
Epistle 3 - verroq
http://www.marclaidlaw.com/epistle-3/
======
hacker_9
The story actually sounds really fun to play, and fits the Half-Life universe
perfectly. Funny that this script has reached the top of Reddit, HN and
Twitter within hours of posting, and even crashed the authors site. Even to a
blind man it's obvious the demand for the game is there, so it's amazing that
Valve continues to ignore it and the fans, but I guess without a cash flow
problem they really don't see the point in spending time developing it. A
shame.

Edit, GitHub Mirror: [https://github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-
Epistle3/blob/maste...](https://github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-
Epistle3/blob/master/Epistle3_Corrected.md)

~~~
klondike_
First of all, Valve has lost some interest in single player games [1]

Valve is also likely waiting for their new game engine, Source 2, to be
completed because Source 1 is hideously outdated by today's standards.

And finally, they're going to have to come up with something truly great to
live up to nearly 10 years of hype

[1][https://kotaku.com/5795355/valve-probably-done-with-
single-p...](https://kotaku.com/5795355/valve-probably-done-with-single-
player-games)

~~~
croon
> Valve is also likely waiting for their new game engine, Source 2, to be
> completed because Source 1 is hideously outdated by today's standards.

Source 2 was patched into Dota 2 years ago, and being patched into CS:GO this
year.

Furthermore Source 1 didn't really get outdated as such, it got iterated on
numerous times before introducing Source 2, which I assume will not be
"completed" until Source 3 gets named the next version.

~~~
klondike_
I'm assuming it's still not complete because there's still no news about a
developer SDK (I'd assume they'd love to rake in engine licensing as soon as
possible)

>Furthermore Source 1 didn't really get outdated as such, it got iterated on
numerous times before introducing Source 2, which I assume will not be
"completed" until Source 3 gets named the next version.

The main outdated thing about Source 1 is the authoring tools, which haven't
changed much since Half Life 1 was released. Source 2 is supposed to fix that.

~~~
erikj
The new authoring tools are already available for Dota 2, you can install them
in Steam.

------
x775
"Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or
recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of
rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate
course of action, and I leave you to it. Except no further correspondence from
me regarding these matters; this is my final epistle."

This feels a lot like Marc talking about Valve, no?

~~~
dejawu
If the paragraph you quoted is indeed Marc talking about Valve, then I feel
that the sentence,

> "I expect you know... the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to
> it."

points to the hope that people will take this story and create fan games with
it. Having seen the tremendous quality and effort put into the Black Mesa [0]
remake, I have great faith that the inevitable fan-made Episode 3 will live up
to expectations.

[0] [https://www.blackmesasource.com/](https://www.blackmesasource.com/)

------
tomlong
Other places[1] are referring to this as 'Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Plot', not
HL3

[1] [http://www.shacknews.com/article/101110/half-life-
episode-3-...](http://www.shacknews.com/article/101110/half-life-
episode-3-plot-leaked-by-former-valve-writer)

~~~
justsayinyaknow
With no official confirmation of either title, "HL3" has come to refer to
whatever is next in the series. I've seen tons of comments across different
sites that continue to "correct" this but I really don't think it is a
distinction that needs to be made.

~~~
naiyt
The distinction is absolutely significant. It's all about expectations. The
originally promised "HL2:Episode 3" didn't need to be some huge revolutionary
product, just a satisfying conclusion to HL2 and its episodes, while setting
up the scene for the next game. As soon as people start saying "HL3" they
expect some grandiose, ground breaking product.

The story laid out here by Marc is much closer to what you would expect from
Episode 3 rather than HL3.

~~~
justsayinyaknow
I basically meant that (generally) everyone who has been talking about HL3
over the years is just referring to the next hypothetical installment.

------
wbillingsley
Trying to imagine playing this, it sounds like they were struggling to get it
"right", and it may have kept feeling like a poor cousin of other games. In
comparison to HL1 & 2, the plot seems a bit slow-starting, ends on an actual
anti-climax instead of a cruelly-interrupted climax, and the game mechanics
(snow/stealth, map phasing, time bubbles) seem to suffer from other recent
games having done variations on these very well.

