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Half Life II Delayed Until April 2004

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edited October 2003 in Science & Tech
PARIS, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The theft of part of its source code has delayed until April 2004 the launch of "Half Life II", the hotly anticipated alien-hunting game of Vivendi Universal Games (Paris:EAUG.PA - News; NYSE:V - News), a company official said.

[link=http://www.gamershell.com/news_BHalf-Life2Bdelayeduntil.shtml]Gamershell[/link]
[link=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3568878]Reuters[/link]

Comments

  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited October 2003
    Well doesn't that just f**king suck. :(
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Worst news I've ever had to post. :(
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    :bawling: :bawling:

    Gutted. Totally.
  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited October 2003
    wow
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Reading this before I finished my morning coffee sure puts a downer on the day. Hope they catch the bastige and ...somebody lend me some blood pressure meds grrrr
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Actually that just sounds like a blatant excuse for a reason for it to be delayed...... we already knew it was delayed, they just now have a scapegoat.

    NS
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited October 2003
    ##@$(*&@#)(*&$@#*$&)@(*$&(*#@&$)(*#@$)(*#^*&%@#$

    is all can say...

    Find the offenders and get a rope...

    I was gonna actually buy that game... ;D
    I have even completely avoided the version floating around the net...

    Gobbles
  • CammanCamman NEW! England Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    NightShade737 said
    Actually that just sounds like a blatant excuse for a reason for it to be delayed...... we already knew it was delayed, they just now have a scapegoat.

    NS

    Yeah, I agree.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Just what i saud all along. This "hack" was just a cover to have an excuse for it to be delayed. Wonder how many that has pre-ordered it? 1 million? That´s a LOT of $ to get interest from to the retail stores pr online stores even if let say half of them want´s their money back. Or am i totally bicycling here?
  • pseudonympseudonym Michigan Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Mackanz said
    Just what i saud all along. This "hack" was just a cover to have an excuse for it to be delayed. Wonder how many that has pre-ordered it? 1 million? That´s a LOT of $ to get interest from to the retail stores pr online stores even if let say half of them want´s their money back. Or am i totally bicycling here?

    If it was already on track for it to be delayed, this is the best way for them to get out of it, but I do not think that they fabricated it in any way shape or form. Its just a coincidence that may, or may not have allowed them to get an easy delay without being crucified. I still want to hang whoever did it.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    It's like the power outage that we had here in detroit earlier in the year:

    Make the best of a bad situation - we took the opportunity of the downtime to move some servers to a datacenter that we had been meaning to move for a long time...
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited October 2003
    I was JUST reading yesterday that things were fine, they already pretty sure who it was that hacked them, and only a small amount of the source code was stolen. NOt to mention, it was still on for a holiday release.

    This was yesterday, in that Halflife2radio news review, with Gabe himself telling us this...

    I really think this is a rumor. Let me go double check.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited October 2003
    ok, I got this"
    One of Germany's biggest PC gaming magazines, Gamestar, are reporting that there is the potential for Half-Life 2 to be pushed back as far as April 2004 according to a statement by the president of VU Games, Christophe Ramboz. An article on CNN has spawned backing up these claims, revealing that Ramboz also stated that only a third of the code was leaked, and it is because of the leak that various aspects of the game need to be re-written, causing the delay.

    Gamestar do mention that Gabe Newell has not commented on the topic, however HalfLife2.Net has just approached Valve employees for confirmation of this claim made by Vivendi; we hope to have a response soon.

    On a related note, according to translated interviews with Doug Lombardi that took place during the Tokyo Game show, Valve had already commenced work on an expansion pack set for 2004. HalfLife2.Net forum participant UndeadScottsman apparently recieved an an e-mail reply from Doug himself promoting that this statement was either in reference to the Collector's Edition of Half-Life 2, or a translation misquote. Please keep in mind that we have no possible way to cement the legitimacy of the e-mails posted in our "Info From Valve" thread, however up until this point our faith in community members has paid off with only valid information being published.

    There. HL2 has the potential to get pushed back. It has not BEEN pushed back.


    Rest easy folks.


