Episodes on Endangered List

[CSN NewsBot]

The word from Gabe Newell indicates that Valve is reconsidering their episodic idea after the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

"I think what we really want to do is have a couple of examples out there - Episode One, and how long it was to play and how long it took to develop, Episode Two, Portal and TF2 and then the third part of the trilogy; and then sit down with the community and say, 'OK, so what do you want?'", Valve's Gabe Newell told CVG in an interview set to materialise on these pages soon.[...]



"'Do you want us to do more episodes? Do you want us to really tighten down the time frames and look at the scope of what we're doing so that that's possible, for us to go back to the large monolithic projects?'"

Yes, get those time frames down significantly! Right now it seems as though Valve is attempting to have an episodic release with a full retail title scale and length, and that just isn't working out from the timeliness standpoint.

[Ryosuke T]

i'd say keep it that way. waiting for them to finish the whole game would take YEARS!!!!!

[Thortok2000]

Edited by [user="152360"] @ [time="1190787636"]

Releases more often. I wouldn't mind releases being as small as a level or two (or in multiplayer games, a map or two) if it came every other week, or even as rarely as once a month.



That's what I think of as episodic content. Imagine doing Chapter 1-3 of Halflife 2, and then 'to be continued', and then a couple weeks later, chapter 4, then chapter 5...



It'd be fun, talking to the community, listening to their input, using Steam to gather statistics on how the game is played, coming up with new stuff for the next chapter, community feedback having some kind of effect, tantalizing people with glimpses of what's coming next, forums ablaze with speculation, etc.



It would keep interest in the game at close to the level of 'about to be released' AND 'just released' for a good while, with a chance for interest to wax and wane based on the quality of the episodes. Even as a business model, it would make good sense. After all, this is how TV shows do it =P



And when you buy the game, you automatically get the next X 'mini-expansion episodes' free, and you can pre-purchase episodes, etc. Perhaps every 10-15 episodes or so would equal one 'game' and then the next 'game' in the 'series' would be another 'start point', so you wouldn't /have/ to own all the episodes before it, just like you don't /have/ to own halflife 2 to get episode 1.



Or, to make it simpler, when you buy the game, you get all of its 'episodes' free until the 'end' of that 'game'.



I think it would be awesome, and steam's a great platform to do it on.

[_PeNgUiNs_ lord]

I'm not die hard enough to sit and wait to buy every friggin episode, i say reduce the amount of time it takes for valve to develop, then make half life 3 as an entire game.

Having episodes takes you out of the experience as a whole, especially if it was one map at a time like the nutjob above me suggested.

"Hey Tom, where have you got up to?"

"Hi, i'm just starting half life 3-7"

"Oh, i'm only at half life 3-2, the first episode was awesome"

Maybe valve has a habit of setting a date then not getting very angry at its workers for completely missing that date, you always hear of developers having midnight grinds because they want the game done faster, but you never hear this from valve, im not saying it should be this way but maybe thats where the time gap comes from.



As an extra to this message, i haven't played half life 2 episode 1, and there's no one i know who has yet either.