Half-Life 2 pre-load moves onto fifth phase

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The ongoing Half-Life 2 pre-load saga hit its fifth phase last night, with Steam account holders able to continue downloading the Counter-Strike: Source maps in encrypted form. With the ongoing legal saga between Valve and its publisher Vivendi-Universal, it seems possible that the game may end up suffering further delays, but as it stands, neither Valve nor Vivendi have given the slightest public indication when the game will ship. UK retailers have been insisting, off the record, for some time that the game will not be shipping this year. When posed the question recently, Valve declined to comment.

News source: Eurogamer.net

Cont...

Currently SCi has released no details of what it's planning to do with Highlander, but creative director Patrick O'Luanaigh weighed in with his thoughts on the franchise, which the company clearly reckons has a lot of potential. You can see his point, too - it is, after all, a game about scary men with big swords hacking each other up.

"There are so many great opportunities with such a rich licence as the Highlander franchise," O'Luanaigh commented. "We will be working closely with Peter Davis and Bill Panzer to develop the Highlander universe further. The concept is ideal for a game."

It's not yet clear whether there will "be only one" Highlander game, but there will be only one 'be only one' gag in this item. Except those two. Ignore 'em. And expect to hear more about Highlander soon.

(1 reply) #1 donachello on 30 Sep 2004 - 14:42

Well no change here then...

To be honest it's looking more and more like this game will never see the day of light on the shlf of your retails games store until next year...

People are getting really hacked off with Valve because of the messing about and the discomfort they are cuasing the gamers community by p***ing them about with the release dates...

Delayed is all we are hearing all the time...

Not happy

#1.1 Varsity on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:51

What? WHY do people come to these ridiculous, illogical conclusions? What you're saying has nothing to do with the pre-load, which if anything provides evidence to the contrary. The game is DONE. It is FINSHED. This news post is about downloading it and parts of it are being released next week for goodness' sake! The only thing stopping it is VU - and they won't hold out much longer.

You, I, and everyone else have heard 'delayed' once.

Last edited by 45950 on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:59

(6 replies) #2 PFCSantiagoRJ on 30 Sep 2004 - 14:42

old news....

#2.1 rIaHc3 on 30 Sep 2004 - 15:05

...then why do you read

#2.2 Krankerz on 30 Sep 2004 - 15:58

How else would he know if it was old news or not, if he didn't read?

#2.3 mental™ on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:34

Then the question is.. Why post?

#2.4 i like chips on 30 Sep 2004 - 17:08

you guys are funny

#2.5 SaLiVa on 30 Sep 2004 - 17:57

... to tell us that it is old news

#2.6 blackice912 on 01 Oct 2004 - 05:19

PFCSantiagoRJ: You do realize that not everyone browses the forums or spends half their day going around to websites and posting "old news", right?

(1 reply) #3 lnatan25 on 30 Sep 2004 - 14:50

How many stages are there anyway?

#3.1 Xero on 30 Sep 2004 - 17:41

So far only 5. We don't know if there will be anymore. There is no official news on how many preloads there will be.

#4 PFCSantiagoRJ on 30 Sep 2004 - 14:52

(2 replies) #5 rIaHc3 on 30 Sep 2004 - 15:07

if Valve keeps doing these delays then some hacker will finally find a way to break the encryption and Valve may loose it all. THe future of the company IMO depends on HL2.

#5.1 Oneill on 30 Sep 2004 - 15:10

No it doesnt, none of the HL2 maps have been precached yet, the GCFs are missing the main content files, so they can crack it all they want, Hl2 wont run till it has the maps

#5.2 OfF3nSiV3 on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:51

those files maybe be missing but as i understand these pre-loads, all steam account can download the encrypted files and in the end, these accounts need to buy the game to un-encrypt it..so if someone figures how to break the encryption now, when pre-load 6 will come, the complete game will be available for free to some..=P

(1 reply) #6 ripped on 30 Sep 2004 - 15:19

what are u talking about? release date to vendors is Nov. 1st.

it's not valve anyway, its a legal battle they are in with their distributor. they want it out NOW.

#6.1 Varsity on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:53

That is VU's 'ETA' - which stands for Estimated Time of Arrival. It isn't right. It is made up. It is there so that they have something.

