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[EDMIX]

Maybe because it bogs down their devs. Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?

Outsource em.

I'm not asking for Valve themselves to port anything in terms of the actual team itself as that is very unlikely. So remasters, ports, transfer jobs etc are not that expensive. I'd argue working on VR stuff is actually more expensive then a simple port.

Why work on outdated content? Heck might as well argue why put out games ever, just close the studio down and just make money from Steam.

At this point you are basically arguing for them to not even exist as a studio like they once did.

Keep in mind, I don't even generally disagree with what you are saying, simply that its so moot, you might as well arguing this with ANY criticism of a company.

Example. Nintendo should make return to Star Fox "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Well...maybe we should get a sequel to Parasite Eve "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Maybe EA should port Dead Space series and Mass Effect trilogy "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Do you not see how that basically boils down not speculating or criticizing anything if that really is the default response?

 

[Romulus]

No. I read your post, but the only thing of note was 'Valve gonna Valve' as if somehow they should be given a break for their inability to get their collective shit together time and again.

Again, I'm in agreement with valve's strategy being shit compared to the past. But that was never my main point or motive. I just happen to be happy this time, but only because its VR. Anyway, I honestly don't think you either understand or read my post, the gif you posted was unrelated to my points and you ignored my statement about valve's strategy and took it as me excusing them. No need to continue further.

 

[Kadayi]

Don't you love those threads that worry about a publisher becoming to arrogant because of success? This publisher is sooooooo arrogant because of Steams success, they don't even make games anymore anywhere like they used to.

They have enough money to not make games, apparently at this state its ok for them to not put out content and its beneficial for gamers for them not to even port what they've done in the past apparently

TBH I think some people are unable to parse the idea that Valve is a dysfunctional studio because Steam is super profitable for them, therefore everything must be hunky-dory in the house of Gabe, Whereas although I've been a supporter of Steam since its inception I've been less than impressed with how Valve has declined as a developer since the heady days of HL. There just isn't the sense that Valve possesses the inner mental capacity and working culture to push things through on the development side when the going gets difficult versus collectively throw their hands up in the air and move onto something else less challenging as long as that Steam money is keeping the lights on.

 

[Romulus]

Outsource em.

I'm not asking for Valve themselves to port anything in terms of the actual team itself as that is very unlikely. So remasters, ports, transfer jobs etc are not that expensive. I'd argue working on VR stuff is actually more expensive then a simple port.

Why work on outdated content? Heck might as well argue why put out games ever, just close the studio down and just make money from Steam.

At this point you are basically arguing for them to not even exist as a studio like they once did.

Keep in mind, I don't even generally disagree with what you are saying, simply that its so moot, you might as well arguing this with ANY criticism of a company.

Example. Nintendo should make return to Star Fox "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Well...maybe we should get a sequel to Parasite Eve "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Maybe EA should port Dead Space series and Mass Effect trilogy "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Do you not see how that basically boils down not speculating or criticizing anything if that really is the default response?

The outsourcing thing isn't a button press. I deal with at my job and it feels like it's easier to do it myself often deals. It's not just "cut a check" and forget it

 

[Shiken]

This is an even bigger troll than when Atlus revealed P5S

 

[Kadayi]

The outsourcing thing isn't a button press. I deal with at my job and it feels like it's easier to do it myself often deals. It's not just "cut a check" and forget it

 

[EDMIX]

The outsourcing thing isn't a button press. I deal with at my job and it feels like it's easier to do it myself often deals. It's not just "cut a check" and forget it

Its not and never did I suggest it was, its still cheaper and frees Valve to work on VR stuff or even HL3 etc.

 

[down 2 orth]

Well... It's going to make me consider getting an Index.

 

[Dada55000]

Well... It's going to make me consider getting an Index.

buy a lawnmower instead

 

[Romulus]

Its not and never did I suggest it was, its still cheaper and frees Valve to work on VR stuff or even HL3 etc.

I didn't say that you did, but in their case it's obviously not worth it. That was just my personal experience.

