Info received from Valve ONLY - NO questions/discussion

From : Rick Ellis <[email protected]>
Sent : Friday, May 7, 2004 10:35 AM
Subject : RE: Two Quick Questions About HL2

1. Will bodies stay or fade away after they are killed? Will there be an option to have them stay around?

1) Depends on what the level designer specifies, they can do either.


2. If the bodies do stay, will you be able to shoot them and move them around?

2) Yes if they stick around they will react to being shot repeatedly.


Rick
Valve
 
-----Question-----
From: Petey
To: Erik Johnson <[email protected]>
Subject: Will Half-Life 2 "Collector's Edition" be available through
Steam?

I recall Gabe Newell saying that one of the Half-Life 2 SKUs would be a
Collector's Edition with "lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like
cool bonus stuff." Well I like cool bonus stuff, but I also like Steam
(and giving all of my proceeds to Valve). Can you say if the "cool
bonus stuff" be available through Steam?


-----Answer-----
From: Erik Johnson <[email protected]>
To: Petey
Subject: RE: Will Half-Life 2 "Collector's Edition" be available through
Steam?

That's hard to say, as we haven't gotten to figuring out what exactly
all of the cool bonus stuff will be.

That being said, there will at the very least be an equivalent amount of
cool bonus stuff on the Steam side of things.

Erik
 
From: Tadashi Oshima [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 6:56 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: System compatibility

Hi Rick,

please tell me how deep Windows-components are integrated in HL2(except DirectX and WinAPI).
Use a scale from 1(like "Integrated? We programmed all the stuff alone") to 10(like "It can't run, when notepad isn't installed")

And what do you prefer: baseball bats or crowbars?

Thx and thumbs up for your work!

--

It's closer to 1 than 10 by a long way. Other than DirectX and some winAPI calls, I'm not aware of any others windows dependencies.

Crowbars don't break...

Rick
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex [mailto:******@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 1:21 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject:

i have a quite interesting graphics question. I know i could just wait
until
it comes out, but it applies to all games in general.

With a specular map applied to a model, can the map still be seen in
darkness when the model cannot? If the map alters it's "shinyness" to
match
the surrounding light, meaning it is not visible out of the darkness,
wouldnt every light source in the game have to be dynamic to make this
work
correctly?

thanks for your time,
alex

Gabe: Depends upon how you generate your specular maps.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy S. [mailto:*********@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 6:04 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Presence of Subtitles in HL2

Hello,

Since it seems that more and more games are coming out with subtitles
included, is HL2 one of them? The reason I'm asking is that I am
hearing-impaired. I cannot understand voices in most games and it is a
huge letdown if subtitles were not included. Believe it or not, there is alot
of people who desire this feature. Thanks for reading!!!

-Andy

Gabe: Yes.
 
Although I already suspected what HL-2 could do as far as the momentum of NPCs, I thought I'd just ask anyways to maybe understand it better.

---------------

From: Chris [mailto: [email protected]]
Sent: Mon 5/10/2004 6:49 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: NPC bone physics blending


Hello Rick and Valve, :)

My question is: If an NPC character is in motion, maybe running or
jumping, and they have momentum. If they are shot and killed while in
motion, would their momentum carry them in the direction of that
motion? Is there a root bone, maybe located in the torso that is used
to get the average momentum?

Also, are the NPC characters, when inside the game engine, handled for
interactions by a large collision box by default, with individual limb
hitboxes created when the character becomes a ragdoll. Or is this
editable to save resources.

Thanks a lot.

-Chris

----------
----------

Yes momentum it carried forward when the character dies and ragdolls. It wouldn't look right otherwise. The ragdoll is a model and as such it has a physics collision box that can be very accurate. You can see the results of this in the E3 demos where we are thrashing a dead soldier about a piece of machinery. Complex interactions are certainly included in the engine.

Rick
Valve
 
Hello Rick,
I have seen alot of questions, especially after the recent "shaky cam vids", pertaining to the physics engine and whether it will cause sudden "fps/lag spikes" if a sudden explosion happens. I have also heard rumors of this from people who claim they have tried the leak beta. Should we expect these fps spikes and second-long delays with low-end CPUs from the final release? Also will there be a sort of physics quality setting, for those who have low-end CPUs?

