Half Life 2 Beta out...

[Lee]

Firstly, if this is against the forum rules please delete

For those of you interested, a leaked beta of Half Life 2 is now 'out' and about.
Its available via the 'normal' places. (I dont like subtle hints, but usenet? xdcc?).
I have the beta and I must say the physics are amazing for a game. The only problem with the beta is the AI. Most enemies appear to be disabled in that they dont really move about much, just stand and shoot. Obviously the full AI coding is not present, but its still fun!

Also the 'story' is not really implemented. you can just choose which level to play - they seem to be the maps from the E3 demo and a couple more. The gravity gun is LOTS of fun

Proof it is 'out': A pic of it running on my PC https://homepage.ntlworld.com/lee.heap/HL2.jpg

[G]

To quote someone on another site:

[MarJay]

Why did anybody bother to steal the code? It didn't gain them anything and its delayed the game fore those of us willing to pay for games of this caliber legally!
its not as if they can sell it to another company, it'll be damn obvious if someone plagarises the game engine won't it?
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F; Cheap project: CBR900RR FireBlade
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[andrew]

Valve *are* delaying it until at least April next year and there is talk that an actual build was nicked as well as the source code G. I dont know where you got that quote from but we've heard from ppl in the industry that thats what has happened. Oh code for Steam was also stolen, Valve reckon this is a pretty big security risk because people might not be able to gain access to machines running Steam. Oh well never used it anyway

[Ste]

Thats one to download then.

The reason the source code was taken basically was for a group to make a name for themselves. The people behind it will now have that with them, and can go a long way in the groups behind piracy.

[andrew]

Yeah, or they'll get caught and end up getting arse raped every night for 10 years

I hope the theiving fuckers do too

[Kickstart@Work]

[andrew]

Yeah, they were probably going to delay it anyway, this just gives them an excuse that the general public will sympathise with, still dont make it right.

[Kickstart@Work]

So which is worse, taking a copy of the code that is not going to be any real loss to anyone (except for the money they waste trying to find out who took it), or lying to people?

All the best

Keith

[TiN]

I think that they're just waiting for computers and graphics hardware to get faster.

The only area that the developers can potentially "lose" out on is the intellectual rights to any special algorithms etc, and even then no-one else can make any money from it. Other than that, it's just source code.
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TiN
dotgems.net

[andrew]

Neither are right Keith but people have spent years making that game, its taken a lot of time/money/effort to get it near enough complete and some muppet breaks into their computer systems to look good and nicks the whole lot. Word is that the Havoc source code which Valve licensed for millions of dollars was also stolen so its not just affecting Valve. Now whats to stop this source code getting into the hands of other developers and using it on the sly? Yeah there is the treat of being sued but if Valve cant see the source code from other games then how would they know their code is being used?? Still seeing as Valve lied to us about when their game was going to be released they probably deserved it.

[TiN]

[andrew]

[MarJay]

I'm guessing here but I assume they would be something similar to protocol documents in that they lay out how a particular piece of code is written, what particular methods used for certain effects and features were used and wether there are any special exlusive new Valve- only bits in it.

Am I right?
____________________
British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F; Cheap project: CBR900RR FireBlade
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[andrew]

Well yeah thats how its *meant* to work but there are a lot of dodgey developers out there, espically the Polish ones Seriously though, if you were a games developer and had to impress the share holders and could save millions of pounds and possibly years of work by nicking bits of other peoples code then you would consider it. Im not only talking about that, by looking at the source code other deveopers could steal ideas on how to do certain things in their games. Either way its not fair that someone thinks they have the right to steal all their work.

[mr jamez]

[TiN]

[andrew]

[Zimma]

Gabe to the team - "Sh*t guys, theres no way we can get this thing done by December"

Member of team - "I know! Lets 'leak' a crappy build of the engine and/or some crappy old version of the source code and blame it on someone else and say we have to re-write loads of the code. Then we can say it'll take till at least ummmm March '04 till it will be done and buy ourselves some more time"

Gabe - "Promotion for that man over there in the corner"


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-Zimma

[TiN]

[Kickstart@Work]

Hi

Wonder what the penalty clause was for failing to deliver a working game in time for release for christmas?

Sorry, really don't think by being hacked they have lost anything beyond maybe their image, and they have probably done far more damage to their image by making it public that they have lost the source code through hacking attempts.

All the best

Keith

[andrew]

True, it does serve them right in a way, why would you have production servers connected to the internet anyway when working on something as valuable as HL2. Asking for someone to nick it.

[MarJay]

[TiN]

[McJamweasel]