Half Life 3 wishes

[shadow skill]

If you want tension try limiting yourself to five save points your entire play through in any game. Doom 3 isn't any less tense of a game because you can save anywhere, the game is tense because enemies can just teleport into an area and whoop your ass not to mention the game is very very dark. Though I will say that the way they handled the whole flashlight thing is just ridiculous, since you can't have the flashlight on and have a weapon (save the pistol I think.) at the ready. Apparently in the 2100's duct tape is a lost tool of the ancients.

No offense intended mate (no, really) but maybe you should learn how to shoot straight before you make blanket statements concerning what and does not work from a gameplay perspective.

Where did this happen? Although it is ironic that you say that because this here sure as hell sounds like a generalization that you seem to hate so much

Some of us like tension and difficulty that's brought on by being caught in a tough situation. Personally, I find regenerating health/shields make games too easy. "Aww, you got shot? Poor baby, give it a few seconds and it'll feel better"

Have you ever played a game with static health bars before and one hit kills? Let's not go down that road because compared to those kind of games there simply is no tension in a game like Half Life at least not from the health system anyway. Now if you want to talk about creating a tense atmosphere we can do that and I can point to numerous examples of tense situations that have nothing to do with the health system used.

Spartan I hate to tell you this but the MP5 (might be an mp7) is a real weapon (Though it doesn't support a grenade launcher attachment as far as I know.), the rocket launcher is also a real weapon as is the laser guiding feature, the pulse rifle is the only weapon in half life 2 (I'm not counting the pheromone pod as it is not really a gun) that does not actually exist in some form. (Though it is a very plausible weapon.) Hell the Gauss gun from the first game is a real gun though I do not think it is used in an offensive capacity it functions on a principle not entirely dissimilar to that of a Rail gun which is also real. Frankly I miss the weird alien arm thing from the first game and the Snarks which were just adorable and explosivey I loved those things...sniff.

 

[Vigormortis]

No, they clearly stated that Episode 3 will NOT be the last game in the HL franchise.

lol, no. Gabe "clearly" stated that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is the FINAL game in regards to Gordon Freeman. He hinted that he'd love to explore other aspects of the Half-Life universe, as I stated before, but that for all intents and purposes, Ep3 is the last Half-Life game. They may make a game about, say, Alyx or clarify the misadventures of Chell in a few Portal games, but they will not be titled "Half-Life: (insert random moniker here)". If you have evidence to the contrary, and not just here-say, please feel free to post a link here. I would love to see it as I'd hate to see the story actually end while leaving so many possible story arcs they could follow.

Oh, and shadowskill, the Gauss cannon from Half-Life 1 doesn't exist in real life in ANY form. It fires a charged pulse of energy that's a combination of a laser and a lightning bolt, effectively. Yes the military has laser-based weapons, but not ones that are hand-held and can blast through 8 feet of reinforced concrete in one short blast.

 

[shadow skill]

Oh, and shadowskill, the Gauss cannon from Half-Life 1 doesn't exist in real life in ANY form. It fires a charged pulse of energy that's a combination of a laser and a lightning bolt, effectively. Yes the military has laser-based weapons, but not ones that are hand-held and can blast through 8 feet of reinforced concrete in one short blast.

Wikipedia begs to differ:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun#Potential_uses

 

[llamastorm.games]

"There isnt going to be a half life 3 so all get over yourself."

Can you provide a reference for where valve said there will be no HL3? Valve have said as recently as December of last year that Episode 3 will not be the last game in the franchise.

In other words llamastorm, why did you bother reiterating what a half dozen people have already said without checking up on your facts?

Episode 3 will be the last game in the current Half Life series meaning the current storyline will finish with episode 3. But yes there will be more half life games in the future but it wont be Half Life 3 it will be something else but in the same universe ,some of the same characters and other such like.

 

[AngryMan]

If you want tension try limiting yourself to five save points your entire play through in any game. Doom 3 isn't any less tense of a game because you can save anywhere, the game is tense because enemies can just teleport into an area and whoop your ass not to mention the game is very very dark. Though I will say that the way they handled the whole flashlight thing is just ridiculous, since you can't have the flashlight on and have a weapon (save the pistol I think.) at the ready. Apparently in the 2100's duct tape is a lost tool of the ancients.

Y'know, it's funny. You're yet to make a single statement in this thread that I can honestly say I fully agree with. I didn't find Doom 3 to be especially tense. After the first five monsters spawned behind you by leaping out of a hidden closet, or through a hellgate or whatever, it got kind of easy to see it coming.

