Why treat your fans like this?

[poseyjmac]

Agian you missed my point. Respectability is irrelevant to not only the production of the game, but also to your very purchase of it. Blizzard may be 100X more respectable (an arbitrary designation in any case), but you'll still buy StarCraft 2 as readily as you'll buy HL2. And for the same price, I'd warrant..

good, so now you're on your last leg, and at least acknowledging that valve doesn't respect the community like these other companies do.

but let me remind you that there are many people that hate valve and that can't wait to write cheats and try and ruin steam. not to mention DOS attacks that are already happening. ALSO so many people are going to pirate hl2 just to spite them, even more so if there is no hl2mp. its more than just buying a game. people can backlash, and it will affect valve tangibly. and steam is going to be under a lot of attack because of this stuff.

i can't even begin to think how screwed up battlenet would be if they were as disliked as valve.

The key word there is "want".
As I said above, no matter what you want, be it more or less information, it has no impact on anything inside Valve HQ.

No matter how bad their marketing is, your whining wont stop them from doing things their way. It won't even stop you from handing them 60$ out of your own free will and faith in capitalism.

And all for a game that would be equally good as the game you'd get if you hadn't whined at all.

nothing i can say will make you change your opinion that the community can't change anything. even though there are milliions of examples of the community influencing choices made by game developers. stay in your complacent world while others of us strive to see change.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Sorry for the hidden humor. I'll try to be more obvious next time...

Might be an idea. Thanks for ignoring my rebuttals, too. It lends validity.

 

[matthewryanc]

Thanks for ignoring my rebuttals, too. It lends validity.

Please see edited post.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

It doesn't make any difference. People will remember HL2 for the game that it is, not that it was delayed.

Sorry, I should say "most people". You presumably number yourself amongst those that wil only remember the delays.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

If they have more important things to do, then why bother telling us
that its gonna come out monday?
shouldnt they just keep working and forget about us?

The problem comes from the fact that Valve is trying to please two different groups at once.

In one camp, theres' the people who want Valve to adopt id's "when it's done" strategy.
When Valve gives out information, they get angry because the planned events relating to an experimental system had bugs and that Valve apparently hate the community.

In the other camp, there's the people who are saying that steam won't work and that the game will never be released.
When Valve is silent, they get angry becasue it proves that we'll have another Duke Nukem' Forever (LOL) and that Valve apparently hate the community.

So, when faced with both these sides, both clawing at your door, what would you do if you were Valve?

the same thing they did: They wouldn't know what to do. You'd make the unpopular decisions, because no decision can ever be popular.

 

[matthewryanc]

Sorry, I should say "most people". You presumably number yourself amongst those that wil only remember the delays.

Nope, I count myself under my previously formed group of those who see HL2 as the great game that missed it's release date by a year.

Sorry if I changed the name of my group slightly, I am too tired to look up my original statement.

 

[poseyjmac]

It doesn't make any difference. People will remember HL2 for the game that it is, not that it was delayed.

Sorry, I should say "most people". You presumably number yourself amongst those that wil only remember the delays.

these 'most people' you describe include most hackers/crackers that keep up on gaming news. steam is going to get hell from a lot more of these guys than if valve was a little better about their dates. see this is going to be tangible, not just buying the game and its over. we've already seen disgruntled valve fans DOS'ing steam. its just going to get worse if valve doesn't improve

 

[Caminante]

The game isn't coming out this year! Don't you people get it? You all be lucky to play CS:S beta this year.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

good, so now you're on your last leg, and at least acknowledging that valve doesn't respect the community like these other companies do.

Trust me friend, I've only just begun. And that statement could be considered hurtful to the amputee community. Any legglessness on my part is unrelated to my ability to disprove your stance.

If you had read carefully above, you may have noted conditionality implied by the word "may", as well as the note in parentheses:

Respectibility is an arbitrary designation.

I've never even read a press release from Blizzard, and as I had admitted above, I've never even heard of Bioware. To me, Valve has the best Publicity/Marketing of any company EVER.
And do you know why? Becasue it's entirely relative. And relativity makes any evaluation of respectability arbitrary. Of course if you analyse Valve's every move as people on these forums do, you will get angry at repeated flaws. Now, are you equally mad at the repeated unexplained delays that have struck the soon-to be released Timesplitters 3?

