Mad OC

Gabe Confirms Half-Life 2 Source Leak
10/2/2003 14:21 PST | Half-Life 2 | by Travis
Valve's Gabe Newell has confirmed the Half-Life 2 source code link in this forum post. Here's what he had to say:

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.
Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.
Here is what we know:
1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.
2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.
3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.
4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.
5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).
6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.
Well, this sucks.
What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.
We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

So please, if you can, help Valve out!

ATI\HL2 Press Releases
9/30/2003 14:29 PST | Half-Life 2 | by Travis
ATI has released two new press releases, the first one is just a general, "RADEON 9800 XT and RADEON 9600 XT kick ass and look at us, we're the best"-type release, and the second one is entitled, "ATI and Valve Team up to Showcase the best of 3D Gaming." Here's the short version:

ATI Technologies Inc. today announced that Valve®, a leading game developer, has named ATI as the preferred graphics card partner for its upcoming game Half-Life® 2. As a part of this agreement with Valve, ATI customers will get the full Half-Life 2 game free* with the purchase of select RADEON(TM) products.
Built from the ground up with new shader-intensive games in mind, ATI's DirectX 9 hardware, like the RADEON(TM) 9800 XT and RADEON(TM) 9600 XT, has proven to be ideal development and gaming platforms for Half-Life 2.
"ATI has been a great partner on the engineering front. Our work with ATI has enabled DirectX 9 functionality that wouldn't have been possible with any other company," said Gabe Newell, Founder and Managing Director, Valve. "ATI's hardware gives our customers the best experience with our software. So we've chosen to extend our relationship to include marketing initiatives that will showcase both Half-Life 2 and RADEON products."

OK, so what does that "*" next to "get the full Half-Life 2 game free" mean?

* Shipping, handling and applicable taxes or customs charges are not included. Charges vary depending on purchaser's mailing address and method of delivery (i.e.; download vs. land delivery). Offer only available while supplies last.

In other words, Half-Life 2 isn't actually bundled with the cards: you'll just get a voucher or something like that entitling you to get a "free" copy eventually.

Sven Co-Op 3 Preview Video! 9/30/2003 7:20 PST | Sven Co-op | by Travis
The merciful Sven Viking has blessed gamers everywhere with a preview video of the upcoming Sven Co-Op v3.0! Here are a few things you can expect to see in the video:

"MADWHACK physics"
All intelligent monster types take/release control of turrets at will
Alien Slaves revive their fallen comrades
New physics system for dropped weapons
The M134 minigun

And if that isn't enough to wet your appetite, Cheeseh has recently released version 1.01 of the RCBot with support for the current version of Sven Co-Op.

You can get the video at the official Sven Co-Op site, and the RCBot can be downloaded here.

John Cook Chatlog
9/25/2003 10:37 PST | Half-Life 2 | by travis
BeyondHalfLife is reporting that a fan by the name of "Joneleth" managed to grab Valve's Online Development Manager, John Cook, for a quick chat on Steam. Here's a screenshot of the log. Nothing major, but here's the key stuff:

Joneleth: What was the reason behind [the HL2 delay]? Or are you not allowed to say? :/
JohnC: it's not done
Joneleth: And I'm also guessing that, at this point, you all have more of a "when it's done" stance on the game's release date.
JohnC: i think we're just trying to get the new schedule finalized before announcing another date

Natural Selection: Combat Shots
9/25/2003 10:46 PST | Half-Life Mods | by travis Natural Selection has released three screenshots of their upcoming Combat mode (here's screenshot #2 and #3) and slapped together the following news bulletin:

We are nearly done with our new intense-action mode of Natural Selection, dubbed "NS: Combat". Players get experience for killing enemies, and can use that experience to "level up". Marines use experience to get a jetpack or heavy armor, a better weapon, or to resupply nearby teammates with health and ammo. Aliens can evolve upgrades like cloaking or regeneration, can unlock new abilities, or can evolve to higher lifeforms. Players spawn in waves and advance in groups to maximize kills and share experience. Games are five minutes long and action-packed.
NS: Combat will be released very soon as a patch to NS, along with native Steam support.

Kanonball v1.0 Released!
9/21/2003 0:48 PST | Half-Life Mods | by travis
What comes as a surprise to me, Kanonball version 1.0 has been released! For the longest time the development of Kanonball lay idle, until now. The new versions main purpose is to fix bugs and retain compatibility with Steam and the latest version of HL. Certainly check this mod out if you havent before. Heres the change log:

Converted Kanonball source to be fully compatible with HLSDK 2.3.
ADDED Voice chat.
ADDED Message of the day.
FIXED Scoreboard-related bugs.
FIXED All text chat bugs from not working periodically.
FIXED ICA crashes.
FIXED team-colored Player ID's.
FIXED "Spawn freeze" bug.
FIXED bug that allowed people to break ICA camera events and grab the ball early.
REMOVED player demotion during ICA events
Miscellaneous tweaks and fixes.
Increased overall game performance
CS Waypoint Pack v13.0 Released
9/21/2003 0:39 PST | Counter-strike | by
travis
At last, a new version of the CS Waypoint Pack is here! Your bots no longer need to wonder around custom maps aimlessly. Below is a list of the newly-added waypoints (which is only a small portion of the full count).
- aim_ak-colt
- cs_bikini
- cs_cargo
- cs_checkpoint
- cs_dustcity_beta
- cs_hijack
- cs_mille
- cs_nightclub
- cs_petra2
- cs_reflex
- cs_shogun
- de_aztec_clone
- de_clan1_mill
- de_doom2
- fy_grassworld2
- fy_lavaland
- fy_party
- fy_sandworld
- playground_x

	Half-Life 2 Takes Tokyo 9/19/2003 22:22 PST \| Half-Life 2 \| by travis Surprisingly, IGN reports that ATI Japan has announced that they will be showing Half-Life 2 at Tokyo Game Show in Japan, which opens September 26. It's a surprise because PC games aren't traditionally showcased at TGS, but it sounds like this appearance may be similar to the ECTS screening: just a rerun of the E3 demo with no new footage.
	Natural Selection 2.01 Released 9/19/2003 10:08 PST \| Half-Life Mods \| by travis The Natural Selection team has released version 2.01. This is a server-side only patch, so you only need to download this small update if you're running a NS server. The list of changes is pretty huge, and you can view that right here.
	A Mod Magazine? 9/19/2003 10:01 PST \| Community \| by travis There's a new magazine for modders coming out called Gamemaker, and the concept is certainly interesting: Bored to tears of all your existing games? Finally a magazine that shows you how to extend their lifespan by modifying them yourself. The worlds favourite PC game, Counter-Strike, began life as a home-brewed mod for Half Life and Gamemaker will show you how to get started on this path yourself. In this 116-page first issue, we show you how to design your own levels, characters, vehicles and weapons for the PCs biggest and best games. It sounds like Gamemaker is only going to be available to you Great British types, but maybe if it's successful they'll ship it over to us ugly Americians. UPDATE: Oh, it turns out an American version will be released, "around October 16."
	PlanetFargo: Young Gordon Freeman 9/19/2003 9:44 PST \| Half-Life \| by travis GameSpy.com's latest PlanetFargo talks about Gordon Freeman's early years. Just who is Gordon Freeman? GameSpy has gone behind the scenes, and after months of painstaking research, we've pieced together bits and pieces from Gordon's early life that help shape who he is. It's filled with continuity errors and lies, but perhaps you'll find these tall tales amusing!