Newsflash: Half-Life 3 Still Isn't Coming Out

[Darth Rosenberg]

Thing is, Mass Effect 3 was bad all over.

Wildly subjective comment is wildly subjective. If you think everything about ME3 was bad (which is what "bad all over" would suggest), well, you've maybe not played many games if that's your bad-all-over benchmark...

H-L3: honestly, I don't think I can give a toss any more, regardless of the reasons for Valve's utterly bizarre treatment of the series. Then again I was personally a little disappointed with both Episodes anyway, so H-L2's legacy lost some of its lustre even when they were bothering to make content.

Either way, that cliffhanger Ep2 ending rather feels like 'fuck you' from Valve to all the fans at this point. And all I can really do is return the sentiment... See also: never sign up to Steam.

 

[Vault101]

[quote/]Valve is reluctant to work on the game because of the Mass Effect 3 controversy. They're afraid of messing up and finding themselves in the same wave of anger, controversy, and backlash.[/quote]
eeeehhh that's really silly

the only way that could genuinely worry someone (and again its still silly) is if they honest to god didn't know why people hated ME3's ending

I mean come on the bar is really really low there

 

[Vault101]

. If they just make an episode 3 with the portal gun, a bossfight with the brainslug and Gordon riding his dunebuggy into the sunset with Alyx on the backseat, it'd be boring and unoriginal but it still wouldn't be nearly as jarring as ME3.

exactly it doesn't make any sense that that would even be a factor

and while my opinion of the "gaming masses" is pretty low these days I think its unfair to call people entitled over being upset with the story OR for asking what the hell happened

like seriously screw you Valve...all you had to say was "nope its cancelled" which would be BS but at least it would be an answer...it kind of irks me when creators act like the fans are the asshole for...you know....[I/]liking[/I] the product

 

[CommanderZx2]

Newsflash: The Know is trash and this is clickbait and not actually news.

 

[F4TK]

The ME3 ending controversy was an entirely different kettle of fish.

Combine pre release hype and expectations.
From game 1 you were expecting to make hard choices that meant there was no optimal solution and you'd have to sacrifice to succeed. ME1 and ME2 set the high mark for epic endings to games where contemporaries blew all their budgets on the intro sequences.
Add in all the marketing telling you how ME3's ending would be a ME2 style suicide mission but instead of risking the lives of your crew you'd be waging the lives of entire fleets and species against the Reapers.

Add on DLC controversy with all the game monetisation and the "From Ashes" on disk DLC.

Then, when the game finally hit the ending was so monumentally bad, logically impossible and contradicted established lore so completely while also failing to hit any expectations or pre-release promises (and the final game message was BUY DLC to continue Shepard's story!) that many players were questioning whether BW/EA were going to release the REAL ending to the story as paid for DLC. The indoctrination theory popped up as the idea that Shepard was suffering a mind controlled hallucination was the only thing that made possible sense and that perhaps BioWare was trolling it's userbase by pretending to indoctrinate the player.

Hell, it was exactly the type of ending they told gamers they wouldn't do as well.

A whole bunch of people were pissed off to see that they finished the game, got a weird explosion, wondered where the real ending was, replayed it with a different choice and got nearly the exact same ending with a different colour, then went onto the net to be absolutely sure and found out there was no other ending.

So you have the perfect shitstorm of questionable monetisation, arguably the worst written ending in science fiction history, pissed of gamers wondering where the ending they were told to expect was and then on top of that, BioWare not responding to requests about whether or not it was actually the real ending or not and a whole bunch of gaming media insulting gamers by calling them entitled only stoking the fires further.

It's hard to imagine how any reasonably crafted version of HL3 could manage to create that level of outrage.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Thing is, Mass Effect 3 was bad all over.

Wildly subjective comment is wildly subjective. If you think everything about ME3 was bad (which is what "bad all over" would suggest), well, you've maybe not played many games if that's your bad-all-over benchmark...

H-L3: honestly, I don't think I can give a toss any more, regardless of the reasons for Valve's utterly bizarre treatment of the series. Then again I was personally a little disappointed with both Episodes anyway, so H-L2's legacy lost some of its lustre even when they were bothering to make content.

Either way, that cliffhanger Ep2 ending rather feels like 'fuck you' from Valve to all the fans at this point. And all I can really do is return the sentiment... See also: never sign up to Steam.

I did think about it, and my opinion of Mass Effect 3 has gotten worse. The new JJ Abrams aesthetic is difficult on the eyes and undermines that 80's Space Opera magic that Mass Effect 1 and 2 shared. You spend much more time fighting than you did in Mass Effect 2, and the added bells and whistles like dodge rolls don't stop it from being boring. Pretty much all of your companions stay static(disregarding Citadel DLC) without much in the way of character development and it's difficult to care about any of the worlds which were invaded by the Reapers since the game didn't establish any emotional connection outside of "it's war, so it's bad, so you should be angry".

It is subjective, but the ending really was just one part of what made the game lesser overall. Maybe not necessarily downright bad, but definitely annoyingly mediocre.

And this is in comparison to a lot of other western RPGs that I've played. Bearing in mind that Mass Effect 2 is one of what I would consider exemplars in that genre; the last mission is fantastically designed.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

I only click on these HL3 articles to see how more stupid and meaningless they have become. And I don't get disappointed in that regard.
So take your accomplished click-bait, Shamus an be happy with it.

The only news I care about is: IT'S OUT! So please do us all a favor, please...

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

ME3 stuff

I'll answer in a PM, 'cause this is wholly offtopic.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

This is still a thing? People still believe there's a chance Half Life 3 is coming out?!

