To Those That Stand, Those That Fell

[Tollbooth Willie]

I hate making stupid ass posts like this, but eat my ass. Sentimentality taking over. A lot of us are gone. Too many. This has been a very, very slow decade for a us, but before the beginning of the 20's, something happened. By some freak god damned chance, a vet returned and revitalized things. They drew me and quite a number of us more back into the fold and helped partially revitalize a community. Thought it may still be be pretty goddamned dead in most respects, we are still here. So as you and I and all of us who are reading continue on into this new decade, carry the rest of us who didn't make it along, carry them in our hearts and souls and our minds as we keep going. Maybe at the end of all this, no matter where we all end up, maybe we'll see each other again. To all former, current, and passed on, let us all press on through this new decade and see where we go. I love you all and I hope to call all of you really shitty things and keep trolling the shit out of you for arbitrary reasons forever more as the years go on.

Most of all, don't you ever forget those of us that have passed on. Keep them in your hearts. Never let their memories die.

 

[Vaapukka]

lmao nerd

 

[Yuri]

<3

 

[chipsnapper2]

It's been a long, long time. Eight years since Valve last shipped a complete product, which was CSGO. Everything since then has been a rolling update to a game or the Steam service.
I never really posted here, I usually hung out around the Facepunch Studios forums, one of the last bastions of the Source Engine community. Those shut down about six months ago. Lots of great threads about mapping, programming and the Valve community were lost.
Entire communities have disappeared. Sven Co-op, Interlopers, Missing Information, hell, even PlanetPhillip retired. The holdouts aren't on forums anymore, everything has moved to Discord.

For most of us, a rather infamous fangame by the name of Hunt Down The Freeman seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for Half-Life as a franchise; Valve wanted nothing to do with it, and HDTF's shitstorm led to Valve cutting ties with the modding scene for a time. It was impossible for mod teams to contact Valve, let alone negotiate to get their games onto Steam.
Even the reddit hivemind seems to think that Valve as a studio has fallen from grace.

While the old haunts went dark, we still did see some progress in the world of Valve. Black Mesa just finished up Xen, ending fifteen years of development. Mods for the Source Engine are still getting full engine licenses from Valve and are on Steam, namely Obsidian Conflict, Boreal Alyph and Jabroni Brawl: Episode 3. For the first time, Steam has some real competition, leading to an arms race of sorts to get the hot exclusives and launcher features. (Steam's winning by the way, they've got Halo) And a guy by the name of Tyler McVicker is leading the charge on getting info out of Valve as well as preserving cut and leaked content.

At this point we can only hope that Half-Life: Alyx and the release of Source 2 will spark a new era for the community, where we get some new people and possibly even some of our old friends back.

Remember the mods. Remember the teams, the forums and the communities. They're history now, and all we can do is remember them.
But this is a new chance; and with it, we can rebuild.

 

[kazsymonds]

I still check in every once in a while. I was never that involved in the forums, but I feel sad that they are pretty much vacant now. It all started with the Valvetime re-brand. Everything was rosy before that.

 

[Shem]

At this point we can only hope that Half-Life: Alyx and the release of Source 2 will spark a new era for the community, where we get some new people and possibly even some of our old friends back.

Not here, if that's what you mean. The announcement of a new Half-Life garnered, what, maybe five or six veterans and a handful of newbies? If anything we'll see another peak of resurgence come March followed by a steady, gradual decline as interest wavers: the concentration of people this place once had has diffused into other conglomerate communities--namely Reddit and, one that's two steps more insidious, 4chan--a place I'm still trying to wean myself off after having had a particularly pathetic and aimless youth.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Not here, if that's what you mean. The announcement of a new Half-Life garnered, what, maybe five or six veterans and a handful of newbies? If anything we'll see another peak of resurgence come March followed by a steady, gradual decline as interest wavers: the concentration of people this place once had has diffused into other conglomerate communities--namely Reddit and, one that's two steps more insidious, 4chan--a place I'm still trying to wean myself off after having had a particularly pathetic and aimless youth.

Interest will waver because almost nobody will pay hundredes of dollars for a vr set to play one game. I think there will be more people purchasing this game just to show support than there will be anyone actually playing it. That alone is kind of sad. Buy the game to show them you want more Half-Life, or not buy it, they decide Half-Life is dead because no one wants to buy a shitty VR set for one game. Not that it matters, majority of the OG creative team is gone.

Not that it ****ing matters here, pay respects to missing/ deceased/ former members here you f*cks.