Ten-Year Anniversary Half-Life Convention

14th January 2007

Introduction

Next year, 2008, sees the tenth anniversary of the release of Half-life. Since we live in a decimal system it only seems fitting that it is commemorated in some special way. I’ve been thinking about how to do that here on PlanetPhillip but still have plenty of time to play with ideas. However, on a much bigger note I think we should petition Valve to organize a convention.

Seriously

Imagine a two or three day convention with the typical events that happen at those sorts of things: guest speakers, demonstrations, discussion groups, workshops for playing and mapping, Q and A sessions with the developers, meet the voices sessions, trivia quizzes etc etc. The list must be huge.

Where?

Somewhere in the desert would be cool or better still some disused military base, similar to Black Mesa. Okay, back to reality, just a regular convention center would be fine preferably in my home town, B.E.C. maybe?. But failing that I suppose somewhere in the USA. Actually there should be three North America, Europe and the Far East.

Would you go?

If I could afford the flight, because let’s be honest there would only be one in the world and that would be in the States, then yes. If enough people reply too this post then perhaps we can really contact Valve and see what they say.

What do you think?

Online Petition Live!

View and Sign the petition!

32 Comments

  1. cubedude89

    Do they hold conventions in chicago.
    That would be cool. Then I could go!

  2. firba1

    Why not Indianapolis? I went there for GenCon and that place is HUGE! It would be perfect.

  3. I think we should be more concerned with convincing Valve than choosing where we want it. I’d go to the South Pole if they held it there.

    Well, maybe not the South Pole, but you get the idea.

  4. Fluffy The Hamster

    I would go in the Combine outfit. I’d get the outfit for other people so that we can go in as a squad :/.

  5. Phillip, why don’t you start an online petition for everybody to sign? People who visit here could sign it. The people who visit here who have their own websites (if they felt like it) could include links on their pages to sign it as well. If you send a lot of e-mails to people (who you know are interested in gaming), put a link at the bottom of the e-mail, too. When I say “you”, I don’t mean you personally. I mean anybody who is interested in really getting something like that going. After you get so many people who have signed, you could then send it to Valve & see what they say.

  6. Zeroth404

    Kind of like QuakeCon, only… a Half-LifeCon.

  7. Phillip, why don’t you start an online petition for everybody to sign?

    Good Idea.

    I have created an online petition and it can be viewed and signed here:
    View and Sign the petition!

    It has one spelling mistake and somehow added too many lines between each sentence and I have a support ticket waiting to be actioned. Once the petition is corrected I may post it on the Steam forums and also some of the other big HL sites just to see the response.

    Of course you, the reader, could also help by spreading the word.

  8. Phillip, you know how you have the boxes at the top of your site with info? Well, is there any way to do something like that for the petition so ANYBODY that happens across your site can see it clearly on every page? I’m sure there’s a lot of passerby’s just looking for stuff to d/l who would normally miss something like that.

    Readers: Help spread the word!!

  9. is there any way to do something like that for the petition

    Good Idea, I’ll see what I can create later today.

  10. David

    Signed the petition. Im in, sounds like it could be interesting. I never understood why Quake had such a large following since none of them had any sort of a story until Quake 4 (Quake 2 I guess had a story, but it was a story summed up in one sentence).
    However, Half-Life has now seemed to surge past Quake and Doom in popularity (largely due to the modding community I believe). So a Half-Life Con is only fitting.

    Cheers
    David

  11. Here are the forums I have posted the details to so far:
    Ten Four
    Starfox
    Steam
    HLFallout
    PlanetHalfLife

    I can’t believe how negative and childish some of those replies are. That’s the main reason I stopped posting to other forums because of the way people behave. I will never allow that to happen to my forums.

    If you post the details on other forums please be kind enough to add the link here, so that I can keep track of replies. Thank you.

  12. Joe Fino

    I agree, do it up.

  13. firba1

    You’ll never know…

  14. Love the banner up top Phillip. Very eye catching. Don’t pay attention to what little minded people say on other forums. They are probably not old enough to vote for anything (yet), or they’ve probably never taken enough incentive in their lives to ever vote for anything with that mentality of “oh, it’ll never work”. If you don’t voice your opinion, nothing changes. Or worse, somebody else changes things for you which is not to your liking. It never hurts to try.

    “The wise, teach without telling, allow without commanding, have without possessing, care without claiming.”

