Great Read.

This comment was edited on Nov 17, 10:25.

I quit enjoyed TFC when it was released for free for HL. Never played the original Quake version so can't compare. I was disappointed when Valve decided to port CS to source instead of TFC. Of course they are waiting to release a seperate TF2 and make more money, I realize that. But still, I wish they would even release TFC and port it to Source.

Edit - oh yeah, port HL-Classic DM to source as well, while you are at it Valve

You cannot make anything fool-proof. The fools are too inventive
This comment was edited on Nov 15, 12:03.

You don't understand, maybe because you weren't a gamer back then, but QWTF was the most played FPS game on the internet for quite a few years, even beating out Quake2 and all of its mods for a while.

Yes, but that's not why the people here are getting angry. They're getting angry for being lied to, not for missing the sequel to what they thought would be great.

If you remember (and I do, because I was a gamer back then), there were only three mods that got serious play. TF2, Rocket Arena and Action Quake. I was a huge Action Quake player. Well, remember Action Half-Life? No? TF2 likely would have gone down similar to that had it actually been done on its own.

Each generation gets its own favorite mods. I doubt CS would have been the mod of choice if it wasn't THE ONLY choice.

I'm always shocked Valve gets the crap for TF2 that they do. They pulled resources to concentrate on HL2. So what? They get more flak for this than Lucasarts gets for canning Sam and Max as well as Full Throttle 2. People act like it's totally unheard of for a game to appear at E3 and then vanish. People also act like there isn't a chance TF2 will show up soon.

You don't understand, maybe because you weren't a gamer back then, but QWTF was the most played FPS game on the internet for quite a few years, even beating out Quake2 and all of its mods for a while. The only thing it could compare to is present day Counter-Strike. Now imagine that instead of CS:S they had announced "Counter-Strike 2", and had been showing screenshots and movies and telling about all the revolutionary features it would have, and imagine its graphics were way beyond what you see in CS:S currently, and that they already had a release date set. Then they come out with CS:S instead (like they did TFC) which is just the same game as CS but with better graphics and watered down gameplay (which isn't really the case with CS:S but was DEFINITELY the case with TFC) and never mention CS2 ever again except once a year saying "it's not a dead project" for 4 years.

Oh let's not forget the fact that when TF2 was going to be a Quake2 expansion half the TF player base bought Quake2 and then never ended up playing it, and then it was going to be a HL expansion so everyone bought that and all they got was TFC which was a pile of crap.

Valve is definitely deserving of the ire they get from TF fans.

a technology Valve was demonstrating in Team Fortress 2 (and said to be definately included in Source), was somethign I call "localised voice chat."

Erm, they already introduced this technology into HL1. You can already do this in your own HL1 mod, they just chose not to use it in any of their mods because they realized it was not fun and did not add anything to the gameplay of their mods.

What a great article! I had to read it part by part throughout the day due to my short attention span.

I have never been more excited about a game. This is just a glimps into the future of this industry.

I feel so good right now.

Storytime:

In an alternate universe, Gabe Newell realized that HL2 wouldn't make september. He hated to tell the fans this, but he realized it by the end of summer. So, with a heavy heart he announced that Half Life 2 wouldn't come out in September 2003. He announced that it may miss 2003 although.

The fans reacted in this alternate universe. They were furious. "Gabe told me at e3 that it'd be out in September, and now only a few months later he's retracting that??!"

"I think he made up the date altogether," another fan answered. "In fact, I'm so fed up with him making a date and changing it that i'm never going to buy anything by Valve again!"

"I agree", added another fan, obviously irked by HL2's slippage. "It doesn't matter that he's announcing this two months ahead of time... It obviously was a hype machine they made to get people to pay attention at E3. Add my name to the list of people who won't buy it."


---------------------
When you read the reviews for half life 2, are they saying "you know, the game woudl have been a 98%, but they lied to us and thus we're giving them a 23%"? No. Because, as much as it sucks to have a game slip, release dates don't matter. Telling your customers that the product will make a date when it won't doesn't matter. In the end, all that matters is that the game is good. If you're still pissed off about the slippage, take a pill and think about something else. Being this angry over something as pointless as Gabe telling people that it'd make a date that it wouldn't is just a waste of your time.