Thank you very much,
Justin Hopper

You should not expect those unless you are on a low end piece of hardware. The "leaked beta" as you put it was not a beta it was a stolen version of our source code, and was VERY old. It is certainly NOT representative of the game you will see at retail nor what you will see at E3 this week.

Rick
 
See my answers below.

Rick

From: Chris Deeming [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tue 5/11/2004 9:20 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Engine build


Hey Rick,
Chris_D from HL2.Net again, just a few questions this time.

1) The demos shown at last year's E3 were, according to Gabe, run from an
engine build that was compiled just before E3. Will the E3 demos this year
use a newer build of the engine or will it be the same one from last year?
*** New build from this weekend.


2) Everyone's thirsty for multiplayer news, is this something that will be
talked about this year at E3?

*** You'll have to wait to see what's at E3...

3) Are you going to be at E3 yourself or are you going to be hard at work in
the offices?

*** Nope, I'm one of those staying back at Valve to hold down the fort.

Regards,
Chris_D
HalfLife2.Net Staff
 
-----Original Message-----
From: WillH
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 4:06 PM
To: Yahn Bernier
Subject: Network code rewrite

Hey,

I read in an interview with Gabe I believe that the Network code went
through a whole rewrite. Could you possibly give some info on what
exactly you guys did? Was it actually a full rewrite from the ground up
scrapping all the old stuff or did you guys just go through the old code
and shore it up from any possible problems? Secondly, how would you
compare the new code to the old one, performance wise? Better? Worse?
The same?
Thanks for your time,

WillH

Somewhere in between. The core concepts of how we do client / server and
prediction etc. are the same, but the actual code was more or less
re-written for functionality and security reasons.

Yahn
 
Subtitles for Incidental Characters

From: Myrddin Emrys [mailto:********@******.***]
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 2:41 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Subtitles for Incidental Characters

Is all speech subtitled, or only 'cut-scene' type dialog (even though I know you don't have cutscenes). For example, can you enable subtitles for incidental dialog between NPCs?

On a related note, how do you handle subtitles if more than one character speaks at once?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Myrddin,

Thanks for writing. We have subtitles for all of the dialog in the game - not just for the major narrative scenes. We haven't finalized all of the implementation details on our closed captioning, so I can't give you a definitive answer on how we'll differentiate lines for characters speaking over one another at this time.

Best wishes,

Bill Van Buren
Valve
 
May it be clear now:

(although no information whether CS2 is the MP aspect)

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Rooze [mailto:*******]
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 2:30 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Major confusion in Half-Life town :)

Hi Rick,

Sorry to disturb you, but us folks at halflife2.net are a bit confused
about the awesome HL2 presentation that can now be seen on the internet.
It concerns the multiplayer aspect of HL2. We've seen footage of CS on
Source, but is this actually CS2 or is it what it says at the end:
Counter-Strike Source?

And is the game that is being demonstrated in the video the included
multiplayer mode of HL2? If not (and assuming CS2 and CS Source are
different things) is CS2 the included multiplayer?

We've be hearing a bit contradicting information on this subject, for
months it has been said that CS2 will be a seperate retail product, but
after Gabe spoke about multiplayer of HL2 and showed CS Source, so he
gave the intention that it is the included multiplayer.

I hope you understand the confusion ;)

Thank you very much for reading this lengthy email.

Sincerely,

Julian Rooze

It is what it says it is: Counter-Strike ported to Source. It is NOT
CS2.

Rick
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
From: Neale Roberts [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 3:28 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: HL1 port

Hi Rick - Neale from hl2.net here. Just a quick question about the HL1
Source port:

Will you *please* include the manipulator as an unsupported extra? It'd
make a lot of people very happy

Also - was this conversion done with an automated tool, or have you
actually done a full conversion pass on it?

Regards,

Neale Roberts
Halflife2.net Staff
www.halflife2.net

---------------------------------------------

The ports are full conversions.

