Hey dunno if anyone else has seen these, but if you send your resume to valve you get to see one of these animations depending on whether or not you fucked up the form
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/valvesoftware/images/jobs/youre-doing-it.gif
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/valvesoftware/images/jobs/you-didnt-do-it.gif
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/valvesoftware/images/jobs/you-did-it.gif
just thought it was interesting
You got me all excited over nothing. Sad!
This is just flat out wrong, though. The 'dumbing down' attached to VR games came as a result of people trying to tip-toe the line between 2D games and VR games. All those stationary shooters, all those physics puzzlers, etc.
VR has very much expanded the medium in it's own way. There are dozens, probably nearing hundreds of VR titles that can only work in VR. H3VR is a huge example of this. No one would want a hyper realistic gun simulator with frustrating controls on a monitor. But it's one of the most popular VR titles out there. Even more conventional games that do work on a monitor take on a whole new light in VR. Pavlov and Onward, the two biggest VR shooters at the moment, require an entirely different skill set and mechanical interface to be enjoyed. How that isn't 'expanding the medium' is a mystery to me.
What you said about Valve trying to "be king over a shitty gaming platform" leads me to believe you haven't had a huge amount of experience in VR. There are so many quality VR titles out there these days that Valve will have to show some serious effort into making their title unique and innovative. Considering that HLVR was once leaked as a wave shooter, I imagine they've had quite the challenge on their hands.
Movement restrictions are more or less replaced with nausea restrictions. The vast majority of VR games released today include some form of locomotion, many straight-up allowing you to walk like you would in any other video game. H3VR has about half a dozen different ways to navigate the environment, traditional stick locomotion being one of them.
There are also plenty of success stories with VR, but you won't have any 'blockbusters' while the market is small. H3VR, Gorn, Pavlov, Onward, pretty much any PSVR title - these are all considered very successful VR games that almost everyone with a headset owns.
The biggest things limiting be right now is that it's real fucking expensive and room scale requires space that a lot of people don't have.
Well chances are, once Source 2 and HLVR become open-source, people are going to start making mods that allow you to play without a VR headset (like they did with The Lab, Robot Repair, and Destinations). It would basically mean you would be a no-clipping around a map, but with the engine and game source code at your disposal, perhaps someone will patch it to the point where it's not as broken.
Goob job, Gordon. Throwing that switch and all? I can see your M.I.T. education really pays for itself.
(god I wish I could embed streamable.com links....)
Speaking of weirdness once upon a time on one of my many HL2 playthroughs, I was taking my time messing around after Father Grigori finished his speech and went inside. Then I noticed a headcrab walked out the doorway and just trotted around on the catwalk.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/882987975063070919/B12478E4AB09CB91540444DB65F37613709D59C6/
About HL VR, how VR will not be revolutional? You will be able to squeeze controllers, who wouldn't want to squezee xen Snark as a granate before throwing it at enemy?
Finally I can live out my fantasy of being able to squeeze an antlion testicle
When they first ahowed the knuckles' squeezing functionality the pheropod was the first thing that popped in my mind
I'm gonna say that most of what Marc Laidlaw said he had planned for the HL franchise seems like dog shit to me. Epistle 3's big reveal being "lol nihilism" is such a cop-out bitch move.
I understand the Combine were always meant to be incomprehensibly vast but the ending boiling down to nothing more than "rocks fall, gordan dies" is such a weak punk-ass writing method that I'm sort-of-glad we didn't see that? It's one of those things where the other writers would probably have told Laidlaw to stick it up his arse and rework it in the actual writer's room, since you hear a lot of shit ideas like this get bandied around in writing circles that inevitably get hewn into something actually workable, but eugh.
