#i am very against hl 2 as a concept. i dont want a new game. i want nigh everything promised added to the og one

[superconductivebean]

It is a very small amount of people and it angers me.

Not with the Avalanche Software, besides it explains the weirdness in assets I typically describe (and they're also rookie devs; HL was their first 3D adventure game of this scale!), but with WB.

They were making the AAA-game for the stagnant franchise in the desperate attempt to make money; WB wasn't doing financially well and I don't suppose their situation improved.

When you're making a game for such a franchise, you are doomed to succeed. Yet, they cut budgets on everything, changed the engine mid-development, the writing was also on budget until the team fell apart and never picked itself back up again, and lots of things never left the earlier builds of the game, if the game code.

If not for the devs' passion to make HL enjoyable (the writing of HL is quite alright but I'd call it good actually; they tried to make it as functional as possible with keeping in mind how the characters should behave; this was how older games had their amazing writing which was basically a leap of faith more than the skillTM) and visually stunning, we'd have another Borderlands 3.

They didn't have to cut budgets. They didn't have to subscribe these people to this crunch. They had no reasons except for the Big Biznis Ones, of which nobody should really care, to release HL in its current state. But they did, and in pursuit for even more sales they made ports for PS4, prev gen of XBOX and Nintendo Switch instead of making DLCs or going the Cyberpunk2077 route of making free content updates.

Although, CDPR is kind of forced to make them — they promised a game a lot different from what we got in 2020. WB, however, also promised us another game: an RPG (HL in its current state isn't an RPG game) with meaningful choices and different endings.

So where's our HL patch 2.0?

I think this is a very interesting video! It gives behind-the-scenes info into the work that went into creating HL. It’s an interview of Lee Neuschwander who was the gameplay designer on the team working on Hogwarts Castle and he gives some info on the development of different parts of the castle.

The most shocking to me is that the team working of developing the castle only had 7 people! I don’t know anything about games development but that seems really small! And to develop such a huge castle too! There were only 4 artists on that team (including one that only came in on contract) to create all the textures and model all the objects in the castle. And some of these artists also ended up working on Hogsmeade because the Hogsmeade team only had one dedicated artist! To create the whole village!

He also keeps saying how tight the budget was for the game. The Arithmancy puzzle doors almost got cut entirely because they thought it would not fit the budget and they only made it in after some of the team put in extra hours just to finish developing them. He mentions several time how devs had to work overtime just to get some cool features into the game because they were passionate about it.

I think this really puts things into perspective. I know there’s been a lot of discussion about all the things that should not have been cut from the game and all the things that could have been more polished, that could have been done better etc. And I’m including myself in this! I have expressed frustration that Ancient Magic is not explored deep enough in the main storyline, that some world building elements (like the hooded statues, like the crests, like the murals/symbols that can be found everywhere) feel meaningless, etc. But this video made me realise how difficult it probably was to bring such a massive world and story to life with so few people and a tight budget.

Hopefully they are going to expand the team for the sequel so they don’t have to compromise so much on quality, thoroughness and all the things they want to include in the game vs. the time and budget they have.