Half-Life 2 Targeted for Summer Release

Gudlyf writes "According to CNN Money, Valve's director of marketing Doug Lombardi announced that the company is 'currently targeting this summer for the completion of Half-Life 2'. From the article: 'Valve does not plan to reveal any additional information until the time surrounding the E3 trade show, where the game will once again be shown this year. E3 will be held in Los Angeles May 12-14.'" The game was delayed following a previously covered code leak, and the article also notes: "Arkane Studios, an independent French developer that created the critically-acclaimed role-playing game 'Arx Fatalis,' has licensed [Half-Life 2's Source engine] for a forthcoming title [as has Troika's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines]."

Comments

Until then, there's always...

[tcopeland]

...DOOM.

With updated source code available, plenty of improvements, and lots of ways to create your own maps, there's plenty to do before HL2 comes out!

Re:Until then, there's always...

[grub]

I'm going bananas waiting for Thief 3 :(

At least ThiefMissions.com has new missions to play for Thief, Thief Gold and Thief 2.

Mod me to oblivion but I must have Thief 3!!

Re:Linux version?

[MooCows]

Nope, Half-Life 2 is pure DirectX only (versions 6 to 9, quite impressive compatibility really).

So unless you'd want to fight through it with WineX, you'll not be able to run it on Linux.

HL2 is by the way the main reason I still have a windows box running here ;)

Halflife 2 Trailer

[Unreal7000]

For those who haven't seen the video, check it out here: http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_halflife2_v ol1.wmv

Re:Time to upgrade

[MooCows]

Here's an article on 64bit HL2

" We have learned today from AMD and confirmed with Valve here at E3 that there will be a x86-64 port of the Half Life 2 client. This is in addition to the x86-64 port of the Counterstrike server that will be available soon. We saw the Half Life 2 demonstration and it looked amazing."

Re:This game is going to suck.

[ZorbaTHut]

What I keep wondering is, why don't they, say, *make it not quite as hackable*?

It's not like we don't know how to do it. You don't send the client information that they don't need (say, the position of players that they can't see), and you check to make sure the returned data is sane (for example, the player is traveling on foot more slowly than 200mph, the player isn't walking through solid obstacles, etc.)

Obviously it's not nearly as possible to get rid of things like bots - we're pretty much stuck with those - but we should at least be able to constrain it to bots that play by the rules. Why *was* Half-Life so cheatprone?

Re:What's the Counter Strike on OS X scoop?

[Aqua OS X]

Something weird happened with the port of that game. It was being done years ago, and then the project was canned.

Since then Sierra games have been nonexistent on the Mac. Why? Who knows. Sierra is probably reluctant to hand their games over to third party developers.

Not everything is about Linux

[Kor49]

The number of Linux servers was actually a reason why HL had so many players.

No, the reason why HL has had so many players is because people like the game. People wanted to play it, so they set up servers. Valve released a linux server because it's a good idea, so people often chose to set up linux servers.

After this it became clear that Valve really didn't give a damn about rewarding the Linux community with a client version. Much to the opposite, HL2 was being tought from the ground up to be Windows-only.

Umm, why should they reward anybody ? They didn't ask anyone to set up linux servers. There are perfectly well running windows servers. They just gave you the option, and you took it.

To make it short I sold my HL CD's, shut the servers down and replaced them with Q3 and UT. Many Linux admins were doing the same, since it really looked like Valve was spitting in the face of the people that helped them. I have never touched HL since then (nor any of the mods).

So you care more about what OS the game server is running than the game itself ? Btw, I guess most people care more about the game than the server's OS. As you can see from gamespy.com's stats page, HL has (maybe ten times) more players than Q3 and UT players combined.

So, basically, I believe in supporting companies that support me (and the Linux community) for their effort. With so many good games of the genre available for Linux it isn't even difficult.

"Your support effort" is nothing compared to "the real work they actually have to do" in order to get a DirectX 9 game running on linux (and btw, it is actually difficult).

Stop the lies!

[unsigned integer]

The game was delayed following a previously covered code leak

No! The game was delayed because the GAME WAS NOT DONE. Come on people! Do some reading and digging before you post shit about Valve/HL2. I know not everyone can be an expert on the Valve code-theft scandal, but I'm tired of reading the same old story with the same old misinformation. I wish Valve would fess-up to the fact that they were either:

A) Going to ship a basically unfinished game and use the masses as beta-testers (maybe even alpha!)

B) Just keep silently delaying it without further explanation.

C) Pull a Duke-Nukem Forever "When it's done" stance.