Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Adam]

I played through all of Half-Life and the expansion packs on the highest difficulty a few weaks ago and found it was too easy aswell

Ah, but were you utilising the Quicksave button extensivly?

"Argh, killed! Good job I saved three seconds before this!"

I used it sinfully when I first played through Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift, although I like to think I'd remove the F6 key from the keyboard if I tried those games again.

Yeah I pretty much abused it, poor F6

[Concept]

No one seems to know how complete the leaked beta is - apparently there's loads of textures and some models etc missing

Apparently there's now been a threat that the hacker is going to release the 100% pre-gold version including the source code because Valve keeps `lying` ( in the hackers words ) about how much was stolen

Supposed quote :-

"I suggested to Valve to stop lying to their customers about how much was stolen. However, they disregarded my statement and called me a liar. Now they will see how much I have been lying when I release the Pre-Gold and all 100% of the sourcecode. Actions speak louder then words."


Now this could be bull, but then a lot of people thought that about the beta version

Things just seem to be getting worse, and Valve are refusing to comment thus far on how long the game will actually be delayed for

Yeah... This seems to be going more and more horribly wrong for Valve day by day. Having said that, I don't think they've handled the situation all that well... They still haven't commented on the Vivendi 2004 April statement for one thing, they've mislead about how much source code was stolen etc.

But they don't deserve this. Talk about being completely screwed... If that pre-gold is released tomorrow then Valve are in the dog house. A lot of pissed off (rightly or not) HL2 fans are going to download it. But will they support Valve when it comes to the official release?

Will the anticipation and hype still be there?

I guess we'll find out over the coming days/weeks just how much damage this is doing.

[Dazzla]

There's 73 maps available but this is in no way a game, it's like one huge techdemo, no AI to speak of, no enemy, no story, massively buggy. A lot of the debug code says "4 days from 9 30" so if this is from 26th Sept there's no way they're getting it out this year. There's nothing there!

Anyway, I took a screeny, it's of a map they showed at E3 because a lot of the maps included are frankly boring

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

One thing it's got going for it, sweet engine. I ran it with 6xAA on and 16xAF on, 1280 x 1024 32bit and everything as high as it went, still got a playable 40fps.

[Ish]

I want to not believe all these "boring maps"... "nothing there so close to release"... etc.... stuff.

But... part of me is thinking what have they actually done since Half-Life?

And when you think about it - not a lot. There's the Counterstrike and Team Fortress Classic mods. Basically bought in.

Team Fortress 2 - as vapourish as Duke Nukem Forever.

Steam - how long have they been talking about Steam. A very very long time.

That 'Accelerated Internet' debacle they got involved in.

And then they have, in the last month, utterly bungled the Half-Life 2 release in more ways than one.

Half-Life was a great achievement. No doubt. But maybe they're one hit wonders?

I'm not sure what to think anymore

[dataDave]

I may get flamed for this as this is a HL thread, but what the hell.

Am I the only person in the world that doesn't find HL at all interesting? Even when it was released I didn't think it was all that, not past the first opening 20 minutes anyhow.

As Ish's above post states - what else have Valve done?

[Welrain]

Your not the only one. Although rcecent events are interesting (which attracted me to this thread) the game holds no interest for me what so ever.

Back to reading thread and not posting.

[nips]

I played through all of Half-Life and the expansion packs on the highest difficulty a few weaks ago and found it was too easy aswell

Ah, but were you utilising the Quicksave button extensivly?

"Argh, killed! Good job I saved three seconds before this!"

I used it sinfully when I first played through Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift, although I like to think I'd remove the F6 key from the keyboard if I tried those games again.

Yeah I pretty much abused it, poor F6

Nah man, I've been good. Made special effort not to use it.

I've just been wizzing through it with little problems. The only times that I have ever done the f6 save repeatedly is if I get to a set of jumps with instant death after fighting for 10 mins... I'll tend to save before, and after the set of jumps, so I don't have to repeat the 10 mins because of at stupid puzzle.

But I'm sure that some will think that is 'cheating' or whatever anyway...it's all relative, innit.

---

And Ish, you're losing faith, and that is what they need right now. I don't really think that a 1 hit wonder is even possible with the money from HL1 and stuff (although Enter the Matrix ) but, really, don't fear too much. Save your dissent for when HL2 is ACTUALLY, PROPERLY released... should it be crap then, please feel free to moan all you want.

