Is the 'Episodic' label justified?

[jondy]

I was going to create this thread a while ago, but didn't get round to it - the recent delay that apparently shifts Ep2's release to winter highlights what's bothering me, though.

The first episode, announced early 2005, was out a year later. We're now looking at a year and a half gap between episodes 1 and 2.

This doesn't seem very episodic to me. Contrast this with the Sam & Max episodes that are coming out literally a month at a time. That shit is episodic, and it's a fantastic play. My point being that delivering episodic content is possible.

I realise that developing an adventure game with recurring environments and basic (wonderful, but basic) graphics is essentially incomparable to the huge amount of work needed to produce 4-5+ hours of triple-A FPS gameplay. But if the time needed to produce these chunks of FPS gameplay is literally a year and half, then surely the 'Episodic' label is a little inappropriate.

This isn't meant to slight the work Valve's doing in any way, so don't misconstrue my meaning. I don't give a damn how long Valve take to build great games. But I think the current HL games' 'episodic' label is misleading.

Thoughts?

 

[Rapstah]

Star Wars was episodic.

 

[smwScott]

It's a bit ridiculous. You're paying more for it in the long run, you get a series of fragmented "episodes" rather than a few complete stories, you wait 1.5+ years for a game that takes 4 hours to beat ... it's just ridiculous. The quality is worse, the cost is worse, and it's just ****ing annoying.

Rockstar released Vice City one year after GTA3 ... and Valve can't even get a 4 hour game out that re-uses a vast majority of the assets previously established on an existing engine.

If they wanted to try out this release system, the right way to do it is with games like Portal. That seems tailor made for episodic content. Haphazardly shoehorning an existing franchise into the episodic model and then making customers wait longer than it takes other developers to create fully fleshed out AAA sequels just sucks.

They should've farmed out a couple of expansions like they did with HL1, released them periodically while they developed HL3. Would've been much better. Honestly, now it's getting to the point where I don't even give a shit. I doubt I'll even buy it ... will probably just rent it for PS3, play it, forget it. Maybe in 12 years when they're all out I'll buy a package that halfway resembles a real game.

 

[jondy]

Star Wars was episodic.

Please elaborate.. you'll have to convince me that making a feature film and a game are the same thing for that statement to hold water :E

 

[Asknoone]

The thing is, this isn't really Episodic Content. Valve just wanted to try something new. The idea behind this is that they can release games sooner, having just emerged from a nightmare 6 year development cycle. Misleading? Not necessarily, but not necessarily accurate either.

It's a bit ridiculous. You're paying more for it in the long run, you get a series of fragmented "episodes" rather than a few complete stories, you wait 1.5+ years for a game that takes 4 hours to beat ... it's just ridiculous. The quality is worse, the cost is worse, and it's just ****ing annoying.

This is directed at alot of people in general, rather than Scott.

Please don't tell me you have nothing to do with your time until a new Valve game is released. It's that very argument that bemuses me time, and time again. "omg valve get ur shit togever" "****ing annoying." Are you really waiting that desperately? I have plenty of things to do with my life until then, plenty of games on the horizon - it comes round soon enough. That argument is, sadly, just a load of bollocks.

Rockstar released Vice City one year after GTA3 ... and Valve can't even get a 4 hour game out that re-uses a vast majority of the assets previously established on an existing engine.

I love Vice City, but here's the thing: Vice City was hardly pushing it in terms of well-rounded quality. The combat was shite; the pacing was shite and were talking about a totally different ball game here. Vice City also used alot of assets 'previously established on an existing engine'.

 

[jondy]

The thing is, this isn't really Episodic Content. Valve just wanted to try something new. The idea behind this is that they can release games sooner, having just emerged from a nightmare 6 year development cycle. Misleading? Not necessarily, but not necessarily accurate either.

That's my point, though... if this isn't really episodic content, then why label it as such... the connotations the term 'episodic gaming' carry include releasing said episodes within, say, a year of eachother

 

[Piers89]

Please don't tell me you have nothing to do with your time until a new Valve game is released.

It's called C&C 3

...assuming that comes out on time:angry:

 

[Asknoone]

That's my point, though... if this isn't really episodic content, then why label it as such... the connotations the term 'episodic gaming' carry include releasing said episodes within, say, a year of eachother

Because these are 'Episodes'. Perhaps not in the traditional sense but they ARE Episodes. They can hardly call it "Half-life 2: Small game 1."

 

[Solver]

They're episodic because the games are, uh, episodes. Small parts of a larger story/game.

The real question is whether this is what Valve originally wanted. Apparently, they wanted releases every 6-8 months, which isn't the case. Still, this is better than not having episodes, because at Valve's usual speed, we'd otherwise probably see the next game another 5 or 6 years later .