 

[EDMIX]

I did say that you did, but in their case it's obviously not worth it. That was just my personal experience.

Well yes...you did say that I did which I didn't.

I can read that.

 

[Romulus]

Well yes...you did say that I did which I didn't.

I can read that.

*Didn't. I never once said that you did. Just my personal experience. You suggested it as the outsource would free them up to do other things. but we don't know how true that is. Or to degree that it would free them up.

 

[EDMIX]

*Didn't. I never once said that you did. Just my personal experience. You suggested it as the outsource would free them up to do other things. but we don't know how true that is. Or to degree that it would free them up.

Well another team doing a remaster sounds like it would free them up considering that is what outsourcing means. Thats like saying Naughty Dog can't be free to make Uncharted 4 or The Last Of Us 2 because of Bluepoint games, ANOTHER TEAM making a remaster...

I mean....do you not understand this would mean ANOTHER TEAM IS MAKING THE REMASTER or...?

 

[Romulus]

Well another team doing a remaster sounds like it would free them up considering that is what outsourcing means. Thats like saying Naughty Dog can't be free to make Uncharted 4 or The Last Of Us 2 because of Bluepoint games, ANOTHER TEAM making a remaster...

I mean....do you not understand this would mean ANOTHER TEAM IS MAKING THE REMASTER or...?

I get that 100%. We still don't know the details, they could started negotiations and they fell through and they put it off, who knows. But again, that's part of the workload is the inital deal. All speculation of course.

 

[Ristifer]

Just for my own sanity, has it been confirmed that this is a prequel entry? I'm seeing that being thrown around a bit. I'm guessing this isn't meant to be a direct sequel to Episode Two, but is it possible that it's not a prequel and more of a side story that takes place after Ep. 2?

 

[Romulus]

Just for my own sanity, has it been confirmed that this is a prequel entry? I'm seeing that being thrown around a bit. I'm guessing this isn't meant to be a direct sequel to Episode Two, but is it possible that it's not a prequel and more of a side story that takes place after Ep. 2?

I think we'll know more Thursday.

 

[Romulus]

Valve Index is in the top 5 of bestsellers on Steam. The thirst is real.

Oculus Quest(both models) and the Rift S are still in the top 100 on Amazon US store. I checked awhile back and they were there then also.

I'm thinking it'll really jump up if they confirm the additional platforms on Thursday. Many people are still confused about that.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Half live vr remakes, psvr2 and vive exclusive

 

[What A Shame...]

Sure, the VR is absolutely brilliant for looking around while sitting on your ass, like driving or flying simulator, but there's a reason VR didn't excell in anything beyond that...

Speak for yourself. Everything I've felt VR excelled in required you to NOT "sit on your ass and look around".

 

[Tesseract]

To all the VR enthusiast here - you guys DO realize that because of VR limitations, this HL will be waaay more gimped compared to its predecessor than Crysis 2 vs Crysis was? Sure, the VR is absolutely brilliant for looking around while sitting on your ass, like driving or flying simulator, but there's a reason VR didn't excell in anything beyond that, and Valve making it won't magically overcome the issues/limitations. It's like Land Rover trying to turn an F1 car into a great off-roader, while all people really wanted was just another Discovery...

dude what

 

[_Starscream_]

To all the VR enthusiast here - you guys DO realize that because of VR limitations, this HL will be waaay more gimped compared to its predecessor than Crysis 2 vs Crysis was? Sure, the VR is absolutely brilliant for looking around while sitting on your ass, like driving or flying simulator, but there's a reason VR didn't excell in anything beyond that, and Valve making it won't magically overcome the issues/limitations. It's like Land Rover trying to turn an F1 car into a great off-roader, while all people really wanted was just another Discovery...

You didn't even see the game yet

I'm loving all these hot takes.

 

[GrayChild]

Back in my day we at least waited until the first gameplay videos kicked in before saying the game will suck. Kids these days are like freakin' fortunetellers, knowing if a game will be good or not just by hearing its name for the first time.

