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[Falk]

Why would anyone think a multidimensional empire would be defeated by one bomb?

not multidimensional but i can think of a case where an empire was defeated by one proton torpedo

edit: nm just got a phone call that it was two proton torpedoes

 

[Head.spawn]

I wish someone would just go ahead and leak some of the functional builds. Might as well.

 

[SciencePilot]

Is anyone else annoyed about the number of media outlets reporting this as Half-Life 3 rather than HL2 Episode 3?

Even this thread's title is missing the 2. I agree it's disappointing.

 

[Adam_802]

In some ways im happy about this, but in other ways this is such an anticlimactic way to "reveal" Episode 3. I remember people joking about how HL3 should just be a text doc explaining the story, and well.....shit.

Thank you Marc, there's not enough good about you I can say that hasn't already been said.

And Valve needs to be held responsible in some way here. They dont owe us anything sure, but they still created a situation that dissipoints/frustrates/angers its fans, and thats bad for any business. 10 years is BS

 

[NervousXtian]

Said fans are idiots, who don't understand that Steam is a much greater contribution to gaming than Half-Life.

Nah, I don't buy that at all... Steam was inevitable. Much like iPhone, it was where we were heading. Valve just hit at the right time when became possible for people to actually use a service like Steam.. with broadband, larger HDD sizes, etc.

It's not like if Valve didn't create Steam we wouldn't have had another alternative that would have people saying how great a contribution it was to gaming.

 

[CuNi]

They purposely lead us on for as long as possible so they wouldn't have to deal with the backlash.

When other games get shelved, it's completely ok, but when Valve does it, you guys start throwing your arms around like they have broken human rights.

Valve is a buiseness. Anyone who honestly was having anything more than a very dim hope, has hyped himself up to it and it's his own fault. Maybe HL3 will come out, someday, in 10-20 years. Maybe Valve will make a different game in the Half Life Universe. Maybe they will let the IP rot forever. So what. The Hype for Half Life has died long ago. Most of us knew that it will never release, but having some kind of finish, even if not canon, is better than none.

 

[FX-GMC]

When other games get shelved, it's completely ok, but when Valve does it, you guys start throwing your arms around like they have broken human rights.

Valve is a buiseness. Anyone who honestly was having anything more than a very dim hope, has hyped himself up to it and it's his own fault. Maybe HL3 will come out, someday, in 10-20 years. Maybe Valve will make a different game in the Half Life Universe. Maybe they will let the IP rot forever. So what. The Hype for Half Life has died long ago. Most of us knew that it will never release, but having some kind of finish, even if not canon, is better than none.

No no no. Acting like this is just some "other game" is disingenuous as fuck and ruins any points you thought you were going to make.

 

[sflufan]

Even this thread's title is missing the 2. I agree it's disappointing.

The number "2" is right there in the title

 

[VDenter]

No no no. Acting like this is just some "other game" is disingenuous as fuck and ruins any points you thought you were going to make.

Also other companies usually announce whether or not a game is cancelled instead of leaving fans in the dark for over a decade.

 

[NervousXtian]

When other games get shelved, it's completely ok, but when Valve does it, you guys start throwing your arms around like they have broken human rights.

Valve is a buiseness. Anyone who honestly was having anything more than a very dim hope, has hyped himself up to it and it's his own fault. Maybe HL3 will come out, someday, in 10-20 years. Maybe Valve will make a different game in the Half Life Universe. Maybe they will let the IP rot forever. So what. The Hype for Half Life has died long ago. Most of us knew that it will never release, but having some kind of finish, even if not canon, is better than none.

I mean, it's a small sample size, but look how this thread exploded?

It hasn't died at all.

If it was announced it'd be HUGE and all over every site, forum and gaming mag. GAF would be combining multiple threads into one from everyone rushing to post it.

 

[tci]

The Hype for Half Life has died long ago.

It never declined.

 

[Einchy]

I wish someone would just go ahead and leak some of the functional builds. Might as well.

I'd be shocked if they ever got even remotely that far.

