Info received from Valve ONLY - NO questions/discussion

-----Original Message-----
From: Faye Lovvorn [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 10:14 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Will it work now?
Well, Gabe, I took your advice and coaxed my parents into getting me an All In Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro for my B-Day. What I'd like to know from you, because I've read up on you saying that Half-Life 2 takes advantage of the DX9 cards, is if the game pulls more from the DX9 cards during gameplay than it does from the CPU. Frankly, my current CPU (Athlon XP 1700+), isn't exactly in league with the rest of the pack. Will Half-Life 2 be able to function directly from my video card and system memory rather than the CPU? I only ask this because of all the reviews I've read on the Radeon 9800 cards, the consensus of the bulk of them is that when it comes to games, the performance is pretty CPU and system-bound until you start to get into higher resolutions with FSAA enabled; which is when the Radeon really starts to show itself. Is this true for Half-Life 2 as well? I'd like to think I can play the game in all its glory with a decent fps without having to get a new motherboard and processor. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time. Sincerely,
Andrew Lovvorn

From: Gabe Newell [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 10:34 PM
To: 'Faye Lovvorn'
Subject: RE: Will it work now?

The 9800 Pro is a great card for DX9. You should be able to run just fine.
 
I had the chance to chat with erik johnson over steam:

Carlito says:
hello mr. johnson
Carlito says:
i have 1 simple question
Carlito says:
if i buy hl2 through steam, what possibilities do i have to pay for it?
Carlito says:
do i need a credit card?
Erik Johnson says:
Yes, credit card will be available.
Carlito says:
any other possibilities?
Erik Johnson says:
Not initially. What did you want to use?
Carlito says:
maybe i can send u an envelope with some money
...
Carlito says:
oh, another question came to my mind
Carlito says:
can u hold the release date?
Carlito says:

Erik Johnson says:
Nice try.
Carlito says:

...

Carlito says:
maybe hl2 movies are updating again
Erik Johnson says:
Not right now.
Click to expand...
 
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 4:51 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Sound ?'s


Hey Gabe, I have a few quick sound questions I hope you don't mind answering.

1. Do dead bodies make sounds when they hit the ground, especially if they fall from great heights?

2. Similarly, do larger objects make louder noises? Would a very large object falling from a great height that lands near the player cause the player's screen to shake?

Thanks for your time!

Gabe's answers:

yes
yes

There were a couple of instances in the E3 videos where sound was missing. That's just because they weren't done.
 
Double whammy this time

Yeah, we all got a kick out of it.

-----Original Message-----
From: lonederanger@****.net [mailto:lonederanger@****.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 9:39 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Cool


Hey Gabe,

Check this out:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/sho...10&perpage=15&p
agenumber=1

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/att...=&postid=110534

-LD
Click to expand...

Gabe alert: Gabe makes post #2 on halflife2.net.

Valve Premier Pack? Never heard of it.

-----Original Message-----
From: lonederanger@****.net [mailto:lonederanger@****.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 2:56 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Valve Premier Pack


Hi Gabe,

Could you give us more information on something currently only knows as the "Valve Premier Pack"? Is it some sort of a subscription service?

Thanks,
- LD
Click to expand...
 
the barrel will collide with the wall, the player will slow down as the force against the barrel from the manipulator increases as it gets closer to the player

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Sierra [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 5:01 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Simple question.


If your holding a barrel with manipulator and walk into wall, will the barrel or player model cause a collision?

Good luck with the final phase.
 
I e-mailed this to Gabe some time ago, but just found this tread! ;)

Yes.

Yes.

So long as they let me do real work, too.

That would kick ass.

Gabe
-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 11:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Yo Gabe!


Here comes a few questions all they way from Sweden! Hope you got the time!

Q : Would it be possible for a modteam or mapmaker to make a multistore house
wich would crash down with the players inside if it was made out of wood?

Q : In multiplayer, will objects hurt players? Like the container in the E3 video?

Q : Is it an intresting job, beeing the PR guy for Valve?

Q : Fancy a trip to Sweden?

Thanks in advandce!!! / Znipper
 
Yes, the Steam UI was built with Half-Life 2 in mind.


