Truth and Reconciliation

[Maxi]

You do know that yuor thread title is from a Halo level?

 

[Maskirovka]

Originally posted by MaxiKana
You do know that yuor thread title is from a Halo level?

ah, if you read his post he acknowledged that.

and Tropico is right, the "rabid" fan is the minority. The fan who bothers (let alone is computer literate enough) to post on a message board is in the minority. half life sold however million copies...true. but that was over 5 years.

i think Tropico is wrong though....that the holiday is important. I think it's only important to get it out before the big Thanksgiving weekend shopping bonanza. If they released it today, their sales would be the same overall as if they released it the week before thanksgiving.

all the hardcore fans are gonna buy it, then the casual gamers/parents looking for christmas presents...they're the ones who may/may not buy it depending on when it hits stores. but like i said...as long as it's out before the big shopping season, it won't matter, imo.

of course, i'm not a marketing genius, so i could be wrong...just trying to use common sense

 

[Ares]

Even if we are in the minoirty I am confident enough to say that a released Half Life 2 on 30 September will multi-million copies before the year is over. About half, if not more, of the people that Half Life (hardcore or not) is waiting for HL2, looking forward to it.

 

[Hyped]

Originally posted by richpull
if your going to paraphrase dont use direct quotes , such as "the boy went to the store". Use indirect quotes like this 'the girl went to the shop'.

If YOU'RE going to correct someone, try to use the correct word for "you are."

Also, try to make sure you are right when correcting someone, dipshit.

 

[droper]

will they release if steam is not ready(load/bugs)?

If the game has bugs why wouldn't they tell us they need to patch a few bugs they found?

this is what i want to know please ask someone.

 

[Nuclear_Gerber]

Valve invests so much time in public relations, they communicate with the community, and they're doing an excellent job.
The problem is that if they want it to count, they need to also be loyal to their fans.
I personally know 4 people (including me) who upgraded their hardware so that they could run HL2 better.
Waiting two more months for that could save some serious cash.
It's just aint fair, that a company that...good can't keep their promises..Hell with promises, official release dates!

 

[Zyphria]

One aspect to 'minority' that we make up, is the influence we have over classmates, friends, co-workers when it comes to new games. For each individual who is a hardcore (or even only slightly so) fan, that is another person who is talking about the latest gameplay movies, screenshots, and rumors over lunch.

The information that Gabe and others has provided has created what we had thought was a very close bond. As I stated a while back, Valve should have taken complete control over the whole delay rumor mill and set things straight.

 

[dfsilent]

Amen.

Agreed

 

[Gossoon]

Originally posted by el Chi
It's all gone a bit Daikatana, don't you think? I mean, iobviously we haven't reached that COMPLETELY farcical stage yet, and as we have yet to receive reasons for the delay then it's not entirely fair to pass judgement. However comparisons can be easily drawn.
Daikatana was hugely hyped and was supposedly set dead on for a certain date/season. Then things went tits up and coverage was asked to be scaled down so as to calm expectations somewhat.
Ring any bells? I'm not saying HL2 will be delayed for like 2 years or whatever and then be balls, anything but. I just find it slightly eerie.
An explanation's needed, and soon. Great post as always Zyphria.

i didn't want to be the first to say it - but yeah, i can almost smell some romero in the air. it's like romero and gabe have PR techniques at the opposite ends of the spectrum but are driving at the same effect. cow you into submission. make you their bitch. and it works. luckily, hl2 doesn't look to suck ass like daikatana did game-wise, but you'd think PR-wise someone would've learned a lesson.

 

[iamironsam]

Originally posted by richpull
if your going to paraphrase dont use direct quotes , such as "the boy went to the store". Use indirect quotes like this 'the girl went to the shop'.

I hate to be so anal, but I have to pick apart your comment even more, you f*ckin' moron. If you're going to be a dick and rag on someone about the proper use of grammar in a god damn forum, your spelling and grammar better be 100% correct.


"if" should be capatalized.

"...going to paraphrase dont use..." should be "...going to paraphrase, don't use..."

"dont" should be spelled "don't."

"...like this 'the girl..." should be "...like this, 'the girl..."


Wow, five obvious mistakes within a two sentence paragraph. I'm sure there's more, but I isn't not no english major. Think before you post next time, dummy.

Great post Zyphria, you had some good points.

 

[PvtRyan]

I want the truth concerning the release also. But the problem here is people judge Valve before they even know what's going on. They're actually hating Valve for delaying a game 6 days before it's aimed at date (which was never sure) but without knowing WHY. Is it right to judge about a situation you have absolutely NO information over?

They act like Valve is owing them something, which they don't. They don't have to release a game on a date the gamers want. If they feel somehow they need to delay, they'll delay, and you'll just have to accept.
Alright, it was six days before the aimed at release date (NOTE: I'm saying aimed at because there was never certainty) which was painful, but you don't know the reason behind this, you don't know how long they have known the game wasn't going to make the 30th. Ok, when they have known it in august that the game wasn't going to make it, it's very shitty of Valve. But I don't think they had know it for that long, why would they hold it back? They know as well as you do that it would only damage their reputation.

