Wow, the nerds came out with their dissertations on this one.

I salute you all, for defending Half Life 2.

They should really call it "Half-Life 2: Viagra for Nerds"

I myself am too cool for this game, I will never buy it, besides, my mommy says that half-life 2 isn't christian.

IM GOING TO A MEETING OF THE CHRISTIAN COALITION NOW...BYE EVERYONE!!! BYE!!! ILL BE BAKC!!

Success and retards seem to attract
See post #87 for pertinent reference

The companies will be very pleased.

Yeah, in Half-Life's case, they re-wrote a whole bunch of the content 18 months before release because they realised it wasn't good enough.

The crappier-with-age thing is also a bit to do with what comes along in the meantime. When we play HL2 or Doom3 or DNF "when they're done" then we'll be comparing them to Farcry, and to each other, not HL, Quake 2 etc.

Also, some stuff becomes victims of their own success - Deus Ex was modified for consoles because it was a success, CS servers filled up with retards because of its popularity, etc. Success and retards seem to attract

Usually the crappier-with-age thing is too many hands spoiling the pot.

Like CS giving people what they want, forgetting that people are stupid. Ion Storm giving publishers what they want, forgetting publishers are greedy. Or just sequels made by different teams with new ideas and philosophies that integrate poorly with the originals.

"Alphas are bad indicators"
Yes, my point exactly. Before the original Half-Life as it was released was made, I am certain they had Alphas of the previous code (which was scrapped to make the current version). MeatFucks points based on his alpha experience with HL2 are thus flawed. Furthermore, a good amount of products get less fun as they are worked on. Like a franchise, such as Deus Ex, the game Daikatana, CS (which is way less fun now than it was originally), Microsoft's c++ dev studios, and this list goes on


The companies will be very pleased.
This comment was edited on Apr 8, 15:24.

Alphas are bad indicators.


Anyone play the alpha of Tribes? Flying around shooting lasers like crazy...

The final one was very different, you no longer flew as much as hopped. Still very fun, probably equally fun, but a very different fun.

"they have been able to self-finance the development of their next project to the tune of $40-million and counting"
I agree it is a substantial sum of money, but had it not been for a third party modification to their game (CS), that amount of money would be no where close to that $40-million. I am not insulting the intelligence of the fellow posters, I am insinuating as sarcastically as possible that arguing about something of which we have no clue about save some crappy, year old movies, and in some cases a "extremely alpha(?) and unofficial state" version of the game, is a complete waste of time. Furthermore, statements like: IT IS SO FUN TO PLAY, I KNOW IT CAN'T DETERIORATE, BECAUSE I PLAYED THE "extremely alpha(?) and unofficial state"!!!!! You go on later to say with complete self-argument-nullifying stupidity that "...have a history of delaying a hyped-up game to the point of insanity (HL) ". Your statement of both: This cannot get less fun (it is impossible is your espousal), this is an alpha, and the previously mentioned statement go to show you: have no clue about what an alpha is; and that you do not know how to make a single point without arguing it into oblivion by your own devices









"Who here can say they didn't discover the leak and decide to simply take their time..."
No one can say that, but posters are assuming that they are "fixing the network code for security purposes" - which is obvious bullshit - or "making this game beyond reproach (but I will loosely imply it was complete at timeof code leak)". I looked at the code. It is not complete. I played the "alpha". It was not complete. This game, as of September 30, 2003, Valve's stated release date, was no where near completion.

(mormon friendly space)

To sum up: Valve lied to us, the gamers, intentionally. Also, Gabe Newell's blood type is the fucking special sauce off of a big mac. I should hope that if I lose control of my body to the degree of that man, that responsible people will mock the god awful shit out of my fat ass. The big-mac comment was a JOKE.


Perhaps I was not clear: the HL2 vs. speculation on other unreleased games argument is the rehash, not the HL.




(extra friendly mormon scripture-blinded spacE)





I am not insulting my fellow posters, but the wisdom of their argumentative stances on topics for which all of share one thing: No fucking clue at all. If you take such comments personally, as if your arguments took you all day to prepare or something, you deserve to have your intelligence mocked, insulted, and pointed out for what it is: Non-existant.



The companies will be very pleased.

Shut the fuck up and debate such things after the game comes out. Seriously, this has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum.

TYOA. Who here can say they didn't discover the leak and decide to simply take their time fixing things to the point that the game is beyond reproach? I mean, Sept. 30 is scheduled to come around at least one more time... Exactly. None of us knows a fucking thing about any of it.

Although I do know that tearing around on the coast in a dune-buggy killing Lion-Ants is not likely to get any less fun the more they continue to work on it.. nor is combat against the Man-Hacks. Those things fucking ROCK; the gyro-physics on them is just great! But then, I think those statements are pretty reasonable given that I have some form of experience with those features, having at least had the chance to try them out for a few days (albeit in an extremely alpha(?) and unofficial state)...

But you're right -- far better that we confine our wild, baseless and sometimes defamatory speculation to the work-habits, dietary preferences and business-ethics of a company none of us has any experience of whatsoever. "Hacks, who lucked out the first time" to the extent that they have been able to self-finance the development of their next project to the tune of $40-million and counting; set their own schedules; owe us nothing; have a history of delaying a hyped-up game to the point of insanity (HL) and then releasing a product so sublime that it's virtues are still "being hashed and rehashed ad nauseum [sic]" (HL).

To keep things pleasant and productive, we should also insult the intelligence of our fellow posters wherever possible and whether or not there is any reason to.

You, sir, are a doiyoi.


