Half Life 2: Episode 1 is gold

[Mr. Natural]

Valve made the annoucement and will be available via Steam on June 1. So are you willing to pay $20 for a game which contains 4-6 hours of gameplay? (according to Valve)
I think I'll pass.

[SupaTroopa]

Yeah I'll probably pass, but there's a million fan boys out there who won't no matter what they put out and charge for. :)

I really don't log-in to Steam much or even play any of the Half life oriented games anymore.

[Ojnod]

Well keep in mind that it does come with Half Life: Deathmatch Source, HL2 Deathmatch, HL2 Lost Coast also. But... most people already have all of those. I think 20 dollars for a 4-6 hour game is reasonable, heck people pay 50 bucks for a 10 hour single player game all the time.

[Ron]

Yah but don't forget that most games that come out for $50 also have a complete story (A beginning, a Middle, and an Ending). My brother felt the same way as you on the $20 thing for Sin Episode 1 until he paid for it and played it. The game didn't even have an Ending, or for that matter not even an Ending for an Episode (IE; you’re in the middle of fighting and the credits roll). People have even tried to compare this to an episode of TV which is not a good comparison because Episodes of a TV show even have a beginning, middle, and an ending even when the ending has a To Be Continued placed on it and not to mention you don’t have to wait ½ a year or a full year for the next episode. This is not worth $20 to me ether but as was said people will by anything with the name valve and Half Life attached to it. I bought the complete package back when HL2 went to Preorder... Don't think I will do that again although I would have bought an expansion/Add-On I will definitely not buy an episode unless I hear it has an ending (even an episode ending) that differs from credits just rolling in the middle of playing (IE, Sin Episode 1).

[OldsterHolster]

I may get it if I can get it on a disc instead of downloading it, since I'm still on dial-up. The main reason is because I'm just dying for a shooter. I can't believe it's been so long without any new ones coming out. I keep hoping that it will all balance out, and there will be a bunch of them all at once, in which case I would shine this episodic thing on, myself. I don't like the idea, but I sure would like something to play. Edward.

[kukipett]

I think that most games will come episodic, for really simple reasons. First modern games need a huge amount of work for a few minutes of gameplay, second, they also need a huge investment that need to be recovered as quickly as possible.
With that kind of game you can quickly release something without the risk to be outdated when it's finished and you get your money immediately so you can go on working on future episodes.
So you can solve some of the biggest problems you get when you make games, the DNF syndrome, the Daikatana crash and the bankruptcy that makes you rush and sell buggy or shi tty games.

[Rob]

Modern games do need large amounts of cash to develop, but a good game will sell and a bomb is still a bomb. Daikatana was a mess and DNF clearly has larger problems then simply outdated tech.

HL2 was successful and sold like hotcakes. The engine is done and the big cost factors are in the past. Yes, any new content is still going to cost, but nothing in the realm of what the initial costs were. $20 for 4-6 hours is not worth it. Bioware releases new dungeons and complete quests for Neverwinter Nights for $5 or $6 dollars. I do not see why the same can't be true with the HL episodes. I could see them at $10, but not $20.

Think about buying a season of Star Trek: TNG on DVD. The seasons now sell for $50 for 24, hour long shows. What if they pulled the full season box and just sold 4 episodes per DVD for $20. Next thing you know to watch the full season you HAVE to spend $120. I would be upset.

I am curently against episodic content. The point is the cliff hanger to get you to want to play the next installment. Unlike an episode of Lost where the next show is a week away, these cliff hangers could last 4-6 months. At that point, I have lost interest. I would much prefer a full fledged sequal, or lets say HL 2.1 and spend $40 on a quality full length game with the same engine.

