Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is rumored not to be coming in 2010

TheGameguru wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

To all those that say they "don't care" what does that mean exactly?

For me, it means that it's gone from being a game that I'm planning on buying on the first day that it's available, and telling all of my friends about the series, to being one that I'll pick up eventually if it's on sale. What's been lost are interest and enthusiasm, which can certainly cost dollars.

lol we'll see

Honestly I passed on Orange Box until I heard people raving about Portal. I've never been too excited about the HL Episodes though so it should probably be taken with a grain of salt. It's just not one of my "OMG SO EXCITED" games at this point.

I don't even remember liking Episode 2 that much, to tell you the truth. I can't remember anything interesting about it except for that weird open-world buggy game at the end. It's good, but I think many people have caught up to Valve as far as the single-player Half-Life experience is concerned. Far too many awesome single-player story-heavy experiences out there to get really excited about another Half-Life episode. Half-Life 2 was groundbreaking and amazing, the Episodes have not kept up the innovation and now we're 5-6 years out. Plenty of developers have caught up.

*edit* I do remember the scene where you fall out of the vents and Alyx laughs at you, that was pretty great. I can't remember which Episode that was in or what the context was, which again I take to mean I didn't really care about any of it at the time.

You're so cute when you're being condescending.

Way to over-react. I don't get dragged into these anymore no matter how hard people will try.

Gamers aren't exactly known for their firm stances about these things; their goodwill is easily purchased with shiny, new things

Since this is exactly all I was trying to say.

I'm simply not enough of a fan to still care, three years (or more) on, about their unfinished video game.

Yet you care enough to post that you don't care.

Now a month before they release they will want your interest to spike back up, but I think that those are two very separate issues. Valve's lack of spoilers and info about their products tells me that they don't care if you want their product a year ahead of time, and I respect them for that.

I don't necessarily take issue with that, I think it's great they're not releasing screenshots and videos all over the place. It's the idea that somehow I'm going to automatically get excited when Episode 3 is released just because it's been released. Maybe they'll actually innovate this time around and I'll be back on board. Maybe they'll integrate the Portal gun somehow. Or really shakeup the formula. Or they're actually just turning it into HL3. I don't know.

I just know if they deliver the equivalent to Episode 2 a year from now I probably won't get too worked up about it. Maybe I've just lost my taste for the straight-up single-player FPS genre.

TheGameguru wrote:
You're so cute when you're being condescending.

Way to over-react. I don't get dragged into these anymore no matter how hard people will try.

I removed that line from my post before I saw your reply because I felt that it crossed the line. I took your comment to be condescending when I first read it, but on second thought realized that I might have misinterpreted. I read it as a comment directly specifically at me rather than at gamers in general. My apologies.

I just know if they deliver the equivalent to Episode 2 a year from now I probably won't get too worked up about it. Maybe I've just lost my taste for the straight-up single-player FPS genre.

That's a fair point.. another year delay means the market for integrated cross-platform co-op/mp type FPS's becomes even more defined.. Valve risks putting out a "stale" product in terms of gameplay.

This is obviously pure speculation but I have to wonder if Valve isn't holding HL2Ep3/HL3 in order to debut some sparkly new engine. The Source engine itself is quite dated and while it has been constantly evolved one need only look at L4D2 to realize it is showing its age.

Having played through all the HLs between Turkey and Jebus day, reading this news on Shack earlier in the week twinged a bit. But, I'll still get it when it comes out whether it be HL2-E3 or converted into full-on HL3.

While replaying it, (the first time I replayed through any of HL2) I was surprised at how much I had rearranged in my memory of what happened in what episode. I had totally forgotten the ending of E2.

I think they tell some tight stories and will be there to play the next one. Do I wish it would come out sooner? Sure. But I don't think comparing HL to DNF is fair. It took a few years for HL -> HL2 and even the episodes. Valve has been releasing other things as well in that time. It's not as if there is the coke snorting off of strippers money hole at Valve that there was at 3DR while they produced NOTHING.

Didn't Gabe Newell say at some point that he regrets naming Episodes 1 and 2, "episodes" and should have just called them sequels or something? Where am I remembering this from?