Will Half-Life 2 have a launcher like Steam, where it would have a messaging system, server browser and other such things? So you can still have HL2 in a tray icon. Is there any plans to do something like this, a HL2 launcher/destop type program? I hope you get what I'm trying to ask :p. I just liked the way with Steam you can message people in and out of game, even look at servers without going into a game.
 
email

4:3 or widescreen are aspect ratios you can select. I personally play in
widescreen because my monitor is physically a widescreen monitor (1600 x
1024). Most people at Valve play with 4:3 aspect ratio because they have
traditional CRT monitors with 4:3 as their physical aspect ratio. You could
play normal on a widescreen monitor and vice versa - it will just look
funny. On top of that you have whatever monitor scaling you are using if
you have an LCD or plasma display. I run hl2.exe -width 1600 -height 1024
with anisotropic filtering and 2X AA with a Radeon 9800 128 MB and a 3 Ghz
P-IV with no monitor scaling.

-----Original Message-----
From: Søren Qvist [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 4:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: LetterBox view


Hi Gabe

Just a question that keeps bothering me
Can you play the game in fullscreen or is the letterbox view not removable?
 
There are two issues related to Music in the original Half-Life game over
steam.

The HL steam version does not support the game's Music, as there is none.

Even if you insert the original CD, there are still some issues (the intro
music won't play, but others will).

Is there any way to get all the music working with or without the original
CD?

[Erik Johnson]
Yes, this is a bug. They have all been converted to .mp3, they just aren't
playing for some reason. We'll check it out.
 
Yes.

-----Original Message-----
From: Solitaire [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 3:20 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: One quick question


Hi sorry to bother you. This will be my first and last email to you
with any questions re:HL2.

I am in the middle of a debate with a particularly hard-headed guy on
halflife2.net's forums. My question is, to settle our dispute:

Was the Combine AI toned down in the Barricades video - for any reason
at all? (Don't feel the need to elaborate, just a yes or no will
suffice.)

Thanks in advance whether you answer or not. Can't wait to purchase
this one of course, like half the world is waiting!
Solitaire
www.tdr-px.com
 
Benchmark Answers From Gabe

here is an email I sent out to Gabe today, and his reply.

Yes.

Yes.

-----Original Message-----
From: ^--- WolfymoZ ---^ [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 2:46 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: HL2 Benchmark two quick questions


Mr. Newell,

Folks in the internet community say you will answer emails, so here's hoping.

Two quick questions about the HL2 Benchmark, and the first one isnt when will it be released.

1. Will it be an accurate gauge as to how well the game will run on a given system?

2. Will the resolution be adjustable, or will it be fixed?



Just some more info. The Final Fantasy XI benchmark was released to the public at a FIXED resolution. Not a gauge at ALL of perfomance on a given system. I just had to ask.
 
Several people have complained about the number of "Will my PC run Half-Life 2 on ____" questions that have been posted in this thread. I'm inclined to agree; I think it's gone far enough, by now everyone should have a decent picture in their head if their system will run the game well or not. Any further PC specification questions in this thread will be deleted.

Thankyou.

Do not reply to this post
 
Apple 22" Cinema Display. I keep waiting for a better LCD monitor to come along, and there hasn't been one (except the 23" Apple LCD panel, but not worth the upgrade hassle). There was too much weirdness with the Samsung 24" panel DVI support.


-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 6:38 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: widescreen monitor


Hi Gabe

Thanks for replying to so many fan mails, it is an excellent move for such a high profile company.

I read a reply to a mail you made recently and you said you have a widescreen monitor (1600 x 1024), what monitor is it? (make and model) and are you happy with it?

Best regards
 
Half-Life 2 uses hit-box hit detection.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 1:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: quick short question, promise!


Does HL2 use per-pixel hit detection? Or are we still working with hit boxes? Thanks!
 
From: Gabe Newell
Subject: RE: Alcatraz?
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 17:30:07 -0700
Whups. I have heard about this and I will be at the ATI event. I didn't
realize it was at Alcatraz.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gabe Newell
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 5:29 PM
To: 'Allan Claghorn'
Cc: Doug Lombardi
Subject: RE: Alcatraz?


Really? First time I've heard about this.

-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Claghorn [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 5:01 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Alcatraz?


I hear various rumors that you will show off Half-Life2 at Alcatraz.

