Valve's Chet Faliszek Nukes Rumors of Half-Life 3
One t-shirt essentially started the Half-Life 3 rumor train that, for now, has come to an abrupt end.
Earlier this month, a Valve employee was spotted by Chandana Ekanayak, art director and executive producer at Uber Entertainment, at a local game development event wearing a Half-Life 3 T-shirt. While the logo itself was inconsistent with the design of the Half-Life 2 logo (reversed actually), the shirt clearly read "Half-Life 3" underneath the design.
Since then, numerous Half-Life 3 rumors have surfaced. One stems from a website located at www.black-aperture.com that, at this moment, features nothing but a blank, black page. But at one time it featured the correct Half-Life 3 logo, and the logos for Steam, Valve and Source lined along the bottom. A hidden Aperture Science logo was also reportedly seen within the Half-Life 3 symbol by slightly tilting the screen.
Then a source for Valve's supposed ARG, Doug Rattmann, reportedly tweeted a countdown for a possible Half-Life 3 announcement, writing "Min: 60 days, Max: Unknown." The tweet followed the release of the Wheatley acceptance speech video from the VGA's that supposedly had hidden Half-life 3 messages embedded within. What didn't help stifle the Half-Life 3 speculation was Rattmann's "It Begins" tweet following the video.
If that wasn't enough to get the Half-Life 3 wheels spinning (and for good reason), somewhere in the timeline, Valve boss Gabe Newell said to leak Half-Life 3 details in order to gain consumer interest. Getting a little tired of the trolling, Valve's Chet Faliszek finally jumped on the official Steam forums and laid to rest any question about the third installment being in production. Turns out Half-Life 3 may not be in development after all.
"You are being trolled," he writes. "There is no ARG. Wheatley's speech was set in Portal 2 fiction - that is all. There has been no directive from Gabe to leak anything. That is all false."
"I just want to say this so there is no confusion," he added. "This is the community trolling the community, nothing more. While it is nice to see people excited about anything HL, I hate seeing people be trolled like this."
Bummer. See what happens when you wear a cool shirt to a party? All hell breaks loose.
Apparently this isn't the case anymore.
People just want to hear something instead of being left in the dark. I would be happy to hear something even if was something like "we have 3 people working on HL3, it will be out in maybe 5 years."
Apparently this isn't the case anymore.
Just wait until they release these two games, we may see something come out from the Half Life Universe.
They are trolling people by saying "you are being Trolled" an announcement will be made soon I guarantee it, Valve is to big of an outfit and there is to much money to be made for valve to keep on the back burner to long.
I would guess they've been pretty busy with steam... but then again that isn't much of an excuse. Going buy the massive piles of cash steam rakes in they could probably afford to hire a few more people to help out...
I understand 'valve time' but hopefully they realize we the people who made them filthy rich in the first place want to buy more stuff and are getting somewhat impatient..
I however have to say that it seems to me that they are keeping hope alive, they were just forced to cool down the community because some trolls hyped things up in a way Valve can't manage because that hype probably wouldn't last until the real release date of the game. But they are certainly keeping hope alive. I mean, look at the Moderator coming a few posts after the Valve staff guy, remembering that he has a thread going on with Half-Life 3 hints discovered by him or other members.
Also, watch Wheatley's acceptance speech (for the prize he actually didn't win) and notice the last sentence he says: "Well, maybe next year."
Valve Releases Wheatley’s VGA 2011 “Character Of The Year” Never-Aired Acceptance Short – Hints Towards A Secret Valve Single-Player Game To Be Released In 2012?
The Wheatley acceptance speech for the award he didn't win is telling - "Well, maybe next year.". As the article very well says, no award has ever been given to a multiplayer only character, so that leaves out Dota 2, CS: GO, and any eventual Left 4 Dead 3, or even Team Fortress 3 (but I think Valve already said they weren't going to release any TF sequel anytime soon). What does that leave us with ? HL2: EP3 or HL3 or Portal 3, but, while that is the most immediate conclusion you can take from the video, it doesn't seem likely Valve would release a third Portal game so soon. Given that the Half-Life universe and the Portal universe are connected, it makes perfect sense to interpret that as next year Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 will eventually have a nominated candidate for the award.
Yes, this certainly does beg the question: who's the one messing with people? There's a legitimate reason to believe either side. I suppose we'll find out, but at least it's entertaining for now.
Personally, I'd be happy to see a PC-based FPS, that wasn't yet-another Call of Duty clone.
It's perfectly fine. HL2 is still one of the best shooters around. Gameplay is much more important than fancy graphics.
New engines can enhance gameplay quite a bit though by including better AI and physics. New graphics would be nice because the better it looks, the more immersive it is, for me at least. It's not a main factor, but brings the player in. I'd love to see a new engine from Valve to be honest.