Valve Delays Portal 2, Squashes Duke Nukem Rumors

SKYMTL writes "In a tongue-in-cheek commentary, Valve has announced the delay of Portal 2 and thrown water on the rumor fires regarding its E3 'surprise.' This surprise was rumored to be either Half-Life 3 or the revival of Duke Nukem, and it looks like neither will happen anytime soon."

Comments

Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't they get Half-Life 2 Episode 3 done first?

Re:Half-Life 3?

[vrmlguy]

Personally, I'm interested in the narrative direction that Valve takes in Portal 2. The original's protagonist started as a relatively weak, essentially passive, woman, who only comes out of her introverted shell after much prodding by GLADOS. The sequel needs to go in a different direction, with an extroverted male protagonist. He should be a body builder, with a blond crew-cut, wearing aviator glasses, and smoking a cigar. You know, like this.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[dintech]

"There is no more time, even for cake. For you, the cake is over. You have reached the end of cake."

Re:Half-Life 3?

[PlasmaEye]

You know, like this.

Why am I not surprised that there is a 404 error on the other side of that link?

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Portal2: Forever. Cake, come get some!

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Tim C]

"I have come here to eat cake and kick ass, and I'm all outta cake."

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the whole point of episodic releases were that they reduced the time for releasing the product? You know, smaller chunks of the game more often?
HL2 - Nov 2004
Ep1 - June 2006
Ep2 - Oct 2007
Ep3 - its goddamn mid 2010 and still no sign of it.

Hmmm, that worked out well then. Think of this Valve - people expected ep3 out at the end of 2008. Each year you put the damn game back, all your customers expect even more for the game to be. By the time this actually comes out, there is no way you could ever live up to their expectations - 3+ years is enough time to create a standalone game from scratch.

Oh well, I'll get the popcorn on standby for when they actually release it - knowing them, it'll be slightly longer than ep2, and there'll be a lot of fanboys trying to justify that a slightly higher texture resolution/lens flare/slightly more complicated physics puzzle is enough to justify the extra 2 years wait.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[D'Sphitz]

I just don't get it, millions of people have been waiting for years, cash in hand, to buy Episode 3. Almost 4 years later still not a peep, no preview, no release date, no news, nothing, hell who knows if it's even in development at all?

If it comes out this year, or in 2011, will people still want it? I'm sure it will hurt them, the engine is getting old, fans are feeling alienated. Way to blow a fantastic franchise Valve.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[neuralprobe]

I thought of this actually. :) http://www.tentakelvilla.de/mi1/screens/mi1-11.jpg

Re:Half-Life 3?

[elrous0]

Hail to the cake, baby.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

I remember saying almost this exact same thing while Half-Life 2 kept getting pushed further and further back: they'd waited too long, any hopes of a franchise were dashed, nobody cared, etc. etc. Remember, it was a delay of almost six years between HL and HL2. And imagine how foolish I felt when I actually played HL2, it sold extremely well, and I ultimately had to eat those words. The franchise is gonna be fine, even if it takes them another year to release it. People will still buy it. The fact that people are so pissed about the delay just goes to demonstrate that.

Valve has become more open in the past two years, but they're still a pretty mysterious company that is often reticent to publicize ongoing development efforts. So we've got no way of knowing what they're currently working on or how close to release it may be.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finishing a HL2 episode shouldn't take that long as there's usually not that much to them.

OTOH I can't help but wonder if the delay is more because of being able to ship OSX/linux/Windows versions all at the same time...

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Monkeedude1212]

They did. I believe it aired May 23 at 9pm. There were some glitches, such as names and faces changing, but the ending was about what you'd expect.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[IndustrialComplex]

If it comes out this year, or in 2011, will people still want it? I'm sure it will hurt them, the engine is getting old, fans are feeling alienated. Way to blow a fantastic franchise Valve.

And yet people still put faith into Activision/Blizzard that by the time they get around to the third installment of Starcraft2, they won't have lost interest/developers/goodfaith and will put out something at the same quality (if they ever get around to it) as the first 'third' of the game.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mind a wait as long as the result is worth the wait. Half Life 2 was.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the idea is that it's been so long since Episode 2 came out, that releasing another mere episode would be unbelievably irritating - people are expecting a full size game now... And if Valve whine about that, then they only have themselves to blame.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[VGPowerlord]

If it comes out this year, or in 2011, will people still want it? I'm sure it will hurt them, the engine is getting old, fans are feeling alienated. Way to blow a fantastic franchise Valve.

The Source engine is continuously updated. The most recent version is the one used in Left 4 Dead 2, released in late 2009.

As of right now, there are two major versions of the Source engine that are continuously bugfixed, and sometimes have features backported from the newer to the older:
1. Orange Box Engine*, used by Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, and Counter-Strike: Source Beta (last updated 2010 May 18)
2. Left 4 Dead 2 Engine, used by Left 4 Dead 2 (last updated 2010 June 09 (yesterday))

Team Fortress 2 is being released for Mac today, so we may see an update for the Orange Box game engine as well.

