Is it better if Half-Life 2 Episode 3 never comes out?
68 replies, posted
Honestly, and I know I am gonna get flak for this, I don't really care anymore.
I'll be happy if it ever happens, but I won't be too upset if it doesn't.
[QUOTE=butre;40967420]except dnf wasn't a bad game like everyone says[/QUOTE]
It's kinda forgettable and is pretty much and interesting footnote in the history of gaming. For me, it's a guilty pleasure.
Besides, Meme's have replaced Duke Nukem, just without the charm. Most of what he said was from years ago.
[QUOTE=Skyward;40967577]Honestly, and I know I am gonna get flak for this, I don't really care anymore.
I'll be happy if it ever happens, but I won't be too upset if it doesn't.[/QUOTE]
I feel the same way about it tbh, it's been way too long without any sort of news that I just don't care if it ever happens or not.
Don't care about it anymore, lost interest ages ago
If Valve ever annouces anything that has to do with Half Life, I'd be expecting a Half Life 3 at this point instead of just another episode. Makes sense since we are entering the new "generation" of games with the new consoles. The source engine is old, people are expecting drastic innovation. I mean it's obvious they are working on something big, and I don't think it's just another "expansion" with a bunch of hours of content.
Remember how Valve works - it's not a traditional company where some managers enforce people to make something with a deadline. Valve doesn't decide what it's employees work on - the employees do.
If one person wants to build a game, they tell others about their idea and try to get a full team on board. Then they approach Gabe and see if it works out. That's why there are long delays and announcements aren't predictable - they're like no other company. It's probably going to take a while for the Half Life 3 project to get momentum because no one wants to risk messing it up
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Blog post from a dev at Valve [url]http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-what-its-like-and-what-im-doing-2/[/url]
It's fucking coming out, Gaben confirmed they are working on it.
You people who think it's never going to come out or they aren't working on it are fucking retarded.
And yes, I am confident it's going to be just as good and maybe even better than Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2.
My only hope is that they put it on their new source engine, and they just rename it to HL3 and drop the episodic bullshit if they are working on a full campaign.
It's better not to think about it until something is announced then we can all ride that hype train to launch date.
Jesus christ if Duke Nukem Forever came out, as well as Black Mesa, Episode 3/hl3 is definitely coming out.
[QUOTE=BenJammin';40967684]It's fucking coming out, Gaben confirmed they are working on it.
You people who think it's never going to come out or they aren't working on it are fucking retarded.
And yes, I am confident it's going to be just as good and maybe even better than Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2.
My only hope is that they put it on their new source engine, and they just rename it to HL3 and drop the episodic bullshit if they are working on a full campaign.
It's better not to think about it until something is announced then we can all ride that hype train to launch date.
Jesus christ if Duke Nukem Forever came out, as well as Black Mesa, Episode 3/hl3 is definitely coming out.[/QUOTE]
i just asked what people think about the topic, valve did say it was coming out, we are not debating that.
and jesus christ chill out a little.
[QUOTE=BenJammin';40967684]It's fucking coming out, Gaben confirmed they are working on it.
You people who think it's never going to come out or they aren't working on it are fucking retarded.
And yes, I am confident it's going to be just as good and maybe even better than Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2.
My only hope is that they put it on their new source engine, and they just rename it to HL3 and drop the episodic bullshit if they are working on a full campaign.
It's better not to think about it until something is announced then we can all ride that hype train to launch date.
Jesus christ if Duke Nukem Forever came out, as well as Black Mesa, Episode 3/hl3 is definitely coming out.[/QUOTE]
Actually, my uncle works at bioware and hl3 is confirmed being made, it's going to be open world and have amazing sex options like in ME3 ^_^
[sp]I would commit suicide[/sp]
i would be ok with open world, to be honest.
I don't know, it seems like an open world would diminish the story aspect.
It's not as profitable as other pursuits. We're talking about money spent versus money gained. In general, singleplayer games do not sell as well (nor can they be nickle and dimed with DLC as well), as competitive multiplayer games.
I don't expect to see anything related to HL3 for years, if ever. Why bother spending millions on a title like that, when you can continue to sell hats and misc items in TF2, Dota2, and whatever else they're cooking up?
I stopped caring a long time ago.
It's one thing to do annual releases, or throw a date out there so people got something to look forward to, but I'm not the kinda person who can be told something is coming then continue to care when absolutely nothing is said or shown 3+ years down the road.
I hate developers leaving fans in the dark like that.
[QUOTE=Ott;40967886]I don't know, it seems like an open world would diminish the story aspect.[/QUOTE]
set quests with free roam wouldn't be too bad
[QUOTE=fury_161;40967922]It's not as profitable as other pursuits. We're talking about money spent versus money gained. In general, singleplayer games do not sell as well (nor can they be nickle and dimed with DLC as well), as competitive multiplayer games.
