[ July 27, 1998 ] - Half-Life Featured on 3DGaming.Net
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From the look of this article, the folks at 3dgaming.net are just as excited about Half-Life as we are. This preview features online chat, screen shots, and an interview with Valve's own Yahn Bernier. Read all about it.
[ July 23, 1998 ] - Team Fortress Q&A; Half-Life Artists Contest
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HalfLife.org recently posted an interview with Team Fortress' Robin Walker in which he discusses the details of the much anticipated multiplayer title, Team Fortress 2. Also featured on the site is news of a recently unveiled contest for artists entitled Artists Beware which challenges artists to design provocative original Half-Life artwork. Members of Valve's development team will select the winners. To catch the interview or find out about the contest, head on over to HalfLife.org.
[ July 8, 1998 ] - UGO's Best of E3 Show Awards Announced
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The winners of the UGO's Best of E3 Show Awards given through E3.net, were announced this week, and Sierra Studios grabbed four of the most highly-desired awards. Homeworld, the newest title in our line up, received Most Promising New Game and Best Real-Time Strategy. Meanwhile, Half-Life received Best Action Game and the most sought after PC accolade, Best PC Game. Read all about it.
[ June 4, 1998 ] - Half-Life: Not One, But Two Awards
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Apparently Half-Life left a lasting impression with the 3D shooter crowd at E3 in Atlanta, as it has already won two awards from the Adrenaline Vault--the coveted "Best Game of Show" and "Best Action Game." In bestowing the honor, the A-Vault editors wrote, "Trust us on this one -- when Half-Life hits shelves, store clerks will have to call in cops in riot gear to just keep the gaming hordes at bay. With its stellar 3Dfx graphics, unbelievable AI, and hyper-realistic scripting, Half-Life is by far the best game we saw on display at E3." Read all about it.
[ May 28, 1998 ] - Sierra Studios to Publish Team Fortress 2 as Half-Life Expansion Pack
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E3, Atlanta, GA. - Valve L.L.C., developer of the eagerly anticipated Half-Life, announced today the acquisition of TF Software Pty. Ltd., Australian developer of Team Fortress, one of the most popular multiplayer games on the Internet.
Team Fortress (TF) is a first person action game with strong team oriented play and strategic elements. Each member of a team takes on a specific class, such as scout, sniper, or engineer, in competition with other teams. The player's class determines his or her appearance, tools or weapons, and skills. Close coordination with other team members is the key to success in the game; it is also the source of the game's long-standing popularity. The original Team Fortress, developed as an extension to id Software's Quake, was released in August 1996. Today, approximately 40% of current Quake servers are dedicated to Team Fortress.
"When we began development of Team Fortress 2 our goal was to build the best team-based action game yet," said Team Fortress's Managing Director, Ian Caughley. "Most multiplayer action games are just collections of individuals killing each other, but with TF 2, the emphasis is as much on team play and strategy as it is on shooting."
"We looked at all of the different game platforms we could host TF 2 on," added Robin Walker, lead designer of TF 2. "Half-Life's advanced technology, as well as its flexibility for extensions, with features like client-side DLL support and add-on controllable HUD's (Heads Up Display), meant we could do things with Team Fortress 2 that wouldn't be possible on any other system."
"This is the best thing that could have happened for Team Fortress and the fans of the game who have been waiting for TF 2," said John Cook, lead developer of Team Fortress. "The resources we now have at our disposal ensure the game will have functionality and breadth of support that it wouldn't have had if we had continued on our own."
Sierra Studios and Valve also announced that Team Fortress 2 will be shipping as a Half-Life expansion pack later this year. "Half-Life is clearly perceived in both the user and press communities as the best single-player action game for 1998. Team Fortress is one of the most popular games being played on the Internet. Building TF 2 on top of Half-Life's will result in a multiplayer experience of much greater depth and broader appeal than anything currently available," said Scott Lynch, Senior Vice President of Sierra Studios.
Details on the TF 2 expansion pack will be forthcoming.
Half-Life, on PC CD-ROM, is scheduled to ship in Summer 1998 and will be available at most software retailers, as well as through Sierra Direct at (800) 757-7707.
