Half-Life and Portal series, general discussion (v6) - Games

[QUOTE=Sonador;48459836]Control of your character is never taken away in any game to cause a cutscene. At all times, you're Gordon Freeman, not some disembodied cameraman, even if that means you're reduced to flinging your neck around like a spastic in a prisoner pod during a scripted sequence.[/QUOTE] That scene with alyx and the hunters in the beginning of episode 2 may as well have been a cutscene.

[QUOTE=Ardosos;48460345]That scene with alyx and the hunters in the beginning of episode 2 may as well have been a cutscene.[/QUOTE] And the beginning of Half Life 2 and Episode 1 And the ending of all of the games

[QUOTE=Pyraax;48460397]And the beginning of Half Life 2 and Episode 1 And the ending of all of the games[/QUOTE] and in Half-Life when Gordon is captured by the H.E.C.U

[QUOTE=Pyraax;48460397]And the beginning of Half Life 2 and Episode 1 And the ending of all of the games[/QUOTE] And the beginning of the Resonance Cascade.

In Valve's defense, Half Life 's and Half Life 2's arcs are the changes in the environment of Black Mesa and City 17 respectively. In the former the arc is in experiencing a research institute turn into a alien/military battleground, in the latter the arc is shown in taking the path from the train-station to Kliener's lab only to take that same walk in reverse after two weeks of uprising. Even in Half Life 2 l, Alyx doesn't really play a major character role and she acts more like the guide by which Gordon is lead through the changing environments. Having too many cut-scenes would only hamper the exploration of the finer details in the environment. The Episodes, by contrast, are entirely about Alyx using Gordon as a tool to meet her goals and the evolution of her character. Alyx wants to delay the citadel explosion by stabilizing the core, Alyx wants Gordon to evacuate the citizens, Alyx needs Gordon to save her by doing something with glowy antlions. Then Alyx [sp]sees her father die, and presumably would 'grow up' Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth style[/sp]. And when you're dealing with that kind of story, you don't want the player staring at a rock while Gman drops some sweet sweet [sp]Unforseen Consequences in Alyx's ear[/sp]. You want the player to be constantly engaged with the Main Character, which is Alyx Vance and her currently uncompleted arc in the episodes. This is also an argument for why it would be better to do an Episode 3 pre-game for Half Life 3, where we conclude the arc of Alyx Vance before getting back to fucking around in a Sci-fi environment like its 1998. EDIT: My phone has a spellcheck for Texts but not for my third party hipster browser

There are cutscenes all over Episode Two. Alyx getting hunter'd, Alyx getting revived, the barn advisor, etc.

[QUOTE=ColossalSoft;48460699]There are cutscenes all over Episode Two. Alyx getting hunter'd, Alyx getting revived, the barn advisor, etc.[/QUOTE] It's not a cutscene if there is no cut. It's just a scene. The cut is what breaks immersion and what HL as a series has avoided.

[QUOTE=AeroSinthetic;48461405]It's not a cutscene if there is no cut. It's just a scene. The cut is what breaks immersion and what HL as a series has avoided.[/QUOTE] If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and holds you still for 60 seconds to focus on a particular event like a duck, it's a duck.

[QUOTE=AeroSinthetic;48461405]It's not a cutscene if there is no cut. It's just a scene. The cut is what breaks immersion and what HL as a series has avoided.[/QUOTE] So the alyx revival, then? If I recall you can't even look around during that sequence.

Xubs has the right idea. They never said anything about no cutscenes, but they do say that you're never forced out of your character. In any game with story, there's going to be exposition, it's unavoidable. The way the HL series has done it has always been as immersive as possible.

there not cut scenes there scripted sequences were the game fluidly rolls into them :)

i sure do wish we had the option to skip these "cutscenes" or "gameplays" or whatever because they get kind of tiresome when you replay the game

[QUOTE=CompanionMube;48463045]i sure do wish we had the option to skip these "cutscenes" or "gameplays" or whatever because they get kind of tiresome when you replay the game[/QUOTE] You can always go sv_cheats 1 and host_timescale 5 to "fast-forward" the cutscenes.

