Game Informer does an interview with an anonymous Valve employee on HL3 - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Loadingue;51659167]I hope at some point Gabe Newell will realize how fucked things are and ask the teams to make HL3 for real, and maybe issue a public apology or something. Maybe this article could be the wake-up call. As you can tell, I'm kind of an optimist.[/QUOTE] I'd rather they just made a comic about it and got it over with if they don't have some sort of groundbreaking gameplay feature to make it worthwhile as a game, but they obviously don't have a story for HL3 either so might as well give it up

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659160]This is some battered wife type shit right here[/QUOTE] I'm just saying I'd rather them do nothing than release a boring reskinned Episode 2 like EA or something would've done. Valve came to the same conclusion.

It's like when someone calls you, and you know you're supposed to call them back but you really don't want to right now, so you put it off and put it off until eventually you realize that you still need to call back but now it's so awkward because you know they're going to be like "what the fuck why did you take a month to call me back" and so you wait longer and it gets more and more awkward and impossible for you to do only it's happening to an entire company this is ridiculous and it's like the goal post gets shifted and you're made to think of things that shouldn't actually be a problem as being problems and impossible they make you feel like if they made themselves do it well it would obviously come out uninspired and you wouldn't like it but no? that's how game companies work, and the game industry can regularly pump out a great game or a great sequel regardless of whether or not the individual employees feel ~inspired~ to make it before they start Halo 2, Silent Hill 2, GTA V, Hitman Blood Money, Majora's Mask, all great sequels, all great games, [I]and[/I] they also didn't sit on their hands worrying about whether or not everyone felt like it. They did it because they had to, they were told to, it wasn't an option, and they made it good.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659152]Maybe not. Maybe it's for the best. In any other company, the top brass would say "Alright, you're making Half-Life 3 now," and then the team assigned to it would be forced to shit out some bland, uninspired, poorly-thought-out rubbish. In any other company, Half-Life would be like a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed annual snoozefest. Valve is slow to wake or get excited about something, but when they do they usually put out top-notch games, among the most successful or popular in the world. If Valve couldn't get excited about making the next great FPS in Half-Life 3 or Episode 3 or what have you, it's probably for the best to let it die. It wouldn't be up to par and we would all be disappointed.[/QUOTE] Pretty much every game ever has had people on its team who were only interested in the game professionally. If only people who are truly in love with a concept are working on something, in this day and age where it takes huge dev teams to get the ball rolling, then it's just not going to go anywhere period. I don't watch many behind the scenes footage for video games but one I did enjoy was the making of Perfect Dark. PD64 (and Goldeneye, for that matter) are classics, and though there were plenty of people who were truly in love with the idea, many (maybe most) were there because it's their job. They made it a point that to fill a lot of roles, especially with voice actors and faces, they just grabbed whoever was cheaply and freely available. And even though not everyone was passionate, or even gave a shit at all, about the project the end result was still games that ~20 years later are still worth playing. The point being that Valve is a unique case and most games are made by people with varying degrees of interest, and yet we still have great games. Not being 100% interested in something doesnt mean the end product won't be good. Valve's structure is nice on paper but they lack cohesiveness and in the end it just means that they all fall into their own little niche, without the drive to do anything new, and projects like the numerous stated by the interviewee die from lack of interest when, if all the employees were brought together under an actual structure and encouraged to work on things outside their comfort zone, we'd probably already have HL3 and L4D3 and whatever else.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659184]I'm just saying I'd rather them do nothing than release a boring reskinned Episode 2 like EA or something would've done. Valve came to the same conclusion.[/QUOTE] But there's nothing wrong with EP2 and if HL3/EP3 was more of the same .... So? All the HL games are the same. Since when did 3 need to herald some innovation in gaming? All it has to do is wrap up the story. Valve can make a solid FPS and that's all HL3 has to be, and I'd bet they'd sell a million copies on the name alone.

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659113]Valve sounds absolutely retarded from that interview.[/QUOTE] Not really. Their working philosophy has just as many up- and downsides as any other working philosophy, the up- and downsides themselves are simply different. It's good that the people are able to work on whatever they want and for as long as they want, exchanging concepts and ideas, the downside is just that often promising sounding projects don't lift off and are put on ice or completely abandoned.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659184]I'm just saying I'd rather them do nothing than release a boring reskinned Episode 2 like EA or something would've done. Valve came to the same conclusion.[/QUOTE] Pretty much. HL2, Ep1 and Ep2 were really good games, maybe not my favorite but I can understand the massive hurdle of improving upon the game and it's formula in any meaning amount and way for it to be considered a real sequel and it still be a true half-life game.

To be honest I don't care if they already cancelled the game, I just want some closure instead of never mentioning the game again.