----
The dactylic pentameter consists of too [sic] parts separated by a diaeresis. Each part consists of to [sic] dactyls and a long syllable. The spondee may take the place of the dactyl in the first part, but not in tEh [sic] second... -Harkness.
This comment was edited on Apr 8, 12:16.

UT2K3 was impressive because it was the first thing I played to not have death animations.


This must be a troll but I'll bite... no death animations? Record a demo of a one on one match and have a look.

Hmm, I'm just thinking from the demo, but I thought that characters fell based on physics, not pre-recorded canned animations, so deaths were unique each time.




As for that long, spiteful rant, well, nothing like keeping an open mind. And hey, I agree, CoD was horribly boring. Horribly.

Remember how Half Lifes demo was its own little mini story with new levels.. that was awesome.

Every one of you bashing hl2 are going to be there opening day to buy it and you know it.

Actually they won't have to because they all have Steam subscriptions.

Every one of you bashing hl2 are going to be there opening day to buy it and you know it.

UT2K3 was impressive because it was the first thing I played to not have death animations.

This must be a troll but I'll bite... no death animations? Record a demo of a one on one match and have a look.

#78: you're paragraphes are so big I can hardly discern separate words anymore! :-)

Linebreaks would help with the lifespan of my eyes (or maybe I'm just getting old).

This is the first time I've seen these HL2 movies. I was more impressed by the AI on one particular movie where Gordon pushed the table infront of the door so the soldier started shooting thru the window and then blew the door open. I haven't read anywhere about the physics being totally scripted or not but to me a lot of it looked scripted.

well, you would be right if you thought it was all scripted, because it was.

If you used cheats to give yourself a weapon, then quickly went outside and killed the soldier, all the scripted stuff would still happen(door kick open, yelled commands, ect...)

I'm glad I held off from getting a new comp. Now I know about PCI Express I'm waiting for that until I think about any upgrades. June, the first incarnations of it are expected isn't it?

"Technically, Half-Life was a little above Quake 2 "
Technically, half-life was a little bit of the Quake 2 engine with a ton of the Quake 1 engine. It fucking blows by todays standards, graphically and gameplay wise in my opinion. What made Half-life stand out was that it told you a story while you played, with you as the main character, and the effects of your exploits were included in the story. Innovative? Hardly. RPGs have been doing this since their inception. Valve took the tried, tested RPG method of telling a story in a shitty, unbelievable, repetative game environment, and applied it well to an FPS. Sooooooo ground breaking!
As for the code theft, a recent interview with some asshat from valve, maybe gabe fatwell (I dont remember), he said the game is months away. This interview is less than a month old - the point is, if valve actually had a playable release candidate on September 30th, 2003, all they had to rewrite is network code, and steam code. It has already been seven months, and, despite the code leak, I have not heard of one instance of security with steam, nor CS, nor any other existing product which the code was stolen for. This means Valve is pulling our wire - they had nothing close to an actual release ready last year, and as the developers say: They are months away from actually releasing now.
. Valve is a bunch of big-mac devouring, donut-mouth-stuffing, dishonest liars, who do not, in any sense of the statement, have their shit together - whatsoever. This doesn't mean im am uninterested in HL2, but it does mean all of you standing up to defend a game company who takes 3 years to make a high resolution texture pack for a tired online game's single player version, should sit the fuck down, and reconsider your view of Valve as some great visionary company - which they are not. They are hacks, who lucked out the first time, and HL2 will show us if they have the lucky horseshoe jammed up their asses perennially. I would like to remind all of you that you have not played HL2, period. Neither have I. Arguing about physics, scripts (which, though you all complain about them, seem to love scripted events enough to make COD the game of the year by most accounts), actual in game graphics, gameplay, of a game which is currently months away from release, makes you look like complete morons, utilizing only the chimpanzee-section of your brains, barring the invention (by you, the aforementioned chimp thinkers) of a time travel device, or phenomenal time and space transcending astral-projectory powers and the skill to use them so specifically that you've travelled to the future, entered the physical form of some gamer somewhere playing HL2, and have based your otherwise chimp-shriek sounding HL2 arguments on one of the two of the above mentioned powers/devices. Shut the fuck up and debate such things after the game comes out. Seriously, this has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum.


The companies will be very pleased.

UT2K3 was impressive because it was the first thing I played to not have death animations.

Max Payne 2 was Havok 2.0.


And yeah, the vehicles in UT2K4 are all garbage, in my opinion, from every aspect. Yeah, this isn't the physics enviroment as much as the programming, much like the iceskate furniture in Max Payne 2.

"The UT2k4 physics are certainly nowhere near the level of physics in most new games. And I never found even the ragdoll physics of UT2k3 impressive (gimicky is more like it)."

I think what a lot of people confuse is that physics is a force in a game. There are a lot of factors that can make something appear unreal. Designers are usually given a lot of control in order to get something playable... not necessarily realistic.

As the lighting model in any 3d software is, you have all manors of variables that give you control to make it incorrect. This doesn't mean the underlying processes are wrong, more the user has intervened to get the look or feel they want which is not necessarily realistic.

This is the first time I've seen these HL2 movies. I was more impressed by the AI on one particular movie where Gordon pushed the table infront of the door so the soldier started shooting thru the window and then blew the door open. I haven't read anywhere about the physics being totally scripted or not but to me a lot of it looked scripted.

A couple things that rubbed me the wrong way was the fact in one movie Gordon knocked the monitor off just by walking into it, the monitor went flying off and spinning, damn that Gordon must have some body strength

Hitting enemies still doesn't seem improved from the original, the monster was hit as soon as the crowbar began to swing.

Hey, I'll still be getting it, they're minor issues only, but the more hyped the game is, the more I seem to notice these indescripencies.