Rick
Valve
 
stuff good to know

Subject: RE: Adding Tech to Source
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 09:24:49 -0700
From: "Rick Ellis" <[email protected]>
To: "David Basoco" <[email protected]>


Please see answers to your questions below.

Thanks,
Rick
Valve

-----Original Message-----
From: David Basoco [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 10:53 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Adding Tech to Source

Valve stated that source is an continuous project and that additional
technologies would eventually be added to source games. I have a few
questions that i hope you wouldn't mind answering. =)

I was wondering what kind of features are u looking into adding?

*** Too many to list however we plan on making sure our graphics are
always up to date.

I noticed in hl2 and cs on source demos that feet stayed flat even if
the ground happened to be at an angle, can this be fix so the feet
conform to the ground? (i think CryTek has this ability)

*** Yes this can be fixed, but I'm not sure what the priority for it is
at this point.

How much are u willing to add to source?

*** We will continue to add capabilities to Source to match the latest
video cards and versions of DirectX. It took us a long time to develop
the technology, we are not going to allow the tech to "rot" so we will
continue to invest in the technology in order to keep it current.

I really appreciate your replys from the past and your on-going support
of the community, you guys are really going a great job. E3 vids are
amazing. Im very excited about this game and i cant wait to get my
hands on it.

*** Thanks for your interest in Half-Life 2 and let me know if you have
any other questions.

KiNG
Click to expand...
 
From the valve crew at E3:
Yes, CS source has ragdoll.
No, the SDK hasn't been released to "select mod teams" at E3.
When asked if CS would be the ONLY multiplayer for HL2, gabe told me that they would port over EVERYTHING (hl deathmatch, deathmatch classic, dod, cs, etc. Don't know if this includes ricochet, or tfc/tf2)
 
TFC will also be ported. TF2 is being developed on the source engine already.
 
Can we keep this more to e-mails please, guys? Thanks.
 
See answers to your questions below.

Rick
Valve

On the video from E3 the steam interface has rounded edge's and is a little
lighter.
Is this interface\skin going to be out to the public soon, and will it be
this way in windows to?

*** It will be part of the VGUI sdk that we release. There might be some minor differences between what you can do under windows and what you can do in game relative to rounded corners etc.

When the SDK is released, will it have documentation how to use all the
things steam support?
f.eks the LOADING.. screen in CZ, or other things..

*** Of course.

Will the SDK be launched soon, or is it more likly that the game will be out
first?

*** The SDK will be out before the game is out.

In the new E3 video, we can se that the characters have a much better
lightning now, is this something new for every model in source, or just
characters, and under a special light?
Example: http://vakuum.mine.nu/hl2-character_lightning.png

*** We've had more time to polish the game, you can expect to see that quality of light throughout the game.

Can you confirm that all the E3 videos was recordings of people playing the
game, and not some scripted scenes?

*** Those are all playbacks of someone at Valve actually playing the game. No scripted sequences.

In the E3 video, I think I did see some sort of HDR lightning. is this true,
or does't hl2 use hdr anymore?

*** You might have seen what looks like HDR but HDR is not enabled in the demos.
 
yay, my first post in this thread....



Just a simple concern over the difficulty level of the game. I was wondering
if there will be different difficulty level options for the players to
choose from?
And also, what difficulty was selected in the new e3 videos? I hope it
wasn't on the hardest because from what was displayed, it seemed rather easy
if it was..
Last question pertaining to this is, what kinds of things would we see
differ between difficulty levels?..


There are currently 3 difficulty settings, easy, medium and hard. What you saw was either easy or medium, hard is nightmarish in nature. More mobs, much more aggression and better accuracy are just a few things that make them much more difficult.

Rick
 
I ask to Gabe Newell and here is the answer :
Read first the down of the thread and after the up


De : Gabe Newell <[email protected]>
Envoyé : samedi 15 mai 2004 19:11:59
À : "ISWAT Ulukai" <[email protected]>
Objet : RE: Gorden Freeman ?

| | | Boîte de réception

-----Original Message-----
From: ISWAT Ulukai [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 4:43 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Gorden Freeman ?

Hello Mr Newell ,

First of all, I would like to say that you and all your team have made a amazing
job for Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Belgium support you at 100%.