Tbh i'd rather them just release a design doc wrapping up the story, loose ends, and maybe some concepts. At this point, if we ever get an HL3, it'll never live up to the past ten years of mystery. It just won't have the payoff we all need at this point and even the most die-hard Half-Life fan knows this.

I think there's still hope. The one thing that's common among all Valve's games is technology. Each new game is usually based on a single underlying new tech thst always blows people away when it's introduced. At this point I think once there's a sufficiently exciting new development in facial animation/lighting/first person experience, it will be enough to motivate Valve into development of something new. This time the pressure is probably going to come from a third party, probably a competitor or even a different industry, like film. Time will tell what this ends up being.

[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;51659192]Halo 2, Silent Hill 2, GTA V, Hitman Blood Money, Majora's Mask, all great sequels, all great games, [I]and[/I] they also didn't sit on their hands worrying about whether or not everyone felt like it. They did it because they had to, they were told to, it wasn't an option, and they made it good.[/QUOTE] Silent Hill: Homecoming, Hitman: Absolution, Batman: Arkham Knight. Games with horrible issues and/or awful gameplay made when the people making them just didn't give a shit. It cuts both ways. I'm not here to defend Valve's sacred honor here, only point out that different business models can work. The flat structure can work for Valve and allow them to create masterpieces lile Half-Life 2 or Portal 2, or it can fail by not allowing Half-Life 3 to happen, perhaps for good reason, or failures in communication. Traditional companies can succeed by making masterpieces like what you mentionsd or failures like I mentioned. My ultimate point is that Valve is different, and its failings does not mean the whole damn company needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. I don't hear people complaining that Nintendo or EA or Ubisoft should restructure like Valve when they screw up as bad or worse.

Nobody is claiming valve needs to be destroyed lol

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659197]But there's nothing wrong with EP2 and if HL3/EP3 was more of the same .... So? All the HL games are the same. Since when did 3 need to herald some innovation in gaming? All it has to do is wrap up the story. Valve can make a solid FPS and that's all HL3 has to be, and I'd bet they'd sell a million copies on the name alone.[/QUOTE] Honestly it would be pretty dated and boring today. Maybe 9 years ago, but not today. Also, Valve was never going to end the Half-Life story. One of their big shots mentioned it in an interview, I forget where, but basically said "Yeah even when we made Half-Life 1 and ended it on a cliff hanger, we had no plans for a sequel until years later." He went on to explain that Episode 2 was the same idea, and if Half-Life 3 were to hit today it would pretty much absolutely end in a cliff hanger. The Half-Life story will never end, sequel or no sequel.

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659242]Nobody is claiming valve needs to be destroyed lol[/QUOTE] It just seems to be the implication of the concencus here; Valve's model is a failure, Half-Life 3 is evidence of this, and Valve needs to drop its entire flat business structure and go traditional.

[QUOTE=Lolkork;51659126][url]http://store.steampowered.com/sale/2016_top_sellers/[/url][/QUOTE] Cool. CS:GO and Dota 2 sell like hotcakes. And Im willing to bet if they did this last year, they would also be on the top. I strongly doubt Fallout 4 will be on next year's top at all. But I expect Dota 2 will be.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659244]Honestly it would be pretty dated and boring today. Maybe 9 years ago, but not today. Also, Valve was never going to end the Half-Life story. One of their big shots mentioned it in an interview, I forget where, but basically said "Yeah even when we made Half-Life 1 and ended it on a cliff hanger, we had no plans for a sequel until years later." He went on to explain that Episode 2 was the same idea, and if Half-Life 3 were to hit today it would pretty much absolutely end in a cliff hanger. The Half-Life story will never end, sequel or no sequel.[/QUOTE] I disagree. EP2 is still fun to play. I want more of it. I bet lots of other people will agree.

I'd want them to explore some more original ideas but the core gameplay is great. But it'd be cool if you didn't have the Gravity Gun and instead had something different. And they had less physics based puzzles and instead new types of puzzles. The shooting should still be Quake-like but new weapons would be cool.

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659257]I disagree. EP2 is still fun to play. I want more of it. I bet lots of other people will agree.[/QUOTE] It's still fun in the same way Deus Ex is still fun. My favorite game of all time, can still play it today happily, but if they released a new game with the same exact engine and the same exact mechanics with new maps and a new script it wouldn't fly at all. [editline]12th January 2017[/editline] There was actually that competently made mod made not too long ago, a side story to Half-Life 2, that Valve sanctioned for release on Steam. The maps were fine but it was just... Half-Life 2 again. It didn't do so well because it was stale. Though I guess meanwhile Black Mesa knew to switch up just enough to make it fresh in both levels and mechanics so I suppose Valve could just do that.

i baffles me that valve has the environment where you can just work on whatever project and other people interested can contribute, but no one has started a new half-life project and saw it through to the end.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659264]It's still fun in the same way Deus Ex is still fun. My favorite game of all time, can still play it today happily, but if they released a new game with the same exact engine and the same exact mechanics with new maps and a new script it wouldn't fly at all.[/QUOTE] Well... They wouldn't be using the exact same engine obv. They do have a source 2. So new game with new/improved engine, new maps, new script, and the Same award winning gameplay that put half life and valve on the map? Sounds like a winner to me.