[kukipett]

I'm also not really happy with episodic games, but i think we will have to live with it.
Actually full games need many years of development. So when you have a good engine, your are tempted to use it as much as possible.
For example Half-Life 2 was said to be more than 20 hours of gameplay in 2003, but we all noticed that a lot of what was planned was scraped. And we finaly get not more than 10 hours.
It's the same with all new games like FEAR or Quake4, they become shorter and shorter.
I used to make a mod for Half-Life and now i've started to do the same for HL2 and it's really 10 times the work i had to do for HL1. So i understand the timing problems that can happen when you plan a large game. When you're finished, you have to redo most of it because it's outdated!
And as you say with episodic games with cliffhangers every 6 months, it's hard to really keep the same interest.

[Anelysium]

I think I'm just going to wait on the episodes... I'm really not a fan of the idea, but hey, maybe I can get like 3-4 episodes someday in a $30 bundle or something

[Mr. Natural]

I may get it if I can get it on a disc instead of downloading it, since I'm still on dial-up. The main reason is because I'm just dying for a shooter. I can't believe it's been so long without any new ones coming out. I keep hoping that it will all balance out, and there will be a bunch of them all at once, in which case I would shine this episodic thing on, myself. I don't like the idea, but I sure would like something to play. Edward.

Ed the word is that yes it will also be available on store shelves.

Personally I would wait for some public comment on the game after it came out. It shouldn't take long for that to occur with the brevity of this "episode".

But hey if you got a 20 to burn, what the heck.

[Ron]

I wouldn't mind this whole episodic thing if they actually give us some sort of an ending to each episode... Maybe not a definite to all Ends, but some kind of an ending and then let it continue. If they all start doing this Episodic thing, I think they will start to find there market going limp after a period of time. This kind of episodic thing can leave people with a sort of B**e B***s (the older crowd should be able to figure out the *'s) and nobody likes to be strung along. Ti me this reminds of a time where I seen my two nephews playing on the Xbox and one of them grabbed the game the other was playing and made him chase him for almost an hour. Now just imagine that happening every time you play an episode and you’re near the end but Ritual and Valve grab your disc and make you chase them for 8 months... lol :eek:

[kukipett]

Maybe we will soon experience episodic games where the scenario will be done by many different writers who don't even care of what happenend before. Just like in some soaps where a character dies then reappear one year later when everybody has forgotten his death even the writer!!
So if the marketing says that it would be nice to put a gay character, we could see Alyx replaced by a nice young boy. Maybe in 3 or 4 years HL5 will be about Freeman against the evil Dr Breen who has build an army of Saddam Hussein clones. And Dr Vance will develop his own army of Bush clones to free the galaxy of the evil dark Combine Emperor. With some luck we should be able to fight Skeleton and Musclor as guest stars in boss levels. :crazy:

[Torsion]

they should have just bundled all three episodes into a big 20 hour expansion and sold it for 30-40. I dont think paying 60 more dollars for an expansion is fair. Each episode should be 10-15 dollars.

[Anelysium]

Well, when you combine all of those episodes, it's gonna be a lot bigger than most expansion packs

[Torsion]

Well, when you combine all of those episodes, it's gonna be a lot bigger than most expansion packs

Yeah, but do you really think the content is worth $60 all together with no chance of a drop in price? Like I said, I think $40 is a fair price for the episodes if they are each 6 hours long without new multiplayer features.

[OldsterHolster]

I hate to mention the obvious, but things always go up. "They" charge what the market will bear, and we (the market) bear it. Or not! Mostly we do and just complain a lot.

I just filled up my work truck, today, and it was $55.00. I took an old girlfriend up to Smiley's Tap for two SmileyBurgers and fries, and it was $20.00, and that only lasted an hour. Twenty bucks won't even buy beer and snacks for the game, anymore, you know?

So, in line with Tim's thinking; yeah, I've got a twenty I can blow on four hours of entertainment. I don't like the idea, or price, either; and, if I can get System Shock II up and running, I'll make them wait on my business, but you might as well get used to the idea of a twenty being chump-change, these days. Edward.

[DanTheManPR]

Like Edward said, they'll charge what the market can bear. The only way the prices will go down is if there's a crash in the video game market - which could definitely happen if the likes of EA keep pushing out the same old crap all the time. Well, what do I care - I haven't played a new game in almost a year (and it will stay that way till SupCom comes out).