Steam group of 29,000 protesting lack of Half-Life 3 news by playing Half-Life 2 simultaneously

This is so ridiculous. Very definition of entitled-feeling gamers.

I’m going to go camp out at SEGA until they remake PSO v2 for XBLA.

@1, Yeah man, how dare those guys expect news of the 3rd part of what was supposed to be an episodic trilogy more than 4 years after the 2nd part when the difference between 1 and 2 was less than 2 years.

ENTITLED BASTARDS!

@2

When Valve knows we’ll know. This has been their model since the beginning. People just can’t realize that Valve is all bout their retail side more then their game development.

#1 Fin:
Eh, Bwhah? Really? Did you even go to the grouppage at all and read what it said? (also how it was written)

This is probably the most respectful way of asking for information. It’s non-intrusive, non-spamming and it will show up in both statistics of a large community group and a large spike in Half-Life 2 activity on one specific date.

I am in the group myself and also feel that I would like some information of when they are suspecting it to be released, maybe some tidbits or fun anecdotes of stuff that have gone wrong in the development. I don’t care, anything HL3.

They don’t owe me anything, but I still want some information from the company that I adore.

I think it’s a good way to support a cause, even if it is pretty hysterical.

If people weren’t so quick to rile eachother up every time they find something that could be construed as a reference to Episode 3, they would save themselves a lot of grief.

Maybe we should make a Steam group protesting a lack of common sense?

@2 Any sane individual would have taken the lack of news as obvious news enough.

If they’re working on a third one, they’ll announce it when they’re good and ready. I’m not really sure what the rush is.

@5 It would be almost impossible to find members.

@3, I wasn’t aware that video games were some sort of buried treasure left behind by ancient civilisations and that game studios were in fact teams of archaeologists who scour the earth searching for clues as to where these games may be found and finally released so that the modern day gamer can enjoy them.

That’s the only way Valve could provide zero information about their next effort into the Half-Life universe.

Even if they just said “we’re working on it” that’d be something.

@7 Its called “building hype.”

There will be far more fanfare and reaction from the fans and the media if it gets announced out of the blue than if they simply admit they’re working on it.

@7 That’s broken logic though.

If Valve are in pre-production of an HL3 (or 4) game, and it’s heading for 3-4 delays between Alpha and Gold – How does that serve to make people less angry with them? All they’ll accomplish is pissing people off even more, as well as ruining a great running joke.

People really need to grow a sense of humor about it. The lack of Episode 3 is possibly the most entertaining vaporware saga since Duke Nukem Forever.

People keep fooling themselves, Valve keeps playing to that, and I would think that would be pretty hilarious to most people, rather than a cause for an apparently serious protest.

Then again, when I made the same point back in the original post, I got jumped by some guy who felt I wasn’t worthy of playing the game in the first place. It really is ridiculous

@7

Gabe has said that more than once, at almost every E3. But every few months people expect some miracle. As I said Valve will tell us when they are good and ready. I doubt that people will stop with these protests even with Gabe coming out and saying “its being worked on.” Thy have 300 employees and 90% of them work for the steam client and the rest are development. Pretty obvious what their main focus is.

@9: Then they don’t need to say a specific date? Blizzard does this all the time. While I think that Blizzard is on the same level (probably better) of quality of service and games. They are also better at keeping communication with their fans and customers.
Sure its a slow drip-feed, but its something.

They are also quite open with information when the game is getting a big change (of course this is only applicable to games that are in beta or patches after release).
But its something.

@10: Now you’re just being silly. Protests?

More importantly, have you seen the amount of people ‘protesting’ the lack of info on the next call of duty game?

@11

I haven’t seen or heard any info for Starcraft 2: Heart of the swarm other than it will be about the zerg, have units, more rpg elements but that is because that info was released at the last Blizzcon.

Diablo 3 all info is trickling out because it will be released soon. This is not the case with HL 3. Look at how Portal 2 was announced, it wasn’t at E3 nor was it due to the demand of fans. They created their own way of announcing info about the game and I would expect the same for Half life 3.

The game is probably barely into pre-production, if it is in fact being worked on at all.

Ever thought they want to build tension so people go crazy and overate it when it comes out?

Also Valve is very strict on quality, the first time I played HL2 was back in 2006 and I was shocked (being a PS2 gamer)at how good it was and the effects and etc… it is such a big leap from the first game.

