Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Concept]

Yup. It's not a popular move with those who have isolated PCs at home.

You need a one-time net confirmation through steam to confirm you have a proper retail copy. Valve hold the keys to the house everyone is so desperately trying to clamber inside of.

Although there is still some slight confusion on this because Doug Lombardi has said that such confirmation will only be used in the first few weeks of Half-Life 2's release. Whether this proves to be true or not - Time will tell.

[weightgain]

Wow. Thats both cool and mad at the same time. Wonder if this is a system that we will see in current xb titles or indeed future new-gen console releases.

How do you do it tho if you have no access to the inter-web ??

[Concept]

You don't. Not at the minute.

A guess on Valve's reasoning is that they consider the proportion of PC owners who own a machine good enough to run the game (whether efficiently or not) will probably in all likelihood have a readily accessible internet connection attached to the PC with their Steam account installed on. I suppose it's a delicate weighing up between utilising a relatively new method to combat piracy (therefore preserving potentially damaged sales) against the loss of sales with the lost audience who can't personally validate their copy online from their Steam-based machine.

The cost must be worth it to them.

In the future, I'd imagine, independently checked email-based verification or telephone verification may another way to handle this for those who don't have their gaming PC hooked up easily to the net.

[Concept]

Two bloody days to go. It's but a hair's breath away now.

[gizmo1990]

I liked the Gamespot interview, though I thought there was a certain amount of 'company backslapping' with it, ie its protrayal of Valve as some heavenly body.

I particularly didn't like Gabe's assertion that other dev companies not in Valve's envious position should simply, pull their socks up, as it were. Thats bollocks imho, Mr former huge Microsoft salary man.

I thought it was hilarious finding out what happened to 'Axel_G' though!

[Concept]

I liked the Gamespot interview, though I thought there was a certain amount of 'company backslapping' with it, ie its protrayal of Valve as some heavenly body.

I particularly didn't like Gabe's assertion that other dev companies not in Valve's envious position should simply, pull their socks up, as it were. Thats bollocks imho, Mr former huge Microsoft salary man.

I thought it was hilarious finding out what happened to 'Axel_G' though!

Backslapping? I'm not so sure. I thought on the September 30th date and all the delays, the making of by Gamespot was harsh throughout and asked the right difficult questions to ask. It certainly didn't let Gabe Newell off the hook for his mistake in backing himself into a corner. When I read ATI had paid a huge amount for what they thought was going to be a Half-Life 2 launch party at Alcatraz before September 30th, I couldn't help but wince. No doubt the date helped keeped the team motivated during a vital period of development, but Gabe Newell also placed himself in a horrible pickle. The feature for me didn't shy away from such conclusions, which I thought was important. Because in a few years, articles like this are going to be significant to document developments with important titles, that get classed with an elite classic status.

However, I agree with you about the harsh criticisms from Gabe on other developers though. Speaking from a UK-centric point of view as a gamer, there has been loads of teams fold over the past couple of years because publishing houses have more or less said do things our way, or lose your job.

Those appear to be the harsh realities of development these days. It often seems as though design briefs have to be strictly adhered to by a regime set by those who choose to fund play-safe projects. There isn't the room to negotiate or move beyond the rigid systems in place to define what a title is meant to be in the eyes of others. In the eyes of those who may not fully understand the grass roots of gaming.

So yes, I agree it was a simplification to say that developers who lack funding don't have reason to complain if they can't achieve the results self-funded teams can. Often creative freedom is completely sacrificed to adher to a docturine where you have no proper space to properly wriggle on out of. It isn't a question of poor quality - Games on the whole are more competently produced these days than they have been ever before. What lacks from a lot of software, is that spark of unique originality, individualism and identity, that air which is almost certainly defined by the set of ideas you come up with to express a certain creative mindset. Or in the case of developers lacking funding, forced to stick by within a rigid framework where there isn't room to properly assert that very expression.

Then again, you have to take into consideration that Gamespot's feature probably took a soundbite from Gabe Newell out of context, i.e. there may have been other stuff he said after that which altered the sentiment somewhat.

[Spatial]

****. I leave to work at like 8!?

Take the day off young Nippington, or pull a sickie

Like Concept said, this kind of gaming experience doesn't come along very often. I've got the whole week of work so I can play it non-stop until my eyes bleed (though I'm hoping that won't actually happen. Blood on the keyboard is hell to shift ).


That Gamespot article was an intresting read ( apart from that annoying small spoiler that was secreted away in it ! ). I think Gabe was very very silly to do what he did about the September 30th fiasco, but it sounds like he's learnt a harsh lesson and won't ever make that mistake again. And anyway we all forgive him because the extra years development time is going to make this gaming experience so much richer.

It would have been a shame if they'd released it last year when it was nowhere near ready. By the sounds of it the game would have been half the length and missing some great sections.

Oh, and Two Days !!!!!!!!!

[capcom_suicide]

Two bloody days to go. It's but a hair's breath away now.

I wonder if I'm the only fool who tried changing the system RTC?

No joy... Plane to catch is 3 hours.

No HL2 for 7 days.

/C__S

[neoglow]

So let me get this straight, currently, HL2 is set to be released Tuesday 16th November 2004, worldwide? People with the Steam system have 99% of the game downloaded already and await the final peice on tuesday?

So no-one, anywhere has the full game as of yet?

Mark.

[gizmo1990]

Give that man a cigar!

[neoglow]

Surely though, crackers and hackers somewhere must have found a way to get around this already and are happily playing HL2 right now? Aside from the fact that people that downloaded it or have the retail copy installed cannot do anything until 8:00am Tuesday, they will find a way around this, if not already...damn hackers.

[Blu3Flame]

Surely though, crackers and hackers somewhere must have found a way to get around this already and are happily playing HL2 right now? Aside from the fact that people that downloaded it or have the retail copy installed cannot do anything until 8:00am Tuesday, they will find a way around this, if not already...damn hackers.

But everyone only has 99% of the game, you need the final 1% to get it to work, no amount of 'hacking' is going to fix that

[neoglow]

Ah, I see, I thought the 1% was only a small file / cd key to launch the game, infact its a vital portion of the game itself, sneaky Valve. Clever, but sneaky.

Anyone here already have a retail copy of it, eg, from a shop or mail order?

[Spatial]

Wonder what cover mine will end up being ?

Oh, and its the 16th and not a moment before - confirmed by Doug Lombardi

If you have purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, we are sorry you are still waiting to play. This is not Valve's choice. Vivendi is insisting that the game has not yet been released, and has threatened that Valve would be in violation of its contract if we activate the Half-Life 2 Steam authentication servers at this time.

Thanks for your patience and we will update you when we have more news to share.

And check out this article at The Inquirer

Dirty tricks tactics to dent Valves Steam share ?

Guess the rollercoaster ride up to this games release isn't over just yet. Valve and VU must really be at odds over Steam, and that lawsuit.

[nips]

I want Gordon. By far the best.