this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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It's Valve, their whole MO is finding what would be fun next. They don't expend money on something for any reason other than, is it fun, is it fun to work on. If either answer is no, then it won't even see the outside world. There's rumors they have worked on several games up to relatively advanced levels of development (at least a playable gameplay loop) then dropped them altogether because something didn't work out, and they never talk about it with anyone unless it is finally decided it will be a launched product. That's why this closed testing is such a big deal, they're letting people play it, which means they already played it internally for thousands of hours.
Another interesting pattern is that they don't make games to tell stories. This has always been a misconception since Half-life has such massive following over the story, and hurt over unfinished plots. But if you check closely, those games where never about the story. Usually Valve makes something with a fun mechanic to play, then they work on writing a creative and cool story/dialogue around that gameplay. Never the other way around. 99% of their games are about gameplay, if you stripped all flavor text, voice dialogue and art from Portal it would still be a solid and extremely fun puzzle game.
I think you've just uncovered why I like valve games so much 😅
I'm not sure your theory stands up, they did all those comics around TF2. They hired those old man Murray dudes I thought just to work on narrative. They've gotten famous actors to do roles!
I think saying halflife was never about story is just wrong.
If you stripped dialog from portal you'd have a significantly worse game. Did you forget all the glados shit that came out after portal? Humor is a major part of those games which is all about dialog.
Story is a major parte of the marketing. It's not like they don't care about story, just it isn't the seed they start from.
If you read Raising up the bar, or watch the documentaries they are upfront about it. Half-life was in its inception a loose collection of levels and set pieces of experimentation to push the limits of the game engine they were working with. They didn't start with a story then made a game to tell it. They had a game then hired writers to help them string together the levels in a way that told a coherent story. Half-life 2 was also made to construct a new physics system for the source engine. TF2 was the result of experimentation with team based death match gameplay. Left4death was created when they were experimenting with game director and mass numbers of enemies and discovered it was fun to mow down huge numbers of enemies. Alyx is the result of developing gameplay for VR. Portal started literally with the portals system. Dota2 was a polish of MOBAs gameplay. Etc.
They work on world building and story writing only once they find a gameplay breakthrough that is fun. When they tried to make the story first (half-life 2 episode 2), they found it boring to develop so they stopped. Hence why there's no episode 3. Portal 2 was not made to tell cave Johnson story, it was to make fun puzzles with liquid physics.
I do think you are right, they start out on gameplay; getting that inner game loop to be fun is primary (I kind of though that's how most (non narrative) game studios worked though).
This was mostly what i was suggesting was incorrect. I also don't think it's a major part of marketing. I'm suggesting they don't bother putting the work of story into something until that inner game loop is fun.
Didn't they already know about team fortress? This seems off based on team fortress having already existed, same with wolfenstine enemy territory.
And the first Defense of the Ancients was originally a mod for a completely different game. The common theme is polishing gameplay. Team fortress existed and was popular, but between the release of TF classic, with the announcement of TF2, and the actual release there were almost 9 years and a complete rewrite between two radically different versions of the game. At one point people compared it with Duke nukem, claiming it was vaporware and would never release. Truth is, it was in development hell for a long while. They didn't like what the game was at that time. TF classic and TF2 only common thread is class based team death match. Everything else is different. The producers have said that TF2 was resurrected to perfect the netcode, lighting, facial animation rigging, particle system and shading tech for the source engine in anticipation of the visual and gameplay improvements they wanted for HL2ep1 and 2. All three games were produced by the same guy and Gabe noticed what he experimented with on TF2 was worth developing into a finished game. Specially because they dropped all the ideas they didn't like and stripped down the gameplay.
The other side of the coin being that Valve had learned the importance of visual packaging and marketing with Ricochet. With pure gameplay, although wildly acclaimed for being super fun, it didn't reach the mass appeal and cultural impact of half-life. It had great repayable value, but no eye candy or lore to hook people long term. So, when TF2 was a success with its character based marketing narrative, it became the test bed for a myriad of things we now take for granted. Matchmaking, micro transactions, cosmetics stores, etc. (All things that were made to develop the Steam store social features, which was produced by the other guy who made the TF mod originally) Valve only goes hard on things they think are innovative or interesting tech, or at least plain fun to do. If the internal sponsor of an idea get bored or loses support from colleagues, the project just halts.
Yeah, i kind of agree with everything you've said, and history as i remember it kind of backs up what you've said about tf2.
But I don't agree that they don't care about story and only do it for marketing. I think halflife's episodes are all about an attempt at continuing that story.
I think that the Cave and Glados bits of portal are a large part of what made those games (of course the gameplay loops are really tight there.
I think the only way to know would to be an insider. I also don't think it really matters, the games they make are good.
I never said that, but sure, you're free to disagree with the thing I never said.
And, as I said earlier, they got bored, found it to not be a satisfying thing to do and stopped and never did it again. Episode 2 was 17 years ago. There will never be an episode 3 or half-life 3.
That part sold those games but funnily enough they aren't even half of the game. Most of Portal 2's content is on the multiplayer coop puzzles. They have more levels and a play through runs for more hours than the single player portion.
We have them, I'm not making shit up. There are dozens of interviews, documentaries, in-game commentary and books written by Valve staff themselves saying exactly what I have been summarizing in these comments. This idea isn't mine, I'm just repeating what people at Valve have publicly said about game development.