Half-Life & Portal series, general discussion (v3) - Games

[QUOTE=Fine Hats;39509333]That sounds vaguely ominous. Someone smarter than me could probably articulate why.[/QUOTE] Because Valve now appear to be disinterested in story-driven single-player games. They are a company that earned their popularity by doing things differently and making FPS games that were centred around telling a story. They earned their respect by showing integrity and being one of the few developers to stay away from micro-transactions and other money-grabbing schemes. But now Gabe feels that having a broader fanbase and making more money is the most important thing for his company and is showing no signs of making the immersive single-player experiences that endeared so many people to Valve in the first place. The most disappointing thing of all is that their flagship series is stuck in a perpetual cliffhanger that looks unlikely to be resolved any time soon, and nobody at Valve seems the least bit concerned. The fans are frustrated because they got drawn into a story and were expecting a stunning final installment which is nowhere to be seen. Personally, I'm left wondering why I should be interested in any future Valve efforts if they're just going to drop off the face of the Earth half-way through. I know this is a minority opinion, but Portal 2 was a massive disappointment to me - I thought it was lacking in every department other than technical construction, and it was missing almost everything that made Portal so good. But that's just the kind of game Valve wants to make now. Having heard Gabe talk about his new intentions for the company, his ideas about other mediums and his immediate dismissal of anything relating to the Half-Life series' prolonged hiatus, I don't think we're going to see a conclusion to the story any time soon - if at all. And with all the talk of "entertainment as a service", connections with social media and incessant cosmetic pointlessness that Valve is putting into every game they make, I feel like a new Half-Life would be completely disconnected from all the previous games and would never live up to what I've come to expect. At this point I'd rather just see Marc Laidlaw write a Half-Life novel so I can just find out what happens to all the characters I became so invested in. tl;dr: half-life fan is mad about video games

[QUOTE=EarlCdwards;39511122]-snip-[/QUOTE]What was wrong with Portal 2?

[QUOTE=EarlCdwards;39511122]Because Valve now appear to be disinterested in story-driven single-player games. They are a company that earned their popularity by doing things differently and making FPS games that were centred around telling a story. They earned their respect by showing integrity and being one of the few developers to stay away from micro-transactions and other money-grabbing schemes. But now Gabe feels that having a broader fanbase and making more money is the most important thing for his company and is showing no signs of making the immersive single-player experiences that endeared so many people to Valve in the first place. The most disappointing thing of all is that their flagship series is stuck in a perpetual cliffhanger that looks unlikely to be resolved any time soon, and nobody at Valve seems the least bit concerned. The fans are frustrated because they got drawn into a story and were expecting a stunning final installment which is nowhere to be seen. Personally, I'm left wondering why I should be interested in any future Valve efforts if they're just going to drop off the face of the Earth half-way through. I know this is a minority opinion, but Portal 2 was a massive disappointment to me - I thought it was lacking in every department other than technical construction, and it was missing almost everything that made Portal so good. But that's just the kind of game Valve wants to make now. Having heard Gabe talk about his new intentions for the company, his ideas about other mediums and his immediate dismissal of anything relating to the Half-Life series' prolonged hiatus, I don't think we're going to see a conclusion to the story any time soon - if at all. And with all the talk of "entertainment as a service", connections with social media and incessant cosmetic pointlessness that Valve is putting into every game they make, I feel like a new Half-Life would be completely disconnected from all the previous games and would never live up to what I've come to expect. At this point I'd rather just see Marc Laidlaw write a Half-Life novel so I can just find out what happens to all the characters I became so invested in. tl;dr: half-life fan is mad about video games[/QUOTE] half life is still being worked on what the fuck are you talking about [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] yes micro transactions are money grabbing schemes, that's why the community loves making items for the money grabbing shop and then proceeding to make money themselves what the fuck are you on about

