Wake up, Mister Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes.
August 24, 2017 10:34 PM Subscribe
The Half-Life series is no stranger to delays, enigmatic disappearances, and sudden reappearances. So it's fitting that the (likely) final chapter of the franchise, delayed now for years and involving an enigmatic ship that disappears and reappears without rhyme or reason, should finally be revealed in perhaps the least likely manner imaginable: not via the long-anticipated announcement of a new game, but unceremoniously published as a plot summary on the former head writer's personal blog (spoiler warning for the non-existent Half-Life 2: Episode 3). Pastebin archive, with all names translated into their assumed Half-Life counterparts.
The publication of the obfuscated plot summary heavily implies that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 (and/or Half-Life 3) is no longer in development and will never be released in a form that resembles whatever material Marc Laidlaw wrote for the game, thus bringing the franchise's tortured development history to an unfortunate end.
The original Half-Life garnered its share of snide remarks before its release in November 1998, a year after its originally announced release date. But that one-year delay seems almost quaint now, given the five-year development period for its sequel. This time, Valve not only had to deal with its own development challenges, but also a hacker leaking an early version of the game's source code to the internet. On top of all that, Valve president Gabe Newell had promised the game would ship on September 30, 2003 right up until the eleventh hour, all the while knowing the game couldn't meet the date but not knowing how to tell fans and critics about the delay. Half-Life 2 didn't launch until late 2004, once again to critical acclaim.
Not long after Half-Life 2's release, Valve embarked on an ambitious experiment in episodic development, telling the story of what happened immediately after the events of Half-Life 2 in a series of shorter games. Designed in part to avoid the lengthy periods between full game releases, and also to showcase improvements to the Source game engine, the first two episodes were released in 2006 and 2007 to rave reviews. Anticipation of a third episode was driven by Episode 2's emotional cliffhanger ending, a loose end that would be left hanging for nearly a decade. Laidlaw's blog post, assuming this isn't a joke or the beginning of a particularly cruel viral campaign, seems to tie up that loose end in a rather unexpected manner.
The publication of the obfuscated plot summary heavily implies that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 (and/or Half-Life 3) is no longer in development and will never be released in a form that resembles whatever material Marc Laidlaw wrote for the game, thus bringing the franchise's tortured development history to an unfortunate end.
The original Half-Life garnered its share of snide remarks before its release in November 1998, a year after its originally announced release date. But that one-year delay seems almost quaint now, given the five-year development period for its sequel. This time, Valve not only had to deal with its own development challenges, but also a hacker leaking an early version of the game's source code to the internet. On top of all that, Valve president Gabe Newell had promised the game would ship on September 30, 2003 right up until the eleventh hour, all the while knowing the game couldn't meet the date but not knowing how to tell fans and critics about the delay. Half-Life 2 didn't launch until late 2004, once again to critical acclaim.
Not long after Half-Life 2's release, Valve embarked on an ambitious experiment in episodic development, telling the story of what happened immediately after the events of Half-Life 2 in a series of shorter games. Designed in part to avoid the lengthy periods between full game releases, and also to showcase improvements to the Source game engine, the first two episodes were released in 2006 and 2007 to rave reviews. Anticipation of a third episode was driven by Episode 2's emotional cliffhanger ending, a loose end that would be left hanging for nearly a decade. Laidlaw's blog post, assuming this isn't a joke or the beginning of a particularly cruel viral campaign, seems to tie up that loose end in a rather unexpected manner.
The Half-Life series is no stranger to delays,
Starting a post like that is extremely unfair! My poor 175 yr old heart.
posted by figurant at 10:57 PM on August 24, 2017 [13 favorites]
Starting a post like that is extremely unfair! My poor 175 yr old heart.
posted by figurant at 10:57 PM on August 24, 2017 [13 favorites]
I want Eli back. More precisely, I believe every video game would be improved with the addition of Robert Guillaume somewhere.
posted by zachlipton at 11:22 PM on August 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by zachlipton at 11:22 PM on August 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
Gordon Freeman writes like the G-Man speaks. If that's Freeman's personal future, after years of being pulled to and fro through time, I could totally see that transformation happening. The manipulated becomes the manipulator.
