N
nadomola
Guest
Please be advised that this interview was conducted in English, translated in Korean and posted, and translated again in English by me who's none-native-English speaker. So please be aware of it, thx. 
I'm 99% pretty confident in the content I translated except the part as to the price of HL2+CS:S package released by Vivendy. The Korean sentence itself is also ambiguous...
Anyway, Enjoy~.
Gamemeca.com had an interview with the core developers from Valve visiting Korea to present Counter-Strike:Source powered by Half-Life2 engine on July 3, 2004
The three visiting members from Valve, Michael Dunkle - the marketing manager in cyber cafe programs, Jess Cliff – the product manager and the original creator of Counter-Strike, and Mike Dussault - the chief programmer, opened their mouths saying that "It's honor to present the very first CS:S exhibition in Korea regarded as the core of Asian game scene."
The most interesting information in today’s exhibition is that the beta-testing of CS:S is approaching soon. Joon-Kyung Shin, from Stylenetwork, stated that "After two weeks, valve will open the surprising beta test of CS:S to the public.", adding "the beta testing will be over two-week after it begins."
The interview was proceeded with a Q/A session and an individual interview between the core developers from Valve and the representatives of Korean cyber cafes and associated reporters at the preliminary event held before the event for public.
The whole interview is followed below.
Q: Is this the 1st time for you in Korea?
Michael: No, this is my 20th visit to Korea, but it is the 1st time for Mike and Jess.
Q: We're wondering where you lay the emphasis on while you have been making CS:S and how long it took..
Jess & Mike : The biggest priority is to appeal the new environment created by Half-Life 2 engine to gamers. We put a lot of effort to give similar feeling of CS to the established CS fans while we're combining the hugely-improved physics engine with the new graphics. The development of CS:S has begufn since January 2004. Although it was a comparably short period, there have not been serious troubles because it was basically a remake of a finished product.
Q: Is there any unique addition as well as the physics engine and the graphics?
Jess: You can use obstacles, which were previously just eye-candies, to work out various strategies. In addition, we're considering including the new maps in which you can maximize the functions of Half-Life2 engine.
Q: Although the upcoming release of CS:S is certainly a welcome-thing, we also believe that there should be a perk for those who purchased Counter-Strike:ConditionZero recently.
Michael : CS:CZ owners will have a chance to play CS:S beta via Steam service in advance.
Q: We understand that CS:S will be serviced prior to the release of Half-Life 2 via Steam. We’d like to ask a question as to the concrete date of the start of the service. Furthermore, is it true that Half-Life2 packages will include free CS:S? And, is there any possibility that CS:S will be released as an independent package?
Michael: Affirmative. Although I can't specifically announce the exact release date, at least I can tell it will be serviced via steam within two months. Right now, I can't promise that the Half-Life2 package and the CS:S package will be sold separately; however, the combined Half-Life2 + CS:S package will be released with reasonable retail price including the extra price for CS:S by Vivendi Universal Games.
Q: Is there any progress in the legal collision with Vivendi Universal Games?
Michael: The legal collision has been caused by a problem on the distribution on August 2002. We will mention the detail of this issue for the time being.
Q: Can you tell us the specific requirement for CS:S.Mike: The minimum requirement is 1.2Ghz CPU, 512 Ram, and 3D cards with DirectX 9.0 capability, and the recommended requirement is 2.4Ghz CPU, 512 Ram, and 3D cards with DirectX 9.0 capability. We recommend you to have a high-spec computer to maximize your experience in CS:S.
Q: Counter-Strike community has been struggling with cheating which has caused enormous complaints from the gamers. Have you prepared for a special anti-cheat counter measure?
Mike : We're working on multiple anti-cheat solutions and one of them is VAC(Valve Anti Cheat). This has been active with CS1.6 and we're also forming a special anti-cheat task force. We promise you to put our maximum effort to solve this case since we're taking this as a serious issue.
Q: We've heard that Half-Life2 and CS:S are optimized to ATI graphic cards. Since the most of cyber cafes in Korea are equipped with Nvidia's GeForce products, wouldn’t it be any problem?
Mike: Being optimized to ATI graphic cards does not necessarily means that it has a bad harmony with Nvidia graphic cards. It’d rather means that ATI graphic cards can provide you the maximum performance in bump mapping and other few effects because Half-Life2 engine is optimized to Direct X 9.0. Even with Nvidia's graphic cards, you will run CS:S properly. Furthermore, if Nvidia's hardware improves to fully support the various function of DirectX 9.0, you can enjoy Half-Life2 as much as with the same performance from ATI graphic cards.
Q: We’ve heard that Won.net is scheduled to be wrapped up soon. While the majority of Counter-Strike users are still playing through Won.net, it could be presumable that this decision to stop Won.net would cause a lot of confusion. We’d like to hear about it more.
Michael : Won.net won’t stop right now. After Steam acquires enough number of users, then Won.net will be terminated. That’s what we said. Counter-Strike is being upgraded continuously, so consider CS 1.6 as a upgradeable service of Counter-Strike services provided via Steam.
Based on the research done by ourselves, the number of CS1.5 users is estimated between 25,000 and 40,000, and the number of CS1.6 users is approximately 100,000 to 120,000. A lot of users have shown the rapid tendency of switching to CS1.6 from CS1.5 recently. It’s difficult to stick to CS1.5 while there’s no support to it. We will strengthen the support to CS1.6(Steam) after the termination of Won.net as soon as the enough number of users jumps into Steam service from Won.net.