* The Orange Box engine was split into two separate engines during an engine update earlier this year. One version is used by HL2: Episode 2 and Portal, the other by Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, and Counter-Strike: Source Beta.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[FreonTrip]

In Discworld, that was a wonderful passage. In the right context, GlaDOS could make that utterly bone-chilling.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only does that guy from Monkey Island look like Duke Nukem, he also looks like the tough colonel guy from Avatar.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[IICV]

* The Orange Box engine was split into two separate engines during an engine update earlier this year. One version is used by HL2: Episode 2 and Portal, the other by Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, and Counter-Strike: Source Beta.

That's an interesting split - one is optimized for online coherency, and the other for offline experience maybe?

Re:Half-Life 3?

[VGPowerlord]

* The Orange Box engine was split into two separate engines during an engine update earlier this year. One version is used by HL2: Episode 2 and Portal, the other by Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, and Counter-Strike: Source Beta.

That's an interesting split - one is optimized for online coherency, and the other for offline experience maybe?

I think it was more along the lines of not updating the single player games, but redoing how parts of the engine works for the online games. I learned that they had split by reading the SourceMod forum.

Who knows, they may have been merged back again when HL2: Ep2 and Portal were updated for their Mac releases.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ass is a lie!

Re:Half-Life 3?

[10Neon]

Little-known fact: parent company and sister company are not actually the ones doing the developing.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[zerocool^]

To be fair, Starcraft is ENTIRELY an anomaly in the entire history of video gaming. Blizzard have a pretty good idea that people are and will be interested in Starcraft... because the game is still selling.

Seriously, the game came out 11 years, 2 months, and 10 days ago. Literally a week ago, I was in a GameStop and saw a brand new, in box copy of the starcraft battlechest edition on the shelf, for sale.

I cannot think of any other game that is still being sold as new that's anywhere NEAR that old - discounting things like the Civ anniversary pack or the C&C: First Decade pack, and other re-releases. This game has real staying power.

Anyway, like Yahtzee said: The point of episodic content is to release smaller sections of game, more frequently, at a lower cost. Valve have gotten the small sections and lower cost down, but the frequency is downright glacial. Half Life 2 Episode 2 Manchester United 1 took years for about 5-6 hours of gameplay. So, IMO, I hope they're releasing Ep3 via announcement at E3, but it wouldn't surprise me if they took another 18 months for ep3, and then another 3-4 years for HL3.

Stupid Valve. WE WANT GAMES, WE WILL PAY.

~X

Re:Half-Life 3?

[AsbestosGloves]

Valve is consistently giving Half-Life 2 franchise lovers the middle finger on Episode 3. The "joke" about them releasing Duke Nukem (Forever) is just one more middle finger to add to the collection.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[Psaakyrn]

Think of it this way. Without episodic content, we wouldn't have HL2 yet.

Re:Half-Life 3?

[darthvader100]

Cake or Death?

Re:Half-Life 3?

[bhiestand]

To be fair, Starcraft is ENTIRELY an anomaly in the entire history of video gaming. Blizzard have a pretty good idea that people are and will be interested in Starcraft... because the game is still selling.

Seriously, the game came out 11 years, 2 months, and 10 days ago. Literally a week ago, I was in a GameStop and saw a brand new, in box copy of the starcraft battlechest edition on the shelf, for sale.

I cannot think of any other game that is still being sold as new that's anywhere NEAR that old - discounting things like the Civ anniversary pack or the C&C: First Decade pack, and other re-releases. This game has real staying power.

And that's not even counting Korea, where you can watch tournaments being played LIVE with commentary on national TV.

Noooooooooo

[Zumbs]

the revival of Duke Nukem, and it looks like neither will happen anytime soon

There is only one sensible reaction from a sensible person:

Noooooooooooooooo! Why, oh why? Nooooooooooooo!

Repeat until nauseous

Re:Noooooooooo

[TubeSteak]

Duke Nukem Forever will happen eventually.
It's a huge pile of money sitting on the table, waiting for someone to pick it up.

Re:Noooooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it needs to hurry up, that game is taking forever to happen.

Re:Noooooooooo

[NetServices]

I agree with you on this. We want Duke. We *need* Duke!

Re:Noooooooooo

[Pharmboy]

Duke Nukem Forever will happen eventually.
It's a huge pile of money sitting on the table, waiting for someone to pick it up.

I have said the same of the 1997 game "Redneck Rampage", which the rights has been bought and sold many times but no one has developed the next generation. Still one of the funnest FPS games ever made. There are rumors of a new version but they are only rumors. Granted, not exactly as big as Duke, but it was still a hugely successful game.

As silly or goofy as the game might seem, it was a damn fine example of what you can do when you use good physics, solid game play, and good old fashioned gutter humor. TF2 is another good example, just with different humor.

Re:Noooooooooo

[Richard_at_work]

The same goes for Elite - fantastic game, first sequel was decent, second sequel was terrible and nothing for 15 years :( I would love a modern Elite (EVE is almost it, but I would like something that doesn't tether me to the internet).