 

[5taquitos]

not multidimensional but i can think of a case where an empire was defeated by one proton torpedo

edit: nm just got a phone call that it was two proton torpedoes

Yo the Empire wasn't defeated when the Death Star blew up, just sayin'

 

[Compsiox]

It's fine, bro. Valveshield GAF tells me they're working a bunch of games that'll blow our minds (a Dota TCG) and delivering quality updates for all the games I play every day that never get updated.

They have 3 full VR games in the making. But that doesn't make this any better.

 

[thomasmahler]

It never declined.

Go ask kids today if they know what Half-Life is.

I'm cool with Valve not making Half-Life if they don't feel passionate about it.

 

[CuNi]

I mean, it's a small sample size, but look how this thread exploded?

It hasn't died at all.

If it was announced it'd be HUGE and all over every site, forum and gaming mag. GAF would be combining multiple threads into one from everyone rushing to post it.

Hype for a game announcement, and being a Internet Meme/Joke with nostalgic fans is something different.

 

[Instro]

They have 3 full VR games in the making. But that doesn't make this any better.

Has it ever been clarified as to whether their VR projects will be playable in a traditional fashion? Presumably yes, but I have no idea.

 

[Hylian7]

I've seen several posts saying that making half life 3 is gamer entitlement and I personally think that is hot dumster fire garbage. They purposely lead us on for as long as possible so they wouldn't have to deal with the backlash.

Yeah, those posts are dumb as wanting something != "Entitlement". Honestly "entitlement" is an overused word here in general, as I have seen it used so many times where it isn't applicable.

 

[Common Knowledge]

Is "entitlement" really such a bad thing when it comes to entertainment products? It's an industry of luxury products entirely based around "wants", not "needs". No, Valve isn't contractually or legally obligated to give people more Half-Life, no shit, but that doesn't mean fans can't vent their frustrations and anger of not being able to play something that was more or less confirmed in the past. I say this as someone who has never played a Half-Life game and really has no interest in the series. It's the same crap you see with things like the SNES Classic, where people dismiss the ones mad they can't purchase something they were more than willing to lay out their money for as "entitled." Sure, it's "entitlement", but who cares? If Valve isn't going to make more Half-Life, they're not going to make more Half-Life. It's not up to us. But being all condescending towards someone cause they said "Fuck Valve" in their moment of frustration at this news and calling them entitled, it's like....."ok, your point"?

Of course, if people start sending death threats and harassing individual employees of a company over something, that's a different story altogether. But lecturing people who are angry at a company as a whole for not providing them with something they'd love to hand over their money for if it existed isn't something I find really worthwhile of an endeavor. Most will get over it eventually, but let them share their thoughts in the meantime.

 

[Compsiox]

Has it ever been clarified as to whether their VR projects will be playable in a traditional fashion? Presumably yes, but I have no idea.

No and I wouldn't assume they are. Valve wants made for VR games like Oculus or HTC.

 

[RedSwirl]

I like how this post leaves out L4D completely because it doesn't fit the narrative.

Ugh, no. TF2 got the economy running way after arguably peaking in popularity. Same with Portal 2 and workshop levels if that even started there. You are also ignoring both L4D instalments. And then we have this sketch of Half-Life story which would tie nicely into surprise Souls-style multiplayer, for instance, which would interest a different market than existing Valve games do.

IDK man. I just get the feeling almost every Valve game started out as sort of... an experiment I guess. Both in tech and in markets. Valve comes off to me as more of an R&D company than a traditional game developer and publisher.

Portal and L4D felt very experimental when they first landed, especially when you look a the history of how each one got made. I don't know enough about the TF series before TF2 to really comment on that, but you can see it eventually became a test bed for something bigger. The Orange Box, business-wise, was also an initial attempt to try to get into the console market, but Valve ran into problems with Microsoft's update system with TF2 and L4D. This led them to finally try internal PS3 development with Portal 2, through which it also tried to work Steamworks into a console. Valve to me comes off as a company that gets enthusiastic about just... trying shit. Not all of it works, but it tries shit.

The one project where I see a big exception to that experimental nature is the Half-Life episodes. Sure, each one of them did some new things with set pieces, but each one also wasn't much more than a singleplayer game with a start, middle, and end. They existed for little reason other than to satisfy people's hunger for more Half-Life. I haven't really seen Valve make games for that sole reason (unless TF2 initially came out of a desire for more TF).