    EDIT: Here are another couple sources of the delay being false:


    The Inquirer
    German mag: Gamestar
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Wait, I thought they were already bundling HL2 with the Radeon XTs...
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited October 2003
    EMT said
    Wait, I thought they were already bundling HL2 with the Radeon XTs...

    Not the game itself. Just a card which you mail in, and redeem the game at no cost.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Fox News at 5:35 EST said April. I just watched it.
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    TheSmJ said


    Not the game itself. Just a card which you mail in, and redeem the game at no cost.
    Whoops, damn...
    Thrax said
    Fox News at 5:35 EST said April. I just watched it.

    I heard Yahoo was also saying the same thing.. reliable from Valve... aaaaah crap :(
    kind of ridiculous I'd think but I can't say I've worked on a programming project quite so big
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Considering they've been developing the game since HL1 was released, rewriting 1/3 of the code is a sizeable piece to redo.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Thrax said
    Considering they've been developing the game since HL1 was released, rewriting 1/3 of the code is a sizeable piece to redo.

    But what is the point. If they use something like Punkbuster (which isn't built into the souce of the game) then they should still have no issue with cheating appearing from the release of the HL2 source.

    NS
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    That theory is full of so many loopholes, it's sickening. Punkbuster must be updated externally to block known cheats, and as an addition can be easily defeated by more than a few cheats out there (OGC Hook for HL1 kicked the **** out of Punkbuster for six versions). With 1/3 of the game code floating about, there's absolutely no end as to how one exploits it. If there's 10 programming strings that relate to one function, you can potentially create 10! (Radical expression) cheats. As one can imagine, that gets rather large.

    That's like having a car with a leak in the exhaust, and engine gaskets going bad, then saying that if you patch the leak in the exhaust the gaskets will never go bad.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Thrax said
    That theory is full of so many loopholes, it's sickening. Punkbuster must be updated externally to block known cheats, and as an addition can be easily defeated by more than a few cheats out there (OGC Hook for HL1 kicked the **** out of Punkbuster for six versions). With 1/3 of the game code floating about, there's absolutely no end as to how one exploits it. If there's 10 programming strings that relate to one function, you can potentially create 10! (Radical expression) cheats. As one can imagine, that gets rather large.

    That's like having a car with a leak in the exhaust, and engine gaskets going bad, then saying that if you patch the leak in the exhaust the gaskets will never go bad.

    I see your point. I dont see how they can re-write the same software using different code to give the exact same results though to be honest.

    NS
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    It's programming!

    There are several ways to go about everything. Even mixing up the code and making the game call different functions in different orders could screw the cheaters.
  • KhaosKhaos New Hampshire
    edited October 2003
    Yeah, that's all it takes. Two completely different pieces of code can yield the same result easily.

    Esp in C or C++, whichever they are using to program HL2, there is literally a dozen or so ways to go about creating a result. Function usage (Inline, remote, standard notation), linking (Internal, external), etc. Then you have variable naming, data sizes... All of these things can be tweaked inconsequentially and still yield the same result, while making the two codebases incompatible. Since the hackers will only have access to the old codebase, they'll be screwed. Without the ability to program hacked versions that are compatible with the latest version, there is no appeal... No demand, no market for the hacks.

    The problem is that it is a big pain in the ass to go through and patch everything.

    Also, speaking as a programmer, almost any time you go back and read through ALL of your code, you end up rewriting significant parts of it. It's just the way programmers think, always looking to add optimizations, clean up the code, implement new methodologies and algorithyms, etc.

    Really, the release is only 6 to 8 months away. I'm fine with that.

    I'm busy enough with my life that is doesn't bother me none. In fact, I'm kind of glad that it got delayed, because this will allow me to get through 2 entire work-school-work-school cycles before I have to build an Athlon FX system with the latest, greatest Radeon in it. :D My current money spending agenda is a little furniture, then a really kickass car audio system and Viper alarm, then a new computer. All the while I have bills to pay, tuition, rent, food, etc. So I really didn't WANT HL2 to come out any time soon because I wouldn't have been able to play it.

    I'm sure this sentiment is not shared by most here. ;) oh well... Patience, grasshopper.
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