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'My personal failure was being stumped': Gabe Newell says finishing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 just to conclude the story would've been 'copping out of [Valve's] obligation to gamers' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary by Valve

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I. Do. Not. Care. About. The. Tech.

Gabe, you created an obligation when you ended Episode 2 on a cliff hanger. You should have just let Marc Laidlaw and the game devs just make more games.

As long as it had kept the core writers, I'm sure everyone would be happy. Hell, any "innovation" is being handled by the modding continuity. Breadman of Entropy: Zero created a more fun combat loop then any of the HL2 games have. Singularity has a better physics weapons just by being able to use it independent of the selected weapon and making the object transparent.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I. Do. Not. Care. About. The. Tech.

Exactly. The tech doesn't matter. Tech only exists in service of the gameplay, and (introduced with HL1), the story (previous to HL1 the 'story' of most games was just a quick blurb on why there's monsters and why you have to shoot them).

Gamers DGAF about new tech. Gamers wanted to be told a story. We LOVED the story.

Valve could've used the existing engine, built NOTHING AT ALL NEW, and just finished the story with existing assets and we'd all have been over the moon happy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You know, I knew the next HL game to come out after Ep2 would be a VR title. It was the most obvious direction Valve could go considering Gabe treats the HL series as a tech demo. Seriously, I think out of anyone at Valve, he has the least respect for the franchise. What I didn't predict that it would a a VR exclusive title and that it would retcon the ending of Ep2 so a character that died(and who's VA had died), would be alive again. Hell, they didn't even ask one of the MC's original VA to reprise her role(or cast into a different character if the age was an issue).

I have way more trust in the fan community to continue the story. Entropy: Zero took some cues from Epistle 3, so I hope the breadman and the Project Borealis are sharing notes, so the can have a shared continuity. I really, really liked the voiced MC of Entropy: Zero and the combat loop, with more enemy types and weapons was superb.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately devs at Valve eventually will be swallowed by the money making machine called Steam. It’s the way the company is structured, the people working on the most profitable projects are rewarded the most.

Like the team working on In the Valley of Gods has disintegrated after Valve bought Campo Santo. The devs are all working on other things inside Valve.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

I think that's the thing that annoys me the most. Sometimes, a game doesn't get a sequel because sales were bad or the studio was bought out or even went bankrupt. Here, it's just because the guy running the company doesn't feel like it. They have a constant stream of free money from Steam sales to fall back on, so why not just let your game devs do something? I haven't kept up to date, but wasn't there this huge gap of time where none of the TF2 devs had logged and played any TF2?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'd have done it just to conclude the story, but then agian, I like stories...

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

Meh. They might have not wanted to make Ep3, but the fans sure did.

I understand Valve works or used to work very differently, people collaborating without a strong top-down steering from management. Yet whatever explanation they have, we were punched in the gut at the end of Ep2, then left waiting, holding our breath. It’s just a piece of media, but it was an important part of my teenage years, and I could never experience the end of the story (outside of reading it in a blog) I waited so much for.

This made me really resent Valve, and soured my experience/memories with the series, I haven’t touched HL or other Valve game for 10+ years, and I don’t think I will in the future.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

Copping out of an obligation?

Dude, not finishing the story and leaving us all on a cliffhanger for seventeen fucking years and then giving this as an excuse is the real cop out.

Looking back, I actually don't like what Half-Life did to the genre. It didn't push it forward; it made everything after a linear, set-piece experience with minimal replay value. It might have been different back in the day, but it wasn't something I had hoped other developers clung to like they did.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Honestly, I have no problems with linear games.

Even Rockstar is fumbling with open-world games. God forbid if you try to do missions slightly differently than how Rockstar intended.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago

It might have been different back in the day

It was very different back in the day.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think it was inevitable. Before HL2 we had Deus Ex. It was glorious. Fans loved it. Game devs looked at it and went “F*%@ that! We’re not making 3 games worth of content when you’re only going to see 1 on a given play through!”

So that defines the basic tension. Gamers love replay value and multiple paths and different character builds and tons of secrets to explore. Game devs on the other hand want players to see every little blade of grass and tree they worked so hard at placing in the game. I think they also have a lot of data from achievements that show most gamers barely finish the game once, let alone discover all the secrets and alternate endings etc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'll just say as an aging gamer, I simply do not have time to grind or replay things. I could do that stuff in highschool, but not anymore.

Grinding especially is a no-go for me. 100% achievements? No chance in hell that's happening.

Life moves too fast and there's too much entertainment. Devs that think people have time to sit there and enjoy some obscure shit they hid, will be disappointed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That’s an interesting take! I’m getting to be an aging gamer myself and I no longer really play story-focused games. I play Roguelikes which I can pick up and drop any time, 5-10 minutes at a time, here and there. These games are designed to have maximum replay value. So even though I don’t have a lot of time I spend it on replaying rather than playing new games!

It’s an interesting difference and I think it depends on what we both look to get out of games.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Yea that's also good. I do that with chess 😂

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Why does Gabe newell look like Richard stallman,Funny enough they have different goals and oppose each other.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The man has aged since that famous photo from like 20 years ago.

~shock~

~gasp~

~questions asked at parliament~

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What did Episode 1 and 2 push forward?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Linear, set-piece story-telling.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So just leaving the series dead on a cliffhanger is somehow not a copp out to gamers??

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's spelled coppp-out

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