Half-Life 2 Episodes

[TheKaiserEcho]

I remember how episode 1 pissed the living hell out of me. It was like 3 years in development, and it ended up being a game that you could beat without a gun, and under 4 hours. Episode 2 was significantly longer and more difficult, so that was good. If you watched the ZP review, then Yahtzee clearly points out how this episode thing needs to tackle: Quick, Cheap, and frequent releasing. Obviously they only tackled 2 of those things, which is disappointing. But if they are able to make it fun and intresting, it will be worth the wait.

I agree, I thought the whole point of a game being episodic was to decrease downtime between releases? Sure, episode 3 will probably be very polished, but they ended Episode 2 on a total cliffhanger! I could understand if they had to build a new engine, or were making an entire game, but they already have almost all the main art assets already created, the weapons, the main characters. Unless it's seriously long I don't see how it'll be worth the wait or the $40.

Not to bag on Valve, but look at Bungie, there was three years of downtime each between Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3. They had to create all the assets and engine from the ground up for both the sequels. Why would it take Valve three years to make a game they already have a lot of the assets for, and is going to be a shorter, single player only experience?

 

[Good morning blues]

Yeah, it's taking a long time, but when it comes out it will be better than the vast majority of its competition. Valve takes their time and that's why their games are great.

 

[P00dle]

I don't really see why people starts defending valve's extremely long waiting time.
cough* fanboys cough*
It isn't a new game, it's IMPOSSIBLE that it'd take that long time developing it.
And as someone mentioned, isn't the idea of episodic gaming to decrease waiting???

As for the weapon packs,
No they don't have to

BUT THEY ARE

The fact that they don't have to isn't an excuse to be slow.
If they'd announce that they won't be doing wp anymore then that's one thing, but now they're just slowly killing the game.

 

[Meatstorm]

Valve sux at updating games.

Take TF2 as an example, it's been out for almost 1 and 1/2 year and three weaponpacks, THREE weaponpacks has been released.

FYI
Each containing three weapons for one specific class, as of date it's pyro, medic and heavy.

I can't imagine it'd take 6 month of programming to develop three new weapons.
Srsly valve, you can't just sit in your chairs drinking coke and watch youtube all day, WORK!

I though the guys who were doing the weapon/achievement packs where ordered to help with L4D

that might explain why it is taking so long

 

[Uberjoe19]

I'll be happy if Valve releases Episode 3 by December 2010.

 

[runtheplacered]

BUT THEY ARE

The fact that they don't have to isn't an excuse to be slow.

Why isn't it? Sounds reasonable to me. If you dislike the fact that Valve's free content comes at a pace that you deem slow, don't buy anymore of their games. Or petition them. Or whatever your heart desires.

But the fact that they don't have to is certainly an excuse, no matter how you feel about the situation.

cough* fanboys cough*

This is such a thoughtless comment. Why do people use this as some kind of an argument? It's not one. People are allowed to have an opinion about things without being "fanboys". They can look at two sides of an argument (try it sometime, it's actually fun) and decide which of the sides of the argument they prefer, based on reason. Take your "fanboy" flag elsewhere. Hopefully most of the people on this forum have no patience for that sort of idiotic labeling.

 

[Good morning blues]

I don't really see why people starts defending valve's extremely long waiting time.
cough* fanboys cough*
It isn't a new game, it's IMPOSSIBLE that it'd take that long time developing it.
And as someone mentioned, isn't the idea of episodic gaming to decrease waiting???

As for the weapon packs,
No they don't have to

BUT THEY ARE

The fact that they don't have to isn't an excuse to be slow.
If they'd announce that they won't be doing wp anymore then that's one thing, but now they're just slowly killing the game.

1) It's not IMPOSSIBLE to take a long time to make a game - especially when you're a small company (roughly 150 employees, I believe) that is working on several projects simultaneously
2) The fact that the weapon packs require a large expenditure of finances for no reward is most certainly an excuse to make them slow
3) Based on the fact that I just checked at midnight Pacific time on a Sunday and found that there were almost 5500 people playing TF2 [http://store.steampowered.com/stats/], I would say that the game is pretty clearly not dying

 

[pha kin su pah]

They are sitting in a room throwing darts at projects trying to decide what to do.

Or Left 4 Dead DLC?

 

[P00dle]

cough* fanboys cough*

This is such a thoughtless comment. Why do people use this as some kind of an argument? It's not one. People are allowed to have an opinion about things without being "fanboys". They can look at two sides of an argument (try it sometime, it's actually fun) and decide which of the sides of the argument they prefer, based on reason. Take your "fanboy" flag elsewhere. Hopefully most of the people on this forum have no patience for that sort of idiotic labeling.

I used this flag to prove that most people on these kind of forums can't make an honest argument. They will just defend their cause, based on game or similar they once liked, to the frikkin death. I have loved many Valve games, and i think episode 1 and 2 were completly awesome but that doesn't mean i can't say Valve is bad at something else.

And for the TF2 part

NO!!! I KNOW THEY DON'T HAVE TO DO IT. (sry 'bout the caps)
BUT THEY ARE...

AND THEIR SLOW.
I'm not saying i have any legal rights concerning the speed, but as a player of the game i have the god damn right to say that a 1 weapon/2 month is pretty damn slow.

 

[Insomniactk]

As much as I loved the orange box, I'm not looking forward to ep3 as I expect it will cost $40, be one hour long with no replayability and everyone will talk about how great it is because of some catch phrase or song

... I played through Half-Life 2, HL2 Ep. 1 and HL2 Ep. 2 three times...

 

[Locker420]

Valve can do whatever they want as long as the continue to produce games with an exceedingly high level of quality, imo.

 

[Maze1125]

(whether it was a vital point or not, she was stabbed through the stomach and left exposed for about 3 hours. Unless she was inexplicably Teddy Roosevelt, she was dead.)

Perhaps, but the vortigaunt was carrying her for much of that time, and they have healing powers, it's hardly a leap to think that he was sustaining her.