How VALVe started his way to success...

A.I.

A.I.

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An old but still an interesting read about how Newell and Harrington started his own company until Half-Life 1 went gold. It's unbelievable how history repeats itself...

Enjoy!

P.S. Does anyone know if Half-Life: Day One still circles on the web?
 
Isn't Half-Life: Day One just the first few "levels" of the game we've all played to death?
 
Absolutely awesome article. I learnt a lot from it.

It really enforces my hatred of publishers as well.
 
Shuzer said:
Isn't Half-Life: Day One just the first few "levels" of the game we've all played to death?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is. Uplink, on the other hand, is a standalone product featuring completely original levels designed to promote Half-Life.
 
This I know. Uplink is still on the web, and I was just double checking, as you can't find Day One anywhere.
 
There's an extremely important piece of info in that article that can be related to today. Read this guys...
By early November, only one major bug stood in Valve's way of bringing Half-Life to store shelves around the world. But in the software world, one showstopper bug is one too many.

Finally, the Valve team finds the error in the game that has been preventing multiplayer games from functioning correctly. It's a one-line fix - so simple, yet so elusive. A new "release candidate" CD is quickly burned and sent off for final tests. As Newell explains, "[There's] a 48-hour cooling off process where everybody makes sure you haven't done anything silly, like forgotten a file."

Valve thinks it's done. As Marc Laidlaw put it, "People were escorted to that strange, half-remembered place called home to reacquaint themselves with something known as their life (or in some cases, their wife)."


Gabe Newell sits in his office and remembers his last game of multiplayer. "I was sitting here testing multiplayer, and I was thinking, 'Damn, this is really cool!'" he says. "At the end of other projects, I'm usually more neutral about them when they go out the door, with an acute awareness of everything you'd like to have added. [I don't feel like that] with Half-Life."


Most of the other Valve members go home and test out the multiplayer support over the Internet. They all wait as Sierra's test department checks over the game to make sure it's ready to go to a factory where hundreds of thousands of CDs will be replicated and shipped to stores in time for Thanksgiving.

They wait.


Chuck Jones and Steve Theodore read an e-mail declaring that Half-Life has been approved for production.
On Saturday, November 7th, the fateful e-mail comes down the pipeline: the release candidate has been approved for replication. Half-Life is done. "We were all in a state of shock [when we got the e-mail]," says Laidlaw.

Now, the Valve team would reassemble once more in the office to celebrate the game and officially declare it gold. And they'd finally lay into that piñata.
Click to expand...

Time from when Valve gave the RC to Sierra and it was approved was literally a few days. Holy shit i hope that happens for HL2.
 
Whoa .."Hollow Box" was also in the running for the company name. hehe

Very good read. I hope there is some sort of behind the scenes thing like this for HL2 at some point. Would be nice to hear about what has happened over the last 6 years and especially last Sept ..
 
Shuzer said:
This I know. Uplink is still on the web, and I was just double checking, as you can't find Day One anywhere.
Click to expand...
where did you find uplink? i'm ashamed that i haven't played it yet.
 
lol Pvtlon, thats not very kind. ;)
It's a great story, about the greatest company.
Third time or so i've read it, i still enjoy it. :)
 
The article made me think of the ultimate collector's item for the CE of hl2; A play-able version of the Half-life alpha.
 
AJ Rimmer said:
The article made me think of the ultimate collector's item for the CE of hl2; A play-able version of the Half-life alpha.
Click to expand...

According to Rick Ellis, this actually leaked about a year ago.. I searched everywhere for it, but couldn't find it.. :(
 
Valve sounds much better than Hollow Box, I'm glad they didn't pick the latter hehe.
 
AJ Rimmer said:
Also, VALVe isn't a person.
Click to expand...

Oh dear! :eek: Silly me... :D English isn't my first language although it surprised me I could do a silly mistake like this :)
 
man, i remember reading that article waaaaaaaay back, didn't know so many people hadn't read it before, it's probably the most informative thing i've ever read about valve, half-life, and the way they work
 
I guess you guys already seen the Half-life nostaliga project, real cool to see all the old crummy screenshots.
 
That article is really informative. Very well written too, like a novel or biography.

I'm surprised they completed Half-Life with all those scares.


EDIT: Heres a link to Geoff Keighley's website:

http://www.gameslice.com/


Many of you can watch him on The Electric Playground.
 
History repeats itself!

I loved the parts when some of the things which were happening then are happening now.

"HL was almost best of show in 1997, hype was ther but it came out in 1998"
after the delay it was actually better
"HL wanted to create a skeletal facial animation system"
 
Also:

"It didn't seem to matter. Valve hoped to have the game out in the spring... then in June... then in the summer... then September... and finally Thanksgiving. The slippery slope of release dates was the cause of great concern within Sierra, where employees would joke that they didn't think they would ever see Half-Life sitting on a store shelf"

""Sierra has been pretty supportive, even though we've screwed up their quarterly [financial] forecasts for five quarters," he says with a shy laugh"

happening with VU now.

"- was Half-Life really good enough to compete against the likes of Sin, Shogo, Blood 2, Heretic 2,"

OMG!, Doom 3, halo 2, Stalker. :eek:

"This scripted sequence of a green tentacle attacking a scientist wowed the crowd at E3 1998"

E3 2004 sniper blasted by rpg.

"Valve was on track and received another Game of the Show award"

E3 2003, and nominated in E32004. Hmmm, seems like this is where a glitch comes in history.
 
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