Half-Life 2 Targeted for Summer Release

Gudlyf writes "According to CNN Money, Valve's director of marketing Doug Lombardi announced that the company is 'currently targeting this summer for the completion of Half-Life 2'. From the article: 'Valve does not plan to reveal any additional information until the time surrounding the E3 trade show, where the game will once again be shown this year. E3 will be held in Los Angeles May 12-14.'" The game was delayed following a previously covered code leak, and the article also notes: "Arkane Studios, an independent French developer that created the critically-acclaimed role-playing game 'Arx Fatalis,' has licensed [Half-Life 2's Source engine] for a forthcoming title [as has Troika's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines]."

This game is going to suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember how many cheats were written and used for Half Life, Counter-Strike, etc -- and that source was closed?

Just imagine how much more the Half Life 2 and the Counter-Strike port of it will suck *this time* now that the source code had been leaked. This thing is going to be miserable to play online. :(

OK so thats...

[j0keralpha]

... what, two more GPU revisions? This wont tax anything by the time it comes out!

Woohoo!

[barenaked]

Half-Life has had one of the longest lives (in terms of popularity) of any video game. I have gone back and played it (the single play) many times, and still do, and the game is from 1998. It is a timeless classic, and its modability has kept its multiplayer alive with CS and Firearms. Most people who actually know something about gaming would say this is the best game ever made.

Real reason for delay?

[kneecarrot]

I would have more respect for Valve if they just came right out and said "listen, we are running behind. The game won't be out for a few more months." Instead they try to blame it on the source code leak. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Re:Woohoo!

[polyp2000]

Nah ... The best game ever made is David Brabens "Elite", anyone who knows anything about gaming knows that.

Re:Until then, there's always...

[thelasttemptation]

Well to be honest, that's your own fault. ID never announced a release date so you should have waited as it wasn't them who lead you astray...

Re:2004 Vaporware

[Lobster Cowboy]

well, considering how bad valve's profits were last year, i don't think they can afford to delay this game much longer

Steam

[Danathar]

Well..at least Steam will be well de-bugged and working correctly by the time it comes out. With the way steam was rolled out, nobody would of been able to download Half-Life 2 even if did come out.

Re:What's the Counter Strike on OS X scoop?

[Awptimus Prime]

That's what I get for trying to crack a funny. There are too many over-zealous, angry people with mod points, today. ;-)

Re:This game is going to suck.

[roystgnr]

You don't send the client information that they don't need (say, the position of players that they can't see)

And then you fend off the complaints of all your customers who notice that when someone comes around a corner in your competitors games, they can be seen smoothly running into view, whereas when someone comes around a corner in your game they instantly "blink" into position a fraction of a second later when the server has made sure that yes, you really can see them. Avoiding this doesn't mean your server has to send every player the location of every other player, but just sending clients the locations of enemies they might see soon would be enough to let cheaters get in the first shot in many confrontations.

and you check to make sure the returned data is sane (for example, the player is traveling on foot more slowly than 200mph, the player isn't walking through solid obstacles, etc.

Good advice, but it seems to have already been taken on the FPS games I've played. Did Half Life 1 really allow cheats like this without a modified server?

Real reason for delay: Not Content Complete

[Torgo's Pizza]

I've seen a lot of posters blame the whole hacker incident on the delay. The hack caused a whole host of problems, but almost everyone forgets that the game wasn't going to make the September 2003 release date anyway. Vivendi was already making statements for months doubting the release date was going to be met with Valve consistently stating they were going to make it.

I believe it was around Sept. 20th when Valve and Vivendi admitted that the release was going to be delayed. A few days after that the source was leaked and everyone jumped on that bandwagon. It's know come to light in several HL2 forums that the AI was incomplete and several levels weren't right.

HL2 is an ambitious game and a lot of work goes into creating a AAA title. To have it delayed doesn't surprise me in the least. To blame it all on the source leak is unfair. Valve just didn't make their milestone dates, plain and simple.

Arkane Studios

[easychord]

I'm actually more excited to hear that the Arx Fatalis guys are using the source engine than Troika or even Valve.

I'm not a big fan of fps games, and Troika have really failed to deliver with their other games in my opinion. They can only trade under the grace of having worked on Fallout for so long.

