Interview with Gabe Newell (PC Gameplay Belgium)

Seppo, being frustrated with the delay of a game and vocalizing it doesn't mean you hate Valve or HL or HL2 or any products.
We all want the game, and some (including myself) are bound to complain about the wait,

but know its not cause Valve is doing things wrong, it just sucks knowing that it could be delayed again.

In my mind, I don't think it would take much to push the game going gold another month or 2 if a level just isn't quite "clicking."

sept 30th isn't an impossibility :]
 
man dat_monkey, you are the uber negative guy arn't you...

BTW, you still at INA? I haven't seen you after your fourth or fifth ban....
 
Seppo said:
So you're a real smart ass aren't you. It seems to me you're more of a Valve-hater than a fan (or whatever) of Half-Life.

Im very annoyed at Valve right now... I have been since the September 30th thing last year... That was inexcusable... "HEY GUYS THE GAMES COMING OUT!!" Nine days before the release date changes to "When its done"... And we STILL dont have a real release date even though im sure Valve CLEARLY knows when they will be able to release the game. And no im not one of those Valve fan boys who says "VALVE CAN DO NO EVIL VALVE IS GOD"... "I WOULD DIE FOR HL2!!!!!"

And no im not in INA anymore... I got fed up with the nazi moderators and flamers... That place is a joke.. People accused me of being like 12 people on a daily basis even though i would clearly explain how it was impossible. This place is SOOOOOOOOOOO much better, the maturity level is MUCH higher then that of the UT2k4 forums.
 
Orange said:
Seppo, being frustrated with the delay of a game and vocalizing it doesn't mean you hate Valve or HL or HL2 or any products.
We all want the game, and some (including myself) are bound to complain about the wait,

I think I got my moral lesson of today :E
 
Crusader said:
"Pre-Alpha might mean Beta in german" roofles :)

No. I believe all (big) company will use the same common software jargon. These are educated people. They should be aware of wordings..
 
Im getting that warm and fuzzy hl2 fanboy feeling again.... :farmer:
 
crabcakes66 said:
Im getting that warm and fuzzy hl2 fanboy feeling again.... :farmer:
Lol, same here... havn't had it since before September 30th... Once they released the Binks of Coastline and Striders, it all started up again lol
 
Warm. Fuzzy. Mmmm. Must. Distract. Self. Before. Implosion. Fnark!
 
People, don't get so caught up in stupid little words. Gabe said that the game content is more or less finished, and now they need to balance it so it flows well i.e. enemy placement, health placement etc. Assumedly, afgter this is done, they'll start bug testing, polish it off and release it. They might not make it for September (maybe), but this year undoubtedly. Just take comfort in that it will come out this year. It really isn't as long as time period to wait as you'd think. :)
 
Read it again, everyone. Gabe's "pre-alpha" comment came from March, two months ago.
 
MrWhite said:
Well considering it had to be translated twice... from english to whatever the language it was, and then back to english, it probably got confused for pre-gold

No actually it did say PRE-ALPHA (in english) there is no dutch word for this... (I translated it) I could even scan the "word" to show you (If I had a scanner that is :p)

I'll quote :

PCGP: Hoe ver staan jullie op dit ogenblik met het spel, wanneer mogen we het in de winkels verwachten?
G.N.: HL2 bevindt zich momenteel in een pre-alpha fase. ...
Then afterwards he explains the pre-alpha thing as "tuning" the game.

It's dutch. I translated it with a online translator (Wordlingo) :

"HL2 are themselves at present at pre-alpha a stage."

In good english that means :

HL2 is at the moment in pre-alpha fase.
 
ya well the people who interviewed Gabe never knew how to speak proper english so they didnt translate the interview the correct way and put it into the magazine
 
I may be picking one up. Hey, I'm Dutch. :D Maybe the Power Unlimited(dutch/belgium magazine) will have exlusive info too when it comes out! Then I'll be posting it here right away of course. :stare:
 
I feel really dumb right now. There are bunches of germans, dutch, etc. that speak perfect english on these forums, yet I dont know any Americans that can speak a single word of german or dutch. :(
 
Chuckstar said:
I may be picking one up. Hey, I'm Dutch. :D Maybe the Power Unlimited(dutch/belgium magazine) will have exlusive info too when it comes out! Then I'll be posting it here right away of course. :stare:

Haha I'm sorry but the Power Unlimited sucks ass :D
The only Benelux magazine with exclusive info and interview was and is PCGameplay
 
Lethal8472 said:
I feel really dumb right now. There are bunches of germans, dutch, etc. that speak perfect english on these forums, yet I dont know any Americans that can speak a single word of german or dutch. :(
Thats just because theres an ocean between them. A lot of the American posters likely know at least some Spanish, or even French.
 
Direwolf said:
Thats just because theres an ocean between them. A lot of the American posters likely know at least some Spanish, or even French.

Its because English is the world language. Its taught to almost all countries with an economy because its concieved that where theres english, theres money. And aint that what were all after?
 