I'm a Half-Life fan since his begining, i would like to ask you only one
question, I know that you are a very buzy man and if you don't answer it, I
understand.

I don't know if someone ask it to you before but here is the question :

In Half-Life and Half-Life 2 everybody are talking "G-man, Scientist, Barney,
Alyx, Marines, etc..." but the only guys who don't talk is Gorden Freeman, could
you tell me why Freeman say nothing ?
He's the only guys who say norhing !!!

We don't want to impose a voice on the player. It's also the reason you never
see yourself.

penEDIT
 
I asked Valve a question how Dr. Breen was projected at the monitors at City 17 and what technique they used. I got a response back from one of the persons working at Valve. :)

Van: Marc Laidlaw <[email protected]>
Verzonden: zaterdag 15 mei 2004 20:33:21
Aan: <xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Gabe Newell" <[email protected]>
Onderwerp: Dr. Breen



Dear Gert,

Gabe forwarded your question about the Breencasts in City 17.

Yes, Dr. Breen is in an inaccessible box saying his lines in front of a camera and microphone. The image and audio are projected to the monitors. (And you can change channels by changing to different different cameras in different rooms.) You can aim cameras at any part of the level and project the image.

I'm sure lots of modders will have fun with this technique. Will you be one of them?

Yours,
Marc Laidlaw
Click to expand...
 
Hi there Gabe,wuld be grateful if u culd answer sum questions for me and the community of Halflife2.net.

1) Whats the mood like over at valve HQ, are people stressed out about the situation on not shipping it yet or thats its not quite finished, or are they releived that most of the work is over and that the infamous project is almost at an end..

2) Last time we heard the total so far spent on the Half Life 2 project was around $40 US dollars,can u tell us if this has changed ?

Thnx for your time, keep up the good work

-Alex
______________________________________

Gabe replied within about 5minutes..

Hi Alex.

- The Valve team is very tired,as you can imagine,and we all could do with a break but we are also releived (did he spell that right,lol?) that the project is almost over and I hope when were done our hard-work will be shown in the finalized product.

- And for your other question, the cost hasnt realy changed much at all since we last announced it.

Thanks for your interest in us and Half Life 2
Gabe.
 
E3 2004 demos show actual gameplay

From: ******
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 4:53 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: yet another HL2 Question


Hi there,


to put it short: HL1 was in my opinion the best shooter as it had a real story and also presented the story in a superb way ! Hope, you guys will rock again ! (You sure will 8) ! )


Question:


Are the scenes we saw in the E3 presesentations from 2003 and 2004 actual Game-Sequences or were they especially designed for the show ?



Most exited,

Lucas

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


it's the game
 
Hello Gabe and Rick,

Thank you for taking the time to look at my question. I know how busy you guys are, and I appreciate the hard work that you're putting into this game for your fans. What you've achieved is nothing short of incredible.

My question is quick. Is HDR going to be in the final product, or was that just a tech demo to show off the Source engine? I'm buying a souped up PC soon, and I want HDR and every other high-end effect available in HL2.

My other question is quick as well. Is the visual quality of CS Source on par with HL2 (ie. environment, character models, etc.)? I couldn't really tell in the E3 movies. I hope so because our expectations are that CS Source and the other HL1 ports will look like HL2.

Thanking you in advance,

Eric
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi Eric,

Whether HDR makes it in or not hasn't yet been decided. It's a feature that mainly the really high-end cards can use well and we have some other features we want to make sure get into the tech so that more people can benefit. If for some reason it doesn't make it for release, we'll be adding it in shortly after release.

As for CS quality, we are porting the games to HL2 so they will look like HL2 games so yes, we are making sure those games look as good as HL2 (within limits of course).

Thanks,
Rick
Valve
 
Dont know is this info been here but here is it:


-----Original Message-----
From: Jani Kivela [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 9:40 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Hi Rick!

I have question about Half-Life 2, so if you have some time to answer me.

Can we see Gordon from mirrors, from screens where camera is pointed at
Gordon and picture comes to that screen or from reflective object etc.?

Thanks for your time and keep up that good working!

