I'm beginning to hate Valve.

[LOLITRON]

Anybody remember Valve's false advertising with HL2? No? Go back and watch the old trailers. Last I played Half Life 2 there were no branching storylines or choices I could make to change the outcome of the game, I couldn't break the shit out of everything (except for what they wanted me to), and the enemy AI was not as smart as they claimed it to be -- or even showed it to be in their gameplay trailer. People tend to ignore this because Half Life 2 turned out to be a solid game anyways.

I don't recall any of this from the trailers and news coverage I saw. Now, I didn't have stable Internet at the time, so I hardly have all the trailers - I relied on gaming magazines to include some from E3 or something with a CD. The closest I recall were the claims that you had some leeway in scripted events. In fact, the one thing that stands to mind was that glowing tentacle thingie (which wasn't in the game at the end) and the example that you could try to save the soldier it would drag down a hatch, or follow him down, or maybe just try to find a safer route to go down. Or something along those lines. I don't recall "being able to change the overall story", though. Couldn't find it either (lots of E3 footage is just snippets forming a 1 minute video and I don't even know if it's from E3).

The other thing I recall were Source engine showoffs where they showed how different materials behaved, like wood boxes being light, floating and being brakable, while metal ones were heavier and resistant to damage. Which was the same box with a different texture. And there were also physics of wooden boards and fruit and how they behaved when shot and stuff. Is this what you mean by "break the shit out of everything"? I can't recall any mention of fully destructible environment a-la Red Faction.

It's been so long and there are so many that I can't honestly tell you what the particular videos were, but I recall a few parts so maybe you'll know what I'm talking about. There was one trailer/demo where the guy was showing off the AI. One of the enemy AI was trying to find the player that was behind a barricaded door. After trying to shoot it open and giving up, the guy found a window and threw a grenade through it. They claimed that was only one of several possible scenarios to that situation. In the game I played, the AI was so dumb they'd run recklessly into my turrets by the dozen.

I think you and I might be thinking of the same video that showed off the physics engine. They were hyping up how everything would act exactly as it would in RL and how there were destructible environments. In the actual game you couldn't destroy anything huge unless it was scripted. From what I remember they were showing Gordon blowing up storage containers and shit. I would've loved to play that game -- even today.

While most of what they showed was more or less legit(except for the AI), it was highly exaggerated in the demos they released. They did blatantly lie about certain scripted events, but whether or not that's considered false advertising is up to the consumers I guess.

Edit:
Here we go: "Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player?s presence affects everything around him or her, from the physical environment to the behaviors and even the emotions of both friends and enemies."

Source: http://www.moddb.com/games/half-life-2

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Looks like you're confusing Valve with your own impatience. You can't call them entitled for keeping their unreleased projects in the dark. That is their prerogative, just as it is with every other developer, author, or other kind of content creator that has ever existed in all of history.

If you think game devs have to have a live feed of information straight from their innermost workshops to their facebook and twitter, then yes, you ARE the entitled one.

 

[Annihilist]

Maybe they're trying to ensure they don't release a crap game?

 

[Dyan]

Okay, okay.. So quite a few people are talking about how it will not live up to the hype. But the thing I'm wondering about is what hype these people are referencing. We have heard literally nothing about HL3 (aside from a few april fools websites) so where is this hype I'm hearing about? It's not like Duke Nukem Forever where they kept leading us on with fake trailers on a 13 year long period. Logic dictates that since we have no information about the game there should be nothing to hype up.

Honestly I don't really care about the game itself. It'll come out eventually, it'll probably be good and we'll all move on.

 

[raingod]

Don't say "I hate Valve" or they will be forced to release Half-Life 2 Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 so you will love them, again.

 

[Devil's Due]

I like Valve.

I hate Valve's fans. Like the one in this thread. Attacking someone brutally just because he doesn't like them. He raises some actual complaints and people attack his character. Way to go, community /golfclap

 

[WhyWasThat]

The reason why Valve are cut slack arguably more so than any other publisher is because they make some of the best games of the industry.
People get uppity when the likes of Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines take ages because those games take years and years to arrive, and end up being repugnant crap when they finally do. When Valve spend 5+ years on a game, you KNOW it's because they're using every single day of that development to make their game a genre-defining standard.

Half-Life 3 will be announced when it's ready. And when that time comes, minds will be blown.

 

[Falsename]

Totally agree with the OP!

Wasn't the episodes format to make the HL3 game come out in about the space of a year or so? A few months of work and then released! Aside from not working they just decided to abandon not only the episode format, but also the games entirely!

There is no Half life sequel coming out. Too much time has passed and it's now an old game. Too old to be rebooted!

I've given up and I'd be surprised if there is anyone else out there who hasn't.