This comment was edited on Nov 13, 18:53.

Great article, I can understand how Valve didn't want to admit that they had screwed up on the date, and probably worked as hard as they could, but slowly realized it was impossible.

To all you who keep flaming Valve, let it go. There is a reason why YOU are not working on the game, lets see who's laughing when Valve makes 700 million from HL2... Flame that!

Fuck Gabe, Fuck Valve, and most of all, fuck Steam.

instead of this release date delay bullshit, which lead him to start lying to his fans, why don't they do what Nvidia used to do and not even announce the goddamned product until its ready to go (oh wait, they needed to take advantage of the hype to reel people in hook line and sinker into Steam.

if you have to give a date to your publisher or to the powers that be, fine give THEM a date, but otherwise, shut the fuck up and don't say shit until you have a product ready to sell.

that way when the inevitable product delays occur, no one gets disappointed, except for the business. and since they're the one delaying it, shouldn't they be the ones that feel the hurt, not the fans?

I was wondering the same thing. That's like $12,000 per month per employee.

A million a month? can anyone break that down into how it would cost that much pre-month? Wages, Tech, Building and Pizza is all I can think of? 83 people = how much wage pre-month? I've often wondered where the big cost is? Motion capture , voice acting?

Anyone with a idea?

From Gamespot Article:
It all started one September day in 2003. That's when the hard-drive light on Gabe Newell's PC started flashing at bizarre times. The problem persisted even after he reformatted his hard drive and ran a virus scan. So he sent an e-mail to check if anyone else's PC was on the fritz. "Has anyone seen anything weird going on?" he asked the staff. No one responded.

As Newell looked into the situation more closely, he came to an alarming conclusion: "We were f***ed." He found odd software installed on his machine. There were hidden hard-drive partitions. The network activity on Valve's servers showed uncommon spikes. When he began to check other computers, he found at least 13 that had similar software installed. Valve's security had been compromised. Racing around the office, he told everyone to disconnect their computers from the Internet. He started pulling wires out of walls, shutting down computers and effectively cutting Valve off from the outside world.

"Satanism doesn't call for any of those things"
Im not studied in it, apparently there are some cults that interpret it that way, whom believe the more sacrifices the more power, so maybe thats where my confusion comes from.

"Christianity has killed more innocent people than Hitler and Stalin combined"
Not because of that is bases of Christianity, more of my religon is better than your religon metality.



"Never do they say he was financing the game out of his own pocket"
Reading comprehension 101 anyone? Wrong!
They mentioned HL2 would be finaced by profits from HL and if need be by Gabe wealth from his days at MS, not his previous partner.
Point was after 3 years of nothing but cost from HL2 Gabe was starting to get nervous about the lack of product even thou they dont mention his actual estimate to complete this next masterpiece.
There must have been some estimate by Gabe of when profit would start off setting cost, why make a game if you dont intend to sell it.
What do you think they had unlimited money to pay out 1 million a month for 5 years?
HL and its mods were popular but I think your smoking crack

"1 million per month to develop...which had nothing to do with Gabe and his own personal finances"
Wrong, if the cost HL2 started or WAS exceeding HL1 profits they specificly mention it would be covered by Gabe.

"You mean like Bush? If you didn't know, the close financial ties between the Bush family (sp"

Exactly like that.

I'm not fond of IBM's involvement either.

"I'm glad arafat's dead because I can't really be comfortable about people who had nazi ties as closely as his."

You mean like Bush? If you didn't know, the close financial ties between the Bush family (specifically Prescott Bush, W's grandfather) and the Nazi party are very well documented, if not widely acknowledged.

Pagans loved sex. lots of it. With everyone. They celebrated life. They celebrated fertility. Orgies, homosexuality.

That irks a lot of christians, repressed as they are.

So christians vilified them. tried to portray them as evil.
Seems a little backwards.

but also I think they are hinting at an never really say in much detail Gabe was financing and it was costing 1 million a month!

Reading comprehension 101 anyone?

