HL2 Delayed?

[G0tham]

#77.. I see many people using words like "misery" and "sorrow" when describing the feelings of "millions" of gamers but... uhh... how, exactly, was this such a big deal? The leak has taken some of Valve's thunder away and caused them more work, as well as anxiety over having your code running loose because of some random hacker, but it certainly hasn't caused a need to throw all of the work away. As for the customers, it may not even have caused ANY delay, so far it's been just Vivendi saying that.



Ok "pissed off" is more in the right direction.

[Macer]

Edited by [user="138959"] @ [time="1065569166"]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s...uter_software

"Vivendi Universal Games is only the distributor of the product, which is produced by the US studio Valve and so it will up to them to make an announcement," the head of Vivendi Universal Games International Christophe Ramboz told AFP.



"But it is true that the launch has been delayed by a theft of a part of the game."



He added however that it will be impossible for those who committed the theft to take advantage of it since they now possess only a third of the code.



The launch of Half Life 2, planned for this year, is now expected to boost sales next year, Ramboz said.

(Sometime in early September)

Gabe: We have skillfully hidden our postponement as requested master.



Valve: I dont think sells for Christmas won't be high enough, Gabe, go get on Outlook express for awhile, we will be emailing you a third of the code. Next year looks better.

[stooopid]

Macer wrote..

...

haha... seriously.

[PCF|Herman]

Edited by [user="112034"] @ [time="1065565194"]

Before I get into trouble, I've just accidentally reported a comment - sorry.



Eeh, didn't see unreport when I posted this. These guys think of everything - but I still 0wn PHP!



Anyway, my tuppence:



What a bitch, but shit happens.

[orphy]

Wouldn't they have a back up of the work they've done? I can wait though, but that's really a pain. Man, I hope they find those hackers.

[Mobius?]

orphy wrote..

Wouldn't they have a back up of the work they've done? I can wait though, but that's really a pain. Man, I hope they find those hackers.

The code was copied, you moron!

The hackers logged the keystrokes of the coders and downloaded the info.

[EsEp]

Valve should stop giving gay ass release dates that never happen. Condition zero is an example of their uselessness. DIEDIEDIEIDIEDIEIDIE!

[Toru]

Can someone please explain why old code that was "stolen" and yet is freely available on the internet is going to set back a release date by an entire four months?

[PCF|Herman]

What the fuck, Toru? It wasn't old code, it was the code which was going to be used - /that/ is why it's being set back. The particular code stolen paves the way to making cheating and hacking the [online especcially] game a breeze.



Wake up, please.

And Mobius - uh, methinks they logged keystrokes to get passwords and server information (K)

[raging dragon]

the key word here is!! ATLEAST!

delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004.

Damn thats way past x-mas thats really not fair prob be out next christmas DAMNIT!!

[PCF|Herman]

The interesting thing is that it's just under 6 months to April

[stooopid]

Lethal wrote..

You feel releasing the game in 2003 is for the better, and I respect your opinion. I don't want to see the game delayed any more than anyone else, but I believe that as far as 'long-term' plans go, this could very well be for the better. As for people complaining of cheaters, that is also questionable as to how many people might completely quit because of this. Granted they did buy the game, but whats to say they would buy future Valve products? I strongly believe PR is much more important than rushing a flawed or exploited game.

Okay, so you think that delaying the release is in Valve's interest. I say it isn't. Unless one of us can introduce some stronger arguments, then we're pretty much stuck at that, right?



My point is that they can patch the cheat stuff/exploits/etc... later. The game is what people want. Am I wrong? And as we all learned in first year management class, money_now = money_later/(1 + interest_rate). So money_now is more valuable than money_later giving us the whole idea of investment payoffs vs. time and risk.



Okay... so whats your argument that waiting is better for us and for Valve. You've got my attention now.



-stooop

[PCF|Herman]

While I agree it's possibly financially better for Valve in the shortrun (That is, for buying Half Life 2) I think it could create issues for future valve games, and especcially and Half Life 2 online add-ons. I would say that Valve stand to make lots of money with Online play [Look at how counter-strike went, at the end of the day. It revolutionised online games] and so are desperate to make it a decent experience.



And in all fairness, wouldn't you wonder about a company which has to patch your £30-£40 game every two minutes. I'd certainly start wondering what I exactly paid for.

<additional>



Yes, I know Valve didn't make CS - but they made it possible and it created a whole lot of sales for Half Life.



I have personally spent



£30 on release day

£15 for Half Life & CS retail

£10 Half Life budget



over the year due to losing and breaking discs!

[stooopid]

PCF|Herman wrote..

While I agree it's possibly financially better for Valve in the shortrun (That is, for buying Half Life 2) I think it could create issues for future valve games, and especcially and Half Life 2 online add-ons...



And in all fairness, wouldn't you wonder about a company which has to patch your £30-£40 game every two minutes. I'd certainly start wondering what I exactly paid for.

Dude, how is that different from CS right now!? We already have an update every few days because cheats will always evolve and become available. Patching that stuff is a reasonable solution...

[PCF|Herman]

Combating cheats against sourcecode would require much more complex patching.



Of course, the other advantage is that one would assume everyone else at Valve would be making models and graphics a touch better and improving the story and so on.

Plus, CS is a free game. Thats where a major difference lies.