Well that is weird, really. Why would anyone expect a sequel to an old, dusty FPS franchise, with its last entry being introduced almost a decade ago. C'mon, you might wait for Duke Nukem Forever as well- What? DNF has been released?... Well, most likely an exception. Half Life 3 at this point is to PCs, what that longly awaited Final Fantasy VII Remake is to con- Oh, you gotta be kidding me... Okay, but maybe even now PCs aren't that big, maybe we'll find a better analogy on more obscure platfoms... like Dreamcast! Yeah, what was that one of the few Dreamcasts series have gained a cult status, and most likely will never get a closure? Ah, right Shenm- FUCK.

 

[SoulChaserJ]

The Know has an update. They were unofficially given the scoop that the rumors and speculation they laid out in the linked video were BS.

Original video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50lSIaSR3zc
Updated video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b67WZpn04SY

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

In regards to the alleged anonymous employee cited by The Know, the first reason -- it makes so much money on Steam that HL3 development isn't a priority -- may hold some water since they really haven't done much of ANY game development recently.

They released games through 2007-2013 and they are not that big between running steam and the constantly updating TF2 and Dota 2 why is having a year or two off such a problem? Rockstar games has nearly 3 times the staff over 7 locations and also haven't released a new game since 2013.

The Rockstar comparison is actually a good point. But still, we're a long way away from 2007 and the days of Orange Box. Since Portal 2 in 2011, Dota 2 is really the new game the company has released (I don't really count CS:GO as a "new" Valve game).

I suppose if you want to be an optimist in regards to HL3, you *could* argue the following -- Valve hasn't laid off large swaths of its developer corps, and they're obviously not working on other games right now, so they must be working on SOMETHING, right? Right?

 

[Hoplon]

In regards to the alleged anonymous employee cited by The Know, the first reason -- it makes so much money on Steam that HL3 development isn't a priority -- may hold some water since they really haven't done much of ANY game development recently.

But the second reason? Mass Effect 3? Really? Being afraid of backlash doesn't really seem to be a trait of Valve. If it was afraid of pissing off fans and suffering a huge backlash, it never would have required Steam for Half-Life 2.

it also doesn't wash on the type of game front, the RPG with meaningful choices that was Mass effect games is not HL 3, no one expects anything other than what they write. there only has to be one ending so we are not going to end up with another shitty three buttons to pick ending (that then makes no sense) it's would just be the end, weather you like it or not.

might that piss some people off? sure, and if is point is giving an ending at all is too risky at this point i can see some logic to it. But the mass effect 3 argument doesn't wash, it was a game that said we would pick the ending then rail road us in to their ending.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

This is still a thing? People still believe there's a chance Half Life 3 is coming out?!

Well that is weird, really. Why would anyone expect a sequel to an old, dusty FPS franchise, with its last entry being introduced almost a decade ago. C'mon, you might wait for Duke Nukem Forever as well- What? DNF has been released?... Well, most likely an exception. Half Life 3 at this point is to PCs, what that longly awaited Final Fantasy VII Remake is to con- Oh, you gotta be kidding me... Okay, but maybe even now PCs aren't that big, maybe we'll find a better analogy on more obscure platforms... like Dreamcast! Yeah, what was that one of the few Dreamcasts series have gained a cult status, and most likely will never get a closure? Ah, right Shenm- FUCK.

And I'm sure all those games will be as worth it as Duke Nukem Forever, because as we all know, a game's development time is directly proportional to its quality. Five Night's At Freddy takes about a month to make and its never sold a single copy. However, Diablo III took nearly a decade and we can all agree it was Blizzard's best game. L.A. Noire too seven and it was the most realistic and emotional experience any human can have! Too Human took nine years and that game retroactively ended the Cold War.

Duke Nukem Forever cured cancer. All of it. In everything, EVER.

So I agree with you. Shenmue will solve world hunger forever. And Half Life 3 will literally bring on the Rapture, but God will have played it and loved humanity so much that no one goes to Hell! Instead every human that has ever lived will get a supermodel spouse, a bottle of their favorite beer that never runs out or gets warm, and the stars themselves will be realigned to say " 10/10 " so that any life in any other galaxy will know God approves.
And I will settle for nothing less than that.
Because development time = quality.

 

[teamcharlie]

Let's get serious, people. Everybody knows that Half-Life 3 is a SteamVR exclusive and every time you finish an in-game achievement the genital-mounted mouth simulator performs oral sex on you.

Half-Life 3: confirmed for March 3rd, 3333.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

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lolno. I didn't say anything about quality, and i'm not sure why do you even bring it up. HL3 may be a steaming pile of crap with a crowbar stuck in the middle like a birthday candle, by the time it comes out(if it comes out), but there are good reasons why people are still waiting for a closure of their beloved, nostalgia-soaked franchise. Namely three in my original post, but there might be even more.

 

[Excludos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdvzwXQcWoY

Please watch this. Sure someone running a channel named "valve news network" isn't completely objective in this case, he makes some very good points as to why this rumor is, again, just more hl3 rumor. Whoever started this rumor doesn't know how Valve operates in the slightest.

1. The employees at Valve works on whatever the hell they want to work on. They have wheels under their desks for a reason. They have no bosses except for themselves. This means that if enough people wants to work on hl3, they'll work on hl3. If this is a good bussiness strategy or not can be debated, but thats how Valve is run. Anyone claiming they "pulled people from a project for financial reasons" don't understand this.

2. Debunked by some Valve employers themselves in an email that was sent as a direct response to this case. The direct quote is: "Fear is the last thing that will ever drive a decision about what to work on"