Half-Life 2 Ship Date Confirmed

An anonymous reader writes "Worthplaying has the scoop on the official going gold of Half-life 2. According to their information it has a confirmed ship/store date of November 16!" Gamespot has details on the ship date as well.

Comments

Oblig Quote

[nuclear305]

"Joygasm!"

Re:Oblig Quote

[Ba3r]

Except that it has been stated over and over again that originally they were just doing the CS port to Source to prove how easy it was to port, and then they realized how much the community wanted the same old CS but with bodies that tumbled down stairs and pretty water, and thus they gave it marginally more polish and presto, you have the Pre-release CS:Source.

Its a nice little token of appreciation to their audience and customers, why can you not be happy with that?

The fact that they realized most were not interested in a HL2 multiplayer, but rather a great mod scene and a bangin singleplayer just shows how responsive to the community they are, and in todays far more corporate big studio electronic entertainment industry, this is a major show of good faith.

Re:Oblig Quote

[Southpaw018]

So far, HL2 has on average received the best reviews for any game ever. PC Gamer gave it a 98% (US) and a 97% (UK). I haven't seen one rating less than 90% (9/10, 90/100, whatever you want to call it) anywhere. CS:S was amazing. The support for it was incredible, and at several points during the beta I had ongoing conversations with VALVe in the Steam forums. Yes, there were bugs in CS:S. It was a beta.
All I want to know is: what game were you playing?

Re:Oblig Quote

[notsoanonymouscoward]

give me bot support damnit!

Re:Oblig Quote

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

As a reasonably long time(though now former) counterstrike player, I can tell you I'd feel much more appreciated if they wernt charging me to play their beta.

Yes, I've played the 'Final release', but don't kid yourself if you think thats a releaseable product. Within the first 15 minutes of playing I had working wallhacks and fullbright cheats, purely from digging in the console.

And on an unrelated note, mat_dxlevel 70 will give you fps comparable to your hl1 fps. Makes water ugly as all hell, but its worth it if your card sucks.

Re:Oblig Quote

[gumpish]

Within the first 15 minutes of playing I had working wallhacks and fullbright cheats, purely from digging in the console.

Yeah, good old cl_wallhack 1 ... Wonder why they haven't taken that out of the engine yet.

Seriously though - I thought The Matrix was fiction. YOU ARE THE ONE!

Re:Oblig Quote

[Ba3r]

They charge you 50 dollars for Half Life 2. Thats a normal price for a pre-release great game. In addition, you get CS:Source.

Wallhacks are not a defect of the engine (its a tweaked video card driver, something impossible to stop), and Fullbright skins can only be prevented if you verify all the resources on the person's computer prior to connecting, something that the hordes of impatient CS players would not tolerate.

Find me a single game in all of computer game history that has had a cheatless (hah!), flawless (hah!^2), "Final" Final Release. Don't kid yourself, Valve did a superb job here.

btw,thx for the console cmd, will try thatand see if i get a better framerate.

Re:Oblig Quote

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"Wallhacks are not a defect of the engine (its a tweaked video card driver, something impossible to stop), and Fullbright skins can only be prevented if you verify all the resources on the person's computer prior to connecting, something that the hordes of impatient CS players would not tolerate."

Not in this case.

r_shadowwireframe 1 will give you wireframes around all shadows that show through walls.

r_flashlightfov 120
r_flashlightfar 1000 will give you a flashlight that lights up the whole screen, r_flashlight constant 100 if you want to make it even brighter.

(for the record, the only reason I have no problems releasing these so publicly is Valve is like microsoft as far as refusing to fix things until they're exploited badly.)

As for more tweaks.. try the command "cvarlist mat_" and just look through and play with those. You can lower the quality pretty far with those, and easily raise the framerate. Just changing the directx level to 7.0 (again, mat_dxlevel 70) was enough to give me a 50fps boost (up to >100)
Depending on your card and such I'm sure you could get other good boosts by disabling bumpmapping, diffuse lighting, antialiasing, etc. (some of this can be controlled by the "advanced" video settings window, but not to this extreme).

And for all you quake3 lovers out there, theres everyones favorite picmip settings to give you walls that look almost entirely untextured because theyre so low. Personally I can't stand playing like that, but I forsee it becoming the new standard for leauge play since you can change to it after you take your pregame screenshots.

I don't mind that you can cheat, I just mind that it is so easy. I'd atleast like to have had to write some custom hacked shader, or maybe a directx hook. Instead, its all in the console for you. Not that I cheat online, I just treat it like any real hacker would -- break it for the fun and challenge. Maybe thats why I'm so dissapointed at the ease of cheating..

Nov 17...

[peeon]

Employee sick day.

Re:Nov 17...

[superpulpsicle]

Actually it's better to wait till you know for sure that your video card drivers can handle the game.... THEN call the sick day.

Doom III sat on my shelf to collect dust for a month until Catalyst 4.9 was released.

Re:Nov 17...

[LurkerXXX]

More like Employee sick week. I can't believe they are releasing it on a Tuesday. They must be terrorists, they are going to destroy the productivity of the country's workforce for the week. :)

Ok, so only the productivity of the gamers, but still!

Re:Nov 17...

[delus10n0]

ATI released 4.9 betas the same day Doom3 came out.

So, uhm, yeah. :)

Re:Nov 17...

[los furtive]

A) Play CounterStrike:Source now and get a pretty good idea.

B) There was a Doom 3 beta patch from ATI out the same day the game came out...didn't you even bother searching for it? Made a world of a difference for me!

Re:Nov 17...

[xeyr]

I think that game publishers need to put their heads together and consider their audience. It's simply not fair that I should have to jeopardise my job by taking excessive sick leave purely because Vivendi have decided that Half-Life 2 will come out only one week after Halo 2.

Re:Nov 17...

[ZpaseMann Zpiff]

wow, employee sick day falls on my birthday this year. excellent. two "holidays" is two weeks. first Halo 2 on Nov. 9th, then HL2. even more excellent

How many times is HL2 going to go gold?

[British]

I'm still waiting eagerly when the press release for HL2 going gold, goes gold. :)

Let's go for the gold!

Re:How many times is HL2 going to go gold?

[frenetic3]

I'm eagerly waiting for when the suprnova torrent goes gold (or until I get sent to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, whichever comes first ;))

-fren

Re:How many times is HL2 going to go gold?

[Ionizer7]

Well it would have gone gold a month or two ago, but unfortunately someone hacked into their system and stole the press release resulting in an unexpected delay.

Re:How many times is HL2 going to go gold?

[imr]

I believe it went gold last year.

Re:How many times is HL2 going to go gold?

[Mikail]

I'm waiting for all the add-ons to be bundled with the game into Half-Life 2: Gold Edition and that to go gold. ("Gold" doesn't even look like a word anymore...)

Taking the Steam out...

[SIGALRM]

"Half-Life 2 will go down as one of the best-selling PC titles, and we are thrilled to deliver this ground-breaking title to the worldwide gaming community this fall."

I'm excited about this game... don't get me wrong, but you have to wonder about the effect of Doom 3 getting several months of play in advance of HL2's release and the mod community has been very active so far on Doom. I'll get the game when it comes out, but I've already been wowed by the graphics in Doom 3, so it's taken the Steam (pun intended) out of my thrills for HL2. That said, however, I'm really excited to see the physics (I've played CS Source and as a taste--it's very cool).

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[PhrostyMcByte]

From what I've played in Doom 3 and CS:Source and what screenshots I've seen of HL2, it looks like Doom 3 already has superior graphics. However, I suspect HL2 will have much better gameplay because its physics will allow us to interact with the environment. I guess we'll see soon enough.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[DarkHelmet]

You act as if the only aspect of this game to be exciting about is the graphics engine. What about the storyline, that made the first Half-Life so immersive and good?

Being "wowed" by a game's graphics goes away in about a week. If there's nothing else behind it, the game kind of fades away in the minds of gamers. Think Unreal 1.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[frostfreek]

Well actually, it may affect me in a different way.
I bought Doom3 the day it came out, and I found the gameplay to be rather repetitive and dull and repetitive. Eye candy is nice and all, but how many science labs and garages do I have to go through, to finish this thing? Geez.
Several of my gaming buddies commented independently on the same thing.

I will still buy HalfLife2, as HL reigns as my all time fave game, but maybe I will wait a few days to hear what other people think, first.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[getch();]

I've played Doom 3. To put it bluntly, it bored me. Sure the graphics were insane, even on a lowly 9500 Pro. Sure the first few monsters popping out of nowhere were cool. And there were some freaky moments. But there's only so much running down dark corridors I can deal with.

It's all speculation now, but the breadth of experience that HL2 seems to offer should make it far more interesting to me. It's unfortunate that they didn't build in regular deathmatch though. I could do without Counterstrike (gg awp).

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[SilentChris]

Big difference: without mods, Doom 3 sucked. HL2, right now, has the potential to not suck.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[realdpk]

The main effect I see Doom 3 having, for HL2, is that it paved the way for "high press" games to launch at $55 US instead of $50.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[Blakey Rat]

Uh. You're joking, right?

First of all, UT2004 was a "high press" anticipated game, and it launced at $40.

Secondly, Warcraft III, another "high press" anticipated game launched at $60.

The price has nothing to do with how much press the game gets.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[beaverbrother]

The mod commuinity has been active?
Yes, it has. But it has been very limited in what it could do up to a few days ago, when the sdk was released.
The community only has a number of weeks with the SDK before, HL2 will be out with its SDK.

Also, a number of HL2 mod developers were given access to the tools to make mods in advance.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[realdpk]

UT2004 was released before or after Doom 3?

