The Half-Life 3 thread of closure and memorium AKA what Tyler McVicker just said on YouTube

This editorial is less credible than announcing that HL3 will be crowdsourced through Mapcore.

I've seen a few videos of these guys in the past, they seem to only blabber smoke to scrounge some views (hence income). I don't like them, they're full of shit.

Math they've done ("conservative"!) doesn't make much sense (they guesstimate HL3 sales/revenue based on solely retail, when the totals used to calculate HL1 & 2 come from years of presence on the market, sales etc. half the copies are likely to be from sales, re-releases etc.

Above all you don't risk your company with a title you're afraid the backlash of. It would be stupid to force it out because your revenue plummeted (which is virtually impossible).

Finally on the VR exclusive, because of their company culture, I'm sure they wouldn't make it exclusive… also that would cause death threats!

I don't know about that @blackdog. I'm sure you have a point. But you can't deny there's probably some sort of truth in there. Even though Marc responded he didn't really say anything. It's something that every rep would say. There's no way a company would acknowledge these claims. His reply is meaningless. He just talks about anonymous sources being bad and that fear wouldn't lead them. But he never says the video is wrong or that they are still planning on releasing it. Personally, I think it has more to do with perfectionism (which he comments on in regards to the story). Gabe already pointed out (I would have to look up the interview) that traditional single player is a thing of the past. They need something, an angle, that elevates the game instead of just another sequel. Half-Life brought a well worked out narrative to the FPS genre. Half-Life 2 expanded on that with physics. Half-Life 3 should add something revolutionary as well. Even though I enjoyed both episodes, it was more of the same. Until they find what they're looking for, I don't expect Half-Life 3 to be made. Also, the whole point about money, regardless of numbers, seems legit. It's not like they need to make it for the cash.

Quote from leplubodeslapin

What bothers me is that we don't have any news from them and it's been 4 years since (the very good) Portal 2, HL3 or not they should release one game. And i don't see 2D/3D artists, level designers and writers suddenly working on VR and Steam marketing, it's simply not their job so they must work on some kind of game.

i think they may be working more in porting cs go to source 2 than developing a new game entirely. It is a great success for them, and I think they want to keep it evolving, before doing something new. Why? Mostly my guts telling me so, but it makes sense for them to do that, and if they do that, it should be one of their priority.

About Half-Life 3, if it is meant to happen, it will. How many books were discarded, or seriously delayed because they didn't feel right at the moment? (I don't know the exact answer but a lot of them) Often it is caused, as @Sprony said, by perfectionism. Nonetheless, there are other variables, they might have started something they really didn't like at the end, because their perspective have changed since the beginning, sometimes the world just isn't ready yet for the book, or even It may be forgotten, because the creative frenzy need to be on another project. Always the writer has a say, long before it can be discarded by publishers, for they don't see any money in it.

Thenceforth, no argumentation we can give will be relevant, because we are not the one supposed to birth this project.

At least, that's what I believe is right.

(PS on a side note, the longer they wait, the less relevant the dissapointment card is legit, because there are now more and more gamers, like myself who didn't feel the entire power of this series, simply because when it came out, we weren't nearly old enough to play them at the time. We can just "intellectualize" its impact, with our critical judgment, but there is much less sentimentality in our minds)

If the money calculations were right, or even off mark, say 1/4 of the Steam sales... realize how much is that! 1/4 for one game! Frankly I don't see any reason, money wise, not to make HL3!

I obviously agree that they need something special, like they had been looking for HL2 at the time. Apparently they were looking at implementing the Director from L4D in the next HL chapter (Ep3/HL3). They might have discarded that after tests.

Anyway, I think it will be other 10 years before they officially cancel the game, the tease keep people interested and focused on what Valve does.
In terms of the game coming out, I still want to believe. Valve to me looks a lot like Google: they have "unlimited" resources (read: revenue and any talent would want to work there) but they don't have a boss outside the company. If I was Gabe, I was happy to sink money on it just to keep experimenting and finding the right recipe.

On the VR argument, I would add that Chet, at the talk I was present at, explained that they have proof that VR is not good for traditional experiences (again, very Google of them), that's why they're working with several indie devs for new and original stuff. And that's why HL3 shouldn't be an exclusive.

