Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Firsty]

"but it runs my spreadsheet so well"

What a cock. The video is certainly fabulous.
I let out such an evil laugh when it showed Gordon ducking under the spinning propellor as the headcrab people lurched toward it. SLICE!

[replicant]

"but it runs my spreadsheet so well"

what a nobber that guy was.

[nips]

Hey, sorry to be rude. But could someone please send me a copy of the video on a CD-ROM or something. I really want to see the Quick Time version of this, but the maximum capacity of my phone line is 3.3kb/s.

While I can leave my PC on for overnight downloads without my ISP disconnecting (usually), the file is 600MBs, I've been downloading sinse 3:30 this afternoon, and I still have over 44 hours to go.

Leaving my computer on for 2 days straight for 1 download isn't really very viable...

It will cost the price of a stamp and a blank CD-ROM which I'd be willing to re-imburse should you feel so inclined, and I'd really appreciate it.

Please could someone help a poor little guy in need?

---

EDIT: The user PH has offered to send me the disc. Thanks in advance.

[Fire]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php(que)id=95800

EXCLUSIVE: RETAIL CONFIRMS HALF-LIFE 2 SLIP!

Valve assurances looking shaky as UK retail informs of a late October release

10:58 Information received via e-mail from UK retailer GAME by customers who have pre-ordered Half-Life 2 at its online store has thrown a rather large spanner into the HL2 release date works, we can reveal.

Despite Valve Software's Doug Lombardi insisting: "The release date is unchanged" when we questioned last week whether Half-Life 2 would hit its original September 30 deadline, GAME has recently told its customers that the title will not arrive until November.

The email notice to customers reads:

"As you may already be aware, the UK release date for 'Half-Life 2' has changed to Nov-2003.

"Please don't worry, your order is still 'live' and will be despatched to you on the day prior to the revised release date, via your chosen method of shipping, unless you advise us to the contrary."

Speaking to us this morning, a spokesperson for GAME said: "The latest date we have for Half-Life 2 is late October, and that was the information we got through yesterday, but obviously the date could change again."

When we asked if GAME received the information from publsiher Vivendi, we were told: "It comes direct from the publisher."

The GAME spokesperson went on to point out that customers had received the November date via e-mail because: "That [the e-mail] most likely went out to customers before we received this updated release date.

"We expect to have an exact release date at then end of the month, maybe," they said.

So what does Half-Life 2 publisher Vivendi have to say about this? Talking to the publisher's UK arm, we were told that the official line on Half-Life 2's release date is: "To be confirmed."

Just when the September 30 date looked safe, along comes this. Crunch time will be around the middle of the month, when many expect Half-Life 2 to go Gold, if it's to hit its original date. Unless, of course, Valve plans to release the game over its broadband
delivery system Steam first...

Oh the tension. It's almost too much. We'll keep you fully updated on all developments.

Say it ain't so!

Let's hope this is just clueless GAME monkeys fumbling about. Valve themselves have never said anything but Sept 30th and repeated that date again at ECTS recently.

[Super Stu]

Do most DVD players read slower than CD-ROM anyway?

Off the top of my head, 1x DVD read = 10x CDrom read.

To put that into perspective, even my old laptop has a 4x dvd drive.

[Spatial]

No!

No !

:drops to knees :

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While it might not be true about the slippage ( personally I wouldn't trust Game as far as I could throw them ), the tension about this is bloody well killing me !

If Valve aren't going to make the release date, why don't they just say so ? Why don't they release a firm yes or no statement ? Surely at this stage they have a good idea of if its going to make it or not

Argh ! Its more than my fragile little mind can take !



By the way Stu, nice avatar !

[Ish]

I'm not happy about any slippage (if there is any). I want this game now.

But on the bright side (and its the only bright side I can think of) it would give me longer to save for my new graphics card.

[nips]

Humm... I was always a little wary that the game may slip. I'd obviously rather it not, but if they need the time, then I'm willing to give it to them. Obviously it is best to have a complete game with very few bugs a month later than a month early that is next to unplayable ft:

But, this isn't official, so don't worry... ... yet.

Either way, I'll have CS : Condition Zero to play!

---

Can I suggest that becuase this is such a huge game and loads of people will want to talk about it: to save a lot of copied threads being made, we move this thread back to Gaming Discussion where most people would stop to make a similar thread.

You could edit the first post so that it is clear this this is a one off topic, and all other PC games should go in the PC Gaming and Advice forum.

[C']

Humm... I was always a little wary that the game may slip. I'd obviously rather it not, but if they need the time, then I'm willing to give it to them. Obviously it is best to have a complete game with very few bugs a month later than a month early that is next to unplayable ft:

But, this isn't official, so don't worry... ... yet.

Either way, I'll have CS : Condition Zero to play!

---

Can I suggest that becuase this is such a huge game and loads of people will want to talk about it: to save a lot of copied threads being made, we move this thread back to Gaming Discussion where most people would stop to make a similar thread.