Breengrub also bothers me because I thought it was clear that Breen was a disposable puppet for the Combine and, ultimately, we saw the bloke explode. He fell into a giant warphole of dark matter and his portal exploded strong enough to evaporate several floors of solid combine alloys. The excuse of "he got out just before the explosion" or "what Gordon was doing didn't make a difference" but if that's the case, why did the ending sequence even happen? Why did the top of the Citadel explode so violently? It wasn't the teleportation that caused it, especially since Breen screams in horror just before the whole thing goes up.
I'm glad that what Laidlaw wrote can be taken as entirely fanon-- strengthy fanon, sure, but it's fanon.
After a month-long hiatus, I've resumed my database of Source mods. The reason was that G-String depressed me (as it always does) and I had to muster up courage to finish its (very, very long) campaign. But it was worth it.
Can I just say that, to this day, it still has the best sound design ever done in a Source mod? The ambient noises, the song choice, the voice acting, everything is spot on and even some of the upbeat songs are out of tone with the extremely bleak levels specifically to prevent depression. G-String is a masterpiece that both conveys hope and despair on a rollercoaster (mostly despair though).
Can't wait for the remake.
Same here, I was also bothered by the idea that gman would just drop Gordon. That goes at odds with his earlier speech where he informs you that he has received "several interesting offers for your services". If that is to happen, at least make a point to show that he's terminating you over the Vortigaunt thing, and taking Alyx because he believes she will be a much more reliable agent. Especially since she seems to be more susceptible to his suggestion, at least as far as we know, but maybe Gordon is equally susceptible and he just doesn't know it. After all, he does always become "the right man in the wrong place", maybe he's being guided the same way without realizing it. Either way, the Vortigaunt thing clearly angered gman, and it's the only time gman shows anger and lack of control, and if anything were to happen to the Gordon-Gman relationship, it should be from that alone.
I suspect the finality of the Marc Laidlaw synopsis is because he knows without a doubt that the Hald-Life franchise won´t continue. If episode 3 had come out as intended fairly quickly after episode 2 the ending of that game would probably be more open ended, perhaps setting up a true half-life 3 just as the first game does. The whole "dropping Gordon" thing probably stems from that as well, although tbh I would welcome a continuation with Alyx as the main character with open arms.
This too, the first and last paragraph are obvious commentaries on Mark's recent time and feelings on Valve rather than related to the story of EP3.
I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, “Gertie Fremont, we have not heard from you in ages!” Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I’ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous letter (referred to herewith as Epistle 2).
And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Except no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final epistle.
Doesn't matter if people haven't tried it - people simply don't care about VR anymore. It's going the way of 3D TVs.
Breengrub, as far as I have come to understand it, was the result of Breen having a backup of his brain/consciousness being entered into the Combine's database (way before he was in any danger) and injected into an Advisor. The one thing I don't really get is why/how could subsequent backups of his brain deteriorate? The Combine have so much more power and much better technology than humans, you'd think they'd at least get the "copy/paste" method down. It's not that difficult. Seems more like a dramatic (and illogical) story decision by Laidlaw.
G-mod's level design is amazing, but it's super hard to know where you're going. I had trouble getting past certain points because I wasn't sure if I was going in circles or not and if dead ends were really dead ends or not. I am really looking forward to the remake, but it's been like what.. 8-9 years? I hope it doesn't turn out to be like HL3 and never arrive. :P
Considering where the HL2 plot was going and the implications of what happened in HL1, it seems like Alyx was always the "more important" one or in other words, she was g-man's main interest. He even mentions plucking Alyx from Black Mesa during the incident. Where did she go? How did she end up with Kleiner then? There are still a lot of plotholes that don't make sense. If HLVR is set before HL2 and involved Alyx, how will Valve explain Alyx's escape (by the hands of g-man or otherwise)? She has no recollection of g-man or that he saved her. This has really got me thinking.
I don't necessarily think he knew that HL3/EP3 wouldn't continue. I think he was more frustrated by the notion that no one cared about the HL universe anymore. Even if people at Valve are stil trying to give it life, it's not the focus anymore and as a result, the cliffhanger is like an itch that Marc wanted to scratch so badly that he made a draft of the story just to satisfy himself, if no one else.
