Half-Life 2: Episode Two "will be closer to eight hours of gameplay", Valve Software's Doug Lombardi has revealed, making it around two hours longer than Episode One.
Reported by blog Fringe Drinking, Lombardi went to talk about how Valve is "trimming down" development time on the episodes.
"Episode One took 18 months to complete and Episode Two will end up being about 13 to 14 months, so we're trimming it down. I think we'll get closer to a year and be on a 12 month cycle. We'll see how it goes after this trilogy is done."
A 12-month cycle for episodic content? And Doug Lombardi's dropping hints about further episodic plans beyond Half-Life 2: Episode Three, but for what? We can but wait and see.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two will be out at the end of the year.
indeed, i've completely lost interest in it now. I couldn't care less what happens next, it's been too long and why should i keep playing an old game with "expansion packs" when there's loads of new original releases coming out this year?
Wow, 2 hours longer... so it'll last 4 hours then?
I loved Half-Life 2 but the long delay between Episodes 1 and 2 is just ridiculous and now I'm really not interested in seeing how the story ends anymore.
Valve really should have delayed the first episode and released the entire three chapters when they were *all* complete, either all together as one game or with a three month interval between the episodes. 18 months is far, far too long when each episode only lasts 5-6 hours.
In the time it will have taken them to make three episodes they could have made a brand new game. this is not the only problem with episodic games, while they are trying to finish episode 3 it will become more and more obvious that valve is standing still, all the while the world of fps will have moved on.
They're definitely lickin' both m'balls with those delays. An extra two hours is nice, but an extra 10 hours would be close to what I'd expect from all the extra development time they've had.
Of course it is... if you're part of VALVe's marketing team!
Still looking forward to it though, mainly because although the delays are a pain I know the quality will be top notch. You can forgive a dev' a lot (IMO) if you know they care about the product they eventually ship.
I'm sorry to say that I totally agree with all the negative comments made here. Episodic gaming my @rse!
I love HL2 with a passion that is prolly bordering on the insane. I finally bit the bullet 4 weeks ago and shelled out 20 notes for episode one ... and although I enjoyed the game it took me 4 f**king hours to complete. Hardly value-for-money. An extra 2 hours of gameplay will prolly equate to an extra 30 minutes for me ... meh. I will buy Episode 2 tho because I'm a HL junkie and need my fix. The only thing that is gonna make the price worthwile for me (prolly another 20 notes) will be the inclusion of Portal. Can't wait to get my hands on THAT. I recognise that TFC2 also adds value to the Ep2 package but I prolly won't play it as I'm crap at team-based online stuff ... unless it's Monsterhunt hehe)
So as I say ... this Episodic gaming bullsh!t .. is just that ... Valve have lost my respect and I can only hope that they do something drastic to get it back.
To be fair episodic gaming isn't all that bad when it's done right, eg Sam & Max, but I think it suits some formats more than others. For instance, Sam & Max isn't that tech-heavy so really they can just use existing tools and put the game around that, wheras a FPS has to be technically stunning or no bugger will buy it, meaning Valve have to spend time on the engine etc. Plus, to be honest adventure games are a darn sight easier to make than more open games.. there's no real AI to worry about, just a series of triggers and switches, like a giant flow chart, so there's less balancing to worry about in that and things like weapons.
Shhhh, don't tell anyone but I've found out what the extra 2 hours entails....
It's a corridor that takes two hours to run from one end to the other. On the way, expect to run into some lights that don't work properly, puddles of reflective liquid that are so relflective you can see your own face and doors which don't open, but take full advantage of 7.1 surround sound to make that click, click sound of a locked door.
However, the best is saved until last, upon exiting the corridor into the open woodland, the HDR lighting realistically re-creates the effect of being slightly blinded by the sun as you eyes take a few seconds to adjust...