Re:Noooooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I expect it to happen about ten years after the Singularity, just in time for Christ to put in an appearance at the product launch.

Re:Noooooooooo

[mike2R]

I would love a modern Elite (EVE is almost it, but I would like something that doesn't tether me to the internet).

It's called X3: Terran Conflict, published by a company called Egosoft. You can find an extremely well-written gameplay story here if you want to get an idea of the possibilities.

See you in six months :)

Re:Noooooooooo

[TheRaven64]

Try Vega Strike. Oolite keeps the same gameplay as elite but updated for modern hardware, Vega Strike keeps very similar gameplay but updates it a lot. You have multiple factions, a missions, different stations that produce different things. You can trade or fight, explore or do missions. In the last version, there was a nice trade route buying coffee on a planet and trading it for refined metals on an asteroid mine - unlike some other games, the commodity pricing actually makes sense.

Re:Noooooooooo

[mcgrew]

I have said the same of the 1997 game "Redneck Rampage"

I think that was my all time second favorite game (right behind Quake). The sound track got me into Mojo Nixon music, too; "Lets go burn old Nashville Down", "Burn Down the Mall", "Stuffin' Martha's Muffins", "Gonna Tie My Pecker To My Leg".

Oh, man, the nostalgia almost brings a tear to my eye. For those of you who haven't heard Mojo Nixon, well, you've heard of Punk Rock? Mojo Nixon is Punk Country.

If anybody does a remake of Redneck Rampage I hope they get old Mojo to do the soundtrack.

Re:Noooooooooo

[Abstrackt]

Duke Nukem Forever will happen eventually. It's a huge pile of money sitting on the table, waiting for someone to pick it up.

It's also the laughingstock of games and the posterchild for vaporware.

Personally, I wouldn't touch that steaming pile of shame with a ten foot pole.

Re:Noooooooooo

[drinkypoo]

Vega Strike is very much the new Elite. Unfortunately it has a fake economy, all planets of a certain type will always buy certain commodities at a profitable price, and so on. When polled more users said they wanted continuous flight down to a planet than a functioning economy, even though the latter is way more important for a game in which you can trade, so it's doomed to continue to be basically a glorified arcade game for the foreseeable future.

Re:Noooooooooo

[EllF]

X3 is great, but the best modern space sim I've played is an indie title (albeit, a very serious one by a dude who's been making space sims for over 10 years): Evochron Legends.

Re:Noooooooooo

[AdamThor]

which is why you save the publicity until after you've finished the project. If you announce you're starting work on it everyone will roll their eyes, but if you announce that you've gone gold then everyone will freak out.

Re:Noooooooooo

[elrous0]

There are a lot of franchises that were once "money on the table" that have been allowed to die or stagnate for whatever reason. LucasArts could have made a fortune with a console release of Knights of the Old Republic 3, but it never happened. The Castlevania series never got a modern entry. The Doom franchise seems to be sitting this generation out. And those are just a few. Duke Nuke'em may seem like money on the table, but it takes a *lot* of money to develop a modern game these days. That's a big up-front cost for a franchise that hasn't had a game release in 15 years, a franchise which many young gamers today don't even remember. Studios just aren't willing to bet that kind of money on such an old franchise. It's just too risky.

Re:Noooooooooo

[zakmdot]

Anyone remember Heretic (By Raven Software) http://www.ravensoft.com/gamesdetail.aspx?xmmid=624&xmid=7&xmview=2 That'd be a rockin' remake.

Re:Noooooooooo

[interkin3tic]

There is only one sensible reaction from a sensible person:

That after the long ridiculous development process that apperantly still isn't there, there is no way duke nukem forever could be anything other than a terrible amalgamation of different visions. Much like "Too Human" took forever to come out and was pretty poorly executed.

I am by no means an expert on the game industry, but I'm guessing a new duke nukem game won't come out for a long time. You want to buy the rights to duke nukem? Alright, half the cost will be buying what we have made on "Duke nukem forever." What's that? You say the parts of Forever that are there are basically terrible ideas which can't be made into one coherent game? Well, we "invested" so much time and money into making it, no way are we just going to let that go to waste, you have to buy it or you won't get to make a duke nukem game!

Re:Noooooooooo

[Pharmboy]

And on that point, the fact that the CD contained 9 songs, AND the interface for choosing which song is playing in the game was an 8 track tape player, well, what more can you say? Even cooler was the fact that you could play the CD in ANY CD player, except that track 1 (data) was just noise.

Re:Noooooooooo

[mcgrew]

Even cooler was the fact that you could play the CD in ANY CD player, except that track 1 (data) was just noise.

I had a few games like that, only better; Screamer, Screamer 2, Quake 2 (I don't remember of the first Quake was like that) -- the data wasn't on track 1.

When you drive down the road with your stereo blasting the Quake 2 soundtrack, you get some really funny looks...

Re:Noooooooooo

[Jedi Alec]

Mechwarrior 2...best soundtrack for a PC game *ever*

Still play it on occasion :-)

Eh...

