Fragmaster Leaves PHL, Thanks HL2.net(?)

with Fragmaster gone... WE MUST LAUNCH A JIHAD AGAINST HL2CENTRAL!!!! (again)
 
He seemed offensive in fall to many (including myself) but he was right.
Its like in movies when a person knows what the truth of the matter is but noone will listen.

I sympathize. Pessimisstic? Yes, but he hasn't been proven wrong yet. I hope he reads this thread and sees not everyone hates him.

I think what was most frustrating was knowing what was the truth, being lambasted by many, and then being declared a liar essentially by press releases that said the game was coming out sept 30th, when people on the inside track knew damn well it wouldn't.

Best of luck to fragmaster.
 
I'm absolutely glad that Fragmaster posted this "letter". I that this is the kind of thing that was needed for a very long time. Now at least I see his perspective and not judge him by what he posted on PHL. He's right in most things, even though i disagree with some. I indeed thought some times that he had gone crazy.

About the thing that he is leaving PHL: its his decision, and maybe he's right about it.

"Fragmaster, you are the weakest link. Goodbye."
 
Doug's just the marketing guy though how would he be able to ruin games? Still everything seems to point towards him being the guy, remember the flash video where fragmaster gets shot in the face?
 
mrchimp said:
Who's he talking about then? Any ideas?
Click to expand...

"Gabe made that ridiculous "First time I've heard about this" response [...] I feel most of the problems at Valve are due to the ineptitude of one individual in particular. I'm not going to name names, but you can probably guess who I'm talking about".
Click to expand...

Doug is essentially a PR guy, I don't think he can be the cause of "most of the problems at Valve".

Anyway I'd like to know what Gabe is going to say at E3 about the last 12 months. At the moment I believe he made some bad mistakes, the first of them being the Sept. 30th ship date.

Best of luck, Frag.
 
I don't think gabe will say anything satisfactory at E3, maybe some half arsed speach but not anything concrete which we can make judgement on, it's just the way Valve works, they care more about the game than PR.
 
mrchimp said:
I don't think gabe will say anything satisfactory at E3
Click to expand...

I think that he will say many things...
 
This is probably a bit radical, but I reckon his account has been hacked. Some things arent adding up, first of all, why would he be picked to help produce a HL2 Prima book? Whats so special about him? And secondly, why was the geiger counter earlier just read "Blah blah blah"? Possibly the account hacker testing the account?
Probably my own personal madness but oh well. Its there to read now.
 
This has just created more questions. Now Valve are the badguys and Gabe lied to everyones face from the moment HL2 was announced?

Things are getting really weird right now.

Anyway good luck Fragmaster.
 
Six Three said:
I think that he will say many things...
Click to expand...

Yes about HL2 and it's futer, it's past might not get much attention.
 
His latest Geiger Counter is also a little bit weird..

"Due to my poor attitude and lack of diplomacy, I've fired myself from PlanetHalfLife. Ian "Jabberwocky" Hamilton will be stepping up and taking over my role as Site Director shortly. If you're interested in reading my whiny, poorly composed farewell gibberish, you can find that here. Thanks! - Fragmaster"


Oh well. Who knows, MAYBE VALVE HAD HIM MURDERED AND H4X0R3D HIS ACCOUNT LOLZ~!!~
..kidding, but I do agree, this is all a little weird. I feel pessimistic all of a sudden, ahhh
 
i never really vist Halflifeplanet, due to think link with gamespy and all that.....
fileplanet... bah... I hate it all...

I agree when frag says "some people call it marketing, i call it lying" because really, it wasn't 'gabe' or 'doug' to blame.. the whole company was making everyone more confident about a sept 30th release date. Every email we sent to any developer asured us that we'd see half life 2 on the 30th...

So i think valve is more to blame than just a single person :)

not that I hate valve, i just dont like lies... if they are still 'finishing' the game (as in its not done yet).... I'll be seeing a 2005 release as a bit more of a realistic release date... :sleep:

ah well... E3 better be good Valve..
 
These things have been floating around for a while.

To be honest, im just interested in playing a game, What goes on behind the scenes are between valve there publishers and the retailers, the game will eventully come out, and for the average player like most of us, it will all be ancient history. :p
 
Jarman said:
Doug is essentially a PR guy, I don't think he can be the cause of "most of the problems at Valve".
Click to expand...

