I'm beginning to hate Valve.

[thanatos388]

I agree Valve gets a lot of credit for not doing a whole lot and lying constantly but hey they constantly release quality products and are continually sustained by Steam so they can take all the time they want without worrying about money. On a completely different subject; what were the blatant DLC adverts at the end of Mass Effect 3? Besides them saying "Hey we plan to release DLC later."?

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Fact is, it's a reasonable assumption. This forum is filled with threads who A - complain about MassEffect/DeadSpace whatever, it's also filled with threads like this where people defend valve, it's not unreasonable to assume that some of the same people comment in both.

Then I fail to see what you're trying to do in this this discussion if you're just gonna say "these people are hypocrites." Ok, so what?

Read again.
I said that's not THE issue.
I didn't say it's not AN issue.

We're talking about EXPECTATION.

One cannot criticize a company for not fulfilling one's expectation and then criticze a person for complaining making the same complaint about a company like Valve.

When people pay money, they expect their product to work as advertised.
That was the issue with Sim City, that was the issue with Diablo III. They aren't comparable to "we expect you to continue working on this series in fashion"

Defense? It's an observation.

Then why bring it up at all? If you're responding to an argument about why his argument isn't valid with "well everyone's getting worked up." So what if everyone "getting worked up?" That doesn't make either side more or less right.

You cannot criticise a guy for getting worked up over Valve and not criticise 30 other people for getting worked up over his opinion.

So because I didn't post out a response to every person here about their level of reaction to his statement, my criticism of his opinion is not valid? That's not how argument works. Try addressing my words.

You forgot "And not having the balls to own up to it"

Yeah ok? I didn't say it was justifiable or uncriticizeable, I just said it wasn't a broken promise.

I'm not interested in criticising individuals. I'm speaking of the general consensus that is prevalent on these boards. And I say I'm not going to trawl the forum for opinions from people I couldn't care less about to prove a point to another person I couldn't care less about.

I've stated my opinion and that's that

And? Look at what you said.

Dude, you're wasting your time. It doesn't matter what Valve does now or in the past, people will just rationalize whatever they do so they can stick to their fanboy-ism.

Ok, well my opinion is that dismissing everyone as "fanboys" makes you just as bad as them when you start generalizing everyone who speaks against an argument regardless of its absurdity.

 

[DoPo]

Anybody remember Valve's false advertising with HL2? No? Go back and watch the old trailers. Last I played Half Life 2 there were no branching storylines or choices I could make to change the outcome of the game, I couldn't break the shit out of everything (except for what they wanted me to), and the enemy AI was not as smart as they claimed it to be -- or even showed it to be in their gameplay trailer. People tend to ignore this because Half Life 2 turned out to be a solid game anyways.

I don't recall any of this from the trailers and news coverage I saw. Now, I didn't have stable Internet at the time, so I hardly have all the trailers - I relied on gaming magazines to include some from E3 or something with a CD. The closest I recall were the claims that you had some leeway in scripted events. In fact, the one thing that stands to mind was that glowing tentacle thingie (which wasn't in the game at the end) and the example that you could try to save the soldier it would drag down a hatch, or follow him down, or maybe just try to find a safer route to go down. Or something along those lines. I don't recall "being able to change the overall story", though. Couldn't find it either (lots of E3 footage is just snippets forming a 1 minute video and I don't even know if it's from E3).

The other thing I recall were Source engine showoffs where they showed how different materials behaved, like wood boxes being light, floating and being brakable, while metal ones were heavier and resistant to damage. Which was the same box with a different texture. And there were also physics of wooden boards and fruit and how they behaved when shot and stuff. Is this what you mean by "break the shit out of everything"? I can't recall any mention of fully destructible environment a-la Red Faction.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

Jacco, did you already pay for HL2:E3? The DLC for Left 4 Dead? Portal 3?

No?

Then they don't owe you anything. It's their company and their IP. They can do what they want with them... or nothing at all!

In short, yes. Even though I hate the "entitled gamer" thing... you are so *very* entitled.

There was a show called VR.5 that ran on Fox in the early 1990s that I really got into. The first season ended on a cliffhanger and was subsequently not picked up for a second season. Do I feel that Fox owes me a second season because I really liked the show? Should I feel that way? No. My desire for closure does not mean they duty bound to shell out the money for a whole new series... or even one more episode to wrap things up. Sometimes we just have to deal with things we're not happy about in reality...

 

[geldonyetich]

Wow, there's actually somebody left who is holding a candle for the next episode of Half Life coming out? I thought everybody got over that years ago.

