New Interview with Doug Lombardi

[ACLeroK212]

1. Computer Games Romania: First of all, can you tell us what shape Half-Life 2 is in? Still standing for a summer release or should we fear a delay towards the end of 2004 or spring 2005?
Doug Lombardi: Things are progressing very well. We are planning to deliver a release candidate to Vivendi in August and we're hoping to see the product on store shelves this fall but we do not have a confirmed ship date at this time


Gabe also says they go through a few RC and copies until they get the right one down. They are HOPING for fall release, so yeah could be past October.

I don't think we need another debate on when fall ends and summer begins.
Either way it does not take 2 months to manufacture the game unless something is seriously found wrong with it.

 

[SubKamran]

They really seem to be promoting ATI too.

Vorm.

"And with good reason!"

 

[Razor]

Of course it's marketing talk, ATi are sponsoring Valve. I do like how you edged in a little of your own fanboyism into the post, though.

Only evening it out

 

[Vormulac]

"And with good reason!"

Absolutely!


/me hugs his brand new X800 Pro

 

[FISKER_Q]

What if the HL2 RC Valve give to Vivendi is also shite?

Valve decides what's good or bad. Not Vivendi. Vivendi won't get the copy before the gold date. Or at the most if they need it QA'ed.

Vivendi does decide when they want to process them though

 

[ACLeroK212]

Valve decides what's good or bad. Not Vivendi. Vivendi won't get the copy before the gold date. Or at the most if they need it QA'ed.

Vivendi does decide when they want to process them though

wrong. Vivendi has the final say on what they put their brand name on.

 

[dscowboy]

Valve decides what's good or bad. Not Vivendi. Vivendi won't get the copy before the gold date. Or at the most if they need it QA'ed.

Yeah, that's completely incorrect. The publisher always QAs the release candidates, they're ultimately responsible for the final product. That's like saying that an editor never sees the book they're publishing until it goes to production.
This whole forums seems to have a strange denial of the level of involvement that game publishers have.

 

[FISKER_Q]

I have a suggestion, read what i wrote.

Vivendi doesn't decide what valve does. They might decide if they want to publish it, but they DO NOT decide what they do.

The only way they could do that is if they loan money out for the game.

Again they will probably get it for QA, but as i tried to illustrate, they don't own the developing proces.

nice try though

 

[ACLeroK212]

I did read what you wrote.

Valve decides what's good or bad. Not Vivendi.

Vivendi also has a say in what's good or bad and can tell Valve things that they want changed or things they want to see in the final build. Obviously Valve doesn't have to make these changes but I'm sure Vivendi knows what they're doing and any suggestions or fixes they can offer can only benefit Valve in the design process. If your publisher has something to say about the game whether it be a bug or a minor suggested change your obviously going to take note. They don't go through the whole process for nothing.

Vivendi won't get the copy before the gold date.

They get the Release Candidates which come before the gold date so they can suggest changes which they want to see made before the game goes gold and production starts. That's the whole point of the RC process.

Maybe you meant all that in your original post, or maybe you didn't.
Either way, I have a suggestion then: Make your posts more clear, because we did nothing wrong in interpreting what you wrote.

 

[FISKER_Q]

I did read what you wrote.


Vivendi also has a say in what's good or bad and can tell Valve things that they want changed or things they want to see in the final build. Obviously Valve doesn't have to make these changes but I'm sure Vivendi knows what they're doing and any suggestions or fixes they can offer can only benefit Valve in the design process. If your publisher has something to say about the game whether it be a bug or a minor suggested change your obviously going to take note. They don't go through the whole process for nothing.


They get the Release Candidates which come before the gold date so they can suggest changes which they want to see made before the game goes gold and production starts. That's the whole point of the RC process.

Maybe you meant all that in your original post, or maybe you didn't.
Either way, I have a suggestion then: Make your posts more clear, because we did nothing wrong in interpreting what you wrote.

No the whole point about RC is to bugsquash. If the publishers wanted features they would've said that earlier.

There will of course be input, but that's like me saying "OMG you need feature x". And that will never change. And doesn't actually have much to the proces.

Look at Duke Nukem Forever. Take 2 were expressing a need to know more about the game, and they were(literally as far as i remember) told to **** off.

And you know why? Cause the project is funded by 3D Realms. Therefor Take 2 has little say of what happens. The deal is a bit more complicated at Valve since Vivendi own the name. But basicly Valve have the same right.

Although there they might not be allowed to post their work as Half-Life 2. As it would with DNF. But it's pretty similar.

So if valve wants to give Vivendi the game before the gold date, they will do that. If not they wont.

So there you have simple as pie, Valve can go "**** off" to anything vivendi proposes, and vivendi can stop the name for being distributed.

Is that clear?

Btw i'm not saying that this is the case, but again, it's valve's game not vivendi's. They might have the name, and that's it.

