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Valve Talks Half-Life 2 Episodes 2 And 3 77

Posted by Zonk from the return-of-the-freeman dept.
With the fall release of Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal growing ever closer (check out the new trailer), Valve is finally beginning to release some information about what actually happens in Episode 2 and some information about Episode 3's progress. From the Episode 2 preview: "Looking down the mountainside reveals a scene that immediately demonstrates one of the key elements of Episode Two: expansiveness. Far off in the distance is the semi-destroyed Combine headquarters, with mighty plumes of smoke rising into the sky amidst a shattered cityscape. Arcing up towards the sky from the imposing edifice is brilliant white stream of energy, meeting the cloud layer in a turbulent maelstrom--a 'portal storm,' Alyx notes."
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Valve Talks Half-Life 2 Episodes 2 And 3 More

Valve Talks Half-Life 2 Episodes 2 And 3

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  • hopefully.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Archon-X ( 264195 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @01:01PM (#19165619)
    ..EP2 will be much better than EP1.

    The coolest thing about HalfLife and HalfLife2 was the freedom that you were given. You'd get dumped in a complex or a lab, and you had to work out what to do, and where to go.

    For me, at least, HL2:EP1 - there were no alternatives. The maps had a very 'closed' feel to them, there was only one way to go, only one way to do things - it felt very, very static.

    Anyone else?

    • Re:hopefully.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by seaturnip ( 1068078 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @01:12PM (#19165841)

      Did you play the same HL and HL2 I did? These games were always completely closed and linear. The linear cinematic experience is what those games were all about. This is hardly new to HL2:EP1.

      Actually, this is one reason I'm anticipating Portal more than HL2:Ep2. The lab-rat setting of Portal makes closedness and linearity perfectly natural and unnoticeable.

    • Half Life 2: Episode one Milk it while its hot

      From the Valve Stats [steampowered.com] page, Ep1 took on average five and a half hours to complete.
      I remember playing original HL for ages, HL2 even took a while - but Ep1 was a complete waste.

      Ep2 promises longer sessions.
    • From TFA & Inside Valve video (on youtube), most of Episode 2 will happend outdoor, or in
      expansive complexes. Focus has been shifted on non-linear gameplay & unrestrictive
      environments (Outdoor forests, plains, rivers, etc)

      And finally, the fucking flashligh wont stop you from running. Gaaaaahhhhh

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by enjerth ( 892959 )
      Indeed. Episode 1 was more like a maze than a free-range game. But I only played it for about 2 hours.

      I really only bought it for HL2 deathmatch.

      But I'm excited about Episode 2, only because I heard that it will feature a stand-alone game called Portal [wikipedia.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tarlus ( 1000874 )

        But I'm excited about Episode 2, only because I heard that it will feature a stand-alone game called Portal.
        Be sure to get the Blackbox [ign.com] release and not just the standalone version of Episode 2, if you want to get Portal.
        • Was that a joke?

          An add-on package for those who already have previous releases of Half-Life 2 in their collection, this special edition comes with Half-Life 2: Episode Two, as well as the stunningly complex puzzle game Portal and the online phenomenon Team Fortress 2.

          This game was cancelled by Valve in May 2007.

          Why would I get this "cancelled" version (assuming I could) when it sounds just like the actual version (which includes all three games, and which I've already pre-ordered?)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Bob-taro ( 996889 )

      The coolest thing about HalfLife and HalfLife2 was the freedom that you were given.

      I have not played EP1 (I will as soon as I can afford to replace my broken gaming computer!), but I would say HL2 gave you an amazing illusion of freedom, while still being a pretty linear story. Even within a level, there was pretty much one way of going through the level, and they did a very good job of steering you that way, while leaving you thinking you could have gone anywhere. I admit I haven't played a lot of diff

      • I think you make a good point. The reason that HL1 and HL2 took so long and felt so open ended was because it was up to you to figure out where to go, even if that meant stumbling around the same room for a half hour to find out you were supposed to jump out of some window on the third floor. Episode 1 went much quicker cause you had a companion with you who helped to keep you on the right track. I agree that the game was over too soon, but I appreciated avoiding the embarrasment and boredom of wandering
    • I thought that HL2 didn't do as good a job with the whole freedom thing as HL1 did.

