Newell On Half-Life 2 Delay

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday October 1, 2003 @01:41PM from the bated-stinky-headcrab-breath dept.

Thanks to GameSpot for their brief interview with Valve's Gabe Newell, in which he discusses when the ravenously-awaited Half-Life 2 will finally come out. He laments: "I hate release dates because no matter how hard we try, we screw them up. We held back talking about our release date going into September 30th because I wanted to have a much clearer idea of what day we were going to ship on." As for an actual day, he offers: "Right now all we can say is holidays of this year, which to me feels really unfortunate." Elsewhere, Newell refuses to elaborate on the little-known multiplayer modes for the game, saying they're "...something we're not talking about because we want to keep it as a surprise for our customers as we roll into our launch cycle."

15 of 46 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Wrong questions by Pentagram · 2003-10-01 13:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

They missed asking the basic question - why was the game delayed? - and the supplemental: how did you not manage to realise that the game would require another 3 months development until only a week before the supposed release date?
1. Re:Wrong questions by desenz · 2003-10-01 14:04 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  My guess, (as outlandish and wrong as it probably is) is that they probably found out the game was easily hackable. Big name game, easy hack, on Kazaa and BT in hours. Pure speculation of course. Don't take it seriously. I have no idea why it was really delayed.
2. Re:Wrong questions by Babbster · 2003-10-01 14:17 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  You've stumbled onto the state of gaming "journalism." The hard questions don't get asked and every upcoming game is exciting and interesting.
  In this case, though, they did ask your first "why" question and Mr. Newell answered by citing play-testing. Still, like virtually all game industry "interviews," it's a [very] thinly veiled advertisement for Half-Life 2.
  It's too bad that real journalism school graduates cost more money to hire than people with BAs in English Lit who've always dreamed of a job in the video game industry...
3. Re:Wrong questions by The+Munger · 2003-10-01 15:39 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I think this post a little further down adds a lot to this argument. Keep in mind that they never publicly stated that that would be the release date until (as you say) about a week before hand - The only reason people thought it was Sept 30 before that was leaks from other sources. They've been working on this project since the end of the last decade. You can't claim that a few weeks off in a schedule that is a few years long is really that bad.
  
  And then there's the other question, do we care that much? There are other things to do with your life for a couple of weeks. I'm glad they're taking their time - the game will probably be more stable. For that extra 1% of enjoyment from not getting blue screens, I'm willing to wait a little.
  
  --
  Refuse to make a statement in your sig!
4. Re:Wrong questions by Black+Hitler · 2003-10-01 16:35 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Well announced a delay and then followed that up a few weeks later with the announcement of an ATI/HL2 bundle.
  Except it's not a real bundle. It's the card plus a voucher. The cards are due out in something like three weeks IIRC, there's no way on god's earth HL2 will be ready by then.
5. Re:Wrong questions by Dot.Com.CEO · 2003-10-01 19:00 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  As a person who has worked in the editorial business, albeit not as a journalist, let me assure you 100% that the first "hard" question you asked a "celebrity" would be your last one as he/she would not only walk out but you'd be blacked out from all subsequent events. Also, I don't understand how someone with a BA in Journalism would be better writing for a gaming site than, say, one with no formal qualifications. You need to like games, understand how they work and be able to see through the hype. Gamespy, gamespot and ign are not fan gaming sites, they are industry fed sites and if you think you will see hard hitting commentary there, you are living in a world of your own. Even the excellent gamespot "gamespotting" features are harmless little ramblings.
  
  --
  Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Phew - I can delay the upgrade a little longer... by quinkin · 2003-10-01 14:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

Phew - I can delay the upgrade a little longer...
Seriously though, my upgrade cycle is dictated far more by games than anything else. Despite the fact that I rarely have time to play them...
Q.

--
Insert Signature Here
Clearly the multiplayer modes by Tim_F · 2003-10-01 14:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

Will centre around the long awaited Team Fortress 2. I seriously doubt that Valve would just shelve all of the effort that they put into that product. Besides, games along the lines of Natural Selection have helped to get players used to the RTS as FPS gameplay that TF2 will herald.
1. Re:Clearly the multiplayer modes by Babbster · 2003-10-01 14:45 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  This is less clear than you might think. While it would certainly be good of Valve to give us Team Fortress 2 (or its equivalent) as a free bonus with Half-Life, given their development of Steam as a revenue-generating content delivery service I think it's unlikely. It's it far more likely that it will be an add-on pack that will cost extra for all those people who choose not to buy Half-Life on the Steam subscription plan.
2. Re:Clearly the multiplayer modes by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-01 15:47 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Actually, I believe our good friend Gabe has confirmed that TF2 will not be a free add-on for HL2.
Project Management by SandSpider · 2003-10-01 15:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yeah, there's this thing, it's called "Project Management." It's where you figure out how long things are going to take to do, and you make sure they happen in the right amount of time.

I know, sometimes it's tough. Usually it's the most difficult when you have someone telling you that you have to have something done by X time, and you know that time is clearly impossible, but they make you plan for it anyways. That's not the case here, though.

The case here is more likely that they don't know how to plan for QA. I would be willing to bet that they think that Quality Assurance means "Testing the game at the end and fixing the bugs."

Good project managers know that QA is planned for from the beginning, and that you know, from experience and extrapolation, how longs things will take to do. Most importantly, be able to know when you're done. Usually the answer is and ideal, "When we test a couple of times and there are no bugs," though that usually works out to be, "When we test a couple of times and there are no bugs we can't fix by the first or second patch." There are other, better ways to know when you're done testing, if it's part of your complete project plan.

=Brian

--
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
1. Re:Project Management by bfandreas · 2003-10-01 18:55 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Good point. But you can only plan for a test phase. The outcome of it is not plannable. Experienced programmers can estimate how much time they need for a task. Experienced project managers know how to put these estimates into a plan. And yet many release dates slip. Quite a few books have been written about this subject. Many of them are propably older than you.
  
  In my experience a project plan is a sequence of things that are most unlikely to happen. One more MS Project plan exported to an Excel spreadsheet with my name on it and I'll go postal. Nobody likes release dates. Only marketing and management do. To us it means overtime. And you don't even remotely know about the quality of the plan in the first place. Any plan that involves people and how they work together is bound to fail from the beginning.
  
  Hope I don't sound too bitter. Still got all of my annual leave. And part of my 2002 leave. And enough overtime. I could leave my desk now and not return till the end of january 2004.
  
  The techies and artists at valve have my smpathy.
  
  --
  20 minutes into the future
The last time somebody wouldn't talk ... by Nice2Cats · 2003-10-01 17:21 · Score: 2, Funny

... about some great new surprising feature, it was Master of Orion 3's Harvester race. Man, and what a great game that turned out to be.
Common, people, this isn't a film or a novel. If they are unwilling to discuss the concept with the gaming public at large, it sounds very much like their afraid it is going to be a shitty idea. If they believe in the multiplayer mode, they'd be screaming it from the rooftops to build up suspense.
This doesn't sound good at all.
Lets not forget to mention by gedanken · 2003-10-01 20:11 · Score: 4, Informative

That the source code to the freaken game was just leaked to the public!

Yeah that could lead to some delays.
1. Re:Lets not forget to mention by ymgve · 2003-10-02 01:28 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Why would a source code leak mean delays? It's not like somebody stole the source and they don't have it anymore..