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Half-Life 2 Submitted to VU For Approval
Dreadlord writes "After years of rumors, leaks, and delays, Neowin reports that the release candidate for Half-Life 2 has been sent to VU Games for approval. Valve's director of marketing confirmed the story to GameSpot yesterday. "Yes, the release candidate went to VUG yesterday," he said. First words on the submission came from Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, "The RC went to VU yesterday," read Newell's one-line post on the hl2fallout.com forums."
In case anyone wonders whether the Gabe Newell post again came from his compromised forum account, Steve Gibson at Shacknews has contacted him to verify validity and it is indeed legit.
I should have linked to this in the story, here it's anyway:
[...] Valve has announced that they will be delivering an RC (release candidate) to Vivendi around the 15th of this month. That does not mean that HL2 will be out immediately thereafter. Vivendi will still have to approve the RC, a process that could take another two or three weeks, depending on their QA department and how fit the RC is to be released. If it were rejected, Valve would have to cook up another one and submit that for approval. Once an RC is approved, we should get a "gone gold" announcement. Those of you who preloaded HL2 and intend to buy it online would *may* be allowed to purchase it shortly afterward and start playing it once you've downloaded the last few files (I'm still not certain whether Valve contractually obliged to wait until it's on the shelves - I don't have Fragmaster's psychic spy network). For those of you still intending to buy a physical copy, it would be at least another few weeks before the game hit the shelves; duplication, packaging and shipping take a while. Damn our lack of transporters. - Jabberwocky
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Then what? NOTHING. They've done NOTHING since then.
They have been developing half life 2... they could have released 3 other generic doom clones like every other company and raked in the money... but instead chose to invest money in developing something better.
The multiplayer was lack-luster and end of the game was weak.
The end was weak, the multiplayer was lackluster because they focused on single player. They also gave you TFC for nothing.
They bought a mod team and distributed a half-baked copy of a great mod.
half baked? the game was a freebie, stop whinging about getting something for free. It was meant to generate publicity for TF2 to those who had never played TF. I personally luved TFC.
They waited until another mod that they had nothing to do with became popular, (an internet phenomenon actually) and bought that one as well.
Good for them! I wish i'd bought it. Your forgetting that counterstrike only became popular because so many people bought half life in the first place and counterstrike was a free addon.
They took a shot at a Guiness record for most re-releases of the exact same product
True, but then that only works if people want to still buy it.
They've been riding the on the success of amatuer mod teams since the beginning.
Rubbish. Half Life single player was amazing and thats why people bought it. I didn't play any games for years after half life because nothing else compared. The mods came later and eventually took over, as expected because they are all multiplayer and have longer laster appeal than single player.
purchasers were simply buying it as a platform for the much anticipated (still) Team Fortress 2
No, TF2 was always going to be a separate game. When i bought half life i bought it for half life.. i didn't even know TFC or Counterstrike were going to be released when i bought it.
However, there's very little else in their entire history to credit valve with...except extreme luck.
A great game doesn't come through extreme luck, they put more thought into HL than any other first person shooter to that point and thats why it was popular. I believe they'll do the same thing with HL2 which is why i'll buy it. I didn't bother buying D3 because i knew it would be just another pretty but ultimately soulless ID game.
Half-Life rocked the boat when it first game came out and its impact changed how fps shooters are made period. I agree that we can't really bash Valve for HL2 they're working to get it out ASAP. However they should inform the public that, yes, it is taking a little longer than expected.
Arguably they've released the same game over and over again for the last 5-6 years but at $20 for the complete package of all of the new releases who cares?! I bought HL a few weeks after it came out in '98 for $50 and then bought Opposing Force at release for $30 and had to download the rest of the things that come with the $20 platinum edition. I don't see why this is a problem its not like people re-buy the game everything valve buys a new patch.
People are going to stop bitching and moaning about Valve, game costs, Steam (well maybe not, im a diehard CS 1.5er myself), and the rest of the annoying nitpicky nonsense when this game is out.
The guys at 3d Realms got it right they're trying to replicate what Half-Life did to the FPS with DNF and its taken them 7 years thus far so 5-6 years for HL2 doesnt seem too absurd.
And to the the guy that started this post. Skipping D3 might be a mistake its not the FLOP that all these whiners are making it out to be, they're mostly the people that won't upgrade to play it. Its got a great single player game though its multiplayer is definately lacking, the mod community has never failed us on an id title before.