Earlier this week, tens of thousands of users joined a Steam group dedicated to playing Half-Life 2 on Saturday between 2 and 2:30 p.m. EST, as a demonstration calling on Valve to get its ass in gear and release, or at least officially confirm work on Half-Life 3. How'd it turn out? It was either a great success or a disappointment, depending on your point of view.

I'll go with "success," as the game's numbers shot from 3,000 to more than 13,000 during the protest window, rocketing Half-Life 2 into the top 20 and just short of the top 10 (organizers note that it peaked at No. 11. The figures represent concurrent players.)

Now, when we first reported on this Tuesday, there were 30,000 members of the group. There are now 50,000. So less than half who originally backed this cause actually logged in to do so. And there's no assurance that Valve will acknowledge the demonstration or do anything in response to it.

Still, moaning and groaning over Half-Life 3 is something that takes place every day on gaming interest sites all over the Internet. This was actually a productive action, as it showed Valve that customers still love their games enough to play them seven years after release, rather than abuse Gabe Newell's email to demand one.

"I am personally impressed with what we've achieved today," the organizer wrote. "We're nowhere near done—in fact, we are currently in the process of planning new activities; this was only our first attempt, and, in my eyes, was a success for everyone." It's a success in my eyes, too.

A Red Letter Day: 13,216 fans play Half-Life 2 [Steam. h/t Mythos]

We've written about the very cool blog "Mapstalgia" before, where Josh Millard is collecting drwaings from users who re-create levels from their favorite video games from memory.

He's still at it, and has added a whole bunch of new maps, from Tony Hawk Pro Skater to Halo: Combat Evolved to the below map of the first eight levels of Half-Life as drawn by user Corinthian.

Man, that Corinthian fellow sure has one impressive memory! He even remembers where the enemies were. I think my own recollection of the first eight levels of Half Life would be pretty vivid up until the part where the scientist falls down the elevator shaft, then it would sort of fall apart.

Check out the full drawing below, or view the high-res version here.

They're still taking submissions, so break out your pen and paper and go send something in!

Mapstalgia [Official Site]

Or is it a protest for Half-Life 3? Whatever.

The point being, This weekend over 30,000 members of a Steam group will sit down and play Half-Life 2. Calling themselves "A Call for Communication", the group says "we have decided to gain Valve's attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication."

That "better communication" would come in the form of any communication as to the whereabouts of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or as it's more commonly believed to be these days, simply Half-Life 3.

Will it work? Probably not. But hey, any excuse to play through Half-Life 2 again is a good excuse!

A Call for Communication [Steam]

Black Mesa is an independent remake of the original Half-Life that's been in development since the end of the First World War. It hasn't been seen for years. Most people now assume the remake, like Half-Life 3 itself, is an apparition. A mirage.

But...maybe not. After such a long blackout, the webmaster of the project's current site has posted a note on its forums, saying:

It was said that once the soundtrack is released, one could expect the launch of black mesa two weeks after. I can now say that a new website will be launched with the soundtrack in preparation for the mod. Fuck if we care about the current website. Just take a good look at it because it will be gone soon enough.

Could be good news, could be more teasing. The only sure thing being it's a bummer the old website is going away, which has me using the words "HOT SHIT" in the only piece of promotional quotage I've ever personally endorsed.

Hubicorn [Black Mesa]

Reader Michael has spent over 100 hours putting together this music video, in which the narration from Godspeed You! Black Emperor's The Dead Flag Blues is played over visuals from Half-Life 2.

Impressive stuff.

Republished from Rock, Paper Shotgun.

Valve have created themselves an interesting situation. Presenting themselves as bastions of consumers, remarkably accessible to gamers, regularly inviting in groups of modders – often to give them jobs – and always being present to offer a quote on how customers deserve to be treated with more dignity, they establish themselves as being our friend. And then from that position, they sure do like to muck about. And as Eurogamer's Tom "Tom Bramwell" Bramwell mentioned on Twitter this morning, it's hard not to sympathise with a growing body of Valve's customers who are asking for better communication.