Chuckstar said:
I may be picking one up. Hey, I'm Dutch. :D Maybe the Power Unlimited(dutch/belgium magazine) will have exlusive info too when it comes out! Then I'll be posting it here right away of course. :stare:

Oh God, please NO! The thought alone makes my stomach crawl...
Their report about HL2 last year sucked too, but what else is new?
 
this alpha stage thing may of started long ago (maybe around sep 30...we'll never know) i read somthing long ago i thionk it was in the "valve speaks out" that they said there were currently working on "tweaking" basicly thats alpha
so alpha maybe soon over and beta will start up meaning the frist part of the summer may be the release :D
 
I speak a little german, and enough Spanish to get buy.
 
Even with the leak, I find it very hard to believe they've spent 40 million developing this game. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty confident games have a max. budget of $1-5 mil. Maybe $8-11 mil for some real triple-a titles.
$40 million is nuts, even with advertising. They'd have to sell a million units (which it easily will) to break EVEN. Even though it's possible, it seems kinda unlikely businesswise.
 
dat_monkey said:
Im very annoyed at Valve right now... I have been since the September 30th thing last year... That was inexcusable... "HEY GUYS THE GAMES COMING OUT!!" Nine days before the release date changes to "When its done"... And we STILL dont have a real release date even though im sure Valve CLEARLY knows when they will be able to release the game. And no im not one of those Valve fan boys who says "VALVE CAN DO NO EVIL VALVE IS GOD"... "I WOULD DIE FOR HL2!!!!!"
That is the exact point, Valve is doing no evil. Do you think Gabe was happy with the delay? Valve needs to do what's right for their company to survive. Valve emplyees feeding their families is a lot more important than you getting your game when you want. Valve has worked very hard on this game and once it's complete it will be amazing. Delays happen for whatever reasons, however, these reasons are always necessary no matter how much you bitch and moan. Sure, I would love to be playing HL2 right now and was a little disappointed when I wasn't able to go to the store and buy it on Sept 30th, however, I would rather it be late and perfect than shitty and on time. Think of it this way, if HL2 is as good as HL1 was you will be playing this game 5, even 6 years from now. A few months of delays won't hurt you, if they do I recommend you seek professional help about your mental state.
 
RhapSidious said:
Even with the leak, I find it very hard to believe they've spent 40 million developing this game. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty confident games have a max. budget of $1-5 mil. Maybe $8-11 mil for some real triple-a titles.
$40 million is nuts, even with advertising. They'd have to sell a million units (which it easily will) to break EVEN. Even though it's possible, it seems kinda unlikely businesswise.

well gabe praticaly has ulimited funds to pour into the project becasue hl1 sold so many copies that there proably tons left to pour more into it
and it has been in devlopment for 5 years it not like gabe didn't have to pay for all that time
and hl2 expecting to sell as much as last time (if not more) there going to be even more filthy rich, can't gabe spread the love :p
 
I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty confident games have a max. budget of $1-5 mil. Maybe $8-11 mil for some real triple-a titles.
$40 million is nuts, even with advertising.

Not at all. Carmack has guessed that we will see a game with development costs of up to 100mil pretty soon.

40 mil really isn't all that much when you think about what things cost these days. 30+ employees, some I'm sure making in the 6 figures a year, then there's high rise office space rent, all the equipment, all the power, all the liscences for expensive software and technology like Havoc: it all adds up.
 
It's nice to see a magazine asking really interesting questions and getting good answers as well. Long time since i've seen something as interesting as this. Good work the belgians!
 
Lethal8472 said:
I feel really dumb right now. There are bunches of germans, dutch, etc. that speak perfect english on these forums, yet I dont know any Americans that can speak a single word of german or dutch. :(
I think you can live perfectly well without learning any European language (with the possible exception of Spanish, maybe). We Europeans, on the other hand, are forced to learn English.

I've read the worst European polyglots are the English people, but I think that being born in an English-speaking country gives you an enormous advantage. Yes, English is pretty easy to learn, but speaking/writing in English so well that nobody can recognize you as a foreigner isn't easy at all.

I believe one of the main reasons is that the English/American you normally speak is quite different from the language we are taught in schools. Geez, my teacher was from London and she would have never said anything like "freakin' awesome"! :LOL:
 
G.N. Half-Life 2 is currently in pre-alpha fase. It means that the all game content is basicly finished. We are now in the process of fine tuning and balancing the gameplay : The number of enemys, the impact of weapons, the quantity of available healtpacks... We are targetting for a summer release.

He said that, last summer. I'll just take whatever he says, and double it. It'll be released next summer. xP
 
Hi guys, I just got up (lazy git mode active) anyway I got a reply from gabe about the "alpha" thingy, its quite nice, ill post it up in Valve Info shortly.
 
vivi dos anos (don't mistranslate that just because I'm lazy about special characters!) en Guatemala. Claro que todavia hablo puro gringo, pero por lo menos, si hablo el espanol.
 
Tua mama hasi el amor con mi perro.

That's the only Spanish I know... depressing, ain't it?
 
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