I have to admit that I have been pretty lazy regarding the site over the last 3 weeks or so. It happens every now and again that I get tired of working on it and try to avoid doing anything. Even though I feel down, I don’t worry because I know that I come back with renewed enthusiasm and new plans and ideas.
This time it’s different because there hasn’t been much to do. Sure, I have a lot of work regarding the old Filecloud files and all the older maps and mods that I haven’t played, but I just couldn’t work up the motivation. It means I haven’t felt so guilty about being lazy.
I think I am slowly coming to terms with my fear that Valve has lost interest in the HL story arc. I have no real evidence for this except the lack of information coming from them. This has happened before but with so many other IPs doing so well, the recent announcement of Portal 2 I can’t help but wonder am I right?
I don’t think I would blame them much because working on the same thing for a long time can get boring but there still seems to be so much more that can be done with the franchise. Anyway, getting back to my original reason for writing this.
At some point in the future there is a very good chance that Valve will stop making games around HL. At that point, modding will continue for a few years afterwards but slowly dry up. I have always contended that the episodes have contributed to the lack of mods from the community. Creating a great mod takes time and why would a team go to all that effort only for a new game to be released with new features before they have even finished their mod?
You only need to look at the lack of mods for Episode One to see that modders don’t want to work with something that will be replaced. I know that if I were making a mod I would be worried that if it wasn’t finished before the release on Ep3 then I would rather wait.
I’ve strayed again, but when Valve do stop making games, for how much longer will mods be made? It’s ten years after the release of Hl1 and some smaller mods still appear, with perhaps two or three big ones still being worked on. 6 years after Hl2 was released and there are some of those still being made. The only really interesting ones, from my point of view, are the Ep2 ones.
Modding is still a relatively new hobby and making comparisons based on one game franchise is not really fair or accurate but it seems to me that as each year goes by there are less and less really great releases. Although 2009 might be a blip in that trend.
There still seems to be a fairly active Quake scene but I suspect that’s due to nostalgia rather than anything else, and I wonder how many new modders have made anything in Quake in 2009.
I have so many great ideas for the site but this drought of releases has me really worried that those new features won’t be utilized unless the drought turns into a flood. I will have to spend a lot of time and effort convincing readers to replay or even play the older mods and get them with lots of Recommendation images, so that the site is still useful.
Somebody once said that PlanetPhillip.Com will never be finished and it’s hard to disagree with that statement but there may come a time when ALL the maps and mods have screenshots, working downloads and at least a few comments, reviews and recommendations. What then?
It’s not a idle question because I like to think long term, longer than most readers will at least, and at that point will the site be finished? Will it just be a case of me adding the rare new releases for a few years until entropy sets in?
Sequels and prequels can only go on for so long. You only need to look at films, books and TV shows to see that. At some point the viewing/reading public will tire of it and then the manufacturers of that entertainment will decide that the number of sales is not worth the effort. Of course, gaming IS different from other entertainment forms because each year the technology gets better but that doesn’t automatically follow that our favourite games will continue to be produced.
I’ll ponder this some more but I would love to hear what you think the very long term future of the HL series and this website is.
I see exactly where you’re coming from, but given some of your previous statements & comments over the last few years I don’t think that I’m the only one who thinks that you will finally master the finer points of the Source SDK and, given your unrivalled collection of Mods, related resources & modding/mapping contacts….will make something that shames Valve into realising that they have taken their eye off the ball!
You will be an inspiration to us all, and spark off a whole new wave of Mods. Well, it just could happen!
That is one of the things that worry me. What if I can’t? What if all the ideas in my head don’t make good mods. I am almost scared to start in case I suck!
Yes, it could but it’s highly unlikely!
Only way to find out is jump in and let the mud fly as it will. Make something, release something, work upwards as people give you feedback 🙂
I think that one ting that could renew the amounts of mods being released would be a good, free, and thorough guide to coding and modeling. So many mod teams are limited to what the game has already provided for them, and don’t know how to make any, let alone major, changes to the game engine. As such they stagnate, left with a great concept that they can’t implement.
That’s a good point. It seems that a lot of mods want to push the boundaries and need new assets.
you got the visits just need the prizes but a themed mod making contest..
mod media blasts pick a mod each month and have web love
Were you drunk when you wrote that? I’m not sure I understand it – sorry.
