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[Pattycakes]

I don't think this is a surprise to anyone.

Episode 3 would sell boatloads, yes. It'd be a PR win to the announce the game is coming out and that Half Life 3 was following.

The problem is that if the game is anything less than perfect, the community backlash will be harsh, to say the least. It's probably not a business risk that Valve wants to take.

In reality, micro transactions (TF2, CSGo, Dota 2) and Steam becoming the premiere video game store on the PC put the nail in the coffin for Half Life. They don't need to develop video games anymore, at least not like they once used to.

 

[ArtificialIntelligence]

This is just sad....RIP

 

[Frozenprince]

Considering they canned the HL game Arkane was working on(maybe it was still EP3?), it seems like they don't want anyone touching the series. For the record i think there are several developers including Naughty Dog, and Machine Games who could finish it out just fine.

Respawn could make a hell of a game.

 

[Altazor]

shit, man. That could've been an awesome game. Shame that it'll never come to pass.

Here's to bittersweet endings!

 

[epmode]

Have some concept art:

365kjbguyffyrtutuyiuutetutbyt vyf fuhbybtvrcefhbyui80i08

 

[TheSecondSpitter]

I was pretty sure Gaben himself said that it would be a full fledged sequel after nagging from fans.

Yup. Let's not forget the infamous "Richochet 2" webcast.

 

[sirap]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain.

Time to die.

 

[Yazzees]

it ends on a cliffhanger

IT....IT ENDS....IT ENDS ON A CLIFFHANGER

HAHA?

HAHA

 

[Machina]

Does this sound like Laidlaw talking about his experience at Valve to anyone else?

Yep, and it reads like an obituary.

Valve as we once knew and loved is dead. It joins the likes of other beloved studios with a huge pedigree like Rare, Bungie and Bioware that have been sacrificed at the altar for this industry's ever increasing lust with greed.

 

[rrs]

congrats valve, you killed HL3 for yet another card game. guess titanfall 2 will fill in this half life sized hole in my heart

 

[Fox318]

congrats valve, you killed HL3 for yet another card game. guess titanfall 2 will fill in this half life sized hole in my heart

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Damn. With the NDAs up, expect a lot of stuff to come out.

Are you fucking telling me it was gonna end on another cliffhanger!?

Did you really think otherwise? We'd be on HLXV by now if Steam had never come out. HL would be an annual series like CoD and AC. Let's not act like that was not the plan with the Episodes.

Valve as we once knew and loved is dead. It joins the likes of other beloved studios with a huge pedigree like Rare, Bungie and Bioware that have been sacrificed at the altar for this industry's ever increasing lust with greed.

Yeah, okay.

Otherwise known as studios wanting to do shit.

 

[Pattycakes]

Damn. With the NDAs up, expect a lot of stuff to come out.

Is that why they're talking now? It makes sense I suppose.

 

[Donuts]

I'm glad at least SOMETHING happened. I'm sure nothing would ever have been said otherwise.

 

[Frozenprince]

Heartbreaking. I would have absolutely loved to play that game.

I hope one day a similar short story pops up on Hideo Kojima's personal blog about the adventures of a certain Poison Viper.

And the "missing chapters of his life" *cough*

 

[Permanently A]

Have some concept art:




I can totally see someone making this is Source.

Well look at that combine base.

I think Laidlaw wants people to take episode 3 into their own hands.

"I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it."

 

[Feffe]

Since this is slightly inconsistent with Portal 2 plot we must assume it was written before 2011.

So what has this guy done for 6 years??

 

[OmegaSmash]

Honestly, what stopped Valve from turning HL into a VR focused game?

 

[teiresias]

Valve is up there with Konami in abandoning gamers.

 

[Mudcrab]

wtf this would have been perfect. I can't believe this shit!

 

[Lasthope106]

Is that why they're talking now? It makes sense I suppose.

