How many people are working on HL2 at the moment?

[Dr.breen]

anyone know the how many Valve employees there are working on HL2?

 

[Lobster]

there was an interview somwhere with the answer, i know it was surprisingly high, around 80 or somthing, but that number has probbally dropped now the game is down to mainly code bugs.

 

[The Dark Elf]

If you check the Valve site I think it tells you most of them. For a complete answer I'd check the valve info thread, or email them and find out.. Probably depends though, they might have had freelancers from time to time too, and moving guys around from project to project.

 

[Dr.breen]

Thats another point, do you think the game testers have to sign a document stating that if they leak any info about the game they will be hung, drawn and quartered ?(or the modern equivalent)

 

[JimmehH]

Thats another point, do you think the game testers have to sign a document stating that if they leak any info about the game they will be hung, drawn and quartered ?(or the modern equivalent)

They do. It's called an NDA.

 

[Stryyder]

I wonder how much the NDA penalty is for HL2 someone said the one for Doom 3 was like 3 million greenbacks.

 

[Dr.breen]

Theres no point any HL2 game testers leaking anything, Valve have beaten them to it! =)

Just kidding gabe, keep your chin up.

 

[Citizen 1150421]

yes.. every time an out sider is brought into game test. they have to sign an waever that states that if they do leak they shall be under penalty of a huge fine..

i QA'd for EA when i joined the company and they made me sign a 10 page document.

 

[Dead-Inside]

Theres no point any HL2 game testers leaking anything, Valve have beaten them to it! =)

Just kidding gabe, keep your chin up.

That's a 24h job.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Theres no point any HL2 game testers leaking anything, Valve have beaten them to it! =)

Just kidding gabe, keep your chin up.

Chin?

OH **** OFF I COULDN'T RESIST!! I hate myself

:naughty:

 

[Feath]

Theres no point any HL2 game testers leaking anything, Valve have beaten them to it! =)

Just kidding gabe, keep your chin up.

Which one?

I only said that becuase the other two jokes were rubbish. It's like the pot calling the kettle black by the way, I have a fair few chins myself. And a dodgy beard.

But back to the point, you'll be surprised by how few people are working are actually working on Half-Life 2 at this point. In the final days of Half-Life development only Mike Harrington and Yahn Bernier were working on it. The reason being is because the texture artists, the model makers, the sound artists, the game designers have all finished their jobs and it's into the last phases of bug testing.

 

[Dr.breen]

The first one was a joke but the "keep your chin up" was a set-up for anyone who wanted to add a remark of teir own.

It wasn't joke as such.

 

[ShinRa]

If they do have a real high number of people working on the game, they're obviously all sitting around the office jerking off. It is so bullshit that the game isn't done, and that it hasn't been RC'ed yet. 6 years of development, and no new news for months. They're obviously trying to wait it out for the holidays, great marketing strategy. So the next time someone ignorantly says VALVEZ WORKIN SO HARD FOR DA GAME TO GET DONE, bite me, because its bullshit.

 

[Varsity]

i QA'd for EA when i joined the company and they made me sign a 10 page document.

Thanks for that. I hope you enjoyed your mortgage.

Btw, not everyone at Valve is going to be working on HL2. There's Steam and TF2 as well, and the Source ports.

 

[Feath]

If they do have a real high number of people working on the game, they're obviously all sitting around the office jerking off. It is so bullshit that the game isn't done, and that it hasn't been RC'ed yet. 6 years of development, and no new news for months. They're obviously trying to wait it out for the holidays, great marketing strategy. So the next time someone ignorantly says VALVEZ WORKIN SO HARD FOR DA GAME TO GET DONE, bite me, because its bullshit.

Bullshit? As opposed to someone ignorantly saying "they're obviously all sitting around the office jerking off"?

It's not frigging obvious that they are trying to wait for the holidays, in your little mind where everything has to be against you and Valve only do things to piss you off. GROW UP

 

[Ecthe|ioN]

If they do have a real high number of people working on the game, they're obviously all sitting around the office jerking off. It is so bullshit that the game isn't done, and that it hasn't been RC'ed yet. 6 years of development, and no new news for months. They're obviously trying to wait it out for the holidays, great marketing strategy. So the next time someone ignorantly says VALVEZ WORKIN SO HARD FOR DA GAME TO GET DONE, bite me, because its bullshit.

Sounds like someone needs a chill pill. There's obviously a lot of bugtesting on such a revolutionary game. I don't care if it takes a long time to get released, if that increases the possibility of us getting a perfect game. I'm pretty sure Valve knows what they're doing.

 

[evil^milk]

i wonder what would happen if you leaked info when in NDA...?

 

[Silarn]

They'd track you down and hire hitmen.

To drag you to court.

 

[bate18]

Nda?


...............

 

[KagePrototype]

i wonder what would happen if you leaked info when in NDA...?

They would sue you for everything you have.

 

[thebarge]

They would sue you for everything you have.

And some stuff you don't have.. and anything you'll ever think about having for the rest of your life.

 

[Chris D]

NDA stands for Non-Disclosure Agreement.