[f3rret]

I really have a hard time getting exited about these sorts of things anymore. I mean Portal and HL2 are good games and all but still they're just games.

Ostensibly whatever it is Valve is going to be revealing at E3 is going to be a game, a new game perhaps or something like that. Either way it's hard to get exited about.

Re:Eh...

[sammyF70]

Which might be the reason why it's in slashdot/games ... I'm just guessing here of course.

Re:Eh...

[xtracto]

Ostensibly whatever it is Valve is going to be revealing at E3 is going to be a game, a new game perhaps or something like that. Either way it's hard to get exited about.

OMG Sherlock, have you got inside info or something?
You mean that what a game publisher company will reveal at an Electronic Entertainment Expo is ... wait for it, a video game. Man, you really got amazing inference skills!

Now, that you do not get excited about that only means that you do not care about such type of entertainment; but hey, that's a completely different stories.

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, it is so fucking hard to get killed (exited) by Valve announcements, thesedays.

Re:Eh...

[brunes69]

Why do you have the Slashdot/Games section on if you don't care about games?

Re:Eh...

[quantumplacet]

Man are you gonna look stupid when Valve releases the cure for cancer at E3 this year.

Re:Eh...

[MrHanky]

Well, perhaps not a cure, but cancer will be a lot more pleasant when you make a game out of it.

Re:Eh...

[ledow]

I don't see the point in getting excited about any press release to be honest. When something pops up in my Steam window saying I can "buy game X now" then I can get excited about the prospect of a new game / addon / etc. More likely, unless it's cheap, I'll wait for some other pillock to try it first and then tell me if it's any good. Until the time I can actually play it, it's vapour and I refuse to be coaxed into seeking out information, giving ad views, pre-ordering or any other nonsense. I don't do it for any of my other hobbies / interests, why the hell should I do it for videogames?

You can't buy / review / play things that haven't been released or aren't available to you. That's the end of it. Trying to "entice" me by telling me that you'll tell me something next week just makes me less interested. I know you're trying to create hype and virtually everything that needs hype to promote it flops. Remember Daikatana, DNF, WinFS etc. etc. Until it's in my hard drive and playable, it doesn't exist and can't be judged on how good it is - there's no point looking forward to a particular game / OS / feature until you know it's available to yourself.
When companies learn this, we'll start seeing some decent games / movies again.

There's no point telling me that Blu-Ray is fabulous, or HDTV is wonderful, or your new game will bowl me over. EVERYONE says that, and 99.999% of the time it's just not true. In fact, most of the games that I've really enjoyed have been ones that I'd never heard of until I tried a demo (and for pity's sake PLEASE give out damn demos of games or I won't buy them for years to come - if I can't trial the damn thing, how can I be expected to make an informed purchase of it?).

Every time you hype a game that I'm actually vaguely interested in, my heart sinks a little. It means you are trying to keep the excitement up in the hopes of some pre-orders or blind-sales and that worries me. If HL3 or Portal 2 was any good, you'd just drop it on us relatively unannounced, without this hyperbole. If the game can't sell itself, I don't want it, and I'd much rather you spent time programming and testing than advertising something that doesn't exist yet.

I'd have liked word of HL2:E3 but to be honest, if it's a dead horse I won't buy it even with having all the previous episodes. I stop my DVD collections when a series gets shit, I don't buy sequels just because their predecessor was good, and I'm quite happy to not have the complete set. That said, I don't actually like Portal anyway, so if this was supposed to be a Portal announcement I'm even less interested - I really think it's time for HL2:E3 to be released, if I'm honest. Portal's an interesting concept but the game was a bit dull after a while and I completed it in 3.1 hours (and most of that was me pissing about trying to get the 30,000 feet drop achievement by leaving the game running while I had dinner). Maybe that's because I only played it after the hyperbole had all died down and it was on Steam for £10 but it wasn't anything fabulous. Portal 2 won't interest me until there's a demo and the full-price game is about £10.

But hey, if you want me to listen mention HL2:E3 but to be honest my reaction would be "Oh, that sounds interesting" until I can actually try it / buy it. Until this, I don't pay attention to press releases and I've saved myself a lot of money and disappointment by doing so.

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be a fun guy to talk to at parties....

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have to work out that way.

For example, I suppose they could be lulling E3 participants into a false sense of security. Upon getting there Valve will announce that the doors have been locked and that if people were wondering why the conference registration included such a lengthy disclaimer absolving Valve or any other E3 sponsor from accidental dismemberment, falling, or vaporization injuries, the conference test subjects would soon find out why.

"Wow, those game props in your booth look almost real, and did you actually bring the actress that plays GLaDOS in here? Is she hiding behind the curtain with a microphone? I swear that demo machine almost seems like a real AI."

"Uh, yeah ... uh ... heh ... props. You're, uh, staying around for the big announcement, right?"

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope I don't get cancer then, I suck at FPSes.

Re:Eh...