Neat way of twisting Gordon's muteness, at least if that was intentional.
posted by lumensimus at 11:32 PM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Neat way of twisting Gordon's muteness, at least if that was intentional.
posted by lumensimus at 11:32 PM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
As a former fan of Valve, it's bittersweet to read that. It's nice to get moderate closure, but it makes me wish that they had continued to go down the route of single player games instead of realizing that they could make much more money by bringing gambling to children.
Thanks for posting this.
posted by No One Ever Does at 11:40 PM on August 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
Thanks for posting this.
posted by No One Ever Does at 11:40 PM on August 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
No comment.
posted by adept256 at 11:54 PM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 11:54 PM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
The first link in this post is timing out.
posted by christopherious at 11:59 PM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by christopherious at 11:59 PM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Starting a post like that is extremely unfair! My poor 175 yr old heart.
Hear, hear! I had just a millisecond of hope there, then it was snatched away.
posted by Harald74 at 12:12 AM on August 25, 2017
Hear, hear! I had just a millisecond of hope there, then it was snatched away.
posted by Harald74 at 12:12 AM on August 25, 2017
It's timing out because publishing what was the be the plot for the end of the Half-Life series might be enough to knock a website offline.
I think my only hope for the end of Half-Life was to try and fix the deus ex machina of the G-Man, and I see it would have gone unresolved. It's sort of silly that this is what people have been obsessing over for ten years, really. Half-Life was an important game, one of the handful of games that codified the "Western" school of game design - don't take away control from the player, deliver story in world, have the world act on itself in the same way that the player can - but with hindsight, the standards for game stories are so much better now it's not funny.
posted by Merus at 12:45 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
I think my only hope for the end of Half-Life was to try and fix the deus ex machina of the G-Man, and I see it would have gone unresolved. It's sort of silly that this is what people have been obsessing over for ten years, really. Half-Life was an important game, one of the handful of games that codified the "Western" school of game design - don't take away control from the player, deliver story in world, have the world act on itself in the same way that the player can - but with hindsight, the standards for game stories are so much better now it's not funny.
posted by Merus at 12:45 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'm more amused than I should be by Laidlaw's gender flip of all the characters.
I assume it's just a very early proposal, because it doesn't sound like a fun game. It doesn't sound like there's much to do, and the plot of the series is actually set back. (I like the idea of the Dyson sphere, but the Combine were already super-powerful; why make them near-omnipotent?)
posted by zompist at 2:18 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I assume it's just a very early proposal, because it doesn't sound like a fun game. It doesn't sound like there's much to do, and the plot of the series is actually set back. (I like the idea of the Dyson sphere, but the Combine were already super-powerful; why make them near-omnipotent?)
posted by zompist at 2:18 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Welp, revenge was taken, I guess. My friend tossed this to me in Telegram right before he turned in and I started Overwatch tonight.
So, TAKE THAT, VALVE?
posted by Samizdata at 2:40 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
So, TAKE THAT, VALVE?
posted by Samizdata at 2:40 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also, rather pissed it looks like we will never see a wrap up of the G-Man's back story.
posted by Samizdata at 2:59 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Samizdata at 2:59 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
WHEN IS THE LEAK OF HL3:E1???
posted by Artw at 3:00 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 3:00 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
The guy who did the original Freeman's Mind has started on Freeman's Mind 2, in which the morbidly peevish theoretical physicist Dr Gordon Freeman discovers that he is not in Hawaii. I think it's up to episode 3. Does that help?
posted by um at 3:44 AM on August 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by um at 3:44 AM on August 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
Google Cache, at least.
Thank you for that, crysflame. I work in an office that blocks almost every link in the post (and the rest are timing out), and I didn't want to wait another ten hours to get home to take a glance.
posted by mystyk at 3:45 AM on August 25, 2017
Thank you for that, crysflame. I work in an office that blocks almost every link in the post (and the rest are timing out), and I didn't want to wait another ten hours to get home to take a glance.
posted by mystyk at 3:45 AM on August 25, 2017
I miss being a Valve fan.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:16 AM on August 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:16 AM on August 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
CONFIRMED
posted by mittens at 4:44 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by mittens at 4:44 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I was reminded of reading the leaked Halo 3 script from 2005 which was later discredited. Weirdly, years after I completed Halo 3 I found myself remembering the fake script over the actual game I'd played because the mental territory was claimed first by the fanfic.
posted by Molesome at 4:53 AM on August 25, 2017
posted by Molesome at 4:53 AM on August 25, 2017
The first link in this post is timing out.