WC3 was more of an anomoly I think. HL2 is already showing up at $55.

In general, $50 was the price for "most" new games. They're trying to make it $55. That's my point.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[xsupergr0verx]

You can buy HL2 for $50 right now over Steam. $60 for the Silver package.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[Deraj DeZine]

Half-Life is built on the Source engine. I think Havok is just a physics engine (and is nearly identical to Doom 3's physics engine). What does "plays better" even mean?

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[tricops]

Bah...

"we tweaked one or two values/models but the gameplay is almost exactly the same" does not a true mod make. We'll see what happens now that the SDK is out, but those mods are for the most part boring. That's also ignoring how most of those have been out since like 5-10 days after its release.

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

yeah, Havok is just for the phyics, nonetheless it's pretty sweet. I have fond memories of killing small children by bouncing basketballs off the wall and into the backs of their heads in Deus Ex 2 (which used said physics engine)

Re:Taking the Steam out...

[slagish666]

Doom 3 has all the gameplay of Quake 2, but where Quake 2 was all strafe and fire, strafe and fire, Doom 3 has you in narorow corridors so that you can only fire, no more strafe!

So, I am looking very much forward to playing HL2 -- at the very least, gameplay is king with the HL games, the way it should be. Props to Carmack for changing the world of computer gaming, but id lost focus long ago.

the Press Release

[sloshr]

Half-Life(R) 2 to Ship to Retail Outlets Globally This Holiday Season

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) today announced that Half-Life(R) 2, the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed PC titles in gaming history, will ship to retail outlets around the world in November. The Company confirmed that Half-Life 2, developed by Valve Software, has gone gold with a planned retail street date of November 16, 2004. The countdown to the highly anticipated retail street date has begun around the world, as VU Games completes plans to ship localized versions of Half-Life 2 simultaneously in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, Thai and Japanese.

"Half-Life 2 has surpassed our expectations in every sense -- its high-quality graphics, ground-breaking physics and immersive first-person shooter gameplay set a new standard for PC action games," said Bruce Hack, CEO of VU Games. Half-Life 2 will go down as one of the best-selling PC titles, and we are thrilled to deliver this ground-breaking title to the worldwide gaming community this fall."

Hailed as "...the best game ever made" by PC Gamer, Half-Life 2 earned a top-rated review score of 98, the highest score bestowed by the magazine in more than six years. The game has received numerous accolades for its technical excellence, captivating story and addictive game play, including more than 10 awards and nominations at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo. In addition to being named "Best PC Game" by 1up.com (Ziff Davis) and Gamespy.com, the title also received a "Technological Excellence on PC" award from IGN.com. CNNMoney.com stated that "Half-Life 2 will redefine what gamers expect from their games visually -- and the gameplay is a lot of fun as well."

The global anticipation for Half-Life 2 has reached unprecedented heights, as consumers around the world mark their calendars to buy the game at retail on November 16th. The Half-Life 2 product will include Counter-Strike: Source. VU Games will also release a Half Life 2 Collector's Edition that will include Half-Life 2 in DVD-ROM format, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, a free limited edition t-shirt, and a Half-Life 2 Prima strategy guide book.

The original Half-Life game was launched in 1998 under VU Games' Sierra Entertainment publishing label. It earned more than 50 game-of-the-year awards and has been heralded as one of the best PC first-person shooter games of all-time.

About Half-Life(R) and Half-Life(R) 2 In 1998, Half-Life revolutionized the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve's debut title was named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer and launched a franchise with more than eight million retails units sold worldwide. In 2004, Half-Life 2 will take the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original to new heights of realism and responsiveness. Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environments to the behaviors -- even the emotions -- of both friends and enemies. The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist, Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted and its population dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people -- people he cares about -- are counting on him. The intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source, Valve's new proprietary engine technology. Source provides major enhancements in the advanced facial animation system, physics, graphics and AI. Half-Life 2 will be available for the PC.

About Vivendi Universal Games Headquartered in Los Angeles, VU Games is a leading global developer, publisher and distributor of multi-platform inter

Nice to hear....

[Nos.]

Of course CS is the most popular mod, but more people are awaiting other mods such as Natural Selection (my favourite) and DoD, as well as many others. I'm not in a rush to buy since I'm mainly a multiplayer gamer. Though it would be nice to play the game and experience the new engine. I'll probably end up purchasing it in the next little while, though I'll still be playing a lot of Natural Selection on the original HL.

Re:Nice to hear....

[lukewarmfusion]

I agree - Counter-strike eventually got old for me (it took a while) so I became a Day of Defeat fiend... a handful of other mods, too. Then there are a ton of other games to get involved in as well. I'm not in a rush because I'm still enjoying Halo PC multiplayer and then I'll get into Doom 3 multiplayer. Not to mention GTA: San Andreas is coming up fast. I've got my gaming schedule (as restricted as it is) full for the rest of the year.

Oh, and I have some work to do as well. :)

Re:Nice to hear....

[bleckywelcky]

You know what's funny? When I originally bought HL, it was to play TFC. I never even tried out the single player until a few years later when someone mentioned to me that they were playing single player. I loaded it up, found it to be alright, but the numerous multiplayer mods were a million times more fun. So I dropped the single player part after a few days and just kept on having a blast with multiplayer.

TFC, Firearms, DOD, Natural Selection, The Specialists - you name it - I can't wait for these mods to come out for HL2. I'm a bit excited for the single player (I will check that out this time around), but the real frosting on the cake are the mods.

Re:Nice to hear....

[cnsc1rtr]

You know what's funny? When I originally bought HL, it was to play TFC. I never even tried out the single player until a few years later when someone mentioned to me that they were playing single player. I loaded it up, found it to be alright, but the numerous multiplayer mods were a million times more fun. So I dropped the single player part after a few days and just kept on having a blast with multiplayer.

Thats probably because by the time you got around to playing the single player part, there wasn't anything special about it anymore. When HL was released, it was an amazing single player game. It brought a new style to gamers and raised their expectations of what a single player game should have.

Playing HL1 single player years after its release and not seeing anything new is kinda like watching the matrix today and being bored with bullet time.

Re:Nice to hear....

[bleckywelcky]

Not really, I had seen the single player being run before, I just didn't get around to playing it myself until later. Nothing seemed especially interesting about the single player part even when I saw other playing it.

Re:Nice to hear....

[suckmysav]

"I never understood the fawning and wankery people did over Half Life.

How nice for you. On the other hand, did you stop to consider that other people might not understand the "fawning and wankery" that large numbers of Counterstrike zealots carry on with to this very day?

As far as I'm concerned, Counterstrike is a haven for juvenile fuckwads and as such performs its role of isolating cretins from the rest of society superbly.

Myself, I much prefer to play a decent single player game than an online game populated by dickhead TKers, wallhack cheaters and pathetic teenagers who have nothing better to do with their lives than to constantly be honing their "mad-skilz" in order to make it impossible for casual players to last more than 5 seconds per round.

The difference between you and I (apart from the obvious of course), is that I recognise that this is merely my opinion, and that other people might feel vehemently differently.

Re:Nice to hear....

[Lisandro]

Myself, I much prefer to play a decent single player game than an online game populated by dickhead TKers, wallhack cheaters and pathetic teenagers who have nothing better to do with their lives than to constantly be honing their "mad-skilz" in order to make it impossible for casual players to last more than 5 seconds per round.

Counterstrike (the game) is incredibly fun. What ruins it is, just like you said, the hordes of retarded kids (and no-so-young-adults) and the "l33t" culture that grew arround it like a fungus.

DOD is as much fun as Counterstrike, and, atleast for the time being, it's not as, errr, "corrupted". You might want to try it if you haven't already.

Re:Nice to hear....

[suckmysav]

heya I played DoD for about a year or so way back in 2001. It was, like you suggest, less prone to be inhabited by retarded children back then, which is exactly why I chose to play it. It's good to hear that it may remain that way even today. The problem with all those online games, including DoD, becomes apparent as you get older. Generally speaking, older = more responsibilities, and more responsibilities = less time to waste playing games. I recently played thoough Far Cry, and I was able to do that in dribs and drabs as opportunities presented. You can't play online games in dribs and drabs. The people online tend to spend great deals of time playing the same maps over and over and over and they get very good at them. I may be a 25 year veteran gamer, but I certainly don't have the "twitch abilities" nor the down-to-the-square-inch map knowledge of the younger crowd these days. These days I simply prefer good, single player based games. I can play them at my own pace, and my opponents remain exactly as competent as they were designed to be, no matter how long it takes me to play the game. Tackling an online game requires a certain amount of dedication and practice if one wants to rise above the level of simple kill-fodder. Quite frankly, I don't choose to apply whatever dedication and practice time I may still possess to something as empty and meaningless as a computer game.

Re:Nice to hear....

[AngryScot]

Natural-Selection is already being ported to Source.
Flayra has had 1-2million invested into unknown worlds by valve last time I heard.
He has also been hunting modelers to upgrade the current NS models (ebolas' Tink for example)

Re:Nice to hear....

[joper90]

ha ha.. some of my friend play CS to this day.. I stupidly introduced them to it years ago, when they didn;t really know what a PC was.

They have there own clan and everything and as you state quite anal about.. my mate even get hyper pissed off if i now his moniter by 2mm or the keyboard postion on this desktop as it then fucks up his ability to play the game.

Its quite funny really.

I try taking them new games to play, and even though they have spent loads of money on faster pcs gfx cards all they play is bloody CS.. I mean, who needs a 3G with x800 gfx card to play bloody CS.

I sense....