Original source from
http://www.gamemeca.com/news/main_view.html?seq=27&ymd=20040705&page=1&search_ym=&search_text=
Traslated by Nadomola
I'm 99% pretty confident in the content I translated except the part as to the price of HL2+CS:S package released by Vivendy. The Korean sentence itself is also ambiguous...
Anyway, Enjoy~.
Gamemeca.com had an interview with the core developers from Valve visiting Korea to present Counter-Strike:Source powered by Half-Life2 engine on July 3, 2004
The three visiting members from Valve, Michael Dunkle - the marketing manager in cyber cafe programs, Jess Cliff – the product manager and the original creator of Counter-Strike, and Mike Dussault - the chief programmer, opened their mouths saying that "It's honor to present the very first CS:S exhibition in Korea regarded as the core of Asian game scene."
The most interesting information in today’s exhibition is that the beta-testing of CS:S is approaching soon. Joon-Kyung Shin, from Stylenetwork, stated that "After two weeks, valve will open the surprising beta test of CS:S to the public.", adding "the beta testing will be over two-week after it begins."
The interview was proceeded with a Q/A session and an individual interview between the core developers from Valve and the representatives of Korean cyber cafes and associated reporters at the preliminary event held before the event for public.
The whole interview is followed below.
Q: Is this the 1st time for you in Korea?
Michael: No, this is my 20th visit to Korea, but it is the 1st time for Mike and Jess.
Q: We're wondering where you lay the emphasis on while you have been making CS:S and how long it took..
Jess & Mike : The biggest priority is to appeal the new environment created by Half-Life 2 engine to gamers. We put a lot of effort to give similar feeling of CS to the established CS fans while we're combining the hugely-improved physics engine with the new graphics. The development of CS:S has begufn since January 2004. Although it was a comparably short period, there have not been serious troubles because it was basically a remake of a finished product.
Q: Is there any unique addition as well as the physics engine and the graphics?
Jess: You can use obstacles, which were previously just eye-candies, to work out various strategies. In addition, we're considering including the new maps in which you can maximize the functions of Half-Life2 engine.
Q: Although the upcoming release of CS:S is certainly a welcome-thing, we also believe that there should be a perk for those who purchased Counter-Strike:ConditionZero recently.
Michael : CS:CZ owners will have a chance to play CS:S beta via Steam service in advance.
Q: We understand that CS:S will be serviced prior to the release of Half-Life 2 via Steam. We’d like to ask a question as to the concrete date of the start of the service. Furthermore, is it true that Half-Life2 packages will include free CS:S? And, is there any possibility that CS:S will be released as an independent package?
Michael: Affirmative. Although I can't specifically announce the exact release date, at least I can tell it will be serviced via steam within two months. Right now, I can't promise that the Half-Life2 package and the CS:S package will be sold separately; however, the combined Half-Life2 + CS:S package will be released with reasonable retail price including the extra price for CS:S by Vivendi Universal Games.
Q: Is there any progress in the legal collision with Vivendi Universal Games?
Michael: The legal collision has been caused by a problem on the distribution on August 2002. We will mention the detail of this issue for the time being.
Q: Can you tell us the specific requirement for CS:S.Mike: The minimum requirement is 1.2Ghz CPU, 512 Ram, and 3D cards with DirectX 9.0 capability, and the recommended requirement is 2.4Ghz CPU, 512 Ram, and 3D cards with DirectX 9.0 capability. We recommend you to have a high-spec computer to maximize your experience in CS:S.
Q: Counter-Strike community has been struggling with cheating which has caused enormous complaints from the gamers. Have you prepared for a special anti-cheat counter measure?
Mike : We're working on multiple anti-cheat solutions and one of them is VAC(Valve Anti Cheat). This has been active with CS1.6 and we're also forming a special anti-cheat task force. We promise you to put our maximum effort to solve this case since we're taking this as a serious issue.
Q: We've heard that Half-Life2 and CS:S are optimized to ATI graphic cards. Since the most of cyber cafes in Korea are equipped with Nvidia's GeForce products, wouldn’t it be any problem?
Mike: Being optimized to ATI graphic cards does not necessarily means that it has a bad harmony with Nvidia graphic cards. It’d rather means that ATI graphic cards can provide you the maximum performance in bump mapping and other few effects because Half-Life2 engine is optimized to Direct X 9.0. Even with Nvidia's graphic cards, you will run CS:S properly. Furthermore, if Nvidia's hardware improves to fully support the various function of DirectX 9.0, you can enjoy Half-Life2 as much as with the same performance from ATI graphic cards.
Q: We’ve heard that Won.net is scheduled to be wrapped up soon. While the majority of Counter-Strike users are still playing through Won.net, it could be presumable that this decision to stop Won.net would cause a lot of confusion. We’d like to hear about it more.
Michael : Won.net won’t stop right now. After Steam acquires enough number of users, then Won.net will be terminated. That’s what we said. Counter-Strike is being upgraded continuously, so consider CS 1.6 as a upgradeable service of Counter-Strike services provided via Steam.
Based on the research done by ourselves, the number of CS1.5 users is estimated between 25,000 and 40,000, and the number of CS1.6 users is approximately 100,000 to 120,000. A lot of users have shown the rapid tendency of switching to CS1.6 from CS1.5 recently. It’s difficult to stick to CS1.5 while there’s no support to it. We will strengthen the support to CS1.6(Steam) after the termination of Won.net as soon as the enough number of users jumps into Steam service from Won.net.
Original source from
http://www.gamemeca.com/news/main_view.html?seq=27&ymd=20040705&page=1&search_ym=&search_text=
Traslated by Nadomola