Apologies, it was already mostly dead by the time I made the post, hence the inclusion of the pastebin. It seems like the site is doing better now, in case anyone wanted to read Laidlaw's original version.
posted by chrominance at 5:11 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Apologies, it was already mostly dead by the time I made the post, hence the inclusion of the pastebin. It seems like the site is doing better now, in case anyone wanted to read Laidlaw's original version.
posted by chrominance at 5:11 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I always assumed that Valve would merge Portal and Half-Life for Episode Three. Gordon Freeman gets a portal gun as part of his arsenal. No puzzle rooms, but rather an entire world to teleport objects.
posted by zardoz at 5:24 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 5:24 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
It is still unclear to me exactly what brought down our little aircraft. The following hours spent traversing the frigid waste in a blizzard are also a jumbled blur, ill-remembered and poorly defined.
It's not Half-Life unless Gordon tumbles into a random puzzle chasm absolutely every time he tries to go somewhere.
posted by Iridic at 5:43 AM on August 25, 2017 [8 favorites]
It's not Half-Life unless Gordon tumbles into a random puzzle chasm absolutely every time he tries to go somewhere.
posted by Iridic at 5:43 AM on August 25, 2017 [8 favorites]
I was on board with what seemed like the setup for an Alyx-centric sequel when she was pulled away by the G-Man (though I think nobody would believe that yet another sequel would get finished), but then Gordon lives and is set up for another sequel too? That made the ending kinda fizzle.
I've had the impression that this was so heavily delayed because of the weight of expectations on it (I can't remember, but this might have been officially confirmed in some way), and at this point, yeah, it seems like very little return for the wait based on that plot. But if they just ripped the bandaid off years ago, we could have at least had a slightly disappointing Episode 3 followed by a clean slate and reduced expectations so that would have made future Pretty Solid But Not "The Best Game Ever" installments more likely. I mean I'd play a game that's basically Fallout But With Alyx and Dog but first you'd need the weight of the series expectations to go away (and yeah, Valve would need to care about single player again).
posted by jason_steakums at 5:44 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I've had the impression that this was so heavily delayed because of the weight of expectations on it (I can't remember, but this might have been officially confirmed in some way), and at this point, yeah, it seems like very little return for the wait based on that plot. But if they just ripped the bandaid off years ago, we could have at least had a slightly disappointing Episode 3 followed by a clean slate and reduced expectations so that would have made future Pretty Solid But Not "The Best Game Ever" installments more likely. I mean I'd play a game that's basically Fallout But With Alyx and Dog but first you'd need the weight of the series expectations to go away (and yeah, Valve would need to care about single player again).
posted by jason_steakums at 5:44 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
It would be nice if Valve cared about single player again, but that would mean the game would mostly missed out on the the "purchasing hats" revenue stream. I also assumed that E3 would merge Portal and Half Life, which could be all sorts of fun. (Perhaps it turns out that the real battle is between GLaDoS and the MiB.)
I'm here for this plot, though.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:01 AM on August 25, 2017
I'm here for this plot, though.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:01 AM on August 25, 2017
heavily implies that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 (and/or Half-Life 3) is no longer in developmentNo! You're lying!
posted by roystgnr at 6:09 AM on August 25, 2017
I'm hoping that Valve was smart enough to basically reject this script, as it's a huge kick in the dick to players. One important secondary character is offed, just so Alyx can perform an ultimately meaningless gesture (sending the Borealis on a suicide mission) and it turns out that the Combine are basically omnipotent. There's no resolution, no victory, just a whole lot of nothing. It's not even really a setup for any follow up episodes, as what can Earth possibly do against an opposing civilization that can create a Dyson sphere?
Maybe this was the last draft that Laidlaw turned in before he decided "Fuck it, Valve aren't interested in making games, just rolling around in their money. I'm out." (which, incidentally, seems to have been what every talented member of their team has done, from Kelly Bailey to Chet Faliszek of Old Man Murray fame, and God knows how many others).