      Then again, the bar for what constitutes "freedom" in an FPS has been raised significantly since HL1 came out. Deus Ex, Far Cry, and a dozen other games with similar levels of freedom are responsible for that.

      HL2 just felt like a run-of-the-mill shooter to me, as far as play style and freedom of play were concerned. Its big triumph, IMO, was the atmosphere, which was excellent. The coast levels, in particular, impressed th
      • The main reason HL2 felt more constrictive is because the settings (city, landscape) are naturally open. In HL1 it was natural that many paths would be blocked since the Black Mesa complex was collapsing around you.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sbryant ( 93075 )

        HL2's ability to make me feel is the sole reason that I'd call it a great game. The Thief series are the only other games I've played that have been on par with it, in that respect.

        HL2 was certainly very immersive; I really enjoyed the game, but I don't think anything beats the intense atmosphere of the Shalebridge Cradle. It still scares me now! I think Deadly Shadows (Thief 3) was quite underrated.

        -- Steve

  • Copy protection? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dster76 ( 877693 )
    I recently bought the holiday edition of Half-Life 2, which included the game and episode one

    I was so disgusted by the copy protection techniques (e.g., you must connect to our server before you can play, the software will attempt to connect to our server every subsequent time, you can never resell or return the software once you discover this) that I never played it.

    Did enough people accept all this that it didn't matter for their sales? Does this mean Episode 2 will have all of the above copy prot
    • I was so disgusted by the copy protection techniques (e.g., you must connect to our server before you can play, the software will attempt to connect to our server every subsequent time, you can never resell or return the software once you discover this) that I never played it.

      Not sure what you are talking about. My internet service was knocked out for about 10 hours due to a car accident a few months ago. I played HL2 offline during that time. When I started up the game, it didn't detect an open connect

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dster76 ( 877693 )
        If you read my post, you would have seen that I never asserted that you needed a connection for playing after the first time.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by JimboFBX ( 1097277 )
          its called steam. Its a system of copy protection that not only is a convenience and not a problem, but it helps stop hackers too on online multiplayer games by blocking them from all games on their account if they cheat. And "subsequent" does indeed mean that yes, you ARE asserting that you needed a connection every time. Honestly I think your just a big liar though; nobody buys something and complains about connecting to the internet as some issue and thus wastes their money. Nobody is that much of a whe
        • I was so disgusted by the copy protection techniques (e.g., you must connect to our server before you can play, the software will attempt to connect to our server every subsequent time, you can never resell or return the software once you discover this) that I never played it.

          How is this any different or worse than having to have a CD/DVD in the drive to play the game? I think Steam is one of the best things that has come around as far as gaming goes. Not having to buy/keep discs, just log on to Steam an

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mgiuca ( 1040724 )
            I think there are positives and negatives with Steam, as far as convenience and user rights are concerned.

            Obviously, for convenience, yes it is -- very convenient!

            My greatest concern though is that Valve can revoke your account at any time, which means they effectively destroy the products you purchased from them. They bind copy protection with in-game cheating. (I know if you get banned for cheating, it only prevents you from playing online - but the principle still stands).

            I think measures should be tak

    • Re:Copy protection? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rsmoody ( 791160 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @01:14PM (#19165899) Homepage Journal
      I remember being really pissed about this "feature" at first. Up until I realized that all I needed to reinstall the game, was a username and password and the Steam client. It would download everything for every game I had on my account. This included the Half Life 1 series which only required that I enter my valid serial number one time. Now, as far as copy protection goes, I would much rather have something check the internet once in a while than have me pull out the CD/DVD every time I want to play. Give it a try, you may find that you don't mind it as much as you would think. I have never noticed the Steam client doing anything out of the ordinary. Also, you can still play the game without it connecting, just either firewall Steam, or disconnect just before running Steam. It will try to connect, then go to offline mode and will not, that I know of, try to connect again later. I like this copy protection WAY better than the other forms and never thought that I would. I would think that you could sell it, but the next owner would need to have the username and password to your Steam account and all your games are lumped together, it's all or nothing. So, that would be a negative to you I would think. One more positive is that it will check for updates and get them for you, that's nice to me. My .2

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shish ( 588640 )

        Now, as far as copy protection goes, I would much rather have something check the internet once in a while than have me pull out the CD/DVD every time I want to play

        Personally, I'd like a choice of either. Though if I had to have one or the other, I'd go with pulling out the DVD -- that still works when I'm on a firewalled network (ie, at universities, where I am now).