Add the inherent disappointment of not having the portal gun that everyone's
expecting to be in there somewhere, and it could feel like it was bound to
disappoint.

HL1 & HL2 did a very good job of switching genres and game mechanics from
level to level, while still keeping everything clear and centred on a simple
familiar mystery plot. The levels were able to establish their genres very
fast -- usually from the first scene you saw as the doors opened or you
rounded a corner. Everything was clear, and in both cases the motivating story
was very simple, and the "plot" was setting. You've got to get help; you've
got to get to Lambda Complex, We've got to get you through the portal to shoot
what's on the other side...

This HL3 plot seems to have got a bit "Lost" (sorry, tv series reference) as
people's motivations are uncertain and there's exposition, and an attempt to
partially unfold the mystery while always adding new ones... and still trying
to make those bug-pod things work as a villain that didn't work in Ep1 or Ep2.

Still, the bones of a good game are there. From my amateur eyes, it just looks
like it needed to stop trying to resist/subvert the viewer's expectations, and
just hit a few of the notes the player's been waiting for so they can have a
note of satisfaction on the way to the new mystery.

~~~
hacker_9
No game mechanics are mentioned in the story, so why wouldn't there be a
portal gun? Extrapolating, if one is in a time travelling ship, the portal gun
could actually generate portals between different time dimensions, and I can
already think of a ton of gameplay ideas that could use this concept.

~~~
Balgair
Using the portal gun to not only jump through space, but time as well?

Ummm, YES!

The 'structure' of the puzzles you could use that with would need to be very
tightly controlled (enemy position vectors, amount you can travel backwards in
time, maybe some sort of energy mechanic you have to pick up as you go along,
etc). But still, WOW! Jumping back to the start of a level at the very end and
you must manipulate time to accomplish the level, there is a LOT of
possibility to talk about there. I have no idea what jumping forward in time
would look like except if you went back, say 5 minutes, and then you could
only go forward again up to that 5 min mark.

However, you can't use this in a PvP manner very well, only co-op. Maybe you
could have the players ALL jump back in time except the user of the time
device who got to essentially teleport around. However, the cheesing of that
mechanic would be frustrating in the extreme.

~~~
adamrezich
You should check out the Titanfall 2 campaign. They do a thing like this and
it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a shooter.

~~~
Balgair
I wish I could!

------
trampi
"This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical
change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores"

Marc Laidlaw left Valve in January 2016. The end of the post is also probably
about Valve, as others have already figured out. I wonder what else there
might be to discover.

------
verroq
Github mirror: [https://github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-
Epistle3](https://github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-Epistle3)

~~~
Freak_NL
While the source article is overwhelmed with requests; why was the story
released this way?

~~~
wrinkl3
Apparently his NDA has just expired.

~~~
pvg
Valve's ownership of its IP surely didn't expire so this still seems pretty
odd.

~~~
scrollaway
The writer is claiming it's fanfic, and all the names have been changed.

I also suspect that if no game is going to be released, Valve will not bother
with legal action; they look bad as it is already.

~~~
grogenaut
Valve's current market idea to not really make games doesn't mean that they
don't want to take action on the ip 5, 10, 20, 50, 70 years from now and per
their rights they are in their rights to wait that long. Content creators
don't owe you a thing unless they already took your money for it.

~~~
canime
An argument for content creators not owing you anything seems to mirror that
content creators aren't owed any respect for their creations either. I mean we
have IP laws to encourage content creaters to create by ensuring they can
capitalise on their creations or perhaps to allow them to preserve the
artistic merit of these creations.

