Two New Aftermath Screenshots!

Garfield_ said:
You've noticed the similarities with the HL2 and Aftermath shot, i think Valve has been lazy and duplicated a cityblock to save time for otherthings. This is called lack of quality :/
Click to expand...

No, this is called an assumption.
 
Valve makes for sure insanly detailed stuff, everything is what id call perfect. But if this scene with the buildings is not ment to be the same place, then they have only duplicated it. Dont call me an ass, i just want Aftermath to be as perfect as HL and HL2 was.
 
You visited earlier parts of HL2 later on in the game.

So that's not a very strong argument.
 
episodes that sounds gay! i want a full game not episodes damn!
 
Garfield_ said:
Valve makes for sure insanly detailed stuff, everything is what id call perfect. But if this scene with the buildings is not ment to be the same place, then they have only duplicated it. Dont call me an ass, i just want Aftermath to be as perfect as HL and HL2 was.
Click to expand...

It's unlikely in the extreme that they duplicated an entire section like that to be used as a different location. It makes far more sense that you're just revisiting an area seen previously in HL2 (which makes for a more immersive and connected experience)
 
GonzoBabbleshit said:
It's been known they were releasing episodes for ages!
Click to expand...

**** that shit* man cmon who wants small segments of a cake when you can have the whole thing? by the way the cake is made out of fudge how can oyu resist that ?
 
armanguy said:
episodes that sounds gay! i want a full game not episodes damn!
Click to expand...
Not best put...but i still agree.

I'd rather have just an expansion put at my feet for me to play, rather than bits n bobs given to be every so often (no idea if they will managed to get one out regularly). Its alot of bother having to order these things via credit card all the time too. I'd like to just get the expansion and be able to play it through, i wouldn't mind if it took VALVe another 4 months to get it done like that, or longer.

The thing is...i want to play a game here, and the story is a great part of the game, but i don't feel the game should be controlled by it. It's going to feel like a soap opera with bloody cliff hangers every episode. You might even get a 'what will happen next?!?' at the end of the chapter. If i wanted that, i'd go watch Lost. I personally don't like the new episodic thing, and that is why. I'm not doubting how good they'll be, i'm sure they'll be excellent, if only it was it all together as an expansion.
 
yeah i hate buying things over the internet with credit cards just doesnt feel safe at all! i rather have a box and manual it cooler too that why i dont bunr pc or console games i love the novelty of having the box and everything
 
I'd definetly rather have a single expansion, cheaper and what Hectic Glenn said.
 
Its a corpse.

I agree with Varsity in saying that that is the same street and you are fighting back to the Citadel. Even looking at the sky in the background gives the impression of alot of smoke or somthing coming from that area.

The two areas are too similar to think otherwise. Unless of course you think the area was just duplicated with some light changes to represent a diffrent area (Which I dont think Valve would do).

I dont like the idea of episodes either
 
I don't like the idea of episodes because it slows down development of Half-Life 3. Don't get me wrong, I know that they have MANY employees and can spread themselves between projects, but I think they should release 1, or maybe even 2 Expansions, then resume work on Half-Life 3. THe community is doing a great job with the Source engine, and I think Valve should focus on development of the genre, meaning new engine, or improvement of the engine.
 
Who says there will be Half Life 3... maybe Half Life 3 IS these new episodic games...
 
Chiming in with a total lack of interest in their concept for 'episodes'. I can't help but feel I'm being milked for my money. So far, 'Aftermath' has been completely uninteresting -- every single screenshot looks like a screenshot from Half-Life 2. No new textures, no new enemies -- why should I be interested? I'm sure it will be a blast to play, but couple this with the fact that it turns out they are saving other features for other episodes -- like vehicles -- and I don't think Valve is going in the right direction. Business models over innovation...**** this.
 
I really like the charactar it has, it's much more different from hl2.. I think that by itself will make the whole thing feel different, that and real HDR.
 
Garfield_ said:
Valve makes for sure insanly detailed stuff, everything is what id call perfect. But if this scene with the buildings is not ment to be the same place, then they have only duplicated it. Dont call me an ass, i just want Aftermath to be as perfect as HL and HL2 was.
Click to expand...


you need to learn how to talk around these parts. Im trying to get better.


ne ways, hl2 was cool, and blueshift and hl1 pieces i played, but damn, Aftermath, and these episodic games could do with a bit of reinventing the wheel.

I likes me some fps's, but its getting old, I would like to see aftermath be less linear, if theres gonna be back tracking, try to eliminate the load and tiny maps.

I think valve has a golden oppourtunity to do something revolutionary with the episodic, esp with the gameplay. I hope its not just like new custom maps, but more of an overhaul of the genre.

Load times suck, I played kong this week, it had tiny load times, but even the loaddtimes were great cenematic cg senes


now im not trying to troll, or piss anyone off, or say that hl2 was bad or nuttin, but some uber cool sweet new things would be nice, gameplay wise. even leaning would help
 
Snowden said:
Who says there will be Half Life 3... maybe Half Life 3 IS these new episodic games...
Click to expand...
You know what, I've really never though about there not being a Half-Life 3. I'm not being sarcastic either. But think about this:

Let's say Aftermath took six months to make. (It could have taken less or more than that)

Source graphics and physics will and are being out matched right now. (Yes, UT2K7 is coming out THIS year)

Source graphics will only be relevant for 1 or2 more years. However, with no graphical improvements to the engine, (Yes, HDR, is great and revolutionary), Source will fall behind.

