Looks like Half-Life 3 ain't never gonna happen

[FordGT90Concept]

For an intelligent guy, Gabe doesn't speak very eloquently.

What nerd does?

That said, Valve IMO are very overrated as far as creative talents go. Their only big truly original IPs are CS, TF, and HL. Portal and L4D were both IPs brought to them, and it seems now they prefer to milk one of those rather than continue to expand on their own original ideas.

110% agreement. I never played the Half-Life games because they aren't my cup of tea but Valve definitely isn't Bioware.

I think the reason why Half-Life 3 never happened is because of Steam, not in spite of it. Half-Life 2 happened because Valve needed to rope in a publisher to make it happen. It's usually publishers that push for sequels (see EA pushing Bioware into sequels), not developers. Ever since Valve's revenue stream was secured by Steam, they no longer needed a publisher to push them to Half-Life 3. The only reason Valve would do it is for fan service and fans are fickal. Making Half-Life 3 could do as much harm as it could good. The risks are enormous and the reward is minimal for Valve. I think this is what Newell was talking about. Valve has almost entirely gotten out of the development game and is almost entirely about Steam now. Newell has the resources to make Half-Life 3 happen but he just doesn't care enough to do it. Newell isn't about game development anymore; he's mostly just about game distribution.


Look at the next closest competitor to Valve: CD Projekt. They keep making Witcher-based games because without the revenue from AAA titles, they can't stay aloft. If GOG becomes widely successful, I suspect that will spell the end of Witcher titles too.

 

[BiggieShady]

For an intelligent guy, Gabe doesn't speak very eloquently.

I have seen him speak eloquently when comfortable enough.

What nerd does?

Nerds can only post eloquently?

Valve has almost entirely gotten out of the development game and is almost entirely about Steam now.

Then who is developing Source 2 and creation tools for that engine? I imagine creating movies with team fortress 2 characters in their toolset, is as demanding as creating cutscenes for HL3. Half Life 3 would be a perfect showcase project for a new version of the engine and you know it.
When you look at it, HL2 was essentially an on-rails shooter, just the "rails" were really wide, vehicles were used, setting was changing from open to closed spaces and there were clever uses of world and weapon physics. I bet if they do the same thing in HL3 with the Source 2 eye candy, people would be happy.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Nerds can only post eloquently?

Pretty much.

Then who is developing Source 2 and creation tools for that engine? I imagine creating movies with team fortress 2 characters in their toolset, is as demanding as creating cutscenes for HL3. Half Life 3 would be a perfect showcase project for a new version of the engine and you know it.
When you look at it, HL2 was essentially an on-rails shooter, just the "rails" were really wide, vehicles were used, setting was changing from open to closed spaces and there were clever uses of world and weapon physics. I bet if they do the same thing in HL3 with the Source 2 eye candy, people would be happy.

Obviously Valve is or at least the teams inside of Valve most likely working on Portal 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 are.

Newell made it very clear that Half-Life 3 isn't in the works now calling it a "bad choice." Newell could start work on it when the engine work for Portal 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 is done but I still wouldn't count on it. Both games are extremely cheap to develop compared to Half-Life 3 because they're heavily segmented. Half-Life 3 won't do well (certainly not well enough to cover production costs) if it is heavily segmented like those games. On-rails shooters just don't have appeal anymore. Just look at the failure of Dragon Age 2 (not a shooter, I know, but it is definitely on rails compared to its predecessor and successor) and Binary Domain as proof of that. We could also look at titles like Battlefield and Call of Duty that have had their single player component shrink to near non-existence because of their on-rails nature.

A lot of the incentive for doing what they did in Half-Life 2 was to promote the engine. Unless they do something revolutionary beyond just making it shiny, Source 2 will be a flop as much as Source is today. Look at the capabilities of Frostbite, Cryengine, RAGE, and Unreal Engines to see how far behind Source is. All of these engines are capable of open worlds on a scale the current source engine can't comprehend. Source engine is also atrocious for branching stories which are almost a must in modern games.

In short: Half-Life 3 can't happen without Source 2; Source 2 doesn't imply Half-Life 3 will happen (elaborated on that in the previous post).

 

[vega22]

how many times do you think they have really made hl3 and just canned it as they were not happy with it?

hl3 in vr is coming.

edit

gt90 if source is so bad why are 3 of the top pc titles on it in dota2, cs:go and tf2?

what really lets source down imo is the hard limits it has on things. limits which are going to be much increased with source 2.

imo the real reason for source 2 is so they can compete with the likes or unity and ue4 without the need to give away source. pretty sure if they were to give the current engine away free it would be a legal nightmare.

 

[qubit]

Looks like Half-Life 3 ain't never gonna happen.

One negative removes the other. HL3 confirmed.

Smartass, lol.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

gt90 if source is so bad why are 3 of the top pc titles on it in dota2, cs:go and tf2?

None of them are ambitious and could have easily been made on Unreal. The reason why they're on source is simple: Valve funded it. Excepting Titanfall (which has a narrow scope like the aforementioned titles), the only modern game (in this case, heavily branching dialogs) I know that recently used source was Consortium and they're abandoning Source for Unreal for their sequel. To put it in perspective how atrocious Source is for branching games, on an average 6 hour play through of the game, I accumulate gigabytes of data in saves because Source is incredibly bad at preserving states of branches which effectively means they have to save _everything_ every time you save.