If Valve wasn't totally like this back in 2007, it certainly became that way after around 2011.

Waypoint even has a good piece on it: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/art...game-because-it-wants-you-to-trade-some-cards

Valve isn't developing Artifact because it wants to make new games, but because it wants to make new markets.

Without getting too far into academic jargon, Valve is an exemplar of what's often called "platform capitalism." Instead of developing products, companies working in this vein develop platforms that create spaces where different kinds of exchanges can take place, and then take a cut from those exchanges. Steam is a prime example.

Though it began merely as a tool to keep Valve's own games up to date, it quickly expanded to a service primarily focused on distribution and facilitating trade among users. As Gabe Newell explained in 2013, "our job is to maximize productivity of users in creating digital goods and services. The markets will determine what the marginal value add of each of those activities are."

So far, this strategy has done wonders for Valve because it puts most of the work on players and developers, with very little expense from Valve. Taking a fraction of the value of each transaction is (almost) pure profit, so small wonder that Valve has the highest profit per employee of any company in America.

 

[Fisty]

Still don't understand why Valve couldn't just bite the bullet and spend 18 months putting together ep 3 just to be done with it. They could have done this years ago, and we wouldn't have needed this text dump to serve as final conclusion to a game series. There's no way it would have lost money, and it didn't need to set the world on fire critically just to end the series on a positive note, with closure for the fans. Shame.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

Why would anyone think a multidimensional empire would be defeated by one bomb?

Grimly, Alex and I armed the Borealis, creating a time-travelling missile, and steered it for the heart of the Combine's command center.

That wasn't the plan.

The Combine were already cut off from Earth with the nullification of the Superportal

This was basically launching a nuke at the equivalent at a massive invasion force and or central leadership, waiting to go to Earth if they were capable of reestablishing a link to our world.

 

[gabbo]

When other games get shelved, it's completely ok, but when Valve does it, you guys start throwing your arms around like they have broken human rights.

Valve is a buiseness. Anyone who honestly was having anything more than a very dim hope, has hyped himself up to it and it's his own fault. Maybe HL3 will come out, someday, in 10-20 years. Maybe Valve will make a different game in the Half Life Universe. Maybe they will let the IP rot forever. So what. The Hype for Half Life has died long ago. Most of us knew that it will never release, but having some kind of finish, even if not canon, is better than none.

If you can point out to me anywhere, at any time when Valve officially said that Half Life 2 Episode 3 or Half Life 3 were shelved or cancelled, publicly, I will agree with your point. Until such time, this is disingenuous as they've always been coy and dodged the question (ie Gabe's AMA's) of the game's state or fate.

Has it ever been clarified as to whether their VR projects will be playable in a traditional fashion? Presumably yes, but I have no idea.

No, but it is unlikely, as the The Lab was never playable without VR

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Probably has been answered before but can't Valve sue Marc into Oblivion???

I'm pretty sure Gabe wouldn't personally sue him but Valve Law Squad is another thing.

 

[Surfinn]

As a huge HL fan, I have some mixed feelings on this.

First off, this is a really awesome move by Marc to provide some kind of closure on the franchise.

However.. I can't help but feel incredibly underwhelmed by this. The style of the writing itself is awesome and very Laidlawian, but the plot is.. very dull and predictable. I created/shared theories with buddies on the Steam forums for the last TEN YEARS about what would happen, and the general consensus (which was pretty standard) was that the aircraft goes down, Borealis forces a decision on whether or not it should be used (ok that one was pretty much inevitable anyways, and makes for fantastic storytelling), and G-Man would put us back into stasis for another time, or that our journey would be halted or stopped again in some way.

Largely, this plot contains no real surprises or complexities that made HL2/episodes so compelling. In short, people didn't really predict what was going to happen next.

It's almost like someone studied the most popular fan theories and decided to pick the safest and most predictable route. That's NOT like Laidlaw at all. However, I'm confident that had he made the story for the actual game itself, it would have turned out to be awesome and parts of the story would have been more fleshed out.

