Half-Life: Episode 2 Will be Longer

[MC]

For all the Half-Life 2 fans out there that are bummed about the next installment of HL2 Episodes being delayed until the fall, I have some news that might cheer you up a little: you?ll get more content and gameplay in Episode 2.

According to Doug Lombari, director of marketing at Valve, the next Half-Life 2 episode will be noticeably longer than the first. ?Episode 1 was about six hours of gameplay, and Episode 2 will be closer to eight hours of gameplay,? Lombardi said. Valve also said that despite the delay of Episode 2, the development cycle for the episodic content was getting shorter.

?Episode 1 took 18 months to complete and Episode 2 will end up being about 13 to 14 months, so we?re trimming it down,? he said. ?I think we?ll get closer to a year and be on a 12 month cycle. We?ll see how it goes after this trilogy is done.?

In other Valve news, Lombardi said Steam will be getting some enhanced community features such as personalized stats and scores rankings for player profiles. ?The idea is to add features so that people can build a community in Steam,? he said. ?We?ll be rolling out the changes some time this spring.?

And finally, Valve will be releasing the long-awaited Team Fortress 2 later this year via special Half-Life 2 bundles in color-coded boxes. The Orange Box will feature Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, while the Black Box will features just Episode 2 plus Portal and Team Fortress 2. No specific release date for the boxes has been announced but they are expected sometime in the fall.

Source: http://omidr.typepad.com/twitchblog/2007/03/valve_halflife_.html

 

[sub]

Good to hear I guess, but I'm mainly looking forward to HL2: EP2 for portal and TF2


*waits for people to start flaming Valve about HL2 Episodes not really being episodic*

 

[Mountain Dewd]

I loved ep1 and cant wait for ep2.

I have always preferred to get a finished game late, then an unfinished game early.

Considering its going to be one hell of a pack (TF2 looks awesome), I'm fine with waiting a little longer.

Ep1 was a little on the short side, however it was six hours of what I consider the closest to perfection the fps genre is ever going to get.

It was also dirt cheap when I got it.

 

[Adaptus]

Nice, that's good to hear. I'm planning on getting the Orange Box (HL2, Ep1, Ep2, Portal, TF2) when it hits the stores, so it's nice to know that I'll get a lot of bang for my buck.

 

[Barney's_Soul]

TF2




(......)

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Looks like you guys will be waiting another year and a half...

 

[Hitokiri]

I'm starting to think delays are more like a marketing tactic than a legitimate need to develop a game more...

 

[Mountain Dewd]

Oh Definitely...

Because its much more profitable for Valve to sit around twiddling their thumbs than to ship the game..:S

 

[Barney]

Well they do want to make sure they have the best product for the people before it comes out...I think what Bungie is doing with Halo 3 beta testing is brilliant...maybe valve should see if that does any good

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Valve delays because the tool in charge there does nothing but sit on his fat ass all day and post blogs.

 

[Arthos]

Man I friggen hope so.... in reference to the Length.


Also I used to like that guy. He's a jerk now.

 

[sub]

He's a jerk for delaying a game in order to make sure it's as good as it should be. Right.

 

[Arthos]

He's a jerk for delaying a game in order to make sure it's as good as it should be. Right.

No. He's a jerk for being smug and arrogant as hell while he's doing it.

 

[Mountain Dewd]

No. He's a jerk for being smug and arrogant as hell while he's doing it.

Agreed, he is a jerk, but as long as the games keep turning out as good as they have, I could care less.

HL2 is the only game that was shoved down our throats by the hype machine, that actually lived up to it.

FPS games recently have been all talk and no walk.

Halo 2 is a great example of a developer not playing their strengths, for some reason, they thought they had a great story, I dont know what convinced them it wasnt the horrible cliche'd sci-fi trash that it is, so they put all this effort into a story that totally blew, while not really innovating on the tight multiplayer game that made the original fun.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Half Life 2 was good but it was not "I'll wait 6 years for it" good. I mean the game played great and all but the endless swarms of technical weirdness made it really hard to enjoy. Even on this new computer which is more than triple my old one I still have the same quirks...

Gabe Newell would have never even started Valve if it weren't for John Carmack telling him to do so a long time ago when they worked together on Doom95 (which sucked...another grade-A job-well-done for Mr. Tankertits). When I found this out, it made his disrespect toward Carmack and id even more appalling then back when I was just an irate Doom fan. In the article where I discovered this fact from, they close by asking him what he thinks of other companies and such, and he basically bashed everyone except Apple. He bashed Carmack (who got him into the industry), he bashed id (who invented all the technology he utilized to even make HL in the first place), he bashed Microsoft (He used to work there and he claims that they are "lazy" now and that Vista is no good), he bashed ATI (the company who didn't cheat to make HL2's benchmarks look better than they were). He basically trashed on everyone except Apple and his only real reason for that was "Apple knows how to do it right. They have that cool Ipod thing. It's cool" (just like every other dumb Mactard I've ever met...have fun with your 3000 dollar set of headphones, dumbass). The entire article was basically him telling the interviewer why everyone else sucks at what they do and he's the best.

Big fat worthless tool. I bet he hasn't actually coded a single line since 1998.

Gabe Newell is one of those guys, he's like the boss who ****s everything up along the way and the dedicated people beneath him salvage some of it, and when it gets acclaimed, he takes all the credit. I mean seriously--I can name the whole staff at id or Blizzard. How many of you know off the top of your head anyone who was remotely involved with HL2 other than this massive gelatinous glory hog?

Sorry, I just hate him so very, very much.

 

[Arthos]

Pride, it frightens me to no end when I actually agree with you.

 

[Mountain Dewd]

HL2 has always ran like a dream for me, so the technical quirks dont bother me in the slightest.

Gabe Newell is an bloated tub of lard that spews forth arrogant upchuck that Valve's hardcore fanboys take deep pleasure in bathing in day in and day out.

But I dont care, as long as the games turn out good.

He'll be dead soon anyway, you cant be that big and that old and not have some sort of heart complications.

 

[Arthos]

HL2 has always ran like a dream for me, so the technical quirks dont bother me in the slightest.

Gabe Newell is an bloated tub of lard that spews forth arrogant upchuck that Valve's hardcore fanboys take deep pleasure in bathing in day in and day out.

But I dont care, as long as the games turn out good.

He'll be dead soon anyway, you cant be that big and that old and not have some sort of heart complications.

Micheal Moore is still alive.

 

[Mountain Dewd]

Well he's a well respected collage artist, I mean documentarian, its not like he's a self righteous overblown moron that edits a bunch of interviews together so they line up with the "edgy" wake up call he wants to send everyone.

All I can say is I hope he has fun with Gabe Newell in hell.

 

[kenny-DK]

Have there been made any new videos with it?

If yes, link please