I am sad people have not utilized the effects of the consol yet, sure you can turn on god mode and noclip, but for mappers you can do so much more by directly editing the consol, you can give guns more ammo, slow down or speed up time, disable and reable the flashlight, and I am sure many more ways that I have yet to discover. and the best part? no code.
I know what you mean but players want NEW not just MORE.
Valve will release ep3. They just can’t let the story to this state. It may take some time, because they have lot of presure to end the story well.
But why to stop there? Maybe some opposing force style recreations?
I think that ep3 will come for sure. But after that, I am happy and I dont need anymore half-lifes. I want that they end the story well. Not make shit ton of money by creating shitty follow up with bad story.
And if they recreate the engine for ep3. There will be lots of mods to that, atleast for couple of years.
I agree, EP3 WILL be released. However, there’s so much more that could be made. The whole 7 Hour War thing, from Barney’s point of view begs to be made. How about a game that can’t be saved and has to be played from beginning to end in one sitting. It can be paused for a maximum of 20 minutes – for bathroom breaks- but nothing else.
I don’t want bad stories but I want more HL games after EP3.
I think it’s yet another example of how the Episodic concept came back to shoot them in the foot.
I keep in mind that Half-Life 2 is nearly six years old now. That’s a lifetime in the gaming industry and the things that HL2 did back then which were revolutionary have since been copied time and time again. Whereas the Gravity Gun was once a big deal, the identical Telekinesis is only a footnote in BioShock.
Whether Valve fans will agree or not, the FPS genre has moved forward since 2004. Groundbreaking releases like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, BioShock, and even Mirror’s Edge and Borderlands have advanced what FPS game can do, each bringing new and exciting ideas to the table.
Had there been a formal Half-Life 3, Valve could have taken the next big step, using everything we’ve learned in the last six years to produce another great major iteration of Half-Life.
But with the Episodic structure, there’s a problem. On one hand, they want to incorporate new mechanics and enemies. At the same time, they want to stay true to the conventions that were laid out six years ago. The fundamental question is how they will answer this issue in Episode 3.
I am hoping that is exactly what EP3 will be. I hope they create a full game and package it with reworked EP1 and 2 and call it HL3.
There is much truth in what you say Phillip, and while it will be hard to face up to, the end may well be insight for Half-Life. The lack of any Valve activity on the Half Life front is worrying, without any official or unofficial media talk one would suspect that their interests are else where.
As for the site, with or without Valve’s continuous HL franchise you still need to define what you want the site to be in the future, it could be that HL will only live on in MP version and I don’t see you coming to terms with that, and that is the frailty of being SP based only. Also it’s not impossible that something will take the place of HL, we have been through this hoop before with Doom, Quake and Unreal.
Difficult to see what can be done in the short term, without a good flow of new releases the major propose of the site is somewhat muttered, on the other hand your mapping features and discussion points keep the faithful ticking over, but for how long without the need that drives us all.
For sure the sight will continue to evolve all the time it’s a part of your life, it’s just difficult to see where it will be in 2 or 3 years down the line. .
Believe it or not, it’s not so much the silence that worries me but the noise about other games. If they kept quiet about EP3 and didn’t make other games then I would relax a bit.
I think the site is very defined as it is. As long as there are HL games there will be PP. I kinda wish I played DeathMatch because there seems to be a shit load of those maps.
Nothing needs to be done in the short term, and I agree that without the mods there’s little reason to visit. Which is really what I am saying/asking; for how much longer would I run the site once mods stop being produce?
That in itself is an interesting question. Imagine no more HL games were released after 2011, how long do you think people would still make mods for it?
It would continue for several years. After all, people still make mods for Doom, albeit a big factor is that Doom maps are very easy to make.
But, as another reason, games that bundle mod tools are becoming very scarce. With development schedules being what they are, and the paranoia of the legal brigade I’m sure, you don’t see many tools coming out for new games, so it’s not like Source has a ton of competition outside of Unreal and Crytek tools. I don’t see that scenario changing anytime soon.
Yes, that’s a good point. There might be some great games but whether they come with modding tools is another matter.