The problems Fragmaster describes are largely of a PR nature, are they not?

If he were referring to project lead Gabe Newell, why would he finish with the comment "Half-Life 2 will almost certainly be a great game once it's released and I can't wait to play it"?
 
It is quite simply the most important video game ever to be released, of course there is going to be trouble behind the scenes.

I liked Frag. He told the truth always. Whether people liked it or not.

Good Luck.
 
mrchimp said:
I don't think gabe will say anything satisfactory at E3, maybe some half arsed speach but not anything concrete which we can make judgement on, it's just the way Valve works, they care more about the game than PR.
Click to expand...
Do you really think he could face fans and all the people out there as if nothing had happened?

Well, after 12 months of fan mail answers, I expect an official statement. I guess a lot of game magazine journalists will be there to ask him something about Valve's attitude and action.

If he thinks he can avoid unpleasant questions with a mind-blowing brand-new HL2 video, he underestimates the community and nobody will have any doubt about the identity of Frag's mysterious guy.
 
PainLord said:
The thing im most worried about is the fact he states about how Valve claim the leak was 1/3 of the game. But he says it was pretty much all they had. I still find that difficult to believe be he apparently had background info.
Click to expand...

He means 1/3 of the source code.
But I'm pretty damn sure Valve never said something about the number 1/3. I believe it was made up by either BBC or CNN. Unless Valve gave them this 1/3 information, it's not true. Gabe spoke of 'Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.' implying it's pretty much the whole source code, at least not 1/3.

Now I'm not going to judge Fragmaster whether he was right regarding the delay or not. I don't think I've got enough information to judge about that, neither do I think even Fragmaster could have come to a 100% accurate conclusion.
What I do judge him for is saying that Valve doesn't give Jack shit about the community. Which is simply not true. If they're releasing new information, the community is the first they turn to. If they got trouble, the community is the first they turn to. I think about 75% of the information about the game and the stuff around it (like modding) came from the community who send emails to them. And how many developers do you know that allow you to call them? Sure they've made mistakes, if the 9/30 thingy is one of them, I don't know. Maybe they could have told us sooner, but then again, maybe not. Fragmaster may have been eventually right about the delay, but what percentage of the people believed that HL2 would be on time? He's just one of the many people that was eventually right. Unless he releases his so called 'reliable sources' he was no more right than John Doe across the Ocean speculating it would be delayed.
But anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the people at Valve are just human. Undoubtedly they've made mistakes, and of all people, Fragmaster should know the ways in which Valve does its business. It's kind of funny to see him say 'I'm not a Valve fan anymore' for what reason? This is nothing new and all.
Ah well, I don't care him leaving, hopefully he gets a less pessimistic replacement that doesn't present himself as the all knowing oracle.
We'll see how HL2 turns out. But Valve won't change, that's the way they are.
 
mrchimp said:
they care more about the game than PR.
Click to expand...

I really don't see this as much of a problem tbh, sure it would be great to have loads of info , extras , more community involvement but meh as long as at the end of the day the game comes out and it's good. I mean remember hl2 was announced without much in the way of a pre-hype like duke nukem forever.. one minute we were happily playing hl then bonus! Hl2 announced! wow ! excellant!

..........So um yeah .... doesnt really change things does it :) ?

By and large everybody is still happily playing away on their favourite mods , playing the current game of choice .. farcry ,ut what have you, and when it does come out? well :)
 
One last little dig before he throws in the towel, superb. Thankfully the guy has no soap box to badmouth us from any longer. Anyway, seems like a lot of fuss about a game, I'm beyond caring if some valve employees aren't doing their job right or whatever, i'm just happy their game is on the horizon and it has a sdk :)
 
Jarman said:
Do you really think he could face fans and all the people out there as if nothing had happened?

Well, after 12 months of fan mail answers, I expect an official statement. I guess a lot of game magazine journalists will be there to ask him something about Valve's attitude and action.