Are these rumors true?
Am I invited?
When will this take place as I will most certianly take a trip to
SanFransisco for this event.


Note: I mailed him about linux stuff but never got a reply. Good to hear that the Alcatraz thing is real and sponsored by ATI.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Jenkins [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 10:20 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Pay to Play HL2?

Gabe Gabe Gabe!!!

As I'm sure you are aware the HL2 community is going crazy with the rumour that HL2 is going to be like a MMORPG and you will have to pay a fee each month via Steam to play HL2 multiplayer.

I don't believe this to be true but can you please put it to rest once and for all. PLEEEEEEASE.

Kind Regards

Matt

Here's my current thinking: Some people want to buy Half-Life 2 in a store. Right now we have three SKUs planned at three price points. One will have single-player only and not play MODs and we think of that as the mass market SKU (sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world). The second is our traditional single-player plus multiplayer SKU that runs MODs and is sold at places like EBX. The third is the collector's edition SKU with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff.

In the Steam world, some people will want to buy it once, like the middle SKU above. Other people will want to buy the game on subscription (e.g. $9.95/month). The good news for the "buy it once" crowd is, well, they only have to pay once. The bad news is that when we come out with new content (expansion products, TF 2, and presumably other games) then they have to pay separately for those. We're pretty sure that the $9.95 guys are going to get the better value, as we've been pretty good over the years at generating a lot of content.

Now nobody has done this before, so we're scratching our heads and massaging the plans to make sure we've got the best set of options. We've had some feedback that we should sell the top SKU (single-player only no MODs) on Steam, and my reaction has been "yeah, right, for the three people in the world who have a broadband connection, are sophisticated enough to purchase software over the Internet, but DON'T want to play MODs and multiplayer". Some people have said "I want a subscription, but I think the box and the manual are cool, so what about sending me those" and I think that's pretty interesting and we're trying to figure out what to do for them (needless to say Sierra isn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of selling us boxes so people don't buy Half-Life 2 in stores).

But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG.

Gabe
 
I emailed gabe about it i wont post Kamakiri's email since its above, im just putting the question and what he said.

Ok a guy at the halflife2.net forums posted this email sayin its from you
but alot of people are kinda skeptic for various reasons heres the email
could you tell us if this is legit or not?

Gabe: that's me.

Note: Its 3:30 in the morning central time when i emaied him this and he replyed super quick (like within 10 minutes). Just shows how dedicated and close to the cummunity they are.
 
Hi, Steve.

My name is actually Coomer, not Coomber.
The journalist just got it wrong.. sorry. :)
Hey, is the "b" silent? Maybe we are related after all...

As for your question about HL2, you'll be able to buy it once and play in two different places.

-Greg Coomer


-----Original Message-----
From: Gabe Newell
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 2:00 PM
To: Greg Coomer
Subject: FW: Another Coomber, Wow!



-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Coomber [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 11:11 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Another Coomber, Wow!


Hey Gabe

I have just learned that you have a Greg Coomber working for you (he is doing the ECTS in the UK). Coomber is very rare name and there are not many of us in the UK. I wonder if we are related :) Would I be entitled to a signed poster (or something) for that? (probably not!!!)

On to a quick question... There is about 15 of us software engineers at work who want to buy Half Life 2 as soon as it is released but we want to play it at home and at work during lunchtimes (multiplayer). Does the Half Life 2 licence allow us to install it twice and use it at one location at a time or would we have to buy it twice?

Thank you for your time

Steve Coomber
 
Just wanted to lighten things up after everyone get all hot and bothered over the recent SKU's/Steam subscription stuff, so I sent the mail below and had the reply at the bottom

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Roberts [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 3:04 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: The Valve office - home from a home during crunch time?


Hi Gabe,

Just read a post on halflife2.net about crunch time in the Valve office, what with personal hygiene going out the window and all....

Anyway, I got to wondering about what the team does when they need to take a few Zzzz's or have a nice hot shower, given the care and attention Valve pays to the outside world (aka the HL community)
I thought that maybe Valve has kitted out a room with bunks and maybe a shower/sauna room, maybe you have some fine looking masseurs come in to rub aching shoulders....