Valve probably want that leap, there probably working on a new engine, the source engine has been used in many games, and it’s good business model (EPIC looking at you).

@11 My point was – Why the hell would you? Are you so desperate for Episode 3 that you want Valve to lie to you?

That will only give people even more to bitch about.

You see this, whats happening here right now?

Valve has lots of people working on games : Valve have lots of people working on Steam and no one working on games.

Valve want to build hype : Valve will release it when they choose to.

Valve with this : Valve will that.

Everyone seems to know exactly whats happening and why only they have no evidence at all. The people in the group just want to know what the fuck is going on with a game they love. If its dead tell them its dead, if its being planned tell them. Don’t post a fucking picture of a HL3 t-shirt on Twitter then run off giggling away from the shit storm.

All Valve need to do to appease the majority of people is to post one of two things onto the group : “Yes” or “No”.

OMFG ENTITLED CUNTS HOW FUCKING DARE YOU.

Since I’m a big Half-Life series fan myself I can understand their concern as these guys aren’t asking for a release date or something even more specific about the next installment in the Half-Life series.They are simply asking”Are you working on it or not”.

@8, they don’t need hype and they know it, and so do you.

@9, I dunno if people are angry, they just want a little news. you get to 4/5 years between episodes you start wondering if there’s going to be another episode at all or if they’re skipping to a full release, this wouldn’t be the 1st episodic game to go nowhere after 2 parts.

@10, really? has he? cus all I remember is “nothing to say this year, nothing to say this year, look we’re working on PS3 now”. I seem not to be alone in not being aware of these confirmations going by #14.

@13: Diablo 3 was announced in 2008, I was there at Blizzcon Paris, after that they’ve released stuff every now and then. Mostly back-story stuff and races. But its not something that they started recently because it will be released soon.

And yes, Portal 2 was suddenly announced. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t say anything at all about HL3/Ep3. It was also fun as hell to get all the potatoes for Portal 2. But honestly, anything at all from HL3/Ep3 would be great, ARG or not.

@17: Not really, but a message that would calm people down could go something like this:
“So we’ve been working on Hl3 for quite some time now and we’re not sure when we reach the quality we want this product to hold. Hopefully we will release it in fall 2013 (expect Valvetime). We just wanted you guys to know since you clearly wanted some words from us.
-Gaben”
That’s pretty much all I’m hoping for.

@19

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/01/14/valve-39-s-gabe-newell-trolls-terrifies-half-life-fans.aspx

THey have already said they are working on it but they can’t talk about it so just take it on faith its being worked on and they’ll announce when they know.

@20

Use google its your friend.

@20 Like I’ve already said, the lack of news is obvious news enough.

#22 Good ol’ Phoenix,always doing the PR work for game developers.

@24

Good ol Edo being entitled “fan”. I can play that game too.

#25 Ok then..

I have you all

Facts: Valve decided to do episodic games to make the production time shorter and to give fans the game quicker. They planned to release each episodic game around 1 year after each other.

The guess: Sometime after episode 2 they realised they wanted to either do more, didn’t know how to finish the Half Life story or decided they wanted to do Half Life 3 after all to continue or finish the story with a bang and likely a new engine.

PS2/Xbox1 Generation = Half Life 1
PS3/Xbox360 Generation = Half Life 2

DO I NEED TO MAKE THIS EVEN MORE SIMPLISTIC!
They release Half Life games at the start of generations it would seem. So them waiting for the next generation to release their new engine makes sense and fits with their pattern.

@22, well I found a blog that comprised every statement made by any Valve employee regarding half life from 2008 to December 2011 and the only reference made at an E3 by anyone was Gabe saying he couldn’t talk about it in 2009.

@23, Lack of evidence is evidence of nothing, not evidence of a lack of anything else.

@27 Indeed. Considering there was a near 6 year gap between the release of HL1 and HL2, it amazes me that people are surprised by this wait.

@28 No. When a game hasn’t a single bit of information, news or screenshots in almost half a decade, you can safely say the company has shelved it.

God, get over yerselves. If it’s in development (Valve’s resources aren’t so skewed towards Steam as people have been saying, and they are working on a new engine), they’ll announce it when it’s ready, not because a group of people on the internet jump up and down and say “YOU SHOULD TREAT US BETTER, GIVE US AN ANSWER!!!!”.

