Half-Life 2...in April 2004?

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2003-10-07 12:32pm

What. The. Fuck.

Still, the story seems a little odd to me. Why the hell wouldn't Valve have backups?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-10-07 01:01pm

3rd Impact wrote:What. The. Fuck.

Still, the story seems a little odd to me. Why the hell wouldn't Valve have backups?

It may not be backups, but a need to rewrite the stolen sections to avoid potential cracks/cheats from the leaked code.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2003-10-07 01:16pm

Additional security, extra time to try and track down the culprits, and in general a bad time for everyone. Fans have to wait, dev team has to work round the clock, and publisher loses money. Only the fucking assholes who stole it are having a good time.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-10-07 01:49pm

Basically, the source for Steam is now available, so Valve actually have to make sure it's well-written code, rather than relying on security through obscurity.

Though there have been some saying that the code was ridiculously incomplete and accusing Valve of purposefully leaking the code as an excuse to delay the release yet again because they weren't anywhere near done with the game and claim the delay was due to circumstances beyond their control.

This makes somewhat good sense. Some have posited that the leaked code is very old, but if you were a cracker helping yourself to Valve's servers, why would you take an old version of the source?

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2003-10-07 02:47pm

Here's an interesting piece of information, gleaned from this source

Our exclusive visit with Gabe Newell and Valve Software did confirm that only a SMALL PORTION of the source code was taken. This is different than most of the reports. The entire source was not taken.

No Mention Of Half-Life 2 Delay. So far Half-Life 2 is shipping for the HOLIDAYS.

It appears that Valve Software is really close to getting the hackers. They seem to have their names written on a whiteboard. It's no wonder that it's business as usual at Valve!

They have names on the whiteboard -- the history, date, times -- and other things that looked like file names. That was pretty much a quick issue. You know, it's done! They're on it! They look like they know who did it.

Business seems to be as usual at Valve, and it appears they are working hard on rolling out Half-Life 2.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2003-10-07 03:34pm

Halflife2.net claims that a pre-release HL2 has emerged in irc and other dark alleys of the net

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-10-07 04:32pm

3rd Impact wrote:Here's an interesting piece of information, gleaned from this source

Our exclusive visit with Gabe Newell and Valve Software did confirm that only a SMALL PORTION of the source code was taken. This is different than most of the reports. The entire source was not taken.

No Mention Of Half-Life 2 Delay. So far Half-Life 2 is shipping for the HOLIDAYS.

It appears that Valve Software is really close to getting the hackers. They seem to have their names written on a whiteboard. It's no wonder that it's business as usual at Valve!

They have names on the whiteboard -- the history, date, times -- and other things that looked like file names. That was pretty much a quick issue. You know, it's done! They're on it! They look like they know who did it.

Business seems to be as usual at Valve, and it appears they are working hard on rolling out Half-Life 2.

I'd say your source is full of shit.

CNN.com wrote:"A third of the source code was stolen," VU Games president of international operations Christophe Ramboz told daily Les Echos in its Tuesday edition. "It's serious because it forces us to delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004. Just the time to rewrite parts of the game."

The president of VU Games said that the game had to be rolled back by at least 4 months. I'd say that's a bit higher of an authority that "our exclusive with Gabe."

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-07 05:04pm

It's odd that Vivendi is making that announcement, though, and not Valve.

Yes, there are betas of HL2 circulating at this time.

I heard that infact it was not old code, but rather grabbed straight from the versioning system. Also, they might be wholly rewriting Steam's authentication system to be incompatible with the leaked one and making it more secure. It may have been security through obscurity, but we have no information on how tight the system is.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-10-07 09:02pm

Jesus, one can only imagine what would have happened if the entirety of the source code had been leaked.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2003-10-07 09:10pm

First Gabe says that the source code was stolen. Never said a portion or whatever. Now we hear that only 1/3rd was stolen.

Sounds like damage control.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2003-10-07 09:43pm

Well, that's just because Gabe didn't want to admit it, but... the other 2/3 of the information taken was hacked from Gabe's porn folder, and he doesn't want anyone to know about his... er... "animalistic" fetish...

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2003-10-07 10:40pm

SPOOFE wrote: the other 2/3 of the information taken was hacked from Gabe's porn folder, and he doesn't want anyone to know about his... er... "animalistic" fetish...

We already knew that. There was a flowchart showing how PA donations were spent, and above the word "Porn" was a sheep.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-10-07 11:16pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:
SPOOFE wrote: the other 2/3 of the information taken was hacked from Gabe's porn folder, and he doesn't want anyone to know about his... er... "animalistic" fetish...
We already knew that. There was a flowchart showing how PA donations were spent, and above the word "Porn" was a sheep.

Penny Arcade's Gabe != Valve's Gabe Newell

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2003-10-08 12:12am

Ah, I see.

People shouldn't use the same names.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-10-08 01:51am

phongn wrote:It's odd that Vivendi is making that announcement, though, and not Valve.

Yes, there are betas of HL2 circulating at this time.

I heard that infact it was not old code, but rather grabbed straight from the versioning system. Also, they might be wholly rewriting Steam's authentication system to be incompatible with the leaked one and making it more secure. It may have been security through obscurity, but we have no information on how tight the system is.

If it was such an incredible piece of crap that it's possible to crack it without having or deciphering the key, then it needs fixing. Having the source should make no difference in someone's ability to crack an encryption algorithm. Valve are basically admitting that they were ready to foist an insecure system onto gamers to give their (parent's) credit card information to.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-08 09:38am

Durandal wrote:If it was such an incredible piece of crap that it's possible to crack it without having or deciphering the key, then it needs fixing. Having the source should make no difference in someone's ability to crack an encryption algorithm. Valve are basically admitting that they were ready to foist an insecure system onto gamers to give their (parent's) credit card information to.

And we know that it's insecure how? All we have is a new release date from VU (which is probably accurate) and it's a damn huge leap in logic to assume that Steam was immensely insecure from that little datum. It's also a huge assumption to assume that the credit card mechanism (for the online-purchase edition) is also insecure.

As far as the 1/3 thing goes, it's possible that is in reference to the 'whole game' where 1/3rd of the game would be the source and the other 2/3rds the artwork data and such.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-08 09:07pm

According to halflife.org, they recieved an email from Doug Lombardi noting that they have no details they can share on the impact of the release date.

Half-life Source claims they have an email from one Mike Thompson (VU) that the delay is not confirmed.

Despite VU's earlier proclamation spread across the 'net, I have yet to hear someone from Valve say anything about changing release dates.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Half-Life 2...in April 2004?

Half-Life 2...in April 2004?

Re: Half-Life 2...in April 2004?