There were missing textures because the game was no where near being done. There were missing models because they had changed the file format and half the stuff was out of date. Same with the maps. Many were there but couldn't be loaded because they were an older version.

Edit: oh and there were tons of file dates ranging from over a year old to around 9/18/03. If they actually bothered to "fake" the file dates, they went through a LOT of work to make them different and from different times. The leak was definitely from mid September. Plus if he could get the Ritual and TRS versions of Condition Zero (the Ritual one was completed in early to mid August) then he obviously had access to their files at LEAST after August, way after E3.

This comment was edited on Jul 30, 20:30.

ildon, what he had might have seemed big to you, but all he had was a pile of poo. The Russian & Asian CD Copying jerks will sell the game hundreds of times more than the crap ass shit that dumbfuck kid ripped. Everything was incomplete and if it was from after E3, then how come there were all those missing textures? He had shit.

Damn, Creston, why'd you have to let the troll outta the bag?




See you in Hell! http://www.doom3.com/

It seems a lot of people think that all that was released was the uncompiled source code to HL2. This is not the case.

The guy who broke into their system basically downloaded a snapshot of their entire development tree for pretty much all their products at that time. He only released the source at first, but within a few days he had released a complete and somewhat playable version of HL2. It had several assets that were out of date for that version of the executable and would not load, and tons of maps spanning the entire length of the game in various states of development (from the basic orange/white completely unfinished maps to what appeared to be near-complete versions of other maps). Yes it included the E3-specific content, but that's not *all* it included. It was not really what you could call an "alpha" because it wasn't intended to be played by anyone at that point, in fact it'd be impossible. Generally an alpha is a feature complete or at least playable version of the game. The best name you can apply to what was leaked is a "development snapshot".

Later he also released various HL mods in various states of being converted to the HL2 engine, including a version of what is now known as CS:Source with a single map, and HL1 completely recompiled for HL2 with physics objects and everything.

He also released Ritual's version of Condition Zero, in addition to an early version of the final, TRS version of CS:CZ.

This was a HUGE content leak. HUGE. Anyone who tells you differently is either ignorant or lying.

How do I know all this? Uh... *runs away*

Hey, just sign your name "Zeph's Bitch" okay you little bitch ass name signing fucktard.

Are you writing a love letter to us? Or is it that you feel you're soooooo important that you have to sign your name? Is that it?

Well if it's A, we don't give a shit. And if it's B, you're full of shit.

We haven't heard that September bit before, have we?

Creston

"Dacock" said:
If you were truly dumb enough to actually buy the 9800 for a game that wasn't even released, you deserved to be taken.

Um, or you could pay twice as much for a CUTTING EDGE grafix card. Some people may object about buying their grafix card, others are sheep. So where do you stand; Say, in front of the sheep, or somewhere beind the sheep? Have you pictures? Say, Baaaaa... say, baaaaaaaaa..............

Great, so take it out on the publisher, not the damn developers, especially not developers like Valve who have given so much to the gaming community to be treated like shit for missing a release date.

As several people have already said, it wasn't that Valve missed the release date (by a whole year...*cough*). People are mega pissed because Valve kept confirming the date up until weeks of the release. And what REALLY REALLY pissed me off (and probably a few others) was that when the 30th came and went Valve said nothing. Wtf? If every member of the dev team suddenly came down with the bubonic plague and all their computers spontaneously combusted they still should have said something, anything, about their situation on the 30th. Sit back and really look at what a colossal fuck-up that was. If they were intentionally trying to piss people off they could hardly have done a better job. Deadlines/release dates are serious business to most of us. If we miss a deadline we get fired or fail a class. As such, we get pretty pissed when companies miss a deadline. Valve pulled the equivalent of 'the dog ate my homework' excuse.

Sorry professor, the dog ate my paper last night. Well, actually he ate it two weeks ago. I'm just telling you this now because I've been really busy. I know that the paper was due last week, but I'm going to have to rewrite parts of it, so I will hand it in next month...Ok?

The release date slip won't kill me. I waited umpteen years for it, so what's another year. But if people are uber pissed, I totally understand their complaints.

Weird - I've yet to see Steam crash on my system and I've never had to reinstall it.

My brother was having some major problems with it crashing only a few months ago, and his system has always been rock solid.

I haven't touched Steam yet; I've had little incentive to do so. When HL-2 comes out, maybe I'll do it.

Quick question, as I'm too lazy to google it (or search these long-a$$ threads).

If I buy the HL-2 CD in the stores (non ATI promo), what do I get?

Do I get the full game?

Do I just get Steam install files + HL-2 CD Key?

Do I get some of HL-2, but still need steam?

<etc>


Pentium 4 3.06 GHz w/ Hyperthreading + 533 MHz FSB
1024MB PC2700 Crucial RAM
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Windows XP Pro

This comment was edited on Jul 29, 11:11.

Yeah, someone has a short memory all right:

Ok, I'll concede Valve was the one hyping it that it would be ready soon.

But my main point is, we've only known about HL-2 for about what, 1.5 years? 2 years? They kept it quiet for like 3 or 4 years. Meanwhile, we've known about DOOM 3 and have been following the .plan posts forever.

My main point was people are complaining "Valve needs to shutup and finish the game," when in reality, for a while, they were doing a lot better than iD in terms of shutting up.

Too bad they didn't hit their mark. Had it been released Sept 2003, it would have been amazing. A sleeper from out of nowhere with everything that HL-2 has, with DOOM 3 a year away. But they messed it up after they started hyping the shit out of it the few months before it was "supposed" to be released, then taking an extra year.

Now, it has to compete directly with DOOM 3 (which is being released at least a month sooner),. I'm not surprised or annoyed for the delay, sh!t happens in large software projects.