-Jani-

No, you'll have to keep Gordon's image in your head... At least for
now...

Rick
Valve
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Blake
Sent: Saturday
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Bullets in Half-Life 2

Hey there Rick!

I was wondering, will bullets in Half-Life 2 ricochet.
Lets say it hits a solid metal surface at an angle would it go veering
off in a different direction?

Thanks for your time.


Blake

Bullets don't but some of the particles from other weapons will.

Rick
Valve
 
Please see answers to your questions below.

Thanks,
Rick
Valve

-----Original Message-----
From: carl delahunty [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 10:12 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: HalfLife port

Hi There Rick,

I wanted to say that HalfLife2 looks cracking at this years E3, it
definately surpasses last year. This e-mail is concerning the Source
ports of the original games

As we heard during the past few weeks, HalfLife and the expansion packs
will be ported to source.

1) Because there was a lot of things that you wanted to do with the
first game, but were constrained by the power of the quake engine, will
you be incorporating these ideas that you could not do in 1998?

*** We could do this, however we've saved all of our tricks for HL2.
Revamping HL1 would essentially be building the sequel.

2) Will there be new content in the original games (i.e lost levels, use
of vehicles, wider outdoor environments, etc)?

*** Possibly, I can't say any more than this at this time.
So much for the Doug Interview
Click to expand...


3) Do you have an idea on the retail price of the re-vamp games (dont
have to answer)?

*** No, I don't have any idea on this.

Thank you for your time answering these questions, it certainly quells
my curiousity
 
Silly News But its my first post in this thread woot!
-----Original Message-----
From: hfd gfxd [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 7:24 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Weekends?

Hiya! Thanks for reading me! Anyway!

Do you guys give yourelf the weekend off?

Also, are you rich Mr.Newell? If so I was looking at this
Alienware.....j/k :)

Goodbye!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

No, we didn't have the weekend off.

All the money we made from Half-Life plus more went into Half-Life 2.
 
A couple of questions which are probably of more interest to the multiplayer players out there. Gabe passed the question on to Jesse Cliffe. I'll get back in touch with him with more i depth questions, pm me if you have any anyone.

From: **************
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 1:59 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: CS source admin and other source ports question

Hi Gabe

Thanks for a great showing from E3 and thanks for letting us know about
CS:Source. It's the news I've been waiting for for years.
I have a couple of questions about the ports to source which I think you
may be able to answer now that the gaes have been announced, I was
hoping you could find two minutes to reply or pass the questions on to
someone who may have time to answer them. I know you are all very busy.

Firstly I was wondering how the source engine works client side in terms
of bindings and configs etc. I know I'd have real trouble going back to
a default config in CS. I have side mouse buttons set to switch to
primary and secondary weapons etc using a few aliases that i wrote. Will
things like that still be possible in source?

Secondly, and this is my main question really. I run a CS clan and we
host two servers and it would be a much harder job without adminmod etc.

I have bought a few new games recently like CoD that have very little in
the way of server admin tools as part of the actual shipment and as a
result public servers especially can be a real struggle to play on. I
was just thinking that steam with it's unique ID's and source may work
well togethter to allow a full range of server admin tools like admin
mod currently does for the hl engine. Will source and/or steam have
built in server admin abilities?

Thanks for your time if you get round to reading or responding to this.
Sorry i waffled so much....


Hi Martin,

Glad to hear that you're excited about CS Source -- we are as well.

As for your questions:
1. Binding and configs will work in a very similar way to the HL1
engine. In fact, you won't have to touch the great majority of your
configs -- they will just work
2. We are looking into adding more adminmod type features, for instance
we've recently added http map downloading for servers, etc. This will
continue and we listen very closely to what server admins want, so if
you have any specific request ideas, just let me know.

Hope that helps.

Jess Cliffe
VALVe
 
Please have a eye on the "we don't officially support WineX yet" comment ;)
It's spending hope to Linux-using HL fans.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tadashi Oshima [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 8:44 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Problem of ol' wine

Hi Rick,

I'm happy, that valve and the guys from the HL2D team finally released
the game.
But because I'm not running Windows(and won't run it again), my only way
to play the game is with WineX.
It's running alright, but the control doesn't work. The game doesn't
save the keys and it keeps saying, it's all "undefined".
I can choose the control keys again, but in the moment, I quit the
control menu, everything is away again.
It's the only thing I explain about^^;;;

*** We don't officially support WineX yet so I'm not sure what I can say
other than to work with Transgaming to get the issue solved.

