problems with this article, a brief note on Snarks seems silly, but the writer was wrong in saying that Snarks can only hurt the player in multiplayer mode. Not only is Gordon attacked by Snarks in single player when he disturbs their nests, but if the player tosses Snarks, and they don't find an enemy target, they will turn on Gordon.

So I took out a line in the article that indicated otherwise.

Zippdementia

Requested move
I was going to move this immediately to List of creatures in the Half-Life series, but I see User:Haipa Doragon moved it from "List of" to the current name back in December, and continues to maintain the page. The reason given for the move was: "this is an article, not a list". Just to be clear: lists are articles. This is stated many times at Lists if you are unsure. This can also be inferred from What is an article?. For the sake of the argument, let's pretend they are not articles. In that case, this page would be classified as a list, not an article. It does nothing but list the creatures in the Half-Life universe. It doesn't discuss the big picture of "what it means to be a creature in the HL universe" because that would be absurd: There isn't much else you can say other than "these creatures appear in the HL series".

I am interested to hear a reason for how it is not a list. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 10:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Support move. It's a list. —  Levi van Tine (t – c)  11:00, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose What it is and what it should be are different things. Yes, it's currently a list of critters, but it's not a navigational list (headcrabs and perhaps vortigaunts aside, there's no way these are individually notable), nor is being a creature within the half-life universe itself a convincing reason to have a complete list, ditto any other game universe no matter how popular. This article should resemble Species of StarCraft, which is the right way of doing things. The problem with enemy lists is that it splits critters down to individuals when they're not individually notable (even within the games themselves), it strongly encourages piling undue weight on minor enemies and stuffing with in-universe details. Collectively, whether joined under headings like 'flora and fauna', under respective games or whatever, these things can be given appropriate weight, they're anchored within a wider matrix of details which enables an outsider to get a handle on what they're reading about and it also encourages development and reception sections since it is an article and not a list. Both this and the brainfart that is List of creatures in the Resident Evil series need to get away from the whole idea of being lists and concentrate on being relevant articles for those without prior knowledge to gain information from. Someoneanother 12:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * "What it is and what it should be are different things" — What it is is a list. If the intention of the article—what it should be—is to be an outline of the creatures, with only the most notable creatures given as examples, then the content needs to be drastically changed into that format. But since the article only lists these creatures, it should be called a list. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree, renaming it a list will work in the opposite direction instead of at least suggesting that it should be a rounded article. If this were a bulleted list of numerous entries or a navigational list then that'd be fair play, but it isn't, so I'm for leaving well enough alone. Someoneanother 13:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems to be similar to the lists in Category:Lists of fictional species, such as List of Star Wars races (see subarticles) and List of Star Trek races. Most of those races aren't individually notable, but they lend to the notability of the whole. Are those not lists? An article need not be either bulleted or navigational to be considered a list. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 14:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That's true, but look at the sheer volume of entries in the Star Trek and Star Wars lists. Also compare with Races in Mass Effect which is in the category but contains far fewer entries and is presented as flowing prose rather than a shedload of individual items broken down into links or short descriptions. A lot of what's going on here is surplus sub-headings (and excessive detail which can be toned down), as it stands it's closer to the Mass Effect article than the Wars/Trek lists and should be moving further towards it. Someoneanother 15:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I see your point about "what it should be". But unless there is a concerted effort to change this article to "what it should be", then the article should be named to reflect "what it is", since that is "what it is likely to remain". This article has been relatively unchanged since the article was created by User:Pixelface one year ago. Aside from that, do you think this article should be added to Category:Lists of fictional species? Some other "non-lists" in there are Creatures and aliens in Doctor Who, Flora and fauna of the Discworld, and Races in Mass Effect, so I think it makes sense. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 17:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * And I see your point, particularly about it being likely to stay as it is (having had a look for sources it appears that if the right ones exist they will be paper-based, due to the age of these games). Let's agree to disagree on list/article. I also agree with ZXCVBNM that this may well be a lost cause anyway :| IMO it's fine to be in the category whichever name it is (should have thought of that). Someoneanother 22:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Like Locations of Half-Life, this is less a true list and more a summary of the creatures. If it were to become Featured content, it would likely be an FA candidate, not an FL. --M ASEM (t) 16:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose - This article should be transwikied, if it's impossible to make it more detailed. Just leaving it in its current form makes it non-notable.