For all you people who think HL2AM is gonna be free or priced like $10 ..

[GordonInOrbit]

Remember Opposing Force? Blue-Shift? Gunman Chronicles?.. they were all nothin more than expansions selling for almost the price of a new game.

Blue Shift and Gunman were made to look like standalone games when could've very well been expansions... thats a marketing strategy anyway..

For all you people who think HL2AM is gonna be free or priced like $10 ... wake up! We're definitely looking at prices ranging from $30-$50 .. Throw in a TShirt and Strategy Guide and whoa! you have a Collector's edition..

Valve + Sierra marketing works in strange ways.
$30 price tag (after rebate) for Gunman..... i still don't believe it.

[Megalomaniac]

It was never gonna be free, i expect it to be $10 cheaper then Half Life 2...

[special-ed]

I thought it would be free over steam :(

[Edcrab]

Considering my current position, I'd actually love to see it available in stores for a decent price.

BT are really getting to me, what with putting my broadband compliancy date back by months... *ahem*

[SFLUFAN]

Remember Opposing Force? Blue-Shift? Gunman Chronicles?.. they were all nothin more than expansions selling for almost the price of a new game.

Blue Shift and Gunman were made to look like standalone games when could've very well been expansions... thats a marketing strategy anyway..

For all you people who think HL2AM is gonna be free or priced like $10 ... wake up! We're definitely looking at prices ranging from $30-$50 .. Throw in a TShirt and Strategy Guide and whoa! you have a Collector's edition..

Valve + Sierra marketing works in strange ways.
$30 price tag (after rebate) for Gunman..... i still don't believe it.

It's just a theory of the mine that this "episodic content" will either be free or very low cost because:

1) it will be significantly shorter than either Opposing Force or Blue Shift both of which were EXPANSION PACKS and Valve is calling Aftermath an EPISODE

2) it will only be distributed via Steam - no "Sierra" (which no longer exists) or Vivendi involvement - this means that Valve can charge whatever they want for this content and is not constrained by retailer margins, packaging, distribution, etc.

Could my theory be wrong? Absolutely and it probably will be. All I'm saying is that it's just something we should have at the back of our minds.

[Computer5k]

I thought Valve said it would only be available over Steam.

[bliink]

Could my theory be wrong? Absolutely and it probably will be. All I'm saying is that it's just something we should have at the back of our minds.

No, I think you're right.
The only overhead for their plan is buying server bandwidth and the CC facility of steam, thats A LOT cheaper that going retail with it.

[Gray Fox]

My only worry is that if it will cost something that you'll still be only able to buy it if you have a credit card, that would suck major balls.

[GordonInOrbit]

it will only be distributed via Steam - no "Sierra" (which no longer exists) or Vivendi involvement - this means that Valve can charge whatever they want for this content and is not constrained by retailer margins, packaging, distribution, etc.


and


The only overhead for their plan is buying server bandwidth and the CC facility of steam, thats A LOT cheaper that going retail with it.


Are you trying to say that Aftermath is a privilege download for broadband users only?... what about the people with dialup or no internet connection at all.. That sounds like very weak marketing.

Half-Life 2 is nearly 3.5 GB .. I can expect AM to be atleast 1.5GB offering more than 10-15 hours of gameplay. We haven't yet reached a stage where everybody can afford the time and money to download 1.5GB of data over the internet.

This isn't some mod we're talkin about here. The same creative team behind hl2 is gonna work on this.. Episode, Expansion call it what you want ... Its going to be fairly big, offer new characters, friend and foe, human and alien.. a lot of designing will go into this and a lot of developers need to be paid.
Aftermath will be given the same treatment as HL2 right from coding, designing testing and finally marketing.

I think its safe to assume that HL2:AM will be sold retail in fancy boxes in addition to being available via steam.

[SFLUFAN]

and



Are you trying to say that Aftermath is a privilege download for broadband users only?... what about the people with dialup or no internet connection at all.. That sounds like very weak marketing.

