L
Logic
Guest
With much talk and excitement of the release candidate news, I felt it neccissary to bring some important points into focus. It may be an exciting time at the moment, but things are set to change dramatically. During the long and arduous wait for Half-Life 2, we've become quite a community. Traditions have emerged, and a way of life has developed. With Valve's recent news, however, it's clear that there will soon be great change, and that our current way of life can not last forever.
Delay threads, "will HL2 run on my awesomely pimped out machine" threads, and Valve hatred threads have become staples of our community. Some of us start them, many of us participate in them, and the rest generally dislike them, but they've become a part of who we are, and what we do here. They represent us. Now that Half-Life 2 is quickly becoming a reality, the day approaches when these threads will stop appearing, the 'Valve info thread' will be unstickied (or worse, deleted), and most painfully of all, many of our valued members will simply never return. For most of us, speculation and arguing about the game is our social outlet, and without this, we may find ourselves losing touch with other people, and letting go of time honored traditions, such as alpha-numerical re-spellings of words, and witty abbreviations (such as "u ppl" instead of "you people").
By releasing Half-Life 2, Valve are giving us what they have owed us since releasing the original Half-Life. The unpleasable community will be pleased, and we simply won't be able to remain who we are. Without being kept from something that belongs to us, we will have lost our cause. I strongly urge Valve not to release Half-Life 2, and allow us, as a community, to retain our identity, as the now legendary Duke Nukem Forever community has.
With that said, even though things look bad at the moment, I am optimistic that there is a future for our community... there will eventually be a Half-Life 3 to get worked up over, and in the mean time there will be bugs to complain about, newbies to flame, spoilers to post, and each other to verbally abuse... and with that in mind, I remain hopeful that those of us who remain after the shock wave of Half-Life 2's release will rebuild and thrive as the bitter, self-important, nerdy community that we are. Only time will tell.
-Edward Harrison
Delay threads, "will HL2 run on my awesomely pimped out machine" threads, and Valve hatred threads have become staples of our community. Some of us start them, many of us participate in them, and the rest generally dislike them, but they've become a part of who we are, and what we do here. They represent us. Now that Half-Life 2 is quickly becoming a reality, the day approaches when these threads will stop appearing, the 'Valve info thread' will be unstickied (or worse, deleted), and most painfully of all, many of our valued members will simply never return. For most of us, speculation and arguing about the game is our social outlet, and without this, we may find ourselves losing touch with other people, and letting go of time honored traditions, such as alpha-numerical re-spellings of words, and witty abbreviations (such as "u ppl" instead of "you people").
By releasing Half-Life 2, Valve are giving us what they have owed us since releasing the original Half-Life. The unpleasable community will be pleased, and we simply won't be able to remain who we are. Without being kept from something that belongs to us, we will have lost our cause. I strongly urge Valve not to release Half-Life 2, and allow us, as a community, to retain our identity, as the now legendary Duke Nukem Forever community has.
With that said, even though things look bad at the moment, I am optimistic that there is a future for our community... there will eventually be a Half-Life 3 to get worked up over, and in the mean time there will be bugs to complain about, newbies to flame, spoilers to post, and each other to verbally abuse... and with that in mind, I remain hopeful that those of us who remain after the shock wave of Half-Life 2's release will rebuild and thrive as the bitter, self-important, nerdy community that we are. Only time will tell.
-Edward Harrison
...LOL... 
