Half-Life 2 Officially Delayed

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Half-Life 2 Officially Delayed

Posted by simoniker on Tuesday September 23, 2003 @08:20PM from the time-warp-technology-not-ready dept.

sm4k[X-D] writes "According to Shacknews, the PC first-person shooter Half-Life 2 has officially been delayed. They quote Valve's Doug Lombardi as saying: 'The previously announced September 30th release date for Half-Life 2 is being pushed back. We are currently targeting a holiday release, but do not have a specific 'in-store' date to share at this time. We will release that information as soon as we have confirmed a new date.'"

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Steam by Joff_NZ · 2003-09-23 20:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think one of the major reasons for this is the Steam delivery platform... the servers were hugely overloaded and there were a lot of problems for a lot of people - I expect they're going to try and iron out some of those problems before HL2 gets put out

--
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
1. Re:Steam by I(rispee_I(reme · 2003-09-23 23:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Well, you see, if they used BitTorrent, anyone with a browser or a third-party BitTorrent client could download their stuff. They'd rather make you install and beta test their reinvention of the wheel so that they can charge all of their customers monthly fees for what was once a "buy-once, enjoy forever" product.
One has to wonder by ReyTFox · 2003-09-23 20:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

Whether it's worse for their PR image and sales to delay the game or release a mess. Considering the level of anticipation involved, it might go either way.
1. Re:One has to wonder by __aafkqj3628 · 2003-09-23 22:07 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Since when does Amazon or CompUSA count as official?
2. Re:One has to wonder by Gogo+Dodo · 2003-09-24 07:54 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Delay is far better as long as the delay isn't too long (see Duke Nukem). If you delay the game, but then come out with a smash hit, nobody will remember that it was delayed a few months. However, if you publish too soon and get slammed in the reviews for not working, you're toast and will never make up the good will. You don't see many "Game v1.1" reviews out there.
  Initial impressions make all the difference.
Anyone surprised? Anyone? Bueller? by pommaq · 2003-09-23 20:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

I knew this would happen. Valve have sort of a... history with this. Team Fortress 2, anyone? In this post-Daikatana world (sorry) perhaps they should have taken a hint and reined in their hype machine a bit. Goes for ANY game developer who isn't 100% sure they can deliver on time.

Oh well. Either way, I'm not holding my breath. Yeah, it could be an awesome game, but haven't we seen enough hyped games *cough*Black&White*cough* fail to deliver on their promises? I was going to wait for the reviews anyway.
1. Re:Anyone surprised? Anyone? Bueller? by fireduck · 2003-09-24 00:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  this isn't entirely true. Half-Life Fortress was announced prior to HLs release. All online retailers had both products listed. So I think there was the expectation in Valve's mind, at last, that it was going to be released as a retail mod soon after HL was released.
  
  That obviously didn't happen. To appease all the people who bought HL in anticipation of Fortress, they released the free conversion of Team Fortress. At that point they announced that Team Fortress 2 would be a retail product to be released when it was finished. This was years ago, and the product has been demoed in various forms for quite a while now. Demonstrations of the voice - lip synching technology, screen shots, ingame video. I think Valve had every intention of releasing TF2 prior to HL2.
  
  Presumably, they'll actually release it after HL2, but who knows...
2. Re:Anyone surprised? Anyone? Bueller? by inkless1 · 2003-09-24 02:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Exactly.
  
  1) They announced TF2 years before they announced HL2
  
  2) They showed video and screens of TF2 years before they announced HL2
  
  iow, TF2 was supposed to be out well before now.
  
  My theory - TF2 was abandoned long ago, and the tech that worked has been roped into Counter-Strike. VOIP, new map views, spectator servers - all features they were using to hype TF2.
  
  There's no way Valve has the bandwidth to be producing both games at the same time. If we see TF2, it will be in 2005 or 2006. And it will be nothing like it was originally conceived.
i hate steam. by fireduck · 2003-09-23 23:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

as I mentioned in the previous thread on Steam, I have had nothing but horrible experiences with it.

Valve tells everyone to download the steam+content version (the 300+ mb file) after the small steam file fails for a lot of people. Sure, I got that, install it (after scouring the net looking for a site that doesn't have a 300+ person waiting list). And when I go to install the games that already have the content in the steam file, it instead goes to the net to download it. ??? I want to play Day of Defeat, it takes me 2 days to eventually download the content (even though there's a 358 mb file already sitting there).

And the program doesn't even really tell me that it is downloading stuff, unless I go out of my way to find out. You click a game, and it freezes the system nicely. One has to alt-tab, back to steam, to check the monitor to see what's going on.

First time you then actually play a game, for some reason it takes 10-20 minutes to validate resources. And during this point, I don't know if it's validating or downloading new content (as it apparently has done both on me).

There is NO way they can use this to distribute HL2. Gamers want their games now. They don't want to wait 3-4 days to get a game online, when they can drive to the store and go home 15 minutes later with the product...
Valve respect ... by GoofyBoy · 2003-09-24 00:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

... just went down in my eyes.

Don't say anything you can't do. If you have to say "When its done" up until its in boxes waiting to be FeEx-ed then do that.

First you said Sept 30, then denied when your parent company said the end of the year, then days before the deadline, you say you can't get it out.

Get your crap together.

--
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Not all delays are evil... by wickedj · 2003-09-24 01:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

Valve's original Half-Life was an incredible game although very buggy (but fixed with patches). I have no doubt they can release a similarly excellent game. Just because it's delayed doesn't mean it will be infinitely delayed.

Blizzard for example is notorious for delays in releasing their games. But when they do, they are, in a word, spectacular.

As far as Steam goes, yes it's having major issues at the moment. But you have to give Valve credit for trying something different (I'm not saying new because I know that someone has probably done it before). If they can get it to work properly, more power to them.

It would be great to see developers released from using publishers. It means lower prices for us and more creative freedom for the developers.
Typical by ZeeCog · 2003-09-25 02:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Everyone here claiming that they've lost respect for Valve and are now going elsewhere will be playing the game the day it comes out and raving about how cool it is. Mark my words.

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-Zeecog