09-22-2003, 11:50 AM
Ok as we all know by now Half-Life 2 is suppose to be released on September 30, 2003. Which is 8 days from now.
Now here is the problem, It hasn't been announce as going gold yet. Going gold for a game is important. It usually means that most of the major (and a good chunk of the minor) bugs have been found and removed.
It usually means that the programmers are happy with how the game runs (thou not always true, look at the mega RPG for starwars just released, many people have had problems with it and have said that it looks like it was rushed). It also means that the money should start rolling in instead of just out.
It takes about a week or so to make the master copies, send them out to the manufactures and then have the CDs pressed, boxed with all printed material and sent to stores.
Nearly every single game that I know of has had either a leak or official press release a day or 2 before it goes gold saying that the game is about to go gold. Most games go gold about 2 to 3 weeks before release.
With 8 days to go, there has been nothing about HL2 going gold (not unheard of but VERY rare) Also Valve has said that they will release a benchmark tool for people to test their computers to see how well HL2 will run on them. They said they would release it a few days before HL2 is released, I haven't seen the benchmark too yet and there are only 8 days left.
With 8 days to go... will Valve release HL2 with no announcement of going gold or will they step to the plate on the 30th and say "Sorry Half-Life 2 has been delayed for another week because of the problems with Steam"
And yes I believe part of the reason that there has been no announcement of HL2 yet is because of the problems they are having with steam.
Now here is the problem, It hasn't been announce as going gold yet. Going gold for a game is important. It usually means that most of the major (and a good chunk of the minor) bugs have been found and removed.
It usually means that the programmers are happy with how the game runs (thou not always true, look at the mega RPG for starwars just released, many people have had problems with it and have said that it looks like it was rushed). It also means that the money should start rolling in instead of just out.
It takes about a week or so to make the master copies, send them out to the manufactures and then have the CDs pressed, boxed with all printed material and sent to stores.
Nearly every single game that I know of has had either a leak or official press release a day or 2 before it goes gold saying that the game is about to go gold. Most games go gold about 2 to 3 weeks before release.
With 8 days to go, there has been nothing about HL2 going gold (not unheard of but VERY rare) Also Valve has said that they will release a benchmark tool for people to test their computers to see how well HL2 will run on them. They said they would release it a few days before HL2 is released, I haven't seen the benchmark too yet and there are only 8 days left.
With 8 days to go... will Valve release HL2 with no announcement of going gold or will they step to the plate on the 30th and say "Sorry Half-Life 2 has been delayed for another week because of the problems with Steam"
And yes I believe part of the reason that there has been no announcement of HL2 yet is because of the problems they are having with steam.