Willza92

@rollingzeppelin: From the description, that sounds a lot like the game I described. Wow, that was fast work. Thanks duder :P

@rollingzeppelin: maybe that is too strong a term, but I was more describing the feeling you get from that very cold, empty statement than an inhumane act of violence. Lack of humanity/ personality instead of lack of morality was what I was trying to get at.

That sounds like a fantastic idea. I'd play the heck out of a good, deep Sci-Fi Sim City game. You can have new species visit your space station, perhaps bringing with them their own politics and stuff. I imagine it would be like FTL but where you play as the trade stations and you can grow over time from good trade and perhaps taking bribes or hiding people. Maybe your space station would have to fight off pirate/ bandit attacks and then as you get big enough, some kind of "ULTIMATE EVIL" which are akin to the Reapers, and have all different Alien species flock to beacon of hope and inter galactic relationships.

AND IT'LL BE ONLINE ONLY! wait what?

Edit- I just realised that the game I just described might exist in the form of Spacebase DF-9, as I have never even heard of this game. Does it?

This is the best comment I've read in here, and it actually works!

I think the refusing to comment is an insane and very inhumane thing to do. "I couldn't possibly comment on that"- is a great line/theme from House of Cards (the Netflix remake, it's fantastic if you haven't checked it out) because it not only is a parody of the obvious misleading nature of politicians, but it also shows just how fake and how inhumane the character of Francis Underwood is. It is a very basic human reaction to have an opinion and to comment on things. By not commenting, I feel like it gives the impression of something fake. My argument would be this, what sounds better when asked "Hey Gabe, how is the development of Half-Life 3/Episode 3 coming along?"

a) It's coming along, you know? It's getting there, thanks for asking.

b) We aren't talking about that at the moment.

I think both say exactly the same thing, but one is certainly less likely to cause a certain amount of backlash. And to make it clear, I am not furious at Valve for not releasing the game, I am more annoyed at the fact that we don't know anything about it. I think that is what most people feel, they aren't demanding the game be released before it is ready, they just want to know if it ever will be ready. Talking to your fans and keeping people in the loop can't be a terrible thing, Valve don't need to bow to the voice of the people, but I don't think they should just ignore them. I get that they are busy doing steam , TF2 and DOTA 2 stuff and that is great, but there are still people who don't care about that and just want to know what is up with Half Life. I mean, how long would it take to write up a quick press release saying "yeah, we currently have x amount of people working on the game, it has been in development for x number of years, it has seen x number of restarts because we weren't happy with what was produced and we don't want to let the fans down. We can't say when it'll be ready, but we can say that we are working towards this."

That would tide people over for another 7 years, for sure.

I just came in here to say that, when clicking on the link, that I said to myself "If they have called the guild 'Batman Batman Batman' or something, that would be amazing". Bravo people, bravo. May the Dark Knight go with you.

Oh man, I love it! Great job duder. Someone tell @patrickklepek

@scrawnto: Yeah, you aren't wrong. People will come back to it and the internet will implode when it gets announced. I was wrong to suggest that enough people could all together stop caring.

@belegorm: I think you kind of answered your own question there. Did you lose respect for Blizzard after taking so long to release Diablo 3, then it having a rocky start and then have it turn out to not be what players expected? (I enjoyed my time with D3, but I only played it once on normal. Friends who went through to the harder difficulties had gripes with it). Sure, it's not like you are going from "Love Blizzard" to "Hate Blizzard" because of one less than stellar game, but sure, you can lose respect for them. This almighty game company that has filled many of your hours with fun had let you down in a small way. I think a human being is entitled to lose a little of the faith after something like that.

I believe they do, my understanding has been, as someone who writes and loves getting into the "science" of how and why art works in certain ways and not others, that you should always treat the audience with respect, to challenge them, but to never dismiss them. I mean, what is the point of something if it is being created with no one in mind? Because then no one buys into it. You are partly right with your second statement though, no one has paid for Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 yet (my thoughts on Half-Life 3 and episode 3 are very different though, in fact they are essentially polar opposites), but I do remember that promise when they were releasing Episode One and Episode 2 that there would be a third that would tie up the loose ends of the Half-Life 2 story, and Episode 2 had an ending that essentially asks players to wait until the next part is released. Like I said later on in my overly long comment above, there is a certain level of trust that when we were playing these games and they ended before the story was finished, that they would finish it. They have yet to deliver on this (and like I said above, you don't just pay for the game and get a half finished story, there is a still two great games there).

Anyway, what do you think an artist is obliged to do, if not to do "something" with the audience, if you don't think I am correct? I am genuinely curious to know.

@zolroyce: I think you are right about Valves attitude towards the game, depending on whether we are talking about Half-Life 3 or Half-Life 2: Episode 3. I think that's where this argument gets muddled, because I think those two games mean very different things.

However, you are definitely right about them concentrating on other areas, it's just annoying that this wasn't better planned back when the first two episodes came out. I have to wonder if they would have been better off holding off on releasing Episode One and Two. I mean, Half-Life 2 ending was a WTF moment, but it was no more WTF than Half Life 1. You saved the day, blew up the thing that was wrecking your shit and then the G-Man freezes time and whisks you away from the action.

I worry this is a debate that is going to go on much longer than anyone of us has the patience for. It looks like more and more people are just not caring about Half Life anymore, and that can't be a good thing for Valves flagship franchise. But then, will people flock back to it IF it ever gets announced?