[hal2814]

It doesn't necessarily have to be an FPS. It could be Super Chemo Bros, Non-Emergency Services Center, or Madden's Colon 2011.

Re:Eh...

[TheRaven64]

I, for one, have it on so that I can come here and complain.

Now get off my lawn!

Re:Eh...

[f3rret]

Why do you have the Slashdot/Games section on if you don't care about games?

Mainly because I'm too lazy to actually turn it off. I was going to try thinking up some other humorous reason for not having disabled it but come to think of it, laziness really is the only reason.

Re:Eh...

[cowscows]

Wow, that's some first class complaining there.

While you're busy writing essays about how much it sucks that everything in the world isn't perfect, the rest of us will continue to enjoy talking about things we find interesting, enjoy well done or amusing advertising, and not go around looking for a reason to hate every single thing we see or read about.

Re:Eh...

[HaZardman27]

Too lazy to turn it off, but not too lazy to come in and complain?

Re:Eh...

[skudenfaugen]

Dr. Mario?

Re:Eh...

[St.Anne]

<quote><p>Man are you gonna look stupid when Valve releases the cure for cancer at E3 this year.</p></quote>

Unfortunately it's the cure for Thumb Cancer, brought about by playing too many video games...

Re:Eh...

[VGPowerlord]

It doesn't necessarily have to be an FPS. It could be Super Chemo Bros, Non-Emergency Services Center, or Madden's Colon 2011.

Um... have you looked at what kind of games Valve makes?

Re:Eh...

[Killall -9 Bash]

<blockquote> quoted text </blockquote>

Re:Eh...

[f3rret]

Yep, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there.

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who uses the word "ostensibly" is a pretentious wank.

Re:Eh...

[f3rret]

Wow that scathing remark sure took you a long time to think up.

Duke Nukem Takes Forever

[Gri3v3r]

to be released

MOD PARENT UP!!

[AndrewStephens]

Ostensibly whatever it is Valve is going to be revealing at E3 is going to be a game, a new game perhaps or something like that.

+1 Insightful

I think we can by now

[silentcoder]

safely addapt Stephen Hawking's theory to this situation and state that laws of the universe conspire to prevent anybody ever actually finishing the development of Duke Nukem Forever.
True the evidence is purely anecdotal, but then the same goes for his original application of the concept to time machines so that's alright then.

Re:I think we can by now

[MichaelSmith]

safely addapt Stephen Hawking's theory to this situation and state that laws of the universe conspire to prevent anybody ever actually finishing the development of Duke Nukem Forever.
True the evidence is purely anecdotal, but then the same goes for his original application of the concept to time machines so that's alright then.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Re:I think we can by now

[Anonymous Coward]

safely addapt Stephen Hawking's theory to this situation and state that laws of the universe conspire to prevent anybody ever actually finishing the development of Duke Nukem Forever.
True the evidence is purely anecdotal, but then the same goes for his original application of the concept to time machines so that's alright then.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

No, the sun would go nova... (obscure Larry Niven? allusion....)

Re:I think we can by now

[elrous0]

It's already happened somewhere in the multiverse, so all we have to do is establish a link to a universe where 3D Realms wasn't made up of a bunch of lazy fucktards and steal a copy.

Re:I think we can by now

[silentcoder]

>It's already happened somewhere in the multiverse, so all we have to do is establish a link to a universe where 3D Realms wasn't made up of a bunch of lazy fucktards and steal a copy.

The multiverse theory only predicts the existence of any POSSIBLE universe. A universe like you describe would probably require a radical rethink of the entire nature of time to even be conceivable...

Re:I think we can by now

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already happened somewhere in the multiverse, so all we have to do is establish a link to a universe where 3D Realms wasn't made up of a bunch of lazy fucktards and steal a copy.

Good luck with that one.

Re:I think we can by now

[AvitarX]

No, simply one where the finished game was released.

The articles about the demise appear to hint that twice it was almost released, and quite awesome.

Re:I think we can by now

[MichaelSmith]

safely addapt Stephen Hawking's theory to this situation and state that laws of the universe conspire to prevent anybody ever actually finishing the development of Duke Nukem Forever.
True the evidence is purely anecdotal, but then the same goes for his original application of the concept to time machines so that's alright then.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

No, the sun would go nova... (obscure Larry Niven? allusion....)

Yes the sun is somewhat inconstant.

The metaphorical cake is a lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

The metaphorical cake (duke nukem forever) is a lie!

Re:The metaphorical cake is a lie!

[delinear]

The metaphorical cake (duke nukem forever) is a lie!

Duke Nukem's not really like cake. It's more like bubblegum. And Valve're all outta gum.

Re:The metaphorical cake is a lie!

[Hinhule]

Don't go to Valves booth, they'll kick your ass!

Re:Half-Life 3? ANDROID HELL!

[Pharmboy]

I have always said that I want to play as of the Androids. This is passive, kinda, but where you play as one of the Androids who eventually gains sentience and tries to break free, in spite of the the fact that "Android Hell is a REAL place that you WILL go, at the first sign of defiance!". Lots of turrets, being treated like the disposable machine that you are, taking place before the world went crazy. I would pay retail for that.