Also:

Of people currently working at Valve, 33 worked on HL2 or its episodes (this includes the project lead of HL2 and Ep2), 10 worked on HL1 and HL2, and 3 people didn't work on either but are from the HL mod community. These span the entire gamedev spectrum from programming to art to animation to sound to level design to Gabe Newell. So 46 people in total left are seasoned at half-lifing.
Now, that number is a *minimum*, as nowhere near the entire company is listed on their site, and I had trouble tracking down some notable HL people like Adam Foster (who was doing VR stuff at Valve as of 2018, and would almost certainly be on the project if he still works there).
Doing some very rough back of the napkin math, you're looking at anywhere from a third to half the people working on HL:A having experience making HL games. That seems shockingly good for such an old franchise, especially one dormant for 12 years.

So can we now leave the whole "all original developers have left Valve" bullshit once and for all?

 

[Grinchy]

A new Half Life game in VR sounds fucking awesome to me. The three of us who are excited about this can order a single pizza for our pizza party on launch day!

 

[Romulus]

A new Half Life game in VR sounds fucking awesome to me. The three of us who are excited about this can order a single pizza for our pizza party on launch day!

Afterwards we got 2 more AAA VR coming. By then, we'll have like 6 people, might have to order 2 pizzas.

 

[MrRenegade]

Outsource em.

I'm not asking for Valve themselves to port anything in terms of the actual team itself as that is very unlikely. So remasters, ports, transfer jobs etc are not that expensive. I'd argue working on VR stuff is actually more expensive then a simple port.

Why work on outdated content? Heck might as well argue why put out games ever, just close the studio down and just make money from Steam.

At this point you are basically arguing for them to not even exist as a studio like they once did.

Keep in mind, I don't even generally disagree with what you are saying, simply that its so moot, you might as well arguing this with ANY criticism of a company.

Example. Nintendo should make return to Star Fox "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Well...maybe we should get a sequel to Parasite Eve "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Maybe EA should port Dead Space series and Mass Effect trilogy "Devs are expensive and rare. Why work on outdated content when they have enough money?"

Do you not see how that basically boils down not speculating or criticizing anything if that really is the default response?

Your examples... learn to argue.

Well, that is what they do: counting the money. And as a game studio, well, they are long gone, people just don't wanna accept it. Plus I don't get it why people want remasters. Just buy the old game and play it. Oh, you need 8K graphics to enjoy it? Jeez, you won't enjoy it no matter the graphics.

 

[Elginer]

Perfect.

 

[quest]

Another slap in the face not as bad as diablo mobile but close. Valve makes billions on selling games and can't reinvest it into legitimate game development. All these years of steam profits valve should have great studios right behind the big 3. Hopefully they bring it to Sony so the most VR fans can enjoy it. I have zero interest

 

[Kadayi]

Back in my day we at least waited until the first gameplay videos kicked in before saying the game will suck. Kids these days are like freakin' fortunetellers, knowing if a game will be good or not just by hearing its name for the first time.

Kids these days? For real, that's your opening gambit? Sad. I don't think anyone has said it will suck (though their track record of late hasn't been great), more commented on the fact that reviving a long-abandoned franchise with a VR experience when

barely 1% of Steam users have a VR headset seems rather 'really?'

 

[gifgaf]

Kids these days? For real, that's your opening gambit? Sad. I don't think anyone has said it will suck (though their track record of late hasn't been great), more commented on the fact that reviving a long-abandoned franchise with a VR experience when

barely 1% of Steam users have a VR headset seems rather 'really?'

1% of 100 million is still 1 million users and that is a conservative guess, its definitely much higher than that. For myself I dont have my headsets hooked up to my pc all the time. Some people don't even use steam and stick to Oculus.

 

[Gavin Stevens]

I would LOVE a VR headset, but can’t afford it sadly. But that puts me in the same camp as the people who just want a normal half life game.

So, bums.