It's hard to give them too much blame, as they backed themselves into one hell of a corner with the ending to Ep 2. Not to mention finding a logical way of ending the series without a lot of people nerd raging. (Explain the g-man's plot to me! Go ahead, find some explanation that wouldn't be a totally slap in the face! Can't do it can you.


But aside from that.... they somehow managed to pump out L4D2 in the space of LESS THAN A YEAR. We've been waiting for EP 3 for FIVE!!!




So in summation. Don't kid yourselves, Half life 3 or Ep. 3 isn't in production. They're not working on it right now, and nor will they start any time soon. They've waited too long, not it's too late. My suggestion.... find a good mod and play the hell out of that instead. Or have a team create ep. 3 themselves if Valve won't pick up and finish what they started.

There is no Episode 3, nor will there be. And for that Valve we dislike you. (Not hate, just dislike).

 

[Falsename]

The reason why Valve are cut slack arguably more so than any other publisher is because they make some of the best games of the industry.
People get uppity when the likes of Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines take ages because those games take years and years to arrive, and end up being repugnant crap when they finally do. When Valve spend 5+ years on a game, you KNOW it's because they're using every single day of that development to make their game a genre-defining standard.

Half-Life 3 will be announced when it's ready. And when that time comes, minds will be blown.

I feel for you, bro. You actually think they're working on Ep. 3 right now? Sorry, nope. They've moved on, I'm pretty sure they're a multiplayer only company now. If it doesn't have multiplayer then they're not interested in making it. Plus games have moved well past Half Life 2 by now.

They may not be as impressive plot/narrative wise but HL2 couldn't hold a candle to the performance of the latest games (skyrim/Halo 4/battlefield's multiplayer/ Not COD though).

 

[Smeatza]

I wonder how many people complaining about Valve in this thread like to complain about the constant stream of piss-poor quality games that EA and their ilk like to release.

It's one or the other people. You can either wait for a good game with a decent amount of content, or you can have them rush out shit titles.

Why do these kind of threads never pop up about Blizzard? They take ages to release fantastic, well polished games (debatably not including Diablo 3).

 

[JPArbiter]

Valve's issue for me isn't an issue I really have a problem with. They follow the money. When they released the Orange Box, Portal and TF 2 became huge hits, so they churned massive resources into that, turning one into a FTP multiplayer extravaganza while suckering people into microtransactions for hats and guns. meanwhile Portal has became a video game culture icon.

Follow that up with two arcade style Zombie Games back to back that turned out huge sales, they finally had the cash to do what they wanted...

Which was a counter strike revival, an Alien top down shooter no one plays, and Dota 2. Half life just is not important to valve economically when they are churning out other money makers.

 

[matrix3509]

What you mean a privately held company isn't under any obligation to please the whiny shits that comprise its fanbase? Oh man, mindblowing.

Valve doesn't have a single obligation other than to itself. Game development is not even close to a priority for Valve now since its found a much more cost-effective means of making money. If that pisses you off, fine. Don't give them money. In the mean time, they'll do whatever the fuck they want.

 

[Spearmaster]

Valve is responsible for more of the evolution of gaming in the last 10 years than any other company.
The episodic format is even used today by most of your AAA publishers and developers, but rather than make an episode for $20-30 they call it a full game and charge $60 for it, that's why there's a new CoD every year now and also why valve is waiting, because they don't want to churn out yearly crap like everyone else is trying to do.
They know most people who care about their gaming would rather wait twice as long for a game twice as good and probably three times as long. Also Valve does not have to release a sequel every 1-2 years of their top IP because they seem to be the only company to be able to create new stuff that does well and Steam is making them money hand over fist so they don't need to go into the frantic 1 year development cycle that gives us so many failed or shabby games because they are not in constant fear of bankruptcy because they didn't put all their resources into 1 IP and expect increasing profits from stagnating or declining sequels so they don't have to shorten their Development cycle just to stay above water like all the other Developer/publishers seem to be doing.

Short answer to the OP: Yes, we are waiting for the next HL installment because Valve does not make the mistakes that other developers do and they want to deliver a quality product that will change the industry yet again.

People need to stop blaming valve for not acting like the other developers, if they did Valve would be on HL12 by now and be in financial ruins because spending more money to release a stagnate game faster does not seem to be working.

 

[thom_cat_]

Well this is all just ridiculous. How about you just put HL3 to the side for a moment, seeing as it's probably being polished to the utmost satisfaction and play some Dota2, or perhaps accrue some steam trading cards, it's not like they're sitting on their arse. They've said the episode format didn't work, and they're not going to tell you when a release is coming until they're done, done. Why would you hate them for making fantastic content and taking their time to polish it all to perfection? Seems rather silly to me.

