JJ Abrams And Gabe Newell Show Interest In Partnership

[Krynn72]

What does that last article have to do with their capacity for creating games? You have a serious problem with drawing predestined conclusions out of totally irrelevant information.

Tell me, since you have them figured out, why haven't they just come out and said they're not designing Half-life games anymore? What could they possibly gain by simply being silent about it, pissing everyone off for years and years and years when they could be done with it, and put the whole thing to rest with a single announcement?

I could pick apart your arguments in your previous post bit by bit, countering them with evidence provided in the very same articles that you yourself link to, but the comments section make it very un-fun to read and create large posts.

 

[trunk_slamchest]

Tell me, since you have them figured out, why haven't they just come out and said they're not designing Half-life games anymore?

its not what they WOULD gain, its what they COULD lose. for one...if they flat out announced HL is dead...id probably sell 95% of the assets i have invested into valve and their products, because i wouldnt know if i can keep trusting valve and their business decisions, or that valve is headed in a different direction that i dont necessarily like. that includes selling off around 50 steam accounts with bp's full of TF2/DOTA2 items and steam games, not to mention a few domains, webspaces and other projects i own & operate that are valve related. guys like me (>2000 hours playing tf2 + >2000 hours playing CSS alone) could flat out abandon steam all together and you could see user statistics for steam drop dramatically. remember, there are ~50 steam accounts under my name..not just 1. that means i count for 25 to 50 times that of the average steam user when valve is compiling statistics.

the steam community seems split between people who support valve taking their time with HL3, and those like me who dont. considering that announcing the death off HL could tarnish the company's decision making skills as a whole, which could question integrity of all of valve's current projects, as well as valve's flat business structure & t-shaped employee model, which potentially makes valve a company less desirable to work for...it would behoove valve to stay quiet indefinitely.

quite frankly, i have no idea what would happen if they flat out announced that HL is dead. neither does valve. i am merely speculating lol there is no need to take my words as facts.

What could they possibly gain by simply being silent about it, pissing everyone off for years and years and years when they could be done with it, and put the whole thing to rest with a single announcement?

valve has already gained the invaluable experience and knowledge of creating and developing HL, HL2 and the universe it encompasses. a development arc which has spanned for ~12 years. you and i both know that the effect HL 1 & 2 has had on the video game industry is immeasurable. for one...the success of HL spawned valve. even in my eyes i can see that as being enough for valve to put HL to sleep.

I could pick apart your arguments in your previous post bit by bit, countering them with evidence provided in the very same articles that you yourself link to, but the comments section make it very un-fun to read and create large posts.

please do. what no one here seems to realize is i dont want to be right. because if im right, HL3 is vaporware and that makes me a sad panda.

as you posted, valve could be 99% done with HL3 and it is already put to rest inside the walls of valve. while that may be, valve could also have already nixed HL3 and its already put to rest inside the walls of valve. there is plenty of evidence for both possibilities. that is where you and i see valve's tactics differently. i used to share your optimism...many moons ago.


EDIT: post #42

 

[Krynn72]

there is plenty of evidence for both possibilities.

No, there isn't. Lack of talking about something in public is not evidence that said something doesn't exist and isn't being worked on. There IS however, plenty of evidence suggesting they are working on it still. Like how they said they are working on it.

Also, selling steam accounts is illegal, last I checked.

Also also you grossly, GROSSLY overestimate the influence you and your 2000+ hour club have over the success of Valve.

I'm not saying they wouldn't take a hit in the public relations arena for admitting that the Half Life series is abandoned, but you quitting along with the handful of other offended powergamers aren't going to be a big impact on them. But do you really think they'd behave like a child and just hope nobody notices? Do you really think they are so dumb as to think they can just stall until people forget about Halflife? Its far worse to string people along and come to the same end than to outright admit it right now. This is a multibillion dollar company and their flagship product, not an 8 year old boy hiding an expensive toy his parents bought him that he broke and is too embarrassed to let them know.