 

[Enjay]

VR is becoming the new pachinko or mobile

 

[dsk1210]

Really looking forward to the reveal tomorrow.

It's been a couple of great months for VR.

Asgard's Wrath
Pistol Whip
Stormland
Boneworks
Espire
Pavlov's huge update with zombie co-op
To name a few.

My Index will be getting plenty of use.

 

[Romulus]

Really looking forward to the reveal tomorrow.

It's been a couple of great months for VR.

Asgard's Wrath
Pistol Whip
Stormland
Boneworks
Espire
Pavlov's huge update with zombie co-op
To name a few.

My Index will be getting plenty of use.

Asgard's Wrath was surprisingly incredible. First time I agreed almost exactly with an ign review in years at a 9.4-9.5.

 

[The_Mike]

Half live vr remakes, psvr2 and vive exclusive

This game is solely purposed to sell steam VR, so won't come to psvr2 or vive. Only Steam Index.

 

[dsk1210]

Asgard's Wrath was surprisingly incredible. First time I agreed almost exactly with an ign review in years at a 9.4-9.5.

It is a great game, almost bust my hand playing it last time while taking on enemies, totally lost my bearings and smacked the wall full pelt.

 

[dsk1210]

This game is solely purposed to sell steam VR, so won't come to psvr2 or vive. Only Steam Index.

You have no idea what you are talking about man, it will work on any PC headset, Vive and Oculus as it's steam VR.

 

[gifgaf]

You have no idea what you are talking about man, it will work on any PC headset, Vive and Oculus as it's steam VR.

That's a recurring theme of most VR haters unfortunately.

 

[dsk1210]

That's a recurring theme of most VR haters unfortunately.

There seems to be a bit of a hate boner for VR just now, especially with the announcement of the next Half Life being VR.

The thing is, VR is only going to get better, the headsets will get way lighter, way higher resolution and high framerates, controllers will evolve, motion sickness will be eliminated. It's actually at a great place right now on the high end.

When people eventually get into these Headsets and realise there is games of the magnitude of Asgard's Wrath and Half Life they will be glad that some developers have pushed the boat out so early.

 

[The_Mike]

You have no idea what you are talking about man, it will work on any PC headset, Vive and Oculus as it's steam VR.

What are you basing this on? There's been previous VR games that were actually exclusive to specific headsets, why wouldnt this be any different?

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

What are you basing this on? There's been previous VR games that were actually exclusive to specific headsets, why wouldnt this be any different?

The difference is that Valve runs a game store. Valve makes money selling games, not hardware. And Valve deliberately support multiple PC VR headsets right now.

If Valve want to restrict headsets, they would have done it by now. Steam VR is what they are handing out to people, to any headsets that wants it. They have been doing this for a few years now. Were you living under a rock?

 

[Toecutter]

Really looking forward to seeing what this is like in action - hopefully it'll be the same kind of step forward for VR that Half Life 2 was for FPS engines. I'd like to see it showcase some of the features of the Index as well - I need a good reason to upgrade from the Rift if I'd have to drop that amount of money!

Hope the engine is just as scalable & forgiving of old hardware as the Source engine though, otherwise my vintage graphics card will be struggling!

 

[SnapShot]

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

I doubt its a fully fledged title but VR:Alyx if you remember, EP2 ended by her standing over her dead dad crying, the GMan stopped time again and presumably put Gordon on ice.

So is it too much to hope this could be a low key sequel to those events? Saying because when they were hacked long ago, they threw out a lot of stuff and started from scratch on many things as they thought any surprise was spoiled. Past writer gave his ending article so maybe they specifically didn't want to call it HL3 but HL Alyx.

Or it might just be a shitty on rails shooter, 30 mins long using same graphics as Team Fortress 2.

 

[gifgaf]

What are you basing this on? There's been previous VR games that were actually exclusive to specific headsets, why wouldnt this be any different?

99.9% Steam VR games are compatible with most, if not all PCVR headsets, 0.1% were playable but had some bugs here and there until mods fixed them (Bethesda). Oculus did lock down thier games to Rift only at the start but they backed down after a backlash and now you can play Oculus games with a mod. Your "information" is completely out of touch.