Half-Life 2 is nearly 3.5 GB .. I can expect AM to be atleast 1.5GB offering more than 10-15 hours of gameplay. We haven't yet reached a stage where everybody can afford the time and money to download 1.5GB of data over the internet.

This isn't some mod we're talkin about here. The same creative team behind hl2 is gonna work on this.. Episode, Expansion call it what you want ... Its going to be fairly big, offer new characters, friend and foe, human and alien.. a lot of designing will go into this and a lot of developers need to be paid.
Aftermath will be given the same treatment as HL2 right from coding, designing testing and finally marketing.

I think its safe to assume that HL2:AM will be sold retail in fancy boxes in addition to being available via steam.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you regard Aftermath in those terms (especially gameplay length with lots of new characters, etc.) you are going to be VERY disappointed.

This is not a full-blown expansion. This is merely a continuation of the events at the end of HL2 - nothing more, nothing less.

10 to 15 hours of new gameplay?!? That's nearly the amount of time it takes most people to finish HL2 (not me - it took me about 20) but that's a very unreasonable expectation.

Your best bet is to think of this as just a short "episode" that continues the story and the first of many such episodes.

And Valve all but stated that this will be a Steam-only release. I'm sorry for those who don't have broadband but the developed world is moving in that direction and. let's face it, enough of us preloaded HL2 via Steam that it wasn't much of an issue. They'll probably do the same thing for Aftermath with the preloading.

Don't expect 1.5GB of you have much of the content already via HL2.

[special-ed]

here's an idea, leave your computer on over night!!

[Sprafa]

as SLUFAN said, you people are having irrealistic dreams.

Aftermath will be like 2 or less hours of gameplay with full blown FX probably and some improvements.

[Edcrab]

Heh, won't work for me- my ****ed up provider cuts my access off every two hours, and even if that wasn't an issue it'd take days :sleep:

But soon my days of hardship will be over and I'll hopefully be downloading this episode at an appreciable speed while laughing manically.

[GordonInOrbit]

I agree its not gonna be full blown and give a whole new perspective into the events as Opposing Force (read new character Adrian Shephard, Boot Camp, Multiplayer etc..)
Its atleast gonna be as big as Blue Shift.

Yes i do believe it will offer a gameplay of
10hrs - expert
or
15hrs - novices and for people with families and jobs.

let's face it, enough of us preloaded HL2 via Steam that it wasn't much of an issue.


Really? You had no issues with authentication on the day of release? Well more than enough of us had issues with getting the game up and running. Servers were overloaded, Legit accounts were being banned... Steam causes more evil than good. Enough said.

[T.H.C.138]

if you search you can find some pretty low cost DSL or cable providers..and believe me it is sooo worth the $20 (roughly) a month..cut out fast food for a day or two every month and there ya go! :D

and if you do not have broadband in your area...well I am sorry about that...hopefully you will have it soon

[Edcrab]

Yep, my area was meant to get broadband six months ago... and two weeks before my compliancy date came up BT decided to put their schedule back. Should have BB in a month or two though.

I still reckon- as much as I'd liked to be proved wrong- that this Episode will be about two or three chapters long, at least in the gametime sense.

[Jandor]

I hope its at least 3-4 chapters long. maybe more.
I hope it's not out till August, as I cant have a CC before that, and I want you all to suffer with me ;) .

[Esquire]

i got the impression Aftermath was like a special map with advanced gfx support, that was going to be released over steam. that's all.

if i do have to pay for it to play it, i wont be paying for it to play it.

[SFLUFAN]

^^^
You're confusing it with the "Lost Cost" advanced graphics level.

[UndeadScottsman]

I agree its not gonna be full blown and give a whole new perspective into the events as Opposing Force (read new character Adrian Shephard, Boot Camp, Multiplayer etc..)
Its atleast gonna be as big as Blue Shift.

Yes i do believe it will offer a gameplay of
10hrs - expert
or
15hrs - novices and for people with families and jobs.