No one has a clue what they're up to. Games are sometimes announced moments before release, or years in advance and then nothing but silence. Sometimes when they tease it's obscure, frustrating ARGs that eventually end in a new pretend hat. Other times it's a complete open door and everything revealed. They hide clues in so many places that people end up scouring everything they do for a hint, a glimpse, of something that might suggest they'll eventually return to the Half-Life universe proper. They've turned gamers into pseudo-schizophrenics, people frantically trying to find patterns in the random, believing there are hidden messages within their communications. But does anyone have a "right" to know what's going on with the Half-Life series.

Clearly not. It's absolutely Valve's prerogative if they want to never make another Half-Life game again, and concentrate only on adding new hats to TF2. And should they tell us they're doing that? No – why should they? They are a privately owned company, without shareholders to answer to, not required to reveal their plans to anyone.

Should they tell anyone what they're up to? I think it's probably about time they did.

For many years Valve have ridden a wave of remarkably good grace. Developing and releasing extraordinarily good games gets you a long way, and Valve have consistently proven themselves to be the best in the world at what they do. From the astonishing shake up of gaming that Half-Life caused, to the zenith of the FPS, still unbeaten seven years later, Half-Life 2, and then the excellent Episodes, both Left 4 Deads, the Portal games, and TF2… there is no other record like it in gaming. There's a reason Valve has the reputation it has.

But their peculiar secrecy doesn't seem to do them any obvious favours. When they revealed the existence of DOTA 2 or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the gaming press was obviously extremely eager to give this as much coverage as possible. They're Valve games, so there's an extremely good chance they'll be very good. (Not guaranteed of course. There's always Ricochet, conspicuously absent from their Games page.) Readers want to know about them, sites want details about them, and Valve wants the coverage. It all works.

So when they go quiet, after two episodes of a promised a three part episodic series of Half-Life games, it's understandable that people get annoyed. No, no one has the right to know – it's absolutely their private business, and they may keep it as underwraps as they wish. But I'd suggest at this point, this many years into what is now appearing quite a farce, it's doing damage to their reputation.

Clearly the actions of Axel "Ago" Gembe were absolutely unjustifiable, and the leaking of Half-Life 2 scarred Valve very badly. Gembe's given motivation was his frustration about the lack of information being released about the game, and his eventual discovery that Valve weren't revealing quite how far from finished the game was. Leaking the code was a stupid and cruel act, and Simon Parkin's wonderful article about his attempts to broker peace between the two many years on shows that Valve are still hugely angry and upset about it. None of it should ever have happened, but what I find peculiar is that Valve apparently learned no lessons about the frustration they generate in their most dedicated fans.

The silence over Episode 3, or what for seemingly no reason most now think will be Half-Life 3, is infuriating. And not because we deserve to know about it, nor because Valve have any obligation to say. But unfortunately, Valve have confused us. They act in an extraordinarily open way in so many cases, with remarkable access via email, and an engagement with the community that's the envy of the gaming world. While they of course receive backlashes, and there is a contingent of Angries who will always hate them, the goodwill they receive is enormous. This, combined with their more recent engagement with complex ARGs and hiding clues everywhere, has given the impression that they want to share what's going on with us. And that confuses us.

If Episode 3 went horribly wrong, it would be fascinating to know. If they developed the game and it was complete arse, it wouldn't damage Valve's reputation for saying so. If it's been in ongoing development, constantly iterated and improved upon, perhaps even morphing into Half-Life 3, everyone would be so excited to hear. If they just ran out of ideas, or got bored of Freeman, we'd love to know why.

So no, of course Valve has no obligation, and we have no right, to know what's happening. But I'm struggling to think of a reason why it would harm them to keep us up to date. Were they a completely secretive organisation, unreachable, who only announce a new game the day it comes out, then our expectations would be somewhere else. But it is the confusion of the contradiction of Valve's surprising openness and closed secrecy that leads to the bewildered frustration of their audience.

If you've got Half-Life 2 and Garry's Mod you should really go and download this free mod called Elevator: Source. It's about being stuck in an elevator with strangers. Internet strangers. And the elevator can take you anywhere.

That really is it. It's like Chatroulette meets Half-Life. You'll end up in an elevator with....well, freaks, and when the doors open, you could be anywhere.

Get it at the link below.

Elevator: Source [Pixeltail, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]