By the way, why don't you answer to generic linux-but-not-server
questions? Are you fed up with them?
Or are they low priority and will be answered, when no others mails are
around?

*** I'm not sure what emails I might have missed that had this
information in them. I try to answer every one I get even though it
sometimes takes a bit.

And the last point, do you often play videogames?

*** Every single day :)

Rick
Valve


It would be nice, if you could answer at least the videogame question^^

Double thumbs up for HL2 and a good post-release time ;) Tadashi
 
Yes we are in crunch time...

Given that we've been in development for as long as we have been, we've been fortunate (?) enough to develop for each of the DirectX's independently and add features as the new version came out. This made it fairly straightforward to develop a product that runs optimally on all levels of DirectX.

Rick
Valve



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Goombatommy [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 9:14 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: DX 7/8/9 question


Mr. Ellis,

I have a curiosity, but what was the process, and was it hard to bring an engine so unique using DX 9 technology, down to being compatible with DX 7 and DX 8 generation cards? Was it just a mere of toning down/disabling the DX 9 effects for these generations? Thank you for your time in answering this question.

-Thomas from New Jersey

PS: Are you guys literally at Crunch time now, trying to get the game finished and out the door?



Read Rick's reply above my email.
 
Subject: RE: questions on HL2 :)
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 16:07:56 -0700
From: "Rick Ellis" <[email protected]> Add to Address Book
To: ********** - Mr. Redundant :p


Hi,

Please see answers to your questions below.

Thanks,
Rick
Valve

-----Original Message-----
From: ********** - Mr. Redundant :p
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 3:03 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: questions on HL2 :)

Hello Mr. Ellis I was just wondering if you could answer a few questions I had concerning Hl2 and steam in general (if you cant answer them all I understand but I would rather you skip the ones you dont want to/cant answer rather than none)

1. Will Hl2 support "Profiles" for different users?
(something akin to FarCry, or BF1942/Bf:V). I often have friends/family over who play on my computer and we all like different control/sensitivity settings.

*** No we don't support this, however you may see something like this
enabled via Steam in the future.

2. Is it possible for the Source engine to influence a ragdoll death via
animation? In other words, when something is killed... does it simply flop/crumple to the ground based on what hit it and how hard, or is there a way to apply some rudementary animation that may influence how the ragdoll reacts. (hitting a combine in the face with a crowbar, he reaches up and grabs his eye while he ragdolls backwards)

*** It's possible however there are some issues with animating
ragdolls. For example, ragdolls have set extents for movement (i.e. arms and legs can only bend "so far"). Animations would have to take this into consideration. Also, animations aren't aware of ragdoll collisions with the environment so some method of monitoring the animations would have to be added to the code. We have a solution for this but it's not general enough to work in every single case.

3. Will there be a way to remove a game AND their Icon from the steam "Games" menu? for instance I dont care for CS:CZ, or Ricochet, or even DMC.. they just add to the clutter... even when they arent installed they are greyed out... it would be better if I could remove them (and then perhaps if I change my mind, add them from the main steam window)

*** Not at this time.

4. Is there/will there be a way to add third party games to Steam that dont use Valve tech? in other words.. lets say I want to add "Jongo's revenge the 3rd person shooter from "erectile-soft" to my game menu (so steam can Launch it) could I? and if I did, if my friends had the same game could we connect directly to eachother like other steam mods.

*** Valve has to do this, it's not something users can tweak.

5. If an explosive (say grenades) were thrown into a thin corridor/vent, would the explosion/flames travel through the vent? or simply explode at the place they landed. I remember that explosives were said to do this back when TF2 was announced... and since has always made me hope it would see fruition in an upcoming game.

*** The explosions are local, we aren't doing any fluid or air dynamics
simulation necessary for this to do what you suggest.

