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Half-Life 2 Going Gold on Monday? [updated]
Warrior-GS writes "According to GameSpy, Gabe Newell has announced that Half-Life 2 is going gold on Monday. Numerous retail outlets have Sept. 1 or Sept. 2 as a shelf-date for the game, so a gold announcement now seems to mean those dates are fairly close to reality." Given that HL2 is already available on Steam, this doesn't sound too far-fetched. Update: 08/28 19:27 GMT by T : Kraiger writes "According to HL2 Fallout the announcement of the futuristic FPS, "Half-Life 2", going Gold is a complete hoax! According to HL2 Fallout, the announcement from Gabe Newell, a Valve Software employee, was created by someone who was able to guess the simple password of "gaben" for Gabe's forum account."
As seen on the forums " UPDATE
After a close scrutiny of Gabe Newell’s account history on the forums, we've come to the conclusion that the gold post is a fake. While we can't be 100% certain at this stage, all indicators point towards someone hacking the forum account. That said, all Gabe's previous posts on these forums are quite legitimate.
We apologize for the confusion and will be investigating further. Theoretically, an IPB forum account should be very difficult to hack. Well, that was the theory at least. We'll keep you updated. "
The admins of HL2Fallout have already stated that they feel this is a hoax. The "Gabe Newell" post came from an IP which Gabe has never posted from before. For right now, they're erring on the side of caution.
... will go "gold" in December... 2008.
The latest from Amazon UK is that it will be available from 1st November. It was being reported as 3rd September up until yesterday. (Needless to say, I've got a pre-order in with them).
-MT.
-MT.
Info here:3 4798&page=1&pp=15
? threadid=132122
http://www.csnation.net/comments.php?id=7475
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=
http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php
All the info you need to know this is probably fake.
I think it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the release to be availiable on Steam once the game does go gold. Concievably, once they make the final build it could be up in a matter of hours. Since many people already have most of the game downloaded, this could mean that they could also be playing the game within hours of the final build being made.
SIGFAULT
Pigs have just flown. Details at 11.
Let's hope that it's not as bad as Doom 3 in matters of interactivity. Do you remember that, after the first Doom there was Duke Nukem, where you could interact in a lot of ways with the 3D environment. There were more things to do, special weapons, cameras, holoduke etc. That was then. But now, in 2004, the level of interactivity hasn't increased at all. With some exceptions, like Deus Ex and System Shock, it's still the same game as 10 years ago. Has gameplay been replaced by hype?
Oh no, not another camper...
word.
Well how do you know that until you play the game? HL 1 was very immersive I can only guess that it will be that much better. In fact playing Doom 3 feels very much like HL1 story wise. And yes I know Doom 1 had the general idea first.
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Regarding graphics its not D3 but it pretty darn good looking.
http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/492/4
The thing is D3 is all about cramped indoor environments. Hallways and Offices etc. HL2 looks to be much more in the vein of cityscapes and outdoor areas which after D3 will actually be VERY refreshing. Don't get me wrong I'm still enjoying being scared by D3(and yes headphones are the ONLY way to play!) but I'm kind of over the whole walk into dark room, have imp jump out at me. The formula while still fun gets really stale 2/3 in. And fuck are those half-baby half fly things annoying.
Anyway while Valve has really pissed me off with the delays I'm still very much looking forward to HL2. That and hitting people in the head with a crowbar. HL2 is looking to be pretty different from D3 and that's a good thing. My nerves couldn't take another creep and get scared jump fest.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Just what does "Going Gold" mean?
:)
Pre-sold x copies?
Code ready so CDs can be mastered?
Available in shops to buy?
Cracked and available on bittorrent?
CounterStrike: Condition Zero went gold twice before it came out. HL2 is gonna be so much better, it'll pry go Gold 3 times!
Uh, clearly written by somebody who has never had anything go gold... Before something is going gold, you have release candidates. You test the release candidates intensely, and if you find no bugs, then it goes gold. So you can't say on Friday that you are going gold on monday, unless you already know you have no bugs, in which case you already should have gone gold...
If this were real, he would say that they had a release candidate. The difference between an RC and Gold is testing, which is what will be happening between now and Monday...
You may want to do a bit more research about Steam before you decide to pass up on Half-Life 2. First off, a lot has changed in the nearly a year since the article you linked to was written. For starters, Steam now features a "Start in offline mode" option. When Steam starts up, if it's not connected to the internet, it lets you do that. Then, you have access to all your single player games just fine. I imagine you can also play all your LAN games just fine as well, but I haven't had an oppurtunity to try that.
Did Steam have an awful lot of problems when it was first released? Yes, it did. But, believe it or not, the people working on Steam at Valve are not some kind of evil sadists who enjoy making people jump through hoops to play their game. They've created a rather nice system for making sure your games are always updated, and giving you an easy way to purchase new games from them without having to run down to the nearest Gamestop. Problems do occur, and they try to fix them as soon as possible.
And, I certainly doubt Valve is going to make it hard for mods to be created. They aren't stupid - they know that one of the big reasons Half-Life has sold so well over the past 6 years is because of fun mods like TFC and CS. How many other 6 year old games do you see with thousands of servers running right now? Currently, they allow really popular mods to be listed in the Steam gui, with a screenshot and a short writeup. Other mods can still be played (I remember at least once getting in a game of Pirates, Vikings, and Knights over Steam) just as they always could.