[rokzy]

...a great disturbance in the force... as if a million geeks shouted with joy...and then realised there's still a month to wait.

Re:I sense....

[vanillacoke]

As soon as the first shipments are fed ex'd out. Then again wal-mart doesn't care for release dates so you can easily see it on the shelf the day it rolls in.

Would you fine the biggest retailer in the world? I mean the DVD rack DOES need more space.

Re:I sense....

[elmegil]

Why do you need a torrent? If you've got Steam, you've already got the binaries on your HD. You just need a key, and that doesn't take a torrent....

Brings tears to my eyes...

[orevo]

As Half-Life 2 sits on my computer preloaded, it brings tears to my eyes to hear this. Finally! Anyway, for the curious, if you preloaded from STEAM you still can't play it until Nov 16th unfortunately. You can thank Vivendi for that one, but at least you don't have to go to the store on the 16th, you can just wake up and play after a small download. I know I'm staying up till midnight.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[orevo]

Look, a lot of bashing on Valve is going on because people who bought it off STEAM still have to wait, well quit bashing Valve! It's not their fault, it's Vivendi's fault because when you buy off STEAM, they get no portion of the profit. Remember that lawsuit that was going on between Valve and Vivendi? This is why. Now, I for one have been playing CS: Source, and I believe Valve deserves my money. (Even though they are massively late) HL 2 is worth the wait, and worth the money. Vivendi told them they couldn't publish it on STEAM before it hits the street, so Valve can do nothing but comply. So if you are bashing Valve, quit it. Bash Vivendi instead. Otherwise, I recommend buying it off STEAM just to help support Valve.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[strictfoo]

Sorry, it's Valve's fault. They knew what their contracts said, not joe schmoe the half life fan. They heavily implied that those of us who were stupid enough to say "Hey, this new steam thing is great! Why would I ever want a retail copy of a game?" would be able to play the game before it was in the stores.

It's Vavle's fault for misleading us. Vivendi is just enforcing its contract with Valve.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[booyah]

hmmmm, makes me wonder, what would happen, say if you were to set your date ahead?

Does it have to authenticate against the server, or do you think its just waiting there patiently till midnight on the 16/17th?

I would think they might be afraid of their server slashdotting if it had to authenticate on the 17th...

just a thought

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[orevo]

Very interesting thought. Something that is worth a try.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[ip_fired]

I agree. I dislike the way valve provides absolutely no information about their game, everything is just a large rumormill. Have you ever gone to their website? There is absolutely no information about HL2 there.

So that is really what happened, they let all of the forums spread gossip about what is going to happen until we all have expectations that are blown out of proportion.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[Zed2K]

Valve is not entirely without blame here. They were the other half of the group to sign the contract. Valve shouldn't have signed the contract the way it is.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[sgant]

Um...I didn't buy it off of Steam so I can be able to play it before it was in the stores...that never even crossed my mind.

I bought if off Steam because it's better FOR ME. I don't have to go to a store and buy a physical disk only to have it take up space in my house. It's there, on my HD. Something happen to my HD? I read download it. Problem solved. People want a physical thing they can hold, that's fine for them.

It comes out Nov. 16...I'll play it on Nov. 16. Also, what is Valve at fault for?

That's another thing that irks me...people saying "Valve lied to us" and "I'll never trust Valve again!"....trust them with what? Your Bank account? Nuclear secrets? It's a fricken game company, not the end of the world. If the game is good, you buy and play it, if not then who cares? People act like it's a personal thing between Valve and them that Valve is sitting in some room rubbing their hands and laughing "we're so EVIL..muhahahaha!".

Sorry, but I fail to see what the big deal is about all this.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[Poseidon88]

I was never misled. I understood before I bought that I would not be able to play until it was released for retail. It's still a good deal for me for several reasons. I don't have to deal with any stupid CD protection schemes and their associated issues. I don't have to wait the obligatory extra day for the retail copies to actually arrive at the store. I save the time and gas I would spend on the trip to the software store (nearest one is 35 miles from my home). And perhaps the biggest bonus: I don't have to listen to the counter-jockey at said store prattle on about how awesome the new Final Fantasy is, and have I pre-ordered game X yet? Because the copies are running out and if you want it on release day you better hurry up!

I'm not sure how you think anyone was misled. It was made clear by Valve when they released the Steam packages for HL2 a couple weeks ago that HL2 would not be playable until release. If you were excited about something you heard from some other, unconfirmed source, prior to that time, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[LighthouseJ]

I agree, it's not some big conspiracy. That date has been set so that other arms of Valve and parent companies can cooperate for this release. Lots of money has been spent advertising that day as HL2 release date. Some game review sites have signed NDA with that date, not allowing them to release their reviews before then.

I don't see why people dislike Steam so much, it's so much better than the original interface. I like where Valve is going with Steam. The content delivery is nice and the idea of smaller updates the end user doesn't need to do anything for is so much better than the large updates. Everyone had to crowd Fileplanet (another piece of crap) and other sites and slow down file distribution for everyone.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[dr.fishopolis]

"They heavily implied that those of us who were stupid enough to say "Hey, this new steam thing is great! Why would I ever want a retail copy of a game?" would be able to play the game before it was in the stores."

No, they did not. YOU heavily inferred it, but I suppose that's Valve's fault to. Sorry, but Valve is not responsible for your delusion.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[secolactico]

what would happen, say if you were to set your date ahead?

As I understand, the files are encripted and the key won't be available until the 16th, so if you set your date ahead, the program will try to download the key and fail.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[Senzei]

I guess the big reason I bought into it: Assurance that I would get it that day. Where I live there are a lot of problems with either A) Deliveries coming in on time, or B) Enough being delivered to go around. Steam avoids any chance of either.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[cortana]

The Steam-ised Half Life client is truly a breath of fresh air, when compared to the bugfest that was HL 1.5 and earlier. The rest of Steam varies from 'minimalist and functional' to buggy as hell, but then again the server browser and instant messenger were never _in_ HL 1.5; we've had Jabber and the All-Seeing Eye for much longer, anyway! :)

The part which disturbs me is how, when you buy HL2 on Steam, you are not purchasing the game. You are paying for access to a service, via a subscription. Now, while I don't believe for a second that Valve would actually try and change the terms of the contract ex post facto (can you *really* be arsed to check the T&Cs on steampowered.com with your morning coffee, newspapers and RSS feeds?)... how permanent will your access to the service be?

If Valve goes belly up (maybe Vivendi prolong the court case past Valve's ability to sustain it. Maybe some HL2 fan goes postal on his classmates and the parents' amulance chasing attack-lawyers take them down) then will it still be possible to download HL2 after you next reinstall Windows? How will you play multiplayer games without the authorisation network being up?

Not to mention the BS about having to be connected to Steam to play the single player scenario, or for LAN games, etc...

I will wait and buy the game in a box. That way, I get a 'hardcopy' after a fashion. Even though beloved Looking Glass is dead, I can still pull out my (backup) of System Shock 2 and play it, without having to worry about a perpetual subscription service.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[johnnliu]

> Something happen to my HD? I read download it. Problem solved. People want a physical thing they can hold, that's fine for them.

Most people with a CD just re-install it. Non of this re-download silliness.
I'm almost certain I can read off my CD ROM faster than your re-download.

The only way I'd get it from Steam is if I can get it cheaper than at the shops.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[Skuld-Chan]

Why buy it off steam though? Where's the advantage? At first it was going to be because people who bought cz were going to get a discount (this was said by a valve employee on the steam forums) we didn't.

Then it was like we were going to get it before it hit the shelves. We won't.

Frankly I kinda feel cheated. The only thing I got out of this was counter-strike.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[Tzarius]

Something happen to my HD? I read download it. Problem solved.

Of course, that will still work when Valve no longer supports Steam, won't it...

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[sgant]

True...but then again, I could always burn it to a CD here if I had that desire.

Either way, it's still easier...again, FOR ME...to get it off Steam than to drive to a store and buy it there...with taxes.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[sgant]

Then again, you can always burn the files to CD if you feel a little paranoid about it.

But what some feel are advantages others don't. It's up to the person themselves to figure out what is best for them.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[Erasmus Darwin]

"I don't see why people dislike Steam so much, it's so much better than the original interface."

I'm willing to concede the Steam server browser is better than the old server browser. However, I had a minimalist third-party server browser that served all my needs perfectly (HLSW). So that big advantage of Steam was meaningless to me. Also, because the group of people I played with primarily stuck to a single server, I really had no interest in the Friends list feature.

Furthermore, when they went to Steam, they felt the need to redo things like the console window (great for checking missed teamsays) and the font for death messages (great for approximating where the enemy is). Where things were previously perfect for checking at a glance, they're now harder to see -- which makes them near useless in the middle of a frantic match.

Finally, the hassles of using Steam were severe enough that I went from playing Day of Defeat for a few hours every night to almost not playing at all. It was especially bad when I first tried it (after the beta test supposedly ironed out the major issues), where every day seemed to be a crapshoot as to whether or not you could get it to work. Even now that it's stable, the net result is that I'm only marginally worse off than I was under WON.

Still, to be fair, I ordered HL2 over Steam. I'd be stuck with it even if I had bought a boxed version, so I decided to go with the most appealing package. I guess my current relationship with Steam can best be described as an uneasy truce that comes from necessity.

Re:Brings tears to my eyes...

[FurryFeet]

People act like it's a personal thing between Valve and them that Valve is sitting in some room rubbing their hands and laughing "we're so EVIL..muhahahaha!".

You got it all wrong. That's Microsoft.
Ha! I bashed Microsoft. Now give me my "Insightful"s and my "Informative"s, mods!!!