You do sleep and wash right... :-0

All the best,

Steve 'NuTTeR' Roberts
(United Kingdom)
----------

Gabe's reply:

We sleep and wash. Except for John Guthrie. He just sleeps. And makes noises that we use as the basis for some of the monster sounds. (and it's a good thing the smell-o-tron peripherals never caught on).
 
It will come out on the same day on Steam world-wide as it comes out in the
US in a box.

You start off paying $9.95 per month.

-----Original Message-----
Wrom: MSFDULHPQQWOYIYZUNNYCGPKYLEJGDGVCJVTLBXFGGMEPYO
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 5:52 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: im curious about this steam method you guys are using...


I have a big question. Im determing if im going to buy HL2 through the
store. Well i was wondering if HL2 will come out the same day on steam as
retail in stores? I also want to know if you start off paying $10 on steam
for HL2 or first $50 or so for HL2 and then $10 after each month? Plus if
you guys are going to charge $10 a month after HL2 has been paid for, then
does that mean you guys are going to be releasing alot of new products
through steam? like TF2? And one more thing, are we going to be hearing an
update soon about TF2, or maybe have some footage included with HL2...bonus
material? Thanks a bunch.
 
Yep. Any help clearing the air would be appreciated.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Marcotte [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 4:23 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: STEAM subscribe feedback


Hi Gabe, no questions just a thought.



Because of the mess on the community forums, I think for PR and to clear people's minds... Valve should say.

HL2 can be purchased single or multiplayer ready.

Or

A user can subscribe to STEAM for 9.95 per month and play any game made by valve.

That's what it really is anyways.



Regards,

Jason
 
I figured I would post this before the frenzy starts. I saw the planetmayhem post and e-mailed gabe stupidly (on my part for doubting valve). Immediately upon reading the steampowered forums regarding the website I found my answer. Here's my email to gabe though, and his reply. (mods, sorry for this bit of discussion)



To: "'John F'"
Cc: John Cook, Erik Johnson
Subject: RE: steam collecting private data?

I just got an email from someone else about this. I'm not sure if they were
referring to this post as well.

The gcf files are caches for Steam and game files. When we allocate the
space, we don't clear it, but it seems really unlikely that any directory
references like these would be left in the file.

I just scanned through a couple of my gcf files and I haven't been able to
find similar references.



-----Original Message-----
From: John F
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 10:39 AM
To: gaben
Subject: steam collecting private data?

a friend posted me this article. looks legit, but for some reason i want to
trust you guys.

http://www.*****************/modules/news/article.php?storyid=56

is this true?

--john
 
I know it's not VALVe....

Hi to all...I know it's not directly VALVe stuff but I thought it was pretty interesting for all ppl screaming dates.

:bounce:
ANSWER
Sorry, but at this time Valve Software has not provided us with a specific release date for the Half Life 2 program.

Please continue to check the http://www.sierra.com website for any updated information.


Regards,

Brian Waggoner
Online Customer/Technical Support
VU Games/Sierra Entertainment

Please include all previous correspondences in your reply.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE
From: Christian Masse
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 4:50 AM
To: Press Contact
Subject: Message from website


With all the panic around Half-Life 2, can you precise an anwser abotu the shipping date of the game ?

Thank you !

:bounce:

Seems like people has just messed up all around the world since VALVe aren't released any information about it to Sierra/VU...
 
In reply to lifebringer's post i want to try and clear things up with an email that was sent to valve.
Sorry to reply to a post in this thread but i want to limit the amount of people who read that forum and come out thinking Steam is spyware before reading this email from ErikJohnson on the last page

quote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Derrick Birum
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 11:52 AM
To: Erik Johnson; Gabe Newell; John Cook
Subject: RE: gcache and its mysteries.
The cache file gets created on the client using the Windows CreateFile() command. This command will create the file but not initialize it. Due to the large size of the file, we don't bother initializing the empty data blocks in it as this can take an appreciable amount of time. On NTFS machines, files created with this method happen to have the property of appearing empty (initialized to zero) but for FAT32 machines, it shows up as whatever old data was sitting on drive in the sectors that just got allocated for the cache. The people that are reporting this behavior are actually seeing old data from their hard drives.
Click to expand...
 
