HL2 Preload Pushed Back Until Monday

SidewinderX

SidewinderX

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Erik Johnson has stated that the preload has been delayed until Monday in a post on ShackNews, citing the CS:S Beta as the reason.
We're going to push the start of the preload back until this coming Monday. The main reason was to get out the release (that just happened) to the CS: Source Beta.[br]
[br]
Erik
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Read his post here[br]Thanks to Kin83 for pointing this out!
 
Of course. It's almost becoming funny how much they delay things. I don't know why they ever even bother giving out dates any more. They should just give out time frames in increments of weeks or months.
 
gaawd, just calm down people. it's just the pre-load. it's not like it makes any difference to the game's release date.
 
moonkids said:
gaawd, just calm down people. it's just the pre-load. it's not like it makes any difference to the game's release date.
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I'm calm. I'm not even getting the preload. It's just that I fail to see the reason they give out release dates for anything when they invariably miss every one of them. Just doens't make sense.
 
What about Friday oooor Saturday ooooor Sunday???? Why Monday? It's just a preload, but every delay makes Valve look more and more ridiculous and discombobulated.
 
oh no...the end of the world. heh

A few days delay, a day delay, a minute delay....there will never be a lack of people to see the negative exclusively.
 
Hah..

if i wrote down all of valves "dates" id have enough to wallpaper my whole room.


[SARCASM]Valve are the best company ever.[/SARCASM]
 
This is getting ridiculous.

Everything they say is going to be delayed. I mean, does anyone remember the last time Valve released a date and actually got whatever it was out by then? I mean, I don't care about the pre-load; but it seems that everything they say is actually a week or more off. :|
 
Does it matter if they delay a preload for a game you won't play for a month?
 
I bet the team at Valve are sitting back laughing their asses off reading all the threads like this. I have a cousin like Valve; used to promise me everything, and in the long run got nothing but broken promises

blargh
 
No we cant play the preload anyways, but what pisses me off is that they dont announce this till really late and they announce it to hl2fallout or shacknews.....what the hell ever happened to a normal steam announcement.
 
Dalamari said:
Does it matter if they delay a preload for a game you won't play for a month?
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No, but it might prove that we won't be playing it in a month, probably a lot more.
 
Some of you need to take a step outside and just chill for a little bit.

If you recall CS : Source was released today and it has a number of problems (such as Windows servers not working for example, huge problem). So the most logic thing to do is fix the current problems and making CS : S playable (remember this is only a 2 week beta) instead of making new problems; especially when the preload being delayed won't matter, not being able to play CS : S will. So stop bitching, Valve is simply using some common sense.
 
People will always find something to complain about. It's just a pre-load. lol
By putting back the pre-load, that doesn't mean you assume other things are being pushed back. Besides, these are files that will not change so it doesn't matter or tell you anything else depending on when they are preloaded.

By putting off the pre-load they had the time to put out some updates though. What is really more important?
 
Does everyone here try to ignore what I actually said?

I'm only mildly upset because every one of Valve's release dates has been wrong, delayed and misleading. Every date for CS: S, HL2, HL1 back in the day, everything. I'm not upset about it, I don't need to "chill," it is just something I noticed. And frankly, I don't think it is right. If someone says "I'll have this to you Tuesday" but you get it on Thursday, and they do it to you every time they say such things, wouldn't you be a bit upset? A pretty bad comparison, but.. yeah.
 
Well you see this isn't 'I'll have this to you Tuesday'.
It's 'We plan to have this available for those that want it'. Which means we are going by their time and if something comes up that they think is important to consider then we have to wait.

I understand how you could be 'mildly upset'. I'd just try to be understanding toward Valves decisions.
 
Asus said:
Well you see this isn't 'I'll have this to you Tuesday'.
It's 'We plan to have this available for those that want it'. Which means we are going by their time and if something comes up that they think is important to consider then we have to wait.

I understand how you could be 'mildly upset'. I'd just try to be understanding toward Valves decisions.
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I apologize if I sounded rude or anything, I honestly didn't mean to. The example was very crappy, I know, I was more referring to the older delays that Valve has done.

I try to be understanding, too. The only problem is, I've learned to completely ignore any date they might say since it always seems to be delayed, which really isn't good. I apologize to any hard workers at Valve :)

And by the way, I wasn't even going to get the preload. Heh.
 
This is so ridiculous that it's funny. The length of this dedlay isn't an issue at all, just a few days, but it's still a delay. Does anyone ever get a thought that maybe Valve are making the delays a general joke, so that they will always delay something for a few days or so.
 
Oh look at me, i'm greedy, impatient, and can't wait for things that people put hard work into creating! They slave over creating it, and I, like a spoiled child, exlaim my hatred for them because they will not give it to me when I want it. They're making it perfect for me, but I want it now. Not later, now! Give it to me now! [/rant]
 
This thread makes me go 'OH NOES'

It's a preload, game companies miss dates all the time. Some people need to realise that the universe doesn't revolve around them.

:)
 
I've long since become acceptant of the fact that all good things come to those who wait. Of course i was pissed off when hl2 was delayed the first time half a year ago, or whenever, but i've got over that - its only a game.