In that spirit there's probably a good argument to be made that it's in the
public interest to add to clearly incomplete bodies of work that appear to be
abandoned. Whether that's practical or does more harm to the public good is
the question.

~~~
grogenaut
Sure but what's a valid window? At 5 years Martin would have lost game of
thrones.

Also they owe you for the thing they made already. If you forced them to
complete works on your timeline then you're indenturing them.

------
97803459807
_My website 's down for now. I guess fanfic is popular, even a genderswapped
snapshot of a dream I had many years ago._

[https://twitter.com/marc_laidlaw/status/900960760481726464](https://twitter.com/marc_laidlaw/status/900960760481726464)

------
klondike_
Version with the code words replaced:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/6vwelo/i_edited_m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/6vwelo/i_edited_marc_laidlaws_conclusion_to_hl2ep3_to/)

------
hasenj
I'm not sure if I'm an idiot or if it's because English is not my native
language or what, but I find it really difficult to follow this narration
style.

Can someone give a short summary of what happened?

TD;CU (too dumb, can't understand).

~~~
davman
They go to Antarctica to find the Borealis (the ship built by Aperture Science
from Portal).

The Borealis is phasing in and out of reality. Rescue Dr Mossman from the
Combine, she has details to make the Borealis phase in for enough time to get
Freeman+Alyx+Mossman on board, chased by Combine.

While on board, discover Borealis is moving through Time as well as Space.
Mossman wants Borealis recovered for the Resistance, Alyx wants it destroyed.
They fight, Alyx kills Mossman.

Borealis reconfigured to fly through Space to Combine planet to try to destroy
it with explosion, as they arrive G-man takes Alyx off the ship, Vortigaunts
take Freeman.

Combine world too massive, powered by a Dyson sphere, Borealis explosion does
nothing.

Freeman back on Earth sometime in the future, won't take part in any more
conflict with Combine.

~~~
p49k
I haven't played the game, so I'm a bit confused: what parts of the story are
slyly referring to Valve itself rather than the HL3 story? How do you get
"welp, looks like HL3 is cancelled" based on this story?

~~~
SmallDeadGuy
The last paragraph is almost definitely about Valve:

"And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous
path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has
changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying
when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point,
the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends
have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize
most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion
still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of
action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me
regarding these matters; this is my final episode."

No more HL2:Episode N coming, the development team is too different.

~~~
Nition
Original says "my final epistle" which makes more sense contextually. But
epistle has certainly been used as a clever stand-in reference to Episode.

~~~
SmallDeadGuy
Yeah, I should have said that I copied this from the "corrected" version which
replaces the character and place references.

------
olivierva
I think a new Half Life game would be the perfect opportunity for Valve to
showcase their virtual reality kit. So far there are no blockbuster VR games
and the Half Life franchise (Portal included) has a history of being very
innovative (e.g. HL2 using a physics engine for the narrative, HL1&2: story
told through level design). There is a lot of potential to use immersive
virtual reality to enhance the story telling.

~~~
83457
They said years ago that HL3 would not be a VR focused game but I suspect that
has changed by this point. There are still issues with normal locomotion in VR
and nausea so I suspect either there will be some new idea in that realm or
HL3 will take on Portal technology to explain teleportation based movement.

------
Pica_soO
Im waiting for the fans to pick up the pieces and make it real.

~~~
wrinkl3
While someone inevitably will try, I don't see it being good. The hallmark of
the Half-Life series was not its plot, but an almost compulsive obsession with
the gameplay quality. Few professional studios could rival Valve in that, let
alone a fan project.

~~~
roblabla
I mean, I don't know if you've seen Black Mesa (the game), but they've done an
incredible job at making an HL1 reboot, with some levels drastically expanded,
a lot of things tweaked, and it's amazing how well it works.

Valve doesn't have a monopoly in gameplay quality - they're just very
consistent about it.

~~~
ssully
Black Mesa is great, but it also took over 8 years of development for first
release and it still isn't done (last I checked the Xen chapters aren't in).
So that's 13 years of development and counting.