No! Because you'd have to go out of your way and research the game's production announcements to even see if what I just said there was true at all, let alone an accurate summation of the events. Now, there are literally billions of people who care as little about HL2 delays as you do about TS3. Most, in fact, care far, far less. And they form the majority of the people who will buy the game. You, the outraged fan, are even in the minority amoung HL2 fans in general. You're a decimal percentage.

So, that means that you aren't the community. The community are the people who don't have a community. The general public are the ones who hold the sway. The community are the people, who when told of a delay, shrug their shoulders and say "meh."
Again, this reinforces my assertion that Valve don't need to care.
Even if a meteor (god forbid) strikes Munro's HL2.Net server from it's lofty perch, and destroys every HL2 fan out of some freak convergence of the elements, the game will still sell about the same amount of copies, really. Any losses from losing us would be regained by metor-related publicity.

but let me remind you that there are many people that hate valve and that can't wait to write cheats and try and ruin steam. not to mention DOS attacks that are already happening. ALSO so many people are going to pirate hl2 just to spite them, even more so if there is no hl2mp. its more than just buying a game. people can backlash, and it will affect valve tangibly. and steam is going to be under a lot of attack because of this stuff.

i can't even begin to think how screwed up battlenet would be if they were as disliked as valve.

And yet, here you are on the HL2 site trying to help Valve improve. You didn't give them up for some Battle.net Forum floozy. I guess you really did care after all.
See? Despite all the anger, and the outrage, even you still care about Valve. It's touching really.

Now if you, the Moderately Unhappy Campers (MUC), are in the whiney minority, then these purported outraged hackers would be an even smaller, whinier minority amoung you.

Arguably, these tiny groups of hackers would probably have used their irritating powers to try and sodomize online gaming even without Valve's instigation here, but even if they are flocking in droves to kill Valve and their company just because of this one event, Valve has set up plenty of safeguards using their experience of having their games hacked repeatedly long before HL2 delays existed.

Valve Don't need to listen to the average gamer, and the ambivalent, and they can probably deal with most of the hackers, and they definately don't need to listen to their loyal fanbase who support all their foibles, so who does that leave?

The MUC, of course.

So, will valve give you little folk prefferential treatment for almost no reason, when everyone else either doesn't care or can't?
Like I said: No.

They have their priorities straight.

 

[poseyjmac]

what can i say, im a hl2 fanboy, but you're a biased valve fanboy. you will just never admit that what they've done has been not ordinary because you feel its your obligation to defend valve for some strange reason. you've never even heard of bioware, and god knows how many other good developers that know how to treat their community right.

its funny because you went from the 'valve didn't do anything wrong' card, to the 'valve ****ed up but its not going to affect sales' card, to here.

i suppose you think that those guys who DOS'ed steam would have done it anyway regardless of the choices valve made? major tangible shit is probably coming for valve because of their behaviour.

regardless if you think something can change because of our complaining, we have the right to complain because this isn't normal and its BS. if you don't like it, you can take a hike because frankly we don't care that you're complacent and a valve fanboy. trying to group together developers as collective BSers by quoting instances of one company isn't going to cut it for an effective argument against the complaining.

some of us see bullshit, and we call bullshit. thats the way it is. we have a correct state of mind regardless of some of our expressions that may have been out of line. once you realize that, you'll realize you're not doing any good trying to convince us otherwise.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

these 'most people' you describe include most hackers/crackers that keep up on gaming news. steam is going to get hell from a lot more of these guys than if valve was a little better about their dates. see this is going to be tangible, not just buying the game and its over. we've already seen disgruntled valve fans DOS'ing steam. its just going to get worse if valve doesn't improve

Steam isn't being DDOS's because of delays. It's mainly because of the closure of WON, and the fact that they don't like Steam.

These people follow no logic, and only do these kind of attacks because they can

 

[poseyjmac]

Steam isn't being DDOS's because of delays. It's mainly because of the closure of WON, and the fact that they don't like Steam.