Arx Fatalis was a diamond in the rough though. A trip into a atmospheric gameworld with some oldskool crpg details that developers seem to forget about these days. I'd like to see what they could do with more experience and a great engine.

Re:OK

[SphericalCrusher]

Half-Life 2 did have an official launch date at some point in time... until Valve was attacked by a group of hackers that stole the source code and maps for the game project. Hopefully there won't be any delays this time -- no reason to be, unless they get hacked again.

Future Vaporware - and thoughts.

[micahmicahmicah]

Perhaps we should put this on the list under "Duke Nukem Forever"?

I upgraded my existing machine with a GF FX5950 - mostly so I could play with this game. But with the leaked art of Quake IV and the impending release (eventually) of Doom III and HL2, I'm already saving to build a machine just for gaming. Quad Raptors in Raid-0 with a motherboard full of ram, at 26 years old - this is likely to be the last time I can justify dropping a few grand on building a machine. I play games less and less now, due to work, and friends. Still I keep buying tech toys - rarely for a true need, mostly for the compulsory instinct to buy new toys.

I don't go out to eat, I'd rather cook at home - it's healthier and leaves more money for toys. I'm an IT guy, and frankly I love my job - don't really feel the need for a vacation very often (and I have over 2 weeks vacation left over from last year to prove this), even when it's busy and I put in the occasional 24 hour shift - I don't really mind - just need sleep. My social life and sleep patterns have never been any good, and I usually sleep between 2am and 7am. It's a habit I started back in the early 90's while dialup BBS's kept me up all night. My friends think I'm crazy for opting to spend my nights at home online and alone - instead of out at the bar or club. But for me, I'd rather read a book, watch some TV, and run on the treadmill. I'd rather work under the hood of a car with my friends then sit on the couch or in some bar watching sports. I find little in common with the average people I meet at bars and clubs. I've got a string of short relationships behind me, and I'm just not in the mood for more of the same. My money is saved for tech toys, and the occasional roadtrip/vacation with friends.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

Re:Time to upgrade

[aliens]

While that's all nice. I think it's the server that gains the most from being ported to 64bits anb taking advangtage of oodles more memory.

Although there are no benchmarks to say either way, I don't think that a 64bit client would see that much faster execution. Now a x86-64 client optimized for 3dNow2(or whatever is in the AMD Chip) instructions would see some nice speedups.

Re:Until then, there's always...

[BadmanX]

Ugh...after Ion Storm butchered Deus Ex: Invisible War by designing it for the Xbox first, I'm NOT looking forward to Thief III any more; I know it'll simply be more of the same - low frame rates, inconsistent graphics, small areas and shallow gameplay.

Re:Doubtful?

[MooCows]

Far from it. The code that was leaked is chock-FULL of *HACK-HACK*'s and *TODO*'s. Granted, 5 months after the game's initial planned release date, I'd hope that it looks at least a little bit better, but calling the leaked code near perfect is more than a bit rose-colored-glass.

I can guarantee* that many finished perfectly running apps you use are full of *HACK-HACK*'s and *TODO's*
The code ran fine, so I don't care how it looks.

And the occasional bug and crash could've easily been fixed in 5 months.

*For fun try a:
find /usr/src/linux-of-choice -name '*.[ch]' -exec grep -i hack '{}' \;
On the Linux kernel (doesn't work with /usr/src/linux simlink btw).
The same with todo .. massive hitcount :)

Re:Real reason for delay?

[radish]

OK so I'd expect this from CNN, but slashdotters should know better.

It's really very simple - if your product's security relies on it's users not having access to the source code, then you have no security. Even IF the network code was leaked (and I've read many reports saying it actually wasn't) then SO WHAT? The source code for my webserver, my ssh server and even my operating system have been "leaked" and guess what? They are still secure. In fact, I (and many other people) consider it to be more secure because it's in the open. You might want to google for "Open Source" - it's quite a trend these days.

Besides which - any cheater who is skilled enough to find bugs in leaked gamecode and craft that into an exploit is surely aware of mystical tools called "decompilers". I've heard they let you generate source code from the binaries. Sounds like magic to me.

The simple fact is that the leak is being used to cover up an otherwise perfectly normal and acceptable delay. It happens. But because of the leak they have a handy scapegoat. Did the set it all up? I doubt it. But you never know.