If he thinks he can avoid unpleasant questions with a mind-blowing brand-new HL2 video, he underestimates the community and nobody will have any doubt about the identity of Frag's mysterious guy.
Click to expand...
You are forgetting that E3 is for the press and developers only. Besides the press seems content with keeping things hidden from us as well. They never mentioned anything about a suspected delay even though Fragmaster says he got his information from print magazine people.

After reading that I see that I can't trust anyone, neither the standard press, the officials, or even people that run fan sites. EVERYONE is withholding information it seems.
 
Shuzer said:
His latest Geiger Counter is also a little bit weird..

"Due to my poor attitude and lack of diplomacy, I've fired myself from PlanetHalfLife. Ian "Jabberwocky" Hamilton will be stepping up and taking over my role as Site Director shortly. If you're interested in reading my whiny, poorly composed farewell gibberish, you can find that here. Thanks! - Fragmaster"


Oh well. Who knows, MAYBE VALVE HAD HIM MURDERED AND H4X0R3D HIS ACCOUNT LOLZ~!!~
..kidding, but I do agree, this is all a little weird. I feel pessimistic all of a sudden, ahhh
Click to expand...

it doese sound like the kind of thing a hacker would write but then Fragmaster is slightly mad and it wouldn't be like him to leave without stirring things up and messing around.

Jarman: he won't ignore it but then I doubt he will make a ginormass heart felt speach about it either... i could be wrong and i hope I am.
 
PvtRyan said:
He means 1/3 of the source code.
But I'm pretty damn sure Valve never said something about the number 1/3. I believe it was made up by either BBC or CNN. Unless Valve gave them this 1/3 information, it's not true. Gabe spoke of 'Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.' implying it's pretty much the whole source code, at least not 1/3.

Now I'm not going to judge Fragmaster whether he was right regarding the delay or not. I don't think I've got enough information to judge about that, neither do I think even Fragmaster could have come to a 100% accurate conclusion.
What I do judge him for is saying that Valve doesn't give Jack shit about the community. Which is simply not true. If they're releasing new information, the community is the first they turn to. If they got trouble, the community is the first they turn to. I think about 75% of the information about the game and the stuff around it (like modding) came from the community who send emails to them. And how many developers do you know that allow you to call them? Sure they've made mistakes, if the 9/30 thingy is one of them, I don't know. Maybe they could have told us sooner, but then again, maybe not. Fragmaster may have been eventually right about the delay, but what percentage of the people believed that HL2 would be on time? He's just one of the many people that was eventually right. Unless he releases his so called 'reliable sources' he was no more right than John Doe across the Ocean speculating it would be delayed.
But anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the people at Valve are just human. Undoubtedly they've made mistakes, and of all people, Fragmaster should know the ways in which Valve does its business. It's kind of funny to see him say 'I'm not a Valve fan anymore' for what reason? This is nothing new and all.
Ah well, I don't care him leaving, hopefully he gets a less pessimistic replacement that doesn't present himself as the all knowing oracle.
We'll see how HL2 turns out. But Valve won't change, that's the way they are.
Click to expand...

Not as an insult, you should use paragraph breaks. It is easier on my eyes.

I don't think the community thing Valve has isn't as good as it seems. Yes, we can send email and receive responses, but we often get incomplete or vague responses. Also, if they "cared" so much about the community, shouldn't they have given HL2.net first dibs on some play testing? No, they went with magazines first.

They suffer from extreme amounts of mismangement.
 
Obviously we are all gamers, and Half-Life has been leading online PC gaming for a long long time now, alot of people got into it with this game, so now theres a sequal on the way, we all wanna dive in and be the first in the community, doing whatever, modding, leagues, mapping whatever, its a damn popular game, so every tiny piece of infomation is becoming a daily event for us, I think we just gotta step back and realise valves failings in the PR world have nothing to do with the game itself.

..so best to just ignore everything lol.
 
Do you know what could be the worst possible thing for Valve right now? If they got hacked again! I cant imagine the uproar!
 
jeez, i knew every day leading up to the new infomation was gonna be tense, but this is ridiculous, first that 2005 rumor, now this, what the hells gonna happen tommorow !!!

*gets the rubber sheets*
 
Six Three said:
Do you know what could be the worst possible thing for Valve right now? If they got hacked again! I cant imagine the uproar!
Click to expand...