I can't imagine this is all the story he came up with in ten fucking years. There's gotta be a long, fully fledged, highly detailed version of this somewhere that gives us SOMETHING about G-Man and his intentions, what they mean for Alyx.. what they mean for Gordon.

It feels rushed and incomplete to me.. which is hard for me to believe after literally a decade has come to pass.

Probably has been answered before but can't Valve sue Marc into Oblivion???

I'm pretty sure Gabe wouldn't personally sue him but Valve Law Squad is another thing.

I dunno if not actually using any names from their IP makes a difference or not

 

[j_k_redtail]

They purposely lead us on for as long as possible so they wouldn't have to deal with the backlash.

Damn, is that why this hurts like a breakup?

 

[wetalo]

No no no. Acting like this is just some "other game" is disingenuous as fuck and ruins any points you thought you were going to make.

Half-Life 1 is my all-time favourite game. Half-Life is my favourite series. I've had a small glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe by some miracle HL3 gets announced. But realistically, I always knew it was cancelled. Did you actually believe for this entire past decade that Half-Life 3 was still well into production? Like, be realistic for a moment. Sure I held hope, but my genuine expectation was that it's been cancelled for a while now.

 

[Interficium]

Probably the same reason people defend company's polluting a river. Just business being business. Profit > Ethics.

That is... really not at all the same.

Surely even you must understand this.

 

[LuigiBlood]

I can't imagine this is all the story he came up with in ten fucking years.

I actually think that's the original story that was written many years ago, pretty much untouched for the most part.


Also I'm expecting a mod with that story in mind.

 

[funkystudent]

Here is my assumption of WTF happened to Half Life.

Despite what some might say "Half Life 2 Episode 3" always had a vision behind it. This was it.

After Episode 2 shipped in the Orange Box and Portal became the new hotness, internally Portal 2 because the new game people wanted to work on and Episode 3 kinda took a back seat. Also L4D happened which was semi external anyway.

After Portal 2 shipped they totally gave it another go but at this point time has passed. TF2 was swimming in money from Hats and the dark coulds of DOTA2 where coming in.

Internally suddenly Half Life 2 Episode 3 didnt make a lot of sense. A lot of time had passed since EP2 so maybe just making "another one of those" wasnt super compelling creatively and obviously not being full of micro transactions didnt making it as compelling as other projects commercially.

At this point Episode 3 was scrapped and people started to toss around ideas for whats next for Half Life.

They failed. Juggling how to continue from Episode 2's cliff hanger and also creating something dramatically fresh while internally the entire studio is transforming into a F2P nightmare with questionable libertarian philosophies eventually chipped away until no one was left.


Now the creative people behind Half Life and Portal and the TF2 shorts are no longer at Valve and they are making a mother fucking DOTA2 Card Game and Steam is now less about making developers money and it has turned into how to make Valve the most money at the expense of the individual game for sale.

 

[Stoze]

Man, they were gonna pull the "G-Man/Vortigaunt teleport or stasis us out of harms way" thing again huh? And another downer cliffhanger.

Borealis stuff sounds neat though.

 

[Surfinn]

I actually think that's the original story that was written many years ago, pretty much untouched for the most part.


Also I'm expecting a mod with that story in mind.

Right, but even if this is from like sub 2007, there's not a chance in hell he didn't write or change the story since then. Half-Life is his baby

 

[Marcel]

Yeah, those posts are dumb as wanting something != "Entitlement". Honestly "entitlement" is an overused word here in general, as I have seen it used so many times where it isn't applicable.

Gamer entitlement as an addition to discourse on video games has been shot down so many times that those who use it in their argument should not be taken seriously at all. It's essentially white noise and it's amazing you have people who still do that level of corporate fellatio without a hint of irony.

 

[KojiKnight]

As a huge HL fan, I have some mixed feelings on this.

First off, this is a really awesome move by Marc to provide some kind of closure on the franchise.