Also hoping that Gabe N said "Thanks but no thanks, this isn't how we want to proceed, we'll be looking for other proposals." Then he got distracted by one of his many hobbies and his Scrooge McDuck swimming pool of money.
posted by jpolchlopek at 6:38 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Maybe this was the last draft that Laidlaw turned in before he decided "Fuck it, Valve aren't interested in making games, just rolling around in their money. I'm out." (which, incidentally, seems to have been what every talented member of their team has done, from Kelly Bailey to Chet Faliszek of Old Man Murray fame, and God knows how many others).
Also hoping that Gabe N said "Thanks but no thanks, this isn't how we want to proceed, we'll be looking for other proposals." Then he got distracted by one of his many hobbies and his Scrooge McDuck swimming pool of money.
posted by jpolchlopek at 6:38 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Point. I should revise that to "I'm here for much of this plot but I'm not sure about that resolution." I like the idea of settings things up for an Alyx-based spinoff.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:52 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 6:52 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Hey, Duke Nukem Forever did, eventually, come out. There's still hope, and maybe even more hope, it'll be better than Daikatana when it finally does come out.
posted by k5.user at 6:55 AM on August 25, 2017
posted by k5.user at 6:55 AM on August 25, 2017
I thought I'd said my final goodbyes to the idea of More Half-Life after Laidlaw quit last year, but reading this hurt a little. Overall I'm glad for at least a little closure, even if that closure has another cliffhanger? For some reason I'm more okay with that than the cliffhanger we got. This series gave me some of my favourite gaming moments of all time, but I gotta move on.
Now, the fun thing is going to be reading the mental gymnastics that people do in order to believe that this series is still, somehow, continuing. I've already seen redditors argue that "He specified episode 3 so maybe a full sequel is still happening!" and "everyone knows the HL2 story evolved with the development of the engine, so maybe this is only a snapshot from before Laidlaw left Valve and it's still going!!"
posted by Monster_Zero at 7:12 AM on August 25, 2017
Now, the fun thing is going to be reading the mental gymnastics that people do in order to believe that this series is still, somehow, continuing. I've already seen redditors argue that "He specified episode 3 so maybe a full sequel is still happening!" and "everyone knows the HL2 story evolved with the development of the engine, so maybe this is only a snapshot from before Laidlaw left Valve and it's still going!!"
posted by Monster_Zero at 7:12 AM on August 25, 2017
I'd probably be more upset if I'd ever actually finished HL2.
posted by octothorpe at 7:25 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 7:25 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I always assumed that Valve would merge Portal and Half-Life for Episode Three. Gordon Freeman gets a portal gun as part of his arsenal. No puzzle rooms, but rather an entire world to teleport objects.
Yeah, I always thought that the presence of a randomly-teleporting ship suggested the presence of some pretty heavy Aperture Science shenanigans.
(If you wanna replicate what the experience of this would be like, it's actually possible to use console commands to import the portal gun in to HL2. You can't shoot or throw objects through portals, which limits the amount of cool stuff you can do, but other than that it works fine)
posted by Itaxpica at 7:35 AM on August 25, 2017
Yeah, I always thought that the presence of a randomly-teleporting ship suggested the presence of some pretty heavy Aperture Science shenanigans.
(If you wanna replicate what the experience of this would be like, it's actually possible to use console commands to import the portal gun in to HL2. You can't shoot or throw objects through portals, which limits the amount of cool stuff you can do, but other than that it works fine)
posted by Itaxpica at 7:35 AM on August 25, 2017
The story by itself doesn't do it for me. It would need at least an iteration in gameplay like HL2 and Ep2 had to actually work or be fun. This is only a piece of the puzzle, and a kinda lame one at that—I'm with jpolchlopek on this one.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:37 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by infinitewindow at 7:37 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I waited six years to find someone to play the Portal 2 multi-player campaign with me and last night I finished it playing split-screen with my daughter a week before she leaves for college. So worth it. We were cackling with joy at how great some of the solutions (and how amusing some of our failures) were.
Afterwards we watched some of the old Aperature Science promo videos (she laughed when she recognized my phone ring tone) and I told her a little about the history of Valve ("they made Steam?!") and why there probably wasn't going to be any more games like this.