Subject: RE: Snake - pay question
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2003 13:51:32 -0700
From: Gabe Newell <[email protected]>
To: 'Sebastian Rybaczek' <[email protected]>


Hi Mr Newel.I've got quick questions about playing mods on HL2 MP.
There's a lot of misunderstanding about these pay to play options.I
understand that if I'll buy standard version with mp and mods support I'll be able to play MP and mods freely right?


correct
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Arzin
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2003 2:09 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Why hitboxes ?


Hey guys,

Could you tell me in detail why y'all chose to go with hit boxes rather than per-poly ? And how will HL2s hitbox technology be better than the usual hitbox tech we see in games today ? I have my guesses as to why y'all chose it (MP and MODing issues) but I would appreciate it if you could tell me why exactly.

Looking forward to you reply. Thanks alot.

Arzin
_____________

Let's see if I can say this properly.

In Half-Life 1, world collisions and collision culling were handled by gross bounding boxes. If something collided with the bounding box, you could then compare it against a group of hit boxes. This was pretty coarse.

In Half-Life 2, entities can also have an associated vphysics collision
model. This is what the physics uses, and gives per polygon collision
information. Gross bounding boxes are now used mainly for culling. Hit
boxes now have more flexibility (they move with the bone they are assigned to, for example). If you need polygon level collision information (which is useful for a lot of things) then you'll be using the vphysics model and not the hit boxes.

You could, if you wanted to, build a mod that did per-poly vphysics collisions for every entity. However there are lots of times when hit-box
collisions give you all the information you need.

I think the confusion about this arose when someone at Valve was asked "does HL-2 have hit boxes" and the answer was "yes". This was technically accurate, but left off the information the questioner was actually after.

Gabe
 
QUESTION
I was wondering if you guys have managed to fix the AA problem with the radeon cards. Thanks for your time!


ANSWER
Yes. We use centroid sampling which avoids the standard problem that games that use lightmaps see with anti-aliasing.
 
A simple question i put to gabe and he replied almost instantly :).
Looks like our mods will work with all future valve source releases, of course i never expected anything less from them but its good to know. Whats more interesting is it looks like all updates they do to the source engine to improve future releases(improved graphics and so forth) will immediately be passed onto us :) Yay for valve.

Anyway here is the email.

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

From: "Gabe Newell" <[email protected]>
To: "'Dan" <[email protected]>
CC: "Chris Bokitch" <[email protected]>, "Robin Walker" <[email protected]>, "Yahn Bernier" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Mods, and later releases.
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 09:03:56 -0700


Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 share the same underlying interfaces
for
MODs. TF-2 will add and extend those interfaces, but Steam will update
people automatically to keep people up to date.

It's probably better to think of them as Source MODs rather than
Half-Life 2
or Team Fortress 2 MODs. Source MODs created when Half-Life 2 ships
will
keep working after Team Fortress 2 ships.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan da man [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 5:23 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Mods, and later releases.


Hey Gabe,

I was just wondering if mods created for halflife 2
will also work on later releases such as tf2, ie if i
create a halflife 2 mod will someone who has never
purchased hl2 but later purchases tf2 be able to use
the mod i created for hl2. Or would a seperate version
have to be created to work on later games released by
valve on the source engine. And if its the later would
these seperate versions be able to play together in
multiplayer?.

Thanks for your time,
Dan.
 
Thanks for writing; see answers below:



Best wishes,



Bill Van Buren

Valve



-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Brown [mailto:************]
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 10:02 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Texture normal maps and performance...

Hello Gabe,



I watched the video demonstration of how the source engine can copy normal maps of a high polygon object onto a plane. This was very impressive and I can't wait to try it out at the end of September. I have a few questions about it however:



1) What's the performance hit when using normal mapped textures generated from extremely high polygon models, say, 10 times or more than the number shown in the video? What's the performance impact of using these textures commonly throughout the level as opposed to standard textures?



- There is no difference when normal mapping between maps generated from very high poly models, and maps generated from not-so-high poly models – the detail from the high-res model is all baked into the texture map so it’s all just pixels when it gets to the engine.

- As for performance, this will vary with platform – see below:





2) What will the effects look like on DX8 and DX7 cards unable to do the normal map effect? Will it just be a normal texture lit with standard lightmapping, or will we have to make seperate textures for these cards?