However.. I can't help but feel incredibly underwhelmed by this. The style of the writing itself is awesome and very Laidlawian, but the plot is.. very dull and predictable. I created/shared theories with buddies on the Steam forums for the last TEN YEARS about what would happen, and the general consensus (which was pretty standard) was that the aircraft goes down, Borealis forces a decision on whether or not it should be used (ok that one was pretty much inevitable anyways, and makes for fantastic storytelling), and G-Man would put us back into stasis for another time, or that our journey would be halted or stopped again in some way.

Largely, this plot contains no real surprises or complexities that made HL2/episodes so compelling. In short, people didn't really predict what was going to happen next.

It's almost like someone studied the most popular fan theories and decided to pick the safest and most predictable route. That's NOT like Laidlaw at all. However, I'm confident that had he made the story for the actual game itself, it would have turned out to be awesome and parts of the story would have been more fleshed out.

I can't imagine this is all the story he came up with in ten fucking years. There's gotta be a long, fully fledged, highly detailed version of this somewhere that gives us SOMETHING about G-Man, his intentions, what they mean for Alyx.. what they mean for Gordon.

It feels rushed and incomplete to me.. which is hard for me to believe after literally a decade has come to pass.



I dunno if not actually using any names from their IP makes a difference or not

The "twist" was that all they did was for naught regardless and that Alex was taken by G-man. It was always going to be just a setup for HL3 proper.

 

[scitek]

It would have worked out fine if Valve had proper management. Their "anybody can do anything!!!1" approach to development creates too many conflicts of interests, which seems to be the main reason EP3/HL3 didn't happen. The only thing is seems Valve employees can agree on is that they can make easy money by selling pink tiger stripe knife skins and other low-effort, high-reward bullshit. They didn't have anyone with the authority to keep development on a coherent path. This plot summary is probably one of many very different summaries.

It might take a situation like the one that allowed System Shock 3 to happen in order for us to ever get a HL3. The people that made it have left Valve, and the ones there now don't want to risk fucking it up.

 

[Adam_802]

This is like if Bungie never released Halo 3. Like Halo 2 just ends on its cliffhanger with chief getting ready to 'finish the fight', and then Bungie just never says anything about the entire halo franchise again ever. Its like that. not acceptable, people will of course want to know wtf happened.

 

[TheSecondSpitter]

Why are people actually defending valve on this?????

 

[Interficium]

Gamer entitlement as an addition to discourse on video games has been shot down so many times that those who use it in their argument should not be taken seriously at all. It's essentially white noise and it's amazing you still have people who still do that level of corporate fellatio without a hint of irony.

I think it's hilarious that you think you're qualified to judge what is and is not an addition to the discourse of video games while simultaneously making blowjob cracks.

 

[dmshaposv]

Good riddance this was not made.

Another fucking cliffhanger and no attempt at answering who or what g man is. It wouldve pissed me off so much.

 

[Surfinn]

The "twist" was that all they did was for naught regardless and that Alex was taken by G-man. It was always going to be just a setup for HL3 proper.

Right, but like I said, there's no fucking chance Laidlaw didn't work on a story or complex ideas over the course of ten years. Dude was tweeting about story elements over the course of that time, and that was just public stuff that he felt comfortable enough to share.

I find it pretty much impossible that this outline is all he ever worked on, whether it was writing for EP3 or whatever may have come after that.

The endings of HL1 and HL2 were both fantastic and satisfying, yet mysterious and left you wanting more.

The ending in this outline feels like a retread.

 

[SciencePilot]

The number "2" is right there in the title

I think it was just added! That or I'm blind >_<

 

[gabbo]

It might take a situation like the one that allowed System Shock 3 to happen in order for us to ever get a HL3. The people that made it have left Valve, and the ones there now don't want to risk fucking it up.

I wonder if Faliszek and Wolpaw will drop anything of their own now that Laidlaw has opened the gates

 

[A-V-B]

Damn you, Valve.

Damn you.

We hates it, forever.

 

[Marcel]

I think it's hilarious that you think you're qualified to judge what is and is not an addition to the discourse of video games while simultaneously making blowjob cracks.

I think having a holier than thou, armchair corporatist attitude on NeoGAF is the actual joke but I'm sorry that I bothered you with a crass joke, pops.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Nah, I don't buy that at all... Steam was inevitable. Much like iPhone, it was where we were heading. Valve just hit at the right time when became possible for people to actually use a service like Steam.. with broadband, larger HDD sizes, etc.