Better than DNF I guess

[TRS-80]

Only released more than a year after the original release date of September 30, 2003. Now to buy a new video card (good thing I didn't get a 9800 Pro back when they were released, hey?).

Re:Better than DNF I guess

[kerrle]

I don't know why you say that; My Radeon 9600 XT has can run through the video stress test at 1024x768 with full detail and still get FPS in the high forties or low fifties. Sure, there are cards that are way faster but a 9800 Pro would still be just fine.

Re:Better than DNF I guess

[Warpedcow]

Now to buy a new video card (good thing I didn't get a 9800 Pro back when they were released, hey?).

At 1152x864 with no antialiasing and 4xAniso my 9800 Pro gets around 80fps in the source engine video stress test (all other detail settings maxxed). Same settings in CS Source averages 30-100fps (some dips lower on 40+ player servers). My Athlon 3000 CPU is holding me back, not the 9800 pro.

Re:Better than DNF I guess

[bleckywelcky]

I think the HL2 development leak was a good thing anyhow. It gave the development team a breather and it allowed the management to blame their tardiness on something else. Otherwise, we would have had Valve saying every month or two "Sorry, we're pushing the release back." And then we would have had a release sometime in June or July, but it would have been buggy still since they would have craved into management's demands to get it out anyhow.

Re:Better than DNF I guess

[angle_slam]

I think he meant that it was a good thing he didn't buy the 9800 a year ago when it was $400 as opposed to now, when it is $200.

before i RTFA

[Tibor the Hun]

does anyone know when the steam downloads will be unlocked/available?
the same day?

Re:before i RTFA

[gl4ss]

the same day.

with steam you just don't have to walk up to the shop(it seems that you even pay the same.. which kinda eats out the cost benefits of the online distribution model)..

Re:before i RTFA

[mog007]

The day it's available in a store, November 16th. If some stores actully release it before that day, then it will be unlocked eariler.

Sick day

[Colonoh]

I wonder if I'll be sick from school that day...

Re:Sick day

[00Sovereign]

Well, with the flu vaccine shortage in the US right now, your cover story (and ultimately my own) becomes all the more believable ;)

Re:Sick day

[DaHat]

Sick from school?

If only it had been released a year ago as expected... then I too could use that excuse... now, sick days tend to cost me (if too many are used).

Re:When the fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Had you fucking read the fucking agreement the fucking site gave you before you bought the fucking game, you would fucking know that you will be able to fucking download the fucking thing off of fucking Steam when the game is available in fucking retail stores (which we now fucking know to be on fucking November 16).

You fucker.

This is the sound..

[Anonymous Coward]

of a million voices going silent and then nerdgasming...

and

[Anubis350]

in other news: hell freezes over, devil reports that snowballs make excellent torure devices.

pigs fly: new species of pigs found with butterfly like wings

and a /.er gets laid: "OMG man, it was actually better than coding perl at 1 in the morning!!!!!!"

Re:and

[antifoidulus]

You forgot "A playable Duke Nukem Forever demo will be on the Half Life 2 disc"

Re:and

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'm a married TCL coder you insensitive clod!

Re:and

[Phroon]

To bad Apple has already declared that Hell froze over when they realeased iTunes for Windows.

Maybe it just got a bit colder for HL2.

Re:and

[balster neb]

Needless to say, both run only on a GNU/Hurd system.

Somewhere in hell

[Jakhel]

Sata: "Damnit! Who turned the AC on full blast! Wait a minute, we don't have AC..?!?!!"

Re:Somewhere in hell

[Bombcar]

Sata:

HELL has upgraded to SATA! Parallel IDE is officially dead!

Re:Somewhere in hell

[Martin Blank]

I saw no SATA in Hell. I saw only a bunch of Imps and some random other monsters.

I did get a nifty box, though...

November 16th...

[KermodeBear]

...is my birthday! Best birthday present EVER.

Re:November 16th...

[jaguar5150]

Lucky for me, it is the 16th as my son's birthday is the 15th. Wifey would most likely be none too happy.

Re:November 16th...

[peterpi]

You spelt "EV4R11!!!1111!!1oneoneone" wrong ;)

Re:November 16th...

[KermodeBear]

No, that's how you spell it in CounterStrike-ese. I don't speak that language. Sorry. ~(o:

Re:November 16th...

[Gudlyf]

...is likely to be my new son's birthday (it's his due date).

Worst...present...evar. :-(

Re:November 16th...

[Gudlyf]

Er...HL2's arrival date is the worst present, not my son of course. I mean, I think.

Re:November 16th...

[jaguar5150]

Lucky for him, I think he can out-run her at the moment ;)

Re:November 16th...

[Gudlyf]

Unlike most /.'ers, she'd know I'm joking.

seems like a long time between gold and ship date.

[sTalking_Goat]

I mean isn't it usually about 2 weeks?

anyway, I give it 72 hours to show up on suprnova

love you long time

[unknowns]

Half-Life 2 Collector's Edition which includes Half-Life 2 in DVD-ROM format, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, a free limited edition t-shirt, and a Half-Life 2 strategy guide from Prima.

No wonder it took so long to release. They have a marketing woody.

Re:love you long time

[SamSim]

Why would anybody want the strategy guide? I never understand this practice of bundling an amazing videogaming adventure with a bookful of notes which, if read, systematically ruins the entire experience for you. You get nothing out of the game by knowing what's coming next and how to beat it the entire time. I played both Zelda: Ocarina Of Time and Zelda: Majora's Mask through with walkthroughs and I have regretted it intensely ever since. Finding 100% of the power-ups... sure, that's tedious, and by all means use GameFAQs, but it just seems like a shame to waste the experience of a game like HL2.

Re:love you long time

[Chicane-UK]

Just reminded me of a bit from Ghostbusters 2:

STANTZ: I guess so, Pete, because that's not all. Tell them what else we've got, Egon.

SPENGLER: You mean the Ghostbusters hot beverage thermal mugs and free balloons for the kids?

Re:love you long time

[Deadguy2322]

I played Ocarina of Time, and I regretted it too. Blurry, boring piece of rehashed Miyamoto dung.

Re:love you long time

[Landshark17]

That tee shirt only comes in mens XL. Hmmm... I wonder why...

Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[cablepokerface]

Boy, I really hope this game delivers, cause months after the doom 3 release people finally dare to admit that the game simply did not deliver without being called a troll. And that's an understatement; big parts of the game were simply no fun at all. Just an ordinary shooter with nothing new and different aside from the fact that it just looked damn pretty.

I can't wait for HL 2, Carmack has left allot of open territory.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[Jakhel]

Average Doom3 review: 85-87

Average Half Life2 review: 96-98

Yes I do judge games by reviews before I buy them. I'm not going to go spend $50 on something that only scores 65 out of 100. Just like I'm not going to go spend $10 on a movie ticket to see a film that got an average 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[gothzilla]

I don't think Doom3 was trying to be anything but a pretty version of Doom. Kind of like when they re-did Godzilla in 1998. You already know the story. You already know the monster. Here's just a prettier view of him. Anyone who expected more got dissapointed. Those of us who understood that all it was, was a pretty version of Doom enjoyed the hell out of the game.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[GoofyBoy]

Thats just a cop-out.

If they wanted it to make a "prettier Doom 2", they would have labeled it "Doom 2 - Remixed" or just released the same maps with different textures/a more advanced engine.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Like Doom III, the remake of Godzilla was technically superior. But despite it's enhanced effects, it lost the charm of the original.

In both cases, the "flawed" execution gave the game a certain suspension of disbelief. The "grand and new" remakes were just plain unbelievable. A digitally perfect lizard running amok in a digitally perfect New York makes you realize how completely bogus the whole thing is. The amount of food that would be required to sustain a creature of that size with that level of activity is simply impossible. Endowing it with reflexes that allow it to not only outrun a helicopter, but to out maneuver it defys believability.

In the case of Doom, you find yourself asking "WTF?". Why on Earth ARE you running around in the dark? How on Earth are you the ONLY person? Why are you completely unarmed, especially since you find weapons all over the place?

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[don_carnage]

Godzilla was a HE? Didn't Godzilla lay an egg in "Son of Godzilla?". :^D

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[gothzilla]

All I remember before it came out, was hearing about how pretty the graphics were and how it was like "an interactive horror movie."
Nobody watches horror movies for the intricate storylines, and if all you hear is talk about the physics engine, graphic quality, and impressive sound, you should know better than to expect a great storyline. :)

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[GoofyBoy]

>Nobody watches horror movies for the intricate storylines

People play FPS games for gameplay. "Interactive horror" or not, Doom3 is first a FPS.

>if all you hear is talk about the physics engine, graphic quality, and impressive sound,

HL1 had all of this and the great storyline.

>you should know better than to expect a great storyline.

So its the reader who's at fault the author wrote a bad book?

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[incom]

Unless HL2 comes out for a console, I sure won't be playing it. Doom3 is atleast multiplatform, and thus I can play it on my Linux PC(although I was sort of expecting near simultanious release like ut2k4, but its here now). Honestly , half-life wasn't that great, it was the fluke of counterstrike that helped it out.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[Sgt York]

I think I expected too much from D3. I got it a few weeks ago, (I really can't afford to buy them as they come out) and I'm playing it now.

It's scaring the crap out of me at every turn, but it's not engrossing. D3's great to look at, but I can remember playing Doom2 starting after dinner and, after what seemed like a few minutes, blinking at the window, wondering why the hell the moon was so bright. Remember shutting it down, and seeing the "playtime" number? That was depressing sometimes. Same thing happened with HL.