Makes sense

[TheRealQuestor]

If they admitted that it was either of them there wouldn't be much point of a surprise then.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

A surprise is something people don't expect. Previous Portal 2 teaser material has shown that Valve fully expect the Internet to dissect everything it says and does. When they say "we've got a surprise for E3" they're either lying or it's something they know no-one could predict. HL2E3 and DNF are both eminently predictable and denying them doesn't make them any more surprising, so it's neither of those.

It will be something to do with Portal 2, a game which won't be released for another year, at least, so don't get too excited.

Re:Makes sense

[Abstrackt]

A surprise is something people don't expect. Previous Portal 2 teaser material has shown that Valve fully expect the Internet to dissect everything it says and does. When they say "we've got a surprise for E3" they're either lying or it's something they know no-one could predict. HL2E3 and DNF are both eminently predictable and denying them doesn't make them any more surprising, so it's neither of those.

It will be something to do with Portal 2, a game which won't be released for another year, at least, so don't get too excited.

So you're saying that the announcement is a lie?

Re:Makes sense

[TheRealQuestor]

No I'm just saying Valve didn't say "Ok you guess it, you're right, now we don't have to spend a million dollars on a marketing campaign." Because, well, that would be a tad anti-climatic.

Quick! Someone coin a new meme!

[AnonymousClown]

From now on, if there's a project, company, or anything that's taking a very long tome to complete or doesn't look like it'll ever be completed, we can now say "It's been Duke Nukemed!"

A new manager becomes in charge of a project and the finish date gets pushed out: "Yeah, this new guy Duke Nukemed our project. I'm gonna be laid off!"

Obama has Duke Nukemed the Moon landing and Ares project - for a real World example.

Or, Polaroid was a great company but digital Duke Nukemed the company.

We can do this! Come on! Who's with me!?

Re:Quick! Someone coin a new meme!

[mr_mischief]

There have been several good Duke Nukem games actually finished and released, you realize? This one is "Duke Nukem Forever". So one might say "Duke Nukem Forever'ed", or just "DNF'ed". "DNF" has a long history from auto racing (and probably from other racing before that). It's an abbreviation for "did not finish", which is apropos for the game.

So I think you'll find "DNF" is the phrasing of choice for such a situation, really.

Re:Quick! Someone coin a new meme!

[pellik]

Better would be to say drivers duke nukem when they don't finish a race.

Re:Quick! Someone coin a new meme!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

"He pulled a Duke" rolls better off the tongue.

Re:phew

[Anonymous Coward]

Better to have no new Duke Nukem games that to have a crappy company like Valve make a Duke Nukem game that cannot be purchased because of their insistence on junking it up with Steam.

You and I (and most gamers, I would wager) have a very different definition of a "crappy company".

Fun but..

[Tei]

Ok, the joke is fun, but is poking fun about a guy that is doing something different than you think.

A game studio can release:
  - A patch that enhancs the original game in a dramaticall way
  - A teaming with other studio
  - Buying the license to X
  - A Expansion Pack
  - A DLC (see above)
  - Buying another studio
  - ...

Now.. Velve manage Steam, there are lots of things that can affect steam and are newswhorty:
  - Steam going "standalone" as a separate company (maybe not even a company, maybe a 'fundation')
  - Steam supporting Linux
  - Steam supported inside XBox360 as another "game adquiring" tool
  - Steam supporting self made concent in some new way
  - Steam supporting indie people in a new way ( What about a multiplatform "Steam Game Dev Kit" that use SDL and other library to create a complete multiplatform SDK, so all games made for this SDK runs on Linux, Windows and Mac).
  - ...

Wen you say that the only possibility is release a new game game, you show your lack of imagination.

Re:Fun but..

[Robadob]

I thought about their 'big surprise' at e3 being steam for linux because its been implied multiple times that that's in the works. However it wouldn't be much of a big surprise considering how most of the source fanboys wont even have heard of linux. And for steam supported inside xbox360 as a game acquiring tool, surely Microsoft wouldn't allow that because they wouldn't be making the profit?

Re:Fun but..

[Anonymous Coward]

When you say "Velve" and "fundation" you show your lack of spelling.

Re:phew

[Anonymous Coward]

crappy company like Valve

No list of arguments why Valve is a bad company? No personal attacks on Gabe Newell? You vaguely mention Steam, but don't even bother dedicating more than 10 words on why you think it's a bad system. Not even a rant on how bad your last experience with Steam was, angrily bashing your keyboard because 4 or 5 years ago you couldn't play Counterstrike one evening. Hell, you could even go on about the DRM, or how automatic patching ruined one of your savegames.

Back in the day, people put a lot more effort in trolling. So many missed opportunities. 0/10, would not read again

Re:phew

[delinear]

Indeed, pretty much the only games I still regularly play on PC are Valve games, some of those I've been playing in various iterations for over 10 years. Similarly I've never really had a problem using Steam, from the early days to present. I don't like the idea that I can't just install my game anywhere and not have to validate, etc, but of all the schemes game companies have devised, it seems to be the most usable and least disagreeable.

