toblix

Half-Life 3

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I like how they begin saying "bear with us, I know this sounds ludicrous" even though I alread believed the ideas behind the rumour.

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The talk of upper management makes me doubt the rumour. The only upper management is basically Gabe Newell, and while he does occassionally order how things should be done (like when he tried to figure out how to best make a Portal sequel), this is not how he regularly runs the company. And since basically he is the only upper management, it seems weird that the "source" doesn't mention him by name.

Also the rumor makes it sound like HL3 never left pre-production, which seems ludicrous. That the script is already finished sounds like they wanted to make a movie? A script for a video game is made in tandem with the design, not put before it. Especially at a company with a collaborative design ethos like Valve has! And most damningly, nothing that is part of the rumor isn't something that I couldn't have pulled out of my own ass. There's nothing uniquely specific about it.

 

And:

 

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From here.

 

 

Anyway, NeoGAF has already a good ol' 12 pages long freakout about it. My favorite from the thread is this picture:

 

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Ah I've thought this for years. HL3 will never live up to expectations and so they shouldn't bother making and releasing it. It really isn't worth the backlash.

Although, it is a shame that they aren't instead making a new different single player IP :( with that amount of money and talent it's absolutely criminal. In these past ten years we could be on the third instalment of a franchise to rival halo and uncharted by now. Fuck half Life 3!

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Hmm, well there's a certain degree of plausibility to it but I think that the Marc Laidlaw e-mails make a good point, valve have never been that worried about being unpopular or taking risks. Steam is so established at this point that it would take a lot more than a disappointing game to significantly impact that.

 

Ah I've thought this for years. HL3 will never live up to expectations and so they shouldn't bother making and releasing it. It really isn't worth the backlash.

Although, it is a shame that they aren't instead making a new different single player IP :( with that amount of money and talent it's absolutely criminal. In these past ten years we could be on the third instalment of a franchise to rival halo and uncharted by now. Fuck half Life 3!

 

Yeah, I'm ok with there not being a HL3 but it's a damn shame that Valve aren't making single player or story driven games at the moment.

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For a few minutes it sounded plausible, but then made me think about it... well Valve is independent enough that feelings like this could contribute to major decisions, but I doubt not being able to make Half-Life 3 perfect is the one single thing they would fear gamers would direct their anger at. The parallel drawn to Mass Effect 3 also seems to rely most on both having the number 3 in them and people's numerologic tendencies. I mean, haven't there already been cases where gamers get angry at Valve over some Steam stuff?

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Yeah, I'm ok with there not being a HL3 but it's a damn shame that Valve aren't making single player or story driven games at the moment.

 

Upthread I said that I believed that Valve will never release any game ever again.  This video is yet more evidence!

 

Also I like how they avoided mentioning a certain hashtag movement when describing the awful behavior of gamers.  And that their source believes that fellatio metaphors are universally applicable to all Half-Life fans.

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They're for sure going to release a new Left 4 Dead.

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But also while I understand that these guys have broken some hot scoops before, this one just doesn't feel very...likely. At least, I don't feel like valve would be afraid of bad reactions. I wouldn't be surprised if I never saw half life 3, but not for the reasons in this video.

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The talk of upper management makes me doubt the rumour. The only upper management is basically Gabe Newell, and while he does occassionally order how things should be done (like when he tried to figure out how to best make a Portal sequel), this is not how he regularly runs the company. And since basically he is the only upper management, it seems weird that the "source" doesn't mention him by name.

That's true but that doesn't mean it isn't cliquey as all hell, which, based on reports from people who've left Valve, it definitely is. So, "upper management" might not necessarily mean "the people who are paid to be in charge" so much as "the people who are in charge because that's the way it is".

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That's true but that doesn't mean it isn't cliquey as all hell, which, based on reports from people who've left Valve, it definitely is. So, "upper management" might not necessarily mean "the people who are paid to be in charge" so much as "the people who are in charge because that's the way it is".

 

Yeah, everything points to Valve not operating as the utopian, egalitarian, corporate society that some want to believe it is. 

 

There still may be something to the idea of not being able to deliver the perfect game though, not so much as a company, but just from an individual perspective.  Who wants to be the lead writer or director on a game that is so likely to draw a massive amount of fire?  Unless you're just inspired as hell, is it worth watching your social media accounts devolve into an angry, bitter, gaming maelstrom of hate for a few weeks/months?  I mean, if I had the choice to lead HL3, or just make any other project, I might personally go with any other project. 

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There still may be something to the idea of not being able to deliver the perfect game though, not so much as a company, but just from an individual perspective. Who wants to be the lead writer or director on a game that is so likely to draw a massive amount of fire? Unless you're just inspired as hell, is it worth watching your social media accounts devolve into an angry, bitter, gaming maelstrom of hate for a few weeks/months? I mean, if I had the choice to lead HL3, or just make any other project, I might personally go with any other project.

This has always been my assumption as to why HL3 has never happened. Since at Valve most people are supposed to get to choose their project, I don't know why anyone would choose to be on such a lose-lose endeavour.

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Because it's exciting? Because it's the thing you want to make? Not everyone is so worried about reactions. Especially at Valve they seem to have a chill way of reacting to controversies.

 

And that there's a social hierarchy at Valve: I'm aware of that. One ex-employee, iirc, compared it to high school. But there's that and there's the way the supposed source describes a moment which makes it sound like higher ups at Valve had a boardroom meeting to decide about HL3's future. Correct me if I'm wrong!

Also, the recount of HL3's development seems to leave out important details. We know it must have started out as Episode 3, and development on Episode 3 started with the same people that worked on Episode 1, in tandem with Episode 2's development. The recount doesn't even mention how and why Episode 3 became HL3.

I dunno, believe what you want, but this sounds far too sketchy for me.

 

I agree with Twig: I wouldn't be surprised if HL3 never comes out, but I don't think it will be for the reasons mentioned in the video.

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hahahah, I was at the panel where the question was asked. I love that there is absolutely no answer the guy from Valve could have given that couldn't be interpreted as "HL3 is happening" except if he just went out and said "HL3 is not happening".

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Technically the phrase "hl3 is not going to be vr" is true even if hl3 is never made.

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HL3 is not going to be a VR game

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Quite. Surely at this point, for a game of that standing to not be a VR game either natively or through community modification, it'd have to be released only when VR has become obselete.

Unless he's saying that HL3 is already out?

Frog Fractions?

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For some reason I started thinking about Codename Gordon recently. turns out there is still a way to install in on steam even though it has been removed. enter steam://install/92 into a browser and it will download. I hadn't realized the publishes website lapsed and was turned into a scam site, such an odd early bit of Half Life 2 and steam history.

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Ha, I joked that Brad might be going to Valve when he said he was moving to Seattle. That's a bummer, I guess we'll never see another game from him. That's both a joke at Valve never releasing games and also a serious and sad comment that, if anything, he'll have a credit on a Valve game, but it won't be "from him" in the same way that smaller DF games are.

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