Ex Valve writer publishes Half Life 2: Ep3 plot

I doubt they'll ever continue with the franchise for various reasons. The game wont live out to the hype, a lot of people don't know what Half Life even is, they seem to not be into developing games anymore...
It's sad really, but that's reality for us.

Is that one of the early/discarded models for some NPCs? I remember seeing some unused models in the HL2 files back then, some sort of humanoid thing similar to the Elites (white armor guys, citadel guards), but without the armor.

BAHAHAHAHA, okay. But I swear it kinda looks like that discarded model I mentioned. It does have a Combine look on it.

Valve can honestly and truthfully go fuck itself. Half Life is arguably the property that put them on the map, and they can't dignify it with a proper conclusion, or even an announcement that it won't be concluded. No, an ex-employee has to post a letter to GitHub, a site that not many people out of tech actually visit, let alone frequent.

They've become so fucking complacent with Steam that any compulsion to actually make games has been totally lost. All they've done since DOTA 2, their last release (which barely even counts as a "new" game, it's more just an HD update of the original DOTA), is put out the occasional update for DOTA 2 and CS:GO. Hell, they don't even moderate their storefront, anyone with spare change and a Unity account can make a "game" with prebuilt art assets and half-assed code can put their "product" on the marketplace for a quick buck and people who deal with trading cards will flock to the asset-flipping trash, and Valve will never do anything about it. Their near-monopoly on PC digital distribution, at least here in the United States, has easily been the worst thing to happen to PC gaming, IMO. Steam is a great service for the consumer, for the most part, but it's made Valve so fucking lazy to the point where they don't even bother to protect the integrity of their own fucking storefront.

Seriously, fuck Valve. They have no real competition, and thus no real motivation to actually make anything new. Instead it's just Steam, Steam, and Steam, with a side of fucking Steam.

Really, I can't imagine many new faces fresh out of college thinking to themselves "alright, awesome, I've just graduated and now I want to work at VALVE, one of my favorite GAME DEVELOPERS", only to be sorely disappointed when he learns that his new "job" is just crunching numbers for fucking Steam.

It's an interesting read that becomes a depressing one at the end when you remember that we're likely never getting this game. The first Half-Life remains to this day my favourite game of all time and the game that made me into a big gamer.

I kind of wish Steam wasn't so successful so that Valve would actually still be a game developer.

Accursed Farms started Season 2 of Freeman's Mind?

I thought he HAD TO MAKE THE MOVIE.

I think they actually wanted to continue with the franchise, but they just couldn't do it fast enough and one thing led to the other, and thus we are now about a decade + after without sequel.

I mentioned this a while back, Episode 2 has a game mode (and Lost Coast has this too, because it was a demonstrator of sorts) in which you can choose to play the whole game with this little "interactive Dev dialogue boxes" through the game.
You find these boxes through the whole game and you can activate them. Each one contains dialogue of a dev, a voice actor, or something of the sorts, explaining something about the game. Usually something related to the location you're at currently.
I remember that a lot of these had explanations about why and how the devs chose to make that particular scenario, or map, or enemy encounter. There was a lot of thought, and in many they explained how they had to cancel, remade, cancel, remade, and start from scratch over and over and over because they weren't quite happy or because they thought they could do better, or because it didn't fit the plot or whatever reason really.
So you see a pattern eventually. There's so much they had to remade, it's no wonder the Episodes took so long to release (1 and 2), just because they were kind of perfectionists I guess? trying to make the best possible work.
This happened with Ep 1, that originally was meant to be called "Aftermath" , they changed their minds and decided to release 3 episodes, but each ran into the same "issues" and that's why it took so long for Ep 2 to come out, by the time of Ep 3 they probably wasted so much time they decided it'd be better to leave it be and move on to HL3.
More issues probably, and it went on and on. They probably halted development completely more than once before deciding to keep on it, or start from scratch again. I assume it happened so many times by the time they figured they didn't have something of substance it was too late. And they probably ended up cancelling the game altogether, they had Steam up and running, a master success, so they decided to just stop making games.

That's my rant-a-theory anyways. I don't think they truly didn't want to make the game, it's just that they took way too much time. Steam changed them completely, they went from a Game Developer to the biggest game digital distribution system on the world.
I remember I was at high school and every fucking year I waited for an E3, one year and the other without information. It sucked, but oh well, that's how things are. I'm 25 now, I doubt that game will ever come to be.
It's probably best to remember it as a great franchise without conclusion rather than a franchise with an awfully disappointing one.

Cry :sob: :sob: :sob:

This sounded pretty good. Very sad we never got, and probably never will, a conclusion. I think there is responsibility for artists who tell an uncompleted story to actually finish the story.

I don't think they'll ever allow other company to touch their games again. Certainly not Half life being their (former) main franchise.
Granted, they'll never work on the game either, but they wont allow anyone to touch the franchise.

Apparently there's some backlash in the form of bombing DOTA2 reviews.

www.usgamer.net/articles/fallout-from-laidlaws-half-life-3-post-continues-as-players-bomb-dota-2-with-negative-reviews

I don't really care, but I hope this doesn't bite Laidlaw on the ass in any way. Even if he starts regretting posting, it would be a tragedy.