6. Father Gregori sounds very familiar, who voices him?

*** You'll have to check the credits when the game comes out

Red-edit:Oww Doh :p

thank you very much for your time, I appologize that I asked so many
questions.
thanks again and good luck with HL2
---------------------------------------------
awsome, thank you so much for the info Mr. Ellis :)
first time in this thread :)
 
From: xxx
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 1:12 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Widescreen (letterboxing) on standard displays?


Hi Rick, I really love the widescreen aspect ratio you guys are using for all your publicity material (videos, pctures etc), definitely adds a real cinematic flair. Of course as is the case with most people I don't own a widescreen monitor, just a standard 4:3 aspect ratio monitor. Are you going to provide a 'letterboxed' or widescreen display option for non widescreen displays? I have a large monitor 21" and would certainly be willing to sacrifice some screen estate to the letterbox in order to get that cinematic look and feel.

We aren't doing letterbox that would essentially turn your 4:3 screen into a wide screen, but playing Half-Life 2 in a window solves that problem by allowing you to run the widescreen format at whatever resolution you want.

Rick
Valve
 
not much for new information, but he does say we will hear more in the coming weeks.

-----Original Message-----
From: ********
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 2:45 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Couple of questions

Hey Rick, if you have some time, I would love to get a few answers from
you.

I have heard a few conflicting reports about this: Is the only
multiplayer for Half-Life 2 Counter-Strike Source?

Does Counter-Strike Source come with any versions of Half-Life 2? Such
as the Half-Life 2 Singleplayer/Multiplayer version?

I know that the ragdoll physics for CS Source will probably all be
client-side, but are the barrels we saw server-side?

With server-side physics in CS now, how will this affect bandwidth? With
new advancements in network code, will this make much of a difference
compared to the current amount of needed bandwidth?

It has been said that many of the conversions from the original
Half-Life (HL, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, etc) will be sold separately
from Half-Life 2. If so, is there any chance that these may be included
in versions of Half-Life 2? Such as possibly being included in the
collectors edition?

That is all that I can think of currently, please answer anything you
feel comfortable with answering.

Thank you, and keep up the great work,
********

-----Rick's Message-----
The Source engine contains support for multiplayer gaming, and Valve
plans to release several multiplayer games at the time HL2 is made
available. This week we've announced Counter-Strike: Source. We will be
more releasing information on the other games and how they will be made
available to gamers in the coming weeks.

Rick
Valve
 
(wow, I was really not expecting a reply to my .Mail addy... I thought perhaps it was filtered out)
now I look the fool.

-----Original Message-----
From: Cholo Wells [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 10:41 AM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Voice Actors in HL2

Hello Sir Rick :)

just an extremely quick question on Hl2's voice actors...
Father Gregori's voice seems so familiar, but I just cant put my
finger
on who it is..
could you please share who does the voicework for him?

(also Dr. Breen seems quite familiar as well... would you mind sharing
with us who voices him?)

thank you for your time, I understand if you can't answer, good luck
with Half-Life2 (not that you guys need it :)) -Mr. Red

Robert Guillaume - Dr. Eli Vance
Robert Culp - Dr. Wallace Breen
Lou Gossett, Jr. - Vortigaunt
Michelle Forbes - Dr. Judith Mossman
Merle Dandridge - Alyx Vance
Mike Shapiro - Barney Calhoun
Harry S. Robins - Dr. Isaac Kleiner
Jim French - Father Grigori
John Patrick Lowrie - Citizens/Misc. characters
Mary Kae Irvin - Citizens/Misc. characters

Rick
Valve
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Winn [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 8:08 PM
To: Gabe Newell; Doug Lombardi; Rick Ellis
Subject: Regarding the multiplayer

I was wondering if HL2 is going to come with it's own deathmatch style
like you guys did with the first one which was totally brilliant....hope
to hear back from ya'll. Thanks.

Hi Jonathan,

The Source engine contains support for multiplayer gaming, and Valve
plans to release several multiplayer games at the time HL2 is made
available. This week we've announced Counter-Strike: Source. We will be
more releasing information on the other games and how they will be made
available to gamers in the coming weeks.

