What The Heck Did Valve Do ?

[DarkAngelBGE]

I got the new GAMESTAR today and the title was like "Scandal about Half-Life 2". They said that some "alpha" version was stealed from Valve's servers and got into the internet. The gamestar team got a copy either and playtested it. What they saw is just breath-taking: Clipping errors, unfinished levels (big parts), everything the AI did in trailers so far were script sequences (the AI is very dumb actually) and lots of other bad stuff. They interviewed Gabe Newell, lead designer of Half-Life 2 and he said that they are not so far with the AI, but it's right that they want it to be like what it does in the script sequences.

Good read

Good read 2

[ElfTheHunter]

Can't talk about Gamestar, but following the news and stuff on Valve website and Gamepsy (which I get daily so I knew about the leak on the day it was discovered, and written in Gamespy).

But as far as I've been informed, Valve reported that someone hacked into the developers' network and stole parts of the Source code. There were reports of this 'hacker' anomiosly (he's not an idiot) posting that he did it because Valve had lied initially about the Sep release date. He also, in these posts (don't know where) claimed he had at least a third of the source code. Valve confimed that a third of the source code is likely the amount that got leaked, but I myself am not sure the guy posting this stuff is really the guy who did it.

AFAIK there were very few game elements leaked (models, levels and AI would most likely be incomplete or not original with the leaked source code). And valve had the said that they were not worried about copies of the game made from the leaked material but rather multiplayer cheat programs made for complete copies based on leaked material.

But I haven't heard much about it in almost 2-3 weeks so much of this may be obsolete. I also am very hard up to trust news sources, even gaming news sources like Gamespy

PS: I realize I should prolly have read the links you showed me before replying...

[Aeros]

Didn't I talk to you about this DA?

Ok Heres how it really is.

The hacker guy was snooping on Valve's email server connected to the internet and managed to get a loose build of HL2 by taking models and files and other bits and peices from their email server and compiling them. From the alpha, I would guess it's a 2 year old pre-build of the E3 demonstration, along with a handful of old unfinished maps. All the alpha version is, is a heap of bugs, missing models, and unfinished maps. It's 2 years old. Valve has never been lying about HL2's status and the hacker is simply spreading crap about Valve and encouraging the community to think Valve is lieing about HL2.

Also, since the hacker was just snooping for files, there is no AI in the leaked version - he didn't manage to nick the AI.

And stop calling it an Alpha, because it isn't, it's not playable despite the rumours you've been hearing which are there to get people to DL it.

CONCLUSION: HL2 "alpha" is not what people are saying it is, Valve is not lieing, hacker is spreading crap about valve, and the "alpha" is actually a 2 year old demonstration build of Half Life along with some unfinished maps.

Oh and the leaked source code. It's also 2 years old and about 1/3rd of it is missing, like the physics code and such, the rest is unfinished. No cheater can build anything off of that.

The news your hearing about the alpha. It's mostly fake. Don't buy into any of it.

So that settles it.

[CodeOptimist]

Yeah, you can't really judge a game based on an incomplete hacked-together copy. I haven't been following HL2 much (not really into shooter games like that) but I know that it is highly anticipated, and will most likely be close to the expectations.

[DarkAngelBGE]

Well, you talked to me about it , bobby, but I read the article just yesterday. Maybe I am going to translate into English and post it here. I will also search for more articles on the matter.

[Ornlu]

I've played this, and it's far from complete yet. Don't worry, it looks good and is fun. *sneaks away*

[Aeros]

If Sanjab said it, then it's safe for me to say I've played the leaked version as well. It's very awesome, but it's nowhere close to the final version. You won't learn very much from the leak about the story of HL2, but I did find something interesting. HL2 originally started being developed right after the first HL and I think used the same engine, but then they decided to really out-do themselves since they've got money coming from Counter-strike and all those. There were some sound files in the old HL wav format from "City 17" with this guy talking about citizens and stuff and some new order moving in.

Slightly interesting indeed.

Shhh

[Ornlu]

If anyone sees my post as inappriopriate, feel free to tell me so I'll edit it out.

But, yes it is very awesome indeed .

[ElfTheHunter]

I finally successfully downloaded the 20 min HL2 demo video (tried 4 previous times but either comp froze, stand by or some other reason the download stopped) and I'm amazed!!! The engine is awesome, the characters are amazing... Before that video all I had seen was screenshots of the game, that video is amazing.