IGN did an editorial piece on why Valve is taking so long in making the next Half Life (or Episode). Pretty good read. http://pc.ign.com/articles/116/1169224p1.html
Not a deep analysis, to be honest. Valve want to make an extraordinary state-of-the-arte game, so they are taking their time. Illuminating.
Pretty good article from IGN. HL3 would and should IMO have: 1) Source 2 which would natively support multi-core processors, dual graphic cards, DX10+, and other future technology. 2) The "F-Stop" concept talked about in "The Final Hours of Portal 2" would be like the Portal/gravity gun to the HL universe. 3) The story needs to finish the current storyline and something tells me the Combine homeworld would be involved. Maybe some alien weapons as well.
Oh shoot :sadface:. Seriously though the Source engine still has that stuttering bug from HL2, the low-res textures, weird physics (sometimes things get stuck then flung super fast), not to mention DX10. 56% of Steam users are currently using a DX10 video card. DX10 is what I have read, completely different coding than DX9 and easier to program. Don't get me wrong Portal 2 looked pretty great and BF3 is the stopping point in graphics IMO. It's hard to believe that a 7 year old game engine can still be used today. To give credit to Valve they are still supporting DX9 but at one point they have to ditch it like DX7. More game companies are starting to make DX10 the minimum requirement. *Plus the mod tools suck. I don't care if they are improving them, they suck!
People tend to be pretty confused over what an engine actualy is, if you went purely by what number is bolted to the side, then the Unreal engine has only existed in 3 forms, which isnt true. When a company puts a number on the end of its engine, it is a decision made to sell specific new features to other developers. The features that justify a new engine version for Epic may differ greatly from the feature list that ID or Dice or Crytek consider bulky enough to rebrand it. Valve may choose to include DX10 features in DOTA2, or to improve the physics system, or to increase the asset budget again, but would any of that constitute the name Source 2? It all depends on how concerned they are with selling the engine for third party use, which they don't seem to be concerned with right now.
We don't even know what the hell the F-Stop concept is. Or at least anyone who does know is probably bound by an NDA. I really don't understand what everyone's obsession with sticking the number 2 on the end of the Source engine is.
Directx 10 was a temporary stopgap like Windows Vista before Directx 11 and Windows 7 came about, or so I heard.
Imo, it's just a way to say that Source looks dated and is in need of some serious upgrade. Portal 2 has very good graphics, but "very good" is not enough to stay on par with the competition.
I remember that. You would have thought they would have a reasonable password. They better not make the same mistake twice.
Half life 3 isn't coming out till 2014 as far as I'm concerned. Heck I don't even think it's in full development, they're probably still testing concepts and gameplay mechanisms that they want to implement. Since ep.2 all that has been out is some concept art for ep3, I think it's fair to assume that they aren't just holding out on everyone for 'shits and giggles'. Not as bad as Max Payne 3 still, which I've been waiting for since middle school, and by the time it's released I'll have graduated from university. I think as long as we occupy ourselves with other exciting releases in the meantime, Mass effect 3, bioshock infinite, RAGE, the wait won't be as bad and also our expectations won't be that high (though I fear that they will be even higher than the expectations for HL2)
It is a very good point on waiting long. Like he said "The longer we wait, the better it'll be." Lol No pressure Valve
So its definitely HL3 not HL2: EP 3? I remember a while ago gabe saying that the episodic format hadn't really worked like they expected and they regretted it. But if they've been working on portal 2 and dota 2 etc all this time, I'd say HL3 has taken a backseat.
Well if we have anything to go on. Half Life 2 took 6 years after Half Life was released. They're not starting from scratch so they know what they're doing. I would assume we'd (EP2-2007) get HL3 by 2013 the latest.
It's funny because they set up the episode system so that they could get games out faster since they clearly didn't like how long HL2 took.
It's weird to because Half Life 2 came out in 2004. Episode 1 - 2006 and Episode 2 - 2007. So Episode 3 should have been released in 2008. So it's been clear to me since 2009 that we were never getting "episode 3" even though a lot were adamant about it.
I believe they have began an entirely new source game, that being Half-life three instead of the Half-life two; episode three project. I remember Gabe was speaking about perhaps having Half-life being a series quite some time ago, followed by the mention of a "Episode four". I have high hopes for Half-Life three; I'm sure it will be amazing.
Gabe said somewhere that Valve has ditched the episodic method. What we're going to see in the next half life game is an actual, full length game.