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

snip

Judge them by the quality of their content.

Nothing else.

 

[LOLITRON]

Anybody remember Valve's false advertising with HL2? No? Go back and watch the old trailers. Last I played Half Life 2 there were no branching storylines or choices I could make to change the outcome of the game, I couldn't break the shit out of everything (except for what they wanted me to), and the enemy AI was not as smart as they claimed it to be -- or even showed it to be in their gameplay trailer. People tend to ignore this because Half Life 2 turned out to be a solid game anyways.

I don't recall any of this from the trailers and news coverage I saw. Now, I didn't have stable Internet at the time, so I hardly have all the trailers - I relied on gaming magazines to include some from E3 or something with a CD. The closest I recall were the claims that you had some leeway in scripted events. In fact, the one thing that stands to mind was that glowing tentacle thingie (which wasn't in the game at the end) and the example that you could try to save the soldier it would drag down a hatch, or follow him down, or maybe just try to find a safer route to go down. Or something along those lines. I don't recall "being able to change the overall story", though. Couldn't find it either (lots of E3 footage is just snippets forming a 1 minute video and I don't even know if it's from E3).

The other thing I recall were Source engine showoffs where they showed how different materials behaved, like wood boxes being light, floating and being brakable, while metal ones were heavier and resistant to damage. Which was the same box with a different texture. And there were also physics of wooden boards and fruit and how they behaved when shot and stuff. Is this what you mean by "break the shit out of everything"? I can't recall any mention of fully destructible environment a-la Red Faction.

It's been so long and there are so many that I can't honestly tell you what the particular videos were, but I recall a few parts so maybe you'll know what I'm talking about. There was one trailer/demo where the guy was showing off the AI. One of the enemy AI was trying to find the player that was behind a barricaded door. After trying to shoot it open and giving up, the guy found a window and threw a grenade through it. They claimed that was only one of several possible scenarios to that situation. In the game I played, the AI was so dumb they'd run recklessly into my turrets by the dozen.

I think you and I might be thinking of the same video that showed off the physics engine. They were hyping up how everything would act exactly as it would in RL and how there were destructible environments. In the actual game you couldn't destroy anything huge unless it was scripted. From what I remember they were showing Gordon blowing up storage containers and shit. I would've loved to play that game -- even today.

While most of what they showed was more or less legit(except for the AI), it was highly exaggerated in the demos they released. They did blatantly lie about certain scripted events, but whether or not that's considered false advertising is up to the consumers I guess.

Edit:
Here we go: "Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player?s presence affects everything around him or her, from the physical environment to the behaviors and even the emotions of both friends and enemies."

Source: http://www.moddb.com/games/half-life-2

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Looks like you're confusing Valve with your own impatience. You can't call them entitled for keeping their unreleased projects in the dark. That is their prerogative, just as it is with every other developer, author, or other kind of content creator that has ever existed in all of history.

If you think game devs have to have a live feed of information straight from their innermost workshops to their facebook and twitter, then yes, you ARE the entitled one.

 

[Annihilist]

Maybe they're trying to ensure they don't release a crap game?

 

[Dyan]

Okay, okay.. So quite a few people are talking about how it will not live up to the hype. But the thing I'm wondering about is what hype these people are referencing. We have heard literally nothing about HL3 (aside from a few april fools websites) so where is this hype I'm hearing about? It's not like Duke Nukem Forever where they kept leading us on with fake trailers on a 13 year long period. Logic dictates that since we have no information about the game there should be nothing to hype up.

Honestly I don't really care about the game itself. It'll come out eventually, it'll probably be good and we'll all move on.

 

[raingod]

Don't say "I hate Valve" or they will be forced to release Half-Life 2 Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 so you will love them, again.

 

[Devil's Due]

I like Valve.

I hate Valve's fans. Like the one in this thread. Attacking someone brutally just because he doesn't like them. He raises some actual complaints and people attack his character. Way to go, community /golfclap

 

[WhyWasThat]

The reason why Valve are cut slack arguably more so than any other publisher is because they make some of the best games of the industry.
People get uppity when the likes of Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines take ages because those games take years and years to arrive, and end up being repugnant crap when they finally do. When Valve spend 5+ years on a game, you KNOW it's because they're using every single day of that development to make their game a genre-defining standard.

Half-Life 3 will be announced when it's ready. And when that time comes, minds will be blown.

 

[Falsename]

Totally agree with the OP!

Wasn't the episodes format to make the HL3 game come out in about the space of a year or so? A few months of work and then released! Aside from not working they just decided to abandon not only the episode format, but also the games entirely!