Then this dropped. RIP, company that made Half-Life and Portal.
posted by straight at 7:56 AM on August 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
Afterwards we watched some of the old Aperature Science promo videos (she laughed when she recognized my phone ring tone) and I told her a little about the history of Valve ("they made Steam?!") and why there probably wasn't going to be any more games like this.
Then this dropped. RIP, company that made Half-Life and Portal.
posted by straight at 7:56 AM on August 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
The story by itself doesn't do it for me. It would need at least an iteration in gameplay like HL2 and Ep2 had to actually work or be fun.
I've always suspected that this is the real reason we never got Ep3. Everybody was expecting a Portal tie-in, they wanted to do a Portal tie-in, but they just couldn't make the Portal gameplay work in the Half-Life context, at least not to their high standards. Eps 1 & 2 required only very minor deviations from the established formula, and therefore were pretty easy to pull off.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:03 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I've always suspected that this is the real reason we never got Ep3. Everybody was expecting a Portal tie-in, they wanted to do a Portal tie-in, but they just couldn't make the Portal gameplay work in the Half-Life context, at least not to their high standards. Eps 1 & 2 required only very minor deviations from the established formula, and therefore were pretty easy to pull off.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:03 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'd probably be more upset if I'd ever actually finished HL2.
It is high time for an un-favorite button. I am taking this to MetaTalk!
posted by Literaryhero at 8:07 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
It is high time for an un-favorite button. I am taking this to MetaTalk!
posted by Literaryhero at 8:07 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I just played through HL, HL2 and Ep. 1 and 2 (for the 203947 time) a couple of weeks ago. Your post title nearly gave me a heart attack.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:26 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:26 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Literaryhero: "I'd probably be more upset if I'd ever actually finished HL2.
It is high time for an un-favorite button. I am taking this to MetaTalk!"
Hey, I'll get back to it one of these days.
posted by octothorpe at 8:28 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
It is high time for an un-favorite button. I am taking this to MetaTalk!"
Hey, I'll get back to it one of these days.
posted by octothorpe at 8:28 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm just annoyed that long form, expansive, single player games seem to be the sole purveyance of console developers as prestige items to prop up their brand. Blizzard, Valve, EA, they used to make worlds. Now they make systems. Now these systems may have lovely back story, with animated cut scenes and great character design, but the actual system is some multiplayer, F2P small scale game, with gachapon like costume packs.
posted by zabuni at 8:38 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by zabuni at 8:38 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
.
posted by Carillon at 9:12 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Carillon at 9:12 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I get that Valve is raking it in with all of its multiplayer properties and whatever percentage it gets from Steam sales, but I really don't get why they completely abandoned their original core fans by never finishing the Half Life story. One day I really hope we get an autopsy of this project that extends a little further beyond, "we fell a little behind and then figured it wasn't worth it".
posted by dis_integration at 9:43 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 9:43 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I used to work at Valve, and they had (at that time) collectively decided to never release another single-player game again. They don't make enough money, basically. "Portal 2", for example, was seen as a failure within the company because it "only" made $200 million dollars. Compare with "Counterstrike: Global Offensive" which makes something like $700 million a year in cosmetic microtransactions and various "events" that basically boil down to paying for access to user-created maps for a limited period of time. A couple of guys were still poking at some concept code and art for Half-Life 3, but it will never, ever be released.
More importantly, Valve isn't a game company any more; they're a digital store and distribution network which happens to make some money doing microtranactions. Steam generates something like $5 billion a year in PROFIT (not revenue), which dwarfs what DOTA, CSGO and TF2 make.
posted by riotnrrd at 10:32 AM on August 25, 2017 [27 favorites]
More importantly, Valve isn't a game company any more; they're a digital store and distribution network which happens to make some money doing microtranactions. Steam generates something like $5 billion a year in PROFIT (not revenue), which dwarfs what DOTA, CSGO and TF2 make.
posted by riotnrrd at 10:32 AM on August 25, 2017 [27 favorites]
> riotnrrd: "Portal 2", for example, was seen as a failure within the company because it "only" made $200 million dollars.
