Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

half-life.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 277 posts

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#121

Post by kllrnohj »

danpalmer wrote: post #103
karim79 wrote: post #95

I can never understand why they haven't made a HL3. Given that they could literally make approximately 3.88 bajillion dollars from it in 24 hours. I suppose this is the very definition of developer integrity.

For a while their stated reason was that they felt they couldn’t live up to the hype and the gaming community was too toxic and would have crucified them for it. True or not, I can see why they’d think that. However it’s also worth noting that they were spending that time on other projects making them likely even more money. HL3 isn’t going to have live service or esports applications that make money like their other…

I believe they also said they don't want to do more of the same, they only want to work on something new. Hence why the only new Half-Life anything in 20 years is Alyx - it did something genuinely new.

We all want HL3, but other than the story it would probably be fairly stagnant in terms of gameplay - nothing new has really happened in the genre.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#122

Post by cladopa »

jsheard wrote: post #49
tikhonj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much exactly the logic that got me to buy a Valve Index + Half Life Alyx and it was totally worth it . VR turned out to be cooler than I expected and both the game and the Index were just so satisfyingly well-executed. It's nice to have products which clearly had far more attention to detail and quality than was economically necessary. It's clearly the result of a different philosophy than I've seen at…

Unfortunately VR also showed the flipside of Valves approach to development - putting extreme amounts of money and effort into a project, then abruptly dropping it and moving on to something else. The Index was great at the time but now it's five years old, dated in numerous aspects, and hasn't even had a price cut since launch. Alyx is great but it came out four years ago and Valve has done nothing with VR games sin…

There is a reason for that: Meta focused on VR with "infinite money", hiring almost the entire VR development team from Valve. Valve just could not compete. They could not spend 10 billion dollars like Meta did.

Creating a working nuclear fusion device could be cheaper than that.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#123

Post by jsheard »

willis936 wrote: post #120
jsheard wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse Facebook are the ones keeping VR on life support, without them it would have flatlined years ago. They have the only good affordable headsets, they throw tons of money around to bankroll VR game studios in exchange for exclusivity, and even for games they don't bankroll it's a no-brainer to prioritize their platform because >90% of sales happen there. https://x.com/MuchRockness/status/184954344990…

I'm happy for them. I'd rather never touch VR again than plug my eyes into facebook.

> I'm happy for them.

It's a pyrrhic victory, they may have cornered the market but it's still losing them $4-5 billion every quarter with no end in sight.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/30/metas-reality-labs-posts-4po...

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#124

Post by maroonblazer »

jsheard wrote: post #62
willis936 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been patiently waiting for an index 2 or a price cut. I will continue to patiently wait. I threw my CV1 that I bought secondhand in the trash when facebook bought oculus then forced login. Maybe I'll return to the market when it supplies something I want.

For better or worse Facebook are the ones keeping VR on life support, without them it would have flatlined years ago. They have the only good affordable headsets, they throw tons of money around to bankroll VR game studios in exchange for exclusivity, and even for games they don't bankroll it's a no-brainer to prioritize their platform because >90% of sales happen there. https://x.com/MuchRockness/status/184954344990…

I have the Quest 3 and Arkham Shadow gives me all the same feels as Half Life Alyx. Before AS dropped I hadn't turned on my Q3 for over 6 months.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#125

Post by karim79 »

ric2b wrote: post #112
danpalmer wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a while their stated reason was that they felt they couldn’t live up to the hype and the gaming community was too toxic and would have crucified them for it. True or not, I can see why they’d think that. However it’s also worth noting that they were spending that time on other projects making them likely even more money. HL3 isn’t going to have live service or esports applications that make money like their other…

It might not make as much money as live service but it might work like halo cars for the auto industry, giving them lots of press and attention and higher status as a game developer.

I think there is so much potential for a HL3. For example, messing with more recent discoveries such as the Higgs Boson to try to explain why stuff from another universe managed to be compatible with our universe, and have compatible DNA. That in itself would make for an intriguing plot.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#126

Post by kartoffelsaft »

derbOac wrote: post #97
endoblast wrote: post #52

My claim to fame on the 20th anniversary (84 views thus far) is to have completed Ravenholm without inflicting any deaths or receiving any injury: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_XN_RwjnqM

I've played through HL2 and its expansions so many times as a kind of meditative relaxation thing I couldn't tell you how many times. I could never get used to Ravenholm though. Thinking about it even now years later stresses me out a tad.

For whatever reason, Ravenholm didn't particularly unsettle me. I don't know what it is, maybe expectation from the praise it receives left me underwhelmed, or maybe it's the fact that I was quite literally a toddler when the game came out and only first played it in 2019?

To be fair, I did enjoy it and could feel the intent of it being the horror section. I could see it usettling me if I played it at the time, but I see a lot of people saying it holds up really well so I still feel I've missed out on something.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#127

Post by pests »

educasean wrote: post #75
keyringlight wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that there's a period when a studio has huge early success (plus in the case of Valve, they started with huge amounts of money from being former MS employees) that lets them devote themselves to their mission of making games, before either mission creep or dilution with new hires occurs over time either from staff naturally changing over time or expanding. Another factor is that when aiming to 'go big' a…

Valve still knows how to make excellent games. Deadlock is a Valve game in alpha, and I think it's going to be very popular once released.

Im sure I'd love Deadlock if I ever got a chance to play. Feel like it's losing its hype before it's even out.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#128

Post by Zamiel_Snawley »

inasio wrote: post #115
mrpippy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should work in Wine, although I haven't tested this update yet. (disclaimer: I work for CodeWeavers, we sell CrossOver which should be a great and easy way to play) edit: tested out the 20th anniversary update on M2 Pro, it works great!

All, or at least most of Valve's games used to run natively on Mac, and now they don't (even on Intel Macs)

Running native or emulated doesn’t really matter if the performance is good enough.

Better translation layers are what made the Steam Deck possible.

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#129

Post by markus_zhang »

For anyone who wants a creative hobby, grab the game, download the SDK and start making maps/mods. It took a lot of effort to craft beautiful map, but comparing to later engines, HL2 is still easier to learn and make maps for.

(DOOM and Quake are also good targets and both have a large community)

Re: Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

#130

Post by sorenjan »

danpalmer wrote: post #103
karim79 wrote: post #95

I can never understand why they haven't made a HL3. Given that they could literally make approximately 3.88 bajillion dollars from it in 24 hours. I suppose this is the very definition of developer integrity.

For a while their stated reason was that they felt they couldn’t live up to the hype and the gaming community was too toxic and would have crucified them for it. True or not, I can see why they’d think that. However it’s also worth noting that they were spending that time on other projects making them likely even more money. HL3 isn’t going to have live service or esports applications that make money like their other…

Gabe owns yachts worth a billion dollars. I'm sure the others are doing just fine as well.

https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-luxury-yach...

Post reply on HN