See, I don’t believe they are putting off episode 3 because of the fact they have been so silent about it. Even in an interview with Hal Robbins (Dr. Kleiner) they asked him about episode 3 but he declined revealing any information because it was ‘top secret’. My guess is that Episode 3 will either be a huge surprise of awesomeness or that it won’t even be called Episode 3 but instead HL3 or something. Valve isn’t dumb, they know that their fans want more Half-Life. And Valve isn’t know for their leaks/spoilers when working on projects of high priority and secrecy (at least nowadays they aren’t). So don’t dispare, I’m betting Episode 3 will be released sometime 2011 (That is of course unless Valve pulls another game to distract us out of it’s butt like the Left4Dead franchise).
Neither do I really, I worry because of the other games they are making.
i have over 3500 words of revised canon headed your way on Monday, maybe it will inspire you to keep hope for upcoming mods.
Looks like I have a lot of reading ahead of me.
If you run out of HL-related maps and mods to review, you could always work on the maps/mods of other FPSs that strike your interest.
That’s the problem, nothing else interests me. In all this time I would have thought something would have done, but nope.
I think hl2 modding will go on for a long time. I do agree that there aren’t alot of big mods anymore. I guess modding is drying up. But people still make Doom 2 mods and Duke Nukem mods. So I’m not really sure what will happen.
I agree modding will go on for a while but once the games finish and the complexity of mod making I don’t think it will be for the 5 or 6 years after HL2.
Yes people still make Doom and DN mods but they are some much easier to make, or so I am told.
Maybe all that you speculate on will happen but that doesn’t take away from the achievments of the site or the value it still has for people currently.
Maybe there won’t be a HL3 although it would be a foolish decision on Valve’s part not to develop further the market that is there for the HL series.
Maybe there will be a HL5 and even some of us still alive then.
Maybe the site sill become obsolete.
Maybe HL3 will be announced next week?
Maybe.
Either way PP is one of the best HL sites that has been created and theres no maybe about that.
Thank you for your kind words.
Let’s hope you are right abut HL5!
It’s been stated by modders that making a mod for HL2 is a lot harder than a HL mod. The standard set by Valve seems to be something many of the better mod teams strive for. A high quality experience.
This has made development times longer and the chance of failure bigger.
That said, between “City 17: Episode 1” and “Black Mesa” there are some pretty amazing things to look out for.
As for Episode 3, I think they are trying to avoid another media backlash like in Episode 2. The complaint was that they changed a lot of what was in there after they released trailers for it. Thus the trailers were advertising a different experience than what we were getting (combine soldiers in the White Forest attack, Alyx falling from the railwaybridge).
Good point.
Dear me, this will not do. Phillip singing the blues.
An emergency Pick-Me-Up needed. A large gin and tonic, now, and don’t forget the ice cubes Phillip.
The only thing I see in danger here are the Polls. The range of subjects is limited so I can certainly see them tapering off until EP3 (or HL3) is released.
We have a bit of a mod drought again at the moment but we had droughts in 2009 which was by far and away the outstanding year for mods both in quantity and quality terms.
Doom and gloom? Not me, I have a much brighter outlook:
Short term
Known WIPs.
The Citizen 2, City 17 Episode 1, Assault on Overwatch (inspired by your Sniperville competition). What might Hunterville inspire?
There are very many others. Whether they get finished or not is a different matter of course
More to come from:
Joutomaa, Eye Of The Storm, Project 25, Mission Improbable, (Pyramid +) Drowned World (+ we saw the start of Sirocco’s next mod in Sniperville), 99 Bolts, Unexpected Conclusion (?), Human Error (more to come from this creative team, Dangerous World(?). There’s more and that’s just the EP2 list from1st January 2009.
Some of the best mods have turned up out of the blue, eg Offshore, Research and Development. We cannot hope to know what might turn up – fingers crossed.
Medium term:
New mods from existing developers, many of whom visit your site.
Aspiring new modders. We are not alone!