What i DO object to, however, is the principal of this new delay. Since the initial huge delay X months ago, Valve have become world renown for missing dates in the most drastic of ways and unsurprisingly they will have made thousands (tens of thousands, maybe?) of people disappointed. Why therefore, do Valve continue to throw dates to the public for little things here and there, then miss them? Have they not learnt that saying one thing and doing another is exactly what people lose faith in them for? Its tragically naive. I know that this particular date is almost completely irrelevant in the big picture but still: come on valve - engage brain, engage mouth - ya know.

It just looks unprofessional to appear to be completely incapable of making just one date for the most important product.
 
xcession said:
It just looks grosely unprofessional when you appear to be incapable of making even one date.
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It won't matter one bit when they get another dozen awards from critics and sales in the millions when HL2 is released. :)
 
true, true. I'm in no doubt that hl2 would totally own my soul, but still - good business practice is the way to win/keep customers; not taking a gamble on post-release kudos to balance the scales :p
 
If Valve were like this when it comes to the paychecks, we woulnd't be talking about hl2!
 
Delays happen all the time; I am having trouble recalling a game that wasn't delayed. You also have to understand how huge this project is; this isn't a buggy game that will die out in a year like most others. Valve will miss dates all the time because of this. Lets face it, if Vavle doesn't give you a date everyone will bitch and moan about it. A release date is an estimate for you to go on, if something happens along the way that pushes that date back you can not blame Valve as the fans were demanding a date. If Valve simply said "When it's done" this community wouldn't be nearly as active.

Do some people honestly think that Valve enjoys pushing back dates? Do they think this is one big joke for Valve? Valve simply gives you an educated guess on when something will be done so you have a general idea. If any of you have ever worked on a coding project you know that you can not give a release date for anything that is 100% accurate.
 
I can't imagine they do like pushing back dates. No coding group does.

If any of you have ever worked on a coding project you know that you can not give a release date for anything that is 100% accurate.
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Well I do work on coding projects, but when we give out release dates, we'll have made sure that every eventuality (bar natural disasters) has been accounted for. We then give out a date which *can* be met. Some are tight, obviously, some are not.
CS:S not working on windows servers is not a natural disaster, and is something you might have thought was tested before some chump waved his hand vaguely in the air and said "er, yeah preload of hl2, on..ooh..say...friday".
 
xcession said:
Well I do work on coding projects, but when we give out release dates, we'll have made sure that every eventuality (bar natural disasters) has been accounted for. We then give out a date which *can* be met. Some are tight, obviously, some are not.
CS:S not working on windows servers is not a natural disaster, and is something you might have thought was tested before some chump waved his had vaguely in the air and said "er, yeah preload of hl2, on..ooh..say...friday".
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Then you should give me a few lessons ;). The larger your team is the harder it is to keep dates. You are always waiting on something from someone and in many cases you can't start work until you have that. If one person falls behind a lot of times many people will fall behind because of that. I am not saying that it is impossible to give a release date you will meet but with a project this large it will rarely happen.

Valve has been developing games for a very long time and frankly they know what they are doing no matter what some "fans" say about their "business practices". If a release date was not met you should know that Valve gave you the most realistic date they could; if something comes up it is not Valve's fault. Sometimes when a bug occurs it takes days (sometimes weeks) to get it fixed. How many bugs do you think come up in millions of line of code?
 
Heh, touche. I'm still fixing bugs in the first product the company i work for ever released about 6 years ago :p

On a completely unrelated note...does anyone know who the guy with the tap in his eye-socket is in the Valve title intro to their games? No reason for asking, i've always just wondered if he was part of Valve, or was a mate of someone's or whatever.
 
here's what really bothers me about all of the belly-aching about the delays. Probably 90% of the people bitching have never ever attempted to develop any software larger than a 100-level computer science project.

Large software projects take time! And projects as massive as HL2 (and Doom3 and World of Warcraft, etc.) take time. We have a saying in the software development industry: "Programming is 90% of your time. Debugging is the other 90% of your time." It is invariable that when you get to the late stages of a project like this that you're going to find bugs, etc. that no one had noticed before.

Personally, I applaud Valve for pushing back the release date rather than publishing a sub-par and under-developed product. I've pre-booked my copy of HL2 Collector's Edition and I'll get it when I get it. Period.

Further, why do we not hear people bitching at iD, or Blizzard (well, at least the old Blizzard) when their games missed release dates? Does anyone even recall how horribly late Doom3 was? Or what about Diablo II? Has anyone seen StarCraft Ghost sitting on a store shelf? Granted, there is the perennial story of Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana. But, all-in-all, games that take a while are worth waiting for.

We should all just be thankful that Valve had the balls to even publish a release date, rather than take the cop-out route of "when it's done."

Bottom line: get your panties out of a wad, enjoy the videos, and just be patient. It'll come out when it comes out and not a moment sooner. Bitching about it won't change anything; it only makes you look like a daft prick.
 
svet-am said:
why do we not hear people bitching at iD, or Blizzard (well, at least the old Blizzard) when their games missed release dates?
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I've heard people bitching. The reason you don't hear them bitching here, is because its a forum for half life :p

svet-am said:
Bitching about it won't change anything; it only makes you look like a daft prick.
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Wow, mature! Nice of you to blanket everyone with that statement. I thought i'd at least made a vaguely well-rounded and knowledgeable rant.
 
How about this: You keep your pants on, and play the CS:Source Beta this weekend, and then after you've played that for 12 hours straight, you can play the HL2 Preload thing?
 
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