Anyway, that doesn't happen with D3, and it's not just that I'm older. I've done it recently, too. It's a personal preference, but I don't lose track of time when I play it. It's fun. It's a lot of fun. But it doesn't come close to the original, and that disappointed me.

I hope HL2 lives up to its predecessor, but I'm expecting just a prettier version. That way I may be pleasently surprised.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[SeanDuggan]

Here, here! Or, for that matter, the magazines that release a review two days after they receive their copy of the game, acting as if they're doing us a favor by submitting a review based upon either rushing through the game without diverging from the main path, or getting only partway through the game. Computer Games Magazine, IMO, does a fairly good job at giving enough time to games rather than rushing out reviews. On the flipside of things, this means that their review typically comes out a month or so after the game's release, but they at least properly test drive it. And I've found few cases where I disagreed with their reviews.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[Bishop923]

In the case of Doom, you find yourself asking "WTF?". Why on Earth ARE you running around in the dark? How on Earth are you the ONLY person? Why are you completely unarmed, especially since you find weapons all over the place?

Well duh... that's easy to explain, it doesn't take place on Earth, it takes place on Mars. :-)

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[Deorus]

I think people got tired of those plain first person shooting games, at least I am, now what I want is something which lets me make choices during gameplay. Rockstar figured this out and the result is GTA, ION Storm figured this out and the result is Deus Ex and Thief, but ID did not figure this out, so they just ended up making a prettier version of their classic games, and I don't think 3D Realms is learning that either, since by what they say in their Duke Nukem Forever websate, their vaporware game will be just like Duke Nukem 3D on steroids.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[IntergalacticWalrus]

You analogy is flawed. The 1998 Godzilla movie was a stupid Hollywood flick that has nothing to do with the original essence of Godzilla.

Only if DOOM III were made by a bunch of Japanese people with nothing in common with id that your analogy would've been valid.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[aliens]

Did you buy Doom 3 before trying the demo?

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[tricops]

So its the reader who's at fault the author wrote a bad book?

No, it isn't the reader's fault the book is bad, but it is their fault they bought it. If they skimmed the book and it was bad, and bought it anyway... tough luck. If they bought it blindly out of impatience then once again, tough luck. It sucks but that's the reality of it. It should have been pretty obvious from reviews/etc what it was like.

Of course, if it changes halfway through then that's another story... but honestly, the "book" of Doom3 was pretty much the same all the way through. It did get boring at times, but it wasn't from the gameplay changing.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[cortana]

Erm, it was an id game. Their name was on the box. Did you _really_ expect anything better than a pretty tech demo of engine that our WW2 shooters due for 2005 release will be based on? :)

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[ravingsanity]

Since so many people are comparing Doom 3 to HL2, I have to wonder if Doom 3 being a bit of a disappointment might end up doing HL2 a favor by lowering expectations so that we will, as you say, be pleasantly surprised. I have a feeling that the game would have been great regardless, but I wonder if it'll seem that much better after the hype and subsequent let down of Doom 3.

I do have Doom 3 and I agree with your prognosis. It is fun to play sometimes, but I still haven't been able to bring myself to play it for more than an hour or two at a time. I'm just not getting immersed in it. Oh, I did at first but after a few days, the lustre wore off of it and now I just play it when I want to run around indiscriminately shooting things. It is a beautiful looking game but the gameplay experience could have been better.

From everything I've read about HL2 it seems to me that there will be a lot of value in its gameplay due to the interactivity of the environments and the breadth of things you'll be able to do. This to me is already a far cry from the "enter lab, get surprised -yet again- by a demon, shoot it, go through another door, find a pda, unlock door, enter another lab, shoot the demon, etc, etc" experience of Doom 3.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[jusdisgi]

Horseshit.

id has never been heavy on innovations in storyline or gameplay or anything like that. It's all about the engine to them. How much money did they make selling Quake3? How much did they make selling the Quake3 engine?

(I'll give you a hint. You'll need to move your decimal point.)

I predict they won't make nearly as much off Doom3 as they will off the Doom3 engine. It doesn't require any kind of storyline to do that. So why would they put one in?

That said, I've not yet played an id game that wasn't a helluvalot of fun, for what it was.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[GoofyBoy]

>It doesn't require any kind of storyline to do that. So why would they put one in?

They market it as a single person GAME. Not a single person engine or a single person technical-exerise-in-what-a-game-could-be.

This is in a Games section of slashdot, not in IT, not in "cool engines".

Thats nice that they look at it as an engine, so why didn't they sell it as one?

Thats nice that they make alot of money, but we are talking about the quality of Doom 3, the game. Does the fact that they made $X suddenly make the game enjoyable for more people?

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[Lisandro]

My thoughts exactly. Doom 3 is the same mindless, simple shooter it has been sold to us over and over again.

And i love that shooter :)

It's a damn fine game, it's just people were expecting the second coming of Christ or something. Great graphics, great atmosphere, long enough and lost of action. I wonder how well HL2 will do; my guess is better from everything i've seen from it, but it has also been hyped up to heavens and back.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[jusdisgi]

They market it as a single person GAME. Not a single person engine or a single person technical-exerise-in-what-a-game-could-be.

WRONG.

You didn't even read my post, did you? You might buy it as a single person game...but that's not how they market it. And they don't market it to you either. They market it to people like Valve, who built Half-Life on the Q2 engine, who want to market single person games to you. And they make way, way more money doing it that way.

So cut the crap; Doom3 is a demo for what is likely to be the highest-grossing engine of the next few years.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[C0rinthian]

Also remember that Carmack quote, likening the plot of a video game to the plot of a porno.

That should have set expectations accordingly.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[jdvuyk]

Yeah, but isnt that why horror movies get so boring? I dont know about you but I can watch about horror movie a year and all the others are the same and dont give me any sense of fulfilment or pleasure. Doom3 has done no better. I bought the game as soon as it came out like everyone else and all the HL2 release date has done is to give me a date by which I MUST finish doom3, or it will gather [more] dust and never get touched again.

There is no denying that D3 was fundamentally boring, whatever spin you put on it. I certainly hope that HL2 fills the gap that D3 left gaping wide open.

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[GoofyBoy]

>but that's not how they market it.

From iD own press release. (caps are mine)
http://www.idsoftware.com/business/press/in dex.php ?date=20040714000000

"DOOM 3's dramatic storyline, ... draw you into the most frightening and gripping first-person GAMING experience ever created.

"DOOM 3 is a VIDEOGAME experience"

"DOOM 3 has been rated "M" for Mature by the ESRB. " ESRB does not rate engines. They rate games.

They sent pre-releases to GAMING magazines/websites. Also, note that they use the term "DOOM 3" not "Doom 3 engine" as you assert they market it as.

So how did they not market it as a game?

Re:Half-Life 2 vs. Doom 3

[curtlewis]

Seeing as iD Software has never in its entire existence released a game that was interesting and fun to play, I'm not surprised. Every game iD has ever released has pushed the envelope for graphics engines, but the gameplay left much to be desired.

When it really became fun was when other companies licensed the engine and made their own games (like Half Life).

I did not await Doom3 with eagerness, but I do await games using it's engine. And the same goes for HL2. Single Player FPS games don't thrill me at all - scripted, limited AI. Net play is FAR more interesting to me. Half Life 1's story line bored me, never even finished it. But it's VERY rare that a single player shooter can keep my interest long enough for me to finish it.

Re:When the fuck?

[avalys]

They told you this on their website, before you bought the game. It's not Valve's fault that you were too lazy to read it.

Re:When the fuck?

[Xentax]

This'll get said more than once, but blame Vivendi Universal - not Valve - for this delay. Or perhaps blame Valve's contract negotiators for letting them get stuck with this, if you must.

Either way, lesson learned for developers that want to repeat the Steam experiment elsewhere.

Xentax

I can see the movie now...

[Artie_Effim]

Freeman vs. Master Chief FvMC !! It's their war, no matter who wins, your wallet will suffer !!!

Re:I can see the movie now...

[Alyred]

Halo has no single player? That's news to me. Guess I got a buggy copy with a whole single-player campaign accidentally included.

Brrr

[DeathByDuke]

It's bloody cold down here in Hell. If Duke Nukem Forever goes Gold I'm moving to South America.

The Devil.

hermione dies in half-life 2

[Anonymous Coward]

*WARNING* spoiler in subject

Counter Strike

[AviLazar]

I have counter strike available to me so I am happier then someone doing their first line of cocaine :D

Re:Counter Strike

[ryokuin]

theres a difference? oh yeah counterst^F^F^Fcocain can actually ruin your life....

Get hl2 out of my system

[jlefeld]

Luckily I will be able to play this all thanksgiving break, and beat it before finals :)

Re:When the fuck?

[strictfoo]

The last thing I read from Valve about the whole situation is that Vivendi was suing them to stop them from releasing the game on Steam before the retail street date. Valve's original plan was to release it via steam many weeks before it was in the store to get people to sign up for steam.

The purchasing website says: "Purchase any one of the three Half-Life® 2 Steam packages listed below, start playing Counter-Strike(TM): Source(TM) immediately, and be ready to start playing Half-Life 2 the moment it is made available!" - not that I won't be able to play it until the game is in stores. The game is complete. It _should_ be available now.

I haven't seen anything anywhere stating that it would be available on steam the same day it's available in the stores.

Not enough sick days...

[GweeDo]

Nov 9th = Halo 2 Sick Day Nov 15th = Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Sick Day Nov 16th = Half Life 2 Sick Day Nov 22nd = Nintendo DS Sick Day I just think my boss might figure it out....

Re:Not enough sick days...

