Team Fortress 2's Fate Unearthed In Missing Games Feature

Thanks to IGN PC for the latest part of its feature discussing some notable PC games that were announced but, so far, never released. In particular, Valve's Team Fortress 2, as originally previewed by IGN in January 1999, is focused on, with Valve's Doug Lombardi clarifying: "Some time after we announced Team Fortress 2, which was then being created on the HL1 tech, the decision was made to move the project to the Source Engine, the same engine used for HL2. The project is still in development here at Valve and we will be announcing more info after HL2 ships." Other forgotten games include Digital Anvil's Loose Cannon ("...this hardly looks like a living project"), and Sid Meier's Dinosaurs ("...never found its niche. Extinct.")

Duke Nukem Forever

[BigHungryJoe]

Of course, Duke Nukem Forever was at the top of the list, but for some reason the link is to part 3 in the series.

Part 1 [ign.com] is here.

What happened to all the people that put money down on that game?

Re:Duke Nukem Forever

[burns210]

the recieved letters saying the game would ship 'real soon now'.

Re:Duke Nukem Forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Your orders should be down at the place of reservation (EB, Gamestop, etc.). If their computers "lost" it after all these years, a reciept should prove your deposit.

On a side note, I seriously regret cancelling my DNF preorder. I had my $5 down since THE first day they were taking preorders, and something tells me a ~10 year deposit>pickup on the game would look really nice framed on my wall. :D

The problem with holding off on releaseses..

[Inoshiro]

Is that, for example, they could've released TF2 back in 1999 based on the HL1 engine, enjoyed decent success, and made Team Fortress that much more fresh in people's minds. Then they could've started updating it as Team Fortress 3 on the HL2 engine as they're doing now with 2.

Whenever a company decides to miss a ship window like that, they're deciding against income and market share. I don't think it was a wise business decision, because it could've easily been another one of those Half-Life 1-based items that generated attention and income for the team while working on Half-Life 2. All they have to show for their work is vapour and promises, not products.

Re:The problem with holding off on releaseses..

[Rallion]

Whenever a company decides to miss a ship window like that, they're deciding against income and market share.

Not if there's something dreadfully wrong with the game, or at least enough to keep a release from being profitable.

Yea.

[Inoshiro]

A late game is a late game, but a bad game is bad forever.

However, there's more to it. If TF2 doesn't sell worth a dang because of how long they waited, it won't be worth anything. At least if they had released it they could've patched it if it sucked.

Re:Yea.

[BlueCodeWarrior]

I can't imagine anyone saying "That game took too long to make...I'm not going to buy it, even if it is good..."

What matters is the quality, not the development time.

Re:Yea.

[Pluvius]

But they do say "I would've played Duke Nukem Forever if it came out back in 1999, but now there's no reason to play it when I've got HL2, Doom 3, etc."

You might say that it's possible that DNF will be as good as its contemporaries whenever it comes out, but I don't think that it is possible. Once you're this far behind schedule, it's at the least extremely hard to catch up.

Rob

Re:The problem with holding off on releaseses..

[DAldredge]

We are talking about the same people who developed a multimillion dollar game on the same systems they used to check their email.

If they didn't have the brains to buy a seperate computer for each dev and hook it up to a KVM switch|Seperate Display|Display with builtin input switching....

Me thinks they have a slight problem thinking things thru.

correction

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking about the same people who developed a multimillion dollar game on the same systems they used to check their email with Outlook.

Re:correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Gabe is an ex-Microsoft employee, apparently he still hasn't let go.

Missed the boat?

[spineboy]

I remember when TeamFortress was THE GAME!. It was the first on-line team style game. Now of course there are many games- namely Counter-Strike, Americas Army, to name some of the bigger ones. They are essentially what TF2 was supposed to be.

I hope that Valve remembers WHY everyone played TF - they played it 'cause it was fun. Not because of the ultra-uber graphics, realistic looking maps/scenarios or other features.

Re:Missed the boat?

[DevilM]

Indeed, which is why it was stupid to delay the game for a new engine. Poor Gunny has been holding onto tf2.com this whole time.

Re:Missed the boat?

[UnknownSoldier]

> I remember when TeamFortress was THE GAME!
Yeap, the golden days of Quake.

> It was the first on-line team style game.
No, CTF, and ThunderWalker preceeded it. (Not by much though.)

Mega-TF ruled too.

Re:Missed the boat?

[Pvt_Waldo]

Given the same guys that made TF for Quake and HL are still working at Valve, it seems like a good bet it's safe :^)

TF was a Quake Mod

[Bulln-Bulln]

Quote from IGN:
Team Fortress began life as a free add-on to Half-Life.

Team Fortress began life as a free add-on to Quake1 (QuakeWorld to be more specific), not HL.

Hey IGN: Great journalism... ;)

but...

[ADRA]

Team fortress was for Q1, Team fortress classic was a mod for Half-Life, which is actaully what everyone's talking about.

Re:but...

[KeoghX]

Actually they are probably refering to TF2, it really was originally supposed to ship with Half-Life. I remember being excited about Half-Life for this very reason, and when they decided to delay TF2 for a patch (and much later as a standalone product)I almost didn't buy Half-Life at all... Funny that even before it's release I was more interested about Half-Life becuse of a mod than the actual game.

Re:TF was a Quake Mod

[mrseigen]

I sent them a letter about that bit, because I'd hate for the newbies to believe that Valve actually had an original idea for a multiplayer game.

That is by no means "new" news.

[Spiffae]

That Doug Lombardi quote comes from somewhere soon after HL2 was shown at E3 in May of 2003. There was a lot of excitement over Source and Half-Life 2, and they slipped in that Team Fortress 2 was still in the works.

If anyone looked at the HL2 source code leak, you noticed that the code was divided in half. Half of it was about Half-Life2, and the other half was about Team Fortress 2. this is in no way a "dead" project, simply an completely secretive one. Some of the stuff in that code was really cool, a lot of good gameplay ideas, and what seemed to be some impressive innovation.

I'm guessing we'll hear more (and maybe see more) about Team Fortress 2 this E3 (May 12-14).

Does this mean my Gamstop Pre-Order is still good?

[WarlockD]

I mean I did reserve $10 on it in 1999, so in theory I still can get it redeamed...right?

Re:Does this mean my Gamstop Pre-Order is still go

[Fiz Ocelot]

We should start charging interest for reserve money held longer than 1 year....

I remember that

[Black Hitler]

You can see some rare concept art for "Sid Meier's Dinosaurs!" here [oldmanmurray.com].

HL2

[Sv-Manowar]

If you check Amazon [amazon.com], they list half-life 2 as shipping in December 1969 (the way of getting out of saying that the release date has been bumped back) I doubt Half Life 2 will see shelves anytime this year

I wonder will it be free

[PingKing]

I wouldn't be surprised if Valve release TF2 as a free add-on for HL2. Not only would it bump up sales for HL2, it would create an instant online multiplayer community for HL2.

Hell, they did it for the first game - why not the sequel?

I wondered what had happened....

[ReflectingGod]

It's nice to see that TF2 is still on the cards, but it's a shame that the likes of Seraphim may never see the light of day...

And as for Duke Nukem Forever, I could have told you 5 years ago we'd never see that.

TFC Veteran

[Boogieman117]

I know that I've played TFC until my eyes bled from their sockets. I have a bad feeling that: A: This release will NOT be free, since for example, CS: CZ wasn't released as an add-on. B: It's been backed up and backed up, and I honestly don't think that people will care about a 6-7 year old backed up game.