Raising the Bar II. Would you buy?

[kupocake]

How about it? Another 250+ page Hardback chronicling the development of the Half-Life 2 Episodes, with asides about Episodic development and sections on Valve's significant Source releases since November 2004 (from HL2: DM to Lost Coast to DoD:S to Portal to Team Fortress 2 and beyond... hell TF2 alone probably has enough material for its own book!).

It is my belief that Raising the Bar is a significant and valuable commodity for the entire Half-Life community, as well as a beautiful and well designed book that is good fun to pick up and browse. Now, we all know that Valve are doing a great job putting commentaries in their products (for that matter, will we get a commentary mode in Portal or even TF2?), but I still feel these are inferior to having a good looking, browseable resource. Therefore, lets see just how popular RtB was, and who knows, Valve may even take notice and consider giving us a follow up!

 

[Hypnosos]

Yes, I would buy it if it came out. Raising The Bar is very interesting.

 

[The Hat]

Yeah, I'd buy it. I loved reading Raising the Bar, it was so cool to look at some of the stuff that didn't make it into HL1 and HL2, and how certain things in the game came to be. I'd REALLY like to see what kind of stuff went into the HL2 Episodes, and I think that another Raising the Bar would be just the way to do it.

 

[Loke]

Of course, but I would prefer a bit more info this time around.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I don't know if I'd wanna know all the cool stuff they'd cut from the episodes

 

[kupocake]

Of course, but I would prefer a bit more info this time around.

I actually think the format of RtB is even more relevant now we have the commentaries, since if HL2 had commentary, that would probably fill in the gaps RtB left. Whilst it's still important that a RtB2 have a fair ammount of text (and RtB isn't really so text starved that we don't and haven't learned a great deal from it) the fact that a book can have fantastic images in it is a trump card. The commentary is our "making of", RtB therefore fits nicely alongside as an "art of".

 

[Shift]

So is RtB2 coming out now then?

 

[kupocake]

So is RtB2 coming out now then?

Nope, and the lack of news about it disappoints me, hence making a thread to see if people would be interested. Of course, it isn't just Valve who need to be encouraged, but Prima games too...

 

[bigburpco]

I still don't have RtB, and that sucks.

 

[incorrigible]

No.

I was disappointed with the first one. Too many pictures and not enough text. Most of the pics in the books were concept art that was already released to the public prior to HL2 release anyway.

 

[Asus]

I enjoyed Raising the Bar. I looked at it instore before buying. It has a lot of good info. Would be neat if they did another down the line.

 

[Mesz]

Garryporn! FTW!

 

[Ennui]

i sure as hell would

 

[Beerdude26]

Yes.

 

[Polaris]

I agree, first Raising the Bar was awesome book with nice pictures and very valuable materials for Half-Life geeks. But in episodes will be commentary system and this fact can ruin idea of new book, however there still could be book with artworks!

 

[Asuka]

Yay! RtB rocks and is a cornerstone of our community. Just like Garryporn.

Id kill for it.

 

[Darkside55]

I'd definately buy another RtB and I voted the first option, but more text would be nice as well. Thing is, there's probably not much they can say about the creation of the episodes other than what's already been said in interviews and the commentary tracks in EpOne.

If Valve released another book, I'd much rather they waited until the series was over then release the HL Bible.

 

[Reginald]

RtB2 should be after Episode 4. A chance for some good mods to come out too.

Then we could have:

Critical acclaim of HL2, CSS.
HL2 DM
DoD S
Episodes 1-4
TF2
Portal
HL S maybe.
Various mods. e.g. GMod, Dystopia, Black Mesa, Nuclear Dawn, No More Room In Hell, MINERVA... etc.
Multiplayer component of Episode 3.

That would be enough content to cover a book just as long, if not longer than RtB 1.

 

[cojawfee]

What episode 4? Unless there is some epilogue, it stops at three.

 

[Asknoone]

Yes! RTB was fantastic, and I'd love to see another.

 

[Asuka]

What episode 4? Unless there is some epilogue, it stops at three.

Episode 4 is being made by another developer and its outside the story arc of the 1st 3 episodes.

Its more of like a side thing.

 

[Asknoone]

RtB2 should be after Episode 4. A chance for some good mods to come out too.

Then we could have:

Critical acclaim of HL2, CSS.
HL2 DM
DoD S
Episodes 1-4
TF2
Portal
HL S maybe.
Various mods. e.g. GMod, Dystopia, Black Mesa, Nuclear Dawn, No More Room In Hell, MINERVA... etc.
Multiplayer component of Episode 3.

That would be enough content to cover a book just as long, if not longer than RtB 1.

I'd refuse to buy RTB2 if it had Nuclear Dawn in. Or you know, rip the pages out.

 

[kupocake]

I'd refuse to buy RTB2 if it had Nuclear Dawn in. Or you know, rip the pages out.

Note to Publisher: Ship Samon's copy with perforated pages...

The original RtB didn't touch unlicensed mods. At the very most I could see them picking out Garry's Mod. Because you know, clumsily posing ragdolls in comprimising positions is a corner-stone of our community.

 

[xirow]

I’d definitely buy it. RtB is great, but more text would be nice.

 

[d00d]

I'd definately buy another RtB and I voted the first option, but more text would be nice as well. Thing is, there's probably not much they can say about the creation of the episodes other than what's already been said in interviews and the commentary tracks in EpOne.

If Valve released another book, I'd much rather they waited until the series was over then release the HL Bible.

Same.

 

[kupocake]

If Valve released another book, I'd much rather they waited until the series was over then release the HL Bible.

It seems likely that the HL series won't finish for quite some time. I think releasing the "HL Bible" would be great, but why not have other books in the meantime? The HL Bible is an entirely different beast to a HL Artbook. The Artbooks would complement the bibles.

I'm a fan of the concept of artbooks anyway. I have all of the English translated Ghibli artbooks (sadly only 5 of 14 or so films) as well as Raising the Bar. It seems that HL2.net is reasonably keen on the idea of a Raising the Bar II. Let's hope Valve is too

 

[Cuthbert]

I would buy the PDF version.

 

[SPARTACVS]

Hell yeah. I would've bought RtB if it didn't have a single word of text in it.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Yes.

 

[0mar]

Your poll is missing the option "**** yes."