There are currently 82 people working at Valve according to the credits.txt file that comes with CS:S.

However, not all of them work at the Valve offices, some of them work from home.

 

[ShinRa]

Bullshit? As opposed to someone ignorantly saying "they're obviously all sitting around the office jerking off"?

It's not frigging obvious that they are trying to wait for the holidays, in your little mind where everything has to be against you and Valve only do things to piss you off. GROW UP

You made absolutely no counter argument, as well as no points whatsoever. Your so intelligent, you win at life. :thumbs:

 

[Chris D]

You made absolutely no counter argument, as well as no points whatsoever. Your so intelligent, you win at life. :thumbs:

Alright, this debate ends here or taken to PMs please.

guinny, try and be a little bit more constructive in your comments. I can think of many better and mature ways to express the views you did, that wouldn't cause so many people to argue back at you or treat you like the one who isn't intelligent.

 

[wonkers]

I think with a full team of appearantly "intelligent" devlopers that this game should be bug free twice over by now.

How many months of bug testing? They were supposed to be done a month and a half ago. How long were they de-bugging before then? (who knows) Is that enough time? Do they have enough staff?

I know they get paid a whole lot. Either they get paid a bunch or they squander their money. In short the only reason to release in late Oct. or Nov. would be for more damn money.

I have such a huge problem with this. [did anyone e-mail valve to ask how many are working on HL2]

Personally I could beta test like a madman. Every type of hardware software (virus ridden) upside down sort of computer you could imagine in less time that these playtesters. Do they have professionals playtesting? Or just runny nosed kids?

Get the lead out VALVE. MOVE LIKE YOU GOT A PURPOSE.

 

[KagePrototype]

I think with a full team of appearantly "intelligent" devlopers that this game should be bug free twice over by now.

How many months of bug testing? They were supposed to be done a month and a half ago. How long were they de-bugging before then? (who knows) Is that enough time? Do they have enough staff?

I know they get paid a whole lot. Either they get paid a bunch or they squander their money. In short the only reason to release in late Oct. or Nov. would be for more damn money.

I have such a huge problem with this. [did anyone e-mail valve to ask how many are working on HL2]

Personally I could beta test like a madman. Every type of hardware software (virus ridden) upside down sort of computer you could imagine in less time that these playtesters. Do they have professionals playtesting? Or just runny nosed kids?

Get the lead out VALVE. MOVE LIKE YOU GOT A PURPOSE.

Um, they do more than playtest. They have to fix the bugs themselves. Judging from your post, you don't seem to realise this. Playtesting is one thing, but actually taking the time to find out what causes them and fix them can take a very, very long time. Any software developer will tell you that fixing bugs can be not only incredibly frustrating, but also very time consuming. And seeing Half-Life 2 and the Source engine are incredibly complex peices of software, I can only begin to imagine what it must be like to find the root of a bug in all of that code. I'm surprised Valve hasn't just said "**** it, let's just release it as it is, no one will notice the bugs and glitches". You could at least give them credit for trying to keep Half-Life 2 and Source as spotless as they can, so you can enjoy it more, instead of claiming that you could do a better job.

 

[wonkers]

Why don't they seperate that. Make a group of people looking for bugs and another to fix them. Once you find every bug you can. Get cracken.

[On a side note] I just want to put em on the burner so they will hurry the hell up. They should fix the problems with steam. Isn't that the base concept for it?

GO Vavle GO. De-BUG like the WIND.

 

[Feath]

Why don't they seperate that. Make a group of people looking for bugs and another to fix them. Once you find every bug you can. Get cracken.

[On a side note] I just want to put em on the burner so they will hurry the hell up. They should fix the problems with steam. Isn't that the base concept for it?

GO Vavle GO. De-BUG like the WIND.

They do have a seperate play testing team. Bug finding and fixing isn't a simple thing, you don't just go into a special program and type "Make it so the shadows don't clip through the walls, please". Bugs are (by definition) unexpected. So if one of your playtesters find a bug that crashes the server you have to spend quite a while even trying to find what causes it, nevermind what fixes it. Imagine you have over a million lines of code and ONE of them causes a serious bug. Even with debugging tools it's going to take a while to find exactly why the bug happens.

The last bug for Half-Life took quite a while to fix. And in the end it turned out that one line of code needed to be changed.( http://www.gamespot.com/features/halflife_final/part5.html) Now imagine you have 100 similar bugs that are just as hard to find and fix. It's not just 5 minutes of work that Valve are pissing about on.

People on this forum seem to be under a lot of misconceptions about game development. It's not a case of just typing "Make a class game with lots of guns and stuff" into a special program.

 

[KagePrototype]

Why don't they seperate that. Make a group of people looking for bugs and another to fix them. Once you find every bug you can. Get cracken.

What's the point? It will take just as long to fix them. It won't speed it up or anything. There's no magic way of speeding up bug squashing.

