Quote:Multiyear agreement sees publisher take over retail duties on storied shooter franchise, EA publishing Xbox HL2 in October.
Just over three months ago, one of the most contentious relationships in game history came to an end. On April 28, after months of overt legal disputes and covert bickering, VU Games and Valve Software announced they were ending a half-decade-long publishing deal. The arrangement saw the former publish the latter's groundbreaking PC first-person shooters Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Half-Life 2.


However, Valve's next console game--after the PlayStation 2 Half-Life and the Xbox Counter-Strike--will be distributed by one of VU's main rivals. Today, Electronic Arts revealed that as of this fall, it will be the international publisher of the forthcoming Xbox version of Half-Life 2, which will now ship in October 2005. EA will also assume distribution duties on a new Game of the Year edition of Half-Life 2 for the PC, which will include Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, as well as Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Half-Life: Source, in a single box.

However, Valve will now officially self-publish all its PC products, although the newly announced--and carefully worded--agreement will let EA "deliver a collection of Valve games to players worldwide" in the future.

"We consider Half-Life and Counter-Strike to be two of the best game franchises of all time," said Tom Frisina, vice president and general manager of EA Partners, in a statement. "We could not be more excited to have the opportunity to help deliver these outstanding games to players around the globe."

Valve founder and president Gabe Newell had similarly kind words. "By combining EA's unparalleled operation structure and distribution channel with Valve's award-winning development teams and games community, we've established an awesome combination for delivering great products to console and PC gamers around the world," he said.

The EA-Valve arrangement covers the boxed, retail editions of Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source but does not affect digitally distributed versions of the game. As before, those games will be delivered and updated via Steam, Valve's online service.

By Tor Thorsen -- GameSpot
POSTED: 07/18/05 12:02 PM PST

Quote:Doug Lombardi Interview

Posted by Chris_D - 2005-06-30 16:53:28


Halflife2.net: Thank you for taking the time out to speak to us, time to chat with you guys is always appreciated. Half-Life 2 has been out nearly eight months now, how did you feel on the morning of November 16th when you knew that after six years hard work, the game was finally out and being played by hundreds of thousands of people? What was crossing through your minds the moment the game was officially released over Steam and how was the occasion celebrated?

Doug Lombardi: It was quite a moment. Traditionally, a product launch is a very removed occurrence – developer sends CD to manufacturing, weeks later the product is spotted on shelves, and then you start rummaging around to find out what folks think of it. This release was different. At midnight that night, we all crammed into one office and cheered as Gabe pushed the button to officially launch what accounted for almost six years of our professional careers. Over the following hours, we received mail from folks telling us how they were liking the game so far, what they enjoyed the most, etc. I’ve launched several products in my day (games and other media) but I’ve never experienced such a connected launch.


Halflife2.net: Now you have the benefit of hindsight is there anything regarding the development of Half-Life 2, or the actual game itself that you would have done differently? There were a lot of people that complained that the Half-Life 2 story didn’t contain as much depth as the original and that the ending was rushed. It was also accused that too much was cut from the game during its development, what is your response to such claims?

Doug Lombardi: With some 40 Game of the Year Awards -- including sweeps at major industry award ceremonies such as GDC and the AIAS Awards at D.I.C.E -- as well as earning the top spot for a PC game on both metacritic.com and gamerankings.com, it would seem we weren’t so terribly off the mark.


Halflife2.net: Though Counter-Strike: Source is still considerably more popular, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was, to say the least, a welcomed addition and a nice surprise to the community. At what point was it decided that you would include a death match component, whose idea was it and where will it go from here?

Doug Lombardi: My friend and Venezuelan gaming genius Adrian Finol put the early versions of HL2M together in his spare time as HL2’s development was winding down. He brought it in one day and showed it to a handful of other people, and a team erupted around him that day. We don’t have any major announcements to make on HL2M today, but we will continue to support it and have had a blast playing the community-created HL2M maps.


Halflife2.net: Steam has also caused a lot of controversy, especially since Half-Life 2’s release in November. People’s main issues being various bugs, connectivity issues, updates supposedly creating more bugs than they fix and the whole issue of Steam prominently being an online tool and as such often needing an internet connection, even with Offline Mode. Do you feel that Steam has been received well and can you see Steam being developed further and continued to be used for future projects?

Doug Lombardi: Absolutely. In addition to allowing us to sell our games, it has enabled the prevention of the “zero day” piracy problems other major releases incurred between gold and their launch days last year. It’s also allowed us to serve several updates directly to our customers since launch – including the delivery of new games such as Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and soon Lost Coast – and aided in our anti-cheat efforts. And in the coming weeks we will be announcing games created by other developers that will be made available via Steam.


