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Half-Life 2 Officially Delayed
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.'"
Maybe it's because they want to make sure their GNU/Linux port is perfect.
HAHAHAH!
But I digress. I'm really not looking forward to this game. You can mod me down for my opinion if you want, but it's how I feel. This is the first engine they have done completely on their own. I have little doubt that there will be massive problems that they will blame on either hardware or drivers because that is what Valve does. It doesn't take long to look at the long history of problems with HL that were blamed on drivers or hardware that Valve ended up fixing silently with patches later. They seem to have problems fessing up to issues with their products. Don't get me wrong, I'm STILL completely addicted to counterstrike. But Valve didn't make Counter Strike did they?
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Could Valve have fucked up more this past month? A lot of people I know, Valve has lost all credibility now. I've never seen a softco's status sink so quick. In a month they've
1) Screwed the CS 1.6 beta testers by removing the bots, with no official comment from Valve.
2) ROYALLY bollocksed up the release of Steam, to a degree that most MMORPG's could point and laugh at. Be playing your favourite games in minutes they said... HAHAH! More like weeks.
3) Delaying Half Life 2.
Let's not forget that Condition Zero was originally scheduled for around October 2001!
In short, Valve, in just a few short weeks, have royally fucked up any good will they had amongst a good chunk of the gaming community. The fanboys will still be there, but a lot of the people who loved Valve, but weren't fanboys will now go elsewhere. Will they go bankrupt over all this? Nah, but the profits for the company will sure take a hit.
Blatantly they want it out for christmas to get all that xmas present money...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I seriously want to hurt anybody who drags TF2 into a HL2 delay discussion. TF2 was only delayed because they had this little game called Half-Life 2 they wanted to work on instead, and they wanted to use its engine for TF2 also.
I bet that before 2004 is over, both TF2 and CS2 will be released. Just wait and see.
If you check here http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/235059.asp
You will see a ship date of Nov. 14th. It has been at that ship date for a few weeks. I have learned to check what dates retailers are using as ship dates before I get too excited.
Just read the preview of Doom 3 that just came out. Kept wondering.
1. Okay, when I played Doom, I didn't notice much of a story. Just a lot of aliens running about in James Cameron-land.
2. Now, we're told that Doom _had_ a story. Seems that scientists were doing research that got out of hand, and suddenly creaturs from another planet began zapping in through the Dimensional Vortexes, or something.
3. Which was Half-Life's story.
4. Not only that, but in Doom 3, we now have nonplayer characters, like injured scientists, who offer assistance and aid to the player. These are not cut-scenes, but are rendered in real-time in the game engine.
5. Which was Half-Life's biggest innovation over Quake.
I get the feeling that Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 will continue to be delayed, as they each encounter delays in order to play catch-up to the other's latest media release.
I say we make'em show each other their games, and give'em a two-month deadline afterwards.