Valve's Making Up Half-Life Along the Way

[cerebus23]

valve only has the creative freedom to work on what they are passionate about because of steam however, it is not a luxury 99% of other developers have.

just wanting to point that out when we talk about things like freedom and employees first and what seems like a fairly layed back work atmosphere, compared to most devs that are seen as slave masters and drive their employees to work hospital hours to get games finished and out the door.

but i have to wonder what would valve be like today if they had never created steam, would they be like every other publisher/developer out there, or would gabe and co still be gabe and co in a sea of greed and bad business practices.

 

[o_O]

<a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChrisCarterEffect>Ambiguity is only good up until a point. Frankly, I'd love some goddamn answers to the bigger questions. That is, if I could care abut the story anymore. What with Valve jerking everyone around on when they'll actually continue telling the story (and after that massive cliffhanger that's been unresolved for five fucking years too), I find it hard to keep interest these days.

Basically, if you're gonna be a cocktease, you have to have a timely payoff. Else you'll just piss your customer off and give them blue balls.

 

[Tobias Wolter]

This is just the "Viewers Are Geniuses" trope, although in a lesser extent. If the vagueness of the quite upfront HL2 affronts you, pray that the Malazan Book of the Fallen series (or lesser examples like the Stormlight Archives) never get a videogamization.

 

[unoleian]

I've pretty much always thought they've been making it up as they go along, and thought that was pretty obvious.

But you know what? Don't care. If they throw a whole bunch of narrative at the wall and get something to stick, it'll be a grand success.

But then, I know two other stories that were pretty clearly made up as they went along-- LOST and Mass Effect, I'm looking at you-- and the amount of material that was just dropped as a "fuck it" and the few threads that were strung together into the final denouement pissed a whole lot of people off, in both cases.

Valve faces an uphill battle with this one. The longer it takes them to stitch these threads togther, the higher their chance of failure and the risk of fan backlash is. I wish them godspeed. Goddammit, even if it ends in the most crappy, expected way possible, I still want to see their honest effort. They have a crack writing team, and think they have a pretty good shot. If. They. Would. Just. Do. It. Already!

Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of Half-Life. Probably to an absurd degree. There isn't one facet of the story I haven't discussed to death somewhere at some point, so I came by this agreement that they are just making it up as honestly as someone really can.

 

[irmasterlol]

As far as I can tell they've spent this whole time trying to give HL3 a portal gun without it seeming too contrived. Once they complete it, the internet will have ejaculated so much money at them that they can retire, buy an island (a fucking big one too, like Australia or something) and stockpile nuclear missiles so they can launch them at third world countries whenever they get bored.

 

[dharmaBum0]

I was pretty disappointed when at the end of Portal 2, when Chell left the Aperture science facility, there wasn't a column of marching combine troops and striders off on the horizon.

 

[Tmc_Sherpa]

I was pretty disappointed when at the end of Portal 2, when Chell left the Aperture science facility, there wasn't a column of marching combine troops and striders off on the horizon.

The changed Portal 1 before 2 launched so.... they could do it again. Just say'n



Sherpa

 

[nasteypenguin]

Oh good lord, that would be amazing. My ideal ending: the G-man reveals that he's Gray Mann (and that the Announcer is GLaDOS), but does so in such a way that implies he's just making up bullshit. Except you can't be 100% sure that he's not telling the truth.

Or do it in TF2, end Gray Mann's story arc in a more ambigious Doctor Who Jack Harkness/Face of Boe type thing where he develops a speech impediment somehow, or his life extending machine alters his body, there are endless possibilities.

Seriously though, I don't think they'd try to force TF2 into a combined universe. Portal sure, since it's lore is fairly compact and nothing much is mentioned outside of the facility itself, but a super high-tech moustache-wearing kangaroo-boxing Australian monarchy does not fit particularly well into the fairly grim world of Half Life.

 

[irishda]

In this column, we twist a flaw to keep talking about how awesome Valve is.

Let's see, "I'm pretty sure these writers are flying by the seat of their pants and have no sort of story structure or foresight. Awesome! That's how all creativity should be done!"

I'm kind of taking offense to this as a writer myself. I agree completely that you have to let your characters react to the situations, but the situations have to be provided by the writer with some sort of larger plan in place. What happens otherwise? You pray to god the right ideas keep coming before you wind up wasting all your time when your characters are written into a dead end and they have to macguffin their way out.

Not to mention, every writer has different methods that work for them. It's pretty shitty to imply this is what everyone should be doing. As if the success of Valve is all because they don't know what a storyboard is.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Well NOW everyone wants Grey Mann to be G-man, so it might end-up being an even bigger cross-over than we thought.

Oh SHIT! D:

Honestly though, Half-Life 3 is fast turning into the new Duke Nukem Forever. The longer we wait, the more obvious it becomes that it shouldn't be released. DNF was a tragically unfunny trainwreck that only served to ruin a good joke and piss off the more sensible Duke fans (I'm not a fan since I never played previous titles but I'll be damned if I can't relate to them either way).

 

[McMullen]

As far as not wanting to see HL3 for the ambiguity it would destroy, that's part of why I'm on the fence about whether I'll get ME3 someday, even when it drops to $15. The spoilers I've heard suggest that all the things in the series that were awe-inspiring and interesting because they were unknown get explained, and the explanations are the most disappointing deflations of mystery since we first heard the word "mitichlorians" or however it's spelled.