I think they should just start development on a new engine, including particle effects, incuding, but not limited to, water. Without advancement, we will be playing the same game for 4 years, and though that worked in the time of HL1, more developers will create more games. No end thesis I feel like thinkng of.
 
Guys they are doing episodes because

1) They can release new tech a lot faster... Think, if they weren't planning on doing episodes, and all these frequent smaller updates, we wouldn't have HDR right now! This way they get new tech out to us faster.

2) They get the story out to us faster... For those who follow the story.

3) They just plain get a new game out to us faster! I'll use the cake analogy someone used earlier in the thread... See, instead of putting the cake behind locked, glass doors and saying "Nuh uh! Can't touch it for 3 or 4 years while we finish the entire thing!"... valve is just giving us small pieces at a time, so when that same 3-4 time period is up, we have the equivalent of that entire cake, or possibly even more since it's not as huge of a workload for valve!

4) Like I just said, it's not as much of a workload for VALVe... Which means that they can distribute their work load over all projects, instead of simply one large project



Oh, and who says there will be a distinctive Half-Life 3? :) I mean there may be one, there may not... We never know when the story will end!
 
Iced_Eagle said:
Guys they are doing episodes because

1) They can release new tech a lot faster... Think, if they weren't planning on doing episodes, and all these frequent smaller updates, we wouldn't have HDR right now! This way they get new tech out to us faster.

2) They get the story out to us faster... For those who follow the story.

3) They just plain get a new game out to us faster! I'll use the cake analogy someone used earlier in the thread... See, instead of putting the cake behind locked, glass doors and saying "Nuh uh! Can't touch it for 3 or 4 years while we finish the entire thing!"... valve is just giving us small pieces at a time, so when that same 3-4 time period is up, we have the equivalent of that entire cake, or possibly even more since it's not as huge of a workload for valve!

4) Like I just said, it's not as much of a workload for VALVe... Which means that they can distribute their work load over all projects, instead of simply one large project



Oh, and who says there will be a distinctive Half-Life 3? :) I mean there may be one, there may not... We never know when the story will end!
Click to expand...
But I would much rather eat a cake then many chocolate crumbs. At least with the cake, you get an AWESOME experience and fresh. However, had Valve just updated the HL1 engine up to this point, we would have never gotten HL2 or anything of that quality in 2004. A long immersive game is better than an hour long demo you play before dinner and forget about afterwards.
 
has anyone suggested that the citadel may of eventually been transported back to the combine homeworld, or into oblivion.. in that dimensional explosion like a hudge version of the resonance cascade. .. hence its complete lack of being there.
 
ZOMG!

Anyone else notice that the first picture looks like the first street you come to after leaving the trainstation in the regular HL2:SP, but there is no citadel? (Its actually proly not, but it looks really really similar...
 
Look like HL2!

Hmm not much else to say, hope there is hawt steaming sexual relations with Alyx or I'll be disappointed.
 
I prefer to put my penis in real women, not polygons. Thankyawverymuch.
 
Except for the most badass Barney face I've seen, it's nothing "new".
 
GG Valve... City 17 is looking more and more like a city with every screenshot released. Did anyone long to find out what was behind those gates in Point Insertion? I know I did. I whacked every citizen (in SMOD) trying to go somewhere else that I couldn't access, probably out of jealousy... heh.
 
Eternity said:
Chiming in with a total lack of interest in their concept for 'episodes'. I can't help but feel I'm being milked for my money. So far, 'Aftermath' has been completely uninteresting -- every single screenshot looks like a screenshot from Half-Life 2. No new textures, no new enemies -- why should I be interested? I'm sure it will be a blast to play, but couple this with the fact that it turns out they are saving other features for other episodes -- like vehicles -- and I don't think Valve is going in the right direction. Business models over innovation...**** this.
Click to expand...
I'm going to have to agree. Unless they can somehow institute a massive amount of interesting and captivating dialogue with a healthy dose of immersive story...episodes will be boring for me. Just more of the same pap every year. Half-Life 2 was so great because valve vanished for 5 years and at the end after much painstaking work they unvieled a masterpiece. If valve had released episodes for half-life 1 every year the experience would have become increasingly dull each time.

Episodes? I'm not interested.

Iced_Eagle said:
1) They can release new tech a lot faster... Think, if they weren't planning on doing episodes, and all these frequent smaller updates, we wouldn't have HDR right now! This way they get new tech out to us faster.
Click to expand...
Oh now that would be a catastrophe! HDR is the most over-rated game engine feature EVER imo. What a waste of effort valve spent pimping that pointless rubbish for so long. HDR does absolutely nothing for my gameplay experience and there are 10000000 better ways to try and immerse a player into a world than simulating an 80 year old mans inability to adjust to different lighting conditions because of deteoriating muscle in the eyeball.
 