Supertonic, I agree with much of what you've said. The Sam & Max episodes have been a brilliant showcase for how good episodic gaming can be, if approached right. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they are easy to make (IMO many people are a lot more forgiving with shooters than they are with adventure games, and as long as the guns are big and the explosion loud they will generally enjoy them) but you do have a point about the breadth of features that people now expect from a shooter. Arguably that makes this game type not the best choice for forcing into the episodic format, and lets face it, however much I'm enjoying HL2's offshoots they are far from episodic really. Apart from the continuing plot line and characters they're essentially just traditional expansion packs.
I'll give you an example of what episodic gaming should be. Guild Wars. Not only does it follow the episodic format, but each 'episode' can be played as a standalone game. Even better is that you can easily transfer a character from one campaign to another. For example, the assassin is only available in factions, but can then be used to play the other two campaigns.
Then there's multiplayer...
GW just doesn't get the credit it deserves. It may not be the best 'individual' game of the last few years but it ticks so many boxes that it's definately an essential purchase as far as I'm concerned. Not to mention it's constant ongoing support and improvement with not a single monthly fee!
Listen, you don't rush quality. It is clear to many people that Half-Life is of supreme quality, and to those who don't see it, nothing will help you... except a serious rethink!!!
Nobody here is suggesting that the quality is anything other than excellent but that's hardly the point. What most of us ARE saying is that waiting 18 months to pay £20 to £30 pounds for 6 hours of gameplay is a bloody cheek and can hardly be called episodic gaming (tho I take the point made earlier that Sam & Max, and Guild Wars are good examples of how an episodic gaming model CAN work).
Valve, IMO ... should have gone down the tried and tested route of expansion packs for the further "episodes" which is a win/win situation for both gamers and developers ... but of course, no-one in their right mind would be be paying £20 - £30 for a 6 hour expansion pack ... no matter how great the quality.
I refer you to the recent news about Oblivion's expansion, The Shivering Isles ... £20 for 30-40 hours gameplay, a whole new "world" and story, a dozen extra monsters, new weapons, new spells ... you see what I mean? And I don't think many people would say that the quality of Bethesda's offerings are shoddy by any standards.
Of course, if you like making greedy people rich and are prepared to pay more for less, who am I to stop you! But please don't tell us that WE have to be that dumb too.
come on who cares these days valve have totaly lost the plot they are taking way to long to get the games out people are not looking forward to them anymore
its been ages since hl2 came out and all there doing is these lame add ons witch the mod seem to be doing a better job at
valve wake up and make hl3 but in the same way you done the first game lots and lots of game play and no stupid driven bits like hl2
i still liked hl2 but its got nothing on hl in my eyes
And Doug Lombardi's dropping hints about further episodic plans beyond Half-Life 2: Episode Three, but for what?
For Episode Four, of course. It's already been confirmed. It's being made by a third-party studio and started around the same time as Ep1.
What most of us ARE saying is that waiting 18 months to pay £20 to £30 pounds for 6 hours of gameplay is a bloody cheek
It was and still is $20 on Steam. That's about £10.
I refer you to the recent news about Oblivion's expansion, The Shivering Isles ... £20 for 30-40 hours gameplay, a whole new "world" and story, a dozen extra monsters, new weapons, new spells ... you see what I mean?
That's probably taking the same amount of effort to produce, if not less. Valve and FPS weren't the best candidates to champion episodic, whereas adventure and RPG are more suitable, but personally I don't hold that against them.
What most of us ARE saying is that waiting 18 months to pay £20 to £30 pounds for 6 hours of gameplay is a bloody cheek
It was and still is $20 on Steam. That's about £10.
I was talking about Ep2 ... and I stand by the main thrust of my argument as when Ep2 comes out that will be £20 - £30. (I agree tho' that the sting will be taken out by the inclusion of Portal and TFC2) and also that when Ep1 came out it was £20 with no redeeming additions at all!!!!
They've already annouced that Episode 2 will be $39.99 at retail. That will probably translate to at least £30 over here in stores.
While Episode 1 was a good deal at around £11 if you Steam'd it, Episode 2's not looking so great right now. As much as I love the Half-Life games, I'm not stupid enough to pay £30 for such a short gaming experience.