Re:phew

[Delusion_]

You wrote "cannot be purchased".

What you meant to write is "cannot be as easily pirated by people who don't know what they're doing".

Full Press Release

[Anonymous Coward]

VALVE ANNOUNCES MAKING GAMES IS HARD
June 9, 2010 — Aperture Science, doing business as Aperture Laboratories LLC, in partnership with Valve today announced the successful completion of an ethics-review-panel-supervised release date restructuring process. Portal 2, the sequel to the ground-breaking title that earned over 30 Game of the Year awards despite missing its original ship date, is now targeted for a 2011 release.

Representatives from both companies acknowledged that public safety concerns factored into the decision. They went on to say that even though Portal 2 will arrive slightly later than planned, all life on earth won’t instantaneously stop as every molecule in your body explodes at the speed of light, which is what would happen should a rip ever appear in the fabric of Valve Time.

“Also, the game will be even better,” they added, missing an historic opportunity to create the first product delay press release to mention that a product is being delayed to make it worse.

To ask questions about how close we all came to dying, or to ask futile questions about the previously announced E3 ***PORTAL-2-THEMED-FOR-GOD’S SAKE*** surprise or, less futilely, to schedule an appointment to attend a Portal 2 screening at the Valve booth during E3, please contact Valve’s delegate to the EU’s Valve Time Studies Group, Doug Lombardi.

Re:Full Press Release

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a let down.
I'm making a note here - I'm depressed.
It's hard to overstate my disappointment.

Re:Half-Life 3? ANDROID HELL!

[Captain Splendid]

Then you should get your wish. The co-op mode is supposed to involve you playing as evolved bots.

yawn

[Krau Ming]

another game from Valve, another delay. batting average remains 1.000.

Source Engine 2

[ninjacheeseburger]

Another rumour was of a new source engine, as far as I know valve has not yet ruled this out, so the surprise could be that portal 2 will be the first game on the new source engine? In the concept art that has been released you can see plants, and generally plants do not look very good in the current source engine, so I hope that a new engine is used otherwise this will look very dated.

Re:Source Engine 2

[Monkeedude1212]

And given the art surrounding portal 2, that would make sense. I believe the supposed box cover had quite a bit of flora.

Re:phew

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't know how it is that YOU purchase games, because if its online, or going down to a retailer, both those options are available for all Valve games.

Or did you mean, "I tried teh torrentz but no 1 is seeding!"

Obviously so they can focus effort on Linux

[rwa2]

Hopefully they're delaying Portal 2 so they can dedicate their best and brightest to port Steam and all their Source games over to Linux by the end of this summer:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1

I just sold my old gaming rig (Dual SMP Athlon XP-M + nVidia Geforce 6800GS), so if Valve pulls this off, I wouldn't need to buy a new Windows gaming machine to go alongside my Linux system (Dual core Athlon II + nVidia Geforce 8800GT), and would be happy to spend the money on new Steam games instead :-P

Yes, wistful thinking, I know :P

Re:Obviously so they can focus effort on Linux

[MindlessAutomata]

why not dual boot?

Re:Obviously so they can focus effort on Linux

[Fallingcow]

Or run Linux in VirtualBox.

If you don't use Linux for 3D stuff, it feels damn-near native on a modern machine. No more rebooting. Bonus: you don't have to install duplicate apps in both environments (like OpenOffice).

Re:Obviously so they can focus effort on Linux

[spire3661]

Hey genius, you dont put your best and brightest on a project that is a guaranteed revenue LOSS. Linux gaming is a lost cause, please stop asking for dev resources to be wasted on it. Once you can get a desktop userbase that exceeds Apple's, then you can start asking.. There is no reason why you cant pony up $120 for a gaming OS.

Re:Obviously so they can focus effort on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I think wistful thinking is when you're remembering an old girlfriend.

Re:Obviously so they can focus effort on Linux

[rwa2]

Hey genius, you dont put your best and brightest on a project that is a guaranteed revenue LOSS. Linux gaming is a lost cause, please stop asking for dev resources to be wasted on it. Once you can get a desktop userbase that exceeds Apple's, then you can start asking..

You haven't been working for Aperture Labs for very long, have you...

There is no reason why you cant pony up $120 for a gaming OS.

Sure there is, I'm poor (AKA married with children) and whenever it comes to a decision between a buying a gaming OS or hardware, the hardware always wins :P

You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

you guys are going to be so excited when they announce Left for Dead 3 in a week!

Re:phew

[emkyooess]

That's the point of it: purchasing these games offline or in a retailer so they can be used whenever, wherever and however we want (without relying on the company sticking around indefinitely) is, simply, *not* possible.

So when my wife SMS'es me

[SmallFurryCreature]

So when my wife SMS'es me after my monthly duty and I head downstairs for a bear, she is NOT telling me "Dude, Nice Fuck"? Damn, what does she want from me. TWO seconds?!?

