Another week comes aand goes...

[The Monkey]

Today it's the end of week 39, it has been, if I'm not misstaken, more then two weeks since the RC was send to VUG. One week ago, almost everybody here, including me, thought that the game would go gold the week that has now come to an end. Will the game have gone gold in one week? Or will we be in position as we are now? What I'm trying to say is that VALVe has to do something very soon, if they are not to lose all their dignity.

 

[SFLUFAN]

I hate to say this but it's largely out of Valve's hands now - it's in the hands of VU.

Valve can't say anything if VU doesn't let them know how things are going on both ends.

 

[Feath]

You are mistaken, it's 11 days since the RC was sent to Vivendi. We don't know when it will go gold, but it's certainly going to be in the next few weeks.

What can Valve do besides let Vivendi test the game and fix the problems they find.

 

[The Monkey]

You are mistaken, it's 11 days since the RC was sent to Vivendi. We don't know when it will go gold, but it's certainly going to be in the next few weeks.

What can Valve do besides let Vivendi test the game and fix the problems they find.

Apologize most sincerely.

 

[WhiteBoy]

If the predicted 9 days(8 hours per day) is the actual testing cycle, it could be several weeks until we see a gold statement. I really doubt they would limit themselves to testing for 72 hours spread out over all the candidates; it would be at least 72 hours for every version Valve sent, and it was quite clear in the latest artical from Gamespot that the first one failed.

 

[FoB_Ed]

In other news: Sept 30th is only 4 days away. Maybe valve is planning something for us to commemorate this date.

 

[SFLUFAN]

Now wouldn't that be a riot?

 

[L337_Assasain]

Vivendi tests 24/7, as was said a million times. As far as 72 hours for each game goes...
Shouldn't be too long now though.

 

[Feath]

If the predicted 9 days(8 hours per day) is the actual testing cycle, it could be several weeks until we see a gold statement. I really doubt they would limit themselves to testing for 72 hours spread out over all the candidates; it would be at least 72 hours for every version Valve sent, and it was quite clear in the latest artical from Gamespot that the first one failed.

I honestly don't believe that it's going to be that long. I mean, I haven't heard of any developer sitting around waiting for the publisher to approve their game for over a week. (You'd think that the RC process would be reported a lot more if that was the case.)

Anyway, in the Gamespot article, they refer to a 48 hour testing process, and says that the RC was sent on Thursday and the game was declared gold on Saturday. So I do believe that 72 hours means "3 days" instead of actually 72 hours of work.

 

[Feath]

Vivendi tests 24/7, as was said a million times. As far as 72 hours for each game goes...
Shouldn't be too long now though.

No matter how many times people say this, I'm not going to believe that Vivendi will hire some people to test a game during the night.

 

[L337_Assasain]

Well, people do, they work in shifts, and they have people working at night. What is so hard to believe?

 

[Phosis]

Well if its 72 work hours. . . .


Lets party like its 1998!!

 

[Feath]

Well, people do, they work in shifts, and they have people working at night. What is so hard to believe?

The fact that they would hire someone to work at 1am. It's a game, it's not important. Why would they pay the extra money to hire people to test a game in the middle of the night? Why couldn't they just wait till the next day?

 

[BlackMesaDude]

I believe the RC had some serious bugs otherwise the testing would have been complete by now. Other great big games goes gold very fast.

 

[smacky]

The fact that they would hire someone to work at 1am. It's a game, it's not important. Why would they pay the extra money to hire people to test a game in the middle of the night? Why couldn't they just wait till the next day?

Because they will make a few million from this game ?

 

[Seppo]

I on the other hand think that if there were any bugs, they were some minor things, probably some problems with different hardware

 

[Feath]

Because they will make a few million from this game ?

And how will an extra few days make a difference?

 

[Feath]

I believe the RC had some serious bugs otherwise the testing would have been complete by now. Other great big games goes gold very fast.

The first RC of any game is nearly always rejected.

 

[Alec_85]

They better announce it gold soon. I have made a butt-ugly Gold avatar in MS Paint that I'm just dieing to upload :E One thing is clear now though. There won't be any games on the shelves in September 2004... ;(

 

[fragShader]

And how will an extra few days make a difference?

i know it doesn't make much sense but the software industry in general has a "crunch mode" tradition of stupid hours at the end of a project.

still, there is no set release date for HL2 (that we know of), so not much point for VUG in paying the overtime to test all night.

 

[Sharrd]

No matter how many times people say this, I'm not going to believe that Vivendi will hire some people to test a game during the night.

They don't need to, they'll want to play it almost straight through Although I'm rather sure that Valve themselves said that it had 48 hours of gameplay.
But it's been mentioned countless times that since Lombardi said "We sent the RC to VU <insert date> and we hope to send the final version very soon", the first RC probably was rejected.