I'm beginning to hate Valve.

[TomWiley]

Also: What's all this I hear about Valve always release bugfree products? Anyone remember the release of Half Life 2? Or the first Half Life, for gods sake, where you would spectacularly get stuck in an elevator half the times you entered one. And that wasn't some infrequent glitch caused by certain hardware configurations - it was a problem on pretty much every instance of the game until they fixed it.

If I remember correctly, Steam was originally created to roll out bug updates.

 

[LOLITRON]

snip

You shouln't mix being disapointed with being lied to then. It is not their fault that somebody out there have a different vision from theirs and it can't/shouldn't be interpreted as a malice on their part. There is no direct misdirection or blatantly backwards design choices. In short, no lies.

PS: My name isn't spelled like that.

lol Whoops. Like I said, nobody can prove Valve's intentions. All I can say is that the tech demos they released to the public aren't indicative of the actual game and almost everything Gabe said in the PC Gamer interview turned out to be untrue. I guess "lie" is too strong of a word since it's likely what was said wasn't intentionally wrong, but I still find all of their old tech demos to be dishonest.

Update: According to Valve's Chris Bokitch in response to other people with the same complaints I had, "The demo was never meant to be interactive - it was a rolling movie showing off part of what we wanted the HL2 play experience to be like."

 

[bafrali]

snip

You shouln't mix being disapointed with being lied to then. It is not their fault that somebody out there have a different vision from theirs and it can't/shouldn't be interpreted as a malice on their part. There is no direct misdirection or blatantly backwards design choices. In short, no lies.

PS: My name isn't spelled like that.

lol Whoops. Like I said, nobody can prove Valve's intentions. All I can say is that the tech demos they released to the public aren't indicative of the actual game and almost everything Gabe said in the PC Gamer interview turned out to be untrue. I guess "lie" is too strong of a word since it's likely what was said wasn't intentionally wrong, but I still find all of their old tech demos to be dishonest.

Well it is your privilage to be skeptical but I don't think It would quite hold up in court. I honestly believe that Valve's intent was not to oversell their game and it is apperant that they are trying to mend this past mistake by keeping their silence about HL3 untill they have something concrete that wouldn't give much room for wild speculation. It doesn't seem to be working, judging by the lenght of this topic but at least their stance seems to be clear as far as promotion is concerned.

 

[greatcheezer2021]

i think valve will call it, half life 3: episode 1.

and it will finish with half life 3: episode 2.

i must be losin my mind.

 

[Dagda Mor]

I don't really hate Valve for their games. I really don't care for those. But I am getting really disturbed at how people like Steam so much.

 

[LOLITRON]

Well it is your privilage to be skeptical but I don't think It would quite hold up in court. I honestly believe that Valve's intent was not to oversell their game and it is apperant that they are trying to mend this past mistake by keeping their silence about HL3 untill they have something concrete that wouldn't give much room for wild speculation. It doesn't seem to be working, judging by the lenght of this topic but at least their stance seems to be clear as far as promotion is concerned.

Well, I don't have any intention of taking them to court, but I don't see how a scripted movie that's labelled as a tech demo to the public gets a free pass when it's Valve doing it. Recently Gearbox was found guilty of the same thing and all hell broke loose. The difference? Half Life 2 was a great game and ACM was a terrible one. Maybe Grey Carter is right and all the haters are acting too entitled. However, I don't think I'm being entitled for just wanting honesty and transparency from a company that makes and sells videogames.

I think all anyone wants is just one person from Valve to say "We're working on it" or "We're not working on it." Even a "We'll get to it when we feel like it now shut the fuck up" would be something. They haven't said a word and it's gotten so bad that people are feeling like they're being strung along for no reason. Actually come to think of it, they did that April Fools prank where they put Episode 3 up in Steam store as a joke. They actually trolled their entire fanbase before even saying a word about the actual thing. Don't you think that's kind of a shitty thing to do? Obviously there was no malice behind it, but I don't see the point in staying absolutely quiet about something that may or may not exist for over five years. Maybe I will in the future.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I'm almost certain the point you're making is that Half-Life is a pretty dope game. I agree, it was pretty dope.

I wonder when, or if at this point, they release Half-Life 3, that they use the slogan, "Sequel to the highest rated shooter ever" like Bioshock did.

I also enjoyed other Valve games and recently got into Steam. All pretty awesome, so not much to complain about.

 

[Dale Ware]

Valve doesn't seem to understand the number 3. literally. I kind of wonder if they will ever make anything with the number 3 in it... Spose its kinda good that they go for new IPs? Not many other companies follow suit so easily...

 

[-Datura-]

I think all anyone wants is just one person from Valve to say "We're working on it" or "We're not working on it." Even a "We'll get to it when we feel like it now shut the fuck up" would be something.

What, like this [http://youtu.be/0d6yBHDvKUw]?