I sure hope everyone spills the beans in what must have left people at Valve frustrated that they couldn't deliver another Game with Gordon. Seriously fuck you Gabe. Valve has done nothing but half cooked projects that have gone nowhere. They were once my favorite developer. This hurts like a bitch.

 

[RRockman]

Well look at that combine base.

I think Laidlaw wants people to take episode 3 into their own hands.

"I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it."

That's a great interpretation. Modders NEED to get to work.

 

[KiefbladeMaster]

This is some lame shit, Valve.

Maybe if they could have figured out how to put hat microtransactions into the game they would have greenlit it.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

Some more concept art here:

http://www.valvetime.net/threads/exclusive-half-life-2-episode-3-concept-art.206815/

(These are very old)

There were some other ones that I thought were newer..... maybe it was a dream

 

[Permanently A]

Honestly, what stopped Valve from turning HL into a VR focused game?

With all the wacky time-space dilation on the Borealis, a VR game would make for some cool scenes tbh.

 

[disappeared]

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of this tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

.

 

[ASaiyan]

This sounds awesome, and a great way to end the second game. Sucks that Valve found Steam money and left one of the most beloved FPS franchises of all time behind. Major props to the writer for posting this and giving everyone some closure.

 

[Fox318]

Since this is slightly inconsistent with Portal 2 plot we must assume it was written before 2011.

So what has this guy done for 6 years??

Somebody had to write descriptions for all of those skins

 

[CharminUltra]

Valve is up there with Konami in abandoning gamers.

What, not into Pachinko?

 

[ryseing]

Honestly, what stopped Valve from turning HL into a VR focused game?

Probably haven't got the locomotion systems tuned properly. Farpoint did a decent job but there wasn't much physics in it.

Turns out moving and shooting (not stationary/rail) in VR is hard.

 

[Giolon]

wow. And Valve couldn't just make and release Episode 3 because?

Too busy making money hand over fist running Steam?

 

[Pattycakes]

I sure hope everyone spills the beans in what must have left people at Valve frustrated that they couldn't deliver another Game with Gordon. Seriously fuck you Gabe. Valve has done nothing but half cooked projects that have gone nowhere. They were once my favorite developer. This hurts like a bitch.

I have an NDA regarding HL2 EP 3 that expires in 2017. If that day comes and the game isn't out yet, I'm totally posting spoilers.

https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14069

His spoilers (posted in late June):
https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=133779#p133779

 

[Permanently A]

it ends on a cliffhanger

IT....IT ENDS....IT ENDS ON A CLIFFHANGER

HAHA?

HAHA

Well HL2 episode 3 ends on a cliffhanger. Half Life 3 never even existed. Lmao

 

[Fox318]

Honestly, what stopped Valve from turning HL into a VR focused game?

They would have had to hit a deadline and they would have had to limit the game to whatever VR was at the time.

 

[Fractology]

As cool as this was to read, it was also "wrong" to read a first person account of the events from a silent protangist from a series that did its entirety of storytelling from environmental subtleties and side characters. Hearing Gordon Freeman's own innner monologue spoiled how I personally "heard" him.

 

[ZeroX03]

Valve is up there with Konami in abandoning gamers.

I mean there's a hundred million or so DotA players who'd disagree with you there.

 

[teiresias]

wow. And Valve couldn't just make and release Episode 3 because?

Too busy making money hand over fist running Steam?

There's a reason I give GOG my money whenever I can instead of Steam. At least CDP still has good game development in it's blood.

 

[Frozenprince]

Absolutely.

It's the video game version of Dre's detox mixed with Valve becoming a monolith where people go to collect paychecks. There will be people there whom may have spent their entire career working on projects that were never released. Some of the top level designers working on VR projects that will never come out or controller drivers that while may be better designed do not impact players at all.

It's a broken culture that has no leaders and no deadlines.

Trying to work there would drive me up the fucking wall.

"Hey did you work on that rigging for this character like I asked" "Well no I was designing my own project for VR then got sidetracked with experimenting with texture work then I wrote a few pieces of music"

The chaos would make me blow a blood vessel. I can't imagine them actually managing to develop anything at this point.