#7 Ficman on 30 Sep 2004 - 15:40

Holding breath.. Hoping for the best...

(1 reply) #8 WitCh-Fire on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:22

Its kind of self-explanatory that UK retailers are saying it wont ship this year....for the exact reason that not all games make it to the UK at the same time they hit US shelves? Correct me if im wrong.

In the meantime...well suffer with de_dust (whilst beating ourselves over not rising up, and stampeding the Vivendi and Valve Headquaters to demand fan reconciliation) for now

#8.1 Varsity on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:55

UK retailers are making it up.

(2 replies) #9 craybox on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:33

i've ran out of disk space after the 4th ferkin update, can i just copy the files elsewhere ?

#9.1 Varsity on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:54

Nah, because it goes through them in order. You'll need to buy a begger HD if you want to play...

#9.2 Dented on 30 Sep 2004 - 21:33

Um...
I downloaded the first 3 preloads. Then I formated my system-drive, reinstalled windows, moved my entire Steam-folder to another physical drive and then reinstalled Steam. It just picked up where it left off with the downloads. Still, I guess it remains to be seen if any files have been corrupted once it's time to decrypt them.

So in answer to poster#9:
I can't see why it should be a problem. Just copy your entire Steam-folder to the new drive, uninstall Steam, and then re-install it into that new folder.
I give no guarrantes tho, and I seem to have lost my settings and savegames for Half-Life.

(1 reply) #10 PFCSantiagoRJ on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:34

#10.1 vertigosity on 01 Oct 2004 - 03:55

yes!

(1 reply) #11 Tuffgong4 on 30 Sep 2004 - 16:41

cs source is supposed to be released next week I thought?

someone please inform me

edit already informed myself

like 3rd or 4th article down
http://www.csnation.net/

#11.1 Xero on 30 Sep 2004 - 17:42

CS Source will be released next week to those that purchase a Half-Life 2 package over Steam. The only difference is you won't be able to get HL2 just CS Source. HL2 will come out once the Valve vs VU court battle is over.

(1 reply) #12 i like chips on 30 Sep 2004 - 17:10

here's an idea. everyone go out and play with your friends until it's released

#12.1 Tuffgong4 on 30 Sep 2004 - 18:13

greatest post ever!

(1 reply) #13 Ironman273 on 30 Sep 2004 - 17:59

How does one know what parts have been downloaded? My computer at home is up all the time and I assume that it'll download the new parts when they are available, but checking it in Steam just tells me that a copy of the encrypted is on my HD.

#13.1 Tuffgong4 on 30 Sep 2004 - 18:14

there are gcf programs that decrypt the files so you can see what's in them...but it will say if it's 100 percent or not in steam...

(1 reply) #14 PFCSantiagoRJ on 30 Sep 2004 - 18:10

if its at 100% you got all 5 pre-loads. any more questions?

#14.1 Ironman273 on 01 Oct 2004 - 13:34

Just so you know, my Steam was idle and it said 100%. When I rebooted, it started the 5th preload, so what you said is obviously not the case.

(4 replies) #15 xlokix on 30 Sep 2004 - 18:49

It's out of VALVe's hands to release the game, they wanted it released now. VU is the company you should be mad at.

#15.1 Spookie on 30 Sep 2004 - 20:06

And why not let Valve take some of the blame here? They did start this court case after all.

#15.2 Xero on 30 Sep 2004 - 20:44

No they didn't....

#15.3 Spookie on 30 Sep 2004 - 22:00

quote: On August 14, 2002, Valve served its then-publisher Sierra On-Line (now Sierra Entertainment, a Vivendi Universal Games brand) with a lawsuit in the US District Court of Washington, Western Division, alleging copyright infringement--the result of Sierra placing Valve games in Internet cafés in the US and abroad.

So you'll find they did.

#15.4 kussie on 01 Oct 2004 - 01:51

Yes but the lawsuit that is keeping HL2 tied up is on that VUG started.

(1 reply) #16 ubugmetoo on 30 Sep 2004 - 21:47

Hope someone doesn't hack them again so they can't blame the hacker for not being done.

#16.1 nX07 on 01 Oct 2004 - 03:22

It is done though..

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