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No Half-Life 2: Episode 3 in 2010?

I could bitch, whine, and moan about how hyped I am, how disappointed I am, how episodic content failed, how Valve are taking their sweet time, etc etc.

But Episode 3 is one of the few titles ever that I know I'm going to adore from start to finish. HL2 and the episodes are some of my favourite games ever made, so it doesnt really bother me if I have to wait longer than expected.

I will get it one day and it will be godly. That's all.
 
EatChildren said:
I could bitch, whine, and moan about how hyped I am, how disappointed I am, how episodic content failed, how Valve are taking their sweet time, etc etc.

But Episode 3 is one of the few titles ever that I know I'm going to adore from start to finish. HL2 and the episodes are some of my favourite games ever made, so it doesnt really bother me if I have to wait longer than expected.

I will get it one day and it will be godly. That's all.
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I mostly agree, but it would be nice if they didn't tease us for 3 years before releasing another installment. Besides Battlestar Galactica, I don't think I've ever waited this long for the next episode.
 
Gwanatu T said:
I mostly agree, but it would be nice if they didn't tease us for 3 years before releasing another installment. Besides Battlestar Galactica, I don't think I've ever waited this long for the next episode.
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comes with the territory, as far as i'm concerned. it's not a necessarily diametric choice, but valve makes games in a painstaking, lengthy manner that come out to be as close to perfect experiences as i've personally ever played. would that level of quality still be maintained if they didn't develop and keep it under wraps for several years? i don't really know. i don't really want to know. given the situation, i'd rather just encourage one of the few developers who takes their sweet time and refuses to release something that isn't up to their standards.
 
Amir0x said:
They didn't fail at making a good game. See, the problem is you think we are criticizing the product that came out. They simply failed at delivering episodic content. Episodic content is literally designed as a strength to getting content to fans quicker. That is its whole purpose. If it still takes two and a half years to deliver five hours of content, then you've failed at the concept of episodic gaming.

That does not necessarily mean you've failed to make a good game. Valve made two rather good little games.
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But they gave you episodes of L4d, L4d2, and TF2 in the mean time!
 
I can only imagine that they're spending their time developing new tech that they intend to use in Ep.3 and beyond. It'll be worth the wait, as always.
 
Dedalus said:
I can only imagine that they're spending their time developing new tech that they intend to use in Ep.3 and beyond. It'll be worth the wait, as always.
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Yes, that is what I imagine too. They gotta keep the tech current.

Source is starting to look reeeeaaaal long in the tooth.
 
I honestly think that it's taking this long because it's going to be significantly longer than the two previous episodes and they are reworking the AI system for the episodes to better work with the portal system and to implement the AI director into the the episodes. They've already said in an interview that they would test out the AI director in other games after the original L4D ships:

The AI director is a brilliant addition to this game. Do you have any plans for future applications of it outside of Left 4 Dead?

[DL] For sure. The AI director is the technology that drives the overall experience in Left 4 Dead. It's monitoring the team's progress, health, ammo, etc., and making real-time "calls" for sound effects, number of zombies, types of zombies, general pacing and more. It was conceived as a solution for keeping the game fresh each time you play, but then we quickly realized it could be tuned to adjust pacing as well as difficulty on the fly. With that said, it's very likely that we will do some testing with it after L4D ships to find out how applicable it is for other games. And, we're definitely anxious to see what the mod community will do with it once we add it to the Source SDK.
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And about the engine, they'll add some new stuff to it, but there's not going to be any new engine coming out for a very long time. That'll come with HL3 and that won't be out for 3-5 years.
 
If they are making CS2 I hope it's more then the same game on a new engine, not asking for TF2 toon graphics or anything but I hope they try something different, maybe having lots of walls take crumble damage or something when shot a lot, broken plaster and tiles etc.
 
Valve will make EP3 look great, just as EP2 looked great when it came out.

Come to think of it, it still looks good.
 
I am disappoint.

Really. By the time it comes out, I won't care anymore.
 
otake said:
I am disappoint.

Really. By the time it comes out, I won't care anymore.
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lie to us but don't lie to yourself
 
I am disappointed by the idea that there won't be a continuation of the story this year (one of many reasons I'm against pushing games into too much of an episodic format). But I'm sure once the game finally comes out it will be something special...
 