 

[Orb]

The absurd hate boner for naughty dog in here is hilarious because Last of Us is a damn close third person Half Life game.

 

[BaconHat]

I remember my joy at the end of EP 2, ready to see how the story would conclude.
I remember smiling when i saw the leaked concept art in those days.
I remember my hype seeing Adam Foster, one of my favorite Half Life 2 modder, stopping development on Half Life 2 Minerva sequel in order to work at Valve. Sure, it was sad that we would never get to experience his story conclusion, but getting his genius in fluid level design inside HL2 Ep.3 could only lead to great things.

Thank you Marc Laidlaw. With this, those memories of joy with Half Life can now, finally, be laid to rest.

(On topic, this would have been a great conclusion. Even the cliffhanger would have worked better than what we had, since its easier to stop caring about a sequel that does not exist than a conclusion that was direly needed.)

 

[Machina]

Yeah, okay.

Otherwise known as studios wanting to do shit.

If by doing shit you mean making yet another whaling ship card game that nobody wants, they can keep it.

 

[Neptonic]

Fuck I'm crying that the game I loved so much as a kid is actually dead

Valve was my favorite company
but I guess it's time to move on

 

[Uhyve]

I just don't think Valve would deem that worth their time at this point. Despite not beeing a publicly traded company.

But it's Valve. Who knows what they're doing all day anyway.

I mean, even if it wouldn't be as profitable as a card game with microtransactions, prestige projects are a thing, even in the gaming world.

For example, I've seen people argue that the Drakengard series was a prestige project for Square Enix and while I'm sure EA were absolutely planning to make their money back, I'd argue that the sucky Mirror's Edge sequel was a prestige project (since they had DICE, their Battlefield guys working on that, oh god is that why Hardline happened!?).

Valve can afford the opportunity cost, it just seems shitty to treat fans like that.

Edit: The FFVII remake could also be seen as a prestige project for SE. I guess they care about their image... sometimes.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Okay, let's set everything else aside for a moment, and reflect on the fact that the ending of Half-Life 3 would still have been an inconclusive cliffhanger. They never actually knew how it was going to end, so instead that was going to be the ending and the conclusion of the entire story.

Sigh.

 

[Frozenprince]

Like seriously it took a blog post a decade after the fact to do something Valve and or Gabe could have done in one press release fucking ages ago to just say "it's dead, the franchise ended, sorry".

Their constant and blatant disdain for their own consumers is fucking absurd.

 

[tesqui]

Straight up I'd be okay with the Black Mesa team making this game. Valve was okay with them remaking HL1 and selling it on steam, so it'd be cool if they let them do this.

 

[Machina]

Like seriously it took a blog post a decade after the fact to do something Valve and or Gabe could have done in one press release fucking ages ago to just say "it's dead, the franchise ended, sorry".

They wouldn't dare do something like that. The negative response would be massive.

 

[epmode]

Okay, let's set everything else aside for a moment, and reflect on the fact that the ending of Half-Life 3 would still have been an inconclusive cliffhanger. They never actually knew how it was going to end, so instead that was going to be the ending and the conclusion of the entire story.

Sigh.

That was the ending of Episode 3, and it's a far better place to stop than Episode 2. No one has said anything about Half-Life 3, if it ever really existed.

 

[snap]

https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=14069

His spoilers (posted in late June):
https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=133779#p133779

doesn't line up with laidlaw's post and seems fake as all hell

 

[ocean]

wow. And Valve couldn't just make and release Episode 3 because?

Too busy making money hand over fist running Steam?

I mean whatever kind of investment this game requires would ultimately yield a better return if they use it to develop an MT-friendly service game instead. It's not about not having the money to make this game, it's about them having better stuff to use that money on. From this perspective, it makes total sense why they'd dump HL. Why the hell dedicate resources to project A if said resources will yield better if dedicated to project B.

What *is* absolutely a dick move is the fact that they weren't upfront about it.