Medium and long term:
EP3 (or HL3). We are now in our 7th year of HL2 mods and there’s more to come. Modders are still working on HL, HL2 and even EP1 (eg the excellent Lakeside Village). We’ll still being seeing HL2 mods for at least 3 or 4 years – developers are not going to lightly throw away their EP2 skills especially as many features of EP2 have not been fully exploited. Hunters and the Magnusson Device in particular – Offshore still leads the way with these and I think (hope) others will follow.
HL2 mods will tail off and HL3/EP3 mods will be released in ever increasing numbers.
That will take us to about 2025 I reckon. I’ll be 77 by then and might have ceased to care!
Pessimism kills the soul. optimism inspires.
HL continues to evolve. Long live the evolution.
The future is bright, the future is Valve and, especially, the mod developers.
I’m teetotal!
My fingers are very much crossed, don’t worry!
I don’t see myself as pessimistic, just a realist who wants to ahve a plan, rather than seeing what happens, although that’s what I will probably have to do.
“I’m teetotal!”
I know. The gin is for me, you get the tonic
I am going to reply to some comments individually, but I want to clarify something: I have no doubt that Episode Three will be released. What I fear is that after that Valve will focus their creative energies elsewhere.
What I believe EP3 needs to be is a big a jump in every aspect as HL2 was from Hl1. Big jumps give modders reason to invest time and energy into creating new work. Conversely they also add to the complexity of the task (mention on this post AND in many other places).
We only need to look at the release figures for maps and mods here on PP:
Half-Life: 450
Half-Life 2: 401
Half-Life 2: Ep1: 23
Half-Life 2: Ep2: 112
There’s probably a whole article about the release numbers but what I see is that the episodes just don’t give enough reasons for modders. I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it!
If Episode Three is a full game then things look bright, if it’s just a small iteration on the Orange Box, then things aren’t so good.
I know we have a few mods to look forward to, when I said long-term I really meant it. If Ep3 spawns 200 maps and mods I will be disappointed.
I believe Ep3 will be a full game and probably the best yet, I also believe that if Valve end the series with a spectacular ending then that may have an effect on the modding scene.
I feel that part of the modding scene is driven by the knowledge that another game will follow. I can’t say exactly why I feel that but I believe it. If Ep3 IS the end I wonder whether I would want to learn how to map. It would seem as if I am working on a dead franchise.
This article wasn’t just about the life of the HL story but also about the site. Lots of sites have come and gone, some were really popular and then became shadows of what they used to be, others plodded along and then some died.
I was just thinking aloud (or on the keyboard, really) about the long term future of the site. Imagine I eventually update all the old posts, upload the files etc. At what point will I stop work? Will your visiting frequency drop? Will you just go to RSS Feed and wait for news? I would, if I were you.
Yes, I could move onto other new games, but I haven’t heard of anything that really interests me. Unreal was the only other series that I really enjoyed and the chances of Unreal 3 must be pretty slim.
Philip, I honestly don’t believe you need to concern yourself with the future to such a degree. With respect to the site – you offer the best you can with with the best you can get for as long as it’s rewarding to yourself and the community to do so. I say to you that your [ sites ] relevance is currently quite secure and a great asset to the community. When the inevitable day of true change comes, you’ll know it. Until then, simply live it, love it, share it and enjoy it.
Don’t worry. I am not too concerned about the future. As you say there will come a day when it’s time to move on. I just feel it is a useful exercise to ponder the future. It may change the way I view things now and make that period of transition easier.
Yes, Valve will focus their energies elsewhere as they are already doing.
However, there is no chance that their focus will not also include HL.
EP1 was just an extension, with tweaks, to HL2 because they dug themselves into the episodic release hole. I doubt that they will continue with episodic releases.
The important point here is that they did release EP1 to keep us HL SP FPS players happy thus demonstrating that we are considered an important part of the market.
If Valves intent was to finish the episodes of HL2 and get it over with, then it could have been accomplished by simply having an EP3 shoe-in based on EP2. This they have not done.
For sure, I understand your concerns but at this time I believe them to be groundless. We will get EP3 although I’m sure it’s HL3 but Valve need to call it EP3. On the other hand, in 6 years time I may have to eat these words when HL4 is not on the horizon, but I doubt it.
Ultimately, the answer is pretty simple:
EVOLVE
Sure, Half Life might eventually be shelved by Valve, but do you really think they’ll move completely away from a proper single player FPS game? Valve will come up with another game to fill the hole left by the hypothetical death of the half life series, and if not, SOMEONE will.