Founded in 1996, Valve develops games software. Based in Kirkland, Washington, the company consists of more than 20 leading artists, game designers and programmers. More information about Valve is available through the company's web site at www.valvesoftware.com.
Sierra Studios, a member of the Sierra family and a brand division of parent company Cendant Software, is dedicated to bringing to market computer game entertainment software that reflects a commitment to established game brands, quality gameplay and represents a move to bring new and innovative experiences to gamers. Encompassing the creation, progress and advancement of the computer gaming industry, Sierra Studios embodies the new era of entertainment software excellence. Sierra is part of Cendant Software, one of the largest PC consumer software groups in the world, and a leader in entertainment and educational software. Cendant Software consolidates the sales, manufacturing, finance, accounting and management of Cendant Corporation's software divisions, including Sierra, Knowledge Adventure, Davidson & Associates, Inc. and Blizzard Entertainment. Cendant Corporation is the result of the December 1997 merger between CUC International and HFS Incorporated, creating a business and consumer services company focused on real estate, travel and membership.
[ May 27, 1998 ] - Valve and Sierra Studios Debut Half-Life's Multiplayer Features at 1998 Electronic Entertainment Expo
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Revolutionary multiplayer functionality for the mainstream gamer
E3, Atlanta, GA. - Valve L.L.C. and Sierra Studios today unveiled a collection of innovative multiplayer features for Half-Life, the highly anticipated 3D first-person action game and debut release from Valve. The new features, intended to broaden the appeal of multiplayer action gaming to a wider gaming audience, are being showcased for the first time at the 1998 Electronic Entertainment Expo, held in Atlanta, GA May 27 through May 30.
"With the multiplayer functionality in Half-Life, we are going to make action gaming on the Internet a lot more fun and a lot less frustrating to the mainstream gamer," said Scott Lynch, Senior Vice President of Sierra Studios.
The multiplayer features of Half-Life that will be shown are:
One Button Play
Gamers will be able to be up and running in a multiplayer game with the press of a single button. There will be no configuration hassles, no IP addresses, and no need for additional utilities or patches. The Half-Life launcher will automatically connect to the Internet, locate the master server, select an appropriate low-ping game, download any resources necessary to play, and launch the game.Find Your Friends
With Half-Life's integrated communications and searching facilities, gamers will be able to find their friends no matter where they are on the Internet, get together, talk to each other, and then jump into a game together. It's also easy to set up a private game that only you and your friends can play.Be Yourself
Anonymity is a thing of the past with Half-Life. As part of customizing the appearance of their onscreen character, players can scan a picture of themselves onto their computer and have that appear as their character's face in the game (and on their opponents screen). Members of clans can spray paint their clan logo or other bitmap on the opposing teams territory to let them know who's really in charge. A master server keeps track of your accomplishments and standings versus all of the other Half-Life players.Lag-friendly game design
For many players new to the Internet the amount of time it takes for information to travel back and forth across the Internet, known as lag, can make the fast pace of action gaming very frustrating. By the time the server has registered a fire command, the target has already moved. Half-Life addresses this by designing for lag. One example of this that will be shown at E3 is one of the weapons, the Snark, a fire-and-forget organic grenade that is completely independent of the player's ping time.Cooperative and Competitive scenarios
Many mainstream gamers are interested in both the competitive and cooperative aspects of the multiplayer experience. Half-Life will contain both head-to-head and cooperative scenarios.Auto Download and Configuration
Even experienced gamers can be frustrated by the complexities of downloading new maps, placing add-ons into the right directories, and knowing which of these should be used with which servers. Half-Life makes all of these operations automatic and completely transparent to the player. If a player connects to a server, and the server administrator is running a Half-Life game that requires new sounds, new models, new maps, or additional DLL's, all of these will be automatically downloaded and configured for the user.24 by 7 Server Support
Players will no longer have to worry if their favorite Half-Life game or map is available. With free support from WON.Net, they will be guaranteed that all of the popular levels will be available at all time, with nothing more than a WON.Net registration. A master server will also keep track of all available servers running on the Internet, which games they are running, all standings and scores, and what servers offer players the lowest ping times,Additional Features
In addition to the above, Half-Life features 32-player Internet and LAN multiplayer support. Servers are available via WON.net, Gamespy or user hosted servers. Half-Life's skeletal animation system lets players see which weapons opponents are using. Half-Life's dynamic environments add to the realism and chaotic fun: burn marks, bullet holes and blood marks appear on surfaces. Multiplayer levels include player-controlled trains and conveyer belts, which offer creative means of offense and defense.Voted "Best Game at ECTS" by All Games Network and winner of "Best Action Game" and "Best Take on First-Person Action" in Gamepen's "Best of 1997 E3 Awards", Half-Life combines the most advanced, proprietary technology with genre-breaking gameplay elements to create the next revolution in computer gaming.