I don't get this. I mean, I can unserstand that Valve takes it time with Episode 3 and that the success of Left 4 Dead may have come in the way of finishing the next Episode. But it is over 2 years now. They could at least show us something, give us a little tease.

Half-Life is still Valve's main IP. And I'm sure that the next game will be at least as awesome as the previous ones. But give us something that affirms this hope a bit more.
 
ArjanN said:
The episodes ARE being released more fequently though.

If they had gone straight to half-life 3 we wouldn't have had episode 1 and 2, and Half-life 3 still wouldn't be out either.
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Well, It would be released by the end of the year. Which would be awesome.
 
Cindres said:
It had BETTER be Half Life 3 now. I wish they'd at least fucking tell us something, nothing happens unless someone squeezes them for the info.
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I think that Valve's position probably makes sense if you look at their history. They probably just want to avoid another H-L2 fuckup where they say it's out in XYZ and then XYZ comes and goes (and goes and goes and goes) and they haven't shipped.

My guess is that they will announce it when it is absolutely, definitely, 100% guaranteed, going to be ready in three months time or so; and they will give themselves a month extra on top of that, just to be sure. Or perhaps even once it's already gone gold.
 
proposition said:
I think that Valve's position probably makes sense if you look at their history. They probably just want to avoid another H-L2 fuckup where they say it's out in XYZ and then XYZ comes and goes (and goes and goes and goes) and they haven't shipped.

My guess is that they will announce it when it is absolutely, definitely, 100% guaranteed, going to be ready in three months time or so; and they will give themselves a month extra on top of that, just to be sure. Or perhaps even once it's already gone gold.
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I hope that's how it'll end up! That'd be a nice surprise. Really brief hype train, huge payoff.
 
Ah, but do we believe Gameinformer's "Loose Talk". That section of theirs has always been rather pointless since their rumors were always old or obvious. I have a hard time thinking of many rumors that they actually did "nail". So is this a real rumor or just Gameinformer speculating on the likely?
 
I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't come out for a couple more years honestly. I can't wait for it to come out, but I definitely don't think it'll come out this year
but would love for Valve to prove me wrong
. With how Valve works, it seems like the employees there choose the project that they want to work on and so I would think that they must have more priorities internally than episode 3.
 
Sucks, this is the one FPS I was actually looking forward to... Ep 2 ended on such a cliffhanger. Oh well, at least it'll give me a bit of time to finish the original Half Life.
 
It will get here when it gets here and it will be awesome. I'd rather Valve do it this way than Blizzard did with Starcraft 2 this past year.
 
Valve said 6 months to a year b/w each episode.... Valve failed at episodic content.

At this point I expect fully utilized Dx11 half life 3 game or else I will be it anyway...
 
The Lamonster said:
Where the fuck is this game, where the fuck is Starcraft 2, etc etc etc
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Being saved as financial filler for 2011.

But it has been too long for it to be a simple 4 hour DLC campaign.
 
Playing through a bunch of HL2 mods recently, it is amazing to see how much source as improved just within the HL2 series (excluding L4D2). Since some of the older ones were built for HL2 and newer ones on Episode 2, it's like, the enhancements made for Episode 2 make it look so much better. It's amazing how much they got out of the Source engine; consider that HL2 came out the same time as Halo 2, and it still looks great when compared to Halo 3. As much as I'm looking forward to Episode 3, a big part of that is seeing how much more they can get out of the current source engine. The best would be if the time between Episode 3 and the actual Half-Life 3 was short, and secretly Valve has been working on the follow up to Source. Hell, the next orange box could have Counter Strike Source 2 on it.
 
With the wait being so long Valve just needs to give us the Orange Box 2/Black Box/Indigo Box or whatever name you wanna give it with Episode 3(or HL3 if it turns into that), Counter Strike 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Portal 2.
 
You don't need to throw out an entire engine and start again. You can add new capabilities, improve others, and take out and replace segments. Valve has stated this is what they plan to do with source, a constantly evolving engine.
 