I can't quite get my head around why people are getting their knickers in a twist over this. It seems that despite what they may say otherwise, gamers love hype. Hype your game too much and we moan, go totally silent on a game and we moan. I valve said a firm date for Ep3 and let it pass then I could understand but they didn't because they are a 'when it's done' company and from my googling it was September 2007 when they said episodic wasn't working for them.

Scratched wrote:

I can't quite get my head around why people are getting their knickers in a twist over this. It seems that despite what they may say otherwise, gamers love hype. Hype your game too much and we moan, go totally silent on a game and we moan. I valve said a firm date for Ep3 and let it pass then I could understand but they didn't because they are a 'when it's done' company and from my googling it was September 2007 when they said episodic wasn't working for them.

Valve's sin was calling these "episodes" in the first place. There's a certain level of expectation when you're telling a story by releasing it chapter-by-chapter, and the Episode 2 ended on a pretty big cliffhanger. You're giving Valve a free pass because you like them, not because they are handling this particular situation appropriately.

I have to wonder how much this has to do with writing the story, rather than coming up with the technology (new engine?). Mark Laidlaw was their lead writer through Episode 2, and I have to wonder if they lost him somewhere along the line and are now at odds over how to tie things off.

Episodic gaming has worked. Developers are just calling it DLC now, or mini expansions.

Mark Laidlaw was their lead writer through Episode 2, and I have to wonder if they lost him somewhere along the line and are now at odds over how to tie things off.

I'm pretty sure he still works at Valve.

Not DNF in terms of not coming out but DNF in terms of the excitement of the community, the cutting-edgeness of the engine, etc.

My take on it is that Ep2 was kind of the ugly stepchild of the new games in the Orange Box. While Portal and TF2 were greeted with almost universal praise, Ep2 was met with criticisms of the aging tech, well-worn gameplay, time elapsed since Ep1, and so on. It was well received, of course, but it did not compare all that favorably to its peers (Bioshock) or even to Portal and TF2, which at the time were a genuine breath of fresh air.

The Half Life franchise is still Valve's flagship IP. I think that they do not want to release another HL2 episode and have it met with faint praise. I was fortunate enough to see some of the Ep3 concept art when I was at Valve in 2008 to playtest the original L4D, and it looks as though they are really working to differentiate Ep3 from previous episodes. Based on what little I've seen, if it takes them some extra time to make it as awesome as possible, I think I'm okay with it.

Evo wrote:

Valve's sin was calling these "episodes" in the first place. There's a certain level of expectation when you're telling a story by releasing it chapter-by-chapter, and the Episode 2 ended on a pretty big cliffhanger. You're giving Valve a free pass because you like them, not because they are handling this particular situation appropriately.

I'll admit it, you're right. I never even finished HL2 because I'm all about apathy, but I've yet to stay mad at Vavle over a game. I know people say that the engine is dated, but I still enjoy L4D2 and tell all my friends that they have no idea what they are missing out on by just playing Halo3 every night. And I don't think it's so much that the HL engine is getting old, I think other game engines are finally catching up.

Blah blah blah development cycles, blah blah blah episodic, blah blah blah hype, I just want to know what happens to Gordon and Alyx next, and I want to know right now!

I'm putting Valve on notice until they get off their bums and finish the story. That's right, Gabe Newell, you're going up on the board!

Switchbreak wrote:

I want to know right now!

No. Enjoy the busy Q1. Thanks.

Can't say that this bothers me much. I've completed HL2 and episodes 1 and 2 and am curious as to what happens next (ep3 final boss killed by a superheated gnome shortly after atmospheric re-entry if you got that achievement? ), but I've been way too busy with everything else that's been available to be biting my fingernails for this one.

When it comes out, I'll buy it, I'll play it, and I assume that I'll enjoy it. Then I'll move on to something else while waiting calmly for the next part to come out.

The next Sam&Max, however, had better be here YESTERDAY!

Half-Life represents the last bastion of great single-player FPS for me. Every other game has a garbage story with lifeless characters, and all you can do is carry two guns and heal if you hide behind a pebble for 1/8th of a second. Everything is Halo. I find Halo boring.