 

[Vegeta897]

its not what they WOULD gain, its what they COULD lose. for one...if they flat out announced HL is dead...id probably sell 95% of the assets i have invested into valve and their products, because i wouldnt know if i can keep trusting valve and their business decisions, or that valve is headed in a different direction that i dont necessarily like. that includes selling off around 50 steam accounts with bp's full of TF2/DOTA2 items and steam games, not to mention a few domains, webspaces and other projects i own & operate that are valve related. guys like me (>2000 hours playing tf2 + >2000 hours playing CSS alone) could flat out abandon steam all together and you could see user statistics for steam drop dramatically. remember, there are ~50 steam accounts under my name..not just 1. that means i count for 25 to 50 times that of the average steam user when valve is compiling statistics.

This paragraph made me laugh so hard.

Sorry but, explain to me what Valve would lose by you selling your steam accounts and domains and whatnot, that they wouldn't lose if they had continued to deceive people for another year and then announce it? Not to mention how disillusioned you are about what they're going to 'lose' in the first place. Why would it matter how many games are on your steam account? They already got your money, apparently. How are they affected negatively if you sell your accounts to somebody else? If anything, one man selling 50 accounts to 50 people is beneficial. Especially somebody as ridiculous as you who wants to quit steam because of the HL series being cancelled. Also, explain to me how you count for 25 to 50 times the average user in statistics? You can only be using one account at a time, so I fail to see how you are some significant blip in their data. Even if 50 was significant to begin with, which it isn't. All you have done is give them a lot of business by buying whatever games you have bought on those accounts. Congrats. Again, what do they lose by you passing those accounts to somebody else?

It's like you think these valve-related "assets" that you own are like Valve stock, and that your selling a bunch of shares is going to hurt them. But it isn't. How does selling a bunch of half-life web spaces hurt them if they're cancelling half-life? Why would it hurt them at all?

And again I ask, even if they were to be hurt by it, why would it make any difference if they were to announce it immediately, or wait and wait before announcing it? I would think that stringing people along further would cause more damage, if anything. People would be angrier the longer they had to anticipate a game before learning it was cancelled.

 

[trunk_slamchest]

Also, selling steam accounts is illegal, last I checked.

yes but selling off the assets that gives a steam account value...isnt.

Also also you grossly, GROSSLY overestimate the influence you and your 2000+ hour club have over the success of Valve.

im merely using those numbers as a benchmark. with that being said, i have spent the last 6 or so years founding and developing 3rd party communities and websites for TF2 and CSS (notably TF2Pricecheck & Steamworks) in my spare time. i have alot of experience listening and reacting to community feedback, as the success of my endeavors rely on it. TF2PC generates roughly 1.6 million page views from 90,000 users per month. people have told me that Tribute, a CSS movie i produced (http://www.themovievault.net/video/tribute), has been regarded as one of the best CSS movies of all time. i dont believe i am grossly underestimating, but its possible.

I'm not saying they wouldn't take a hit in the public relations arena for admitting that the Half Life series is abandoned, but you quitting along with the handful of other offended powergamers aren't going to be a big impact on them.

no, but community developers, which is what valve thrives on, might jump ship because they dont feel the time and energy they are spending generating content for valve's games is worth it anymore. there is always a vaccuum created after valve stops actively releasing updates for a specific game, where the community has to pick up the slack to keep modding and developing the game, or everything starts to implode.

for instance when valve releases a bad tf2 update, trader confidence drops, and traders are less reluctant to trade their items, because they dont know if the next update valve is going to make will be a good one or a bad one, which causes price inflation.

scamming is horrific in tf2. so is sharking and phishing. alot of new traders simply quit trading because they get scammed, which jepordizes the longevity of the trading community, because there are less new players to replace people quitting.

valve duped massive amounts of unusual tf2 hats to compensate, which flooded the market and cause the values of peoples hats to plummet. hats people spent months trying to get, or collections that were worth $1000s are now worth $100s. ive had alot of friends quit trading because they are tired of it.

if there are more people quitting and less free to players turning into long term traders, the system deteriorates and valves hat empire starts teetering.