[JakeisBland]

Wow, sounds like you've got a lot going on.

Re:Not enough sick days...

[jlefeld]

I ran out of sick days so I called in dead.

Re:Not enough sick days...

[servognome]

Not to mention:
Nov15th = EQ2, WoW; Nov 16th= Prince of Persia: Warrior Within;

FYI

[GarfBond]

Steam purchases do not unlock until the very same day that the game releases in stores. This means that, assuming they make their expected ship date (hurry up on printing those CDs VUG!), HL2 will unlock on Steam on Nov 16 (probably at 8am or something) as well. Of course, CS:S is available on Steam right now...

If you've already got an ATIHL2 voucher, redeem it through steam to get your Bronze edition free (HL2 + CS:S).

Another reminder: Steam does not include physical hard copies. Everything is a digital download from Steam. That being said, there is nothing that prevents you from copying and burning the steam cache files elsewhere so you don't have to redownload several GB of stuff on a reformat or whatever. The exception is the Gold package, which has a lot of physical goodies that are shipped to you (but not the game itself).

Don't forget to mail your HL2 postcard from the Gold package to 3drealms :)

Re:FYI

[volve]

Woah, someone should tell VUH that the Gold edition doesn't come with the game discs! They could save a bundle not honoring their bullet of "collector's box" from the marketing of "PLUS: HL2 posters, full strat guide, soundtrack, hat, collector's box, postcard & more"...

Hopefully I'm not reading that wrong... ;)

-VolVE

Re:FYI

[liposuction]

Half-Life 2 Collector's Edition which includes Half-Life 2 in DVD-ROM format, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, a free limited edition t-shirt, and a Half-Life 2 strategy guide from Prima.

Huh? Your info sounds like FUD to me.

... didn't see that coming?

[vhold]

I'm surprised this came as a surprise to anybody. The main reason to buy it on Steam early is to be able to play Counter Strike:Source right now. I feel I've already gotten my $50 of entertainment value from that just alone, HL2 is going to be like ultra icing on mega cake. If you don't like Counter Strike, then.. well.. what can ya say.

Is the retail version going to have Half Life : Source (the original game on the new engine) available?

Re:... didn't see that coming?

[ProudClod]

Only if you buy the silver version, 59$ :)

Great News

[Llevar]

It means the leak is at most a week away.

Re:Great News

[zalas]

Is Wal-Mart part of the leak? Apparently they can ship on the 2nd.

Re:Great News

[Llevar]

I'd expect no less from makers of the Wal-hack.

SICK DAY!!!!

[dampjam]

Well I'm at work right now checking slashdot for the third time this hour when I saw this. My heart almost stopped. WAHOO!!!! Plus I'll get half life source on the same day. I'm about to walk around the corner to ask for the day off.

The Bungie Effect

[tlon]

I wonder if they use the same manufacturing facilities as Bungie's Halo 2? If so, we should be seeing the "0-day" copy floating around any minute now...

Re:The Bungie Effect

[firebomb]

babelfish is my friend :P

je ne veux pas jouer la demi vie deux en français

Re:When the fuck?

[Unkle]

Hey, those of us who got it through the ATI Radeon deal MONTHS ago, and want the CDs, have to wait even longer. I can order it on the 16th, IIRC, but won't get it until a few weeks after that.

But hey, I knew this going in to the whole thing (even before I bought my card, I knew it was going to take a month or more after the game was available before I would get it), so I'm not complaining too much. Besides, the first patch or two should be up by then. Plus, I've got my free HL1 pack on its way, so I won't be too bored.

Trangaming: release the hounds!

[Apostata]

If Transgaming wanted to make some friends, they'd bundle their WineX/Cedega product with Half Life 2. Although I am no supporter of them, it would make their fiscal year in a month.

Arg.. wrong day!!!!

[Julien Brub]

Nov. 16th is my gf's birthday!!! I'll give her a present, go to a fine little restaurant, and while she'll talk about how nice our relation is, I'll hear this voice in my head: "What are you doing here, Mr. Freeman?"

This is torture!

Re:Arg.. wrong day!!!!

[Flunitrazepam]

The very fact that you REMEMBER your girlfriend's birthday indicates your priorities are already wrong

Re:Arg.. wrong day!!!!

[Grey Tomorrow]

You had better make sure that the time spent away from playing is well and truly justified... and you know what the means: sex, lots of sex.

Re:Arg.. wrong day!!!!

[imr]

This is torture!
Yes, it is, to her.

Re:Arg.. wrong day!!!!

[TheLoneDanger]

Maybe he remembered the birthday as a result of looking for anything that might get in the way of his getting and playing HL2.

"Alright! November 16th! I'm gonna call in sick to work, hoard snacks and drinks, buy a portable toilet or have a bucket ready... Hmmmm... I seem to recall something about severe head trauma around this time last year... What was that about... OH SHIT! Her birthday!"

Re:Arg.. wrong day!!!!

[Lispy]

Well, even more time wasted.

Who cares?

[jayhawk88]

What I want to know is, when is a new TFC going to be available?

Re:Who cares?

[Martin Blank]

If it's new... how can it be Team Fortress Classic?

Re:Who cares?

[Flabby Boohoo]

I do. I prefer a single person game over the multiplayer crap.

Re:Who cares?

[gl4ss]

everyone else but you cares?

or didn't you notice when valve stopped caring about team fortress and now published what is essentially counter strike: classic..

oui?

[insomnyuk]

Je ne pa suis Master Chief?

ATI

[d3ity]

Heh, ATI will prolly take a month to ship my free copy. *Free Half life 2 with every ATI video card purchase* --at least on my 9600xt

Re:ATI

[Zed2K]

Sign up via steam and you can get it the day it hits the store.

Say what

[aztektum]

Whaaaat. I played Doom III when it was released on my Radeon 9600 256MB card with no problems. Ultra quality @ 1024x768, w/o AA and stuff which I really don't notice anyway b/c I'm too busy playing (and the game is too frickin dark.)

I didn't even know the 4.9 Catalyst drivers were out until 3 weeks ago

Re:Say what

[khufure]

I believe you mean Radeon 9800. According to ID 'Ultra' should really only be played on 512mb video cards, none of which are on the market right now.

Re:Say what

[Deorus]

Same card here, you can work the darkness problem out if you set some helpful hotkeys for gamma correction in the display properties -> settings -> advanced -> color -> hotkeys (assuming you are playing the Windows version of the game). If you can't use the hotkeys while running the game, press Esc to return to the main menu, then use them.

About the drivers mentioned in the parent post, I am using an old 3.9 catalyst and the game runs perfectly here.

oh crap

[WormholeFiend]

I'll be in Asia at that time... grrr

Ah well, maybe I can just buy the Chinese Edition for a few dollars, just for the HL2 box in Chinese writing... ;)

Damn

[cassidyc]

Now I'm gonna have to complete Halo 2 in a week, and I can only play in the evenings as I have used all my holidays up.

Time for a fortnight long sicky methinks

CJC

Re:When the fuck?

[Alzheimers]

Gordon Shumway, star of a certain Saturday morning cartoon called ALF, will most likely NOT be present in HL2.

So, to sum up: HL2 may have Aliens, will NOT have ALF.

Re:When the fuck?

[LouSir]

I agree. Where is the value for the consumer ? I have to pay the same as the retail price but get nothing in return ? So, I'll go to the store and buy it just so I don't have to deal with downloading everytime I reformat and rebuild. Whether I read the license or not, what's the difference ? Lou Sir

I was disapointed

[billybob]

Those of us who understood that all it was, was a pretty version of Doom enjoyed the hell out of the game

I understood that perfectly well but was still very disappointed because it was such a BORING game... I know there's not supposed to be a good or unique plot and you're just going around killing zombies... it looked so freaking good but got old very fast. After less than 5 hours of play I wanted to completely stop playing because I was so bored. Some of hte levels were pretty cool and it was pretty creepy in a lot of parts, but that wore off quickly. Very very disapointing game. I am definitely looking forward to the games that license the engine though - it's gorgeous.

Alf's back, in FPS form!

[Thud457]

I've been waiting for to Alien Productions to release "Alf's cat-apult rampage" since 1986 !

Ahem!!!

[Dutchmaan]

Not that this release date was a huge surpise or anything, but I called it!

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=123249 &c id=10365703

Re:Ahem!!!

[Dutchmaan]

sorry about the url burp..

c id=10365703

should be cid=10365703

6 to 1 odds

[Pugflop]

It gets pushed back. Any takers? I'm good for 6 new DVD-R's ;).

ATI Coupon

[DeadBugs]

I wonder if anyone has the ATI coupon for HL2 but no longer have the ATI vid card?

Re:ATI Coupon

[Tschaess]

Well, i still own the card. but as the ati linux drivers are really fucked up, i put the card in my girlfriends computer and bought another nvidia which works ways better...
I love CS:S and i'm going to have a hard time until HL2 is decrypted.

uh?

[solios]

"looked damned pretty" and "left allot of open territory." ?!

Carmack's the graphics system programmer, not the game designer. If it looks damned pretty, then he did his job, and he did it damned well. If the game gets tedious or boring at times, well... that's not HIS fault in the least.

Re:uh?

[cablepokerface]

well... that's not HIS fault in the least.

Amazing, how can you say that, the guy is Technical Director for crying out loud. If the game is not all that good, you say is not "his fault".

Re:uh?

[solios]

Don't forget the co-owner bit. The Technical Director point is slightly misleading, as it's well known that he does a bit more than tell iD codemonkeys where they're going.