These people follow no logic, and only do these kind of attacks because they can

no the point is they DOS'ed because won was being shutdown. NO coincedence. people were pissed. this was a choice valve made. this is just proof that tangible negative things can happen as a result of valves decision. thats the point i was making.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

regardless if you think something can change because of our complaining, we have the right to complain because this isn't normal and its BS. if you don't like it, you can take a hike because frankly we don't care that you're complacent and a valve fanboy. trying to group together developers as collective BSers by quoting instances of one company isn't going to cut it for an effective argument against the complaining.

some of us see bullshit, and we call bullshit. thats the way it is. we have a correct state of mind regardless of some of our expressions that may have been out of line. once you realize that, you'll realize you're not doing any good trying to convince us otherwise.

Stop positing your view as the One True Opinion. We're opposite sides of the same coin. You're saying "we're right, and as soon as you realise that, you'll stop trying to change our minds" - I could say exactly the same thing with the same degree of conviction.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

no the point is they DOS'ed because won was being shutdown. NO coincedence. people were pissed. this was a choice valve made. this is just proof that tangible negative things can happen as a result of valves decision. thats the point i was making.

But that doesn't affect Valve's decision-making process.

 

[poseyjmac]

Stop positing your view as the One True Opinion. We're opposite sides of the same coin. You're saying "we're right, and as soon as you realise that, you'll stop trying to change our minds" - I could say exactly the same thing with the same degree of conviction.

regardless of the back and forth we've been doing, its not debatable as to whether valve's way of handling things is correct or not. its easy just looking at other companies and seeing as people don't hate them or laugh at them. even mecha realized this fact and started playing the 'they screwed up but it doesn't matter for sales' card.

 

[poseyjmac]

But that doesn't affect Valve's decision-making process.

what are you referring to with 'that'? the fact that steam got DOS'ed? the original point someone was trying to make is after we buy the game, its all the same, none of this will matter, but this is false.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

It isn't false though - as you yourself admitted, the attacks are because of the closure of WON and dislike of Steam. This has nothing to do with Valve's supposed "BS"ing of the community.

Yes, these things will continue after the game's released, but it's not relevant to the discussion.

 

[poseyjmac]

its 3:20am i have to sleep. i dont hate valve. i respect them for making quality product. im not angry. just disappointed and hopeful that they don't drag us by our nuts with more release dates thats all.

 

[poseyjmac]

It isn't false though - as you yourself admitted, the attacks are because of the closure of WON and dislike of Steam. This has nothing to do with Valve's supposed "BS"ing of the community.

Yes, these things will continue after the game's released, but it's not relevant to the discussion.

here is the point again:

1. valve makes decision
2. tangible negative thing happens as result

this proves that there are some people who will be pissed off at valves decision to do all these delays and many fake releasedates, and may do something negative as a result.

its a general point that applies to many things.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

That applies to many things, and is certainly not exclusive to Valve. Battle.net has been DDOS'd in the past, to use one of your earlier examples. So have id's Q3 master servers, Westwood Studios' online service etc etc

 

[un0x]

I hope everybody stops crying when valve releases the preload this evening

 

[Stage]

I wish it was possible to /ignore mods at this place.

 

[Logic]

it's your fault that you are angry.

Quoted for emphasis, and lots of it.

Nobody needs to be angry with Valve. They aren't doing anything with the intention of pissing people off. (Why would they do that to their past and future customers?) So, they might have a habit of making and missing deadlines. If anyone takes that personally, it's that person's fault. These sorts of things happen all the time, people just need to learn not to invest so much emotion in the marketing of a computer game. You're taking yourself for a ride if you do.

 

[Sparta]

Nobody needs to be angry with Valve. They aren't doing anything with the intention of pissing people off. (Why would they do that to their past and future customers?) So, they might have a habit of making and missing deadlines. If anyone takes that personally, it's that person's fault. These sorts of things happen all the time, people just need to learn not to invest so much emotion in the marketing of a computer game. You're taking yourself for a ride if you do.

Thank you

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I wish it was possible to /ignore mods at this place.

It's simple really. Just don't read my posts.

 

[Wilco]

I like it how we've got 1/3 of the forum (going on thread length) in here deriding Valve over not releasing HL2 preload and 2/3 elated at the new binks

Im in the new binks category so I'll be off back there. have fun

 

[Dsty2001]

*sigh* Release dates change all the time, not only Valve misses their mark. Every software developer company out there misses their mark tons of times. Software isn't perfect, it is flawed, so don't expect the developers to get their products to you all the time on the release date they give.