I'm frankly more interested in finding out why someone like the lead on the VR project changed team to go with Oculus.

Just to add to the fire

I wouldn't be surprised if the head of Valve's VR moved to facebook simply because more resources would be made available and larger teams to work with. Plus money is usually a great motivator and facebook aren't going to be winning anyone over by being "cool" and "friendly".

RE: HL3, I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting for all this VR to blow over and steamboxes to establish themselves. But Valve being Valve will only work on what they want, and there's no rush.

Gabe's said he thought the to-and-fro would annoy/upset people, but I think it would be very interesting to see how it develops! I have complete faith in Valve to get the right people in the right jobs to deliver an interstellar product.

He's stating an awful lot of things as facts. I'm not saying he doesn't have a point but it's mostly fanboy talk without any evidence to back it up. Besides, it's the Valve News Network. That's like FOX not being biased.

Quote from jackophant

I wouldn't be surprised if the head of Valve's VR moved to facebook simply because more resources would be made available and larger teams to work with. Plus money is usually a great motivator and facebook aren't going to be winning anyone over by being "cool" and "friendly".

RE: HL3, I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting for all this VR to blow over and steamboxes to establish themselves. But Valve being Valve will only work on what they want, and there's no rush.

Gabe's said he thought the to-and-fro would annoy/upset people, but I think it would be very interesting to see how it develops! I have complete faith in Valve to get the right people in the right jobs to deliver an interstellar product.

Yes, good points. What I mean is that from the hands-on seems like Valve's product is the best coming to the market... so yes other than money, I can't see why changing boat, other than the challenge of scoring one for the new team.

Also if rejoining Carmack was a decisive factor

Back on the HL3, I find the guy quite nice and fun but when we get into this realm of speculation we can only agree or disagree based on our... faith. The main flaw in thinking in that video is the first consideration: management wouldn't move staff around "because desks have wheels". Well, Valve is a company and needs to get products out at some point, freedom is good but you can't let people chase butterflies every other month. A release can't be affected by people being mercurial, and it's documented that the team in the past halted every long term project to release L4D2 if my memory doesn't fail me.

So, you've probably heard of this 'conspiracy' already?

https://github.com/SteamDatabase/…elp/fgd/hl3.txt

There's a lot of *procedural* in it, that I can tell, don't know if that's part of dota2/src2 already.

Wait and see ?

I thought Gabe Newel explicitly said they were working on it at some point. They also said they were done with singleplayer experience and prefer to focus on competitive gaming (not sure about that last one).

Anyway, no big news.

I compiled that code and now I have HL3.

It's not very good.

Have I missed something?

Nothing important for normal people.

Quote from text_fish

I compiled that code and now I have HL3.

Care to share so...uhh...we can judge ourselves :shifty:

:B

Quote from 3Dnj

Nothing important for normal people.

Normal people don't use Hammer, that's right. :sad:

Another thing i never see mentioned is vulkan. Previously known as nextGL. (As in the next openGL). Valve, and a lot of other companies are working on vulkan. Vulkan is way more cpu friendly then openGL is. And a lot more that you can look up if your interested.

I wouldn't be surprised if they want HL3 to work on Vulkan to get the best out of it.

I think the atmosphere in HL1 is way better then in HL2.
More people feel the same about that?

Quote from clankill3r

Another thing i never see mentioned is vulkan. Previously known as nextGL. (As in the next openGL). Valve, and a lot of other companies are working on vulkan. Vulkan is way more cpu friendly then openGL is. And a lot more that you can look up if your interested.

I wouldn't be surprised if they want HL3 to work on Vulkan to get the best out of it.

yeah glnext, think its pretty certain that all major engines will support it

Quote from ChA1NsAw

I never played HL1 and never finished HL2. I don't know why, HL2 has the best atmosphere of any game I can remember.
I must see to it.

Well i think it's undeniable that HL2 had a big pacing problem. I remember playing CS:S with the aka "I still haven't finished HL2", and I've always been a big fan. Hell, if I got into modding and wanting to work on games was because HL. HL2 was a great art piece, but narrative was too diluted, thing that they fixed with the Episodes.