We don't know exactly what we've seen yet... so please, don't panic. Who knows, maybe what's been released are the building blocks of the game. This could quite possibly be an example of, 'the sum is greater than it's parts', and when it's all together, properly and officially, with the 'Valve seal of approval' then it may be that wonderful piece of gaming heaven that many of us have been looking for...

Currently there is a lot of speculation and not enough fact for my liking... so please, don't jump ship yet.

---

And with reference to the '1337 h4xx0rz' comment refering to the scripted scene: despite his argument being quite thin on the ground... I thought that there was more than one of the guys trying to kill him outside the building anyway, of whom, anyone could knock the door down... That was why (in the E3 video of the game) Gordon blocks the stairs with all the junk that was left on the top - so none could follow him... I'm just sure that there was more than one person outside, when Gordon was hiding... I thought that there was fire comming from more than one direction... Perhaps it is worth persuing...

---

Ah well... Atleast some of us will hope with blind faith!

[Ciaran]

There is a load of screenstots of the beta:

Here

***Possible spoilers in the above link***

They look like they have all been taken using a ****ty graphics card.

[Ish]

And Ish, you're losing faith, and that is what they need right now. I don't really think that a 1 hit wonder is even possible with the money from HL1 and stuff so, really, don't fear too much. Save your dissent for when HL2 is ACTUALLY, PROPERLY released... should it be crap then, please feel free to moan all you want.

Fear not - I haven't given up! But seeds of doubt have been sown. Which is unfortunate really - as I'm probably not the only one.

'cos on the upside the other side of the coin to my previous post is that this hacker guy is basically a thief. Add to that he seems to have some kind of axe to grind. Can we really believe what he's saying? No. Not at all. People are reading code with dates of 26 September and such like - but that stuff can easily easily be added.

And I'm not prejudging the game. As you say... who knows really what this code is. What its real history is.

I think what Valve need to do is take a firmer grip on this situation in terms of how they're dealing with it publically. Pour some weed killer on those seeds of doubt. At the moment there not really doing anything to dispel the over active gloomy imaginations of gamers.

[nips]

Ish, I do agree with you. I think that Valve should assert themselves and take a grip on this situation. But with the release date being pushed back for so many reasons and the poor communications between Valve and Vivendi and the many other things that have gone wrong, would people even be willing to accept what Valve are saying, and instead believe the incomplete code they have infront of them.

Who knows... Who can we believe... Who is Tyler Durden?

[Ish]

Yup. Its a confusing mess. No doubt.

[jim g]

There is one postive side to the delay, maybe the price of graphics cards will have come down by next year

[choddo]

When is someone who gets bitten like this going to sue those incompetent ****ers at Microsoft? It does sound like their network security was a little bit lax.

Hehe, people always manage to blame MS for anything that ever goes wrong.

Sorry to bring this back up, but people blame MS when it's their ****ty software* that dominates the world, is full of holes like a swiss cheese, and has been directly linked to this particular leak.

Chods

*31 STILL unpatched known vulnerabilities in IE for example.

[Chadruharazzeb]

There is a load of screenstots of the beta:

Here

***Possible spoilers in the above link***

They look like they have all been taken using a ****ty graphics card.

Those screens just look like a mod for HL1.... same environs, textures, character models, weapons....

Very suss...

[Spatial]

And with reference to the '1337 h4xx0rz' comment refering to the scripted scene: despite his argument being quite thin on the ground... I thought that there was more than one of the guys trying to kill him outside the building anyway, of whom, anyone could knock the door down... That was why (in the E3 video of the game) Gordon blocks the stairs with all the junk that was left on the top - so none could follow him... I'm just sure that there was more than one person outside, when Gordon was hiding... I thought that there was fire comming from more than one direction... Perhaps it is worth persuing...

You are right

There's 2 Combine soldiers - one who boots the door down and the other who's firing in through the window ( the one that Freeman hides behind the washing machine or whatever it is to avoid being shot )

And isn't the area ( and hasn't it always been ) called Traptown not Physicstown ?

Great, a hacker who's taken the time an effort to hack a game and doesn't even refer to sections by their proper names.



Personally I wouldn't trust a thief on what they say anyway.

If they have no morals about stealing things, they certainly have no morals about lying to people