Not surprisingly, the voice actor who made the comments about HL3 and the mo-cap issue has since removed his comments about this from his blog. He explains why here:
Leaks aren’t official. Let alone the fact that the latest one was just some names on a changelog. There are so many different ways that such a thing could happen without being an actual confirmation of L4D3 from a code-name for a different project to a canceled project that’s still sitting around. As much as no one likes to admit it, we know very little of what’s going on inside Valve. I think L4D3 is not happening and my only evidence is that Valve has proved itself to be a good respectable company that probably wouldn’t make a stale sequel to a stale sequel. And honestly, my evidence is no worse than yours (note: because there is no good evidence).
Tl;Dr: I’m really sick of the rumor mill and everyone jumping on it every chance they get
The only people who say L4d2 is stale are the 16% of steam owners who don’t play it anymore.
This is a made up statistic but I do notice that people who don’t play the game tend to claim that it’s unpopular. Such bullshit could not be less bullshit. Especially with the new wave of huge mods/ renovations of old mods (like a more stable build mod) ever since they opened the game up.
By stale I don’t mean unpopular, I mean stale as in the gameplay and the changes to the gameplay just weren’t complex enough to justify a sequel. As in the series is stale, not the game itself. Maybe stagnant is a better word.
Half Life 2 episode 3… Or Half life 3 as It’s being called now has been in development since Half life 2 episoide 2.
Ok it might be on and off and resources devoted to it are on and off or more or less at any one time… But Valve are not short of staff, money or talent…
It will be released when it’s ready… That is how it works
It’s also obvious they felt the need to furthur develop the Aperture science back story with the portal games this has caused some of the wait but this needed to be developed a bit and was included in the orange box for good reason because it is very relevant to the next installment.
They have also decided that they will bring the next installment out on the next source engine (V2)… This is bound to cause delay also… So when you put all this together this explains a lot and they are bound to showcase the next half life installment on the new engine rather than any of the lesser franchise titles… Or atleast this is what I think.
@garr: evidence for lfd3 shows up, a reaction of a hl fan not unlike you: “can’t be true lol” even more evidence shows up: “it MUST NOT be true, right guys?” almost undeniable evidence shows up: “Valve wouldn’t do this to me!!!”
No matter the amount of self-deception, what’s true is true whenever you accept/deny it or whatever.
@Ronster, in fact, Episode Three had been in development since 2006, they started work on it that year, so “the future half-life game” in one form or another is in works for 7 years and x months already.
And I dare to compare it to DNF by now.
I think we should just completely shut up about everything Half-Life 3 (or episode 3) related and wait for an official statement. This stuff is really getting out of the hands.
“Sorry that I gave the impression that I know what’s going on. I really wasn’t trying to and I really don’t know.” …he should’ve kept quiet.
Changelog Leak
Steamworks Leak
This is the main stuff I know of. Maybe you have some proof beyond what I’ve seen, showing it to me could change this argument (or was your evidence hypothetical?). However I suspect that the real reason there is disagreement is that I, unlike you, understand that changelogs and any kind of behind the scenes leaks tend to be very untrustworthy because devs did not intend for this information to be public and as such they could be doing all kinds of things that could make the leak extremely misinforming. For example they could simply be toying with the idea of making L4D3. This could easily make the game show up in things like change logs even though the project would never reach the public.
I’m not saying that L4D3 will not happen, I am simply saying ANY such leak whether it be of L4D3 or Ricochet 2 just plain isn’t solid information. You seem just hellbeant on L4D3 happening far more than I do on it not existing. However I do hope it doesn’t happen. I’m just arguing for people to crank down the rumor mill and wait for more solid information. Articles titled “L4D3 Anounced, changelog leaked” just make me cringe. A leak is not an announcement but in the valve fanbase people treat it as such.
Valve make games though so either they stopped making them or they are doing something new… New source engine confirmed… would you really want to show off a new game engine with another portal or left4dead… The new engine will showcase their/a flagship game… when it is ready that is
That makes perfect sense, however I wouldn’t be sure of it. For example if they were working HL3 and some other project on Source 2, and the other project finished first they probably wouldn’t hold off on the finished project just to make HL3 the first Source 2 game.
I just really really want to see what they’ve done. I hope Source 2 is as ahead of its time as source was on release.
@ garrthbarrttinn
If the timing is right, VALVe will release both titles using Source 2 as the “Green Box”, in an attempt to attract new fans and recover some of their lost fan base, and as a “we’re sorry” offering for putting us through all this and for making us all wait for so long.
oh, they will, will they? glad you’re hear to inform us of these facts
Why would it be a green box? Wouldn’t it just be the Orange Box 2?
Needs to be more distinct than that. It could be red, it could be blue, even lilac. 
Something that would be a feature I am sure will feature in a next installment is loading the next map in so you will have a seamless experience… But I hope it does not go open world… Perhaps a fake open world akin to what Rage did without the loading screens.
It would be also nice if the previous episodes were ported over to be seamless loading also… But I doubt that will happen.
I think they will bundle an openworld game with Half life 3 linear but seamless without loading pauses.
Well, they backported HL2 and the episodes to new feature sets like HDR lighting, motion blur, and Mac/Linux support, so it’s theoretically possible. The only real question with that would be if it DOES use “Source 2,” how easy would it be to port Source 1 content?
There is alot more to take into consideration than just the new engine and the games…
Gabe Newell on his keynote DICE speech hints very heavily towrds A design philosophy geared towards giving Users all the tools they need to create their own content and if you like their own games…
This is a very complicated and requires outside companies resources who have expensive software packages to create content availble for somone who spends a small fee on a game…
What ever their framework for how their company intends to portray themselves with source 2… It should be I imagine a much more user friendly interface than hammer… And that Engine Mods will have predefined game types for modification with plugins.
Example… first person Shooter, 3rd person platformer, driving, sport, puzzle.
This I believe is the end game… And they will encourage creation and crossovers in game creation.
The game they create will only be a demonstration of what you are buying in to.
SDKs with easier, gametype specific access are usually pretty dumbed down and lacking in features. When valve has discussed reworking Hammer editor in the past I suspect largely what they’ve been referring to is adding more useful features and making the current features more intuitively designed. There probably will be more SDK’s such as Portal 2’s tile-based editor that are dumbed down but easy to use, but those will all likely be spinoff sdks (like portal 2’s) for limited use while all the real work will still be done in hammer.
My question is, will Source 2 switch to a model-centric style like udk? With geometry as complex as it is in games these days it’d be hard for them to keep up with just good ol’ fashioned brushes. I really hope they become model based but retain the old suite of brush tools. I find the UDK’s brush tools to be an enormous pain to use. I get that they wanted their tools to be contiguous with model making programs, but in the process they used inefficient tools.
And the other question is, will we get real time editing? Oh god I hope yes.
The sad thing is if it moves to a more model based system I’ll have to learn modelling ):.
I’d like they just skip a few iterations and use euclideon’s infinite detail technology and refine it for games…