They also had the entirety of HL1 to build the game from. Obviously they
created a ton of unique assets and reworked stuff, but they had an entire game
to work from.

Trying to make a full 'mod' of Episode 3 is nothing like Black Mesa and would
be an incredible amount of work. With that said, I would love to see someone
try.

------
whingingfanboy
The real HL3:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqRUjjuUl7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqRUjjuUl7U)

------
madspindel
Half-Life 3 confirmed dead? :(

~~~
brainary
Well "Half Life 2: Episode 3" (what this post is really about) seems to be.

------
throw2016
This would have been a treat for those who had finished episode 2 and were
waiting anxiously for the next step in the saga.

Sometimes its simply not possible to do things and fans understand but Valve
just shuttered the series and turned their back on fans. It's like Game of
Thrones suddenly deciding to close down for no obvious reason and with no
explanation to fans.

This reeks more than a little of the arrogance of success and it's in some
ways a betrayal of all the gamers who appreciated Half life for what it was
and propelled Valve to its initial success.

------
JSONwebtoken
Yeah, it never would have lived up to the hype. Explained nothing.

~~~
justsayinyaknow
Has any entry in the Half Life series really explained anything? We get little
glimpses into certain events, some from different perspectives (like the Black
Mesa incident). We never get the whole picture and what we, as the player,
know is told to us by other characters or shown through events we experience.

~~~
wbillingsley
Yes, in that HL1 & 2 played on such well known tropes that it only needed to
show you the scene and you knew the story.

The opening was laden with every disaster movie signal (up to and including
"Nothing will go wrong" said in emphatic tones). The lift doors in Office
Complex open to archetypal zombie horror. The scientist getting gunned down by
the military cover up in We've Got Hostiles hits any number of movie tropes
while clearly signalling the next bit is Rambo-style action...

It's fairly similar to the first Star Wars movie, in that because it is
hitting the tropes quickly and clearly, and jumping from setting to setting,
it can tell the story very efficiently.

~~~
justsayinyaknow
My point was there are no arbitrary narrative components like computer
terminals where you read a dead guy's email that explicitly explains the set
up in text format. Or whatever, that seems to be a really common (lazy) way to
tell a story.

I would argue that what you said is all about show vs tell. Which is a good
thing for visual media.

~~~
brianpgordon
I love those terminals and books in the Deus Ex series. They flesh out the
world with much more detail than could ever be shared in cutscenes or NPC
dialogue.

------
klondike_
It's interesting how much this differs from the storyline of the infamous
leaked HL2 Beta [1], which was based on a rough version of what became HL2,
Episode 1, and Episode 2. [1][http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Half-
Life_2_original_storyli...](http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Half-
Life_2_original_storyline#Arctic_regions)

------
stupidcar
Not much of a story really, it seems like they had no intention of actually
answering any of the mysteries around the G-Man and Alyx, but it sounds like
it would have been a fun game.

~~~
camus2
The G-man is a Deus Ex Machina, it's always a lazy plot device.

~~~
alanh
perhaps, but he transcended that. his visible and unreachable appearances at
other times, combined with his bizarre diction, made his character capture the
imaginations of many.

------
AceJohnny2
Most of the obfuscated references have been elucidated, but I'm not finding
anything for who "Dearest Playa" is. Does anyone know?

~~~
Crespyl
"Dear Player"

------
thearn4
It's a good and short read, and I accept it as closure for what I always
thought was a very well written series.

------
grwthckrmstr
Half Life 3 confirmed!

------
vectorEQ
a lot of complaints about valve. u know what people also complain about a
lot... companies milking their intelectual property.... i think half-life so
far has left a great legacy. if they ever decide to continue it , it would be
sweet. i'd hope it would be in the same fashion, shooter for pc, not VR
bullshit. but hey... still enjoying half life 1 and 2+ so fuck all the
whiners. be thankful for what you have got, not a needy little baby crying for
more!. maybe if u guys behave thankful people like gabe/marc and others
involved with what we love would listen.