There is no Half life sequel coming out. Too much time has passed and it's now an old game. Too old to be rebooted!

I've given up and I'd be surprised if there is anyone else out there who hasn't.


It's hard to give them too much blame, as they backed themselves into one hell of a corner with the ending to Ep 2. Not to mention finding a logical way of ending the series without a lot of people nerd raging. (Explain the g-man's plot to me! Go ahead, find some explanation that wouldn't be a totally slap in the face! Can't do it can you.


But aside from that.... they somehow managed to pump out L4D2 in the space of LESS THAN A YEAR. We've been waiting for EP 3 for FIVE!!!




So in summation. Don't kid yourselves, Half life 3 or Ep. 3 isn't in production. They're not working on it right now, and nor will they start any time soon. They've waited too long, not it's too late. My suggestion.... find a good mod and play the hell out of that instead. Or have a team create ep. 3 themselves if Valve won't pick up and finish what they started.

There is no Episode 3, nor will there be. And for that Valve we dislike you. (Not hate, just dislike).

 

[Falsename]

The reason why Valve are cut slack arguably more so than any other publisher is because they make some of the best games of the industry.
People get uppity when the likes of Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines take ages because those games take years and years to arrive, and end up being repugnant crap when they finally do. When Valve spend 5+ years on a game, you KNOW it's because they're using every single day of that development to make their game a genre-defining standard.

Half-Life 3 will be announced when it's ready. And when that time comes, minds will be blown.

I feel for you, bro. You actually think they're working on Ep. 3 right now? Sorry, nope. They've moved on, I'm pretty sure they're a multiplayer only company now. If it doesn't have multiplayer then they're not interested in making it. Plus games have moved well past Half Life 2 by now.

They may not be as impressive plot/narrative wise but HL2 couldn't hold a candle to the performance of the latest games (skyrim/Halo 4/battlefield's multiplayer/ Not COD though).

 

[Smeatza]

I wonder how many people complaining about Valve in this thread like to complain about the constant stream of piss-poor quality games that EA and their ilk like to release.

It's one or the other people. You can either wait for a good game with a decent amount of content, or you can have them rush out shit titles.

Why do these kind of threads never pop up about Blizzard? They take ages to release fantastic, well polished games (debatably not including Diablo 3).

 

[JPArbiter]

Valve's issue for me isn't an issue I really have a problem with. They follow the money. When they released the Orange Box, Portal and TF 2 became huge hits, so they churned massive resources into that, turning one into a FTP multiplayer extravaganza while suckering people into microtransactions for hats and guns. meanwhile Portal has became a video game culture icon.

Follow that up with two arcade style Zombie Games back to back that turned out huge sales, they finally had the cash to do what they wanted...

Which was a counter strike revival, an Alien top down shooter no one plays, and Dota 2. Half life just is not important to valve economically when they are churning out other money makers.

 

[matrix3509]

What you mean a privately held company isn't under any obligation to please the whiny shits that comprise its fanbase? Oh man, mindblowing.

Valve doesn't have a single obligation other than to itself. Game development is not even close to a priority for Valve now since its found a much more cost-effective means of making money. If that pisses you off, fine. Don't give them money. In the mean time, they'll do whatever the fuck they want.

 

[Spearmaster]

Valve is responsible for more of the evolution of gaming in the last 10 years than any other company.
The episodic format is even used today by most of your AAA publishers and developers, but rather than make an episode for $20-30 they call it a full game and charge $60 for it, that's why there's a new CoD every year now and also why valve is waiting, because they don't want to churn out yearly crap like everyone else is trying to do.
They know most people who care about their gaming would rather wait twice as long for a game twice as good and probably three times as long. Also Valve does not have to release a sequel every 1-2 years of their top IP because they seem to be the only company to be able to create new stuff that does well and Steam is making them money hand over fist so they don't need to go into the frantic 1 year development cycle that gives us so many failed or shabby games because they are not in constant fear of bankruptcy because they didn't put all their resources into 1 IP and expect increasing profits from stagnating or declining sequels so they don't have to shorten their Development cycle just to stay above water like all the other Developer/publishers seem to be doing.

Short answer to the OP: Yes, we are waiting for the next HL installment because Valve does not make the mistakes that other developers do and they want to deliver a quality product that will change the industry yet again.

People need to stop blaming valve for not acting like the other developers, if they did Valve would be on HL12 by now and be in financial ruins because spending more money to release a stagnate game faster does not seem to be working.