Half-Life, on PC CD-ROM, is scheduled to ship in Summer 1998 and will be available at most software retailers, as well as through Sierra Direct at (800) 757-7707.
Founded in 1996, Valve develops games software. Based in Kirkland, Washington, the company consists of more than 20 leading artists, game designers and programmers. More information about Valve is available through the company's web site at www.valvesoftware.com.
Sierra Studios, a member of the Sierra family and a brand division of parent company Cendant Software, is dedicated to bringing to market computer game entertainment software that reflects a commitment to established game brands, quality gameplay and represents a move to bring new and innovative experiences to gamers. Encompassing the creation, progress and advancement of the computer gaming industry, Sierra Studios embodies the new era of entertainment software excellence. Sierra is part of Cendant Software, one of the largest PC consumer software groups in the world, and a leader in entertainment and educational software. Cendant Software consolidates the sales, manufacturing, finance, accounting and management of Cendant Corporation's software divisions, including Sierra, Knowledge Adventure, Davidson & Associates, Inc. and Blizzard Entertainment. Cendant Corporation is the result of the December 1997 merger between CUC International and HFS Incorporated, creating a business and consumer services company focused on real estate, travel and membership.
[ Dec 18, 1998 ] - Valve Announces Worldcraft Support For QUAKE 2
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Popular Level Editor Supports id Software's Latest Game Release
KIRKLAND, WA December 18, 1997-- Game developer Valve today announced version 1.6 of the popular level editor, Worldcraft. The new release adds functionality that allows add-on developers to create levels for id Software's recently released Quake 2, as well as Activision's Hexen 2.
"Demand for Quake 2 support has been very strong," said Gabe Newell, Managing Director of Valve. "Within a few days of Quake 2 shipping, I had personally received several hundred e-mail messages from add-on level developers who were interested in purchasing a version of Worldcraft that supported Quake 2."
Worldcraft 1.6 support for Quake 2 and Hexen 2 includes:
FGD files Worldcraft 1.6 contains FGD files for Hexen 2 and Quake 2. Worldcraft uses FGD files to expose game entities, such as monsters, paths, and objects, to level developers.
Exporters Worldcraft 1.6 has the necessary export support to create map files appropriate to each of the games.
Quake 2 specific features Worldcraft 1.6 also provides support for new features unique to Quake 2, such as its transparency modes, radiosity settings, and the ability to export textures to a separate WAL file.
The 1.6 upgrade is free to registered users. New users will be charged $35.00. The upgrade will be available at the Worldcraft website, before December 31st. A patch for version 1.5 that allows limited editing of Quake 2 levels is available immediately.
Worldcraft is specifically designed to make first-person game level editing faster and easier for experienced level designers as well as for those just getting started. The original Worldcraft, developed for Quake players who wanted to create customized levels of that best-selling action game, was released independently by creator Ben Morris in September of 1996. In May of 1997, the tool was purchased by Valve for use in its premiere game, the first-person action game Half-Life.