A good developer can make gold out of any piece of shit engine; the difference is how sane they are at the end.


I don't expect Source 2 to come anywhere close to Unreal Engine 4. As I stated previously, Newell just doesn't seem to care much about game development anymore where as Unreal is the bulk of Epic's business.



I'm going to laugh if the sequel to Titanfall is on a different engine.

 

[vega22]

no i agree with that. source is dated by today's standards (for both the player and the dev). i think it being replaced as we speak shows they agree too.

but an ambitious game does not make a good game.

 

[qubit]

To put it in perspective how atrocious Source is for branching games, on an average 6 hour play through of the game, I accumulate gigabytes of data in saves because Source is incredibly bad at preserving states of branches which effectively means they have to save _everything_ every time you save.

Wow, that's really bad engine programming. The one thing I did appreciate about all the HL games however, was the way they used a mixture of checkpoints and manual saves with F6 & F9 which was a really good feature. I really miss those manual saves in modern games, even Portal 1 & 2 only have the standard checkpoint system nowadays.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Some games off the top of my head the support quick save/quick load:
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Skyrim
Consortium
Dig or Die
Starpoint Gemini
Thief (2014)

There's games that do and games that don't. A lot don't because they're console ports (lack of memory on Xbox 360/PS3), there's a potential conflict (e.g. Portal, Saints Row) because of co-op and/or your in the middle of something it is better if you just restart it anyway or by design (e.g. Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy) to make it more difficult.

 

[BiggieShady]

On-rails shooters just don't have appeal anymore.

It may be so, but Half Life is the game you expect to be on rails ... and also literally on rails in some kind of train-like vehicle in the beginning of the story

 

[Frag_Maniac]

It's usually publishers that push for sequels (see EA pushing Bioware into sequels), not developers.

That's only true when the devs aren't big enough or interested in publishing themselves, or the sequels continue to sell well.

There are plenty examples of series being canned Red Faction, Spec Ops, Kane & Lynch, etc, or the dev teams being so big and profitable they go on to successfully publish their own sequels, GTA, Far Cry, Elder Scrolls, etc.

I look at Valve and I see a company so big and successful so fast that they've lost focus. There's a lot of things they could be doing but they get easily sidetracked.

 

[yesyesloud]

I look at Valve and see some hope for the world

 

[FordGT90Concept]

There are plenty examples of series being canned Red Faction, Spec Ops, Kane & Lynch, etc, or the dev teams being so big and profitable they go on to successfully publish their own sequels, GTA, Far Cry, Elder Scrolls, etc.

You have a point with GTA and TES but I think that's an exception to the rule. FarCry started with Crytek and published by Ubisoft, Ubisoft bought the IP, and now Ubisoft Montreal develops it; Ubisoft always pushed for the sequels even if some can hardly be considered sequels (different games with the same engine and name).

For the former titles (like Red Faction) are often developed by one company and published by another. It isn't clear who pushed for the sequels there.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Yes I know full well Far Cry started as CryTek's brainchild. Hell, I played the crap out of it, I ought to. Ubi took it a completely different direction though and seems to be having increasing success with each title. I don't think anyone when they were playing Far Cry when it came out envisioned this kind of future for the franchise.

I'm also well aware some of the titles I mentioned are not done by big dev/pub teams. They are just examples of other reasons you don't see certain series continuing. A publisher isn't necessarily going to push for a sequel in a recession with declining profits on each installment.

There are lots of good franchises on the brink of being shut down. Mediocre sales are a bigger factor than the will of the publisher, no matter how much they or the fanbase loves a series. They have to be realists after all. Ones that I'm worried might be canned are Dead Space and Max Payne.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The will of the publisher is completely money driven. My point is that developers are often pushed to do sequels by the publisher even if the developer has no interest in doing a sequel.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

My point is that developers are often pushed to do sequels by the publisher even if the developer has no interest in doing a sequel.

But that's mostly developers that either don't have convincing enough new ideas, or aren't successful enough to have much pull with those decisions. So it pretty much gets back to what I'm saying regarding bigger dev/pub teams.

Nothing weeds out the leaders from the followers more than a recession when it comes to creativity of development. Those are the times when you either take bold chances or succumb to being bossed by someone whom has little if any creativity.

I mean just look at the fact that we've already seen even successful developers like Slightly Mad and Cloud Imperium have to go out on their own seeking crowd funding just to feel unrestrained, and it paints a pretty vivid picture of what devs that really have breakaway talent can do.

This is why I feel we can't just blame it on oppression of big publishers. To a large degree it's also because a lot of devs prefer to just play it safe and keep making a living, vs taking bold chances. No matter how much their publishers annoy them at times.

I really hope Valve can help get PC gaming thriving better with Steam Machine and help dig the industry out of that rut, but I remain skeptical.

 

[Rowsol]

Dude, Blue Shift 2. I want to kick some ass as Barney again.

That would be legen - wait for it - dary.