Will Half-Life 3 Outlive Public Interest Because of Development Time?

[Darth_Payn]

Actually, I remember GoldenEye as the first FPS game where the guns just sit on a flat surface instead of floating in mid-air. Then again, all the enemies' dead bodies disappeared and there was no jump button, so you couldn't say that was aiming for realism.

I'd just be happy with resolving the massive cliff-hanger Episode 2 left on.

Agreed. With you and Yahtzee's point on how little room there is to innovate in anymore in FPS's. I mean, the only big change they could even think of doing for HL3 is [GASP!] having Gordon talk!

 

[RenegadeDuck]

Half-Life 3, in my belief, will be a disappointment. The FPS genre is not going anywhere, so HL3 is going to already be bogged down by the fact that it's another FPS in an over-saturated market. But then you factor in how long it's been since the last game in the series was released (at the end of which it was basically confirmed that it was getting a sequel). Nearly a decade since Episode 2 came out and literally no news on HL3 has come to light. None. Absolutely nothing. People have probably long since forgotten about their desire to get their hands on a third installment. And any innovation they could possibly achieve would be a drop in the bucket. The entire industry is obsessed with innovation. That's all everyone is trying to do anymore. I'm really trying to think of something that would truly make a big splash in the current world of gaming and I'm drawing a blank.

I'm thinking that the only thing it will have going for it is that it's the long awaited sequel to HL2. Any success it finds will probably come from its infamous reputation for being that thing that was never released but finally is and nothing else.

 

[gamegod25]

Call me cynical but as much as I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt I think they have just gotten lazy and complacent. Maybe that's because of how lazy and uncaring their handling of Steam has become, letting anyone throw up whatever trash they please regardless of quality so long as Valve gets a cut...only taking them down if the backlash gets loud enough. Maybe it's because after such a huge cliffhanger they have allowed so much time to pass without even so much as confirming that they are at least working on it. Whatever the reason myself personally have ceased to think of them as game devs and synonymous with shitty indie games. I've simply moved on from HL like any other game that has ended on a cliffhanger that will never be completed. If HL3 ever does come out of course I hope it will be good, but my excitement for it and investment in the story has long since been eroded away.

 

[senordesol]

What has always impressed me with Valve is their attention to player experience. Lots of game devs (Order 1886 anyone?) seem to just want to make a movie. Valve has always tried to create game atmosphere. Being unarmed with your first headcrab bearing down on you was a design decision that a lot of people before and since didn't have the guts to make.

Valve knows good and damn well that they *could* have crapped out Ep3. in a year or two after Ep2., but that's not their style. When they make games; they make games people obsess about years after (Hell, we're still talking about HL3 despite no word or promises from Valve at all years hence -- If Dice shut down Battlefield tomorrow, would that still be the case?)

Unlike other studios, they don't put anything to the public that they're not proud of; which is the ONLY reason I'm sure HL3 (when and if it comes to market) WON'T be a great big pile of balls. Valve is a rare company that actually KNOWS the value of what it owns and won't cheapen it just to satisfy the baying fan boys.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

I don't care.

I don't care what the next big innovation is, I don't care what new gameplay it introduces.

For fuck's sake, I just want to see what happens next. Let Laidlaw toss it in a novel if a game is too much fucking trouble.

 

[Tiamat666]

I'd say that if they're ever going to make HL3, it's going to be after they've gotten used to making games for their upcoming Vive VR HMD.

What makes you think HL3 will not be the killer app for Valve's VR solution, poised and at the ready to blow Oculus out of the sky?

 

[Vivi22]

Kingdom Hearts III already lost me because it took nearly a decade longer to release than it should have, I'm really hoping half-life doesn't go down the same road.

Given that Kingdom Hearts 3 can't possibly be a direct sequel to KH2, to my knowledge, since the various games that seemed like random spin offs on a million consoles are actually integral main series entries, I'm not sure why anyone who still cared about the series after KH2 would be waiting for KH3 to continue the story. I mean Christ, KH2 was almost impossible to even follow and it only had one game between the original and it. At this point I doubt anyone could play just KH1 and 2 and have a hope of ever understanding 3.

Safe to say Half-Life isn't headed down a road resembling KH at all.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Part of me wonders if this isn't an actual viable scenario, though I'd like to believe that someone at Valve understands "the perfect is the enemy of the good".

Right now AI is left. As the last thing we havent started doing well...

STALKER tried. Valiant attempt, but no one has ever touched it since.

The problem is that better AI can't be shown off in a glossed-up screenshot the way photorealistic graphics can, so most devs aren't going to prioritize it.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Honestly, I think they're missing a trick here. Release Half-life 3... and have Gordon acquire the portal gun in the first half-an-hour. Boom, FPS with portals. The Combine won't know what hit them... (I have to assume they've tried this, and that it didn't play well for some reason. Pity...)