The next major release of Worldcraft will be the 2.0 release included with Half-Life. In addition to the functionality of release 1.6, Worldcraft 2.0 will include vertex merging and scaling, which lets users merge faces on an object or scale an object around a specific vertex; the path corners tool, which makes it easy to specify a complex path for an entity within the game; and entity reports, which help users see the relationships between groups of entities (like buttons, switches and doors). Worldcraft 2.0 will also let users take advantage of features native to the Half-Life engine, including DSP sound effects, 24-bit color palettes and libraries of prefabricated objects.
Half-Life, published by Sierra On-Line, is due to ship in the first quarter of 1998.
Founded in 1996, Valve develops games software. Based in Kirkland, Washington, the company consists of more than 25 leading artists, game designers and programmers. More information about Valve is available through the company's web site at www.valvesoftware.com.
Quake and Quake 2 are registered trademarks of id Software, Inc. Hexen 2 is a registered trademark of Activision, Inc. All rights reserved.
Yahn Bernier, Creator of BSP Joins Valve
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I'm happy to formally announce that I am now a Valve employee. I've been here since January when I relocated from Atlanta and left my job as a patent attorney by day and BSP developer by night. Valve originally hired me to work on development tools and on Half-Life's mulitplayer code, and that's taking up the bulk of my time. Now that Ben Morris has decided to return to Canada, I'll probably also do a little work finishing up Worldcraft 2.0.
Needless to say, these new commitments are going to make further development of BSP (by me, anyway) very difficult. I am looking at the possibility of releasing it to another developer to work on. However, the priority here--obviously--is to make Worldcraft the best and most popular 3D editor available and I'll do whatever I can to help make that happen, including adding some popular BSP features to Worldcraft.
Games development has been a long-time passion of mine and it's great to have this opportunity to do it full-time. I consider BSP to be something of a stepping-stone for me and I'm very happy to be moving on to other interesting projects. Valve is a very cool place to work and my fiancee, Beth (who is also an attorney) and I are excited about living in the Seattle area.
Official Half-Life™ Release Date
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Scheduled release date is Summer 1998. A downloadable playable demo will be available approximately 30-45 days prior to game release.
Half-Life™ Preliminary Findings CD
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We recently released the "Half-Life™ Preliminary Findings CD," a limited-edition, non-playable multimedia preview CD containing gameplay movies, interviews with development team members at Valve, screen shots and tons of game info. The CD was (and, in certain stores, still is) available at participating Electronics Boutiques and Best Buy locations. If you were unable to secure a copy of the CD, much of the content is available for download on Half-Life™ fan sites (see web ring below).
Gabe Newell, Re: Half-Life™ Ship Delay
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Sierra is sending out the release below letting people know that Half-Life™ won't be shipping until the first quarter of next year. This is a total bummer for us here at Valve, for everyone at Sierra, and, I'm certain, for all of you who have been doing such a great job supporting us.
The problem is pretty simple, Half-Life™ is a very intricate and detailed game, and it's taking us longer to get it done than we thought. We considered simplifying parts of the game or dropping some features to try and cut back on the amount of work, but in the end we decided it was best to keep building the product we all believe in and take our lumps on the schedule.
It still sucks, though.
Anyhow, I wanted to make sure you all heard about this directly from us rather than from some other source. We greatly appreciate everything you have done to support Half-Life™, and we think the game is going to more than live up to your expectations.
Gabe Newell
Managing Director, Valve
THE TOP TEN REASONS WHY HALF-LIFE™ IS DELAYED:
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(brought to you by the Half-Life™ development team)
10. We resisted Ultima Online but got sucked into Oprah's book club
9. Wasted 300 development hours catapulting sheep
8. Gabe and Mike learned scheduling at Microsoft
7. We're having problems making it year 2000 compatible
6. El Nino
5. Redoing the models so they all have ponytails
4. Wedge put his eye out with his new pellet machine gun
(see www.valvesoftware.com/hocopus)
3. Spending too much time on our .plan files
2. Everything is finished; just waiting on the "Bill Gates Mansion" level
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON THAT HALF-LIFE™ IS DELAYED........
1. Forgot to add mandatory Satanic references
Heading to Comdex?