As for the torch thing, that was the only bit that I thought actually brought any real tension to the game. Which would you rather do? See the bad guy, or be able to shoot them effectively?

Except, oh wait, the bad guys have glowing eyes. That makes life easier...

Where did this happen? Although it is ironic that you say that because this here sure as hell sounds like a generalization that you seem to hate so much

Well, you yourself stated that your major source of difficulty when playing Halo was your own inability to shoot things properly, and I found Halo to be relatively forgiving when it comes to player inaccuracy. Half-Life 2 is less so, so I can see why you'd struggle and want a crutch like a regeneration system to help you through.

Have you ever played a game with static health bars before and one hit kills? Let's not go down that road because compared to those kind of games there simply is no tension in a game like Half Life at least not from the health system anyway. Now if you want to talk about creating a tense atmosphere we can do that and I can point to numerous examples of tense situations that have nothing to do with the health system used.

There are many roads to creating tension. A health system is one of them, and it creates spontaneous tension - as a developer, you can't plan for when the player's gong to start running low on health. A really good player might never drop below about 65% health, whereas a really bad one might die multiple times in the beginning stages of the game that are supposed to be easy. It's a good way of throwing an element of player skill into the tension-building system.

Time-limiting the level while things explode around you, dark areas with stealthy bad-guys in them, desperate last stand scenarios, stealth sections... those are all developer-led. Tension induced by being low on health and supplies is mostly player-led, provided the developers have been reasonable with their distribution of both. It spices up the gameplay.

 

[bor3ds0ul]

i disagree totally with his points. The points he wants to change will make Half-Life not Half-Life

 

[gh0ti]

OK. You're asking us to reference solid evidence that there will be a Half-Life 3, but not showing us these 'quotes' from Gabe Newell that there won't be one.

I'm not saying I don't believe you, as you seem so sure, but I've never come across Gabe saying that Gordon's adventures end with EP 3. Can you link us to one? I know he said that the 'story arc' would end with EP 3, but that doesn't necessarily mean the end of HL as we know it.

 

[shadow skill]

Angry man what does that have to do with your sweeping generalizations? Your whole point about a "crutch" are the same ones people who don't like quick save use to justify their own stupidity. They claim it makes games easier if you can save anywhere though they miss the fact that even without the ability to save anywhere the enemy strength does not change just because you can only save at certain points in a game the only thing that changes is how long it might take you to get through an area if you die since you have to repeat more of it. You cry that a regeneration system is a "crutch" in spite of the fact that Half Life does not use static health bars and/or one hit kills which means that you are in favor of a system that uses a "crutch" as you put it. Are you not aware that when you get hit by one of those Bull headcrabs your health drops to one point for a second or two and then *gasp* it regenerates up to a certain point, I guess that makes dealing with them easy except of course when there are other enemies to worry about in that brief moment of time where all it takes is one hit to kill you.

If a game has to rely on the health system or the lack of quick save to create tension, there is something wrong with the game. Episode one makes great use of atmosphere to create tension especially in the tunnel after your first train ride having to deal with those headcrabs with only your flash light to illuminate things around you.

 

[gibboss28]

who knew that a bunch of suggestions would cause so much fuss.. hell hath no fury like a gamers attitude towards others it would seem... :\

 

[thejoblot]

How about criticizing Half-Life based on its own merits instead of Halo's? That would make a lot more sense...

 

[bobraj]

If anything,I would like Valve to take a leaf out of Mirror's Edge book. Allowing the player to see their avatar's body will allow for better platforming and release some new ideas for the team to play with.

Oh yeah, a couple of devices from Aperture labs wouldn't go amiss.

 

[shadow skill]

How about criticizing Half-Life based on its own merits instead of Halo's? That would make a lot more sense...

Who said I was criticizing Half Life based on Halo's merits? Did you see the word Halo and have your eyes glaze over? My point in bringing up Halo was and is that difficulty in Half Life 2 is too dependent on your health and armor status rather than you skill at taking down enemies without getting shot in the face. Further more it is simply annoying to run around looking for health items after a fire fight, there would be less of this annoyance with a system that mixes both health packs and minimal health regeneration. (Resistance Fall of Man) Instead of more crates that have health packs in them there could be more (and hopefully) smarter enemies thrown at me, and less health pack hunting after the fact.