PP.com can survive as long as it can be decided which future game will manage to carry on the legacy of being awesome on its own as well as providing proper mod community support. Sure it will require restructuring the guidelines of what mods PP.com includes, but PP.com apparently used to include some Return to Castle Wolfenstein mods and possibly even some Quake mods. Eventually the Half Life series may need to be set to archives while mods for the new game takes priority. As much as we all might love Half Life, you can’t possibly believe that there will be no other game that manages to achieve anything close to what it managed.
Very well said. It’s all about adaptation and a little faith that the industry will supply us with another worthy franchise. It’s certainly more than capable.
Here is the problem – I don’t think it will.
I don’t think it a simple answer. Evolving is obviously important but not for PP. I will not add new games to the site, I would start a new site, but that is completely different.
Yes, possibly. It seems a lot simpler to make MP games and clearly Valve are very good at that.
PP used to cover: Unreal 1+2, Unreal Tournament (there were some SP mods for it), Serious Same 1+2, Quake 1,2 3 and 4, Doom 1, 2 and 3, plus ROE, Chaser, RtCW, FarCry, in addition to heaving information about most SP FPS game.
I’m not stranger to the idea of a multi-game site but that was the past.
I honestly feel that there won’t be a game for a long time that will excite me as much as the HL series. My only real hope is for a proper Unreal 3 but that’s very unlikely.
Don’t get so disheartened, Phillip. What you’re noticing isn’t a lack of single player games, but an increase in Multiplayer games. More than this being a sign of Valve shifting away from Single Player games I think this is more a matter of giving the Valve employees something to sharpen their teeth on while they stand by on the non-programming aspects of HL2:Ep3; storyline, voice actors, should it tie in with Portal, how much? does breen come back, should he come back now or later? bring closure to half life or leave an open ended cliffhanger? new vehicles, new weapons, new gameplay elements, new source engine or only tweak orange box, if so how much?
There’s just a lot of stuff that needs to be hashed out on this subject before you can even start coding anything, and working on projects unrelated to half life can help stimulate new ideas while keeping cashflow up, and without doing anything hasty to the half life series itself.
This is actually a very good business model with strong promise, as Valve can take whatever single player game that will be the next “Half Life”(whether that is half life 3, half life 4 or something totally unrelated to half life) and have it built over a period of several years while they keep the company functioning on simple quirky multiplayer games that can be used to experiment with lighting and AI before they are used in the ongoing single player project.
This ensures that there will be plenty of space between the single player releases for modders to really stretch out with the engine, but also ensures that Valve will have the funds to continue developing the next game to look forward to.
Evolving Ideas Real-Time Via Open Source Science Fiction Modding
An Overview
I know what you mean, Phil. I hope I’m wrong about this, but I get the feeling that the entire Half Life story-space has been running on fumes for a while now. Grey Acumen above said: “Ultimately, the answer is pretty simple: EVOLVE”. I agree.
But how to evolve? That’s the difficult part. As a Sci-Fi writer, my approach is to ensure that the Ideas behind a game or work of electronic fiction are themselves EVOLUTIONARY – fresh, bold, exciting and above all daring. They need to catalyze the Imagination..
Imo, someone should give people like Marc Laidlaw a pay-raise and a triple espresso and ask him to re-charge the entire Half Life universe, and others like it – with Amazing Ideas. That’s what I think the Modding Scene needs right now.. apart from Easy To Use modding tools!
For example: take the “Arts & Literature” group over at Moddb.com – I don’t really see enough actual Literature going on there.. Just as “Writing For The Big Screen” or “Writing For Television” has evolved, so must “Writing For Mods.”
Secondly – and this is where sites like yours fit into the picture, Phil – traditionally “passive” aspects of modding need transforming into more “active’, real-time activities. What I mean is: we need more Open Source Multiplayer-like Modding Spaces.
For me it’s less a matter of new tools, than of using pre-existing tools in more efficient ways. “Garry’s Mod” for example, is a really useful visual metaphor; you only have to see what can be accomplished there in half an hour with a small group of people, to see that modern Modding (as it’s currently done) needs radically updating.