[QUOTE=EarlCdwards;39511122]Because Valve now appear to be disinterested in story-driven single-player games. They are a company that earned their popularity by doing things differently and making FPS games that were centred around telling a story. They earned their respect by showing integrity and being one of the few developers to stay away from micro-transactions and other money-grabbing schemes. But now Gabe feels that having a broader fanbase and making more money is the most important thing for his company and is showing no signs of making the immersive single-player experiences that endeared so many people to Valve in the first place. The most disappointing thing of all is that their flagship series is stuck in a perpetual cliffhanger that looks unlikely to be resolved any time soon, and nobody at Valve seems the least bit concerned. The fans are frustrated because they got drawn into a story and were expecting a stunning final installment which is nowhere to be seen. Personally, I'm left wondering why I should be interested in any future Valve efforts if they're just going to drop off the face of the Earth half-way through. I know this is a minority opinion, but Portal 2 was a massive disappointment to me - I thought it was lacking in every department other than technical construction, and it was missing almost everything that made Portal so good. But that's just the kind of game Valve wants to make now. Having heard Gabe talk about his new intentions for the company, his ideas about other mediums and his immediate dismissal of anything relating to the Half-Life series' prolonged hiatus, I don't think we're going to see a conclusion to the story any time soon - if at all. And with all the talk of "entertainment as a service", connections with social media and incessant cosmetic pointlessness that Valve is putting into every game they make, I feel like a new Half-Life would be completely disconnected from all the previous games and would never live up to what I've come to expect. At this point I'd rather just see Marc Laidlaw write a Half-Life novel so I can just find out what happens to all the characters I became so invested in. tl;dr: half-life fan is mad about video games[/QUOTE] Calm down. Since when has Valve stopped caring about singleplayer FPS games? Because they haven't released one every 6 months? There's no heart or soul behind the massive MP games they're releasing, but that's the point. They're fillers, they don't care about them - they're just to assure us that Valve isn't dead, and that in the meantime we can have lots of fun. Because they're fun, and that's the other point. You guys are trying to build a bandwagon that Valve is horrible and turning evil because they're trying to make Half Life 3 [i]perfect[/i] down to the last detail, and they neglected some errors in HL1 and HL2 in the meantime. On a completely different matter, you said yourself: Valve got to where they were by doing things differently. At that time, it was 3D FPS games based around coherent storylines. Now that's literally every almost every game on the market. They need to do things differently again; If anything's going to be groundbreaking, it can't [i]just[/i] be an FPS with a fun little story. If Valve gives a crap about being so mindblowingly innovative as they were before, then it isn't going to be something standard and something they can whip up fast. tl;dr: Sit down. Valve still cares. It'll be worth the weight. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] Why do you think Gabe has refused to say anything about HL3? Two reasons: 1 is that they've stopped caring about the series and just want to make mega-games that make piles of dosh, and he doesn't want to admit it. 2 is that they're making something so incredible and new, that they can't spoil a bit of it. That silence is what keeps everyone on edge and lets them know that it won't be just another Half Life game. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] It's a sad day for the Half Life community when we're being called optimistic when we say that HL3 hasn't been cancelled.

[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;39511330]It's a sad day for the Half Life community when we're being called optimistic when we say that HL3 hasn't been cancelled.[/QUOTE] I think it's pretty obvious that it hasn't been and never will be.

the training course in cs:go makes me want a cs:go story-driven singleplayer

[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;39511330] 2 is that they're making something so incredible and new, that they can't spoil a bit of it. That silence is what keeps everyone on edge and lets them know that it won't be just another Half Life game.[/QUOTE] oi most people at this point don't give a damn if valve changes some details after they reveal stuff to us. It's been much too long, and I don't consider the silence a way to keep us excited anymore...

[QUOTE=Hell-met;39511976]the training course in cs:go makes me want a cs:go story-driven singleplayer[/QUOTE]They would never bother, and we only have ourselves, the frugal and ill-informed consumers, to blame in that regard. They already tried making a singleplayer Counter-Strike once and nobody bought it. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K2KciM90Qw[/media]

[QUOTE=Marphy Black;39512354]They would never bother, and we only have ourselves, the frugal and ill-informed consumers, to blame in that regard. They already tried making a singleplayer Counter-Strike once and nobody bought it. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K2KciM90Qw[/media][/QUOTE] That's my favorite CS game

You guys always say that the next Half Life will be the end of the series. Is there any proof to back that up?

Now that I think about it, how come no CS single-player mods have been made? We see countless multiplayer maps (as expected) but never a linear single player experience before (afaik).

[url]http://www.moddb.com/mods/counter-life[/url] closest you can get although I recommend beta6 because it turned into shit after that oh and I think valve's HD model thing broke it

[QUOTE=Yogkog;39512897]Now that I think about it, how come no CS single-player mods have been made? We see countless multiplayer maps (as expected) but never a linear single player experience before (afaik).[/QUOTE] Condition Zero Deleted Scenes?