If true, this makes me sad. Valve is a privately held company, and not obligated to pursue money above all else. I'm sure it's nice to be rich, but at what point does one say to themselves, "This is enough wealth. Now we can make what we want to make." Is it just me, or does the best stuff tend to arise from modestly profitable enterprises?
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 10:50 AM on August 25, 2017 [8 favorites]
If true, this makes me sad. Valve is a privately held company, and not obligated to pursue money above all else. I'm sure it's nice to be rich, but at what point does one say to themselves, "This is enough wealth. Now we can make what we want to make." Is it just me, or does the best stuff tend to arise from modestly profitable enterprises?
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 10:50 AM on August 25, 2017 [8 favorites]
As a company, they were always in it for the money. The byproduct used to be great games; now it's virtual hats.
posted by dazed_one at 10:52 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by dazed_one at 10:52 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
They should sell the rights to a company like Ubisoft, who I'm sure would be thrilled to make a game with the Half-Life brand attached to it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:55 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:55 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
"This is enough wealth. Now we can make what we want to make."
I think part of the problem is that games are expensive, in both money and time, and personnel. And the structure of Valve means that everyone would have to want to make HL3. So all the artists and programmers and producers and directors would have to want to go in that direction.
Compare with "Counterstrike: Global Offensive" which makes something like $700 million a year in cosmetic microtransactions and various "events" that basically boil down to paying for access to user-created maps for a limited period of time. A couple of guys were still poking at some concept code and art for Half-Life 3, but it will never, ever be released.
God systems make so much money. They are like the MMO's for the 21st century. If you don't nail it, they are dismal failures (Battleborn, Lawbreakers), but if you manage to nail it, you have this endless stream of money (LoL, Minecraft) with none of the massive costs that MMOs have.
posted by zabuni at 10:57 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think part of the problem is that games are expensive, in both money and time, and personnel. And the structure of Valve means that everyone would have to want to make HL3. So all the artists and programmers and producers and directors would have to want to go in that direction.
Compare with "Counterstrike: Global Offensive" which makes something like $700 million a year in cosmetic microtransactions and various "events" that basically boil down to paying for access to user-created maps for a limited period of time. A couple of guys were still poking at some concept code and art for Half-Life 3, but it will never, ever be released.
God systems make so much money. They are like the MMO's for the 21st century. If you don't nail it, they are dismal failures (Battleborn, Lawbreakers), but if you manage to nail it, you have this endless stream of money (LoL, Minecraft) with none of the massive costs that MMOs have.
posted by zabuni at 10:57 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
They should sell the rights to a company like Ubisoft, who I'm sure would be thrilled to make a game with the Half-Life brand attached to it.
Only companies like Ubisoft, EA, and Activision could afford it, and goddamn but I don't want any of them making Half-Life 3.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Only companies like Ubisoft, EA, and Activision could afford it, and goddamn but I don't want any of them making Half-Life 3.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
God systems make so much money. They are like the MMO's for the 21st century. If you don't nail it, they are dismal failures (Battleborn, Lawbreakers), but if you manage to nail it, you have this ndless stream of money (LoL, Minecraft) with none of the massive costs that MMOs have.
Also you don't have the MMO problem of "Be WoW or EVE or get fucked".
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Also you don't have the MMO problem of "Be WoW or EVE or get fucked".
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Just pretend that Titanfall 2's single-player campaign is Resistance vs. Combine instead of Militia vs. IMC. It's even a Source Engine game!
(Actually, if Valve wanted to sell the Half-Life brand to EA with the condition that Respawn would be the studio to do the next single-player iteration of the franchise, I'd be totally cool with that.)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:23 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
(Actually, if Valve wanted to sell the Half-Life brand to EA with the condition that Respawn would be the studio to do the next single-player iteration of the franchise, I'd be totally cool with that.)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:23 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
They should sell the rights to a company like Ubisoft
I have zero interest in Half-Life as an intellectual property. The Half-Life games had fantastic storytelling, but the stories themselves were pretty generic and derivative. The only reason to look forward to a Half-Life 3 was that the studio who made the Half-Life and Portal games had a lot of talented people and institutional ability to make great FPS games (and nearly infinite resources to polish them until they were great). But that studio is gone now.