Really? You had no issues with authentication on the day of release? Well more than enough of us had issues with getting the game up and running. Servers were overloaded, Legit accounts were being banned... Steam causes more evil than good. Enough said.

Yeah, I had zero problems authenticating.. 10-15 minutes to unlock and I beat the game 11 hours later... (And that's with getting stuck in several areas, having to redo several areas because I kept dying, and reloading a few times to see what would happen if I went down cooridor B instead of A.)

15 hours? I didn't even get 10 hours out of Op4.. I beat Blue-Shift in 4 hours ('Course, that's because BS is short as hell.. They only reason they got away with charging a full expansion price for it is because they included Op4 with it, along with the HD pack) I highly doubt Aftermath will be very long at all; however, I also doubt it'll be very expensive or an extremly large download.

What it seems to me that Valve is doing is making releases that they couldn't otherwise do if they were retail releases. It's easier to retail a large expansion rather than a bunch of smaller episodes, so that's why the industry never really has gone in that direction before. Now with Steam, people can spend lesser ammounts of cash for smaller chunks of more content, but they do it more frequently.

Additionally, this allows Valve to work for a few months on smaller projects and release them more frequently than a full blown expansion would take. Which, in todays increasingly long development times vs and harder and harder content creation, shorter dev times is good news all around. Steam is the only way to facilitate this process.

While this does leave a few users out in the cold; I was left out in the cold when Quake III went hardware only. That's just how this industry works.

[Fliko]

Everything is there, in Half-Life 2, to easily make Aftermath IMO.
I believe it will probably be free for people with silver package, and up. Maybe 5$ charge for other people who don't have silver or up?

[Dr. Freeman]

This is not a full-blown expansion. This is merely a continuation of the events at the end of HL2 - nothing more, nothing less.

Your best bet is to think of this as just a short "episode" that continues the story and the first of many such episodes.

hmm...where did Valve say HL:AM will be an "episode" ??? because i missed that.


And Valve all but stated that this will be a Steam-only release. I'm sorry for those who don't have broadband but the developed world is moving in that direction and. let's face it, enough of us preloaded HL2 via Steam that it wasn't much of an issue. They'll probably do the same thing for Aftermath with the preloading.

Don't expect 1.5GB of you have much of the content already via HL2.

many people may have broadband but still, Valve will only be short-changing themselves if they decide against a retail release... and lets face it, its not just about not having broadband.. theres quite a few reasons.. a few of which are, 1-people who do not/cannot own credit cards and believe it or not 2-some people do have trust issues purchasing stuff over the internet.

i do hope Valve think hard about this decision before going ahead with anything.

[Lincoln]

Aftermath isn't a chapter or two, it's much bigger than that.

So get over it, it probably won't be free.

[UndeadScottsman]

hmm...where did Valve say HL:AM will be an "episode" ??? because i missed that.

Both in the article that first revealed Aftermath and straight from the Valve Update the week before lasts.
Source: http://steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/April8.2005/
Also next week, we'll have a small sneak peak for you of the upcoming Half-Life 2 episode "Aftermath".

[Burky]

I live in Australia where Telstra won't do anything for broadband to the point where a few uni students set up thier own wireless broadband hookup for a low price.
What did Telstra do? Smelt money and came running in.
As if I'd get broadband where i live, i don't get mobile reception.

[SFLUFAN]

Aftermath isn't a chapter or two, it's much bigger than that.

So get over it, it probably won't be free.

Then have your friend post his story about his recent trip to Valve so that I can be proved definitively wrong once and for all. :naughty:

[Megalomaniac]

i got the impression Aftermath was like a special map with advanced gfx support, that was going to be released over steam. that's all.

if i do have to pay for it to play it, i wont be paying for it to play it.

As someone said before, the map you are thinking of is Lost Coast which is free...whenever they release it.

But Aftermath is an expansion of Half Life 2, it is them escaping the city.

[Gray Fox]

The only problem we have here is the creditcard problem, not that it will be a steam only. Simply because people who have broadband can downlaod it and the people on dial up, can order a CD with the files on them from something like filefront.com, you only pay like 0,10 for the CD's and a few bucks for the shipping. Having a retail release just because a really small minority has dial-up would be more expensive.