 

[thejoblot]

Why are we even arguing about this? Some of your suggestions, as stupid as I find them to be, may in fact make Half-Life a better game that will still satisfy its fans but completely defeat the purpose of the Half-Life series: to be a deliberately old-school type of shooter. None of this even makes sense.

 

[Mister_moi]

here is your cover system, grab a barrel and hide behind it =D

ill get serious tomorow.

 

[shadow skill]

Why are we even arguing about this? Some of your suggestions, as stupid as I find them to be, may in fact make Half-Life a better game that will still satisfy its fans but completely defeat the purpose of the Half-Life series: to be a deliberately old-school type of shooter. None of this even makes sense.

Funny I thought the purpose of Half Life was to kick ass and not fit into any kind of pigeon hole category...... The driving missions and the squad segments, not to mention the platforming, and physics puzzles (as bad as they are.) were certainly innovative when Valve implemented them and definitely do not fit the mold of "old school" shooter at least not to me. Especially when put next to Doom, Quake and Unreal.

 

[Vigormortis]

Oh, and shadowskill, the Gauss cannon from Half-Life 1 doesn't exist in real life in ANY form. It fires a charged pulse of energy that's a combination of a laser and a lightning bolt, effectively. Yes the military has laser-based weapons, but not ones that are hand-held and can blast through 8 feet of reinforced concrete in one short blast.

Wikipedia begs to differ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun#Potential_uses

Apparently you don't read posts thoroughly. Your "wikipedia" reference is for a rail gun, completely different technology. Railguns fire hyper-sonic projectiles that are accelerated to those speeds by magnetic coils or similar means. The gauss cannon from Half-Life doesn't fire solid projectiles (i.e. no ammo, just energy cells much like batteries). It instead fires, essentially, bolts of energy. Don't insult wikipedia by linking pages from it to topics that don't apply to the subject at hand.

OK. You're asking us to reference solid evidence that there will be a Half-Life 3, but not showing us these 'quotes' from Gabe Newell that there won't be one. I'm not saying I don't believe you, as you seem so sure, but I've never come across Gabe saying that Gordon's adventures end with EP 3. Can you link us to one? I know he said that the 'story arc' would end with EP 3, but that doesn't necessarily mean the end of HL as we know it.

Done and done:
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200708/N07.0827.1503.17430.htm?Page=2
http://pc.ign.com/articles/711/711560p1.html

Gabe said they want to explore other characters and other aspects of the Half-Life universe, but that the current story arc involving Gordon and essentially "Half-Life as we know it" ends in Ep3. So there may be other games based in the Half-Life universe down the road, but them having the Half-Life moniker is unlikely. So in effect the Half-Life series won't end in Ep3, but the form we're familiar with and the title will.

 

[shadow skill]

Uhhh did you actually read the wikipedia entry?

A coilgun or Gauss gun is a type of projectile accelerator that uses one or more electromagnetic coils to accelerate a magnetic projectile to high velocity. Coilguns accelerate the projectile using contactless means.

Coilguns consist of one or more coils arranged along the barrel that are switched in sequence so as to ensure that the projectile is accelerated quickly along the barrel via magnetic forces. Because coilguns have no sliding contact, no wear or erosion occurs to the barrel, and the working life of a coilgun is potentially infinite.

It is distinctly separate from a railgun, which pass a large current through the projectile or sabot via sliding contacts.

You just repeated what the other guy said and invalidated your whole point.

Gabe said they want to explore other characters and other aspects of the Half-Life universe, but that the current story arc involving Gordon and essentially "Half-Life as we know it" ends in Ep3. So there may be other games based in the Half-Life universe down the road, but them having the Half-Life moniker is unlikely. So in effect the Half-Life series won't end in Ep3, but the form we're familiar with and the title will.

What part of that would prevent them from calling the game Half Life 3? Neither of those links suggest that they can't or won't do that, though the ign article is somewhat misleading since in the Eurogamer interview Gabe does not come out and say that the next arc will not be titled Half Life 3. They do suggest as you point out that episode 3 will be the last one for the current arc.

 

[Meshakhad_v1legacy]

I'm assuming that the "current arc" is that of the Combine invasion. I predict that the Borealis' destruction will be the final nail in the coffin for the Combine on Earth. Once the Borealis is gone, all that's left is mopping up.

There's nothing to suggest that they're done with the Half-Life storyline as we know it. They might bring in a new threat for Gordon to face.