Halflife2.net: What can you tell us about the upcoming episode Half-Life 2: Aftermath?

Doug Lombardi: Aftermath begins immediately after the end of Half-Life 2. So it is a continuation of the story. You are, once again, Gordon Freeman. Almost immediately, you are reacquainted with Alyx and other colleagues. Following your activities in Half-Life 2, City 17 and the Citadel are in a dire condition.


Halflife2.net: When Day of Defeat: Source approached beta and screenshots and movies started getting out into the internet, a lot of feedback I’ve seen suggests that some people aren’t happy with the way that the Source engine doesn’t seem to be using its full potential in this game. Are these opinions an accurate representation of what the finished product will be?

Doug Lombardi: We had some similar opinions once the beta began and that’s why we’ve been pretty quiet about DoD: Source in the past few months. We are, however, getting ready to show everyone what we’ve been up to, and I think folks will be quite pleased with how it's evolved.


Halflife2.net: Earlier this year there was the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch map contest in which we've now seen some very high quality maps emerge from it. What was it like judging the contest and did the quality of your maps exceed your expectations?

Doug Lombardi: Days before the deadline for submissions we had received less than a handful of entries and we were really starting to panic. Then, the day before the deadline, the postman walked in with a gigantic tub of CDs. The following day he delivered another -- much to our surprise and relief. We spent the following days and weeks playing a seemingly endless amount of great creations. And there were some heated debates between us as we narrowed the entries to shorter and shorter lists of finalists. In the end, we felt the contest was a great success and we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to enter their work.


Halflife2.net: How many maps will the Lost Coast level/s take place on and what are the system specs for being eligible for these maps? Any idea at this time when the expansion will be released?

Doug Lombardi: Lost Coast is the HDR level. It will require at least a 2GHz processor, 1 to 2GB of RAM, and the very latest GPU from ATI or NVIDIA. Once Lost Coast has shipped, we will be updating the Source SDK to include support for HDR authoring, and future Valve game releases will feature HDR modes in the video settings for those with the horses to run it.

Many have touted HDR in their engine or game. As a result, there are many different definitions of HDR. Here’s the list of features we’re including in our HDR spec:

Blooming. Used by designers to create a “blurred effect” on the bright edges in a scene, emulating a camera’s overexposure. This feature has been added to other applications and is often mistaken as a full implementation of HDR.

HDR Skybox. Authored by painting multiple exposures of the sky to allow for real-time exposure adjustment. For Lost Coast, over 16 variations of the HDR skybox were created.

HDR Cube Maps. Generated by the engine, using the HDR skybox in conjunction with the HDR light sources and HDR light maps. HDR Cube Maps allow for an object’s reflection to be cast in a manner that more accurately corresponds with the brightness of the source.

HDR Water Reflection/Refraction. Wherever the reflection of a light source is extremely bright, “white hot” spots occur along with blooming on water. A similar effect may be witnessed when under water looking out toward the sun.

HDR Refraction Effect. HDR light is transmitted through refractive materials, and takes on relevant properties of those materials (as when sunlight passes through the stained glass in Lost Coast’s Monastery and then casts colored light).

HDR Light Maps. Generated through a radiosity process, taking light bounces/global illumination into account. This may be witnessed inside the Monastery on Lost Coast, on walls opposite the windows where the sun is “blowing out” the wall.

HDR Light Sources. Uncompressed light values provide a higher range of light values for designers to draw from in any given scene.

Exposure Control. Enable “eye adjustments” to allow you to see a different range of details in dark scenes than in overbright areas.



Halflife2.net: Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak to us. I’m sure I speak for most when I say that there is an utmost respect for you and your games. You’ve managed to absolutely wow us with Half-Life 2 and the Source engine and we can only look forward to your latest projects! Thank you!

Quote:HL2 Substance 1.0X Released

Version 1.0X of  HL2 Substance is now available for download at FilePlanet. If you found HL2 too short or too easy, Substance is for you. Tougher levels, new weapons, more squad tactics necessary in this version.

Quote:Friday, March 25 2005

Next week we'll begin beta testing the new Valve Anti-Cheat system. For people playing multiplayer games, there will not be any visible difference while we're conducting the beta, but we will be logging cheating violations into our database to make sure it's ready for general release. This will be the last public notice before the system is released and active for everyone.

If you have any cheats for multiplayer games installed on your computer, now would be a good time to uninstall and stop using them. When a cheat infraction is detected, the offender will be permanently banned from playing on secure servers.


In lighter news, work is progressing on Lost Coast, that is the level we've built to showcase a new piece of rendering technology coming to Source called High Dynamic Range lighting, first mentioned here.  Valve's Doug Lombardi will be showing the level on G4 TV next Wednesday, March 30th. More information on the broadcast is available here..