As for the story, it's pretty clear that Valve never actually had any good ideas regarding who or what the G Man was all about. I don't think he ever got more interesting that those mysterious glimpses of him you get early on in the original Half-Life. Half-Life 2's attempt to make Gordon Freeman an actual character rather than a window through which the player experiences the world was not a success. Alyx had every interesting edge focus grouped off of her in the name of never allowing the player to be annoyed or inconvenienced.
The best we can hope for is that some other talented studio gets the resources to make another game in that style. Nobody needs the Half-Life license to make a good FPS with aliens and cool guns (even portal and gravity guns if you want) and great level design and evocative environmental storytelling. Maybe they'll even put a good story in there with it.
posted by straight at 11:27 AM on August 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
I have zero interest in Half-Life as an intellectual property. The Half-Life games had fantastic storytelling, but the stories themselves were pretty generic and derivative. The only reason to look forward to a Half-Life 3 was that the studio who made the Half-Life and Portal games had a lot of talented people and institutional ability to make great FPS games (and nearly infinite resources to polish them until they were great). But that studio is gone now.
As for the story, it's pretty clear that Valve never actually had any good ideas regarding who or what the G Man was all about. I don't think he ever got more interesting that those mysterious glimpses of him you get early on in the original Half-Life. Half-Life 2's attempt to make Gordon Freeman an actual character rather than a window through which the player experiences the world was not a success. Alyx had every interesting edge focus grouped off of her in the name of never allowing the player to be annoyed or inconvenienced.
The best we can hope for is that some other talented studio gets the resources to make another game in that style. Nobody needs the Half-Life license to make a good FPS with aliens and cool guns (even portal and gravity guns if you want) and great level design and evocative environmental storytelling. Maybe they'll even put a good story in there with it.
posted by straight at 11:27 AM on August 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
Valve could just let anyone use the Half Life IP provided the game is only sold on Steam, then they'd be making bank off of it and we'd get interesting experiments from all sorts of indie developers, win-win.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:34 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by jason_steakums at 11:34 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I used to work at Valve, and they had (at that time) collectively decided to never release another single-player game again. They don't make enough money, basically. "Portal 2", for example, was seen as a failure within the company because it "only" made $200 million dollars ... Steam generates something like $5 billion a year in PROFIT
Clearly the financial cost of making another single-player game would just be a drop in the bucket to Valve. I can only assume that they consider personnel to be the limiting factor, that they want teams capable of making something of Portal 2's quality working on more profitable projects.
posted by straight at 11:45 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Clearly the financial cost of making another single-player game would just be a drop in the bucket to Valve. I can only assume that they consider personnel to be the limiting factor, that they want teams capable of making something of Portal 2's quality working on more profitable projects.
posted by straight at 11:45 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I can only assume that they consider personnel to be the limiting factor, that they want teams capable of making something of Portal 2's quality working on more profitable projects.
Valve employees are brutally stack-ranked (with the lowest ranked being fired) each year based on how much "value" they add to the company. This incentivizes people to work on low-risk and low-cost projects, such as creating more cosmetic items for existing games. There's also the problem that if you challenge the authority of people more senior than you, you'll be dinged for it in the annual rankings. So you are no-so-tacitly encouraged to do what senior employees think is valuable, and since they've collectively decided that single-player games are low value, nobody wants to risk working on a single-player game.
posted by riotnrrd at 12:00 PM on August 25, 2017 [15 favorites]
Valve employees are brutally stack-ranked (with the lowest ranked being fired) each year based on how much "value" they add to the company. This incentivizes people to work on low-risk and low-cost projects, such as creating more cosmetic items for existing games. There's also the problem that if you challenge the authority of people more senior than you, you'll be dinged for it in the annual rankings. So you are no-so-tacitly encouraged to do what senior employees think is valuable, and since they've collectively decided that single-player games are low value, nobody wants to risk working on a single-player game.
posted by riotnrrd at 12:00 PM on August 25, 2017 [15 favorites]
And you thought working at Amazon was a techno-libertarian dystopia.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:45 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 12:45 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Man, if this isn't one of the clearest rebuttals to the idea that stack ranking leads to good outcomes, I don't know what it is.