--ZXCVBNM (TALK) 17:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm somewhat neutral on this whole issue at the moment. While I see Someoneanother's point about "what it should be", I think there are still a lot of questions regarding what these sorts of articles should be; there seems to be no clear consensus within the Wikipedia community, and even less of a definition in the policies and guidelines, as to the correct way to do these (list of) creatures/monsters/races/characters/etc. articles. Frankly, as this applies to a much wider range of topics than just Half-Life or video games, we're not going to get much resolved here. I think it would be better if this were discussed on a much bigger scale, e.g. at the village pump or somewhere. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 18:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Since Wikipedia is not a directory, and these creatures don't qualify as notable characters per WP:NOTE, the article is non-notable. Usually, lists of creatures are pretty non-notable because they don't play a major role in the plot and are rarely mentioned in notable sources, save for certain ones like Vortigaunts or Headcrabs. Otherwise, it should be transwikied.--ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I was more commenting on the naming of this and other such articles than the content of this article in particular. I agree with others that what little sourced content this article has should be merged elsewhere and the rest deleted. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 17:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose The "list of" modifier usually applies to navigational aids, flat lists that contain little or no prose. This article, btw, suffers from far bigger problems than its title. I agree with comments above that this article probably shouldn't be on Wikipedia at all. Ham Pastrami (talk) 07:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Someone should put this up at AfD. I'm impartial, and wouldn't protest if it was nominated for deletion. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 11:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - This list/article seems to have the a comparable amount of prose, for each creature, as the subarticles in List of Star Wars races. ƒingers on  Roids  23:24, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the Article
Does anyone think splitting the article into an article for the 3 Half-Life games - HL1, OP and BS. Since these games introduce new creatures it would wise to split this page up to make it easier to navigate & read. --Vinni3 (talk) 07:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering most of the content of this article is mostly in-universe information not backed by reliable sources and therefore not notable, I'd recommend you not do anything for now, at least not until the current AfD is over. Anyway, a split based on alphabetical order would be far more constructive because enemies appear across multiple games. Separating this article based on the games would likely duplicate information. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 22:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Hazerdous Environment Combat Unit
I've added the HECU to the article, because before they didn't have there own article. Mr. Someguy (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As a note... I moved this section to the bottom of the article. This is because it simply makes more sense to discuss the creatures BEFORE discussing the squad mopping them up. I am not addressing the merits of the HECU section itself at this time, and will leave that to consensus should this article survive the ongoing AfD. Jo7hs2 (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Bullsquids and Xen
This article states that Bullsquids are not native to Xen. However, there is absolutely nothing to suggest this. They're the first aliens you see in Half-Life when Gordon gets teleported to Xen briefly during the resonance cascade, and they are seen throughout the later Xen levels, which suggests that they are in face from Xen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coozins (talk • contribs) 17:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually there is a quote from Marc Laidlaw which states that nothing is native to Xen. --CrowbarSka (talk) 18:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Xen is the world in which Nihilanth and his "species" so to say escaped to when the combine took over their original world, so now they are not technically native there -MachoFern (talk) 04:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Nihilanth
I think the Nihilanth should be expanded into an entire page as it is such an important enemy and moment in Half Life, I may add a page in the next few days when I have time

-MachoFern (talk) 04:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Interwikis
While the article in English is a list of different creatures in the Half-Life series, the Russian article describes a snark. Because a Russian interwiki link is not correct, it is not needed here, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Летчик Ли Си Цын (talk • contribs) 17:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Striders
Striders should probably be in this article? Along with the other combine monster stuff? (Gunship, transport ship, etc...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.35.230.105 (talk) 15:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Controllers
The 'Alien controller' creatures are absent from the list of Xen aliens. They appear shortly before, and are very common in, the Xen portion of the first Half-Life and should be included in this list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.57.6.110 (talk) 08:43, 29 November 2017 (UTC)