- DX9 hardware:

i. Models: specular and diffuse bump mapping are practically free

ii. Map (brush) geometry: diffuse bump mapping is practically free, specular bump mapping is a significant fill-rate expense



- DX8 hardware:

i. Models: no diffuse bump mapping on models. Specular bump mapping is about twice as expensive as rendering an ‘unbumped’ version of a model.

ii. Map (brush) geometry: diffuse bump mapping is practically free, specular bump mapping is a significant fill-rate expense



- DX7 or lower hardware: no normal map rendering





Thanks for your time.



~Chris "SkilledNewbie" Brown
 
saw a post in the gabe interview thread about multiple gravity, couldnt wait til interview and emailed gabe.

===

Erik Johnson.

Yes.

-----Original Message-----
mailto:<Private =P>@cox.net
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:56 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: vac


who do i ask to unban my wonid from all secure servers? it was banned until 2008 bcuz of hlamp.
p.s. i have a quick question about hl2.. can u have
multiple gravity settings on a map? like in that illusion where there are
people on all sides of a wall?
 
Maybe it has been posted before, but I wondered about the payment plans etc, so I sent Gabe a little email about it, here's his reply:


No, you won't have to pay if you buy the retail packaged product.

You can either go to a store and buy the game (say $50)

OR

you can pay a subscription fee.

If you only play a month, then the subscription fee is the way to go. If we
generate new games and expansion packs then the subscription fee is the
better deal. If we take five years to release any new content, then buying
the full game is the much better strategy.

Hope that makes sense.
 
other than clock-rate, no.

-----Original Message-----
From: James [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 11:52 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: 9800 Pro/Non-Pro


Hi there Gabe. I've been wanting to get a 9800 Pro, but I've seen that the Non-Pro's are much cheaper and you can flash the BIOS and oc to get Pro speeds.
So my question is this: Will there be any difference visually and performance-wise between a 9800 Pro and a 9800 Non-Pro?
Thanks. =D
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Victor King [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 4:48 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: spawn

Hey there Gabe I would like to know if there will be a cheat code in HL2 to spawn whatever enemy u wan't?

I really enjoyed doing this in the game SW: Jedi Knight Jedi Outcast it would be real kewl to spawn a squad of combine soldiers and manhacks and whatch them duke it out.

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Gabe Newell
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 11:01 AM
To: John Guthrie
Subject: FW: spawn



Gabe sent me an email saying you had a question about spawning enemies.



Yes, you can use a command called npc_create, which will create a monster of your choice where you are pointing. So you could create manhacks and soldiers and whatever else you wanted and put them in an arena and watch them battle.


You can also tell the humans what weapons they should use. So you can create them with pistols or machine guns or whatever else they know how to shoot.



You also have a command called ‘npc_kill’, which will make the monster die. It is a lot of fun to create a monster on a rooftop, then kill it and watch it slide down the roof and fall down to the streets below.
 
omg, gabe answerd me!!
i feel special :)
--------------------------------

Not true. We have no interest in what's on your hard drive.

When we first heard about this, we were perplexed. Then we realized that
the people who were seeing this were running FAT32 instead of NTFS. In
Windows, if you have the NTFS file system, it zeros out sectors before it
reallocates them. With FAT32, it doesn't. So if you allocate a large file
(it doesn't matter if it's a Steam cache or some other application's files),
in FAT32 if you open that file, you will see whatever data was left over
from the previous writes to those sectors until your application writes over
that data with new data. So on FAT32, Steam allocates 400 MB of space,
fills up 200 MB with game stuff, and the remaining 200 MB contains whatever
was already there.

Does this make sense? You can try it with other large unfilled files on
your system and see the same thing.

Gabe

-----Original Message-----
From: Lior elgali [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 1:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: The big 400 file and what's in it


Hmm...

http://www.*****************/modules/news/article.php?storyid=56

True? And why?

---

[Edit- That site is censored for a reason - Munro]
 
Kinda pointless but fun none the less......

Hey
I read you guys had a HeadCrab Pinyata last time for Half Life 1 to smash
open when you when gold.
Have you got one this time with HL2?


Gabe: Given my headache right now, I assume we will be using my skull instead.
 
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