Of course they're working on *something*. But the HL brand isn't just about continuing plot threads anymore, these games are famous for being quantum leaps ahead of the status quo. Making that happen was toil before, and it will take more toil in the future. What's PR and hype got to do with it? We'll know something soon as there's something worth knowing.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I hardly think taking the time to make a well-polished, mostly bug-free product constitutes treating their customers like shit. Valve never actually set a release date for Episode 3, so they weren't lying. They realized that the episodic format isn't the best way to deal with the Half-Life series. Episode 2 was excellent, but Episode 1 was mostly meh.

Completely agree, some of the best video game companies in the world pull the same crap that Valve does. Blizzard always has the approach of "its done when we say its done", Bioware too. Valve games are notorious for being late, but they always end up being award winning, fan raising, epic games. I myself don't care if it takes another 5 years for Episode 3 to come out as long as they do what they have been doing from the start. Making the game as perfect as possible.

I will say though that enough time has passed where its time to make the next Half Life on another engine. Half Life 2 is beautiful, but its starting to show its age.

 

[bafrali]

snip

You think that joke was made by Valve? It wasn't. If it was there would be an immense backlah towards them. It was just pranksters who couldn't pass up the April Fool without cracking a joke.

I want news as much as the next guy but I don't know the schedule of these guys. All I know is that they are working on Half Life 3.

 

[DoPo]

Actually come to think of it, they did that April Fools prank where they put Episode 3 up in Steam store as a joke.

If by "they" you mean "not-Valve" and by "Steam" you mean "a fake website that is not Steam". Then, yes, that totally happened. We covered it in the this topic already, though.

 

[LOLITRON]

What, like this [http://youtu.be/0d6yBHDvKUw]?

Of course they're working on *something*. But the HL brand isn't just about continuing plot threads anymore, these games are famous for being quantum leaps ahead of the status quo. Making that happen was toil before, and it will take more toil in the future. What's PR and hype got to do with it? We'll know something soon as there's something worth knowing.

Still doesn't say whether or not anybody's working on the game (or plans to). It's also purposefully extremely cryptic. I do agree with your analysis of the Half Life series, but as I said, it's not hard to say "we plan on getting to the series when we feel like it." It is, however, a lot more difficult to make a 10 second video without any mention of the series with Gabe pretending to be a blacksmith.

Actually come to think of it, they did that April Fools prank where they put Episode 3 up in Steam store as a joke.

If by "they" you mean "not-Valve" and by "Steam" you mean "a fake website that is not Steam". Then, yes, that totally happened. We covered it in the this topic already, though.

My bad, just a random thing I thought of while I was writing that post. I never actually saw the thing and I haven't read this entire thread. I just remembered hearing about it from some guy on Twitch who was discussing all the April Fools jokes. Should've googled a source first. Still doesn't change anything else I said.

 

[The Enquirer]

Valve never really set a release date for Half life 3. Yes, it has been ages, but they never lied about it. Just because the game has not yet been released is not much of a reason to hate them. It's not like they keep shamelessly keep delaying the game like Ubisoft did with Ghost Recon Future Soldier.

 

[-Datura-]

What, like this [http://youtu.be/0d6yBHDvKUw]?

Still doesn't say whether or not anybody's working on the game (or plans to). It's also purposefully extremely cryptic.

A goddamn kindergartner could read between the lines of that video!

See THIS is why we "fanbois" have no patience with the likes of you -- nothing's ever good enough. You get what you ask for and you just keep on whinging.

 

[LOLITRON]

What, like this [http://youtu.be/0d6yBHDvKUw]?

Still doesn't say whether or not anybody's working on the game (or plans to). It's also purposefully extremely cryptic.

A goddamn kindergartner could read between the lines of that video!

See THIS is why we "fanbois" have no patience with the likes of you -- nothing's ever good enough. You get what you ask for and you just keep on whinging.

I'm not asking for anything; Half Life 3 isn't anything I'm losing sleep over and, as you said in your previous post, it's probably just taking forever because they want it to be as revolutionary as the others. I was just saying I don't see the point in riling up the fanbase by being extremely cryptic and silent about it. That's just something you do if you want people to start rumors. I'm going to assume you and I disagree on that point.

I'm recalling an interview where Gabe referred to the next installment as "Ricochet 2" and he said very clearly that they didn't like talking about it since shit changes so quickly. Wow, that's an awesome answer, but what was the point in giving it that way? As you said, the average person can read between the lines, but why not just say it and shut up all the people who can't/refuse to? It honestly seems more juvenile than the people complaining about the game taking forever. That's like when someone says "I'm not gonna name any names, but so and so did this." and then stares directly at the person who did it in front of everyone. It's kind of douchebag and unnecessary move. Just go ahead and state the obvious; it's not that hard and it'll make some of the whiners happy.

It's the stuff like that as well as the video you linked that personally cause me to be so irritated with Valve -- and I don't even care about the next Half Life game. Like you, I just want people to shut up about it. It's become a game of developing clever ways to beat around the bush. I'm just hoping when/if the game gets released there'll have been a point to it all because I don't (currently) see one.

 

[DugMachine]

Valve doesn't owe you anything. They never set a release date so they can take as long as they want. Even if they don't release 3 ever the world will keep on turning.