 

[Varsity]

Trouble with Valve is that they have developed such a polarised community. As was mentioned earlier, there are the people who want them to adopt a "when it's done" policy (Hi) and those who cry and stamp their feet every time they miss a date but moan whenever they don't give one. There's also the hardcore - CS creates a huge lack of stability in the community - vs. the new, and as ever pleasing both is not possible. The hardcore hate Steam and all change, the new (at least the ones that have a clue what's going on) like or love it. Generalisations of course, but accurate enough for this purpose.

They can never make a popular decision other than "release the dam gmae!!!!11". Although if it were me, I would rather have people consider the game a DNF-style lost cause and then be pleasantly surprised than repeatedly disappoint everyone.

 

[Logic]

The fact is, valve used to be a respectable company. A company that many love and care for due to the original half life. Some are dissapointed that their favorite company has become a laughingstock. No matter how good HL2 is, it will always be known as being 'that really good game that missed it's original release date by a full year'....

Actually, the original Half-Life was delayed by a full year... but people just remember it as a damn good game, and as a result people remember Valve as a damn good game company. A year is nothing... it'd take a lot longer to change how people remember HL2 in the future. If you think a delay of one year turns a company into a laughing stock, you lack perspective.

 

[ValveBULGE]

so? they still dont owe you anything

stop with this "valve owns you nothing" its getting old, very old.


word to valve----BRING IT UP OR SHUT UP!

 

[ksimm]

stop with this "valve owns you nothing" its getting old, very old.


word to valve----BRING IT UP OR SHUT UP!

owns u ? :E

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

stop with this "valve owns you nothing" its getting old, very old.

It doesn't make it any less true, though.

 

[Logic]

stop with this "valve owns you nothing" its getting old, very old.


word to valve----BRING IT UP OR SHUT UP!

If anything's getting old, it's self-important people ranting about being "fed up with Valve's bull". If you have a valid argument as to why saying "Valve owes us nothing" is untrue, I'd like to hear it, because the fact is, they DON'T owe us anything. If you don't want to hear anything from Valve until release, the answer is simple: don't read about it.

 

[CptStern]

stop with this "valve owns you nothing" its getting old, very old.


word to valve----BRING IT UP OR SHUT UP!

here's a bit of advice:


stfu :thumbs:

 

[ZombieBudgie]

The preorder not arriving last night was disappointing. Ok, even VERY disappointing. But it is not the first time it has happened and probably won't be the last - so don't complain and say they owe us or other such bullsh*t.

 

[Sub_Lon]

Oh wow you guys... lol@ all of you kids right now. If Valve doesn't give a release date, people bitch because they want a date. If Valve gives a release date and misses, people bitch. You should be happy Valve has the time to perfect the game, instead of being hurried by their publisher and delivering something sub-standard.

It does seem like they're dragging their ass though, maybe if they cut down on all the Valve tours I've seen you fans going on...

 

[Eunoch]

tbh i think valve should give us at least a small indication of whether or not this game is gonna be released this year..... naaa but a small hint or how many % its complete would be awesome, even though im dreaming of the impossible

 

[un0x]

tbh i think valve should give us at least a small indication of whether or not this game is gonna be released this year..... naaa but a small hint or how many % its complete would be awesome, even though im dreaming of the impossible

I think its better for them to just say nothing..

 

[Logic]

tbh i think valve should give us at least a small indication of whether or not this game is gonna be released this year..... naaa but a small hint or how many % its complete would be awesome, even though im dreaming of the impossible

I think their saying things along the lines of "We're just bug testing, we hope to have a release candidate ready shortly" is a very clear and obvious indication that the game is somewhere around 99.x% done. Read the Valve info thread, I'm sure there's some stuff like that in there. It's not a big mystery, the game is complete and playable from beginning to end. They are most likely dealing with bugs and tweaking code at the moment.

 

[Sub_Lon]

I think their saying things along the lines of "We're just bug testing, we hope to have a release candidate ready shortly" is a very clear and obvious indication that the game is somewhere around 99.x% done. Read the Valve info thread, I'm sure there's some stuff like that in there. It's not a big mystery, the game is complete and playable from beginning to end. They are most likely dealing with bugs and tweaking code at the moment.

Exactly, how do people expect them to put an exact timeframe on that? And God forbid the game comes out with a scene where Alyx glitches across the room. You kids would go epileptic on the forums.