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"Half-Life 2 release plans"

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This thread has been linked to the game 'Half Life 2'.
Thu 04/09/03 at 09:50
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"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
From avault.com

"Valve Software wants to make sure you get only as much of Half-Life 2 as you want to play. The developer is planning to ship separate versions of the first-person shooter later this month as well as offer various purchase options through Steam (the company's broadband platform for the delivery of digital content).

Three retail versions will appear in stores at different price points. One will contain the single-player game but lack multiplayer content and mod support. This mass market product will be sold at places such as Wal-Mart.
Another will contain Half-Life 2's single- and multi-player components as well as full mod support. It will be sold at places like GameStop and Electronics Boutique.
The third will be the Collector's Edition - which Valve says will contain plenty of bonus materials.
Steam users will be able to purchase Half-Life 2 outright or buy it on subscription. The buy-it-once crowd will have to pay separately for expansion products."
Sat 06/09/03 at 08:52
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"Psytrance junkie"
Posts: 4,114
this was discussed on the HL2net forums - Gabe's use of the world "mod" is a little out of place here. When he talks about mods which subscribing users will get for free, but others will have to pay for, he means expansion packs (such as opposing force, blue shift) as opposed to mods created by external teams (Like counter-strike, rocket crowbar etc). Counter-strike did originally come in a retail version, but it was pointless as this copy was always out of date and needed a massive update. TFC2 is one game originally free that we will probably end up having to pay for, since valve themself are releasing it.
Fri 05/09/03 at 23:45
Regular
"A man with a stick"
Posts: 5,883
I like mods, but I'm not going to pay for them. The reason I still have the original Half-Life installed is because of al the free mods you can pkay online with it, if these weren't free It'd be off my computer.

Still it sounds like the cost will only apply to certain things, but even so, I'm just buying one game and that's it. If some content is only available at a seperate cost, meh, there's plenty more games out there that can fill the gap.

Also, it sounds like the single player only version wil be available in supermarkets and the like, which knowing my local supermarket, will cost more than the RRP.
Fri 05/09/03 at 15:51
Regular
"Best Price @ GAME :"
Posts: 3,812
This is what someone from Valve has to say about it, from what it says it does seems like there will be less "Free" content available for it this time around, (taken from Planet Half Life)

*******************************************

Gabe Newell: Here's my current thinking: Some people want to buy Half-Life 2 in a store. Right now we have three SKUs planned at three price points. One will have single-player only and not play MODs and we think of that as the mass market SKU (sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world). The second is our traditional single-player plus multiplayer SKU that runs MODs and is sold at places like EBX. The third is the collector's edition SKU with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff.

In the Steam world, some people will want to buy it once, like the middle SKU above. Other people will want to buy the game on subscription (e.g. $9.95/month). The good news for the "buy it once" crowd is, well, they only have to pay once. The bad news is that when we come out with new content (expansion products, TF 2, and presumably other games) then they have to pay separately for those. We're pretty sure that the $9.95 guys are going to get the better value, as we've been pretty good over the years at generating a lot of content.

Now nobody has done this before, so we're scratching our heads and massaging the plans to make sure we've got the best set of options. We've had some feedback that we should sell the top SKU (single-player only no MODs) on Steam, and my reaction has been "yeah, right, for the three people in the world who have a broadband connection, are sophisticated enough to purchase software over the Internet, but DON'T want to play MODs and multiplayer". Some people have said "I want a subscription, but I think the box and the manual are cool, so what about sending me those" and I think that's pretty interesting and we're trying to figure out what to do for them (needless to say Sierra isn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of selling us boxes so people don't buy Half-Life 2 in stores).

But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG.
Fri 05/09/03 at 13:44
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"Selected"
Posts: 4,199
PROVE ME WRONG VALVE (and SR if they're going to cut the price by more).....PROVE. ME. WRONG.
Fri 05/09/03 at 13:43
Regular
"Selected"
Posts: 4,199
considering the multiplayer features where FREE last time round, anything more than £15 is a bit cheeky. Saying that, if you save something like £15 on the RRP of the single player - you'd be getting a sweet deal. I predict - 5 pound saving on the single player over the multiplayer.

*has spoken*
Fri 05/09/03 at 13:00
Regular
"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
Nowhere yet, I would imagine a week or so before release the pricing will be apparent.
Could try emailing Valve...
Fri 05/09/03 at 12:56
Regular
"A man with a stick"
Posts: 5,883
So where can you buy cheaper single player alternative? I'll probably be getting the full single/multiplayer version anyway, but I would like to see just how much you can save.
Fri 05/09/03 at 10:12
"For the horde!!!!"
Posts: 3,656
I'm not bothered about multiplay deathmatchs so just having a copy of the single player missions at a cheaper price is cool, I think the original HL still as lots of people making mods and playing them nowadays so it don't matter so much.
Thu 04/09/03 at 19:44
Regular
"Best Price @ GAME :"
Posts: 3,812
Great idea, I only want the single player so that'll do me fine.
Thu 04/09/03 at 17:25
Regular
Posts: 11,373
Hmmm, sounds like a good idea to me but I'll probably buy the one with mod support. Some Half-Life mods, mainly CS, are really good but the thing is, will I have to wait longer for the mod version??

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