 

[jondy]

It's more the idea of Valve referring to it as 'Episodic gaming', citing 'frequent installments'

 

[highlander]

Oh well. wasn't surprised. plenty other games too play. don't care that its delayed... if its delayed , the better quality we'll get in the end.

 

[smwScott]

This is directed at alot of people in general, rather than Scott.

Please don't tell me you have nothing to do with your time until a new Valve game is released. It's that very argument that bemuses me time, and time again. "omg valve get ur shit togever" "****ing annoying." Are you really waiting that desperately? I have plenty of things to do with my life until then, plenty of games on the horizon - it comes round soon enough. That argument is, sadly, just a load of bollocks.

To be honest I've barely even thought about the Half-Life episodes recently, barring when I see news about it or occasionally check this part of the forum. That's kind of my point, I no longer give a shit. The turnaround time is too long. After the release of Ep1 I was hyped to find out what happens next, now I really don't care too much. I'm not eagerly awaiting the game at all, I probably phrased the original post wrong which led you to think that. My point was that 1.5 years is too long to wait, people lose interest. I mean, all we're going to get is another 4 hours of high quality, yet very familiar gameplay and the story will barely move forward.

There are other games coming out that will offer newer, fuller experiences. Just think about it - GTA4, MGS4, Crysis, Mass Effect ... whatever else, now stand an excellence chance of seeing release before Ep2. Who really cares about another 4 hours of gameplay that's about a year off? I really don't like this business model, like I said in my first post they should've farmed out expansions to another company and started work on a sequel. We would've gotten the same/more content by this point and would be much closer to a real sequel.

 

[Zeus]

No it's not justified at all. 1.5-2 years between episodes is absolutely ridiculous, considering the episodes barely reach 5 hours in length. Personally I'd rather have 'Opposing Force' style big expansions rather than these little 5 hour installations which take forever to be released. We waited well over 1.5 years for Episode 1, which lasted not even 5 hours, and explained virtually nothing in the story, except for how Gordon and Alyx survived the Citadel explosion.

 

[MorganFreeman911]

Oh well. wasn't surprised. plenty other games too play. don't care that its delayed... if its delayed , the better quality we'll get in the end.

Exactly. This man (and / or woman) has the point.

 

[jondy]

Yeah, except that's not what we're discussing.

 

[kupocake]

Episodes are Episodes no matter how frequently they come out. 'Episodic' refers to the size of the game, not how quick it is to show up. Perhaps the Sam & Max games can manage quicker turn arounds (because adventure games are far more simple, and reusing locations is fine if the interactions inside them are different) but they aren't any more 'episodic' than the Half-Life 2 Episodes.

 

[KagePrototype]

Remember that Valve have to finish TF2 and Portal for the same combined release, as well as various console ports of Episode 2 (beside the PC version) on top of that. That's a much larger workload compared to just Episode 1 on its own.

I think the episodic content label is justified, Valve just need to lighten their own workload if they want to release these things on a timely basis.

 

[Stene]

Blame EA. The damn console versions by them. And who plays FPS in Playstation? I remember the damn Half-Life 1 PlayStation demo that was fugly to play, there was somekind of autoaim if because the tabs are hard to control.

The boxes look just awful also.

Yes this is alot of some angstwhine-shit, but it just sucks that it gets released in AUTUMN. Over year of Ep1, and if the development started at same time as Ep1.

 

[kupocake]

Blame EA. The damn console versions by them.

Valve are developing at least one of the console versions in house (I suspect the 360 version). They also developed the Xbox version of HL2 in house. The PS2 version of HL1 was handled by Gearbox. EA aren't to blame, anymore than it is conventional and fashionable to simply blame them for something every now and then regardless of whether they're responsible.

 

[Narvi]

The PS3 version is being handled by EA.

 

[ríomhaire]

Blame EA.

People who think that blame is EA's clearly know ****-all about Valve and their development process.

On the original point:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=episodic
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=episode
I see no reference saying that episodic or episode has anything to do with the time betweem episodes. I am the presidents of Asia, your arguements are invalid.

 

[Solver]

And please do not cite any dates like "1.5 - 2 years between episodes". It was 1.5 years to the first episode, not between episodes. Episode 2, with all the delays, will apparently be a year after Episode 1, give or take a month. I am also sure that Episode 3 won't take another 2 years.

 

[jondy]

]
I see no reference saying that episodic or episode has anything to do with the time betweem episodes. I am the presidents of Asia, your arguements are invalid.

It was Valve that linked their 'episodic' approach with short turnover times and frequent content. Their definition of 'episodic content' doesn't match their release schedule. That's what's misleading.

I appreciate that calling each installment an 'episode' is pretty unavoidable, but that's not what I was talking about in my original post. Valve's interviews, PR, and news updates all talked about 'episodic content' citing quick turnovers. They've failed to manage this. I've no doubt that Ep2 will be a stunning game, but this isn't episodic by Valve's definition.