 

[RoguePsi]

The RC isn't about bugsquashing. That's what beta is for!! Dur! The RC is Vivendi's first chance to see what product Valve have made and whether it is up to shipping quality. Knowing Valve and their perfectionism, its likely that this process will be quite short because their product will be of quite a high standard, but Vivendi still need to see what they're putting the money into. Distribution is expensive and Vivendi can't just put money into the project without making sure the product is fit for distribution. The costs of shipping a faulty game could be catostrophic for them otherwise.

Fisker - please make sure you know what you're talking about before posting. It causes a lot of confusion for others who take your mis-informed babble as the gospel truth.

 

[ACLeroK212]

The RC isn't about bugsquashing. That's what beta is for!! Dur! The RC is Vivendi's first chance to see what product Valve have made and whether it is up to shipping quality. Knowing Valve and their perfectionism, its likely that this process will be quite short because their product will be of quite a high standard, but Vivendi still need to see what they're putting the money into. Distribution is expensive and Vivendi can't just put money into the project without making sure the product is fit for distribution. The costs of shipping a faulty game could be catostrophic for them otherwise.

Fisker - please make sure you know what you're talking about before posting. It causes a lot of confusion for others who take your mis-informed babble as the gospel truth.

Thank you RoguePsi for clearing up what I got tired of trying to get across. :cheers:

 

[Icarusintel]

Nice explanation, rock on RoguePsi!

 

[dangerousdarrin]

The key word about this gore control is turning the gore OFF. Maybe, it can be teen if you have to turn the gore ON.

 

[FISKER_Q]

The RC isn't about bugsquashing. That's what beta is for!! Dur! The RC is Vivendi's first chance to see what product Valve have made and whether it is up to shipping quality. Knowing Valve and their perfectionism, its likely that this process will be quite short because their product will be of quite a high standard, but Vivendi still need to see what they're putting the money into. Distribution is expensive and Vivendi can't just put money into the project without making sure the product is fit for distribution. The costs of shipping a faulty game could be catostrophic for them otherwise.

Fisker - please make sure you know what you're talking about before posting. It causes a lot of confusion for others who take your mis-informed babble as the gospel truth.

I've betatested several products.

Microsoft considers it the final phases of TESTING(not adding features) until the RTM(final) is done. Also their betas is not only a bugsquash period, the product itself must also reach a Release Candidate form, which may mean feature addons.

Mozilla considers RC a draft final, which again means it's done, only needs some bugs here and there fixed.

World Of Warcraft is currently gone through beta 1-3 and have recieved numerous features since.

Own projects has been similar. RC is the end of the developement, and means a feature lock.

Edit: I'm afraid you just backfired the false information thingy. Now 2 people believes what you say as fact

And also another entry to prove my point:

can·di·date ( P ) Pronunciation Key (knd-dt, -dt)
n.
A person who seeks or is nominated for an office, prize, or honor.
A student who has nearly completed the requirements for a degree.
One that seems likely to gain a certain position or come to a certain fate: young actors who are candidates for stardom; a memorandum that is a good candidate for the trash can

If you nominate a person for something you don't go about saying "Aww man i would've liked one that majored in sports as well, lets withdraw the whole thing and use another guy"

 

[ACLeroK212]

The key word about this gore control is turning the gore OFF. Maybe, it can be teen if you have to turn the gore ON.

Doesn't work that way.

The ratings apply to all included content, it doesn't exclude features you have to turn on.

 

[Icarusintel]

Damn,who's right?

 

[FISKER_Q]

I'll let them keep coming:

http://mozilla.org/projects/firefox/roadmap.html

If you look at the milestones the closest one to 1.0, 0.9 it is actually stated as "Feature Complete".

This means no features will be added to the browser until the final 1.0.

If we scroll down a bit we see the "The road to Firefox 1.0"

So according to your Release Candidate logic. Features will be added in 3 batches, where 2 of them barely last for a week. Even though the product is feature complete.


So as i say, the Release Candidates are nothing but "Hey we think this is bugfree". Then they get a lot of people to test it, and try to squash all bugs in those 3 phases. In other cases there might only be 2, though rarely one.

 

[ShadowFox]

Vivendi most definately gets the game before the gold date, unless the game was perfect. It is the standard procedure, regardless of who is funding the project.

If Valve was publishing the game, then you would be right, and Valve would have the final say. But I gaurantee you that Valve is happy Vivendi does testing too. They want to release the best possible product they can. Both companies.

 

[FISKER_Q]

Vivendi most definately gets the game before the gold date, unless the game was perfect. It is the standard procedure, regardless of who is funding the project.

If Valve was publishing the game, then you would be right, and Valve would have the final say. But I gaurantee you that Valve is happy Vivendi does testing too. They want to release the best possible product they can. Both companies.

As already said i know that vivendi decides if it's published or not. But only the name, not the game.

And as i already also said, it probably wasn't the case. that valve would be denying Vivendi to try the game.

They almost literally pick out men from the streets to playtest it

It's just one of those things that makes me wonder about VU, why did they postpone CS:CZ so much? Was it infact just as i already suggested, that valve just left a masterdisc at the office, and wanted it out a week or 2 after? I don't think it's the case, but you never know.