Rick
Valve
 
From: Ben
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 2:09 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Two Half-Life 2 related questions.


Mr Ellis, you are performing a herculanean task by answering all these e-mails, and the fans appreciate it.

I just got a hold of a copy of your E3 2004 presentations of Half-Life 2, and I must say they look spectacular. You've smashed any doubt that this game will be a worthy sucessor to Half-Life, and I can't wait to play it!

I had a couple questions:

First, a while back you said to check back after E3 regarding the Half-Life 2 benchmark. I'm checking back. Any news on it? A readme file perhaps?

Second:

In the most recent E3 presentation, in the Eli's Lab bit, I noticed that the cool "zoom" feature that happened in last year's E3 demo (in the Kleiner's Lab scene) didn't happen at all in these demos. Has it been removed from HL2, or was it just not triggered by those scenes?

Take care, and nice job at E3.

Ben

---------

Hi Ben,

We'll be announcing something about the benchmark in the upcoming weeks.

As for the "zoom" feature, it's still there, we just didn't show it to save redundancy over last year's presentation.

Thanks,
Rick
Valve
 
Woah, check this out. Compare Rick's answer in tokin's post with mine. Looks like Rick's pretty busy :|

Hey Rick, it's me again. I just watched the new e3 2004 videos, and I was truly blown away. The part where you interact with the characters is just like in real life, so awesome.

Anyway I just wanted to ask something about the HL 1 and Op4 ports. Will they be like "complete" ports as in new voice acting, weapon and player models, and everything? It would be truly awesome to play the original Half-Life in the Source engine, it would be just like "wow".

I can't wait till HL2 is out. Good luck!

The Source engine contains support for multiplayer gaming, and Valve plans to release several multiplayer games at the time HL2 is made available. This week we've announced Counter-Strike: Source. We will be more releasing information on the other games and how they will be made available to gamers in the coming weeks.

Rick
Valve
 
In response to above:
To be fair Rick has probably received many more e-mails other than the ones that have been posted today containing the same answer (I think three is the current count). I appreciate this may not always be possible but can we please try to ensure that either

a) you don't ask the Valve staff a question that has already been answered on the 37 pages prior to this one

and/or

b) that you do not post e-mails/responses that contain no new information to what has been seen on the prior 37 pages.

Thank you :)

Chris_D
HalfLife2.Net Staff
[email protected]
 
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 4:01 PM
To: Rick Ellis
Subject: Question concerning the Steam Game-Menu

Hello Mr. Ellis,

I read the following piece of info - a question of another HL-Fan to you and your response - on halflife2.net:

> 3. Will there be a way to remove a game AND their Icon from the steam "Games" menu? for instance I
> dont care for CS:CZ, or Ricochet, or even DMC.. they just add to the clutter... even when they arent
> installed they are greyed out... it would be better if I could remove them (and then perhaps if I change
> my mind, add them from the main steam window)
>
> *** Not at this time.

My further question concerning this is:

Would it be possible to move all the Half Life Mods now standing under "my games" like Counterstrike, DoD, TFC etc. to the section "available games" if they're not installed?

The reason is, I don't have these Mods and I don't want them - but they still show up under "my games". Moving them to "available games" would make the Steam Games Menu much more intuitive and un-cluttered, but would still allow the games to be installed with one click!

Furthermore, independent from my 1st question, could there be a possible new feature in steam that would let you collapse / expand the sections "my games", "3rd party games", "available games" etc (and restore that setting in each new call of steam)? That'd be great! :)

Yours sincerelly,

xxxxxxxxxxxx (German HL fan !)


I understand what you are referring to and see that it might be useful for us to consider this as an option. I will pass along your suggestions to the Steam team.

Thanks,
Rick
Valve
 
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 11:25 PM
To: Doug Lombardi
Subject: DVD Release?

Hey, I was wondering if a DVD release is being planned for Half-Life 2?
I know it was briefly mentioned that the SE would include a DVD version,
but will it be possible to just buy a normal DVD edition?

Thanks alot,
David

--------------------------

Hi,

Short answer: Still to be determined.

Thanks for your interest in the game and taking the time to write to us.

Cheers,
Doug
 
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