I think DOOM 3 might be slightly better, and I have more respect for Carmack (he seems less corporate than Gabe) and more respect for iD than Valve (iD has more successes, Valve might just be a 1-hit-wonder). But I'm hoping both will deliver great games.



Pentium 4 3.06 GHz w/ Hyperthreading + 533 MHz FSB
1024MB PC2700 Crucial RAM
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Windows XP Pro
This comment was edited on Jul 29, 10:35.

Weird - I've yet to see Steam crash on my system and I've never had to reinstall it. Well, except for a couple months ago when my 4-year-old hard drive blew up... but that was my own damn fault. :-)

This comment was edited on Jul 29, 10:32.

On the T1 here at school I get excellent throughput on Steam (1 mps), but Steam is definately not without its flaws. Crashing, having to reinstall is not uncommon. At the same time, though, it's kind of nice to have my account completely portable and being able to sit down at any computer, download steam, download CS and play. Setting up a computer doesn't take more than a couple of hours.
I'm going to buy HL2 in stores, though. I'd like an actual CD.

Yeah, but DooM3 is actually gold.... and Half Life 2 has a slightly brownish tinge to it these days:P

Don't care how good Half Life 2 is, the original with updated graphics and models will do it for me!

Looking forward to both games and still finding UT2K4 to me multi orgasmic on a good day.

I don't like all this DOOM3/HL2 hating going on. They are both going to be excellent but for different reasons.

Agreed--it's really ridiculous when you think about it as I'm sure that most people, like me, will be buying both games. Buying software isn't remotely like the prospect of buying a $400US 3d card which generally and routinely requires that a single choice be made by the consumer among competing products.

I also agree that the nature and content of HL2 and D3 will be radically different both in terms of story, presentation, and 3d-game game environments (a lot of HL2, for instance, takes place in outside, open-air environments whereas I believe D3 is mainly, if not wholly, restricted to building interiors.)

What made the initial HL so compelling and so much fun was the originality, depth, and the unfolding of the storyline on which the game was based. It was a very entertaining experience for me and I've found HL1 somewhat unique in that sense among all the computer games I've ever played. My only curiosity for HL2 is whether Valve can manage to "do it again"--with the same degree of originality and depth of HL1, or hopefully, with even more of all that good stuff.

My curiosity about about ID software and D3 is whether ID is capable of producing a compelling, deep, original, and highly entertaining single-player game with an unfolding story line to match. ID's games up to this point in time do not fit that description, but excel in other ways exclusive of the single-player story they tell (if any.) So this is going to be my primary concern for D3. In a sense for me, both HL2 and D3 will be competing against the original HL in terms of how entertaining these games actually are, based on their respective single-player story lines and their respective presentations.

I worry that both Valve and ID are putting far too much emphasis on the 3d-rendering qualities of their game engines, and that neither company is saying much at all about the quality and depth of the stories told by each game. That seems precariously unbalanced to me, as a moving and compelling, *original* and entertaining story line is worth far more software sales in the long run than how shiny and reflective scene objects may appear on screen when rendered correctly by an appropriate 3d card. I worry far more about the "frame-rate" relative to the story told by these games than I do about the 3d-card rendering frame rate of either game.

In one narrow, practical sense, what Valve and ID are doing in promoting the scene-rendering capabilities of their upcoming games vicariously through the 3d-card IHVs is understandable. If you don't have a 3d-card, you can't play these games, so by promoting 3d-card vendors the game developers are helping to create larger markets for their 3d games. Problems occur, though, when a developer spends 75% of his game development time and attention on 3d-rendering engine technicalities and approaches, general scene artwork, textures, and audio tracks; but only 25% of his time, money, and energy are devoted to the very thing that provides all of those things with any value--the originality, quality, and depth of the story told by the game. To paraphrase "bubba": "It's the story, stupid!" Heh...:D

It's just a bedrock fact relative to the the 3d games industry that "today's" SOA 3d-rendering game engine is "tomorrow's" bargain-bin rendering engine, as 3d-engines of all description, regardless of their authors, age and obsolesce very quickly these days as the pace of 3d-hardware development is running at a break-neck pace.

But a good and compelling story, well told, can last forever.

All the contrary. This news just screams "just don't spend your money on D3 yet and buy our product in a couple weeks".

You can get a CD, but IIRC it'll cost you $10 and you will have to wait for them to ship it to you.

Do I have to use STEAM to get the copy that came bundled with my 9800? I am assuming so since all I have is a serial number and see no other way to get a copy of a CD. Which sucks, I would much rather have a CD.

They should just wait for all the hype about D3 to calm down before they start opening their pie holes again.

If they release on Sept 28th, then Gabe can lie to everyone and say he was on target for the Sept 30th release date, and that he was on time all along.

I personally have no problem with a game company shipping late. Thats just about normal. It'll happen. Target dates are often just a wish in some marketting person's eye.

However, continually stating that it will make that date right til the last minute, in return for some clearly earned moolah, is wrong. Taking loyal customers along on that ride is wrong.

FWIW I hope they don't fail. I hope HL2 is great. I hope they make stacks of cash. I also hope they get the message LOUD AND CLEAR that bullshitting customers for money (abeit indirectly) is not good.

You think it's bad here?


Go to the 1up.com forums, related to CGW. There are two HL2 threads in the PC forum where a kid named Iron_of_Death keeps claiming Valve has wronged him and deserves to fail miserably for being so late in delivering HL2. His reasoning is always extremely selfish. "They made me wait, therefore they should die."


You'd think he held stock in the company. Sad thing is I'm the only person calling his brattiness, everyone else agrees with him.