        Having just spent $40 on half life 2 myself, and finding myself unable to play it, I can guarantee that I'm not paying for any more of va

        • Good luck with that. Considering the numbers they've been pulling with Steam in place, I don't think it'll go away any time soon.
      • Yeah, but what happens when Valve decide to drop Steam services, or go out of business? I can still install HL1 on a computer today and play it. I don't think I've played the original H-L since I upgraded to Windows 2000, so possibly I might have to keep a Win98 box around or something, at some point in order to do that, but at least I don't have to build a replicated Steam service (which I know of no legal way how to do) on my home LAN in order to be able to play H-L2 indefinitely.

        If Valve wants to ever

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by rsmoody ( 791160 )
          That's a valid concern, however, you can still run Steam without internet access, it just runs in an offline mode. They don't FORCE you to connect to play the games. Also, since the HL1 stuff was pre steam, if you bought it back then, you can still install from CD. So, I think you are still OK if Valve shuts down, just run in Offline mode.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ford Prefect ( 8777 )

      Did enough people accept all this that it didn't matter for their sales? Does this mean Episode 2 will have all of the above copy protection techniques? Obviously I won't drop any more money on such software.

      You mean you actually spent money on buying a boxed copy of a computer game? Come on, it's 2007 - digital distribution has been around for years!

      Boxed versions of Valve games now (for the PC, anyway) just contain compressed, encrypted data files to save you a big download. Once installed, they're the sa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )

        You mean you actually spent money on buying a boxed copy of a computer game?
        My boxed copy came with a T-shirt.

        • My boxed copy came with a T-shirt.

          My unboxed copy came with two T-shirts, a book and a trip to Seattle [hylobatidae.org]. ;-)

          Sadly, the T-shirts turned out to be a bit too big for me. :-(

      • The only reason I can think of buying stuff offline now is when market forces conspire to put the boxed version on super-special offer.

        Not all of us have credit cards. Besides, I like owning the boxes.
        • Meh, whatever floats your boat, but to me both of those points are pretty sad. Do you play in the boxes? Make a fort when you have enough?
          • What do you mean both points? If I don't have a credit card, I cannot buy from a place that requires a credit card. I'm sorry if reality is pretty sad to you, but that's how things are.

            Do you play in the boxes? Make a fort when you have enough?

            They sit on my shelf, the same way DVD movies and music CDs do. If you think you think there's something abnormal or strange about owning boxes for games, movies and CDs, you are seriously mistaken. I wonder if you ever leave your house.

            • By "both points" I mean: (1) it's sad that you can't get a credit card since it's a trivial thing to do unless you're a complete deadbeat who has repeatedly shown his inability to keep a promise and (2) it's sad that you spend your time playing with the boxes for video games, movies, and CDs. Those of us who do leave our homes occasionally consider that odd and more than a little pathetic. I mean this in the nicest possible way: maybe you should consider leaving your mother's basement and getting a job so

              • (1) it's sad that you can't get a credit card since it's a trivial thing to do unless you're a complete deadbeat who has repeatedly shown his inability to keep a promise

                I don't live in the US.

                (2) it's sad that you spend your time playing with the boxes for video games, movies, and CDs.

                Please point out where I have, at any point, said or implied that I "play" with the boxes.

                I mean this in the nicest possible way: maybe you should consider leaving your mother's basement

                How, exactly, is an apartment in the sec

    • You're playing a closed source game. Any paranoia about steam spying on you is completely irrelevant in the face of the fact that halflife 2 could still do it anyway even if it was a conventional disk-in-drive protected game!
    • I guess I'm not idealistic enough to avoid enjoying something fun just ebcause I don't like their protection mechanism.

