Long time reader, first time writer.
A few observations:
1) Lighten up, folks. Just a game. Granted it is THE game, and we're all major geeks that can't bear to go another day without the thing, but still.
2) Quit whining. This game will kick ass. It will deliver. If we had originally heard from Valve that the release date was November 30th, we'd be hopping on coals for November 30th. Two months won't kill anybody.
But here's the thing, there is no indication that this game has been postponed til then. Companies like EBX are making an assumption since they have no official word of the actual shelf release. They are covering their asses and assuming the worst.
And there's no reason for fans to assume the worst. The official date of release is still September 30. The game was said to be going Gold (unofficially by official sources) on either September 13th or September 15th. Others suggest that to get onto store shelves on September 30th, its gotta go gold by September 16th.
It is now Friday (yay), the 12th. Do the simple math. We have at least another day for the earliest gold announcement and another 4 days for the deadline.
By Tuesday, 5:00pm PST, we will all know if it has gone gold, how much it will cost and where it will be available. If it has not gone gold, Valve will put out a press release with an explanation (they'd better..grr..).
3) Late? Not really. Until we hear from Valve on the gold release (Tuesday at the latest), there's no reason to believe the release date is changed.
Lookit Steam. Sure, some of you have problems with it. I'm at work (working hard, em), so I won't find out what the deal is until I get home and download the sucker. Steam was scheduled for release Wednesday. Steam is an incredibly complex program/site that is expected to handle major bandwidth - I heard somewhere that something like 88% share of the online action gaming on the net is due Valve & co. So, working on this complex program, they had some problems and weren't able to release it for >gasp< two whole days!
If Half Life comes in late, look for Valve to have it out maybe a week later than promised. But the team is tearing their hairs out (little nose hairs) to make the Sept 30th date.
4) Problems with Steam? Chill. Steam is a huge, huge, mammoth undertaking. And unlike a game, say Half Life2, it is designed to grow, expand and evolve. So it will take a small amount of time for it to gell online. Expect there to be a rusty period for a week or so. Just the way it is. Did you pay for it? No. It is free. So reserve your judgement on the final product until it has had time to settle.
5) Video cards. I have a Ti4400. I bought it last year. HL2 will look plenty sweet with it. Any high end card of 128mb or more will allow the game the game to look tremendous. I'm inviting over several friends on release day, just so we can geek at it. Radeon 9800 with DX9 support will just look better than the rest. If you have $350 or so at your disposal, go ahead, get it and stop whining. If you don't have the money, but have a decent high end card, HL2 will look great...stop whining. To those who have lower end systems and lower end cards....buy new ones. These days, new processors, ram, motherboards, hell ENTIRE packages are CHEAP. You can pick up a pretty good system (P4 2.0 or greater) - sometimes with a flat panel monitor - for about $500. And 128mb cards can be got for $100 or so. And you'll use them for other things than Half Life.
If you recently bought an expensive card specifically for the Half Life2 release and it turns out it wasn't as great as you thought....sorry...your own fault. You should have waited for the benchmarks. Sorry. Suck it up and either buy the right one or just settle for amazing graphics rather than super amazing fantastic graphics.
[oldsters: I remember my first machine, bought specifically for Doom (waah): a pre-pentium 440dx2 60mhz, no video card at all, 8mb ram and a 1600 baud modem, 15 inch monitor, no cdrom drive...all for the low price of $1200.00]
ok then,
crumbles
A few observations:
1) Lighten up, folks. Just a game. Granted it is THE game, and we're all major geeks that can't bear to go another day without the thing, but still.
2) Quit whining. This game will kick ass. It will deliver. If we had originally heard from Valve that the release date was November 30th, we'd be hopping on coals for November 30th. Two months won't kill anybody.
But here's the thing, there is no indication that this game has been postponed til then. Companies like EBX are making an assumption since they have no official word of the actual shelf release. They are covering their asses and assuming the worst.
And there's no reason for fans to assume the worst. The official date of release is still September 30. The game was said to be going Gold (unofficially by official sources) on either September 13th or September 15th. Others suggest that to get onto store shelves on September 30th, its gotta go gold by September 16th.
It is now Friday (yay), the 12th. Do the simple math. We have at least another day for the earliest gold announcement and another 4 days for the deadline.
By Tuesday, 5:00pm PST, we will all know if it has gone gold, how much it will cost and where it will be available. If it has not gone gold, Valve will put out a press release with an explanation (they'd better..grr..).
3) Late? Not really. Until we hear from Valve on the gold release (Tuesday at the latest), there's no reason to believe the release date is changed.
Lookit Steam. Sure, some of you have problems with it. I'm at work (working hard, em), so I won't find out what the deal is until I get home and download the sucker. Steam was scheduled for release Wednesday. Steam is an incredibly complex program/site that is expected to handle major bandwidth - I heard somewhere that something like 88% share of the online action gaming on the net is due Valve & co. So, working on this complex program, they had some problems and weren't able to release it for >gasp< two whole days!
If Half Life comes in late, look for Valve to have it out maybe a week later than promised. But the team is tearing their hairs out (little nose hairs) to make the Sept 30th date.
4) Problems with Steam? Chill. Steam is a huge, huge, mammoth undertaking. And unlike a game, say Half Life2, it is designed to grow, expand and evolve. So it will take a small amount of time for it to gell online. Expect there to be a rusty period for a week or so. Just the way it is. Did you pay for it? No. It is free. So reserve your judgement on the final product until it has had time to settle.
5) Video cards. I have a Ti4400. I bought it last year. HL2 will look plenty sweet with it. Any high end card of 128mb or more will allow the game the game to look tremendous. I'm inviting over several friends on release day, just so we can geek at it. Radeon 9800 with DX9 support will just look better than the rest. If you have $350 or so at your disposal, go ahead, get it and stop whining. If you don't have the money, but have a decent high end card, HL2 will look great...stop whining. To those who have lower end systems and lower end cards....buy new ones. These days, new processors, ram, motherboards, hell ENTIRE packages are CHEAP. You can pick up a pretty good system (P4 2.0 or greater) - sometimes with a flat panel monitor - for about $500. And 128mb cards can be got for $100 or so. And you'll use them for other things than Half Life.
If you recently bought an expensive card specifically for the Half Life2 release and it turns out it wasn't as great as you thought....sorry...your own fault. You should have waited for the benchmarks. Sorry. Suck it up and either buy the right one or just settle for amazing graphics rather than super amazing fantastic graphics.
[oldsters: I remember my first machine, bought specifically for Doom (waah): a pre-pentium 440dx2 60mhz, no video card at all, 8mb ram and a 1600 baud modem, 15 inch monitor, no cdrom drive...all for the low price of $1200.00]
ok then,
crumbles