I want the next Half-Life inside my face.

1) Unannounced product rumored to not be coming out during unannounced release window!... Is this really news?

2) Calling these things episodes was a huge mistake, much like calling ODST a smaller game was a mistake. I'm guessing Valve didn't realize that 5-7 hours would be the new standard for full priced shooters by now.

Yellow5 wrote:

I'm guessing Valve didn't realize that 5-7 hours would be the new standard for full priced shooters by now.

Must be a relief. Now they don't have to pad their games with uber-long vehicle sections.

It really doesn't matter. Whenever Valve releases I will buy it and so will half the population of world.

Yellow5 wrote:

2) Calling these things episodes was a huge mistake, much like calling ODST a smaller game was a mistake. I'm guessing Valve didn't realize that 5-7 hours would be the new standard for full priced shooters by now.

A New Half-Life Every Three Months? YES!

In Valve's defense no one else (except for Telltale) has made episodic games work either.

I just look forward to a any Valve product. Believe or not, Valve releases at least one game a year since Half-Life 2 (I just looked it up).

Crockpot wrote:

Believe or not, Valve releases at least one game a year since Half-Life 2 (I just looked it up).

So what people should be saying is "We don't know what valve are (probably) going to release this year"

larrymadill wrote:
Yellow5 wrote:

2) Calling these things episodes was a huge mistake, much like calling ODST a smaller game was a mistake. I'm guessing Valve didn't realize that 5-7 hours would be the new standard for full priced shooters by now.

A New Half-Life Every Three Months? YES!

In Valve's defense no one else (except for Telltale) has made episodic games work either.

I'm not saying it was a mistake because of the episodic thing exactly, but rather because they've set an expectation that they will deliver for $20-30 what everyone else is delivering for $60. I think The Orange Box was an example of this: in terms of content, they didn't need so much to be competitive at their price, but because they set an expectation, they sort of painted themselves into a corner. Now it's even worse for them: consumers expect an 'episode' to come with 2 other unique games for $60.

This is good news for me, I've yet to finish Half Life 2, let alone start on the episodes, looks like I'll have the time.

Yellow5 wrote:

Now it's even worse for them: consumers expect an 'episode' to come with 2 other unique games for $60.

That sort of consumer is overrated and has an inflated opinion of themselves. I suspect they make boycotts for games they eventually buy anyway, and are vastly outnumbered by other consumers who buy it because it's the type of game they like. Everyone else got over the 'episodic' thing years ago (and what's in a name?).

In short: This isn't a problem for valve if valve release games worth buying.

Scratched wrote:

That sort of consumer is overrated and has an inflated opinion of themselves. I suspect they make boycotts for games they eventually buy anyway, and are vastly outnumbered by other consumers who buy it because it's the type of game they like. Everyone else got over the 'episodic' thing years ago (and what's in a name?).

In short: This isn't a problem for valve if valve release games worth buying.

Yeah, screw consumers!! Who do they think they are?

I think the comparison to Duke Nukem Forever is actually pretty valid at this point, but in some limited ways. They started hyping it as the end of Gordan Freeman's saga almost from day 1 of the Orange Box being available... so far we've seen... what? Two pieces of concept art?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna be one of those guys who says, meh, I'll buy it later. Nope. I'll buy it day one. I WANT to see the storyline resolved. I'm curious as to what's going to happen with the struggle. I want to see how characters like Alyx evolve and grow after the experiences they've been through.

But, really, for a game that's been as widely anticipated as Episode 3 has been, I'd still argue that Valve has done something of a disservice to gamers. Now, do gamers need to know EVERYTHING? Not really. Some act like they do, but most of us don't want spoilers or care that much about the amazing new technology that the game offers. But, if this is going to be similar in length to Episode 1 or 2, I think more than a few people would like to know what's going on.

I dunno, we'll see. I can say it's a disappointment, but plenty of other companies have plenty of high quality stuff coming out this year. Let's just hope it doesn't hit around the same time as Mass Effect 3, because I can already tell you which game is going to win THAT battle.