JavaMava said:
You don't need to throw out an entire engine and start again. You can add new capabilities, improve others, and take out and replace segments. Valve has stated this is what they plan to do with source, a constantly evolving engine.
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Still, it's been ~5 to 6 years since CS Source. They've got a lot of mileage from just upgrading and all that. I'm not saying they couldn't ride it even more, but a new engine with newer stuff like euphoria would be nice. I remember CS Source was maybe the first game I played with the havok physics and ragdoll in it (there was that game where you shoot boxes at a dangling skeleton before that, I think).
 
MrPing1000 said:
I still find the source engine more asthetically pleasing than any other.

It's a very good engine, and Valve continue to build ontop of it, which it was always designed to do.

One big texture and geometry upgrade and it'll be top of the line again. Still I find it's gritty style much more realistic than the plastic coated turds than the unreal engine often craps out.
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I also agree. What us the engine that Oblivion and Fallout 3 use? As far as rendering people, that engine comes close to HL2, but I have yet to encounter a more "authentic" and vibrant engine than Source, even in its age.

Gears of War gray, AA plastic, and all that.
 
Linkzg said:
Still, it's been ~5 to 6 years since CS Source. They've got a lot of mileage from just upgrading and all that. I'm not saying they couldn't ride it even more, but a new engine with newer stuff like euphoria would be nice. I remember CS Source was maybe the first game I played with the havok physics and ragdoll in it (there was that game where you shoot boxes at a dangling skeleton before that, I think).
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There's absolutely no reason the steam engine couldn't make a call to euphoria. You don't need to start a new engine from scratch for that.
 
I'll take a crowbar to my steam account if Gordon doesn't get any kind of action from Alex in ep 3. Something. ANYTHING!
 
I don't care. Everyone in this thread is familiar with Valve Time™. I just hope they least make a formal announcement or release a trailer and/or screenshots this year.
 
1) Valve admitted their failure with episodic content more than 2 years ago. Perhaps it's time for whiney bitches on message boards to stop annoyingly attacking them for it in every thread? There are far more interesting things to talk about.

2) Not sure if it was mentioned in this thread yet, but Gabe said that Left 4 Dead 3 is not in the works.


Unlike when L4D came out and everyone at Valve wanted to continue working on the franchise, leading to L4D2, in this case, practically no one wants to work on L4D anymore :-P
 
With all the sweet ass time they're taking this can't possibly be episodic content anymore. Put me in the "Half-Life 3" camp.
 
Also not sure if this has been mentioned in this thread, but I recently read another interview where Gabe or someone states they're up to 250 people now.

Only 60 of them worked on Left 4 Dead 2.



:-O
 
It's been 1/2 a decade. It's about time for another HL fix. Valve bring on Half-Life 3 so I can can have an excuse to sink 2 grand into a new PC.
 
The other day, I had the pleasure to see Merle Dandridge perform Rent live (and was amazing), and I really wanted to meet her after the show and ask if she knows anything, but I got out of the theater last and the crowd was immense, so I didn't stay to meet her. :(

But I'm assuming that if she has time to travel to Toronto to perform live, I don't think she's voice recording...
 
I'm not too torn up by the announcement, maybe this will give me time to beat HL2 and the first 2 episodes before it comes out.
 
Holmes said:
The other day, I had the pleasure to see Merle Dandridge perform Rent live (and was amazing), and I really wanted to meet her after the show and ask if she knows anything, but I got out of the theater lady and the crowd was immense, so I didn't stay to meet her. :(

But I'm assuming that if she has time to travel to Toronto to perform live, I don't think she's voice recording...
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I'm sure if Valve has any intentions of releasing this year or next they would have recorded already.
 
Holmes said:
Is it normal to have the voice recordings done about a year early?
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A year "early"? It's not unusual at all for most productions to be content locked a year or more before the project is ever finished. Do you think they sit around and wait until all the bugs are fixed, and all the polishing in the game to be complete to be even starting to cast and record voices? In general once the script is complete and largely finalized, casting will begin. They'll need a good amount of voice to complete in line with the development of cutscenes, game events, etc. After the initial batch of recording is complete, actors will often be called back towards the tail end of the production to do pick up lines and changes/additions so they can tie everything up.
 
Wasn't there a post a little while ago with them showing off all their Torchlight characters?

They're probably still doing that for pete's sake. It's definitely taken up a good chunk out of my time all right.

Des0lar said:
POV BJ. Now that would be something
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Mockup done with Garry's Mod incoming.
 
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