Half-Life 2: Episode 3 story released by Writer of the series.

[40oz]

Maybe I need to play HL2 again. The gameplay in itself wasn't bad at all. In fact I remember being really impressed with it. The physics puzzles were fun and so was the combat. The explosions and gravity gun nonsense were hilarious.

 

Nonetheless, the story was all over the place and I couldn't connect any of it to the original game except for the obvious cameos like the crowbar, headcrabs, G-Man, and everyone reminding me that I am Gordon Freeman. The thematic progression in HL2 is like the storyboard director was a 6yo child going "wouldn't it be awesome if there was this and you could do that and you can go over there and wow I have so many ideas!" Its just so riddled with depth that none of it connects in a rational way during actual gameplay.

 

1. Stuck on slow moving train

2. Orwellian guards make you do stuff with no context.

3. "hey remember all 200 security guards from HL1? I'm all of them. You can call me Barney. Ima get you outta here."

4. Run away from evil guards in dystopian city and whack helicopter securitycams

5. Scientists + love interest + OMG GORDON = dialogue dialogue dialogue

6. Victorian Europe with saw blades, zombies and headcrab werewolves?? Also priest with a shotgun who I dont recall having any significance anywhere else in the game.

7. Drive a dunebuggy in the desert

8. Drive a hovercraft in the river

9. Back to the city, to fight some mutant AT-ATs and tell retarded freedom fighters what to do.

10. Get trapped in weird glassy chrome tower I think and use supercharged gravity gun to fuck shit up.

11. Game ends, I think? The rest is a blur, sorry.

 

Meanwhile without paying attention to any of the dialogue, HL1's plot was still a completely straightforward chain of events.

 

1. Get used for a sensitive science experiment in massive underground lab

2. Oops! Fucked everything up!

3. Aliens appear from alternate dimension

4. Escape from the labs killing everything in your path

5. Government mercenaries come to cover it up, kill everything in your path

6. Teleport to alien planet

7. Kill big boss alien thing

 

This story for HL3 just seems like a massive clusterfuck. There's no way that anyone on the design team was on the same page using it as a reference. Its just too convoluted and bizarre that I dont see how it could possibly be communicated graphically through the scope of a shooting game that's also fun and coherent.

 

You guys can "nuh-uh" all you want but I know from level design experience that translating that drivel to a video game couldn't possibly go well.

Edited August 26, 2017 by 40oz

[SaladBadger]

sure, what marc gave us is a bit vague for actually making a game, but do you really think that's the only thing he would have ever handed the would-be devteam? If gameplay didn't work out I'm sure he'd be willing to adapt the story, and I seriously doubt that's literally every last detail he came up with.

[Arctangent]

Man, it seems like you really can't bring up Valve without people lobbying for a new communist nation to fight off the threat of capitalism consuming all human thought except greed.

[MrGlide]

3 hours ago, 40oz said:

haha that story sucks. The whole thing is some nebulous sci-fi fantasy nonsense.

I thought the story and setting were wonderfull. It's honestly the main reason Half life 2 is so good. Prolly why I get mostly bored with it now. I will say after umpteen times of replaying it, they should have capitalised on some more heavy combat in the midgame To allow a bit more satisfaction with the regular guns.

 

1 hour ago, Era Di Cate said:

Doom IS NOT the ideal shooter game.

It's a shame, Because if it were, maybe so many FPS games wouldn't be complete trash.

[EmotionalFelineinaMadstate]

2 hours ago, 40oz said:

3. "hey remember all 200 security guards from HL1? I'm all of them. You can call me Barney. Ima get you outta here."

That is gold.

[Red]

3 hours ago, Arctangent said:

Man, it seems like you really can't bring up Valve without people lobbying for a new communist nation to fight off the threat of capitalism consuming all human thought except greed.

Oh sign me the FUCK UP my friend.

[SaladBadger]

Dunno if its that interesting, but Marc Laidlaw has posted some musings on twitter about "Epistle 3". It does kind of solidly confirm though that if HL3 were in development and Marc gave them this, it probably wouldn't actually be the final story. Things would be refined as needed.

 

Also this but lets be honest there's been enough evidence that work hasn't been going into hl3 to want to accept this.

[Lila Feuer]

13 hours ago, 40oz said:

ive designed many Doom levels before, watched people play and comment on my maps, and have watched people respond to criticism on their levels for years. People play shooters to run around, shoot stuff, solve puzzles and find the exit. When you create a story that's even a third as intricate as that, its completely lost on 95% of the people that play it.

Good for you, that has what to do with Half-Life? Also a very bold assumption to make about what people play shooters for. Doom is my favorite 2.5D FPS when it comes to sheer moddability but Unreal is my favorite early-to-mid 90's 3D FPS for the journey it takes you on, and besides sharing the same perspective and having things to shoot both have entirely different execution. I refuse to believe 95% of people are this stupid, even for 2017 standards.

[CARRiON]

Half-Life 2 was masterful at how it taught the player all the game's different mechanics without shoving it down your throat or throwing text boxes at your face constantly. Just subtle hints and player intuition guides their way and in return it makes the player actually feel like they themselves accomplished the task, not the game doing it for them. Portal did the same. Valve really are master's at their craft when they give enough of a shit.