I'm looking forward to the episodes, far better than waiting out for HL3, or a mere expansion.

Besides, how many people complained about the amount of content Valve showed in countless trailers and screens? They pissed and moaned because they thought Valve showed too much. Now if thats the case Valve clearly don't want to spoil anything for Aftermath, and therefore have decided to release some fairly non informative screens.

If by Aftermath we've gone spoiler free with no information on new weapons or enemies, then all the better.
 
The way to think about the whole episodic concept is to think of them in the same light as TV shows, compared to full-retail games, which are akin to blockbuster movies. As it's such a new concept, there are things which clearly need to be ironed out - pricepoint, release regularity etc.

Personally, the episodes are good news on a number of fronts - primarily the continuation of the HL storyline - the episodes will give a more detailed look at the storyline and characters (in Aftermath's case - that's over 6 hours of learning more about Alyx). Secondly, VALVe tend to release their major tech improvements in sync with game releases, to maximise the attention it garners. Aftermath contains HDR, the second will probably include the DoD tech demo stuff (DoF, Motion Blur, Colour Correction), and presumably they will use the episode format to include some of the more advanced ideas (like the dynamic 2D imposters idea Gabe had in the 1UP video, a while back).

The tech aspect is also good to the mod community, as you are no longer restricted to a closed engine - therefore continuous progress/improvement can prolong activity and interest in the mod.
 
I personally DONT want them to add random new enemies, they should keep it consistent with the story. Same with weapons, sure, if they add an AK-47 to the lineup (it IS the most common weapon in that part of the world...) I wont complain, but if it replaces something I dont like that. Replacing weapons is stupid becuase your like "a day ago I could find ammo all over the place for my magnum, now there are no magnums and no magnum ammo, just deagles and deagle ammo, WTF!"
 
I really don't think episodes will go down that well. Alot of us avid fans of valve, aren't too excited about the prospect of it, and well it seems only a few in this thread like the episodic idea, samon being the main one. It does feel as...someone else said that we're being milked for our money. After several episodes combined the price of aftermath will probably be the same of HL2...if thats the case no chance of me buying anything.

If it's steam only firstly...it cuts out everyone with BB or regular net access.

So leaving those with BB behind, most of those people are not huge fans, they mostly play CS Source, DOD Source and HL2DM (alot less though). From talking to these people online, hardly any of them give a flying **** about the Single player, some didn't even play it. I don't think theres much of an audience for an episodic aftermath. Hardly anyone understands the story either, nor cares. Except for the people in rumours & spec forum on this site. The story is fun...but a game shouldn't be based on it entirely. People will want new stuff to play with if i'm totally honest. Episodes aren't going to deliver enough to keep people interested, and it will get tiresome playing a new map occassionally, rather than being a buzz.

Aftermath had created some hype in me...but its fizzled away now. I was glad Sin Episodes were happening, because i was never going to buy them, but now it feels like the infection has spread and i'm not going to bother with AM. If it's just a story continuation i'll just read about it on wikipedia and that will suit me.
 
I fail to see people's problems with episodic content. I'd much rather have a bit now than wait considerably longer to get the whole thing. It opens some interesting possibilities too - say Valve put a player choice in at the end of an episode, something like they're put in a position where they either kill an NPC or not. Valve could track the number of choices and develop the next episode accordingly.
If you don't like regular episodes, then collect them and wait so that you play them all in one bunch. I also suspect that retail-wise, there'll be packages with collections of episodes - it all depends on how often Valve release the content. Personally, I think people are getting the wrong end of the stick - they seem to be expecting each episode to be a couple of maps, with nothing new. Aftermath is an episode, and it's the size of an expansion pack - that's like having Opposing Force. If they're making episodes like that, then it's like having 50% of a full game each time. Yes please.
 
Pi Mu Rho said:
If they're making episodes like that, then it's like having 50% of a full game each time. Yes please.
Click to expand...

Do you really think so?

I cannot believe that there will be enough creative (!) effort in order to push this episode concept through in a proper way.
 
I don't see why not - it's all relative. To provide a couple of map's worth of content doesn't require many people or much time, so you could crank out an episode every month or so. Or you could hit it up with a full team, and spend 6 months or so, delivering a high-quality product (which appears to be the approach that Ritual are taking with Sin Episodes). I doubt very much that Valve are committing to any kind of rigid schedule - each episode will be done when it's done. The 50% figure I stated was maybe overambitious, but you can make a lot of content in six months.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

bbson john
Hi everyone. I am new to this forum!
Replies
11
Views
6K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Who's left or joined Valve in recent history
Replies
4
Views
32K
MFL
MFL
B
From Warren Spector to Arkane Studios: Half-Life 2's cancelled Ravenholm episode
Replies
2
Views
10K
Clan Wolf 2
Clan Wolf 2
B
Gabe Newell's AMA summary (January 17, 2017)
Replies
1
Views
24K
Gerzowktz
Gerzowktz
B
Half-Life 2: Episode Two - Cyril, Fred, and friends
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
Back
Top