You could edit the first post so that it is clear this this is a one off topic, and all other PC games should go in the PC Gaming and Advice forum.

According Eurogamer CS:Condition Zero has slipped to mid-November as well.

Really gutting about HL2 though. My excitment for this game has grown immeasurably over the last couple of weeks, and I really hope the delay doesn't happen.

[nips]

Humm... I was always a little wary that the game may slip. I'd obviously rather it not, but if they need the time, then I'm willing to give it to them. Obviously it is best to have a complete game with very few bugs a month later than a month early that is next to unplayable ft:

But, this isn't official, so don't worry... ... yet.

Either way, I'll have CS : Condition Zero to play!

[Snip]....[/Snip]

According Eurogamer CS:Condition Zero has slipped to mid-November as well.

I think there is only one was I can express my feelings. And that is with a quote:

No!

No !

:drops to knees :

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Spatial]

Looks like a world of pain in this thread

CS :CZ now listed for 14th November apparently

ft:

Are game producers being too optermistic with their release dates ?

Seems more and more games are doing this ( or am I just paying more attention to it these days ?? )

Anyway, just as a heads up, Gameplay ( there I go pimping them again )are doing CS:CZ for ?19.99

Seems a bit cheap, do they know something we don't ??

[Fire]

Price sounds fine to me, PC games can be really cheap sometimes. HL2 at ?24.99 in the bargain of the century

I'm not really hyped up for CS:CZ, from the videos I've seen it just doesn't look like anything special for a single player experience. When you're using a 5 year old engine and you're up against certain other big name single player games you're bound to fall behind.

Anyway, I wouldn't lose all hope yet. I doubt GAME will have the last word in such matters and things should hopefully be cleared up in the coming days.

[Papercut]

Official Half-Life 2 Countup Thread...

[Adam]

Looks like there's gonna be a few versions of the game:

Gabe Newell on Pay to Play Rumors
A fan by the name of Kamakiri mailed Valve's Gabe Newell about those "pay to play" rumors, and received the following response (which has been confirmed as being legit):
As I'm sure you are aware the HL2 community is going crazy with the rumour that HL2 is going to be like a MMORPG and you will have to pay a fee each month via Steam to play HL2 multiplayer.
I don't believe this to be true but can you please put it to rest once and for all. PLEEEEEEASE.

Gabe Newell: Here's my current thinking: Some people want to buy Half-Life 2 in a store. Right now we have three SKUs planned at three price points. One will have single-player only and not play MODs and we think of that as the mass market SKU (sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world). The second is our traditional single-player plus multiplayer SKU that runs MODs and is sold at places like EBX. The third is the collector's edition SKU with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff.

In the Steam world, some people will want to buy it once, like the middle SKU above. Other people will want to buy the game on subscription (e.g. $9.95/month). The good news for the "buy it once" crowd is, well, they only have to pay once. The bad news is that when we come out with new content (expansion products, TF 2, and presumably other games) then they have to pay separately for those. We're pretty sure that the $9.95 guys are going to get the better value, as we've been pretty good over the years at generating a lot of content.

Now nobody has done this before, so we're scratching our heads and massaging the plans to make sure we've got the best set of options. We've had some feedback that we should sell the top SKU (single-player only no MODs) on Steam, and my reaction has been "yeah, right, for the three people in the world who have a broadband connection, are sophisticated enough to purchase software over the Internet, but DON'T want to play MODs and multiplayer". Some people have said "I want a subscription, but I think the box and the manual are cool, so what about sending me those" and I think that's pretty interesting and we're trying to figure out what to do for them (needless to say Sierra isn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of selling us boxes so people don't buy Half-Life 2 in stores).

But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG.

And Gabe makes this follow-up response in this forum thread:
The various SKUs will be available at the other stores. It's just how we think of them (we think of the lowest price one as the "Walmart" SKU even though Walmart will probably be the biggest single seller of all three SKUs given their volume).
TF2 isn't a MOD, correct. However the subscription will be for anything we make. So when TF2 ships, the subscribers get it as part of their subscription.

We've been talking with retailers about the retail SKUs for a long time. Steam pricing was what I was trying to explain. Steam options seemed to require an explanation of the retail SKUs.

This clears up a lot, and I think this is the first public mention of the collector's special super edition. Oh, if you don't know what an SKU is, "SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit and is a number associated with a product for inventory purposes. Each product must have a SKU, and each SKU must be unique."

Source Planet Half-Life

[Adam]

More:

GNS Project received(from Gabe Newell) another piece of info regarding the different Half-Life 2 SKU?s. This quote explains it all:

For people who buy the less expensive version, they can always upgrade to MOD and multiplayer using Steam. The price difference will be about the difference there was between the two versions.
The theory is that it helps out retailers like Walmart who have very broad reach into customer bases that don't care about multiplayer and who are very price conscious. Rather than having to wait a year for the product price to come down, there's a special version for them on day one.