I don't expect to see anything related to HL3 for years, if ever. Why bother spending millions on a title like that, when you can continue to sell hats and misc items in TF2, Dota2, and whatever else they're cooking up?[/QUOTE]
This is why im mad in the previous page. Are you fucking dumb? Why wouldn't they be working on the next game to one of the most successful releases not just in the medium, but in media in general? The sequel everyone is expecting and waiting for? Behind all those hats in tf2 and dota 2 in valve, lies a seperate, dedicated, and EXTREMELY talented team working on the heart of valve. It's not profitable? A sequel to the game that launched their fucking company and made them all rich as fuck?
And to people who stopped caring, sure you may not care now but I think most of you are lieing if you think you won't care once it's announced. Dude come on, it's [I]half-life[/I], we are facepunch guys. We wouldn't be here without half-life. Remember when we all loved garrysmod, half-life, CSS, and the such? Now it seems nobody likes valve anymore.
It would be the biggest travesty in videogame history if Hl3/Ep3 never came out. Not only would valve not cash in on another chance to make massive amounts of dosh, they would miss out on the chance to perhaps kickstart a stagnating and bored community again.
Also the reason for such the long wait is not only does valve love taking massive risks and spending tons of profit on redoing things and making everything perfect the way they want it, they are also developing source engine 2 right next to it and are probably (hopefully) trying to now incorporate a project that might have been planned for source into their new engine.
It does kinda feel like people have such high expectations of HL3, that we will inevitably dislike it when it comes out.
It just has to be a massive step up from Half-Life 2 in terms of, well, everything. HL2 set the bar really high back in 2004, and so much has happened in the gaming industry since then, that Half-Life 3 would have to pull of something huge to be relevant again. I think they should take a few tips from Dishonored, as that game was what I envisioned Half-Life 3 to be like.
As much as I like Valve, no one can make a game that can meet a decade and a half worth of expectations.
They would need to be funded by the US government, and they would also need to hire Swedish university graduates along with Japanese scientists. Additionally, the soundtrack would have to top SSBB in terms of its epicness
One last comment: I think it's clear that Valve should just bury the franchise with HL3. Would be a lot easier on the fanbase since they can rest not having to wait for the next half life
i no longer care due to the lack of information about EP3/HL3
They will probably pull a Shyamalan, have you play as alyx and have gordon do all the talking while alyx is a mute.
The thing at Valve where employees can choose to work on their own projects is incredibly stupid. There is probably a massive opportunity cost for Valve if they do not work on a HL2:EP3, given how well acclaimed the Half-Life series and the demand for a successor to EP2.
to be honest I've been waiting for so long that I don't care if it lives up to expectations or not
the mere fact that there will finally be a conclusion to the story will make me happy enough to enjoy it
There's a reason why Valve games tend to jump to the top of "top 10 game" charts, and I don't expect them to ever abandon that habit.
Maybe since Valve doesn't make games past 2, they will somehow connect some of them? We have seen that the Borealis is in Portal AND Half Life, who knows. They could be planning the ultimate ending that mind fucks everyone.
Perhaps they need to finish portal 3 to make the ending of half life 2 EP2 even make sense, could this be a possibility?
Stop hating on valve, they make great games.
[QUOTE=BenJammin';40968040]This is why im mad in the previous page. Are you fucking dumb? Why wouldn't they be working on the next game to one of the most successful releases not just in the medium, but in media in general? The sequel everyone is expecting and waiting for? Behind all those hats in tf2 and dota 2 in valve, lies a seperate, dedicated, and EXTREMELY talented team working on the heart of valve. It's not profitable? A sequel to the game that launched their fucking company and made them all rich as fuck?
And to people who stopped caring, sure you may not care now but I think most of you are lieing if you think you won't care once it's announced. Dude come on, it's [I]half-life[/I], we are facepunch guys. We wouldn't be here without half-life. Remember when we all loved garrysmod, half-life, CSS, and the such? Now it seems nobody likes valve anymore.
It would be the biggest travesty in videogame history if Hl3/Ep3 never came out. Not only would valve not cash in on another chance to make massive amounts of dosh, they would miss out on the chance to perhaps kickstart a stagnating and bored community again.[/QUOTE]
I consider Half-Life the greatest thing to happen to the videogame industry in the history of time but I think you're overestimating it's relevance in today's mainstream gaming market. Half-Life 2 was released over 8 years ago; Half-Life fans are a minority of today's gaming community. The series is a massive thing to you and me but that doesn't go for everyone any longer. The time when HL2 was new and revolutionary is long gone. Facepunch certainly wouldn't be alive were it not for Half-Life but we're not representative of the entire gaming community. I'd be surprised if even a third of the world's gamers today knew what Half-Life is.
