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Half-Life 3 .. or Episode 3 .. "leak."

Started by Sakura, August 27, 2017, 08:57:23 PM

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Sakura

So there's been some stuff doing the rounds on the internet, oh no, Marc Laidlaw the writer for Half-Life has released a letter, and he just revealed how Half-Life Episode Game or Edition #3 would have gone from start .. to finish.

https://pastebin.com/q9DMFa7c is the pastebin of the the 'letter.'

Now Marc Laidlaw has specifically stated that he didn't write this in any official capacity, that he had no intention for this to be interpreted as the canon story for Half-Life 3 Episode 3 or whatever (I'm just gonna say "TFG3" and you can figure out what TFG stands for).  He's stated that he's just releasing this as fanfiction at best, and that it should be treated as such.  But for whatever reason, people see something about TFG3 and they're like "OH MY GOD, HALF-LIFE STUFF, WE NOW FINALLY KNOW!!!" and then people get bent out of shape because it ends once again in the same way that other HL games end (which was the entire intention of a franchise where time and space don't fold the way they do in the real universe).

I read it, I thought it was some interesting ideas, I would have probably liked it if this is how TFG3 went.  But the fact of the matter is, all of the writing talent left Valve in 2013.  All of the people who worked on HL1 and HL2 don't work at Valve anymore either, except for Gabe Newell who doesn't so much work there, as he shows up and plays video games all day and pays himself a huge salary because he knew better than to make his company a publicly traded company.  I ain't gonna hate on the guy for that, because I'm pretty sure anyone who had the option would also go for that kind of a sweet setup.

What's more disappointing, I think, is just how people are taking this as the gospel of god, when we all know that video games change a drastic amount from start to completion.  Some great examples are Doom, Quake, Half-Life 1 .. there were all kinds of ideas surrounding these games (which are aptly called "ground-breaking" games).  The original concept for Doom was a survival horror game with a 4-man squad of Space Marines trying to save their friend Buddy Dcote (whose name means "Dies at conclusion of the episode").  The original concept for Quake was what Daikatana tried to be, you were meant to be a special warrior who could travel through slipgates in time and space and do levels in a non-linear fashion to collect futuristic or ancient weaponry to tackle the other levels, collect powerups and keys from one world to help in another, etc.  It KIND OF still exists in Quake, you can do the four worlds in any order you choose.  But the back and forth concept was killed early.  And we saw how it turned Daikatana into such a mess of a game, trying to do too much all at once.  Half-Life went through several restarts to get to completion.

What made these games great wasn't stringent adherence to some grand master idea (cause that's what killed Daikatana), it was that the games evolved as things became apparently too difficult to do (or too easy).  Marc Laidlaw released a concept for what he envisioned COULD have been the story for TFG3, but it's not an official script/story concept.  They weren't shopping it to be the next game.  And I think that people need a little bit of objectivity to recognize that while this was an idea .. it's not TFG3.  It's just an idea.

Anyway, just some thoughts on the matter, and figured I'd mention it, though I'm sure you've all heard of the "leaks" by now anyway.


rollntider

I loved the half life series. Would have loved to see another episode.



Sakura

You and just about every other person, I imagine.  It's funny how in the Orange Box they announced the release of episode 3 in December of that year (2007), and they kept teasing that TFG3 will be released with Source 2...  And then Source 2 got a stealth release in Dota 2, and there's never been an SDK or source release for it.  There's been "leaks" sure, but it seems that Valve has done nothing at all to retain their talent .. which very greatly contrasts the original stories we heard from one individual who said that only weeks after Gabe Newell hired him, that he came down with a bout of his long-term illness and Gabe told him that he didn't need to resign and that they'd take care of his medical expenses.

I can't imagine what happened to change their company so much.