There is a lot of bullshit going on concerning Half Life 2, and zero info/media for the actual game has been revealed since E3 back in May.
The release date is probably the biggest concern. Gabe Newell (Valve Software's connection to the public) stated September 30th as the release date back in E3, and he has countinued to say September 30th until a week or two ago. Today being September 11th, that leaves 19 days. The time period between when a game goes gold and when it arrives in retailers is usually 3-4 weeks at least, so by all standards the game should have gone gold by now to make September 30th.
Rumors of delay have popped up all over the net since July, all of them denied by Valve, who simply repeated September 30th. Most retailers are listing dates ranging from October to Novemeber, but it is unknown where they got this information, and how reliable it is. Stores such as EB are notorious for making up bullshit release dates.
And then, to top it off nicely is Steam, wich is a whole new fuckin ball game. Steam (http://www.steampowered.com) is Valve's 'content delivery system', buddy-finding system, and starting today with the release of the Steam 1.0 client, the only way to play Valve games online.
What does Steam mean for Half Life 2? Newell has stated that on the release date (wich may or may not end up being September 30th) HL2 will simultaneously be available for purchase in stores , and online through Steam.
There will be THREE ways to buy Half LIfe 2. One is the single player only package (intended for Wal-Marts, hitting the critical 'People who buy the Deer Hunter games' market) wich will contain no multiplayer (not that this has any implications right now, as Valve has reveraled zero info on multiplayer) and no mod functionality. If you wish, you will be able to upgrade the hobbled version to the Regular version by paying through Steam. The Regular version contains full multiplayer and modability, and is regular. The third version will be the Ultra Mega Collectors Edition, wich contains as yet unspecified 'extras'. Whether these extras are of a physical nature, or electronic data will probably determine whether you will to buy the collectors edition through Steam. As of now, no prices for any of these have been specified.
Now, to adress the things about Steam that bug the shit out of me. Steam is first and foremost a form of Digital Rights Management. The Rights managed in this case being the right to play the game you paid for.
If you buy the game in the store, you'll be able to play single player normally...until you log on to Steam for the first time to download a patch for the game (it is unknown if they'll be available on the internet) or to play a multiplayer match. From that point on, you'll be required to log on to Steam to get your cd key verified in order to play the singe player game. Now, let's say your internet connection goes out. Want to play the single player game? Oh, sorry, your Shit Out Of Luck. There are many other implications and inconveniences this will bring up that I'm sure you can imagine.Of course, if you buy it through Steam, the online connection will be required for the single player game from day 1.
Now, for the multiplayer side of things. Valve's plan to avoid cheating, hacks, but most importantly piracy, is to have Steam CONSTANTLY downloading 'updates', sucking up your bandwidth. Their logic is, if the game code is constantly being updated multiple times a day, working hacks and cheats can't be made. That is a great idea for elimenating cheats, yes. But some people, like me, choose to control their badnwidth and hard drive space usage. Too fuckin bad for us.
These constant downloads mean the game will most likely be impossible to play onlice on a 56k. Also, there is the matter of LANs. Many of you can probably appreciate a good LAN party. Well, HL2 will require a connection to the internet for all LAN games, to verify all palyers cd keys and force downlaod them shit. LAN apparently doesnt mean LOCAL Area Network anymore.
So, after all this ranting, what do I plan to do about this game I desperately want to play? I plan to buy an in-store copy and enjoy the single player. For multiplayer, I may have to use a seperate hard drive partition (or even a seperate hard drive altogether) in order to make sure I can always play my single player if the net connection goes down. And, of course, the Internet's Finest will be hard at work to crack this fucker by any means necessary.
So, your thoughts?
The release date is probably the biggest concern. Gabe Newell (Valve Software's connection to the public) stated September 30th as the release date back in E3, and he has countinued to say September 30th until a week or two ago. Today being September 11th, that leaves 19 days. The time period between when a game goes gold and when it arrives in retailers is usually 3-4 weeks at least, so by all standards the game should have gone gold by now to make September 30th.
Rumors of delay have popped up all over the net since July, all of them denied by Valve, who simply repeated September 30th. Most retailers are listing dates ranging from October to Novemeber, but it is unknown where they got this information, and how reliable it is. Stores such as EB are notorious for making up bullshit release dates.
And then, to top it off nicely is Steam, wich is a whole new fuckin ball game. Steam (http://www.steampowered.com) is Valve's 'content delivery system', buddy-finding system, and starting today with the release of the Steam 1.0 client, the only way to play Valve games online.
What does Steam mean for Half Life 2? Newell has stated that on the release date (wich may or may not end up being September 30th) HL2 will simultaneously be available for purchase in stores , and online through Steam.
There will be THREE ways to buy Half LIfe 2. One is the single player only package (intended for Wal-Marts, hitting the critical 'People who buy the Deer Hunter games' market) wich will contain no multiplayer (not that this has any implications right now, as Valve has reveraled zero info on multiplayer) and no mod functionality. If you wish, you will be able to upgrade the hobbled version to the Regular version by paying through Steam. The Regular version contains full multiplayer and modability, and is regular. The third version will be the Ultra Mega Collectors Edition, wich contains as yet unspecified 'extras'. Whether these extras are of a physical nature, or electronic data will probably determine whether you will to buy the collectors edition through Steam. As of now, no prices for any of these have been specified.
Now, to adress the things about Steam that bug the shit out of me. Steam is first and foremost a form of Digital Rights Management. The Rights managed in this case being the right to play the game you paid for.
If you buy the game in the store, you'll be able to play single player normally...until you log on to Steam for the first time to download a patch for the game (it is unknown if they'll be available on the internet) or to play a multiplayer match. From that point on, you'll be required to log on to Steam to get your cd key verified in order to play the singe player game. Now, let's say your internet connection goes out. Want to play the single player game? Oh, sorry, your Shit Out Of Luck. There are many other implications and inconveniences this will bring up that I'm sure you can imagine.Of course, if you buy it through Steam, the online connection will be required for the single player game from day 1.
Now, for the multiplayer side of things. Valve's plan to avoid cheating, hacks, but most importantly piracy, is to have Steam CONSTANTLY downloading 'updates', sucking up your bandwidth. Their logic is, if the game code is constantly being updated multiple times a day, working hacks and cheats can't be made. That is a great idea for elimenating cheats, yes. But some people, like me, choose to control their badnwidth and hard drive space usage. Too fuckin bad for us.
These constant downloads mean the game will most likely be impossible to play onlice on a 56k. Also, there is the matter of LANs. Many of you can probably appreciate a good LAN party. Well, HL2 will require a connection to the internet for all LAN games, to verify all palyers cd keys and force downlaod them shit. LAN apparently doesnt mean LOCAL Area Network anymore.
So, after all this ranting, what do I plan to do about this game I desperately want to play? I plan to buy an in-store copy and enjoy the single player. For multiplayer, I may have to use a seperate hard drive partition (or even a seperate hard drive altogether) in order to make sure I can always play my single player if the net connection goes down. And, of course, the Internet's Finest will be hard at work to crack this fucker by any means necessary.
So, your thoughts?