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659257]I disagree. EP2 is still fun to play. I want more of it. I bet lots of other people will agree.[/QUOTE] Half-Life fans would agree. Meanwhile, for the rest of the world it would be a very dated experience. Even right after its release EP2 was viewed by many as just a holding pattern leading up to a grand finale. We've had nothing but "more of the same" since 2004 and at this point it isn't the kind of sequel the series deserves and definitely not something a team at Valve would be particularly excited to make.

[QUOTE=Im Crimson;51659278]Half-Life fans will agree, for the rest of the world it would be a very dated experience. Even right after its release EP2 was viewed by many as just a holding pattern leading up to a grand finale. We've had nothing but "more of the same" since 2004 and this point it isn't the kind of sequel the series deserves and definitely not something a team at Valve would be particularly excited to make.[/QUOTE] This is kinda what I've been getting at. It wouldn't fly as a major release anymore.

So no sequel is better than a sequel that's too similar to the previous beloved entries in the series. Alright.

Also keeping in mind that this interview is nearly two years old, I'm keeping up some hope. My pet theory is that they're grooming the Black Mesa guys to just take over and do whatever they want with HL3. But, who am I kidding? Certainly not myself.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659152]Maybe not. Maybe it's for the best. In any other company, the top brass would say "Alright, you're making Half-Life 3 now," and then the team assigned to it would be forced to shit out some bland, uninspired, poorly-thought-out rubbish. In any other company, Half-Life would be like a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed annual snoozefest. Valve is slow to wake or get excited about something, but when they do they usually put out top-notch games, among the most successful or popular in the world. If Valve couldn't get excited about making the next great FPS in Half-Life 3 or Episode 3 or what have you, it's probably for the best to let it die. It wouldn't be up to par and we would all be disappointed.[/QUOTE] 'Alright, you're making (x) now' is exactly how they made the first two Half-Life games. It's exactly how every other AAA company makes their games. It's how other contemporary, successful single-player sequels, like Witcher 3 or Fallout 4, have been produced. In a competent company, the management says 'Alright, you're making Half-Life 3 now', and the rest of the development chain from the project lead to the managers to the individual programmers put in their best to develop something good. I don't think the nonexistence of Half-Life 3 has anything to do with the developers not being able to make a good game if someone's telling them to, I think it has everything to do with the lack of leadership at Valve to commit to a large-scale project. I've been saying it for years, the current structure of the company lends itself to a mix of projects that produce maximum profit for minimal work, and functioning more like a bohemian art house than a focused studio. You need strong leadership to coordinate a large project and give the workers direction. This 'just do whatever you feel like' mentality is why Valve has spent the past ten years producing basically nothing new, just sequels and derivations of prior work.

[QUOTE=Jackald;51659296]That's a false dichotomy and you know it lol[/QUOTE] Seeing as how HL3 doesn't seem to be in development, I don't think it is.

[QUOTE=Nautsabes;51659286]So no sequel is better than a sequel that's too similar to the previous beloved entries in the series. Alright.[/QUOTE] Keeping in mind what they said before about the never-ending nature of the HL narrative, yeah kinda. Sequels for the sake of just having a sequel usually goes poorly.

I'm just happy for some [i]closure[/i] after 10 years of silence.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;51659308]Keeping in mind what they said before about the never-ending nature of the HL narrative, yeah kinda. Sequels for the sake of just having a sequel usually goes poorly.[/QUOTE] I've never heard that before. Could you share a source so that I may educate myself?

[QUOTE=catbarf;51659301] You need strong leadership to coordinate a large project and give the workers direction. This 'just do whatever you feel like' mentality is why Valve has spent the past ten years producing basically nothing new, just sequels and derivations of prior work.[/QUOTE] And if they're an industry leader raking in money, why is that a bad thing? It's not anti-consumer or unethical, people are buying those derivations because they like them. [QUOTE=catbarf;51659301] 'Alright, you're making (x) now' is exactly how they made the first two Half-Life games. It's exactly how every other AAA company makes their games. It's how other contemporary, successful single-player sequels, like Witcher 3 or Fallout 4, have been produced.[/QUOTE] It's also how every videogame ever is produced, including all the bad ones. Remember the bad AAA games that came out? They were forced to make something without passion and rush to meet a deadline without QA or bugtesting? Remember him? [t]https://media0dk-a.akamaihd.net/82/76/e702fbec9c74a86807ebf27eebf92c81.jpg[/t]