Seriously, I didn't appreciate how much I liked not knowing the Reaper's motives until I read it in a forum. If more like that is what's in store for me if I play the game, I'd prefer to just stick with 1 and 2 and imagine my own conclusion, because the game is unlikely to make up for that loss.

 

[Overusedname]

People arn't complaining about how this implies Valve isn't perfectly perfect.


...I'm so proud of you guys, man. :')

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

What with Valve jerking everyone around on when they'll actually continue telling the story

Um... Valve hasn't been jerking anyone around, people have been jerking themselves around on the matter by constantly asking about it; Valve has kept a consistent "We don't have anything to say on the matter" tone, and they've never brought it up unless someone else specifically asked them about it.

So by all means, be annoyed that it's taking so long for a sequel to come out, but don't act like Valve is specifically dangling a carrot in front of our faces when they clearly prefer to avoid talking about it.

 

[Valanthe]

Yes, there was a minor reference to Black Mesa in Portal. More than that, what Yahtzee fails to realize is that Portal -and most of what he described in the article- can be referred to as a type of "minimalism." Though, what he gets wrong is that "minimalism" is not an excuse to make things up as you go, but rather the conscious act of showing the audience only a portion of the world and characters you have created, then allowing their own imagination to fill in the blanks.

At its heart, true minimalism always respects the intelligence of the audience. However, it can lead to people who do not understand the concept attempting to emulate it and producing truly shallow works, which is exactly what I fear will happen with gaming. Valve might be talented enough to avoid doing this, but can we say the same for EA? Capcom? Activision?

Minimalism's other major drawback is its lack of ability to communicate more complex philosophies and ideals. There is a reason that Kierkegaard, Kant, Goethe, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, etc. where not minimalists. Sometimes things need be said, and sometimes these things require lines like Dickens' "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death? The last, much the easiest to bestow, O, guillotine!" So, in my opinion, he is making a mistake by not acknowledging other types of writing philosophy that do not meet his own aesthetics so closely.

very much this. In fact, if you pay attention to the "behind the scenes" minigame in Left 4 Dead, they outright admit to this approach as a conscious effort. (In the scene, they are describing the sheet covered bodies often found near a safe house, and how they tell a story, about other survivors, and their losses and sacrifices. someone obviously cared enough about whoever is under that sheet to cover them, and that person might still be alive somewhere, trying to survive by the skin of their teeth, just like you.)

I derailled myself again, point is, Valve has often admitted that they approach their story writing from a point of being purposefully ambiguous, and allowing their audience to draw their own conclusions. Valve has nailed this method, and I love them for it.

 

[Alterego-X]

What with Valve jerking everyone around on when they'll actually continue telling the story

Um... Valve hasn't been jerking anyone around, people have been jerking themselves around on the matter by constantly asking about it; Valve has kept a consistent "We don't have anything to say on the matter" tone, and they've never brought it up unless someone else specifically asked them about it.

So by all means, be annoyed that it's taking so long for a sequel to come out, but don't act like Valve is specifically dangling a carrot in front of our faces when they clearly prefer to avoid talking about it.

How about Gabe's Half Life 3 t-shirt, or his line in the Clang kickstarter video?

They ARE teasing us.

 

[TheScottishFella]

What with Valve jerking everyone around on when they'll actually continue telling the story

Um... Valve hasn't been jerking anyone around, people have been jerking themselves around on the matter by constantly asking about it; Valve has kept a consistent "We don't have anything to say on the matter" tone, and they've never brought it up unless someone else specifically asked them about it.

So by all means, be annoyed that it's taking so long for a sequel to come out, but don't act like Valve is specifically dangling a carrot in front of our faces when they clearly prefer to avoid talking about it.

How about Gabe's Half Life 3 t-shirt, or his line in the Clang kickstarter video?

They ARE teasing us.

Those are more recent examples and not really a tease, more of an acknowledgement of the wait for the game. The Kickstarter video was more of a way of just saying "Guys chill, we know, just give us more time."

Again, I think the internet is being the internet with itself so the slightest idea that something Half-Life related will become announced and the internet goes into a frenzy, and gaming sites aren't much better, fuelling the fire.

 

[charliesbass]

Portal was intended to be part of the Half-Life universe. Cave Johnson mentions Black Mesa in the second one and it GlaDos mentioned Black Mesa in Still Alive. They're meant to be rivalling scientific research corporations. It doesn't look like it was pulled from an arse. The reason why Portal is funny is because GlaDos is insane, and I think that it can be woven into HL2: Episode 3 quite nicely.

 

[o_O]

Snip

You know. Except for the whole five-years-to-make-an-episode thing. And ending on a cliffhanger like that. Kinda implies you're gonna have the next part out quickly.

Ep2 didn't finish up the overarching story, and also opened up a major can of worms. It teased. That is one hell of a dick way to leave your story off if you're gonna take more than half a decade to revisit it, since this kind of lack-of-ending is a carrot (more like promise of a carrot, actually) in its own right. No one in their right minds thought Valve was just going to abandon this story in favor of others at the time. And yet they did just that.

While yes, the fan base yanks its own chain now and again, I'd still say Valve is jerking us around. Whether they mean to or not is another discussion. I'd argue that at a half decade down the line, they are. Playing coy is no better than teasing. Good thing I can't summon up the willpower to give a shit anymore, or I'd be pissed. As is, I'm more like a disappointed bystander.