Previews so far:
[ul]GameSpot
IGN
GameSpy
Shacknews
Computer & Video Games
[/ul]
Gamespot has a 500MB video developer interview.
I suggest streaming it. :)
Just read Gamespy’s article. There goes the whole “not getting too excited” thing. I’ve gotta go wet my pants, now.
Grr… I swore I wouldn’t upgrade this year, but these previews have got me pricing mobo/CPU combos… :evil:
After reading the same preview five times, I watched the 40 minute interview on GameSpot. While there’s nothing really in there except the developers talking about conceptual elements of the game, Gabe Newell did share some really, really interesting ideas he’s got for the mod community:
—The SDK will be released to mod makers one month before the game is out.
—Apparently, there will be some sort of license/agreement which amateur mod makers can purchase (presumably on the cheap) to grant them the rights to sell their mod online. After years of a nearly stagnant policy of 99% of game developers to hoard their game assets, this is a shocking change. Cynically, it’ll be interesting to see how the rush to release a for-sale mod develops.
Obviously there’s going to be a Counter-Strike 2. Won’t this affect its ability to effectively compete with the other mods which will surely go commercial?
Obviously there’s going to be a Counter-Strike 2. Won’t this affect its ability to effectively compete with the other mods which will surely go commercial?
That’s the other question. We know Gooseman is a de facto employee of Valve and that he has been working on CS2 for probably a year now. How long until that’s released?
Is Counter-Strike 2 different from Condition Zero? EBGames lists CZ with a November release.
But really, is one month of lead time going to matter all that much? Nobody in the mod community is going to put something of that scope together in a month or two, it’s been underway for a while now.
Condition Zero is (at least primarily) a single player game.
With the toolset - I think it’s a commitment thing, like Bioware releasing their toolkit early. Probably just demonstrating that the company feels the toolset/SDK isn’t an afterthought but a full part of the product.
That licensing agreement sounds like one of the most interesting developments I’ve heard.
Not according to this. That article says that it includes a single-player game as a testing ground to get people ready for the online games. The subheading (or whatever it’s called) for the article is “Valve shows off the improvements to the popular online shooter.”
Well - I dunno, aren’t they still characterizing it as single player? It’s similar to the Blueshift expansion where the graphical update applied to HL DM and TFC. The word is that it will not have it’s own multiplayer component, but simply use the CS 1.6 version (with its new graphics and bot support).
So anyone want to start a pool on whether Valve will really be able to make their release date? Pretty gutsy of them to carve it in stone like that.
Condition Zero is primarily a single-player game, absolutely. The changes to the engine and additional weapons will be rolled into the online game gradually. That has already started with 1.4 and 1.6.
Counter-Strike 2 is the yet-to-be officially announced sequel to Counter-Strike which will be a primarily multiplayer focused game using the new Source engine.