[QUOTE=Ardosos;48461536]So the alyx revival, then? If I recall you can't even look around during that sequence.[/QUOTE] There's a difference between control being temporarily reduced for an actual in-game reason and magically losing control like in cut-scenes usually, though. In Half-life it's still in-character rather than there being no explanation for it happening. [QUOTE=CompanionMube;48463045]i sure do wish we had the option to skip these "cutscenes" or "gameplays" or whatever because they get kind of tiresome when you replay the game[/QUOTE] Being able to skip them would kind of defeat the point of having them there in the first place. They are like that for immersive reasons, being able to skip gameplay would not make sense.

[QUOTE=TheTrainRider;48453474]Gabe Newell dies, Valve collectively decides to cash out the stock to outside parties, Half Life 3 is released as a board-written committee-approved cash grab that is bland and heartless. You never finish it, suffering from a panic attack halfway through the game when you realize that the once invincible game company of your youth has fallen to the greed and neglect of man, just like everything once great in human history. Then, in a few billion years, the universe collectively disperses it's energy and dies of heat-death.[/QUOTE] Defuq did I just read

[QUOTE=Potatofactory;48464046]Defuq did I just read[/QUOTE] seemed to have a pretty coherent point to me tbh hl3 has ironically outlived its hype-generated half-life and will now be unable to meet the expectations of its fanbase once its released, no matter how hard they work to make it do so

[QUOTE=Mech Bgum;48464178]What expectations do they have exactly? Everyone was eager to know resolution of EP2 as it ended on a dramatic cliffhanger. And then HL3 became a spoofy joke thing like Duke Nukem Forever. There's a difference though, because DNF had many trailers and shifted release dates. I don't know how a rational human being can make expectations on something that exists only as a rumor.[/QUOTE] As time goes on, people grow longer in tooth for things and their perspective gets warped. Technology's also reached a point where it's getting exponentially harder to 'wow' people with games, so people are going to get Half-Life 3 and unless it finds that next technology 'wow' point, it's going to suffer from the skewed perspectives of the fans who have waited a very long time for something objectively outstanding. Think of it this way, in 1998, Half-Life was pretty spectacular when compared to its competition. Same thing in late 2004 with HL2, it broke a ton of new ground and stood out a good deal, I remember seeing it and being amazed at how it looked and played. There's also the fact that in 1998 and 2004 there wasn't such a major 'gamer' imprint in media and culture as it's developed now. I'm worried that all these silly petty things like gamergate and corruption in news journalism and all that will use it as a martyr somehow.

[QUOTE=Mech Bgum;48464178]What expectations do they have exactly? Everyone was eager to know resolution of EP2 as it ended on a dramatic cliffhanger, but Valve didn't deliver EP3. And then HL3 became a spoofy joke thing like Duke Nukem Forever. There's a difference though, because DNF had many trailers and shifted release dates. I don't know how a rational human being can make expectations on something that exists only as a rumor.[/QUOTE] Because it's been too long. HL2:EP2 came out October 2007, so, implying Valve released HL3/EP3 today, then that means they've had 8 years to work on this game. [I]Eight years.[/I] Some other infamous examples took upwards of 10 and 15 years, but you can count those on one had, and those at least were announced, [I]and[/I] had nowhere near the legacy that Half-Life held. As things stand right now, we've heard [I]nothing[/I] about HL3. When Valve was ever asked about it, they'd just been coy and neglected an answer. They got away with it because of they're good PR so far, because that's honestly abhorrent PR practice. Basically time and Valve's attitude regarding the game is what set the game to impossible expectations. Eight years, no word, no nothing, to the point where a lot of people have just accepted "it's not coming, they've left the Half-Life series" as a plausible conclusion. It's less "oh, surely this game will be good!" and more "if it's not this good, then Valve fucked up."

