HL2 Delayed

[evil_admin]

Half-Life 2 Delayed
Vivendi Universal confirms Valve's upcoming sequel will ship holiday 2003.
Tuesday July 29, 2003 | hardcore_pawn


Half-Life 2 coming holiday 2003
Sal "Sluggo" Accardo

As we speculated in our original preview a few months back, Vivendi Universal today confirmed for us that Half-Life 2 will not be shipping on September 30th of this year, as originally announced. Instead, the release for Valve Software's highly anticipated sequel has been pushed back, and is now scheduled to be completed and be released in time for the 2003 holiday season. No reason was given by Vivendi for the delay.

Half-Life 2 has been the subject of much excitement since the game was first unveiled just prior to this year's E3. The game once again casts you as scientist Gordon Freeman, battling both aliens and military soldiers an unspecified amount of time after the events of Half-Life. This November marks the 5th anniversary of the original game's release, which went on to sweep most of the industry's "Game of the Year" awards for 1998.

[sage_4]

where did you get this info? i'm not saying its not real, its just that i want to post it on my site but i need an article or something.


-edit- and also, my whole month has been ruined now.

[soulsolution]

or maybe they need to get off their lazy asses and do things...hl2 has been in the works since hl1 came out..right after it came out they started on hl2..thats how long its been taken them...tfc2 was suppose to be released a couple years back..never did...like i said before and ill say it again...never trust valve on release dates <_<..bah but who cares.....NS2.0 comes out Thursday w00t w00t


heres the link http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id=5298 in my opinion..it will be released before the "2003 holiday" to me this seems as a rumor...phl.com didnt post any reviews\sources stating that its delayed..but who knows

[sage_4]

remember this: during HL1 valve was only 30 ppl. it has now grown to 70 but think about it, in all that time valve has also put out 2 sequels, backed up many mods (rico and cs anyone?) worked with seperate teams, and kept all of these things updated. and also, from what i've heard it took them almost 3 years to just get the engine down. furthermore it must have been a ***I'm Stupid for Swearing*** to make it so that the ideal conditions for it are 2 ghz instead of 3ghz, and the lowest be 700 mhz, just so more ppl could play it. although they are delaying, valve can still do no wrong from my view.

and I would hate to see a game that was rushed in the finalizing process. this is only for the better in the long run. and it gives me more time to save up for a better system.

[soulsolution]

its not offical tho...if you notice they didnt post the source links\conversations about the delay...nothing is official at the moment

[Gwarsbane]

Even if it does become official, a month or 2 delay is nothing.


I'm used to seeing big delays in the games I want. I think Mech Warrior 4 was late by 3 or 4 months.

I would rather see the game come 6 months late and work nicly, then be released on time and not be finished.

There are a few games out like that. They need patch after patch with in the first month just to make it stable.


So if it is delayed I can live with that. Specifically with how well they seem to support the community. They have put out lots of patches to fix bugs, support mods and are still around 5 or so years after the game was released. I wish the Mech Warrior games had even half that dedication.

[][_ i m i t | e s s]

Its all marketing. Anything released at Christmas will do twice as well as anything released on September 30:smurf:

[sage_4]

halflife 2 will probably break records, no matter when it is sold. think about the kind of fan base it already has. throw in anyone who has even seen that video and plenty of ppl are gonna want to buy it.

[Wha?]

If they release it for christmas, the price will still be high when people go looking for gifts. And since that's prime money splurging season, it''s easier to justify the expense.

[Gwarsbane]

From http://www.planethalflife.com

Just a follow-up on yesterday's Half-Life 2 delay story: to clear things up, we have confirmed directly with Vivendi Universal that there is a delay. We've even double checked. Valve has yet to send an official confirmation or denial either way on this, and other sites are reporting that there isn't a delay based on alleged email answers Gabe Newell sent to random fans. In some cases, these mails are obviously forged.
Yes, Valve is developing Half-Life 2 and they have control over when the game is declared finished, but Vivendi is responsible for publishing the game and actually getting it in stores. And that entire quality assurance, duplication, packaging, and distribution process takes time. So Vivendi has a little bit of say in the matter too, wouldn't you say?

Now, if there really wasn’t a delay, Valve could have easily sent a two line press release out telling everybody that everything was right on schedule. But they haven’t. And considering the original Half-Life, TF2, TFC, the HL SDK, Steam, CS: CZ, and pretty much every other project Valve has been involved with has suffered delays of various lengths, this latest setback shouldn’t be surprising.

Really, this isn’t a big deal, as we should still get the game this year. Valve doesn’t want to push a crappy version of Half-Life 2 out the door just for the sake of meeting some arbitrary deadline, and I’m sure they won’t ship Half-Life 2 until it is ready.

As always, we’ll attempt to keep you posted.

[sage_4]

despite the fact that planethalflife is run by gamespy, it is still a kickass site.

[Gwarsbane]

Its where I get all my information from, they seem to be accurate most of the time, and one of the people who work there reviewed Ricochet when it first came out and loved it, so they can't all be bad hehe :D

[Power and Glory]

I've had PlanetHalfLife bookmarked for over 4 years. I go there everyday. I also have IGN and Gamespot bookmarked as well. Those are the sites I go to for anything I have ever needed.

I doubt CS is going to be free anymore once they make a version for HL2. I read that somewhere.

[kermit]

there will in fact be a pirates, vikings and knights sequel for hl2...but not from the same team that brought the first.

yeah...svenCoop2 will be one of the first mods for hl2...but i'm unsure if valve is working w/ the sven team on that, or if valve will release their own in-house co-op game. so there may be two co-op games out roughly at the same time as hl2 or, perhaps one.

[_Acid_Head_]

I'm all for delays as long as the game is nice and COMPLETE.

[sage_4]

considering that they dont charge for any of the mods, i dont think they would be able to in the next one. i mean, people just make them, they dont have too much control over it, cs or not.

[Power and Glory]

Wanna make a bet? They certainly do have control over CS and DOD. I know any other mod would be free cause Valve has no part in 99% of the mods out there but when CS and DOD are made for HL2 I don't see how they could be free anymore. Valve controls those 2 mods for the most part especially CS. Don't say people won't buy them cause they will. Why do people buy CS and DOD when they could get HL for 10 or 15 bucks and get any mod for free?

Go here and read this thread http://hl2.burstfire.net/forums/showthread...=&threadid=2244 it will go into more detail about how CS2 will not be a mod. People posted some good reasons.

[Gwarsbane]

And the roller coaster goes up another hill (from http://www.planethalflife.com )

A few smaller gaming news outfits are reporting that Vivendi has pulled their previous Half-Life 2 delay announcement, quoting a message from PR Director Amy Farris saying, "Valve is still working toward the Sept. 30 ship date."
Don’t get your hopes up. We’re still sure the game is delayed. Just wait and see.

Besides, that message doesn’t outright state that there isn’t a delay, it just says Valve is still working hard on the game. Well, duh.

[brokend]

just a sidenote: the Vivendi Universal distributing group went up for sale on some friday back in May or June. I don't recall. all i remember specifically is that Macintosh bid on it when the sale was announced. then the following monday, Microsoft bid on it, toppling the Mac bid. i didn't hear anything else about it; does anyone know what happened with it? just curious.

[sage_4]

i would rather have satan microsoft have it, because i dont want hl3 on POS macs. what fun would that be? it would look worse than the 1st one.