 

[jverne]

I agree, bug fixing is (in my opinion) the hardest phase when making a game!
I don't know how hard is to fix a software bug, but I belive its not so diffrent than fixing a motorcycle and belive me it's frustrating work! After checking 1000 things, you find that a screw is a little out of place and the whole thing is f***** up! grrr :frown:

 

[Cole]

Look some of you are complaining and are wondering wtf valve is doing. But just remember, they never had to make HL2. They never had to. Being able to even know that its being made is a PRIVLAGE. Valve dont have to say anything or they can say everything.
What is complaing gonna do about it? I understand that yes these are forum boards and u can do it but
WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT COMPLAINING WILL DO?
Will it make it come out faster? NO
So seriously think about that question. Yes you can complain but it wont do anything.

And yes finding bugs are hard to find.
As feath said.
If you have a shitload amount of lines of pure code. Then all of the sudden your playing, see 1 small error.
To get to find this error what do you have to do?
-Well if your coding is very orginized then you might be able to find it faster. But even if it is orginized there still gonna be like 1000 lines of coding you have to search through. So then you have to go through make sure everythings properly. Tweak things, check if it fixed it. Check and recheck.
That bug could be 1 piece of weopon animation is skipped making the weopon animation look a bit stupid. And that itself may take HOURS.

Now think of bigger things!
Valve never promised anything in august or september or june. They gave estimates and alot of people take them for dates. And therefor they get pissed off at valve for giving a bad "date".... So im not suprised valve has kept quiet. If they started shouting estimates people would be all like "OMG VALVES RELEASING IT ON THE 20TH HOLY SHIT OMG!!"
Valve said they will try to get a RC to vivendi on the 15th(or was it the 16th?). That dosn't mean they will have a RC then that just means they will try to it DOSNT mean they WILL.

So i dont blame valve for going quiet.

Just be happy enough there making HL2. Valve coulda took that 40 million and spent it on porn.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

"How many people are working on HL2 at the moment?"
apparently, not enough.
hehe

Look some of you are complaining and are wondering wtf valve is doing. But just remember, they never had to make HL2. They never had to. Being able to even know that its being made is a PRIVLAGE. Valve dont have to say anything or they can say everything.
What is complaing gonna do about it? I understand that yes these are forum boards and u can do it but
WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT COMPLAINING WILL DO?
Will it make it come out faster? NO
So seriously think about that question. Yes you can complain but it wont do anything.

And yes finding bugs are hard to find.
As feath said.
If you have a shitload amount of lines of pure code. Then all of the sudden your playing, see 1 small error.
To get to find this error what do you have to do?
-Well if your coding is very orginized then you might be able to find it faster. But even if it is orginized there still gonna be like 1000 lines of coding you have to search through. So then you have to go through make sure everythings properly. Tweak things, check if it fixed it. Check and recheck.
That bug could be 1 piece of weopon animation is skipped making the weopon animation look a bit stupid. And that itself may take HOURS.

Now think of bigger things!
Valve never promised anything in august or september or june. They gave estimates and alot of people take them for dates. And therefor they get pissed off at valve for giving a bad "date".... So im not suprised valve has kept quiet. If they started shouting estimates people would be all like "OMG VALVES RELEASING IT ON THE 20TH HOLY SHIT OMG!!"
Valve said they will try to get a RC to vivendi on the 15th(or was it the 16th?). That dosn't mean they will have a RC then that just means they will try to it DOSNT mean they WILL.

So i dont blame valve for going quiet.

Just be happy enough there making HL2. Valve coulda took that 40 million and spent it on porn.

they did however say summer, and people take the rc as a sign as to wether they will make it, or miss again.

you must realize that if Valve werent going to make the summer release date by now... Im SURE they would have told us.


HOWEVER that was the misconception last year as well.

 

[aeroripper]

Valve CANNOT make the summer release. Today is September 10th, the CS:S beta isn't done, so they can't send final RC for testing. Even if it did go gold tomorrow, the beta ended, AND the RC passes, ts highly unlikely it would be on shelves until mid next month since vivendi takes a while on games (unless they make a big exception for hl2)

And they arn't going to say they "missed" anything because they didn't set an official date like they did last year.

They just said we're "shooting for" summer, which really is just a guess not something you write solid in concrete like September 30th. They will miss but we will have it by november i'm sure...

 

[killahsin-[CE]]

NDA's in the game field are usually around $10,000 if you break them, as for valves specific NDA's. Not a clue sorry =)

and aeroripper aside from core dll issues, i dont see cs:S being done or not having anything to do with a HL2 RC. Vivendi has nadas to do with cs:S. But iof your refering to core dll bugs crashes etc, than yes your right.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

And they arn't going to say they "missed" anything because they didn't set an official date like they did last year.

They just said we're "shooting for" summer, which really is just a guess not something you write solid in concrete like September 30th. They will miss but we will have it by november i'm sure...

Valve truely are lucky to have fans like you.

and aeroripper aside from core dll issues, i dont see cs:S being done or not having anything to do with a HL2 RC. Vivendi has nadas to do with cs:S. But iof your refering to core dll bugs crashes etc, than yes your right.

all versions of HL2 include CS:S, so logically the game cannot be released until both are ready.

 

[InFeRnO]

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