As cool as it sounds, I think the portal gun would make it way too easy. Unless we're fighting extremely mobile and agile versions of the turrets from Portal, exploiting normal enemies is going to be way too easy. This is assuming that you'd be able to use the gun on most surfaces seeing as if you couldn't, you'd run the risk of just turning it into a gimmick. From what I've experienced in most games, mobility trumps just about anything, and the portal gun his pretty much as mobile as you can get.

As far as my personal interest in HL3, I don't really care anymore. To be honest, I doubt it's ever coming out.

 

[LostCrusader]

Even if Half Life 3 came out today, I don't think I would care. Its been too long since I've played the older games to remember what was going in the story, and I wouldn't want to go back and replay them since half the shooters that have come out since then have copied the gameplay.

 

[thanatos388]

Honestly, I think they're missing a trick here. Release Half-life 3... and have Gordon acquire the portal gun in the first half-an-hour. Boom, FPS with portals. The Combine won't know what hit them... (I have to assume they've tried this, and that it didn't play well for some reason. Pity...)

As cool as it sounds, I think the portal gun would make it way too easy. Unless we're fighting extremely mobile and agile versions of the turrets from Portal, exploiting normal enemies is going to be way too easy. This is assuming that you'd be able to use the gun on most surfaces seeing as if you couldn't, you'd run the risk of just turning it into a gimmick. From what I've experienced in most games, mobility trumps just about anything, and the portal gun his pretty much as mobile as you can get.

As far as my personal interest in HL3, I don't really care anymore. To be honest, I doubt it's ever coming out.

What can they do with a Portal gun though? After writing a way for it to make portals anywhere and not just on moons what will you do? Use it to fall out of the world? Kill every enemy by teleporting them to high places? I think it would be very hard to kill enemies with it honestly, especially in tight hallways and when guns are a faster easier way to go about it. Since that is out of the picture they could just have the player solve puzzles with it or something. Except the game Portal already exists and exploited those gameplay possibilities for all they're worth back in 2011. Damn.

Btw Yahtzee, that whole innovation thing you were talking about? AI. Enemy AI. NPC AI. Characters that react to the player's actions in believable ways. It can influence FPS tactics. It can influence RTS and TBS tactics. It can influence open world games and narrative driven games. But it also requires developers to drop their obsession with graphics so ... not holding my breath.

But if they did that the gameplay would be so different why bother making it a Half Life game? Half Life is an FPS and its innovations made the FPS genre better. What you are talking about it making a new genre or possibly just mixing genres. It would be like innovating Star Fox by making it more like Armored Core and Cooking Mama. At that point they would rather sell that as a new IP instead of as an FPS. Thats why the Portal games weren't Half Life games even though they were in the same world. Basically there isn't much you can do with the gameplay of FPS that would wow people the way the first two games did and thus no matter what they do it will either be disappointing or it will be Half Life game that feels and plays nothing like Half Life. I'm pretty sure that cliff hanger ending must be one of Valves biggest regrets now because of that.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The problem is that better AI can't be shown off in a glossed-up screenshot the way photorealistic graphics can, so most devs aren't going to prioritize it.

It can be showcased though. Bethesda did so in their demo for Oblivion to showcase the game's Radiant AI. Granted, it turned out to be nowhere nearly as good as they made it out to be, but the demo did have people hyped up, so you can't say there wasn't merit in trying to put AI in as a killer feature. You see the same thing when space sim developers start talking about procedurally generated universes. You just have to find the right audience to pitch to.

What can they do with a Portal gun though? After writing a way for it to make portals anywhere and not just on moons what will you do? Use it to fall out of the world? Kill every enemy by teleporting them to high places? I think it would be very hard to kill enemies with it honestly, especially in tight hallways and when guns are a faster easier way to go about it. Since that is out of the picture they could just have the player solve puzzles with it or something. Except the game Portal already exists and exploited those gameplay possibilities for all they're worth back in 2011. Damn.

The first thing that comes to mind is adding co-op with Gordon wielding the physics gun and Chell manning the portal gun. Then suddenly you can have Gordon throwing portal surfaces, Gordon throwing Chell at portal surfaces and so on and so forth. Granted, you'd either have to have a separate campaign for people that don't want to do co-op or at least have multiple paths depending on whether or not you were playing by yourself. Still, there's lots of possibilities besides just Portal+Bullets.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Im sorry but you have to be the biggest idiot in the world to believe they are still developing this game. All companies have budgets and not even Valve would just give a blank cheque and zero development time limit to make a game. Its a business and the longer a game takes the more money it costs. I really dont understand why people are not pissed that Valve screwed every one over by selling 2 parts of a 3 part game. They already said they are not making HL2 Episode 3 yet people still think they are making it. lol. Personally dont care if they release HL3 or not. Would like a Portal 3 though.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, no matter what, I think we can all agree that Half-Life 3 could potentially have the best depiction of real-life physics of all time... so far...