      I was able to play HL2 on my laptop once without logging in, that's been a couple years ago. I was out of town and didn't have a net connection but was bored and had the game installed. A few months later, and I probably had something update in the meantime, I was no longer able to play the same game on the same laptop without a net connection, so I was unhappy. But when I'm at home and hav

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      e.g., you must connect to our server before you can play, the software will attempt to connect to our server every subsequent time

      Well, stop selecting the multiplayer mode then already!

      - Valve Support

      PS: I kid, I kid..

    • Re:Copy protection? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Cowclops ( 630818 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @01:34PM (#19166337)
      It sickens me to see all the people complaining about steam. "OMG GEORGE ORWELL 1984 BLAH BLAH BLAH THEY IS GONNA SPY ON ME."

      How about people actually TRY it and see that it works excellently. Now instead of a game being tied to the physical media or being tied to a single computer, the game is tied to YOU (your account). You can go to a friends house with the cache on a DVD or just spend the time downloading it and bam now you can play it there too. The only catch is that if you want to play it offline, you have to save your username and password on that computer, thus making sure people don't just install it on like 20 different computers and select "play offline."

      Nothing like going to work and playing TFC on my lunch break with about a 20 minute download beforehand.

      Tying the media to you instead of to a disc that can break means you can play the game on any system anywhere as long as its not playing on more than one system at once. I'd say thats a win-win situation for us and valve.

      I tolerated ignorant complaints about steam before they rolled it out, but now there is really no excuse to complain about a system that works quite well.

      And I'm sure if valve ever went out of business and you wanted to play their games, they'd probably just release one last patch to steam that eliminates the internet check. Not that valve is gonna be disappearing any time soon.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Fweeky ( 41046 )
        "How about people actually TRY it and see that it works excellently"

        I've bought plenty via Steam, but this is going a bit far; it works (mostly), but it's not exactly the most well written of applications. It takes ages to start up (~10s) and authenticate (another ~5-15s), it eats massive quantities of CPU for no apparant reason, bits of it break and remain broken for extended periods of time (all my third party Source mods just say "Sorry, this game is unavailable" unless I launch them from desktop shortc
        • Since, on my system, it doesn't do what you say it does on your system... my guess is that theres something wrong with your hardware or something. Steam doesn't ever unexpectedly use large amounts of CPU on this.
          • I have the exact same problems, though I think the CPU usage bug may have been fixed (Steam could take 99% of the CPU when it was updating, for no apparent reason). When you start a game such as CS:S, Steam's problems become even more evident. There's just no end to the bugs, and some of them will probably never be fixed.
      • If you've ever broken a game disc, you either have kids, a pet that doesn't know to keep its nose out of that stuff, or you're horribly careless. If it's the first or second, that sucks. If it's the third, I have no sympathy. Personally, I prefer having the game tied to a disc... I've used Steam, it works ok, but it's definitely more hassle than straight-up physical media.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by morari ( 1080535 )
      I had played Half-Life 2 at a friend's house on his Steam account because I didn't even have broadband at the time and thus could not have paid for a played the game had I wanted. Of course, I didn't really want to, what with all of it's Orwellian copy protection. I wanted to try the game though, as it was nothing but hyped at the time. To be honest, I felt it was rather boring overall. It definitely lacked the sense of wonder that the first one did. Maybe the almost complete lack of alien enemies (or varie
    • Steam is pretty awesome, it allows you to buy games without going to the store, download them, play them, and get updates easily. You don't need to go digging for discs for a game you haven't played in a while, in fact, you never need to dig for discs since you don't need to have any. I hope more and more games are released on steam. If that was the only way to get games I'd be cool with it. Also, what's your problem with copy protection? You have no reason to copy a game you bought on steam since you
    • I only had one really annoying experience with steam (I may be in for another one when I replace my computer and try to reinstall things!). I have a little home theater setup and I wanted to try the "Ravenholm" level in a dark room with a big screen. I only had a little free time to move the computer and get everything set up (the wife and kids were out and I didn't want to traumatize them with big screen surround sound zombies screaming and burning and getting blown up and decapitated), only to realize t