I don't think anything can be done. The games certainly won't be relabeled - hell, why the sod should they, they're still episodes. I'm simply expressing my opinion that Valve has failed to deliver episodic gaming the way they described it.

And please do not cite any dates like "1.5 - 2 years between episodes". It was 1.5 years to the first episode, not between episodes. Episode 2, with all the delays, will apparently be a year after Episode 1, give or take a month. I am also sure that Episode 3 won't take another 2 years.

I didn't mention a 2 year delay between episodes, perhaps someone else did.

Ep1 came out June 1, 2006. Episode 2 will come out 'fall', which according to wikipedia is anywhere between the September equinox (~23rd) and december (~21st). This makes the gap between current episodes anywhere between 1yr, 3months (a week off four months) and 1yr, 6months (10 days off seven months). An intelligent guess would put the release date around a year and a half ahead of Ep1.

 

[CyberPitz]

Is it a bad thing that they are taking longer than scheduled? No.

Is the title and their description misleading? Yes. But what are you going to do? You can complain, but you just waste energy. I know you're not complaining, Jondy, but everybody who is, seriously, grow up and go outside if you're going to piss and moan about a GAME GETTING ****ING DELAYED! Oh shit, a game got delayed a few months, /suicide.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

-Time to make Half-life 2: 6 years.
-Time to make the higher-quality Episode 1, with approximately 1/3 the HL2 play time: 1.5 years.
-Time to make the much higher-quality Episode 2, with approximately one half the HL2 play time: 1 year.

So, assuming that the increase in game quality (graphics upgrades, new levels/enemies/weapons) stays constant from one episode to the next, let's check the approximate "wait time-to-game length" ratios, measured in hours and years respectively:

12h/6y = 2h/y
4h/1.5y = 2.6h/y
6h/1y = 6h/y

There's a chartable path here:

Episodic content is currently churning out games of increasing quality three times faster than before.

I'd expect this trend to level off after the third episode, when Valve hand off the episode production to the third-party devs and begin work on HL3.
With two groups making the games simultaneously, that means there could be effectively zero wait time between the last episode of HL2 and the next full-length HL game.

Also note that I didn't include Portal in that equation, which means progress is even faster.

Combined, the full Episode 2 package is being released six times faster than HL2.

That's a game of equal length and quality to HL2, made and released in a single year.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

snip

Well put, fantastic. :cheers:

 

[jondy]

<snip>

Haha, fantastic work Mecha. There's no doubt in my mind this episodic production sees more efficient production.

But that's not the point I was making. I was suggesting that Valve weren't living up to their own definition of episodic content. I wasn't criticising Valve for being lazy, taking too long, or not producing quality material that's value for money.

Oh well, at the end of the day, it's not a grievance that can be set right. I simply think it's a shame Valve can't transcend the laws of space and time and give us unparalleled FPS gaming every 3 months

 

[ríomhaire]

Mecha, your 1 year statment for Episode 2 is quite frankly wrong. Valve have said that they split the development team in half and that Episode 2 has been in development as long as Episode 1. So 2.5 years is more accurate. Also, I don't see how you can say EP2 has far superiour quality, have you played it? And I also disagree that EP1 was higher quality than HL2. Although the first 3 chapters of EP1 are fantastic I don't think that it eclipses HL2.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

I'm not charting years of development time.
I'm charting the years you personally need to wait.

Episodic content is what allowed them to split up into teams in the first place, keep in mind.
What do you suppose the EP1 folks are working on now that it's released? Undoubtedly Episode 3.

Also, I already said that I am assuming the increase in quality between games will remain constant, and not without reason;

Ep1 added new maps, new gravgun ammo, HDR and improved AI. Ep2 will add dynamic shadows, cinematic physics, new maps, new enemies and more new gravgun ammo.
Portal is also adding that portal gun too.

Whether or not you thought the story was better, the increase of technical quality was much higher.

 

[ríomhaire]

I was refering to gameplay quality actually

 

[Max35]

Probably a slight on my part, but in regards to the OP, I thought EP2 was "delayed" until the fall, not winter. I'm a bit confused. Anyone?

 

[jondy]

Yeah, that's my bad - in my head winter is anywhere from october to march :E Having said that, I took the cue from the various news sites which were reporting 'winter' as the ETA.

However, the official word is fall, which technically lies between September ~23rd and December ~21st.

 

[BlackOp773643]

To be completely honest, the label "episodic" would be justfied if valve gave us reasonable estimates on the release dates. I believe it was supposed to be out before last christmas.

 

[Asknoone]

Going episodic is not an excuse to simply throw something out the door when you feel it isn't finished.