Half-Life Fallout: Episode 3 Discussion Thread - Half-Life Fallout

That was epic.

EatChildren, on 08 May 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

I was under the impression that their "focus" and "dedication" to the story, atmosphere and narrative was the reason why they at some points choose to ignore the fact that we actually expect a damn release from them at least once every 7 years.

Seriously dude, I have a lot of respect for you but this post was just asinine. All Valve games are as story and narrative-driven as it gets.

BLAM

http://lambdagenerat...sible-spoilers/

Also must mention that Smash at Steampowered has comfirmed these:

http://forums.steamp...85&postcount=33

News post? Wha?

And he says he's shocked this day has come? Whats that supposed to mean?:

http://forums.steamp...39&postcount=28

XJR, on 27 June 2012 - 12:44 PM, said:

Hey XJR thanks for the heads up!! Ahh, my old buddy smash. At least he still gets all the good info. Concept art looks good. Can't wait for HL3!!!

NegroN, on 12 June 2012 - 05:28 AM, said:

Old post is old, and I didn't see it until now, but I don't know how to reply. I said Valve makes games first, stories second. By this I mean they prioritise the function and mechanics of a game over narrative and story, not that they don't put effort into narrative and story. And this is true, based on everything Valve has said, and examples of how they've shaped their games. Valve does not sit down, write a story, and try and make a game around it. They do both at the same time and, when the philosophies butt heads, prioritise how the game plays versus what story is to be told.

NegroN, on 11 June 2012 - 09:28 AM, said:

You know and I know, and everyone else in the world knows that if they give us a release date, say November 19 2012, it will really be a year and some change from that date. To me the game will get done when it gets done, people complained Valve in the past reveals too much, here is them not revealing too much.

Mostly character design ideas for the Arctic environment, A helicopter crash and Advisor attacking.

The other thing is really weird.
One kind of reminds me of Xen, the other feels like some really alien creature (kind of cross between a plant and a jellyfish).

Y U MAKE ME EXCITED AGAIN VALVE? Y!

After the first few images all I could think was: Hats for HL.

NegroN, on 11 June 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

I really don't think so. They do have more lore and story than most generic first person shooters. But it terms of the story events that actually happen in the course of the game; there isn't much there.

The first tech demo of source and HL2 almost 10 years ago.
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

So many things shown there were innovative and unprecedented at the time- blew everyone away. Video is low quality but watchable for nostalgia.

And there is a good chance that with HL3 Valve is struggling to come up with something as groundbreaking technically, and as a result they don't feel they have anything worth showing us.

Humbug, on 01 August 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

Thanks for posting that. Brought back good memories.

I agree that Valve is waiting for some groundbreaking stuff to wow us with prior to them giving us any peek at HL3.

Sorry for the bump, but new guy here, so I'm a bit late for the talks. I'm also going to apologize beforehand if I'm just voicing what others said, seeing as I'm not brave enough to read 102 pages of discussion. No offense, I'm sure it's great opinions from one of the oldest HL2 communities around, but it's too much for a newbie to read, so I'm risking a fresh, unbiased post.

Like I previously mentioned on Twitter, this has probably stopped being an episode a while back, most likely when plans for the game expanded around 2008. The most obvious reason would be that a five-to-seven hours Valve game wouldn't take over half a decade to make, no matter how notoriously slow they are. As such, my bet is that the plans for the end of the Combine story grew too much in scope and they chose to take longer to finish the story than to pump out an already late episode that wouldn't be as satisfying. It's Valve, after all, they'd rather go with quality than timeliness.

Besides that, I'm betting that the game also suffered from what I dub the "Duke Nukem Forever syndrome". The Source engine is amazing and it's still pumping out great-looking games - take CS:GO or Left 4 Dead 2, for instance -, but every time a new game is released, every single news outlet says the engine is showing its age, and I'm sure Valve has felt that way for a while. So, taking into account how Half-Life has always been their franchise to present their engines (Half-Life = Goldsrc, Half-Life 2 = Source, not to mention small improvements to Source in Lost Coast and previous Episodes) and the findings of references to "Source 2" in the Source Filmmaker, it's a safe assumption that the old Episode Three moved into a new engine sometime along the road, probably requiring to start from scratch on a lot of stuff. In fact, I'm also betting that, just like a new engine delayed Half-Life 3, the game itself is now delaying the engine because they keep adding to it and tweaking stuff, hence the overall lack of news on a next-gen engine from Valve.

Story-wise, I can't be sure, but I doubt there have been many alterations. In many ways, the game remaining an episode has a certain logic in terms of storytelling, seeing as the writers (Laidlaw & co.) have written themselves... well, I wouldn't say "into a corner", but they made it pretty clear where they'd have to go next. Borealis, try to rescue Mossman, defeat the Combine once and for all. That's something that didn't happen after Half-Life (G-Man hires you, future remains uncertain) or Half-Life 2 (same thing, really), but the episodes, being a singular story thread spread through what was initially a trilogy, have pretty much telegraphed each story arc for the next game. The return to Xen was something unexpected, true, and one of the things I'd actually expect from a third "main" game, so it might've been either due to the change from "Ep3" to "HL3" or always the plan and an incentive to upgrade the engine, but it's still tied into the Borealis plot (and I'm pretty sure the Borealis' technology will be what takes Gordon back to Xen), so it remains a given that this will be, Half-Life 3 or not, very much tied to the episodes. Which it'd always have to be from at least a character perspective, since we need to see the fallout from the last moments of Episode Two!

Anyway, I'm sure most of that had been said before, but it's my long-winded two cents on the matter. One thing's for sure: it's been a painful wait and I'm eagerly expecting the Half-Life franchise to resurface, hopefully in the near future.

I'm not sure if they would have us defeat the combine once and for all, that doesn't seem like Valve's style based on their games so far. They are more likely to give the player some sort of mini-victory and leave the rest to the imagination...

And yes many of us here agree that the reason for the delay is that Valve has been working on technical stuff. Either a new engine or a very aggressive makeover of Source. By 2005 there were screenshots of Episode 1 released, and at the end of episode 1 we got to see in-game footage of episode 2. But with this game they are much more secretive, all we have is concept art... nothing ingame.

Half Life for Valve is like Doom for Id. They could indeed make a good looking game with Source but it's not enough for it to be a good looking game, expectations are so high that it needs to feel fresh. And Valve has so much money now thanks to Steam that there is no commercial pressure to release fast. If they wanted to they could just sit back without making games and enjoy the Steam $$$ (maybe this is a negative influence).

I do think they'll want to go new places with both the engine and the gameplay for Episode3/Half-Life3. The developer commentary made clear that certain parts of Episode 2 served as a test bed for things they wanted to do in Episode 3.

It gets disheartening to go so long without any news on it (other than no comment). But if your attempting to do new things and you make big changes and shift the project half-way through you're better of not showing to much and quietly work on it while other projects that can be done faster get some more focus.