      • (I may be in for another one when I replace my computer and try to reinstall things!)
        Probably not, as long as your computer meets the specs for your games. When I installed Steam on my sister's computer(and let her use my account) it worked even though I still played on my own computer. The only problems we had involved the fact that my sister's computer was below minimum requirements for HL2.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jonesy16 ( 595988 )
      There are some other advantages to the Steam platform that helps Valve out if you can get over the paranoia of them "spying" on you. One example I can think of was that, through Steam, Valve was looking at the load times for HL2 on different users computers and noted that the time was highly affected by the fragmentation of the game files. As a result, they now defragment the game files in the background without the user noticing or having to run Disk Defragmenter on their own. They also use the system t

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by JagRoth ( 115052 )
      Yep, the Steam copy protection sucks. Of course, there are ways around that... One reason for finding such ways around it could be if you had it on a laptop that you didn't connect to the internet. I connected to the internet with my laptop to install and play the first time. After that, it would go into off-line mode when playing the game if I wasn't on the net. But you could only play so many times in off-line mode before it told you it had to connect to the internet. Obviously they want to make sure you
    • Just get a pirated version. It's a higher quality product.
    • I didn't notice any other comments like this, but I apologize if somebody already made this point. If you run Windows XP or Vista, you are exposing yourself to worse copy protection techniques. Periodically checking up on you without your knowledge or consent. Worse still, in Vista, your OS can be deactivated if MS decides you are no longer a valid license. How do they decide this? Nobody knows. I think you are fighting a battle that has already been lost. Online authentication/activation is here to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )
      I was worried about this issue with Ep. 1. From the newsgroups, I was told to install Episode 1 into another folder with a NEW username/account that I don't care for. I did that. I finished the game, uninstalled it, and sold the addon to someone else with its account datas. :)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fragmer ( 900198 )
      It's copy protection, alright, but it's one of the least intrusive and user-friendly ones I've seen. You can play your games in offline mode, download and play them on any number of other computers with your login name, pre-load new games, create mods that can use your games' engines and assets (if you're into that). I see Steam as more of a convenience then a restraint. Steam is good for game developers too because it has near-zero distribution costs and is very effective at preventing piracy and cheating.
  • Why do they even have people working on Episode 3 when Episode 2 has been pushed back nearly a year already? I think Valve needs to set its priorities and finish one thing before starting another. (Or at least give us a TF2 standalone if thats done!)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 )
      Different skill sets for different things. I suspect episode 2s models and most of the maps are done. Only minor tweaks left, which don' t require 24/7 mappers, so they move onto episode 3 while the rest finish off episode 2. Simple logic tells you this.
    • Why do they even have people working on Episode 3 when Episode 2 has been pushed back nearly a year already?

      Perhaps they have some people whos contribution to Ep2 is already complete, and they can begin their equivalent contribution to Ep3. Maybe there's nothing left for these particular people with their particular skill set to work on in Ep2, and Valve doesn't want them sitting around twiddling their thumbs and toes until everyone else finishes their bits of Ep2.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by DGMavn ( 1077045 )
      "Hey. This project is behind. Let's put more bodies in it!"

      -Fatal last words from Duke Nukem Forever

    • Why do they even have people working on Episode 3 when Episode 2 has been pushed back nearly a year already? I think Valve needs to set its priorities and finish one thing before starting another. (Or at least give us a TF2 standalone if thats done!)

      It's also a question of what *kind* of resources are being used on each project. I'd imagine that the art assets for ep2 were done comparatively quickly (especially since they already have the large pool from HL2/ep1), whereas the level design/play testing are

  • Okay - I used to play FPSs. Still do, occasionally. But honestly, Portal looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Team Fortress looks fine, but not my thing. Same with HL Ep2. Will I be able to _just_ buy Portal? Several of my friends are the same way - that looks different or cool, but is it worth the $40 that the "Black Box" is going to cost? And if we can't buy it separately, why not?
    • You will be able to buy it separately via Steam. Granted, it'll be overpriced, but if you really want the pack-in game without the main attraction, that's your loss.

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