Half-Life 2: Episode One

[VIAN]

Here it is people. Aftermath has officially been renamed (E1) Episode One. E1 will be the first in a series of regularly released episodes.

I'm intrigued. But mostly curious about how much they cost and about how much content they deliver.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6144151.html

 

[Goosemaster]

I hop it is gonna be good.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

lol, each episode would have to be about $3 for me to even consider it. Steam needs to die.

 

[Nebor]

I will pay any price, and continue buying them in perpetuity even if each one is worse than the one before.

Such is a true Half-Life fan, who waited for years, through delayed release dates, and endures still today.

 

[Unkno]

i think it would be better off for valve if each episode costed a bit more but consisted of 2-3 episodes/scenes/sections together, therefore, around 16hours of playable time instead of only around 6-8...


best from both worlds.....they would be able to retail it if they want to, and one wouldn't have to wait a year or two for each expansion....

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy
lol, each episode would have to be about $3 for me to even consider it. Steam needs to die.

Yes it needs to die so that games like darwinia never see the light of day. Er wait... why does it need to die?

 

[BFG10K]

lol, each episode would have to be about $3 for me to even consider it. Steam needs to die.

I don't think I would use Steam even if they paid me to use it.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: skace
Yes it needs to die so that games like darwinia never see the light of day. Er wait... why does it need to die?

It's nice and all that it is easier for developers to get their games out, but Steam is annoying. Constant downtimes and slow updates makes me prefer plain old boxed games.

 

[Unkno]

i don't know what your doing wrong, but there was never any downtime........there might be a few slow updates but i don't really need to play EVERY single minute, i'm willing to wait...i have never had any serious problems with steam....all the problems that i have encountered are client based, which means it's simply as easy as deleting the .blob file and everything works easily.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: Unkno
i don't know what your doing wrong, but there was never any downtime........there might be a few slow updates but i don't really need to play EVERY single minute, i'm willing to wait...i have never had any serious problems with steam....all the problems that i have encountered are client based, which means it's simply as easy as deleting the .blob file and everything works easily.

It's gotten better, but there used to be many problems with Steam giving an error saying "Sorry, can not connect to Steam. Please try again later." up until just recently.

 

[boran]

I havent had a downtime the last 6 months.

but on the point. around $15 for 6 hrs gameplay is about right. many games charge you $50 for 8 to 10 hrs, so that evens out.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy
lol, each episode would have to be about $3 for me to even consider it. Steam needs to die.

I really hope so.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Seems to me that every single PC game company wants to milk every single cent out of us.

 

[biostud]

If they just build in some kind of torrent like distribution of games in steam there would be no problems with the speed.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: biostud
If they just build in some kind of torrent like distribution of games in steam there would be no problems with the speed.

But then anyone could request (segments of) files from peers, circumventing security. You could have every peer authenticate other peers before sending the file, but that would require a user database on all peers, which would also destroy the security model.

 

[VIAN]

Originally posted by: Unkno
i think it would be better off for valve if each episode costed a bit more but consisted of 2-3 episodes/scenes/sections together, therefore, around 16hours of playable time instead of only around 6-8...


best from both worlds.....they would be able to retail it if they want to, and one wouldn't have to wait a year or two for each expansion....

Comeon, 16 hours, they took 4 years to make HL2 and that barely has 16. Aftermath was prolly gonna be 8 hours or something and they've been working on it for 1 year and a half. It'll prolly reach two years before they release it. Nothin from Valve is gonna be yearly.

For episodic releases, they might actually be able to charge us more that way. They're has to be a reason why they do this. Something that benefits them. Either higher profit or steady profit over time, or just having your name out there. They might charge about 30 bucks for every 8 hours. It would be 60 bucks per game. However, we might see more frequent releases which I might like. The PC needs more FPS's.

Sure steam has it's issues, but so does all Valve's games and you still play them. Steam is far from perfect, but it's still useful. At least the idea is a good one. And Darwinia was good and easy to get from steam.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

Are they going to see how many little levels they can release and how much people will pay for each one? lol.

Maybe they're afraid if they wait too long interest will wane along with sales.

 

[crownjules]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: biostud
If they just build in some kind of torrent like distribution of games in steam there would be no problems with the speed.

But then anyone could request (segments of) files from peers, circumventing security. You could have every peer authenticate other peers before sending the file, but that would require a user database on all peers, which would also destroy the security model.

You're telling me they couldn't create a system where you centrally authenticate/verify and then it allows your client to go out and find the file segments from other authenticated users?

 

[Busithoth]

I'm psyched to see this released, as it would give me an excuse to reinstall HL2.
In the meantime, I enjoyed the hell out of the Minerva episode, released a while ago.

maybe they could fix that whole 'friends network' thing, while they're at it.
that thing's performance should explain people's lack of faith in Valve's ability to code torrent-like stuff.

 

[Unkno]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: Unkno
i don't know what your doing wrong, but there was never any downtime........there might be a few slow updates but i don't really need to play EVERY single minute, i'm willing to wait...i have never had any serious problems with steam....all the problems that i have encountered are client based, which means it's simply as easy as deleting the .blob file and everything works easily.

It's gotten better, but there used to be many problems with Steam giving an error saying "Sorry, can not connect to Steam. Please try again later." up until just recently.

...i have used steam all the way back in it's beta (with cs 1.6 beta)........even in the beta stages, there has only been one or two instances where it cannot connect to steam and a simple restart of the program works.

 

[sswingle]

I can't wait. When can I start preloading?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Seems to me that every single PC game company wants to milk every single cent out of us.

That's the basic objective of any corporation.

 

[Trikat]

Bah. Probably going to be the about the same as HL2 shipping instead of being chopped up. This way they will probably make quite a bit more money by reducing packaging and charging a higher price overall as opposed to $50 for a game.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Nebor
I will pay any price, and continue buying them in perpetuity even if each one is worse than the one before.

Well, that pretty much screws the rest of us.

 

[Trikat]

Originally posted by: Unkno

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: Unkno
i don't know what your doing wrong, but there was never any downtime........there might be a few slow updates but i don't really need to play EVERY single minute, i'm willing to wait...i have never had any serious problems with steam....all the problems that i have encountered are client based, which means it's simply as easy as deleting the .blob file and everything works easily.

It's gotten better, but there used to be many problems with Steam giving an error saying "Sorry, can not connect to Steam. Please try again later." up until just recently.

...i have used steam all the way back in it's beta (with cs 1.6 beta)........even in the beta stages, there has only been one or two instances where it cannot connect to steam and a simple restart of the program works.

Unfortunately I have had steam screw up so many times. For one their friends program worked for such a small amount of time. They locked it up and HAVE NOT fixed it until recently I think.
Also the program is just buggy as hell and would constantly delete favorites or server lists. They HAVE NOT fixed that yet. And from what I see there is not fix soon as they DO NOT care.
There were also several in game bugs that were left alone for long period of times. I guess that doesn't have anything to do with steam, but steam sucked in the first place.

Edit: Another thing I realized. They would sometimes update the game and lag up EVERYBODY who was playing. It was such a bitch. I do not understand why they did that in the first place, but people at steam have no common sense.
Also back in the day steam would constantly go down, because they screwed up on their side. A patch would follow soon later. Sometimes those patches would work, but lag ****** up.