The fault of the Game

[max734734]

As you may or may not know, Valve recently just announced a new game...trailer, for a game called 'Artifact'. With the trailer concluding in the words, 'The Dota Card Game'.

...now, this is usually the part where some will brush it off with an 'eh', or start spilling outrage like most of the reception towards this, with squeals of 'Valve is Dead!' and 'Half-Life 3 died for this?!' being the most recurring.

On the surface, it does look like a pretty grim announcement to make. Until tiny bits of info about how the game works came up, quoting a source from Reddit and Day[9] (Yes that Day[9], the StarCraft guy who's hosting this year's The International Dota 2 Championships),

-There are 3 game boards that represent the lanes
-You control 5 heroes, like in DotA
-You can equip heroes with items that you buy with gold
-Creeps Spawn every turn
-You can play Creature cards
-Some cards are cast on a lane and have persistent effects on that lane
-Each hero has abilities like their DotA counterparts

And that's about all I'm willing to get into, you can check out the video from Valve News Network for more insight into the whole thing, since I can't seem to find where that Reddit thread went. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuXE1ee34-A)

Anyways, what I want to focus on today is whether or not well...the game itself deserve the flak for what it is. It isn't even released yet and we barely know shit about it, but folks are banging on about how it isn't 3, which funny enough, even if those games were to be released, wouldn't they be struck with Duke Nukem Syndrome? Where expectations are set so high there can only be disappointment, kind of like that whole Mass Effect 3 Ending thing years back.

Personally the game concept is intriguing enough for me to check it out, even if I've never played Dota before (Sadly I do, you can purge the heretic that is me later), but I am fairly confident that a large portion of folks aren't into another one of these bloody Card Game things, with added filth that is a Moba Aesthetic, coming from Valve of all people. The outrage makes sense actually, since this is about the last thing anyone expects from them.

So yeah, should we start shooting Artifact at the door?

 

[max734734]

This has microtransactions written all over it. The F2P is a lie!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

So yeah, should we start shooting Artifact at the door?

Already did.

 

[CritialGaming]

Look, I know the fanbase really wants Half-Life 3. I get it. But ya'll gotta stop holding onto that dream. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. You can't keep holding HL3 over Valve's head every time they make a new game, and get upset with them that the game they made isn't the game you wanted them to make.

Frankly this card game looks interesting, and Valve's got a rep for making pretty good games, so this will probably be a pretty good game. It feeds the F2P audience of a game that is insanely popular. They are taking their most popular IP (DOTA) and turning it into a card game. It's DOTA X Hearthstone, that game is going to be huge for them.

Move on from Half-Life guys. Forget it.

Enjoy a card game instead.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Look, I know the fanbase really wants Half-Life 3. I get it. But ya'll gotta stop holding onto that dream. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. You can't keep holding HL3 over Valve's head every time they make a new game, and get upset with them that the game they made isn't the game you wanted them to make.

Frankly this card game looks interesting, and Valve's got a rep for making pretty good games, so this will probably be a pretty good game. It feeds the F2P audience of a game that is insanely popular. They are taking their most popular IP (DOTA) and turning it into a card game. It's DOTA X Hearthstone, that game is going to be huge for them.

Move on from Half-Life guys. Forget it.

Enjoy a card game instead.

Had. "Valve had a rep for making pretty good games."

Now they have a rep for not making good games, or any games at all really. And also selling landfills worth of garbage on Steam. That too.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Look, I know the fanbase really wants Half-Life 3. I get it. But ya'll gotta stop holding onto that dream. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. You can't keep holding HL3 over Valve's head every time they make a new game, and get upset with them that the game they made isn't the game you wanted them to make.

Yes we can. No one forced Value to write a cliffhanger ending and not finish their game series. That's on them, and we can keep shitting on them for it as long as we want. There's no reason to cut them any slack on this.

 

[CritialGaming]

]Had. "Valve had a rep for making pretty good games."

Now they have a rep for not making good games, or any games at all really. And also selling landfills worth of garbage on Steam. That too.

What was valve's last bad game? While it is true that they might not be making very many games, when was the last time they made a bad game?