Regardless, I played the game, I liked it. :P And I'm still deeply PISSED at Valve for nearly completing a Mac port and then whacking it and not releasing it. (I played Doom on a PC, having long since learned my lesson about gaming and the Mac. :P)

Re:uh?

[Buran]

Carmack doesn't work for Valve, unless I'm stuck in a parallel universe. :P Which is entirely possible, I think, some days ...

I bought Doom 3. Kind of cool to be able to say I bought something that's making it possible to support research into private human spaceflight (see Armadillo Aerospace) even if it's not a direct donation. The seed money comes from somewhere, after all, and I knew when I bought the game it'd be a remake of the original Doom that just looked better.

Re:uh?

[solios]

The fact that Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Diablo, Diablo II, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Unreal Tournament, UT2k4, and several other games I can't remember off of the top of my head can interoperate SEAMLESSLY between the Mac and the PC is a Known Thing. Hell, Blizzard shipped an IPX installer for the Mac version of Starcraft so it could play with PCs Back In The Day.

So, is it REALLY that hard? Obviously not. Someone at valve was smoking crack. Fuck, if it'll run on a Dreamcast, it'll definitely run on a Mac....

Almost beside the point, really- I'm so fucking sick of Mac gaming and the fact that I can't get a useable machine for less than 1600 that I'm most likely going to buy a PC early next year. Something about four times the horsepower of my mac. :|

Re:When the fuck?

[Farmer Jimbo]

I haven't seen anything anywhere stating that it would be available on steam the same day it's available in the stores.

You're being a petulant child. You'll have to wait until November 16th just like everybody else. You knew you'd have to wait for the retail release date and to claim anything else is just being obstinant and whiney.

Re:When the fuck?

[Martin Blank]

The problem is that complete != available.

I had a feeling there was some double-speak in there. I favor getting the package with the DVD, because I'm sick of multi-CD installations, I want to encourage DVD releases, and because I don't care for downloaded installations when I can avoid them. It turns out that I'll probably be able to pull this all off with little delay over what the rest of the people are getting.

Hell, maybe even less delay. Lots of people will be installing their copies because of shipping time differences before it can be played on Steam. Doom 3 was arriving sometimes three or four days before official store release time. Steam buyers are gonna be pissed.

specs?

[robotoil]

Anyone know that hardware you will need? The minimum requirements and the optimal?

Re:specs?

[Paralizer]

The requirements are significantly lower than those of the recently released Doom 3.

From http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-2/542987p1.html ?reload=true :
In late July, he announced the basic computer spex needed to run the game would be a 1.2 GHz processor, 256 MB of RAM and a DirectX 7 enabled graphics card, although to really enjoy the bells and whistles of the game Valve recommends a 2.4 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and a DirectX 9 card.

Re:specs?

[markh100]

Thank you..thank you...thank you...for the good news. Half-life was my favourite game of all time. In my heyday I played 3-4 hours of TFC per night, but I'm now married and I've since fallen into the realm of casual gamer (3-4 Hours of UT2004 a month)

I tried out Doom3 on my laptop (P4 2.4 Ghz, Radeon 9000), and it blew chunks (Around 8-12 frames per second at minimum settings)

I am simultaneously super-excited about the possibility of playing HL2, but at the same time feel pessimistic of my chances of actually being able to run the game. I have been too scared to actually investigate the recommended system specs, because I don't want to be disappointed to hear that I cannot run this game.

Re:steam...

[Blublu]

Don't worry, it'll be "released early" for us pirates. Join us, or suffer! Yarr!

Re:When the fuck?

[strictfoo]

No. Valve had stated in the past that the game would be available via Steam well ahead of its retail release. I'm not being "petulant" I'm just pissed off. They implied one thing and are now doing the other. I would never have bought the game via steam had I known this.

You knew you'd have to wait for the retail release date and to claim anything else is just being obstinant and whiney.

No. I'm just mad that Valve misled me and others.

FINALLY!, but poorly dealt with!

[maggern]

FINALLY HL2 is gold!

But with all the delays, problems, false promises of release-date, I cannot conclude otherwise than some aspects of the development have been extremely poorly dealt with.

Someone should lose their job...

Re:FINALLY!, but poorly dealt with!

[Ch_Omega]

Someone should lose their job...

Rumors say someone allready did. :)

The warez version will be out before Nov 15th

[samberdoo]

Pirated CD's can be had at ShanghaiCD.cn about the same time and used versions on ebay by Dec 1 from pepole who bought the game, but can't afford the video card or psu upgrade.

Umm...

[daemon_mf]

Is.. is this a dupe? I swear I've heard this story before.

I'll say...

[l810c]

repetitive and dull and repetitive

Halle-fuckin-leu-jah

[Delphis]

-nt

STEAM and release dates

[Mean_Nishka]

I realize there are reasons for delaying the steam release until the physical copy is out, but I do hope that future electronic releases will be available the minute they've gone gold.

The entire promise of electronic distribution is that you don't need to wait for manufacturing and distribution to get the product available nationally (or internationally). Having to wait for 'release dates' is silly..

Re:STEAM and release dates

[jonwil]

Ignoring the fact of what the contract says, its perfectly legitimate for VU to not want HL2 on STEAM before it ships to stores.
The simple fact is that if you have any game available from one distribution point (especially one like STEAM which doesnt make any money for the publisher) before its available everywhere, someone somewhere is going to get less sales because of it and will get annoyed.

If it was available on STEAM now, a fair few people who are (with the current release date) going to buy a physical copy (perhaps with a preorder) would be likely to jump for STEAM because its there NOW which means even less $ for VU (not that I have any great love for VU though)

Saint-Nicholas

[dbamps]

Well, I just saw HL2 listed in something that is called a "Sinterklaasboekske" in Flemish (it's an advertisement magazine send out by toystores to advertise their toys for Saint-Nicholas day). You could compare Saint-Nicholas to Santa Claus. So i guess the guys in red have a special deal with Valve.

Re:A question

[Firehawke]

That's a Quake 3 rocket launcher.

Re:seems like a long time between gold and ship da

[vitalyb]

72 hours?

With the way Valve guarded HL2 source, I'd say it will be MINUS 7 days.

Re:A question

[KDR_11k]

Come on, Quake 3 requires about 200MHz, any OpenGL compatible graphics card and 64MB RAM, your system is no excuse not to know the game's Rocket Launcher!

Re:seems like a long time between gold and ship da

[Poseidon88]

I think they're giving themselves extra time due to the fact that they intend to release localized versions world-wide on the same day.

Re:A question

[Bishop923]

It's the rocket launcher from Quake 3, and you should be able to play most games (other than Doom 3) at lower resolutions.

I was able to get Farcry to run at 640x480 on a P3 800 with 768M of RAM and a GeforceFX 5900XT. Most settings at medium or high and not much choppyness at all. Anything older than Farcry and you should be able to play at 800x600 or higher with most eyecandy on. Max Payne 2 and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory run like a dream at 1024x768 on the system I mentioned above. You should be able to play Counter-Strike, or really any Half-Life Mod at 1600x1200 with everything Maxed (you would have to activate Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering in the driver prefs, but it's worth it)

If you want to play online though, you would do with a slightly better system (Something that you can put together for less than $500, $750 if you want to pad it a bit for upcoming games) and broadband.

10-26 also

[vonahsen]

GTA:SA

Re:steam...

[Sunda666]

just wait and see...

Re:seems like a long time between gold and ship da

[gl4ss]

** I think they're giving themselves extra time due to the fact that they intend to release localized versions world-wide on the same day.** ..and? they say it's gone gold, that means it's off to the cd duplication, that the work is done, that should include any localisation they do.

what they're doing is that they're settin it on the sweet spot datewise to get as much sales as possible, like ms is doing with halo. not too early but not too late.

I care!

[SuneSpeg]

Team Fortress still holds!

It was the first multiplayer shooting game i ever played. I played it first time as a quake1 mod on my Amiga1200 (using the ppc version on the stunning 603cpu.),and i still play it under steam ~ 10 years after.

Im willing to trade CS:source to TFC:source.

2fort5 for president !

Re:I care!

[88NoSoup4U88]

You might want to check out www.etfgame.com ; a fortress mod for the , freely downloadable Enemy Territory.

It's not done yet, but they seem to be near completion.

Re:I care!

[SuneSpeg]

That looks very interesting!

Enemy Territory is actually a very nice game !
There is allways a good teamplay on the servers, since carrying out the special functions your class have, gives rewards. Its selfish at the end, but team benefits from it.

2 of my favorite games combined in one , what more can you ask for -besides peace in middle east and a bl*wjob :)

Ill deffintly lookout for that one, thanks for the hint!

Re:I care!

[Fweeky]

Heh, I used to play TF on my A1200; 50MHz '030 without a GFX card initially, but later on a 160MHz 603e and a BVision GFX card. Permedia 2 p0w4r! ;)

Nothing beaten the sense of team play since. Shame I lost interest and came back to find it had pretty much died; never really tried TFC though.

Re:I care!

[SuneSpeg]

I allmost get sentimental.. :)

If you havent tried TFC, i can only recommend to give it a try. Its 99.9% identical to the "real thing". Ofcourse its just on the wrong platform, but #amigaquake is kinda empty theese days..

Preordering on amazon - apparently impossible

[Buran]

I went to amazon.com to see about preordering there. Apparently, it can't be done. Oh well; I'll stop by my local games shop and file a preorder request on my way home tonight instead. If anyone can prove me wrong in the next hour, feel free to post a link!

Re:Preordering on amazon - apparently impossible

[rishistar]

Well you can get it from Amazon.co.uk on preorder for 27 quid - which isn't bad given that it gets posted free with that.

