I miss the "golden age" of Half-Life - Games

In case you don't remember, "the golden age of Half-Life" was right after HL2 finally arrived, I believe Half-Life went on sale and as a result, I discovered the series for the first time, and I've loved it ever since. Aside from Bioshock, Half-Life is my favorite game series of all time. Soon after, Episode 1 was announced, and all of my friends and I went batshit crazy because of how excited we were. Then TF2 arrived, the Episodes came out, some other games Valve made came out, and Half-Life was all but forgotten. Half-Life was basically what put Valve on the map as a major developing company, and I marathoned through the whole series a few days ago. I chronicled the epic adventure of Gordon Freeman and thought about what the future would hold for him, only to be disappointed when I remembered that Episode 2 ended on a cliffhanger and Episode 3 hasn't even been announced, more than three years later. I dunno, maybe I'm just feeling a little nostalgic. Does anyone else miss the days when Half-Life and its sequels were the "next big thing" instead of being considered an amazing game of the past generation?

ep3 probably release date is q4 2011

I hope the reason it's taking so long is either: [list=A] [*]They are overhauling the engine, Valve used to be technology juggernauts. Source was king when HL2 came out. Now they are the single most regressive and turtle paced technology developer I know of. [*]It's full length, we didn't wait 3-5 years for them to sit with their thumbs up their arse and putting out a half assed 3 hour game. [*]All of the above. [/list]

There's not going to be EP3, it's HL3. Probably around Q4 as sparkwire said.

[QUOTE=JLea;26579570]There's not going to be EP3, it's HL3.[/QUOTE] why do people keep saying this, they are so wrong :smith:

You think Valve is going to release a 4 hour Episodic bit of content? You think there's 200 Valve employees from the Half-Life team just sitting around doing nothing? Of course they're working on HL3

[QUOTE=JLea;26579847]You think Valve is going to release a 4 hour Episodic bit of content? You think there's 200 Valve employees from the Half-Life team just sitting around doing nothing? Of course they're working on HL3[/QUOTE] They are working in Episodes, they have said time and time again that there will be NO Half-Life 3. Only Ep3. and it will be a 40+ hour piece of glorious episodic content. Edit: Also only about 60~ are working on Half Life afaik

The golden age of Half-Life was the period before Half-Life 2. There were so many mods to choose from, particualary, Neil Manke's work. It was great times when I was a kid, waiting for Gearbox to finish the development of Opposing Force, and release it.

[img]http://tribalinsight.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/i-want-to-believe.jpg[/img] Maybe some day...

40+ hours for a shooter? I can't see that happening.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;26579871]They are working in Episodes, they have said time and time again that there will be NO Half-Life 3. Only Ep3. and it will be a 40+ hour piece of glorious episodic content. Edit: Also only about 60~ are working on Half Life afaik[/QUOTE] Yes yes, and L4D was going to get constant DLC and TF2 would never give advantages to people who could pay extra money.

[QUOTE=JLea;26579981]Yes yes, and L4D was going to get constant DLC and TF2 would never give advantages to people who could pay extra money.[/QUOTE] It did (arguably) and it doesn't (arguably). [editline]9th December 2010[/editline] Also I hope they release it some time when there's no good PC game coming out anymore, because right now I have too much shit to play.

What I'm saying is companies often go back and rethink former strategies. Obviously EP3 isn't really going to go down well with critics/consumers given the space of time between the two. So Valve is making HL3

Don't think they'd leave HL2 unfinished.

I really doubt we will see any info in 2011, definitely no release. I think they work both on engine and story. They need to wrap it up in some way and as for the gameplay they hinted in Ep2 we might get a proper boss battles.

Yep, the real golden age of Half-life was between: '98 - 2002\3' Long live WON! ^oh its dead, well now we have steam! playing games offline has never been so difficult!