[QUOTE=Mech Bgum;48464716]That's kinda what I'm implying. If it's not good, Valve fucked up regardless. Hype or not - with Valve's reputation and their inner situation (complete creative and marketing freedom) they have no reason to release a bad game. I think that the whole "hl3 won't live up to hype" is just inherently dumb and is used by game journalists to shake the internet when they have nothing better to do.[/QUOTE] It's not a matter of [I]if[/I] its good. It's a matter of if it's good [I]enough[/I] to justify the time Valve has had and the behavior they've exhibited on the matter. Such standards are arguably impossibly high.

In the 8 Years since Ep2 we've had countless TF2 updates, 2 games from a fresh IP, a game identical to the fresh IP with its own IP, a sequel to Portal, a Dota reboot, a Counterstrike sequel, several iterations of the Source engine, Valve consoles, the Steam Workshop/Greenlight, [s]paid mods[/s], hints of VR support, evidence of Source 2, and Gabe Newel's mighty grey beard. Pander Valve does not. Valve's culture is one of working on what they feel like they should work on. This is why we're seeing a Fallout 4 from Bethesda but no new Half Life games from Valve. Its because Valve does not want to produce a new Half Life game enough to do it. More importantly, Half Life 3 suffers from the fans delima. Everybody wants a new Half Life game thats just the same as the old Half Life game, and anything else is not desired. What if Valve made a horror game? Or a game about being blind? Or Ricochet 2? Or even a rad side-scroller. People need to stop looking the gifted horse in the mouth.

[QUOTE=Mech Bgum;48464716]That's kinda what I'm implying. If it's not good, Valve fucked up regardless. Hype or not - with Valve's reputation and their inner situation (complete creative and marketing freedom) they have no reason to release a bad game. I think that the whole "hl3 won't live up to hype" is just inherently dumb and is used by game journalists to shake the internet when they have nothing better to do.[/QUOTE] What really bothers me is the conviction with which people say it. As if it's an obvious truth somehow gleaned from reading too many forum posts on the topic, despite having no special insight into any actually relevant fields of knowledge needed to make such a statement. It's literally a hunch some people have based on the facts that HL3 is a popular joke meme ("hype") and that development has been long. I don't even know of any directly comparable situation in gaming apart from DNF, and in that case the released game actually sucked [i]and[/i] was showcased extensively throughout its development. The fact of the matter is that we don't know how people will react, and merely stating that the expectations are impossibly high because the wait has been too long is not convincing enough. In fact, I'd wager that hype for HL3 is already dead, that it's status as a meme shouldn't be confused for actual hype, and that once Valve actually releases the first media for the game people will piss hype again.

Valve have not been working on episode 3/ half life 3 for 8 years straight it's been an on and off process and you can look into certain things like VR, the final hours of portal 2 and some other things to find out that they've not been working on it constantly.

[QUOTE=LegndNikko;48464620]Because it's been too long. HL2:EP2 came out October 2007, so, implying Valve released HL3/EP3 today, then that means they've had 8 years to work on this game. [I]Eight years.[/I] Some other infamous examples took upwards of 10 and 15 years, but you can count those on one had, and those at least were announced, [I]and[/I] had nowhere near the legacy that Half-Life held. As things stand right now, we've heard [I]nothing[/I] about HL3. When Valve was ever asked about it, they'd just been coy and neglected an answer. They got away with it because of they're good PR so far, because that's honestly abhorrent PR practice. Basically time and Valve's attitude regarding the game is what set the game to impossible expectations. Eight years, no word, no nothing, to the point where a lot of people have just accepted "it's not coming, they've left the Half-Life series" as a plausible conclusion. It's less "oh, surely this game will be good!" and more "if it's not this good, then Valve fucked up."[/QUOTE] They have said at least twice in the past few years (once in 2012, and again at some point after that) why the next game is taking so long and hasn't even been properly announced yet. They have not completely ignored it for eight years. People seem to forget that TF2 was also in development for almost 10 years and during that time there wasn't much mention of it (at least from what i've seen).