@30 I agree with what you’re saying for the most part, except for the bit about the new engine. The whole point of Source is its ability to scale so well. Half Life 3 will probably be the poster-child for its next iteration of the engine though, at the very least.

@28

You are forgetting about Valve saying they will not be attending E3 last year. That is what I was talking about. Also with a quick google I was able to find info with Valve for each year after 2009.

http://www.geekosystem.com/valve-not-at-e3-2011/

http://www.1up.com/news/half-life-2-episode-3-valve (2010)

@20 Here’s how I got over that:

Has anyone seen the game? No.

Is the game announced? No.

Is there any sign of ongoing development? No.

This leads me to conclude that I don’t, and certainly shouldn’t, give a fuck about Episode 3, as there is no Episode 3 (kinda the same method I used to get over religion). And it seems to me like this group would have no reason to exist if only they could be rational about their own expectations.

They know there isn’t a game, they just want Valve to tell them not to give a fuck, even though they should be perfectly capable of that themselves.

It’s fair enough that people are passionate about something, but there’s a difference between being passionate, and being obsessed. One is balanced, the other is irrational.

I would absolutely love to see a sequel to Warcraft 3 myself, but there isn’t one, so for me that makes it pretty pointless to demand that Blizzard respond to my craving for one.

Come to think of it, they’ve gone through similar problems with Ghost. People just need to get over themselves.

Sure Valve could respond to those guys, and that wouldn’t be hard to do, but that still doesn’t make it a reasonable demand.

@29, no, I don’t think you can safely say anything unless you happen to work for Valve tbh.

@33 Post of the year. Every year.

@34 It’s called a plausible observation.

It’s not our problem if you’re determined to add 2 + 2 and come out with 5 as your answer.

@28, I think you’ve lost your track bro, your claim was that Gabe has confirmed almost every E3 that episode 3 is being worked on, neither of those links are relevant to this claim.

@33/35, le sigh, if you guys don’t care about episode 3, fair enough, but the people who have been waiting 5 years on news want to know and the genius deduction of no news = nothing for there to be news about doesn’t cut it.

I want to know from an official Valve rep if there will be a game. I give not a shit what you believe to be obvious through inference, nor do I wish to debate the matter further.

@37

Bro, you know how long I’ve been waiting for PSO v2 XBLA? Six years. Since the Xbox 360 was launched.

I want to know from an official SEGA rep if there will be a game. Who’ll join my Steam group guys????

#38 Cool story bro.

@36

You are absolutely right I did say that but Gabe has said that the game is being worked on with a shitload of vague hints about the game.

im still refusing to play hl2:ep1 and 2.
ive said back then i wont buy/play them until all three episodes are released (i dont like that episodic gaming).
im standing by this.
seems like i will never play them then..

that said, im not in that group and dont plan to play hl2 on said day.

@37 I love Half Life. I’m just not going to sit on the internet for five years worrying about it. When they have something to say, they’ll say it, and based on what we know (or don’t) I can comfortable say it will be called Half Life 3.

If you can’t accept the fact that no news in five years makes it pretty damn obvious they’re not working on an episodic game anymore, that’s your problem.

Well, it’s a good excuse to re-live the best FPS of all times and play more Half-Life 2, So I will do that fo’ sure. If that helps the cause and Gabe come out and give us something for that effort then damn great, and if he doesn’t well, I played the game I loved and have no regret by doing so.

Long live the Freeman.

@43 I like your version a lot better.

I think I’ll go play it too!

This is not just some random title plucked out from the air like Warcraft 4 or Ghost, the end of Episode 2 leads right onto what should be the story of the next game.

The Expectation is there for them to finish what they started. They have’nt and they simply refuse to say anything. Thats irritating.

Don’t give a shit, fine I don’t fucking care but try and not sound too much like a condescending twat because others are at least slightly interested in any news they can get their hands on.

More than anything Im guessing that no one has actually gone to the group in question, theres no malice here what so ever. Its all in all pretty good natured really its just a jovial little nudge to Valve to remind them that HL fans still exist. They are still there, waiting after 2 Left4Deads, another fucking cookie cutter dota game, a CS update, a Portal sequel and various other bits and bobs. Twiddling thumbs rocking back and forth.

Meh.

Nice.

I don’t want HL3 yet, I still have Ep1 and 2 to get through!