[QUOTE=JLea;26580679]What I'm saying is companies often go back and rethink former strategies. Obviously EP3 isn't really going to go down well with critics/consumers given the space of time between the two. So Valve is making HL3[/QUOTE] HL3? The hell? It's Episode 3. HL3 is all the episodes basically.

Didn't they say somewhere that ep3 is going to be the last episode, and it's going to wrap up the combine storyline?

[QUOTE=SpartanApples;26581246]Didn't they say somewhere that ep3 is going to be the last episode, and it's going to wrap up the combine storyline?[/QUOTE] Gordon Freemans story arc.

[QUOTE=MirageKnight;26581206]HL3? The hell? It's Episode 3. HL3 is all the episodes basically.[/QUOTE] They've obviously scrapped episodic content. [editline]9th December 2010[/editline] A full COD game gets released every year, where as valve can't even release an episode every 2 years

[QUOTE=JLea;26581278]They've obviously scrapped episodic content. [editline]9th December 2010[/editline] A full COD game gets released every year, where as valve can't even release an episode every 2 years[/QUOTE] People work at different paces.

Gabe Newell himself stated that the next installment will be Ep3 not HL3, he said if and when they develop HL3 it will not follow the current story arc (akin to HL2 being based around City17 and not Black Mesa) so we are waiting for EP3 which will conclude the current story arc (its characters and settings), what happens after that for the Half-Life series... well I guess we will have to wait to find out.

For the most part, Call of Duty gets released every two years going by developers. Modern Warfare was released November 2007, and then Modern Warfare 2 in November 2009. Both were done by Infinity Ward, while World at War and Black Ops were done by Treyarch in 2008 and 2010 respectively. But I digress. Going on topic, I'm sure every fan of VALVe remembers that feeling and misses it, and it's not as if many of us have just forgotten about Episode 3. I'm sure everyone is still waiting, their expectation of it arriving soon has just dropped since three years ago (or whenever Episode 2 came out). To the topic of whether it'll be Episode 3, I'm not going to look for a source, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong: I thought they were going to do the next one as an episode to finish the trilogy of episodic content, and then end Gordon's arc with it. They may (and hopefully) make Episode 3 as long as an entire game, but I just thought it was still gonna be considered "Episode 3."

I'm wondering if they'll actually put a *gasp* NEW WEAPON in the next one.

[QUOTE=Proj3ct_ZeRo;26581329]Gabe Newell himself stated that the next installment will be Ep3 not HL3, he said if and when they develop HL3 it will not follow the current story arc (akin to HL2 being based around City17 and not Black Mesa) so we are waiting for EP3 which will conclude the current story arc (its characters and settings), what happens after that for the Half-Life series... well I guess we will have to wait to find out.[/QUOTE] So are you expecting a full game, or a 4 hour episode.

Well since portal is part of the Half Life 2 story, i say maybe one year after Portal 2 is released on Episode 3, since Borealis has portal shit on it.

What if, I'll drop [b]Project: Get Out[/b] for now, and create a Half-Life 1 modification with ragdoll physics? [editline]9th December 2010[/editline] Also HDR lighting and Fluid physics..

[QUOTE=JLea;26581278]They've obviously scrapped episodic content. [editline]9th December 2010[/editline] A full COD game gets released every year, where as valve can't even release an episode every 2 years[/QUOTE] Well, COD games are rushed and are really bad. Valve actually puts some effort into their games.

[QUOTE=SpartanApples;26581246]Didn't they say somewhere that ep3 is going to be the last episode, and it's going to wrap up the combine storyline?[/QUOTE] Episode 3 will wrap up the Combine story arc. That does not mean that Half-Life will end there. There could possibly be a HL3 after Ep3.

[QUOTE=Fatfatfatty;26581738]Well, COD games are rushed and are really bad. [B]Valve actually puts some effort into their games.[/B][/QUOTE] [img]http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab359/hitimania01/Left-4-Dead-2.jpg[/img]