The worst thing possible for Valve is for them to determine that they need to create a new engine to keep up with Unreal 3. :E
 
Lobster said:
Obviously we are all gamers, and Half-Life has been leading online PC gaming for a long long time now, alot of people got into it with this game, so now theres a sequal on the way, we all wanna dive in and be the first in the community, doing whatever, modding, leagues, mapping whatever, its a damn popular game, so every tiny piece of infomation is becoming a daily event for us, I think we just gotta step back and realise valves failings in the PR world have nothing to do with the game itself.

..so best to just ignore everything lol.
Click to expand...
Naturally we really don't know if this is true or not but after hearing what Fragmaster had to say:
I do know that content has been cut from the game in an attempt to get it to ship sooner.
Click to expand...
I can't help but think that their PR problems are interlinked with other parts of the game and as a result could be what caused things to be cut.
 
I visited Valve in early September to conduct interviews for the Behind the Scenes book. It was quite a bit of fun, but I was a little disturbed by a few things. I won't get into the specifics, but information wasn't matching up. Things said during the E3 demo turned out to be either misleading or untrue, for example. I don't want to say exactly what kind of state the game was in when I was there, but you'll recall that when other fan sites visited Valve later that month (BEFORE the source code leak, even), they were unable to see the game. Now, if the game was in a playable state and supposedly ready to go gold within a couple of days, don't you think they would have shown it off?
Click to expand...


lol, funny I was thinking the same thing, turns out ANON was correct about the state of the game

The Anonymous Leaker, despite being an asshole such as myself, was basically correct. HL2 wasn't nearly as far along as Valve was hinting at, and a lot of the things Valve showed in the E3 demo were misrepresented.
Click to expand...

several verses of that well known song 'I told you so' coming up after these commercials
 
blahblahblah said:
Not as an insult, you should use paragraph breaks. It is easier on my eyes.

I don't think the community thing Valve has isn't as good as it seems. Yes, we can send email and receive responses, but we often get incomplete or vague responses. Also, if they "cared" so much about the community, shouldn't they have given HL2.net first dibs on some play testing? No, they went with magazines first.

They suffer from extreme amounts of mismangement.
Click to expand...

A game company who is as high profile as Valve would be very unlikely to do that although I have seen it done with low profile games with small dedicated followings, these games really need that support, HL2 doesn't and would benefit more from a proffesional magazine giveing out info about there game... thats the theory anyway, in practice the games magazines seem to give out more bullshit than we do and what it really boils down to is money and developer/media relations which valve do need.
 
Believe it or not , its not unusual for content to be cut from any form of media, whether its do with deadlines or time/space, issues, his perception of events depends on how many games fragmaster has been closely involved in, the whole proccess for HL2 has been very toughly scrutinized, Time will tell.
 
I kind of agree with everything he said. I am tired of Valve's bullshit. And, HL2 does have the chance of sucking. Don't say, "Oh NO! Not Half-Life 2! HL2 will be the best game ever!". Every game has the chance of slipping. And what this game has to live up to, gives it a better chance.
 
Jadewolf5675 said:
Call the whaaaaaaaaabulance.

Wrong forum anyways, dipshit
Click to expand...
Language! And yes we are being a little too sorry for the guy, he was trying to get that effect on purpose. :rolleyes:
 
Why do things always have to get personal between sites?

He was a pessemist, we were and still are optimists.. so?
 
ComradeBadger said:
Why do things always have to get personal between sites?

He was a pessemist, we were and still are optimists.. so?
Click to expand...
He also has more information than we do. He really does seem like a weird person but im beggining to think that all that pessimism had a purpose.

Unless hes just trying to be a bigshot, or hes been hacked.
 
At the end of the day, we are all just little amoeba's, stareing up at space making wierd and personal guesses and theories as to the movements of the stars, when none of it really matters the day a massive comet comes down and squashes us.
 
A very good move. He was a very poor choice for a high-visibility, commercially backed website.
 
Seems a bit funny all this can be caused so we can see moving pixels of colour in a certain order at any given time. Oh well.
*sips beer*
 
indeed, its like those japanese and indonesian fisherman killing each other for a tiny lump of rock in the middle of the sea.
 
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