toblix

Half-Life 3

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Doesn't Valve typically announce stuff by having an intricate ARG and then a new web site? When did they last announce a new game on some convention/keynote?

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I like it when Valve is super blunt in its public communication. I used to be on their press list, and I'd get emails from Doug Lombardi which were always super concise and direct, as opposed to the painfully drawn out and poorly-written press releases of most game companies.

Were that email account still active I'd be refreshing waiting for an email like this:

Subject: Half-Life 3 Announcement

Body: We'll be showing Half-Life 3 at gamescom. Contact so-and-so to schedule an appointment to see it.

Fuck ARGs and all other sorts of "viral marketing." Let's hope they don't do that.

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I kind of want this it be false because I really enjoy watching the die-hard fan squirm at the mention of an announcement. Would be a hell of a way to end a console's life cycle though.

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I like it when Valve is super blunt in its public communication. I used to be on their press list, and I'd get emails from Doug Lombardi which were always super concise and direct, as opposed to the painfully drawn out and poorly-written press releases of most game companies.

Were that email account still active I'd be refreshing waiting for an email like this:

Subject: Half-Life 3 Announcement

Body: We'll be showing Half-Life 3 at gamescom. Contact so-and-so to schedule an appointment to see it.

Fuck ARGs and all other sorts of "viral marketing." Let's hope they don't do that.

I'll carry my own torch and say: Valve ARGs are awesome :tup:

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I'll carry my own torch and say: Valve ARGs are awesome :tup:

Mos def! It probably helps that I'm invested in Valve as a company. You might call me a... fanboy.

But basically, I've never been disappointed with a Valve product (except Steam can be a bit fucking clunky at times), so whatever they do, I always find myself drawn in. U:

but lol hl3 ain't never happenin'

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I always figured they had no real reason to do HL3 because they've kind of said all they had to say with single-player first person shooters, much as I miss the company that put so much effort into developing storytelling techniques in an interactive medium.

Ah well, I'm kind of on the outs with Steam as it is, thanks to not being willing to agree to the new subscriber agreement that waives my right to a class action. Valve as a developer are highly entertaining, but I have significant reservations with Steam's resolution process as it is, particularly how it seems the only real appeal process is to convince the enthusiast press to write about you. I don't want to sign away any legal recourses, particularly ones designed to punish corporations that get a little too big for their britches, until I determine whether or not I have other, also suitable options. (It's just occured to me, though, that any significant problem I have might attract the attention of the ACCC. There's nothing in the contract about bringing Valve to the attention of a consumer watchdog with a taste for corporate blood and an inability to feel fear or remorse.)

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Never been sure why people are so willing to play a third Half-Life after the first two were nothing more than technically impressive shooters.

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I liked the half life series a lot, but honestly I find pretty much every other game they do, other than counterstrike, to be far more interesting. I'm fairly indifferent if they ever release another installment or not.

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Maybe you'll find your answer here. Or hereif you can stand spoilers.

Having played them, they're not great. The story is middling, with interesting bits (GMan, Vortigaunts, Ravenholm), the gunplay is passable but not great, and while technically impressive in ways, the speedboat section of 2 serves to point out some nasty flaws in the Source build of the time. They're not that good. In fact I seem to remember us discussing this before with pretty much the same talking points on both sides.

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Not going to change your mind, but I like the HL games for the art and atmosphere. I get enough enjoyment simply walking through the environments to justify saying the game is incredible.

And they aren't that technically impressive at this point, yet the atmosphere still holds up.

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I can give you that. The first vista of City 17 when you walk out of the, what can you call it, customs facility, intake facility? Either way, it's pretty great. But atmosphere alone isn't enough to justify this craven lust some of the internet seems to possess for Half Life.

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I can give you that. The first vista of City 17 when you walk out of the, what can you call it, customs facility, intake facility? Either way, it's pretty great. But atmosphere alone isn't enough to justify this craven lust some of the internet seems to possess for Half Life.

I'm not sure it's really up to you (or up to anyone except each individual person) to decide what level of [thing that they enjoy] justifies what level of "craven lust" (whatever that means) that they choose to have for a video game. I mean, you apparently like video games with atmosphere, but not enough to make you like Half-Life 2 as much as most people. Does that mean they're really unjustified in enjoying the games as much as they do? Or does it just mean they place a greater emphasis on, and thus derive more enjoyment from, things that you don't find as impressive?

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It's true, people will lust for what they lust for. And the internet helps focus fanboy hype into a fine supercharged beam. The main thing that rankles me is the elitism that comes along with being a Half Life fanboy. That no other shooter or company ever has come close or will ever to the quality of that franchise. So you have Half-Life related threads starting up over gossamer filaments of hype when much more interesting and concrete shooters (like Dishonored or Bioshock Infinite) are barely discussed. Not to say that this site has that problem by a long shot. But it's my gut feeling when the cries of a thousand nerds rise up only to be silenced when whatever fake-news turns out to be false.

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Half Life 1 is probably in my top 5 games of all time. HL2 I liked a lot less, though I still thought it was good, but honestly I've never gotten why people get so worked up over HL3, I don't really care if Valve ever make it and when they do I won't get excited for it, though I will still play it at some point. I'd much rather Valve keeps making new stuff that isn't Half Life, they've been doing a good job at it.

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Tycho, youmeyou is talking about more what I meant by "craven lust for HL3". While it's not exactly a good metric for me to be fairly unimpressed by the games and then confused as to why people like them so much, the fact that the internet at large basically hears any hint of HL3 and erupts in speculation, hype and frothing hatred that is isn't true just seems foolish to me. It happens every time, and it's been happening for years. Even the most unsubstantiated things get picked up and posted on places like PCG and RPS. Liking a game more than I do is fine, more power to you, but the stuff that happens anything HL3 is even hinted at in an official capacity is tiresome.

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I think that's mostly just because there's a mix of "very popular" and "no information available." It's a series that a ton of people like because it has wide appeal, so it makes sense that it gets a lot of attention when news about it comes out, but news about it NEVER comes out. We go YEARS without hearing ANYTHING about Half-Life. I think that's why people jump all over it. If better games than Half-Life handled news like Half-Life, people would jump all over every morsel of information about them too. That basically never happens because as soon as a game takes off enough to become a franchise, publishers pimp the sequel endlessly with constant barrages of screenshots/trailers/press releases at carefully timed intervals to keep the game constantly in the limelight. The Half-Life series doesn't do that, so people swarm over whatever tidbits they get.

youmeyou's example of Infinite and Dishonored shows what I mean. People DID go nuts for Infinite when it was first announced, and there hasn't been a media release since that hasn't been widely covered. Imagine if instead of that, we had been waiting for 5 years since the last news of BioShock, and nobody was even sure if they were working on a new BioShock game, then someone accidentally put "BioShock 3" on some list somewhere. The Internet would explode! Dishonored, meanwhile, doesn't have a rabid fanbase because it hasn't even come out yet and only 4 people played and loved Arx Fatalis.

Also, Half-Life ended on a MASSIVE cliffhanger and it also ended 2/3rds of the way through a planned trilogy. So in terms of having hype built up, I think it's pretty understandable why people would jump all over Half-Life news even if it's not the best game ever made in the history of forever.

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I think TychoCelchuu nailed it. As for why people like/dislike the Half Life series at all; see the previous threads that Toblix linked to.

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I just fabricatedheard rumors that Half-Life 3 is going to be announced at PAX<insert next game convention after Gamescom>.

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