  15. Fluffy The Hamster

    HLFallout has two things: Anti-americans and Pessimists. The hatred for America is already a popular fad these days and pessimism always stems from a community that is fast on ideas and slow on progress. You can’t blame them for the lack of vote mentality when they live on a world that put’s little power on their voice.

  16. I can see your point & without making this a political debate, I’ll just point a few things out. Communism in Russia/China. Women’s right to vote. Freeing slaves. Those are just off the top of my head. Where was it that I read or heard “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government; the government should be afraid of their people”. While this isn’t a political platform, it never hurts to try. One’s person voice can change everything … & no, I’m not going into song of “Kumbaya” or “give peace a chance”. LOL

  17. I post hardly anywhere except here.I do it because I think people are more mature etc.. otherwise no one would know I existed.I also happen to be a mod person and like to help people who have problems installing as I know some are a bitch to work,so I investigate as best I can and try an find a workable solution.It’s my nature to help.

    Phillip gonna get mad cause we took it off topic agin lol.

  18. I’m sure & I just got finished begging his forgiveness. 🙁

  19. Anonymous

    I *was* talking about the internet.. Not this world..

  20. Oh, sorry! My misunderstanding.

  21. Just who are you Anonymous since its your first post in this topic?Are you fluffy and you forgot to clear the fields again?

  22. Fluffy The Hamster

    It keeps alternating between using my name and not using my name. Annoying.

  23. I’ve just sent Mr Newell an email suggesting the convention idea.

    It’s the second email I have sent him (the first was about something completely different) and I didn’t receive a reply to the first, so I doubt I will receive one to this mail.

    Somebody suggested an online version and that is probably much more doable. It’s probably even possible WITHOUT Valve’s involvement, although I’m sure it would be much better with.

    Fluffy: When you post you comments does it show your correct details in the relevant boxes (Name, Mail and Website)?

  24. Actually that’s not true I did once send him an email about an illegal version of HL and he responded quickly.

  25. Passerby

    What a great idea!

    However, it is probably physically impossible to organize a convention of such a scale on time to hold it in 2008 (unless one has the funds and logistics of the US army).

    The on-line convention sounds like a truly excellent idea, but that too IMHO, would require a professional, salaried, team to manage and promote it, let alone funds for the systems to run it.

    I suppose it could be done by volunteers, but these would need to be volunteers with a lot of time and dedication and funds would still be required for advertising and systems.

    Perhaps Valve would be willing to provide funding? Perhaps some of the hardware manufactures? In any case, they would probably ask for a pretty detailed business plan before doing so.

    The first requirement, however, is to build a strong base of support for the idea. Once the buzz gets going, it will be infinitely easier to find volunteers and attract funds. Maybe there is a starting PR company out there that would be willing to do work in exchange for free publicity, maybe there are several… After all, we are potentially talking about millions of Half-Life fans.

    It might be a good idea to pitch the idea on utterly-non-gaming sites, such as start-up business forums, to see if there might be any interest from such quarters….

    My 2cents in any case.

    (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if PP setup and organized the whole thing by himself in one of his chronic bouts of hyper-productivity…)

    😉

  26. As of today we have received 68 signatures, so it’s safe to say this was another failure!

    Don’t worry failure doesn’t concern me too much because with so many ideas (Not to sound too big-headed) but some are bound to failure.

    I’ve removed the ugly banner I had in the header section and added the link in the projects section.

    I have learnt something from it, so at least I have gained.

    regarding the email to Mr. Newell, I got a read receipt but have received nothing to date. Maybe they are discussing it, who knows.

    In answer to passerby’s comment about me organizing it, I think that would be too big even for my ego to manage!

  27. for this one it’s nor a failure if you could have add something to steam sothat people who played online could sign it defenetly would have work better. I could have put a link on vossey you on city17.ru and you would have more signature for shure but if you wish to collect thousand then you need to go to purshase store and make people sign a paper

  28. Don’t worry about putting a link on vossey or city17 I didn’t really believe that Valve would listen to us, it was more to gain a little extra publicity. Valve will organize a convention if THEY feel it’s the right thing to do NOT because we want one.

  29. Well, gee Phillip. It’s only been like what, 5 days or something? Of course it’s a failure.

  30. Ade

    I’m no 82.. sry I woke up this late.. Any more ideas would be futile, I guess..

  31. Any more ideas would be futile, I guess..

    Probably. Valve never replied to my emails, so they either hated the idea or are working on it in secret.

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