Half-Life to be Featured on 3Dfx's Voodoo 2 Chipset
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If you're heading to Fall Comdex (November 17-21 in Las Vegas, Nevada), make a beeline directly over to the 3DFX booth (#LS103) and check out a sight to behold....Half-Life running at the fastest frame-rate ever achieved in 3D graphics acceleration.
Half-Life will be demoed at the 3DFX booth on their new standard in 3D acceleration, Voodoo 2 Graphics. Valve (developers of Half-Life) has been working with the Voodoo 2 prototype board and Gabe Newell, Managing Director, passed along the following comments:
Valve has been working with 3DFX on support for the Voodoo 2 chipset in Half-Life. Using preliminary drivers, we've been seeing as much as a 100% framerate improvement for Half-Life over existing Voodoo 1 performance, and this is still without taking advantage of the Voodoo 2 triangle setup capability. Worst case, we saw about a 20% framerate boost, with an average of around 30-60%. These performance gains are in comparison to 3DFX's existing chipset, not to software execution.
In addition to the overall speed advantages, which are far and away the best we've seen for any 3D accelerator, the extra texture memory for Voodoo 2 means that the performance is much smoother over a wider range of scenes, since we are less likely to blow the texture space on the card and end up being bottle-necked on bus transfers.
Preliminary Findings
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We recently released the "Half-Life Preliminary Findings CD," a limited-edition, non-playable multimedia preview CD containing gameplay movies, interviews with development team members at Valve, screen shots and tons of game info. The CD was (and, in certain stores, still is) available at participating Electronics Boutiques and Best Buy locations. If you were unable to secure a copy of the CD, much of the content is available for download on Half-Life fan sites (see web ring below).
:Press Releases
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HALF-LIFE: First and foremost, Half-Life's release date (originally slated for mid-November) is slipping. Though I can't offer a new ship date until late next week, it will most likely slide into a 1Q98 ship. Also note that a playable demo (on CD and downloadable) will be available approx. 30 days prior to the release of the final product.
We are all extremely excited about Half-Life and are confident that this small delay will be worth the wait for action game fans! I'll get back to you within the next 10 days with the revised ship date.
OGR hosts Half-Life's "Monster of the Week"
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Visit Online Gaming Review's special Monster of the Week feature to learn the habits and characteristics of many of Half-Life's creatures. You'll want to acquaint yourself ahead of time with some of the smartest lifeforms you've ever seen in an action game!
Valve hires Yatzse Mark
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Yatzse Mark, who has been working as a contractor for Valve for several months, recently became a permanent staff member. Yatzse is an accomplished texture artist and painter who has worked on traditional cel animation before joining Valve. She is currently creating a variety of 24-bit textures for the alien world that will be seen within Half-Life.
Valve hires Doug Wood
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Animator Doug Wood joins Valve from Apogee/3DRealms where he worked on projects such as Duke Nukem3d, Shadow Warrior, Prey and the Plutonium/Atomic Edition for Duke. Before 3DRealms, he worked for Origin down in Austin. Doug is responsible for many of Half-Life's scripted sequences, including tentacles that pull unsuspecting scientists through the ceiling, and headcrabs that turn humans into zombies.
Half-Life in the Press
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Half-Life has been getting some great press lately, both online and in print. A few of the most recent online stories include: Gamecenter - The Magnificent Seven - Half-Life ("Half-Life's baddies could give single-player action the shot in the arm it desperately needs") and GameSpot Half-Life story ("But best of all might be the strong AI that allows monsters to communicate amongst themselves and sometimes to even work as a pack.") For a complete list of Half-Life previews, check the links below.
Valve Hires Jay Stelly
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Developer Jay Stelly recently joined Valve from Tetragon, where he was lead engineer and 3D engine developer on Virgin's Nanotek Warrior. Previously, Jay worked on titles for the Sony Playstation and for 3DO. Currently, he is working on some very cool effects for Half-Life, including some unique fog and water behaviors.
the half-ring
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Half-Life™ has inspired a number of talented action game fans to create their own fan sites. For example, the award-winning Jaspur's Half Life Page. All these sites--and many others--can be found by using the new Half-Life™ webring. Just click on the webring graphic below and your on your way!