 

@40ozDo you really think 95% of people that buy Half-Life 2 or similar games and play through them are so stupid they can't follow a simple plot and put the pieces together themselves? You do realize not every shooter has to play like DOOM right? You... you do know there are other types of shooters, right?

[wheresthebeef]

4 hours ago, InsanityBringer said:

Also this but lets be honest there's been enough evidence that work hasn't been going into hl3 to want to accept this.

I think a big number of people would argue the Alien franchise should've ended a long time ago. Probably best Half-Life doesn't have anymore official games made by Valve.

[Olroda]

1 hour ago, wheresthebeef said:

I think a big number of people would argue the Alien franchise should've ended a long time ago. Probably best Half-Life doesn't have anymore official games made by Valve.

I agree, on both counts.

Aliens, or possibly the directors cut of Alien3 should have been the definitive end of that franchise, I'd say.

I also think that only the first Half-Life was any good - even though it had the same story as DooM (teleportation experiment goes wrong; monsters invade). HL2 was "all right" and nothing more. Freeman's transformation from a survivor to some sort of saviour didn't sit well with me. Episode One and Two were a little better, but far from "mindblowing".

[Pirx]

Depressing ending.  Everybody wants Freeman to be the savior, not realize what is actually true, that we couldn't even scratch someone capable of building a Dyson sphere. So I guess if valve published the game with this story, reviews by disappointed people would have followed: what, is that all? What kind of ending is that? Well... of course, the native Americans will kick the whites out and rule the plains from horseback again.

 

Now does this mean that any plans for a HL3 have been buried forever?

 

I would definitely enjoy a third installment. Although tbh I never got it why a story in a FPS game is so important. I chuckle when I read posts like "now that i know the story, I have finished that game"... no, you can play it again,  speedrun it or whatever... what if people stopped playing doom after they knew its story  :p

 

 

[dew]

Here's an alternative theory I just pulled out of my ass: they scrapped the story not because it's so insanely complex and incomprehensible to human minds, but because parts of it read way too similar to 2006's Prey (beware of spoilers).

[oldandcringe]

Wait a goddamn second

[Teivman]

This just in. With an recent interview with Marc Laidlaw, He said that's episode 3 and half-life 3 were two different things. The ending of this leaked story was to have Gordon put into status by the vortigaunts. Leading up to half life 3. Sorry about the confusion.

[oldandcringe]

Just now, MrD!zone said:

 He said that's episode 3 android half-life 3 were two different things.

How often do you type Android that auto erect finishes and with roid

[Red]

erect

[oldandcringe]

Just now, SouthPaw said:

How often do you type Android that auto erect finishes and with roid

wait...

 

[Teivman]

31 minutes ago, SouthPaw said:

How often do you type Android that auto erect finishes and with roid

I'm typing this one my phone with the world's worst autocorrect.

 

Edited August 28, 2017 by MrD!zone

[wheresthebeef]

I'm using my smart penis to type this massage

[KVELLER]

14 hours ago, MrD!zone said:

This just in. With an recent interview with Marc Laidlaw, He said that's episode 3 and half-life 3 were two different things. The ending of this leaked story was to have Gordon put into status by the vortigaunts. Leading up to half life 3. Sorry about the confusion.

I thought HL3 could finally rest in peace. Well, shit.

[40oz]

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 9:27 AM, CARRiON said:

Do you really think 95% of people that buy Half-Life 2 or similar games and play through them are so stupid they can't follow a simple plot and put the pieces together themselves? You do realize not every shooter has to play like DOOM right? You... you do know there are other types of shooters, right?

 

Let me put it another way. You know how people make movies based on novels? You know how everyone who read the book before watching the movie always claim the book is better? One of the reasons is because there are differences in interpretation. The other is that there is an enormous amount of detail from the book that is lost or obfuscated in full motion video. A first person shooter as a story telling device is infinitely worse medium than a movie when it comes to capturing the full essence of a written text.

 

This isnt supposed to be a "ha-ha your favorite game franchise sucks" post. It doesnt matter if youre a professor or a drooling moron. The point is that this particular story is completely useless as a model to base a shooting game on. There's nothing useful here for a programmer, a level designer or graphic artist to use.

 

If this story was seriously considered for the game, I can only imagine that the staff involved were either exhausted because the scale of this game was way too ambitious to frame a decent game on, or there was a massive amount of misdirection and miscommunication going on behind the scenes and everyone got frustrated and gave up.

 

However, in light of this new information, I suppose this story is ok for HL2 episode 3, since it is expanding on the existing universe of HL2 and will likely have used existing resources. I didn't play either of the other episodes so my arguments that this story is too disconnected from reality dont really apply. I thought this was the plot for an entirely new Half Life game (like Doom 2016 to Doom 2 and Doom 3)

[Nevander]

Plot twist: this is just a leadup to a big reveal and Valve is just putting the cherry of trolling on top.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

1 hour ago, 40oz said:

 

Let me put it another way. You know how people make movies based on novels? You know how everyone who read the book before watching the movie always claim the book is better? 

 

Always? The Mist movie mobs the floor with the book :P.