Other than that, after that comes out, we'll finally get The Orange Box 2 and shit...

 

[thanatos388]

The problem is that better AI can't be shown off in a glossed-up screenshot the way photorealistic graphics can, so most devs aren't going to prioritize it.

It can be showcased though. Bethesda did so in their demo for Oblivion to showcase the game's Radiant AI. Granted, it turned out to be nowhere nearly as good as they made it out to be, but the demo did have people hyped up, so you can't say there wasn't merit in trying to put AI in as a killer feature. You see the same thing when space sim developers start talking about procedurally generated universes. You just have to find the right audience to pitch to.

What can they do with a Portal gun though? After writing a way for it to make portals anywhere and not just on moons what will you do? Use it to fall out of the world? Kill every enemy by teleporting them to high places? I think it would be very hard to kill enemies with it honestly, especially in tight hallways and when guns are a faster easier way to go about it. Since that is out of the picture they could just have the player solve puzzles with it or something. Except the game Portal already exists and exploited those gameplay possibilities for all they're worth back in 2011. Damn.

The first thing that comes to mind is adding co-op with Gordon wielding the physics gun and Chell manning the portal gun. Then suddenly you can have Gordon throwing portal surfaces, Gordon throwing Chell at portal surfaces and so on and so forth. Granted, you'd either have to have a separate campaign for people that don't want to do co-op or at least have multiple paths depending on whether or not you were playing by yourself. Still, there's lots of possibilities besides just Portal+Bullets.

Co-op with portals was already done in Portal 2 though, even the launching bit was achievable with two portal guns so it would just make those platforming puzzles easier than they were before. But I guess if you're lucky you can throw saws through portals to hit distant enemies but then they could use those same portals to get to you faster or just shoot back through them as well.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The problem is that better AI can't be shown off in a glossed-up screenshot the way photorealistic graphics can, so most devs aren't going to prioritize it.

It can be showcased though. Bethesda did so in their demo for Oblivion to showcase the game's Radiant AI. Granted, it turned out to be nowhere nearly as good as they made it out to be, but the demo did have people hyped up, so you can't say there wasn't merit in trying to put AI in as a killer feature. You see the same thing when space sim developers start talking about procedurally generated universes. You just have to find the right audience to pitch to.

What can they do with a Portal gun though? After writing a way for it to make portals anywhere and not just on moons what will you do? Use it to fall out of the world? Kill every enemy by teleporting them to high places? I think it would be very hard to kill enemies with it honestly, especially in tight hallways and when guns are a faster easier way to go about it. Since that is out of the picture they could just have the player solve puzzles with it or something. Except the game Portal already exists and exploited those gameplay possibilities for all they're worth back in 2011. Damn.

The first thing that comes to mind is adding co-op with Gordon wielding the physics gun and Chell manning the portal gun. Then suddenly you can have Gordon throwing portal surfaces, Gordon throwing Chell at portal surfaces and so on and so forth. Granted, you'd either have to have a separate campaign for people that don't want to do co-op or at least have multiple paths depending on whether or not you were playing by yourself. Still, there's lots of possibilities besides just Portal+Bullets.

Co-op with portals was already done in Portal 2 though, even the launching bit was achievable with two portal guns so it would just make those platforming puzzles easier than they were before. But I guess if you're lucky you can throw saws through portals to hit distant enemies but then they could use those same portals to get to you faster or just shoot back through them as well.

But you can't use a portal gun to throw portal surfaces. You also have very limited control over direction of travel with portals alone. A physics gun would add a lot more potential variety to the mix.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I don't care about the HL series, because other video games exist, I can just play them.

 

[beleester]

What can they do with a Portal gun though? After writing a way for it to make portals anywhere and not just on moons what will you do? Use it to fall out of the world? Kill every enemy by teleporting them to high places? I think it would be very hard to kill enemies with it honestly, especially in tight hallways and when guns are a faster easier way to go about it. Since that is out of the picture they could just have the player solve puzzles with it or something. Except the game Portal already exists and exploited those gameplay possibilities for all they're worth back in 2011. Damn.

It's not for killing the enemies directly, it's for shaping the battlefield. Open a portal behind the enemy's cover and shoot the hell out of them. Chuck a grenade through the portal, then close the portal so you don't get caught in the blast. Portal to the high ground and close it so they can't follow you. Portal exploding barrels next to the enemy. Redirect enemy rockets. Put a portal on the floor of a narrow choke point so the enemy can't get through. There are plenty of possibilities.