Poll Question 028 - Would you prefer Valve continue making Half-Life-related games or create a completely new and fresh I.P.?

votes aren’t working….

Half-life 2 was so different to the original that it was almost a new game but with the same characters and same weapons and enemies etc. I would like to see a hl3, but that should be the final installment of the series. The only positive thing I think about the episoding is that you can play the new episodes of the game on your old hardware, because it uses the same engine.

Phillip: Hmm… …oh.

No, it’s not having it. I’ll just have to cut and paste:

June 6, 2006 - In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Valve revealed that the just-released Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and the forthcoming Episodes 2 and 3 will serve as the third game in the series. Rather than make gamers wait another six-plus years for Half-Life 3, the developer thought people might appreciate playing the game in smaller chunks if they didn’t have to wait as long.

“The original Half-Life took us two years to develop,” said Gabe Newell, managing director, Valve. “With a considerably larger team Half-Life 2 took us six years to develop, so we thought if we were going to continue our trend with Half-Life 3 we would basically ship after we had all retired. We’re trying to come up with a better way of getting more timely updates to our customers and also come up with something that didn’t have the complexities. Projects increased logarithmically with how much we tried to do, so if you tried to put twice as much content or technology into a box it ends up taking you four times the amount of work, right, and so we’re trying to figure out a better solution.”

As for why the name of the episodes were changed from their original codename Aftermath: “I think that Aftermath was almost a temporary name. I always thought of it as Episodes One through Three because that’s how we planned the products out. I think people thought we’d need a name for them, and Aftermath ended up being more confusing than helpful. Probably a better name for it would have been Half Life 3: Episode One, but these three are what we’re doing as our way of taking the next step forward…”

Throughout the interview, Newell refers to the episodes as Half-Life 3, and points out that they aren’t considered expansions. Whereas Half-Life was about the G-man grooming Gordon Freeman to be a hero, and 2 was about how the G-man uses his creation, the episodes (Half-Life 3) focus more on the G-man and how he reacts when he loses control of Freeman.

Though Episodes 1-3 take place after the events of Half-Life 2, Newell doesn’t rule out the possibility of returning to the Half-Life 2 timeline, though.

I voted for continue with Half-Life, although ideally I would say both

In a way though, they are doing both, since L4D is a partnership between them and Turtle Rock, and Crossfire (corssplayer, whatever it’s called) is a partnership between them and…whoever. These obviously aren’t SP games, but, in a way, they are. They blur the line between SP and MP.

I would love to see a brand new completely SP game series, but I also love HL to death, including 2 and the episodes (which I do feel are a good step!)

Unfortunately for us, they just don’t seem to have enough people to start any new projects and keep them the same quality. I’m available gabe

planetphillip Said:

MrHappy Said:

I would like to see a hl3

MrHappy Said:

which will most likely be with Half-Life 3.

Maybe I am completely wrong but didn’t Valve decide to split HL3 into the three episodes?

MrHappy Said:

The only positive thing I think about the episoding is that you can play the new episodes of the game on your old hardware, because it uses the same engine.

That’s a good point but releasing games separately doesn’t necessarily mean you have to update the engine? HL, OP and BS all use the same engine, don’t they?

We had a long discussion about this in another poll, and I’ll bring back my view Yes they said that Ep1,2, and 3 constitute a third game in the Half-Life series, but they’ve also said that they would move forward with the franchise beyond HL2:EP3. I personnally believe that there will be another game after EP3 that is as “full a game” as HL2, and that it would then have episodes, but even if it’s fully episodic from here on out, what would they call it? Half-Life 4? That would make absolutely no sense, especially to people new to the series! So I think there will be either

HL3:EP1,2,3 OR HL3 and HL3:EP1,2,3 within 10-50 years.

As Dr. Sam Beckett steps into the Quantum Accelerator… If you started out with a well thought out and directioned genesis then the character and threads can be wound out for some time. I for one will follow Gordon wherever he shall lead. The biggest problem for all developers is the amount of time and manpower it takes to produce quality content. Thus, I’m sure VALVe would wish to produce more. Imagine how many ideas and creations have hit the development studio floor. I supppose they could hire or licence out but, this is often risky. Often titles have been destroyed by third party developers. So the answer is YES… To both… I would like to see Gordon stomp around in his HEV for some time yet and, I’m sure there are plans in a sketch book somewhere for another direction.

People are already working on Opposing Force/Blue Shift style mods for HL2, and there’s a couple of Xen based ones as well. Some are listed in the Half-Life 2 section of this very website, but there’s also one or two which aren’t, and I’ve linked to their relevant websites:

Azure Stand, Barney’s Tales, Blue Shift 2, Event Hoirizon (Blue Shift sequel), Return to Xen (Opposing Force sequel), Operation Black Mesa (Opposing Force remake), Opposing Force: Aftermath (guess), Outpost Xen and Xen Forces: Breath of Xen.

Then of course there are the dozens of mods where you play as other members of the rebels, put you through City 13, 14, 15, etc, and, of course, the HL remake, Black Mesa.

…hope those links worked…

cubedude89 Said:

None of those can ever compare to what valve could do.

I wouldn’t say that. Some mods in the past can and have been as good or better than what Valve does. Granted, many mods do not fall into this category, but if we’re lucky, at least one of those mods will measure up to Valve’s games.

cubedude89 Said:

ive worked with at least 2/5 of them mods listed haha.

I can say that Black Mesa: Source is a mod that looks like it can hold up to Valve’s Standards.

New (HL2) or old (HL1) standarts ?

“None of those can ever compare to what valve could do”

You have way too much faith in retail.

Zockopa Said:

cubedude89 Said:

ive worked with at least 2/5 of them mods listed haha.

I can say that Black Mesa: Source is a mod that looks like it can hold up to Valve’s Standards.

New (HL2) or old (HL1) standarts ?

I think HL1 and HL2 are the same quality. Just because the technoiogy has improved doesn’t mean both games aren’t at the same level within the context of their engine.

For me, both are just as fun as each other.

I think they should continue Half-Life Series, but return their concept closer to the Original Half-Life. It’s too sad they did not really continue the story but made something new, hardly ever related to the Xen Aliens and so on…