SteamVR is an open platform for most if not all PCVR headsets. (Theres even a mod for PSVR but its shitty) Valve is in it to push all VR to the masses not just Index.

Vive for one is a SteamVR pioneer, The knuckle controllers are 100% supported with the Vive Headset which shows that this comment..

This game is solely purposed to sell steam VR, so won't come to psvr2 or vive. Only Steam Index

Is just something you shat out without any real knowledge of the topic you are commenting on.

I doubt its a fully fledged title but VR:Alyx if you remember, EP2 ended by her standing over her dead dad crying, the GMan stopped time again and presumably put Gordon on ice.

So is it too much to hope this could be a low key sequel to those events? Saying because when they were hacked long ago, they threw out a lot of stuff and started from scratch on many things as they thought any surprise was spoiled. Past writer gave his ending article so maybe they specifically didn't want to call it HL3 but HL Alyx.

Or it might just be a shitty on rails shooter, 30 mins long using same graphics as Team Fortress 2.

I might have agreed with some of these points about it being a shitty rail shooter or not being a fully fledged title but Valve has said that Half LIfe Alyx is a "flagship VR game" So I'm hopefull it's something more.



I guess we will see soon enough.

 

[Dacon]

I doubt its a fully fledged title but VR:Alyx if you remember, EP2 ended by her standing over her dead dad crying, the GMan stopped time again and presumably put Gordon on ice.

So is it too much to hope this could be a low key sequel to those events? Saying because when they were hacked long ago, they threw out a lot of stuff and started from scratch on many things as they thought any surprise was spoiled. Past writer gave his ending article so maybe they specifically didn't want to call it HL3 but HL Alyx.

Or it might just be a shitty on rails shooter, 30 mins long using same graphics as Team Fortress 2.

Would be pretty cool if you were playing as Alyx trying to find out what happened to Gordon, and then have the events of the game lead into HL3.

Maybe that's too much to hope for? IDK

 

[Gamezone]

Gabe on the stage:

Half-Life Alyx is our flagship VR game.

By the way, we should also mention that it's our next flagship for those without VR headsets. Consider it the next chapter of Half-Life, playable with and without VR.

 

[dsk1210]

Gabe on the stage:

Half-Life Alyx is our flagship VR game.

By the way, we should also mention that it's our next flagship for those without VR headsets. Consider it the next chapter of Half-Life, playable with and without VR.

I honestly don't see that happening, they would have to make sacrifices on both ways of playing that it would negate the whole reason for producing this in the first place.

It is a full game as well, not sure why people think this is a short tech demo, they have been working on this for over 3 years.

 

[Kadayi]

1% of 100 million is still 1 million users and that is a conservative guess, its definitely much higher than that. For myself I dont have my headsets hooked up to my pc all the time. Some people don't even use steam and stick to Oculus.

Please the survey knows if you have VR based off your game purchases and software installed and this sure as hell isn't going be sold on the oculus store.

And how many of these people are interested in a sidebar to a dead franchise which isn't even being heralded as the conclusion to the episodic Trilogy that Valve left by roadside ten years ago?

 

[gifgaf]

Please the survey knows if you have VR based off your game purchases and software installed and this sure as hell isn't going be sold on the oculus store.

And how many of these people are interested in a sidebar to a dead franchise which isn't even being heralded as the conclusion to the episodic Trilogy that Valve left by roadside ten years ago?

Actually you are very wrong. The survey will ONLY take into account the headset if its plugged in when you do the survey, it is common knowledge in VR circles. I have done the survey many times with and without a headset attached, also the survey takes into account which headset you have attached because there are more than one type of headset compatible with SteamVR. Having VR games in your library means jack considering some VR games play without a headset.

 

[pr0cs]

interested in a sidebar to a dead franchise

Curious, would the franchise be dead to you if Alyx wasn't VR exclusive?