It makes sense. With the inclusion of the illusion entity (which was likely supposed to be used for the Borealis' constant phasing in and out of existence) among other things, and this corroboration of his draft leads me to believe that these things were indeed in place as game mechanics, for the most part. Seems a bit anticlimactic, but what can you do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Honestly, G-String being hard to navigate is a thing you appreciate more and more as you play and replay it. In most games and mods, the way forward is obvious, and there are visual cues to make sure you don't get stuck. In G-String, the path blends in with the decor and it really contributes to making the universe more immersive. You're not some person who follows the path in front of them; you find your own path.
Also it's still being developed, the last blog update about the remake was a few months back and it's still promising.
Half-life franchise was always nihilistic. It only didnt seem that way because we have been stuck in an incomplete story arc for the past 12 years.
Think about all the gaps between games we have been subjected to in the past:
Ending of Half-Life - After a sacrificial suicide jump into an alien dimention to save humanity (one he had no illusion of going back from, mind you), Gordon nearly dies completing the objective and is only saved by a smug omnipotent douchebag who confliscates all his weapons. He then forces him in no uncertain terms to either work for him, or die. The game ends with the protagonist either dead or completely under command and in grasp of said douchebag.
Ending of Half-Life 2 - After blowing up the teleporter and defeating the bad guy, Gordon and Alyx are caught in a lethal explosion that would leave them no chance of being alive. Gordon is then saved by the same douchebag, who even taunts him about how this time he wont even give him an illusion of choice. He then casually walks out and leaves the protagonist in the dark, literally and figuratively. The fate of Alyx is unknown, but presumed to have been killed.
The endings of the episodes 1 and 2 are nothing like that, and thats because they were meant to be a part of one continous arc, with the ending of epistle 3 being the end of the "tri-game".
On a chance of sounding douch-y, I feel like people complaining about a change in tone in epistle might not quite have gotten the hints that the games have been throwing at them about g-man and alyx from the start.
And then we get Prospero starring Alyx Vance dropped into a dimension where her ambition manifests itself in the form of psionic powers which she uses to achieve her goals.
How in the world can spout with such confidence a statement this malformed as if it were fact?
Valve intentionally made EP1 and EP2 cheerier partway through development. People might forget how fucked things are supposed to be since everything looks fantastic in EP2. EP2 was originally supposed to be a slog through a barren wasteland, like the old HL2 concepts. I'm torn on the decision because I appreciate the way White Forest looks, it makes sense that nature wouldn't be wiped out everywhere, and you'd want your victory lap to look good; on the other hand we only glimpse the true wasteland once for only a few seconds during a teleported accident, and it'd be great to see more of it.
I actually like the conflict bwtween the cheery sections and the sinister undertones of the overall story. It brings variety, instead of just the whole game being one-note. I have no doubts that the actual content of episode 3 would have ended up feeling a lot more adventureous for the most part, even if all the major beats of the epistle outline survived intact. Probably even the whole conflict between alyx and mossman would seem a lot less dramaticat least until its final gunshot.
Not only that, but you wake up on a completely different train.
Yea, it somehow has much more cars, no train engine and it's parallel to citadel on some cliff
Here's goofy representation of ep1 vs ep2 positions:
https://puu.sh/CjcRf.png
Also, Combine Dyson Sphere was absolutely planned very early on. I would bet it was planned way back in Half-Life 1, given that the combine were absolutely in the story bible from the beginning, and were always intended to be an utterly insurmountable foe. Why else would the Nihilanath fear them so much? And I mean, they even had the specific look of combine tech planned that far back.
My personal explanation is that the train survived long enough to make it around the bend where it derailed and collided with a derelict train by the bridge.
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Half-Life Chat V11 - 20th anniversary edition