[QUOTE=TheRealRudy;48465199][URL="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.375965635802364.86003.274276235971305&type=1"]This concept art[/URL] says otherwise, and that's the only stuff that got out in the public.[/QUOTE] I feel like you might be misreading him. He's not saying it hasn't been worked on AT ALL. He's saying it hasn't been worked on consistently for eight years straight.

It is literally the fundamental idea of Valve that people can work on whatever project they find would be most interesting to them. Sure, the entire studio may all hop on the bandwagon with one big project, however there were certainly still TF2 updates during Portal 2's development, CSGO's development, Dota 2's development.

[QUOTE=TheTrainRider;48464862] Pander Valve does not. Valve's culture is one of working on what they feel like they should work on. This is why we're seeing a Fallout 4 from Bethesda but no new Half Life games from Valve. Its because Valve does not want to produce a new Half Life game enough to do it. [/QUOTE] I keep seeing this "theory" a lot and I don't think that's entirely true. When talking about HL3 development Gabe stated that [quote]The problem is, we think that the twists and turns that we're going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it[/quote] This doesn't seem to fit the "not being worked on-lost interest" narrative. This sounds like active development where the developers keep encountering speed bumps along the way. Another quote: [quote]you might get to a point where you're saying something is surprising us in a positive way and something is surprising us in a negative way[/quote] We know games like Half-Life and Team Fortress 2 were severely delayed and overhauled when Valve was unhappy with the product. I'm guessing this happened with Half-Life 3 as well. And my guess is that this overhaul(s) came along with new ideas (positive surprises). Loss of interest is probably guaranteed to exist but I don't think it completely stopped any work from being done, just slowed it down. Salvation will come when they are happy with it, not when other workers start caring again.

I was thinking a way to suddenly announce HL3 is to be at a games conference with hundreds/thousands of people showing off the previously announced game <insert game here>'s engine, Source 2. They're going through a first-person demo of the area, it's all in orange and grey dev textures "quickly hashed up to show you some features in this presentation", then they go through a door and the room he enters is dark. He says, "oops, I guess we didn't finish this room in time for the presentation" [laughter ensues] Suddenly you hear a door slam, loud (in game). The door opens with whitest white light coming through like the Gman exit scene...he suspiciously passes through it and a trailer for HL3/EP3 starts.

and just to spite all of our speculation, the next Half Life game releases out of nowhere one of these days for $29.99 and has like 200+ hours of gameplay.

Can anyone help me find a HL2 mod I've played a while ago? From what I remember, it has same menu background as the original HL2 (Trainstation Plaza). When you start the game, [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRLJweXSW18"]Slow Light[/URL] plays while some blue-colored text appears on the screen (I don't remember what it says). Gordon has HEV suit from the beginning. You start in a small room and meet a rebel upon exiting it. This is pretty much all I can remember. I think you also see a zombie behind a fence at some point close to the beginning.

[QUOTE=Kickin Balls;48470075]I was thinking a way to suddenly announce HL3 is to be at a games conference with hundreds/thousands of people showing off the previously announced game <insert game here>'s engine, Source 2. They're going through a first-person demo of the area, it's all in orange and grey dev textures "quickly hashed up to show you some features in this presentation", then they go through a door and the room he enters is dark. He says, "oops, I guess we didn't finish this room in time for the presentation" [laughter ensues] Suddenly you hear a door slam, loud (in game). The door opens with whitest white light coming through like the Gman exit scene...he suspiciously passes through it and a trailer for HL3/EP3 starts.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Icy Fire;48470109]and just to spite all of our speculation, the next Half Life game releases out of nowhere one of these days for $29.99 and has like 200+ hours of gameplay.[/QUOTE] Both the announcement and sudden release statements are old as fuck now. Half-Life 3 isn't going to be announced for a while.