It's not like if Valve didn't create Steam we wouldn't have had another alternative that would have people saying how great a contribution it was to gaming.

The "It was inevitable!" argument is dumb. Others came along at the same time and did it much, much worse:

EA did "create" Steam. They called it "EA Downloader". It was a piece of shit. Then they rebooted it and called it "EA Link". It was a piece of shit. Then they called it "EA Download Manager". It was a piece of shit. Then they rebooted it and called it "Origin". It was a piece of shit. After a bunch more work, it's now a mostly clean and functional piece of software that tries to do very little but launch your EA games. Most of this stuff happened before Steam was selling much in the way of third party games. It's not like Valve time traveled and got the jump on EA. All of the established players tried to do the same thing as Steam, and they all did it much worse.

I just roll my eyes whenever people try and downplay influences that they don't particularly care about because "It was inevitable." No, it wasn't. For all you know, we'd be stuck using the original EA Downloader if Steam didn't come along and do it better.

 

[CuNi]

If you can point out to me anywhere, at any time when Valve officially said that Half Life 2 Episode 3 or Half Life 3 were shelved or cancelled, publicly, I will agree with your point. Until such time, this is disingenuous as they've always been coy and dodged the question (ie Gabe's AMA's) of the game's state or fate.


No, but it is unlikely, as the The Lab was never playable without VR

So, 10 years with "We have nothing to say" ment "everything is totaly fine and we still work on this" to you?

 

[The Broken Ska Record]

Here is my assumption of WTF happened to Half Life.

Despite what some might say "Half Life 2 Episode 3" always had a vision behind it. This was it.

After Episode 2 shipped in the Orange Box and Portal became the new hotness, internally Portal 2 because the new game people wanted to work on and Episode 3 kinda took a back seat. Also L4D happened which was semi external anyway.

After Portal 2 shipped they totally gave it another go but at this point time has passed. TF2 was swimming in money from Hats and the dark coulds of DOTA2 where coming in.

Internally suddenly Half Life 2 Episode 3 didnt make a lot of sense. A lot of time had passed since EP2 so maybe just making "another one of those" wasnt super compelling creatively and obviously not being full of micro transactions didnt making it as compelling as other projects commercially.

At this point Episode 3 was scrapped and people started to toss around ideas for whats next for Half Life.

They failed. Juggling how to continue from Episode 2's cliff hanger and also creating something dramatically fresh while internally the entire studio is transforming into a F2P nightmare with questionable libertarian philosophies eventually chipped away until no one was left.


Now the creative people behind Half Life and Portal and the TF2 shorts are no longer at Valve and they are making a mother fucking DOTA2 Card Game and Steam is now less about making developers money and it has turned into how to make Valve the most money at the expense of the individual game for sale.

Honestly, I feel like Valve had big plans for HL2EP3 that eventually became HL3. Then over time, they couldn't get the game to a state they were happy about. And eventually the team working on it dwindled.

 

[AdmiralSnackbar]

I can't believe we actually just sort of got episode 3.

Also it plays out basically the same way I imagined but there's no mention of getting the portal gun on the boat and using it for actual combat.

 

[george_us]

When other games get shelved, it's completely ok, but when Valve does it, you guys start throwing your arms around like they have broken human rights.

Valve is a buiseness. Anyone who honestly was having anything more than a very dim hope, has hyped himself up to it and it's his own fault. Maybe HL3 will come out, someday, in 10-20 years. Maybe Valve will make a different game in the Half Life Universe. Maybe they will let the IP rot forever. So what. The Hype for Half Life has died long ago. Most of us knew that it will never release, but having some kind of finish, even if not canon, is better than none.

It's just odd because I can't think of an immensely successful series that just ends the way HL did. It'd be like Two Towers not getting made despite Fellowship making a zillion dollars. It's not like the popularity of HL was waning when Episode 2 released.

Anywho, I hope Valve somehow ports all three HL2 games to current consoles. HL2 plus the episodes remain my favorite FPS games of all time.