 

[CritialGaming]

Yes we can. No one forced Value to write a cliffhanger ending and not finish their game series. That's on them, and we can keep shitting on them for it as long as we want. There's no reason to cut them any slack on this.

You're right, no one forced them to write a cliffhanger. But they also didn't force you (as in the public playerbase) to become rabid fans of the game either. Sometimes the cliffhanger is better than any sequel they could make. And maybe Valve knows this. They could have gotten to the story phase of HL3 and just could find a way to make the story tie up nicely, and as a result they decided to leave it on a cliffhanger, rather than give the players a shitty story just to give them another half-life game.

While it is nice that a game developed such a fanbase. It isn't Valve's responsibility to cater to that fanbase. Fandom is dangerous and often blinding.

 

[Drathnoxis]

What was valve's last bad game? While it is true that they might not be making very many games, when was the last time they made a bad game?

I just meant they have a bit of a reputation for not actually making games anymore.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Well that's nice...for those who like MOBAs and CCG's. Too bad I don't.

I believe the crux of the matter lies in Valve's lack of communication and the implied dishonesty that stems from it. They've always been tight-lipped about game development and release dates, but that didn't really matter ten years ago when they were churning out hit game after hit game. Now that their release schedule has slowed to a glacial pace people are getting antsy and frustrated with the radio silence, especially in this day and age of YouTube and social media. It hasn't helped that Gabe has become increasingly shifty over the years regarding HL3's status.

Look Valve, if you're not making HL3 anymore just be honest and tell us. It was a clever marketing ploy at first to be coy about it, but it's gone on for so long that now it's backfiring. Couple that with TF2's current sorry state and CS:GO's updates removing features rather than adding to them and you can hardly blame longtime fans for feeling frustrated and betrayed at this point. I haven't even gotten into the various PR fiascos for Steam, from the Skyrim paid mods debacle to the flood of asset flips and shitbag developers that infested Greenlight and continue to plague Steam Direct with impunity. This latest development is merely the straw that broke the camel's back.

Also, the whole ME3 ending debacle is a different kettle of fish entirely. It wasn't the wait and hype that disappointed fans, it was the nearly identical endings that flew in the face of BioWare's claims that the player's decisions would have a meaningful impact on said endings. But that's a subject I'd rather not dwell on, as that particular dead horse was beaten into a fine powder on these forums back in the day.

What was valve's last bad game? While it is true that they might not be making very many games, when was the last time they made a bad game?

Oh Valve doesn't have to make bad games; they're doing a pretty bang-up job making previously great games progressively worse.

Spoiler

 

[sageoftruth]

As someone who's great at starting things but terrible at finishing them, I'm sure glad I never got into Valve's position.

I imagine we'd have about 20 Half Life 3s waiting to be made by now.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yes we can. No one forced Value to write a cliffhanger ending and not finish their game series. That's on them, and we can keep shitting on them for it as long as we want. There's no reason to cut them any slack on this.

You're right, no one forced them to write a cliffhanger. But they also didn't force you (as in the public playerbase) to become rabid fans of the game either. Sometimes the cliffhanger is better than any sequel they could make. And maybe Valve knows this. They could have gotten to the story phase of HL3 and just could find a way to make the story tie up nicely, and as a result they decided to leave it on a cliffhanger, rather than give the players a shitty story just to give them another half-life game.

While it is nice that a game developed such a fanbase. It isn't Valve's responsibility to cater to that fanbase. Fandom is dangerous and often blinding.

You're right, it's not their responsibility to cater to us, but that doesn't mean that we have to let them off the hook for not finishing what they started.

No one in this relationship owes anyone anything. They don't owe us an apology, but we also don't owe them understanding or forgiveness, and we're totally allowed to shit on whatever games they release just because it's not half-life 3.

So I'm going to continue doing that, because I can and it doesn't cost me anything.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Card game, meh. If I want to play one I'll just play Hearthstone. I'm a super casual at that.

Half Life 3 will never happen because of one big reason and that is..

Steam makes more than enough money for them. Why develop Half Life 3 when their Steam service rakes in the doe.

I have a feeling it hasn't happened because there's no obvious way for them to make a community marketplace for it.