posted by Aleyn at 1:10 PM on August 25, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by Aleyn at 1:10 PM on August 25, 2017 [9 favorites]
There's an issue of Knights of the Dinner Table issue from like fifteen years ago where, starting a new campaign, the party goes to the kingdom's gladiatorial arena to raise some early funds by betting on the longest odds and surreptitiously using magic to improve their man's chances. They pick out Willicus, an old fighter who used to be great but now consistently finishes last, but has become a crowd favorite for sticking it out, and after a string of mishaps one of them finds himself pitted against Willicus one-on-one. He's entirely cocky, right up until the whole group realizes that the guy who finishes last in a group of the sixteen greatest warriors in the kingdom is still one of the greatest warriors in the world.
Anyway, that's what I think of when people talk about how great rank-and-yank schemes are.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:26 PM on August 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
Anyway, that's what I think of when people talk about how great rank-and-yank schemes are.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:26 PM on August 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
I honestly can't imagine a situation where someone talks about how great stack rank systems are. I mean, someone must, since they still exists, but can you imagine being the guy who puts their name to that in public?
posted by Artw at 1:37 PM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 1:37 PM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
Stack ranking is such crap.
Man, maybe I'll go play through "We Don't Go to Ravenholm" again tonight. Then go play the part of Portal 2 where you find the Borealis life preserver.
I wish I could figure out video settings so that the airboat and many car scenes don't make me want to puke. (The visual of getting in and out of the car is so bad that I literally close my eyes when it's happening)
posted by rmd1023 at 1:43 PM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Man, maybe I'll go play through "We Don't Go to Ravenholm" again tonight. Then go play the part of Portal 2 where you find the Borealis life preserver.
I wish I could figure out video settings so that the airboat and many car scenes don't make me want to puke. (The visual of getting in and out of the car is so bad that I literally close my eyes when it's happening)
posted by rmd1023 at 1:43 PM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Is this the part where I feel superior to otherwise successful and neat MeFis by remarking I finished HL2 more than once (albeit without the Gnome Chomsky cheevo)?
posted by Samizdata at 1:43 PM on August 25, 2017
posted by Samizdata at 1:43 PM on August 25, 2017
Also, having worked at a place that did stack rankings, it is as much crap for the people preparing them as it is for the people suffering from them.
posted by Samizdata at 1:44 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Samizdata at 1:44 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I wish I could figure out video settings so that the airboat and many car scenes don't make me want to puke. (The visual of getting in and out of the car is so bad that I literally close my eyes when it's happening)
Does HL2 have Field of View settings? A wider or narrower FoV can help a lot of motion sickness issues.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:56 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Does HL2 have Field of View settings? A wider or narrower FoV can help a lot of motion sickness issues.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:56 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I was just gonna say that. Playing around with FOV might help with the vehicle sections.
I don't recall if the in-game options have an FOV slider, but you can also use the 'fov' command in the console, per this page.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:00 PM on August 25, 2017
I don't recall if the in-game options have an FOV slider, but you can also use the 'fov' command in the console, per this page.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:00 PM on August 25, 2017
I've tried messing around with settings and the only thing that really seems to help is making the window fairly small so my peripheral vision still knows where the horizon is.
posted by rmd1023 at 2:20 PM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 2:20 PM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
.3
posted by Quagkapi at 3:51 PM on August 25, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by Quagkapi at 3:51 PM on August 25, 2017 [7 favorites]
/turns valve on back of head off.
posted by Artw at 3:58 PM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 3:58 PM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
Freeman's Mind 2: Episode 3 has been out for a month. So there's that, at least.
posted by homunculus at 4:33 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by homunculus at 4:33 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
The part where the Borealis is stretched across space and time is pretty great—it reminded me of the dude from Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan who falls into a time warp and is converted from a particle to a wave, causing him to exist on different planets when and only when their orbits intersect his wave. I'm not sure how that would translate into gameplay, but it's fun to imagine.
posted by ejs at 12:08 AM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ejs at 12:08 AM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
Marc is going into some of the drawbacks and limitations of the, uh, fanfic on his Twitter feed.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:59 PM on August 26, 2017
posted by infinitewindow at 8:59 PM on August 26, 2017
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posted by Fizz at 10:41 PM on August 24, 2017