[QUOTE=Perhaps;39512881]You guys always say that the next Half Life will be the end of the series. Is there any proof to back that up?[/QUOTE] no, we don't it would be the end of the HL2 story-arc, leaving the next half-life game to deal with something new [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] [url]http://www.stuffwelike.com/2007/12/12/half-life-3-world-exclusive/[/url]

[QUOTE=Marphy Black;39512354]They would never bother, and we only have ourselves, the frugal and ill-informed consumers, to blame in that regard. They already tried making a singleplayer Counter-Strike once and nobody bought it. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K2KciM90Qw[/media][/QUOTE] Y'know, it's seeing this scene on youtube that caused me to go and download Counter-Strike Deleted Scenes, something I do not regret doing. The missions were actually fun and challenging. Left me wishing Valve would make a single player campaign for CS:GO...

[QUOTE=Perhaps;39512881]You guys always say that the next Half Life will be the end of the series. Is there any proof to back that up?[/QUOTE]Laidlaw said a while back that it'll be the end of the story arc started in Episode 1, since that's about as far as they've planned ahead. After that, little is known except that you'll likely have to wait another half-decade for it.

Or, Valve has set up the ending of Episode 3 so that you can easily continue, that way we can have a new game every couple of months. Like some sort of episodic gaming. Oh.

What Valve are doing is fairly important, there's no point in continuing if the PC is dead.

Valve is probably delaying the announcement because of all of the fat jokes and this video: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dUq0TMvcxQ[/url] I also think the lady calling him Garry Newell made him want to delay it some more.

How "silly" is Half-Life allowed to be?

[QUOTE=artDecor;39515832]How "silly" is Half-Life allowed to be?[/QUOTE] Greetings.

[QUOTE=3noneTwo;39516766]Greetings.[/QUOTE]I was just thinking about this [URL="http://www.accursedfarms.com/downloads/ross_scott_voice_acting.mp3"]demo reel[/URL] being used to illustrate the various possible "Freemen" in the Multiverse.

I was thinking a lot about half life universe yesterday, got inspired and made this: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/LAsTaAz.jpg[/IMG] I hope it's OK to post it here.

[QUOTE=J. F. Christ;39517875]I was thinking a lot about half life universe yesterday, got inspired and made this: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/LAsTaAz.jpg[/IMG] I hope it's OK to post it here.[/QUOTE] May I ask what kind of pencil you used for that? Charcoal? Looks really nice :)

[QUOTE=Marbledemon;39518162]May I ask what kind of pencil you used for that? Charcoal? Looks really nice :)[/QUOTE] Ordinary graphite. 6h; 2h; hb; 3b; 7b. Here's the process if you're interested: [url]http://imgur.com/AyneI2B[/url] ; [url]http://imgur.com/OaAayzQ[/url] ; [url]http://imgur.com/a7e7uSS[/url]

[QUOTE=Perhaps;39512881]You guys always say that the next Half Life will be the end of the series. Is there any proof to back that up?[/QUOTE] Because unless you deliberately started a series with plans of lots of instalments (like harry potter or a song of ice and fire) ... Once you get to '4' you're looking silly. anything more than 4 and you look fucking ridiculous.

[QUOTE=The Jack;39518725]Because unless you deliberately started a series with plans of lots of instalments (like harry potter or a song of ice and fire) ... Once you get to '4' you're looking silly. anything more than 4 and you look fucking ridiculous.[/QUOTE] Yeah, GTA definitely died after gta III. Have you seen that gta V trailer? Fucking ridiculous. And Tropico 4, worst game ever! I don't even want to mention that shit which is Sim City 4.

[QUOTE=The Jack;39518725]Because unless you deliberately started a series with plans of lots of instalments (like harry potter or a song of ice and fire) ... Once you get to '4' you're looking silly. anything more than 4 and you look fucking ridiculous.[/QUOTE] are you an absolute tit

[QUOTE=The Jack;39518725]Because unless you deliberately started a series with plans of lots of instalments (like harry potter or a song of ice and fire) ... Once you get to '4' you're looking silly. anything more than 4 and you look fucking ridiculous.[/QUOTE] Mario Party.

Ok, well... I suppose you're all right about that with games. but for quite a few games/movies, i'm still right... After a certain point sequels should give themselves nice subtitles rather than just new numbers. I mean i'v never played a final fantasy game.. but the fact that there's a dozen or more of the things isn't very welcoming Resident evil 6 Halo 4 (spoken aloud, halo five and halo six sound strange to me) Star wars Modern warfare Saw (Not that i'v liked any of them) The final destination films. The lion king 3 (what's the point?) The point is, i can't realy see valve turning half life into a massive chain of games with cliffhangers for sequels every game. To be pesemistic i even can see them doing a bungie, Really wishing that they were making something else because they're sick of making something.