Also, explain to me how you count for 25 to 50 times the average user in statistics? You can only be using one account at a time, so I fail to see how you are some significant blip in their data.

you can run multiple steam accounts using http://www.sandboxie.com/

you have no idea how many other TF2 traders have over 60 accounts. you really don't why the mannconomy became such a valuable market so fast, huh?

for starters, i am always running 4-5 steam accounts on my pc because i am hosting automated trading bots that service traders around the mannconomy 24/7. and they are damn good at servicing.

 

[Vegeta897]

you can run multiple steam accounts using http://www.sandboxie.com/

you have no idea how many other TF2 traders have over 60 accounts. you really don't why the mannconomy became such a valuable market so fast, huh?

for starters, i am always running 4-5 steam accounts on my pc because i am hosting automated trading bots that service traders around the mannconomy 24/7. and they are damn good at servicing.

Explain to me how running multiple steam accounts on your computer, and having them run trade bots, makes you capable of making any significant impact on the statistics? You're not playing 50 games at once.

I don't understand how somebody can be this clueless.

Edit: And good job ignoring my main question.

I'll write it real big:

Even if what you're saying was true about Valve losing a huge portion of their steam userbase, how would it be any better if they were to delay announcing that there would be no more HL games?

 

[trunk_slamchest]

haha there will never be an announcement.

 

[Vegeta897]

haha there will never be an announcement.

And this is supposed to be better, how? Pissing more people off by wasting their time? I don't know who you think would respect Valve more for deceiving their entire fanbase for months or years before it became obvious that HL3 isn't coming.

 

[Krynn72]

Sir, I believe you're mistaking Steam for the NASDAQ or some other kind of stock market. Trader confidence in tf2 hats? What the **** are we even talking about anymore? I feel like Willies post is the most sane response one could possibly muster to that load of baloney.

 

[Vegeta897]

muster

baloney

I could go for some baloney and mustard sandwiches.

 

[Schru]

I love it that Valve made it possible for people to talk seriously about hat assets in a hat-based economy.

 

[trunk_slamchest]

Sir, I believe you're mistaking Steam for the NASDAQ or some other kind of stock market. Trader confidence in tf2 hats? What the **** are we even talking about anymore? I feel like Willies post is the most sane response one could possibly muster to that load of baloney.

everything is interconnected. the f2p + microtransaction business model that valve pioneered with TF2 has completely changed the way valve approaches their business, and is changing the entire video game industry as we post.

I love it that Valve made it possible for people to talk seriously about hat assets in a hat-based economy.

serious enough for valve to hire financial consultants to fix it.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a-strange-email/

 

[Vegeta897]

everything is interconnected. the f2p + microtransaction business model that valve pioneered with TF2 has completely changed the way valve approaches their business, and is changing the entire video game industry as we post.

What a delightfully vague argument.

"argument"

Are you by chance related to BlueWolf?

 

[Schru]

serious enough for valve to hire financial consultants to fix it.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a-strange-email/

I know about it, I try follow all things related to Valve; please, don't assume so much, it's condescending. And I wasn't mocking it, it simply puts a smile on my face.

I didn't reply to you earlier because I was tired and others here have presented arguments I agree with; also, the length of your messages makes responding quite a daunting task.

Still, I will reiterate that there is nothing that indicates that Valve have given up on
Half-Life. It's not impossible that it could get cancelled, but knowing what we do about Valve, it is highly unlikely. I understand that the interconnected economy of Steam and in-game items is big and growing, but it's neither taking all of Valve's resources to manage, nor would it be completely undermined if Valve hypothetically discontinued the HL franchise.