Valve head honcho Gabe Newell made a post to the Voodoo Extreme messageboards (thanks Stomped) giving a status report on both Counter-Strike Condition Zero and TeamFortress 2. Since their messageboard seems as fragile as ours, and the post is quite informational, the whole thing is reproduced here:

Hmm. Let's see if I can't address some of the issues people are raising.

1) Counter-Strike Condition Zero is a collection of single-player missions. Rogue came to us after Alice had shipped and EA had cancelled the PS/2 port and said "hey is there anything we can do for you." I had always wanted to see some Counter-Strike single-player missions, so we asked them if they'd like to do that. They were enthusiastic, so we started paying them to develop it. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Jim Molinets decided to leave Rogue to go to Sony, which left Rogue, Valve, and Condition Zero in limbo. Barrett Alexander decided to fold Rogue at this point, and we decided that we would build Condition Zero ourselves. It's being built by Erik Johnson's team, Minh is in the loop.

2) So, to paraphrase a frequent question, "What the f*ck is up with TF 2?" Well, TF 2 isn't easy. There is still a ton of work to do on it. TF 2 has to be something really innovative, or there's no point to it. If TF 2 doesn't add dramatically to the genre and is just a more bigger better version of TFC or Counter-Strike or any of the many cool mods already out there, then nobody's going to give a rat's ass about it. There are far more people working on TF 2 than will be working on Condition Zero. Robin and Yahn can have anything they need to make the game.

3) What's Minh working on? He's working on Counter-Strike 2, which will use the same engine as TF 2.

4) Isn't that damned Half-Life engine just a little long in the tooth to be releasing yet another game on it? Condition Zero will be fun to play, but will not be cutting edge graphics. It's a cool set of single-player missions for people who like realistic tactical combat. If you can't stand to look at Counter-Strike any more, don't buy it.

TF 2 has taken and will take a loooong time to get done. Hopefully we will get it right, and everyone will say it was worth the wait. In the mean time, we are doing stuff like the SDK, Worldcraft updates, Blue Shift, Condition Zero, spectator mode, TFC, supporting the MOD community, more maps, more models, and so on to support the people who paid us money.

While we are working on our next generation, we will continue to deliver games and technologies for our custoemrs. The next update we will release will include voice support for multiplayer followed by Tracker. CZ is also part of that on-going committment.

Gabe

PS - Yes, this is really me. gaben@valvesoftware.com