Never do they say he was financing the game out of his own pocket. They said "he could have" financed the game out of his own pocket at any time if he chose to because he was rich from his days at Microsoft, along with his buddy that built a yacht. And they refered to the game costing about 1 million per month to develop...which had nothing to do with Gabe and his own personal finances.

----------------------------------------------------
Zero Tolerance Games Counter-Strike: Source server.
http://www.ztgames.com

I wasn't saying that Christianity was evil specifically because of the quoted passages, I was saying that it's evil because of it's bloody and vengeful history of indiscriminately killing innocent people. Many religions do use the Old Testement, granted, but I listed those more as an amusing aside. You can write any crap you want in your teachings - it's what you DO in the real world that counts.

And in the real world, Christianity has killed more people than any other religion. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In general all heiarchical organized religions are evil, in that they teach conformity to somebody else's dogma rather than individual thought, education, and introspective (as is common in many far Eastern religions). These religions are run by regular people, who annoint themselves as the mouthpeices for some imagined diety and then preach intolerance (which begets hatred and violence) when the church inevitably becomes currupted by the power that it wields.


And yes, nearly all of the central figures and icons of Christianity (Jesus most of all) were borrowed from other religions that pre-date Christianity by thousands of years. This wasn't a simple lack of imagination on the part of Christianity's inventors, it was calculated to make it easier to convert others to a religion with analagous figures and rituals (for example, worshiping on SUNday, the day that was previously set asside for worshiping the sun, so that people didn't have to change their days of worship).

It's easier to get people to change their reasons for doing something than it is to change what they are doing.

jesus christ is a fabrication. created to make people hate other people.

Why do christians hate paganism?
Because paganism loves all life and nature. They were at peace with their environment and were generally friendly people. They respected animals and life. That just doesn't sit will with most christians so they associated it with Satan who according to christians is a mean dude. Hence why most people confuse satanism with paganism. Satanism is a different thing for a different post. Satanism isn't about hurting people, but it just wouldn't do for the christians for people to believe that.

Supposedly the bible dictates that there is a 7 day week.
Earth created in 6 days and 7th day off blah blah blahbullshitbullshitbullshit.

Why do christian's take sunday off (or believe to be a day of rest?) Because Constantine the Great declared it to be so! The day of the sun (which celebrates Ra, helios, apollo and other sun gods). Everybody worshipped the sun because (quite obviously) without it we'd all be very cold and not here.

Want to know some neat facts about the other days of the week?
Monday - Mona day! Saxon moon god.
Tuesday - Tiw's Day! Named after Tiw, Norse god.
Wednesday - Woden's Day! Named after Odin, Norse god (Odin is the modern English spelling, used to be Woden)
Thursday - Thor's day! Named after Thor, Norse god.
Friday - Named after Freya, Norse god.
Saturday - Named after saturn. Crazy greeks!
At least in english. Most asian languages have relations to the planets or just numerical.

Basically the bible is made up. Some of the tales may have a degree of truth in their basis, but largely it's all bullshit. 7 day weeks were around before the bible and before "christ". Demonstrably in Rome.

The bible was written to impose beliefs and took what people already knew and were already doing and distorted it to be used for the bible writers' agenda (or whoever was comissioning the writing of it such as King James, what a bastard).


As for the whole jewish conspiracy or whatever, I doubt it in general.
However, the whole pouring of tax payer dollars in to israel irks me. They're a nuclear power and destabilize the middle east region. They're volatile and generally trouble makers. That said, I'm glad arafat's dead because I can't really be comfortable about people who had nazi ties as closely as his. (Several nazi's fled to the middle east after WWII and arafat's family had close ties to one of them). They're all a bunch of bastards and they should just stfu and live peacefully because they're fighting over a bunch of made up bullshit.

/rant

No, he's partially right. Most religions borrow very, very heavily from the religion before them. The best way to convince people of something is to show them the way it explains what they already believe.

"See, you got it wrong, close but wrong, it's really like this."

Most successful empires knew this well. When they'd conquer a country they'd incorporate the culture of the country into their own, such as the Romans taking the Greek Gods.

It's among the reason so many flood stories are out there. That, and the huge fear of floods back then.