It's indeed a bit weird they couldn't forsee a delay if you need 2 more months. But those 2 more months are also our speculation. The fact that they haven't given out a new date yet tells that they're not certain either when they can finish up the game. That they don't have a date for us yet (I'm assuming they don't have a date themselves yet) proofs that they haven't forseen this delay until recently. Or maybe they just didn't know how to handle the newfound problem, maybe they thought they would fix it before 30th of september but didn't make it.

I'll just wait and see, and THEN judge and start blaming people. But then again, Valve owes us nothing. You've bit yourself in the tail by raising your expectations so high about a date which wasn't even sure. I admit it looked really likely it was gonna make it, but 100% certainty was never present.

But I do think when Valve said september 30th, it was still the releasedate at that time. They would have no reason to say 09/30 when they already knew it was delayed.

 

[Gage]

Comparing HL2 to Daikatanna?
Meeeh~ I can somewhat see the connection, but if I start seeing ads saying "Gabe Newell is going to make you his bitch" - THEN we'll have a whole history repeating itself. ^_^

 

[Ares]

Was anybody REALLY offended by that advertising? I mean, sure it was pretty tacky and not-cool and I can see how it could possibly be offensive.. if you're a soccor mom.. but seriously. Who here was offended by that advertising?

 

[Seikeden]

Originally posted by el Chi
It's all gone a bit Daikatana, don't you think? I mean, iobviously we haven't reached that COMPLETELY farcical stage yet, and as we have yet to receive reasons for the delay then it's not entirely fair to pass judgement. However comparisons can be easily drawn.
Daikatana was hugely hyped and was supposedly set dead on for a certain date/season. Then things went tits up and coverage was asked to be scaled down so as to calm expectations somewhat.
Ring any bells? I'm not saying HL2 will be delayed for like 2 years or whatever and then be balls, anything but. I just find it slightly eerie.
An explanation's needed, and soon. Great post as always Zyphria.

Yeah but anyone who saw daikatana and wasn't working on it was privy to the horror. the horror.

 

[Plopfish]

I really think the two major reasons HL2 is delayed is Steam and nVIDIAs poor performing drivers (possibly the cards themselves...?) I mean, they want Steam to be THE THING for many years to come. I think they hope to licenese it out to other companies (gaming or non) as a way to keep everything nice and updating/warez proof (possibly).

So if they cant get Steam to work well enough to thousands and thousands of gamers using thier broadand wanting at least a 100KBs DL rate , without crashing or choking, they they shall wait until they can accomplish that mighty task. If they release HL2 in stores and not over Steam, Steam would be a forgotten waste, huge profit loss. I mean, I honselty dont like Steam, the idea is wonderful (cept for having to be online to play SP) but its just too slow to DL stuff of it, and it keeps crashing , and killed me FPS (used to get solid 100 sans Steam).

This is also why Spitdfry said it seemed so calm at Valve. I mean, nvidia is prob working thier tails off, and the Steam dev team, while the whole other huge part of Valve just keeps bug testing the (most likely) "nearly" done HL2.

I dont think they gave a crap if it wouldnt hit STORES by the 30th, as long as it hit Steam. Thats why they prob waited so long to inform everyone of the delay. Cus if they could get a week or two headstart they would make MUCH more money. They take ALL the money from someone buying it on Steam, while only a mere percent of sales thru the store selling boxes! Remember, no one controls the release except Vavle, wich is vastly diff then most game dev companies. Talk about power.

SUmmerize: Steam and nVIDIA drivers caused delay IMHO.

 

[Plopfish]

ANd I also was a major role in pressuring my friend to buy a brand new computer. I largley seduced him with HL2 vids and pics. Now I feel quite bad. Oh well..... ;-(

 

[iamironsam]

Word up Plop. If anyones got the power and money to throw around, it's nVidia. I bet they're hard at work trying to figure out the camera movements so they can use occlusion culling to "optimize" their HL2 benchmarks. Assholes.

 

[Ford the Word]

Originally posted by Maskirovka
ah, if you read his post he acknowledged that.

and Tropico is right, the "rabid" fan is the minority. The fan who bothers (let alone is computer literate enough) to post on a message board is in the minority. half life sold however million copies...true. but that was over 5 years.

i think Tropico is wrong though....that the holiday is important. I think it's only important to get it out before the big Thanksgiving weekend shopping bonanza. If they released it today, their sales would be the same overall as if they released it the week before thanksgiving.

all the hardcore fans are gonna buy it, then the casual gamers/parents looking for christmas presents...they're the ones who may/may not buy it depending on when it hits stores. but like i said...as long as it's out before the big shopping season, it won't matter, imo.

of course, i'm not a marketing genius, so i could be wrong...just trying to use common sense

I don't think they mean the Thanksgiving holiday. If you've got some holidays coming up, and you only say "holiday", you usually mean the biggest one of them, which of course is Christmas. I'm not even sure they will release it by then... If they did this once, they'll do it again...

 

[Ares]

The day after Thanks Giving is the biggest shopping day of the year - if Half Life 2 were to be out at least a week before that, then it'd surely generate lots of sales.

 

[Headwires]

:/ waitin is all i sem to do for hl2 :/

 

[Zyphria]

If in the end, this turns out that Vivendi intentionally delayed the game to get a bigger "weekend gross", I'm going to feel quite ill. It is 'understandable' in that Vivendi is attempting to sell their gaming division right now....but it isn't understandable to gamers.