Team Fortress 2 will be a nice addition, but that's basically a graphical upgrade of something that most of us already own, and multiplayer is something that should be supplied as standard will all FPS, so telling us we're paying extra for just for that isn't going to make the deal seem any better.
Portal is looking to be a lot of fun, but if they had any confidence in it at all, they'd sell it seperately, instead of bundling it with Episode 2 in an all-or-nothing deal. I have my doubts as to how long the Portal experience will last for, too. As a free bonus, it looks amazing, but as something we have to buy if we're to play Episdoe 2, I'm not convinced.
This 'great value' bundle they were talking about not so long ago isn't looking so great now that they've doubled the price on us. They need to either go back on their promise, and split them up into three seperate $20 products, or they need to seriously think about dropping that price.
To reiterate what the guy two posts above said; Episode 1 is and always has been $19.99. Which is more like £10.
I think you'll find that shop retail for Ep1 was indeed £20 ... and just to reiterate my point ... firstly I was talking about Ep2 (not gonna say that again) ... and secondly, if you want to talk about Ep1, it's £20 shop retail price still just doesn't compare to the value of £20 shop retail for The Shivering Isles. (Incidentally and OT, I wonder if Isles will be available for download at a reduced price .. that should forestall any pending rants about Ep1 price on Steam)
SunScramble, you make some good points there. I suppose Valve doesn't have confidence in Portal as a stand alone product because most people just want to buy generic shooter #623. I guess I can't fault them for not wanting to take a chance with that. As for the TF2 thing, I have a blind spot to that anyway because I'm crap at team-based online stuff.
However, if the Ep2 bundle turns out to be £25 shop retail in the UK (or lets say £15 on Steam) I will probably go for that (via Steam) just because Portal is bundled with it. Any more and I will be waiting and hoping for the price to drop before parting with my hard-saved readies.
They say $39.99 for the packaged version. The Steam pricing is usually half the retail pricing.
Team Fortress 2 is a little more than just a graphical upgrade.
Again, its about the quality. I have paid £35 for many games on consoles that were absolutely rubbish and worth playing for less than two hours. If I get eight incredible hours, (talking ep 2 alone, without the potentially month long appeal of Team Fortress 2 and the unknown quantity that is Portal) for £20, I would feel satisfied.
Just for reference, a cinema ticket in london costs about £10. And the film lasts 90 minutes on average.
What I don't like about Half Life 2 and 'episodic gaming' is that it seems to be driving PC gaming overall down in value. Ie, we are getting more and more sub 20 hour games for our £40 (Beyond Good and Evil, Longest Journey: Dreamfall. King Kong, etc.) and fewer 40 hour plus games; like the average was 10 years ago.
When you add to the lack of gameplay the dumbed down gameplay you also get in more and more games, or lack of believability in stories and sorry AI in NPC's, and episodic gaming the way Valve wants to do it is only good for extra short-term income, but bad for long term PC gaming.
We can't have every game being 100 hour games like Morrowind and Boiling Point, but we certainly are seeing less and less value in our PC games, from lack of gameplay, simplistic gameplay, pdf manuals/DVD cases and too high hardware demands.
I agree what the Sam and Max model works because it does not need high tech; but for the genre it is in it works very well, and the products have good entertainment value.
The worry I always have with the Valve version of 'episodic' gaming is that as a gamer, I am a hostage to fortune. If in a 5 episode game, Valve decides that Episode 4 and 5 were going to use a different engine, you may have to get a hardware upgrade to finish the series! If this happened, the cost of gaming 'per gameplay hour' would go through the roof! Maybe Valve wouldn't do this, but if episodic gaming took off, it wouldn't be long before someone did!
So Valve may have raked in the extra short-term profit that episodic gaming offers, but I do not think it has helped PC gaming in the long-run with this marketing decision.
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... and I stand by the main thrust of my argument as when Ep2 comes out that will be £20 - £30. (I agree tho' that the sting will be taken out by the inclusion of Portal and TFC2) and also that when Ep1 came out it was £20 with no redeeming additions at all!!!!