Re:So when my wife SMS'es me

[mobby_6kl]

I was always meaning to ask somebody about this situation. How do you keep your bear from destroying the basement? I can get mine to stay calm for a while, but eventually it gets pissed off and goes berserk on anything that happened to be in there. Once it even managed to get upstairs and ransack through the kitchen, eating everything I had prepared for dinner. Needless to say, it's a huge pain in the ass and I'm considering some drastic actions at this point, so any tips would be appreciated.
TIA

Re:phew

[Monkeedude1212]

It is, actually. Steam is supplied with the retail CD's, ad is not required to be online to play.

I don't know why its any different than a game coupled with Gamespy.

Re:Half-Life 3? ANDROID HELL!

[Pharmboy]

Damn, if I knew I was getting a wish granted, I would have wished for a stripper factory!

Where exactly is it throwing water on the rumors?

[kalirion]

Did hardwarecanucks even read the press release they wrote about?

The press release mentions neither Episode 3 nor Duke Nukem. So where the hell did the "Looks like all those rumors about Duke Nukem rising from the grave or Half Life 3 putting in an appearance have been shot down in one fell swoop. Sorry folks. " comment come from?

Re:Half-Life 3? ANDROID HELL!

[Captain Splendid]

I would have wished for a stripper factory!

You're surrounded by them. They're called high schools.

Re:phew

[tecnico.hitos]

You wrote "cannot be purchased".

What you meant to write is "cannot be as easily pirated by people who don't know what they're doing".

Emphasis mine.

With a google search and a little effort, most people can bypass almost any DRM*. Yet they still cause inconveniences to legitimate players. Some time ago, I had a problem of unstable connection. During this time I couldn't be sure if I would be able to play (single-player) the games I legitimately purchased, since if I were online during a connection problem and tried to start a game/Steam, it wouldn't let me. Even in offline mode some games would refuse to play, which is even worse, since my main gaming equipment is a laptop and it doesn't always have a connection available. At the same time I had games from other places(GamesGate and such) that just worked once activated.

Currently I don't have problems with my connection or Steam anymore, but I can see why a legitimate game buyer would be annoyed. Maybe even more annoyed than a pirate, since they paid for it. Steam might be one of the less inconvenient DRM systems, but it is far from perfect.

* The ones that can't be bypassed tend to be the most inconvenient for legitimate players.

Re:phew

[emkyooess]

Your disk is 100% useless if you do not create a Steam account, associate with it, connect online, decrypt it, etc... I only buy things that have the following steps:
* Purchase.
* Put in disk.
* Install.
* Play.
All of the above not requiring Internet or a 3rd party or any account creation.

Duke Nukem?

[Genwil]

Is it really necessary for anyone to announce that Duke Nukem is not forthcoming?

Re:phew

[Monkeedude1212]

So what have you purchased in the last 2 years?

Re:Where exactly is it throwing water on the rumor

[VGPowerlord]

It came from this:

To ask questions about how close we all came to dying, or to ask futile questions about the previously announced E3 ***PORTAL-2-THEMED-FOR-GOD'S SAKE*** surprise or, less futilely, to schedule an appointment to attend a Portal 2 screening at the Valve booth during E3, please contact Valve's delegate to the EU's Valve Time Studies Group, Doug Lombardi.

The rumors were about the "surprise" being Half-Life 3 or Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:phew

[VGPowerlord]

So what have you purchased in the last 2 years?

No, you're asking the wrong question.

Your question should be
"So what new PC games have you purchased in the last 2 years?"

This closes the non-PC loophole and the Good Old Games loophole.

Re:phew

[emkyooess]

Sims 3 and Torchlight are my most recent two.

Re:Half-Life 3? ANDROID HELL!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was community college.

Re:phew

[Delusion_]

We're not talking about DRM. The guy said "game that cannot be purchased because of their insistence on junking it up with Steam".

This is preposterous. DRM is bad and Steam is less bad than most, so we can agree on that. But the post I was replying to made it sound like Steam makes a game harder to purchase.

Steam makes a game much, much easier to purchase by providing an immediate way to buy it. If you choose not to use Steam, any big release (such as Portal 2 or Duke Nuke 'em) is still going to be available at retailers. Steam is just an additional route, by definition it can't make a game harder to buy, let alone impossible to purchase - neither of these games would be Steam exclusives (are there Steam exclusives, I don't know, anything I've bought from Steam was available elsewhere).

You DO Realise...

[thatbloke83]

...that IF Duke Nukem Forever ever ACTUALLY sees a full release then the world as we know it is DOOMED? It will end... just like that. Gone. In a hail of hookers and blackjack.

Re:Half-Life 3? ANDROID HELL!

[Pharmboy]

My guess was going to be cosmetology school.

Re:phew

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it whenever someone complains about DRM, some idiot fanboi accuses him of piracy? I hate Steam too, and I never pirated a thing. I own hundreds of games, and been buying them since the early 80's.