[clairelovestlc]

persoanlly i very much doubt it will be free( although ill be very happy if it was, because more money to spend on shoes), because lets face it, steam/ valve's only goal is to make money, ok they want to make a popular game etc, but that inturn is to make money.

fair enuff they give us small little bits of free stuff like maps etc,but an "episode" or an expansion pack is going to take alot more people alot more time, so the likelyhod is there will be some fee, or whos going to pay people who worked on the games waiges? ( i know i wouldnt be happy if my boss said, ok we want you to work full time for 3 months on this game, and we want it to be great, but we also want to give it away for free, so were not paying you)

just a guess but i think it will b about £15, im not sure what that is in dollers.

even they say the games only avalable through steam, that dosent nesacarly mean ull have to download it ( this prob wont happen but who knows)

i bought a piece of software online a while ago( which just for thee record i chose to just download), you had the choice to download it, or for a small extra theyd post u a cd with it on ( nothing flash no fancy box, just a plain cheep cd/ dvd with the data on the manuel was avalable online, same as had u downloaded it)

i think this would be a good idea for steam, because then people with dialup could still uy the game through steam, and have a disk shipped out with the game on rather than waiting for days for it to downlod( you know what i mean, just a basic 15pence cdrw style disk)

, but in the same way the costs wuld be kept as low as possible making maxamum profit for the company.

just an idea, dont yell at me if you dont like it please!!

[clairelovestlc]

doh grey fox stole my idea while i was typing, never mind!

[Walter]

Why does Valve only care about those who have internet conection ?
Half-Life 2 is a singleplayer game ! .

[special-ed]

The less dial up users the better!!!! :) im sick of laggers.

[Wilsonator]

Ok, in the UK the release price for BS was 15 quid while HL's was 40, not very much at all. Of course now you can get BS, HL, OpFor and TFC for 15 quid. -_-;

[clairelovestlc]

i payed £22 for hl2 and im about to buy hl1 n all the other gamesthat come with it for £12, of corse i cant play it as i dont have a pc for atleast another week but thats besides the point.
roll on new pc, i wanna play!!!

[Edcrab]

Heh, I guess in a way I'm in a win-win situation- if Valve do decide to "rip us off" and charge a significant amount of money for this expansion, it greatly increases the chances of a retail release, solving my connection problem, and if they don't charge a lot- well, 'nuff said.

Still reckon it'll be an inexpensive, mid-length episode rather than some epic, of course. Bloody typical that I've got a credit card but I'm still stranded on dial-up. It's like the damn Dark Ages, 'cept with less horses and mud...

[Beerdude26]

^^^
You're confusing it with the "Lost Cost" advanced graphics level.

HAHAHA!!!
Nice practical joke :P

[Walter]

The less dial up users the better!!!! :) im sick of laggers.

I'm no Dial-uper ! :frown:

[oMeSSiaHo]

I'm kinda hoping it does go retail. Then I can snag me a gordon figure from work. I missed out on the HL2 Display. :flame:

[Spoonoop]

well it better damn well be sold retail, it's bad enough that you have to be online to install it anyways.

[Lemonking]

as SLUFAN said, you people are having irrealistic dreams.

Aftermath will be like 2 or less hours of gameplay with full blown FX probably and some improvements.



u sure about that? :(
that sucks

[J_Tweedy]

Both in the article that first revealed Aftermath and straight from the Valve Update the week before lasts.
Source: http://steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/April8.2005/

That quote sounds to me like someone's just saying its the next episode in the HL franchise. ie. the next stage/ step/ development. I don't think you can take too much from it and go saying it's only going to be a couple hours long. I HOPE it'll be long (it almost certainly won't be OP4 length) but the reality is nobody knows.

[Trinityxero]

it should be good because they just got done makeing hl2 they know how to use it now HAHA

[MarcoPollo]

Im thinking 35-50