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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."
So they might actually scrape in at under a year delay? (IIRC the initial release date was Sept something, forget exactly what)
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.
Another 1 line forum post? Perhaps I'm just getting cynical in my old age, but I'm hardly going to treat this as the gospel truth. As far as I'm concerned, I'll believe Valve's statements on release dates the day I have the game in my hand (or my steam cache... I'm open minded on these things).
Valve may have some great talents on their staff. Half-Life was a shockingly good game and Half-Life 2 may well continue the tradition. But by god do they need some decent project managers and PR people. Since the announcement of HL2 last year, they've managed to make themselves objects of anger, frustration and sometimes plain ridicule for much of the gaming world. I'm sure a lot of this is unjustified morally, after all, nobody has a "right" to have HL2 by any given date (except possibly the people who got vouchers for it with their graphics cards *cough*), but that's not to say that any sane company should have behaved in the way that Valve have. If HL2 wasn't ready for release before the leak last year, and I don't think anybody now believes that it was, then Valve should have made this clear and been relatively open about the progress of the game all along.
Hell... even an ID-style "when it's done" would have been better than this endless succession of missed release dates.
I remember one of the things said to have given away the HL2 going gold hoax a couple weeks back is that Gabe Newell doesn't make short, one line posts to web forums. Am I the only person who finds it funny that he has now apparently made a one line web forum announcement? I say apparently because the site be down, Cap'n.
I heard from a mate, who heard from a mate, who heard from a guy he spoke to on IRC, that Half Life 2 is a bit of a washout.
He played an early release copy, he said, and there weren't even any monsters, scripted encounters or real puzzles, only a couple of half assed maps.
I won't be buying a copy.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
I guess he changed it from gaben to gnewell? ;)
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Vivendi thinks it's rubbish and that it will never sell. Too big of a risk, not a big enough fanbase
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
This does not mean the game has gone gold or is necessarily going to go gold soon, as I've seen reported since this announcement. Several candidates can and will be delivered to the publisher before one of them gets approved. Granted, since Steam has already preloaded the sounds, textures, and models, the bulk of the game is set in stone. But that still leaves the executable, overall stability, multiplayer, maps, and other QA odds and ends.
Not neccessarily alone in your thoughts, but the question is, will you still buy it? Just like D3, HL2 is overhyped and will not meet the expectations of everyone. Most players will come out of their computer room 3 days after starting play, having finished the game. They will then reflect and say wow, I am not sure this game was worth it. The true test of the games worthiness for D3 and HL2 will be the mods that come out for them. This is bigtime added bonus for us gamers.
So how much longer until the game is finally released? I fear its another 2~3 weeks until this RC will become the build to go gold. And thats IF it is even accepted requiring no re-working at all. A big IF. So folks, it seems mid-November till early December is the objective. I think if the game comes in too late in December, the Holiday season sales are going to get killed. Interestingly to me, if it comes out in the November timeframe, it'll feel like the original HL coming out in late October early November of '98. I just hope the game retains a good portion of the original feel or atmosphere.
Fine...
But what appreciation should we show? What has Valve done that is so excellent?
1. They made Halflife, an excellent single-player game that deservedly won many Game of the Year awards 5-6 years ago. It had an excellent story line, and some good AI for some of the enemies (the marines.) The multiplayer was lack-luster and end of the game was weak.
Then what? NOTHING. They've done NOTHING since then.
1. They bought a mod team and distributed a half-baked copy of a great mod. (The great mod being Team Fortress, and the half-baked copy being TFC.)
2. They waited until another mod that they had nothing to do with became popular, (an internet phenomenon actually) and bought that one as well. (CounterStrike.)
3. They took a shot at a Guiness record for most re-releases of the exact same product by changing the box colors of Halflife about a dozen times. (They are only second to Lucas and StarWars.)
4. In the name of Online content distribution, they created the most intrusive DRM software to every make it to production. (It's called a STEAMing pile of crap.)
Valve has only released ONE GAME. They are still new to the business. (but pro's at 'giving the business.') They've been riding the on the success of amatuer mod teams since the beginning.
(Even though HL turned out to be a worthwhile product in it's own right, the great majority of the early purchasers were simply buying it as a platform for the much anticipated (still) Team Fortress 2. Valve had purchased (co-opted?) the design team or else we would have all been playing TF2 on Quake2 instead.)
Anyway...I don't bash Valve for anything to do with HL2. It looks very pretty and interesting. I'm skipping D3, but I'll probably get HL2. However, there's very little else in their entire history to credit valve with...except extreme luck.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
I always thought the best parts of Half Life were the earlier levels, before you get out into the light of day. You start descending into darkness. Pretty quickly after the game proper starts you are teased with being on the surface, but you are forced back down. Then you get the long trek through the missile silo with its nasty yet excellent monster. After you get back to the surface it is still a good game, but it no longer reaches the lofty heights it had reached before.
I agree that Doom 3 was not as spectacular as we could hope for. I think it was the pacing (too regular) and predictability (far too predictable). Real horror works best when you _don't_ know what is in front of you. In Doom 3 you are guaranteed to have two monsters teleporting in and another one appearing from a sliding panel behind you.
They've been working on Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2 concurrently, probably should have made them one project a lot sooner. And they've been constantly updating the original Half-life since it came out.
They haven't done nothing. They haven't RELEASED anything NEW. But if they hadn't done nothing, playing Half Life online would be like playing the original Diablo is now. (If you don't cheat, don't bother.)