We could even call this “Garry Modding” – ‘real time collaborative, what-you-see-is-what-you’re-actively-playING” type production.
Waiting two or three years (!) for a mod is simply inefficient and basically unacceptable for today’s fast changing (evolving) gaming environment. The ‘short form’, “episodic” modding being tried in productions like “Radiator” seem to be addressing this.
Another metaphor for how Modding could evolve is “Google Wave”, which again makes the entire communication process more “active’. If there was a more Google Wave-like modding process available – or even if “Google Wave” was itself somehow incorporated into an Open Source Modding (web)Space, this would be a healthy development.
Anyhow, just some light snacklets for thought on this overcast Monday afternoon.
Keep On Moddin’
Henry Swanson
Valve said in an interview several years back that they would finish up the Episodic arc, but that a different company would work on HL4, basically because they have gotten too close to the subject matter and lack relativity. This is actually strategic thinking on their part to see that someone else should help extend the story in a fresh new way.
I agree with what others have said that the Valve teams may have appeared to change focus to MP projects, but my thinking is that this does indeed keep cashflow going, as well as hones new map-making skills that can then be applied to HL or other SP projects. I also think they’re on an info lockdown so that they aren’t raked over the coals again for promising something completely different.
I think what you can do Phillip to help keep the HL modding community alive is to continue to sponsor more contests like Sniperville and Hunterville. You remember your wishlist of gameplay ideas? Make a contest out of each of those: bridge crossings, using antlions as allies, long driving scenarios, etc.
And maybe PP itself should write the script for the “7-Hour War” from Barney’s perspective, and accept community modders to make an actual 7-hour mod, split into 14 30-minute chapters. That would be wicked cool and definitely drive traffic here.
In the end, websites come and go (as a Hangar 16 veteran, I well know this). The fact that yours is HL-specific somewhat limits your growth, but it also makes you a valuable resource to the players. I think people will still continue to visit the site every day, even if just to see if there is a new topic to consider. Take heart.
I got introduced to HL1 in 2001 after completing the game I started searching the web for mods.Hangar 16 was about the only source I found
until it shut down.When I found Planet Phillip it made it a lot easier to source out mods and get help in finishing the game.I was asked by my nephew in December If I knew of a site to get HL1 mods so I told him about Planet Phillip.Then I realised that filecloud was closed so I burnt hin a couple of DVD’s of HL1 mods.He is about 19,the thing is he wanted half-life mods not half-life 2 mods he likes them more.
I hope this site is around for many years to come even if I has to evolve.
Just because Valve loses interest in the Half-Life story arc doesn’t mean that people will stop developing for it. I’ve seen games where the original developers have basically lost all interest and independent modding teams have basically taken over and have made the game even better. And I guess a game isn’t really worth two cents if absolutely no one is interested in expanding on it.
From what I see, the Half-life series games are the sort which will definitely outlast the company that developed it. I don’t know any other games which have spawned as many mods. Even last year, as mentioned, a number of absolutely fantastic mods came out, and the numbers only appear to be increasing. I guess there would be a time when releases start to decrease significantly, though we can’t really predict when that will be. At that point, though, perhaps the only thing to do is to expand the site? Even if the expansion is limited, it would be better than nothing. I don’t really have any problems with a broader range of game types covered, since the gaming world is dynamic and constantly changing.
i hope PP will be here for ever, although I fully understand that you will have from time to time a week or so that you don’t feel working on it at all Phillip.
still, it really does worry me what will be the near and far future of PP. already we can notice that the amount of new maps and mods is gone down, and this will only get worse over the next months and years.
ok, we will have a 3th episode in time. but that will not make the HL2 universe gets huge again like it was in the beginning.
maybe you can concentrate on other games more in the future, but for now I keep visiting and will keep doing so.
leon
oh dear.
I’m trying to get a list of all HL1 mods up over at moddb but I’m worried too about the decline in modding activity in this day and age. I’ve seen so many HL1 sites go down it’s not even funny. However its comforting that this site is still very healthy thanks too all your efforts, and it is pretty impressive how large a community there is gathered on this site.
Here’s to hoping for a bright future for the modding community. Cheers.