Though no doubt the price will go up by the time this link gets posted.

Re:Preordering on amazon - apparently impossible

[Buran]

It actually didn't go up -- though I'm in the US. That seems to be for the regular edition anyhow, though in the past I've bought a book from Amazon UK when I preferred your edition over ours, and there wasn't a problem. (Don't know if they still allow that to be done.)

I want to get the collector version because it has the game on DVD instead of a zillion CDs (what's taking publishers so long to distribute DVD versions more widely?), my ex-husband got the original when we split up and this version includes a remake of the original (we're both gamers, pretty rare from what I've heard), I can always go for more geeky t-shirts, and who knows, I might find the book useful at some point.

On the way home I stopped at EB Games and put in a preorder there with the very cool desk clerk, who seemed very happy I didn't bitch when the credit card machine couldn't connect to the authorizing service's modem.

Re:Preordering on amazon - apparently impossible

[rishistar]

Half-Life 2 (DVD ROM) is whats advertised on Amazon.co.uk - is there a seperate collectors edition as well as this one? I haven't seen one on CD install over here in the UK.

Re:Preordering on amazon - apparently impossible

[Buran]

Here's what I preordered (put a down payment on, and will be called when it arrives in the shop):

Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition | EBgames.com

Here's why:

- DVD means no CD-swap-dance. Why are apps still shipped on CD when DVD burners and readers are so inexpensive and nearly all new systems come with at least a DVD reader? I figure this is worth $45-50 to me.

- When my ex-husband and I split up we divided things pretty fairly and he got some of the games and I got some of the others (he got furniture too because he needed it more than I did) and he got the original. So since this version includes a remake of the first game, which I can replay before starting HL2, it's worth an extra $15 or so just for that.

- I'm a science geek so a T-shirt with the symbol for half-life on it is definitely going into my T-shirt pile, and worth $20.

- Maybe I might eventually actually play Counter-Strike, although maybe not, I tend to like to play games solo or with small groups of friends, although that even only rarely.

- The book I will read part of (I try not to use walkthroughs unless I really am stuck) and I like concept art, 'how it was done' stories, and so on. Worth $5 or so for me.

So it more or less breaks out to be even and a decent deal for stuff I will mostly actually play, read, or wear. I have a lot of T-shirts as it is, but some of them are a bit on the small side or just aren't as neat, so as I get new shirts, older (smaller, shrunken, worn etc) ones wander down to the local Goodwill. (Besides, I work at a university and I'm sure a couple physics types will do a double-take at the shirt!)

Re:When the fuck?

[quakeroatz]

ROFL you just made my fucking day

You mean Nov. 16th

[mconeone]

If you buy over steam the game is unlocked at ~12am PST Tuesday, i.e. Monday night.

Re:seems like a long time between gold and ship da

[Poseidon88]

The testing work is done. It still takes time to actually stamp the CDs and package them. Not to mention they need time to plan all the release parties. Games that are released worldwide usually do so on a staggered schedule. Heck, most games are never even localized until after they've already sold a half-million copies. The fact that they're so sure this will be a huge seller is the only reason they're willing to go so far to release it everywhere at the same time. But it means they will need a little more time than most games.

Re:When the fuck?

[OverlordQ]

PRE-ORDER

That means . . .well PRE-ORDER as in . . YOU DONT GET IT NOW.

Re:seems like a long time between gold and ship da

[gl4ss]

boxes re pre-designed and most probably manufactured(and really, just manufacturing the cd's doesn't take that long), and all the localisation should have been done parallel with the original voice acting.

they've also got a bigger budget for all this crap as well, so it doesn't really fly that they need more time for it because "omg it's hl2".

Re:When the fuck?

[dr.fishopolis]

and be ready to start playing Half-Life 2 the moment it is made available! -- Valve

what part of this says to you that you'll be able to play it as soon as it is gold? is valve speaking in code that only you can understand?

They implied one thing and are now doing the other. I would never have bought the game via steam had I known this.

They implied nothing, you inferred it. If you want to be pissed off, be pissed off at yourself for not reading carefully and inferring things were never stated, anywhere.

Holding my breath now.

[Charcharodon]

Shoooop. :. Ok I'm holding my breath now.

Re:steam...

[getnate]

The login mechinism can be bypassed, it is just a matter of time.

Already played it...

[MrNiceguy_KS]

What, nobody else had compiled their own copy from the leaked source code?

Re:steam...

[Blublu]

Hah, yeah right. I'll just download a crack and play away while the legit customers get all the "login to Steam" trouble.

Re:November 16th... Greek gift?

[kusanagi374]

Yeah right. Usually, people give other people underwears and sockets for birthday. If you're lucky, you'll get a copy of Tomb Raider.

Get ready to pay for HL2 with your own money. Best greek gift ever!

Oh, the humanity!!!

[Rogue Leader]

Gaah, this is the same release date as World of Warcraft! (zug zug) And the collector's edition sounds oh so tempting. This is a conspiracy by Blizzard and Valve to turn me into a Howard Hughes-like recluse(and finally build a new PC). Curse you, Valve, curse you! Wait a minute. . . Valve and Blizzard are both owned by Vivendi. The plot thickens. Oh, I'm on to you, Vivendi. And it's up to me and a half-Indian to stop ya!

If she really loves you...

[Lispy]

she understands.
Sorry, I had to! ;-)
*rofl*

Marketting Droid Error

[Databass]

"Half-Life 2 has surpassed our expectations in every sense -- its high-quality graphics, ground-breaking physics and immersive first-person shooter gameplay set a new standard for PC action games," said Bruce Hack, CEO of VU Games. Half-Life 2 will go down as one of the best-selling PC titles, and we are thrilled to deliver this ground-breaking title to the worldwide gaming community this fall."

Wow, that's really ground-breaking! Maybe his Random Hyperbole Generator(tm) got stuck on a bad random seed.

Re:seems like a long time between gold and ship da

[Poseidon88]

Yes, the boxes are almost certainly ready to go, but it *still* takes time to stuff them and ship them out.

If you think about it, it actually makes sense that Vivendi wants to release the game worldwide on the same day. If they stagger the release dates to get the game out sooner in the US, they will most likely lose more sales to Steam overseas as gamers eager to get their hands on it swarm to sign up.

Re:CS:S != CS

[C0rinthian]

I'm sure all those aim bots and wallhacks will have absolutely NO EFFECT on my enjoyment on single-player HL2.

We're talking about the release of a SINGLE PLAYER game. Multiplayer exploits in a mod thats already released have nothing to do with it.

Re:steam...

[wolfpaws]

The login mechinism can be bypassed, it is just a matter of time.

You sound like the Bork Queen trying to get into Commander Data's brain.

Half-Life 2 has gone gold and has a release date!

[homeobocks]

. . . in other news, hell has been reporting temperatures in record lows. Let's go to the dark lord Satan now for the weather.

Overheard at the Launch Party...

[Cletus the yokel]

"Why must we wear these ridiculous ties?"

If your trying be actor.

[JollyFinn]

I have one thing to say to you. "Break a leg."

Re:steam...

[silentrob]

As far as I'm concerned, Valve fucking bitched all of you piraters, good luck.

They also bitched paying customers. Once you've played the game one time in multiplayer, then you can't even play single player without being required to have an internet connection. I guess laptop and dialup users are screwed. No thank you. I think I'll pass on HL2...

That makes me wonder....

[rsilvergun]

if they're lying or not. Seriously, Doom 3 looked OK and all on my system, but it didn't run Amazingly. My computer's not much, just a 1.8 Gig athlon xp, 512 megs ram and a Geforce Ti4200. Still reasonably above the minimum. Doom 3 had very few open areas, and HL2 looks like it'll have lots. These seem to be what really kills performance. So is the HL2 engine that much faster? If it is, I'd say Carmack and co. are gonna be hurting.

Re:That makes me wonder....

[G-Spot]

We can reasonably assume that performance in HL2 will be similar to that of CS:Source. On my p4 2.4Ghz (clocked @ 2.79) / Radeon 9800 Pro / 512Mb RAM, the source engine gets between 45 and 65 FPS, whereas Doom 3 barely pushes 40 at its good moments. With the exception of the lighting, Source looks better on top of this.

Re:When the fuck?

[Flunitrazepam]

There ought to be a "Adamantium" offering of HL2 that includes a mod replacing Gordon Freeman with ALF.

I'd pay... oh about a million dollars for it.

Magic word: Linux

[InterStellaArtois]

Short and sweet ... will there be a port ... anybody know? http://www.half-life2.org.uk/check.php/ says "There are rumors of a Linux CLIENT port, there will however be a server port."

Re:When the fuck?

[FurryFeet]

Wow... I didn't know we had a Tourette-affected smurf. True diversity here, on Slashdot.

Re:hmmm??

[Xentax]

I said it *could* be either way - "Or perhaps blame Valve's contract negotiators for letting them get stuck with this, if you must."

The *fact* is pretty cut-and-dry - Valve wanted to release sooner than VU wanted them to, and the contract gave VU the leverage to prevent it.

So, you can choose to blame VU or the Valve contract negotiators for the leverage, but VU's *actions* are the thing to get ticked about either way; VU could just as easily have waived their right to delay if they wanted to be the good guys in this.

Xentax

Just watch...

[musicman2059]

You know there's going to be some idiotstick hacker out there the day before this game is released, while the game is being shipped, and boom. Hacked onto the Internet. On release day, the stores are going to have their shelves stocked with the game and Valve is going to say, "Oops! We got hacked again! Now we must spend anoter 10 billion years recreating this game!" The harsh reality of idiotsticks that can't wait.