Journal #6948

Doubt it. Episode 3 is being delayed for reasons we cannot comprehend. The problem is, there's no way in hell it'll ever be as good as the long development time could potentially allow for.

Penguinboy raised a good point yesterday regarding this: if you've ever played Uncharted 2, you'll know what we're on about. That game completely craps all over Valve's stuff in pretty much every regard. Now, Uncharted 2 had a normal game development cycle by a company smaller than Valve. What they produced completely pulverises the Source engine in every way.

The fact that Valve can't get episodic content out the door in a far longer development timeframe (let's face it, none of the Episodes equate to a full game), tells me that something is afoot.

As for the video, I saw that a little while back and was impressed. Because they're video capturing and not doing traditional motion capture, the cameras pick up so much more nuance in the performance. The problem with LA Noire though (aside from the fact that 'noir' is misspelled) is that the bodies are animated with traditional motion capture (i.e. the white ping pong balls) which can't possibly be as life-like as the faces.

I hate motion capture with a passion because every single time I've seen it used, it looks horribly stiff. The animation that companies like Pixar do is done entirely 'by hand' and, despite the fact that it's cartoony, the exaggeration in the animation makes it look far more convincing.

I wish I heard that yesterday, I would've bought Uncharted 2 while it was still on sale >_<

Noire is the feminine of noir.

"The fact that Valve can't get episodic content out the door in a shorter development timeframe (let's face it, none of the Episodes equate to a full game), it tells me that something is afoot.
"

Or perhaps they're doing it for not spoiling the fun of waiting for a game? Who knows? You know, 3 episodes released in a year would have lost all of HL2's story beauty, you know what I'm saying?
If it's not that, they're clearly assholes or lazy dudes :))(or dudas for girls?).

Huntey, merci beaucoup pour ton information.

Erm, no. Valve moved to episodic content to get games out faster. The first episode was released in 2006 and that was two years after Half-Life 2. It's now four years later and we still don't have a full sequel to Half-Life 2 yet.

I disagree Ant, Conviction used mocap for the hand to hand takedowns, the interrogations, cutscenes, and just about everything else, and it looks far more human then any game I've played, at least ingame wise that is.

mocap.. meh don't like it.. THIS I can get used too!

Maybe their working on something unique as well! Who knows

I can't speak for Conviction, but the only time I've seen mocap used well is when the developers have gone over everything afterwards and thoroughly cleaned it up.

Valve are super lazy. They haven't made what I'd call a 'full' game since Half-Life 2. They've completely fallen behind other developers who can make and polish excellent, lengthy games, packed with content, in a much more reasonable timeframe. Bioware/Mass Effect 2 + 3 and Naughty Dog/Uncharted 2 + 3 come to mind.

After making Half-Life 2 they estimated making Half-Life 3 would take six years, so they switched to the episodic structure. And hey, six years have passed. Go figure.

Well Portal 2 will be their next "real" full game I guess considering it's supposed to be longer than Portal in both SP and Co-op... hopefully

True, and I hope it is a meaty game.

Telling us it's longer than Portal doesn't really say much, heh.

The problem lies in that valve isn't one group, it is several and several teams working on so many different things, small things, and they're trying to push out as many games as fast, which as well all know, automatically makes you better, no?

The reason they haven't simply joined ALL of the teams to work on one massive project (Half life 3) is because they can't really work together, they have too many specific members to do specific things for different games, and what they do simply doesn't work, or doesn't fit in with the type of game. (Just my view though, I could be completely wrong.)

But wait, in some recent video I heard Gabe telling that at least 3 big surprises await us in the next year. One of them is surely not a surprise, being Portal. But what are the other 2?

I think Portal 2 was already announced when he said that. I think one of the surprises was the Mann Co store, and the next was DotA 2. Hopefully the third one is something about Half-Life.

Crollo: that reasoning doesn't make any sense to me.