Valve and its content form a big part of PlanetPhillip.com’s content. We, generally speaking anyway, love what they do. There are many things I dislike about they way they have done things in the past (and probably will dislike in the future!) but you have got to admit they do a fantastic job. So, here is this weeks question:
Would you prefer Valve continue making Half-Life-related games or create a completely new and fresh I.P.?
I think they have done a great job (Except this flawed Episodic concept) with Half-Life and its siblings. HL2 and Ep1 were good, some say great, and I have little doubt EP2, and EP3 will also rock. Portal also has a link with the basic storyline and that could prove interesting. There still so many stories to tell, why stop now?
HL is great, no denying that but surely it’s time for something fresh and original? Won’t the players just get bored of the same old characters, doing the same old things? The FarCry people seems to have moved on, even Caramack seems to have decided on a new I.P., why not Valve. If they are not careful they will simply bore the players to death and lose all hope of increased sales. If or when that happens a new I.P. will seem like a desperate attempt to stop the ship from sinking!
The above two piece are just quick examples of, hopefully, valid, arguments. Personally I would love to see Gordon Freeman sucked into a portal and land in a new playable universe! A kind of old in the new. What do you think?
votes aren’t working….
woops, I guess they are…musta been my own problem
anyhow, I voted for a new IP (even though I hate that term).
Half-Life has strayed very far from what it once was, and I’m no longer excited about future Half-Life games.
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.
Another vote for a new game. While the Half-Life series is interesting, they need to know when enough is enough and to end the series, which will most likely be with Half-Life 3.
If you let a series run on too long, people get tired and fed up of it, and want to play something different. I really don’t want that to happen to Half-Life.
Maybe I am completely wrong but didn’t Valve decide to split HL3 into the three episodes?
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?
I think that HL2 has become too much of a focal point for Valve, but I do think that they should continue the Half-Life series, as many fans enjoy it despite the contrast between the two installments. In fact I think that if HL3 was made, it should be different from Half-Life or Half-Life 2.
Phillip: Hmm… …oh.
…Let’s try that again.
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 think that Valve should keep on making Half-life related games…. I just wish that people should make better mods for that half-life games. “cuse larg scientis mod and Gman invation mod for half-life 1 just suck
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 😉
Maybe I am completely wrong but didn’t Valve decide to split HL3 into the three episodes?
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?[/quote]
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.
10 years for a proper sequel? Damn, that’s as bad as Doom :p
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.
After all three episodes are released. I want to see a Half-Life 2: Opposing forces and Half-Life 2: Blue Shift!!
So I can play as barney and as the combine!
It would also be cool to see something happen in Xen again!
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…
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.
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 ?
Personally I want to see a hell of a lot more from the HL universe. It would be nice for a team to work on another project which retains the quality of HL, but if that means the main series suffers as a result then I’d rather not. There is still so much more to be seen from this intriguing world.
“None of those can ever compare to what valve could do”
You have way too much faith in retail.
I think that the HL saga should continue. Maybe you turn rogue against the Gman?
p.s. if someone called “gordonbeeman” comments on articles he is me.
Well I think we;d all like to kill the G-man..replace him with something else…lol
New (HL2) or old (HL1) standarts ?[/quote]
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 agree.
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…
I wish Valve would delve into this huge story that they created a little further. There’s just so much story, and not all of it would need to focus on Gordon Freeman.
Still, we need to get new IPs from somewhere, and the best chance of getting an IP we’ll enjoy is for it to come from someone who managed to create another great IP. Still Valve has been focusing a LOT on the multiplayer stuff, I’m not sure if we’re ever going to GET a new single player IP from Valve.
I suppose you could count Portal, but that seems to be woven into the Half Life universe, plus with the ability to make bonus map packs and mods for it, there’s really not much more for Valve to do with it themselves.
Either way, I do hope to keep getting some sort of decent Single player influx from valve, even if they finish with the Half Life series.
Keep the old games up to date, but yes..They need fresh material..Some diversity would be grand