After the past few days of furious debate over the OEM and whether or not to warez it, I finally decided that what I did was wrong. If you want the full story from beginning to end, you can read my editorial on the subject. Here's the full text of an email dialogue between myself and Gabe Newell.
Bold text is what Gabe said, regular text is what I said.
>I updated my editorial again. It's now an apology. I still don't see why you can't release the OEM for $10 on a CD in stores but that's not the point of this email.
Well, believe it or not, we didn't want people to think we were chargingthem for a demo. LOL. The OEM release is the OEM release, and the only reasonwe had to release it are the lead times. PC manufacturers like Compaq,Gateway, etc... finalize their bundles months in advance. Ordinarily you don't tell peopleabout these, but people really seemed to want to know what was up with Half-Lifegiven all of the times we have slipped.
I'd just like to make a few comments. The OEM is great other than a few bugs. One thing I REALLY am missing is the console of Quake/Quake II. I'm not sure if you have permanently removed it, or if you simply didn't include a binding for it in the OEM. Also, I couldn't get any configs to work. I hope the config/binding system will be similar to Quake II (especially with regard to aliases).
Yes. We disabled the console for the OEM release, but it is one of the things that is in the retail release and differentiates the two products.
The AI was stupendous, but in a few instances, the grunts did dumb things (i may be splitting hairs here). For instance, a grunt and I had just finished a firefight and i backed around a corner to reload. Instead of tossing a grenade around the corner, the grunt came around the corner, crouching and firing (and getting killed). Oh yeah, none of the monsters seemed to respond to sound (including the human grunts)
This stuff was fixed after the warez'd version.
Also, it appears that the grunts are incapable of jumping. Oh well.
The DSP sounds are a leap forward. I never want to play another FPS unless I can hear my footsteps echoing in large rooms. It adds dramatic tension. Congratulations on a great job.
Weapons: In general, the models and animation are superb. However, I noticed a few possible inaccuracies. The secondary fire of the Spas 12 shotgun appears to fire two shells at once. To the best of my knowledge, this is not authentic. Also, the MP5 and Glock pistol make no sound when reloading. I would like to see Gordon's hand cocking the MP5 after a reload. Also, for the sake of realism, it would be nice if reloading was more realistic. For example, if I unload most of a clip (on either the Glock or the MP5) then reload, instead of losing the remaining bullets in the clip, it acts as though i removed the half-empty clip, loaded cartridges in by hand, and replaced the clip. I would like to see a little more focus on realism here. Also, it appears that the clips for the MP5 and the Glock are interchangeable (instead of having a certain number of MP5 magazines and Glock magazines, you have a certain number of bullets). In real life, the magazines would not be interchangeable. I like the ystem Action Quake 2 adopted (http://action.telefragged.com if you're not familiar with it). Also, the weapons were invariably too accurate, except for the shotgun. Finally, the real shortcoming (i felt) was the damage system. I have been growing more and more disgusted with the superhero player characters common to FPS. I was hoping that Half-Life was going to break away from this trend by having realistic damage (in real life, a person would probably not be able to take more than two or three 9 mm bullets without dying or being completely disabled. Not only is Gordon practically untouchable by damage, the enemies can take far too much punishment as well. I believe something as small as a headcrab would be completely disabled by the tissue damage caused by a 9mm round. And the zombies take something like 5-10 bullets. Human grunts can take 25 rounds (possibly some miss the target) or 3-4 shotgun shells. This is simply ludicrous, especially the amount of work you have put into making every other part of the game so excellent. I think it would do wonders for the game to include an "Extreme" or "Realistic" play mode. Imagine how much more involved you'd be if didn't have the constitution of Heracles. Lastly, I didn't notice any evidence of area specific damage. Head shots seemed to do no more damage than shots to the arm.
Actually, you can set this however you want by changing the skills.cfg file.
In summary, this is going to be a great game. I look forward to purchasing the full version. However it is far too easy, and a few glitches remain. It will be miles ahead of the competition though (sin is going nowhere against competition like this). I would REALLY appreciate some kind of response, anything would be good just to acknowledge that you received this (although an in depth response would be nicer). Once again, I apologize for whatever damages I may have caused you or Sierra. Keep up the fine work.
Dan
Thanks a million to Gabe for responding. His answers have basically alleviated most of my worries about the full version. Also, thanks again to Valve for coming up with a product of this quality. My HDD (an my conscience) are cleansed of any guilt at last. NO WAREZ.
Bye
Durandal[UC]