Valve's issue for me isn't an issue I really have a problem with. They follow the money. When they released the Orange Box, Portal and TF 2 became huge hits, so they churned massive resources into that, turning one into a FTP multiplayer extravaganza while suckering people into microtransactions for hats and guns. meanwhile Portal has became a video game culture icon.

Follow that up with two arcade style Zombie Games back to back that turned out huge sales, they finally had the cash to do what they wanted...

Which was a counter strike revival, an Alien top down shooter no one plays, and Dota 2. Half life just is not important to valve economically when they are churning out other money makers.

That's just totally untrue. VALVe's structure works so people put work into games they like and are interested in making. People go to work on HL, and they're not going to release something small because everyone wants to add their bit and everyone wants to push their content into it. The reason they appear to follow the money is because they follow what they like, and what they like, is what the community tends to like. Because they are essentially a community of gamers themselves. They're fucking loaded, they didn't have to make L4D to get money... they have two and a half billion dollars in estimated equity.

 

[Falsename]

Valve's issue for me isn't an issue I really have a problem with. They follow the money. When they released the Orange Box, Portal and TF 2 became huge hits, so they churned massive resources into that, turning one into a FTP multiplayer extravaganza while suckering people into microtransactions for hats and guns. meanwhile Portal has became a video game culture icon.

Follow that up with two arcade style Zombie Games back to back that turned out huge sales, they finally had the cash to do what they wanted...

Which was a counter strike revival, an Alien top down shooter no one plays, and Dota 2. Half life just is not important to valve economically when they are churning out other money makers.

What he said.

You'd think they'd have enough money now to support a few other projects. Episode 3 amongst those potential projects. I find it hard to imagine why on God's green Earth they thought to do a remake of Counter Strike rather than finish off a game that's spent many many years in the making. Halo came out a few years after Half Life 1, and they're up to their fourth game, and three spin offs! The Half Life series has about.... two and a half games.

Shame on you Valve. You have the money, how about supporting your fans with it? It's not like steam's going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Falsename]

What you mean a privately held company isn't under any obligation to please the whiny shits that comprise its fanbase? Oh man, mindblowing.

Valve doesn't have a single obligation other than to itself. Game development is not even close to a priority for Valve now since its found a much more cost-effective means of making money. If that pisses you off, fine. Don't give them money. In the mean time, they'll do whatever the fuck they want.

Not true. Everyone who has made themselves successful owes it to the people that got them there.

It's easy to disregard criticism by claiming it was the most 'financially successful' method to take. But you can sure blame them for disegarding their fans and some of the fundaments that they abandoned to make money.

It would be like America turning to communism and stating "Don't blame us. We had someone do the numbers and this way is more financially secure. Logic!". Logic works to a vast degree, but always consider loyalty when considering the most 'logical path'.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

snip

Not trying to "win points." Just pointing out a fallacy when I see it. If you didn't mean for it as a counter-argument then I'm just confused to as why you brought it up at all.

You argued that people we're trying to justify their "fanboy-ism." I was pointing out the perceived ridiculousness of the complaint "bad communication makes me angry."

 

[JPArbiter]

the two people that quoted me both said Valve is loaded. how do we know? Valve is a private company if i recall correctly, they are not required to publish their paperwork to anybody but the IRS. for all we know their overhead from maintaining Steam and employing people is so ridiculously high that they are running on slim margins and next to no cash on hand.

money from unit sales don't go to the bank and stay there. the power bills and employees need to be paid.

 

[karamazovnew]

Instead of complaining, the OP could realize just how easy it would've been for Valve to just release a crap FPS, call it Half-Life 3: No Connection"", make a ton of money, then flee to Brazil and live on a mountain of tits and icecream. Rather than doing that, they've made original games which probably use up more bandwidth than chinese gold farmers. They've also created Steam which has kept afloat hundreds of small devs, helped the indie market and they're pushing for an evolution of VR helmets. Of all the gaming companies EVER, they've done the most for the gaming industry.

Hating them because you don't have your 12 hour long Half Life 3 dusty box is... go to your room, and think about what you've done.

 

[TheRookie8]

With regards to your recent edit, the manner in which a company communicates with the public is left ultimately up to the organization in question, and not to the fans. It may help an organization gain support from the fans, but this tactic is usually implemented because of a fear that the fans could be alienated.

Specific to Valve, they can choose not to communicate, they can choose to have very long development cycles, and they can choose which games will be made, because thus far, each release has been met with a healthy response. There is no danger or adversity for Valve, and so there is little reason for them to change.

You can make it out like they look down on fans and organizations with feelings of superiority, as your assessment makes them appear, and you can call into question their business tactics, but the fact that they remain and have a general support from the public reduces the likelihood they will change their structure.