[QUOTE=pansarkurt;40968482]It does kinda feel like people have such high expectations of HL3, that we will inevitably dislike it when it comes out.[/QUOTE]
This, I remember Gabe saying this exact issue is the reason they might've been holding off a bit, they're unsure what they have to do, because they didn't want to disappoint their fanbase when they do release it because they'd have so high expectations.
Correctme if I'm wrong, just taking what I remember hearing in like 2011
Valve has a lot of problems, but living up to expectations I personally can't call one of them.
There's probably a lot of different and evolving reasons for this delay, from new technologies and shooter design conventions to evolving their own storytelling and considering the direction of close rivals like the entirety of the Bioshock series. The success of HL2 also led to aspects of it being copied so frequently they've become dull instead of new and exciting, thus not being able to provide the experience they might want to deliver.
I also bet it was fun for the team to work on DOTA after having worked on so many FPS for so long.
I could totally see a dev commentary node in the far future explaining how they wanted to build everything about biofeedback, then they realized it wouldn't be market-ready and scrapped everything, then Oculus and Kinect2 caused them to rethink that again and dig up old stuff and scrap new code etc. And there's also Source 2 and the Steam Box. You see where I'm going with this.
By this time I'm fairly sure we're gonna get more than Episode 3. Episode 3 is bound by being the final piece of a trilogy, you can only change so much before it feels really out of place. I imagine we could be getting an Episode 3 that's not so different from the rest of its "family", and then a HL3 which recycles a lot of the new stuff originally planned for Episode 3.
That doesn't mean Episode 3's unimportant of course, GMan's suggesting there's an entire intergalactic agency out there employing player character shells like Gordon "Free"man. That almost sounds like MMO potential. Who the heck knows what our WoW-loving Gabe's up to.
[QUOTE=Im Crimson;40969540]I consider Half-Life the greatest thing to happen to the videogame industry in the history of time but I think you're overestimating it's relevance in today's mainstream gaming market. Half-Life 2 was released over 8 years ago; Half-Life fans are a minority of today's gaming community. The series is a massive thing to you and me but that doesn't go for everyone any longer. The time when HL2 was new and revolutionary is long gone. Facepunch certainly wouldn't be alive were it not for Half-Life but we're not representative of the entire gaming community. I'd be surprised if even a third of the world's gamers today knew what Half-Life is.[/QUOTE]
To be fair, the reason why HL2's largely unspectacular today is because its design choices have seeped through other games so thoroughly we don't notice them anymore. "Revolutionary" is a fickle term when CoD sings praises to its fish AI, but HL2 still does a lot of little things new games haven't "caught up" with (NPCs properly maintaining eye contact, eye "language" in general since you can't easily mocap it) and a lot of big things (fighting combat fatigue, linearity that flows instead of feeling restrictive, environmental interactions from grav gun fights to seeeesaaaaw puuuzzleees).
[QUOTE=TurtleeyFP;40967104]Really, to be completely honest, what could they do that would be original? Everybody's making "shoot these aliens" games nowadays. The only thing unique about Half Life's mechanics in this era is being able to walk around in a cutscene and physics puzzles. There's nothing revolutionary to be found in shooter games anymore; what are they gonna do, invent a new genre?[/QUOTE]
The general atmosphere and storytelling in the game is what made it unique.
[QUOTE=Marik Bentusi;40969676]
To be fair, the reason why HL2's largely unspectacular today is because its design choices have seeped through other games so thoroughly we don't notice them anymore. "Revolutionary" is a fickle term when CoD sings praises to its fish AI, but HL2 still does a lot of little things new games haven't "caught up" with (NPCs properly maintaining eye contact, eye "language" in general since you can't easily mocap it) and a lot of big things (fighting combat fatigue, linearity that flows instead of feeling restrictive, environmental interactions from grav gun fights to seeeesaaaaw puuuzzleees).[/QUOTE]
Oh, I know Half-Life is pretty much suffering from the Seinfeld syndrome. What I'm mainly getting at is the relevance of the brand in today's market. Yonks have passed since Half-Life was "the" shooter game and the franchise isn't a market-killer now as much as it was back then, meaning that there isn't necessarily massive amounts of money to be made by focusing on Half-Life instead of, say, TF2 or DOTA2.
I don't doubt Valve's ability to make the next Half-Life installment an absolute juggernaut of awesome, but saying that HL3/EP3 should me made because it would automatically surpass other popular franchises through recognition in today's market rings of overconfidence/fanboyism.
EDIT:
To answer the poll question; no. I'd be perfectly happy with an EP3/HL3 that follows the same Half-Life formula that has been working out well for every game so far in the series, just so we could wrap up the story and get a sense of closure. I'm hoping that they can get the ball rolling on a brand new innovative flavor of Half-Life however.
i think the most innovative thing they could do at this point is a dynamic and realistic first person view sex scene
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