News Valve has "good reasons" for Ep 3 delays

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/06/12/valve-has-good-reasons-for-ep-3-delays/1

Valve's Gabe Newell has claimed that the studio has good reasons for keeping quiet about Episode 3 for the moment - though he won't say what they are.

 

..Shorter development cycles?

Is Gabe back on the crack?

 

I'm sure he means shorter development cycles for new features.

 

The TF2 content updates are on a pretty short cycle...

Im all for waiting for EP3 - the 'story' best take more than 3/4 hours this time - a story that changes depending on your actions would let Gabe'y poos off the hook entirely.

 

So basically he's not gonna talk about not talking.. ? Oh well, it's not like i'm a HL fan anyway..

 

Have Valve made a switch from waterfall based software development to agile all of a sudden?!

 

Thats what I was thinking, with the shorter development cycles. But surely the couldn't have been using waterfall for stuff like half life 2?

 

I reckon they just forgot about it! Can believe they're still not at that sort of stage yet, i'm dying to find out what happens.

 

How about Valve just get their fingers out and release the damned thing?

Do we really need engine tweaks holding up the release? HL2 episodes have never been at the cutting edge from a graphical standpoint, but it hasn't stopped them selling well. Some of us just want the next piece of the story and nuts to an extra bit of bling.

/rant

 

The chatter from the Valve camp is coming thick and fast. This is a good sign.

 

To be fair there releasing alot more games, alot more quickly than they used to I mean what was the gap between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, I'm more than willing for them to take as long as they need to devleop HL2:EP3 so long as its up to the standard of the previous 2.

 

I think he means "longer" instead of shorter. Typical Valve to say "there's reasons.. but we can't say" so just don't say it and avoid coming off as a prat?

 

I had completely forgotten about Episode 3 until I read this. Considering when the last Episode came out, this development for what is a 3rd of a normal game is a bit of a joke. I was quite happy with the way the engine was/is.

 

Between the release of Ep 2 and today we've seen major developments of CUDA and the incorporation of PhysX into it - maybe they are taking the extra time to incorporate these changes into the source engine and future-proof it.

Besides, though I haven't played the full version of L4D, i've found the AI Director quite an interesting idea, and there's no reason not to expect Valve to rethink some portions of Ep 3 in order to take full advantage of it.

I don't mind the delay (though I'm dying to know the rest of the story). I'm sure that when it finally comes out, it will be awesome.

 

Source runs off Havoc physics, I don't see why they would change that as it would really screw things up for mods (like gmod).

 

Though the AI director could make ep3 more interesting.

 

Only if GMod updates to the latest version of the engine - and it won't. GMod is currently using the version of the Source Engine that shipped with The Orange Box and hasn't even updated to the L4D version. In fact, Garry's said he won't push it to the next version of the engine again because of the hardware requirements - Orange Box version can run on DirectX 7 upwards, but L4D require DirectX 9 or upwards, IIRC. Apparently he doesn't want to lose that portion of the market when he could move on to new projects instead.

 

still haven't played through either episode 1 or 2 despite having them on both the 360 and (after the last Steam sale) PC. Haven't finished HL2 either if it comes to that.

 

"Shorter" is still a relative term for Valve. The 1-2yr release cycle is shorter to the "5-8"yr one they would have been on had they kept up their usual pace. (Valve = slow).

By breaking their "Big game" into smaller chunks, their engine development can hit regular milestones that act as "platforms" for other games/projects. Instead of having to chose between either Source HL2, or wait for Source HL3, you get a period set of in between choices that while not as advanced, happen much more regularly and are thus flexible.

Even more focused "engine" people like Epic, still usually require a software release (game) to "cement" each iteration of their engine tech. (See the issues companies had with Unreal Engine 3 and having to "wait" until Gears of War came out so that it was "done").

The irony of Valve switching to "Shorter" release cycles, is that it merely brings them in line with other developers "regular" schedules. So to the actual consumers/gamers, we get these games no real faster then most other titles anyhow.

 

Was just an example off the top of my head


And yea, I read about that, shame, oh well.