Problems with Half-Life 2 may affect Bloodlines?

There's an interesting farewall rant by a chap called Fragmaster over on the <a href="http://www.forumplanet.com/planethalflife/">PlanetHalflife Forums</a>. Entitled "<A href="http://www.forumplanet.com/planethalflife/topic.asp?fid=6549&tid=1352802&noloop=1">My Scary Farewell Letter</a>", it's all about Valve's problems with Half-Life 2, talk on how the game has been delayed and its expected release date.
<br><blockquote>Now that I'm leaving PlanetHalfLife and resigning as Site Director, I'd like to be a drama queen, burn a bridge or two, and possibly maybe explain a few things. I apologize in advance the incoherence of this babbling, but it's not like you're being forced to read this crap.
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<br>I visited Valve in early September (2003) to conduct interviews for the Behind the Scenes book. It was quite a bit of fun, but I was a little disturbed by a few things. I won't get into the specifics, but information wasn't matching up. Things said during the E3 demo turned out to be either misleading or untrue, for example. I don't want to say exactly what kind of state the game was in when I was there, but you'll recall that when other fan sites visited Valve later that month (BEFORE the source code leak, even), they were unable to see the game. Now, if the game was in a playable state and supposedly ready to go gold within a couple of days, don't you think they would have shown it off?
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<br>Then the source code leak happened. I feel sorry for Valve that this happened because there's a possibility this could have a slightly negative on HL2 once it's finally released, but they really should have taken more precautions in the network security department. At first, Valve claimed that only 1/3rd of the source code was stolen, but once people compiled working versions of the game, well...
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<br>The Anonymous Leaker, despite being an asshole such as myself, was basically correct. HL2 wasn't nearly as far along as Valve was hinting at, and a lot of the things Valve showed in the E3 demo were misrepresented. Did he really release all the work Valve had done on HL2? To be honest, I don't know for sure. It's a possibility. Valve certainly made little effort to dispute his claims.
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<br>Where is Half-Life 2 now? Beats me. I haven't kept up with the past 5-6 months of development and E3 is coming up anyway, so you'll see for yourself. I do know that content has been cut from the game in an attempt to get it to ship sooner. Will it ship this year? I guess there's a 50/50 chance, but keep in mind that this is the same company that took <a href="http://www.planethalflife.com/features/articles/csczhandson/">three years to add bots to a mod they didn't even make and slap it in a box</a>.
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<br> Now, I could go on and on, talking about Steam, all the screw-ups with Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (I mean, JESUS, how do you declare a game GOLD, say it's FINISHED, and then not ship it until NEARLY SIX MONTHS LATER?), how Valve has messed up their relationships with Ritual, Gearbox, Vivendi (do you think Vivendi is a big fan of Steam?), and ATI... I could point out all the things Valve said they'd do but didn't, like releasing the HL2 benchmark or the SDK. I could whine on and on about how maddening it is to get flooded by mails from people complaining about how people can't play Half-Life anymore thanks to Steam or how Valve's customer support is non-existent. But the bottom line is this: <B>I am not a fan of Valve anymore. I don't believe a damn thing they say and I'm sick of their bullshit.</b></blockquote>
<br>I won't quote the rest (and there's a lot more where that came from) but two things spring to mind:
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<br>1) From what we know, Bloodlines release date hinges on the release of Half-Life 2. Apparently there's a condition that Bloodlines can only be released after HL2 (Bloodlines is using the same game engine that HL2 is). If HL2 is delayed, what affect will this have on Bloodlines? There are two possible outcomes to this and it all depends on what state Bloodlines is in.
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<br>2) Leon has been touring with Bloodlines for some time now (at least since the begining of this year) and showing off various aspects of the game (well, at least the Beach house part of it anyway). The weekly questions have been coming out and more screenshots, gameplay videos and the like are being released.
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<br>So what does this mean? Well, it's either good news or it's bad news. We'll take the bad news first. Let's say Bloodlines is ready to go and that as <a href="http://vnboards.ign.com/Bloodlines_Inn/b22439/63751224/?19">HollywoodVamp reports</a>, <i>Activision is planning to release the game this fall, 2004</i>. So, everything's going to schedule and <a href="http://www.troikagames.com">Troika</a> are ready to release one kick-ass FPS / RPG. Now, if HL2 is delayed, that means Bloodlines has to be delayed. If HL2 is delayed until 2005, what does that mean for Bloodlines? Having a game ready to ship that's in a final (hopefully bug-free) state, sitting around for a few extra months can't be good for it.
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<br>There's always the chance that another game will come out that takes gamers interest, or that by the time the game is released, it's seen as outdated. Also, by the time HL2 is finally released, Bloodlines would follow almost straight afterwards, right when everyone is busily playing HL2. Remember, HL2 was supposed to be released on September 30 last year, giving a good 1 year gap between the two games. That other big FPS monolith, Doom 3, is also expected out some-time soon... eventually. All of these basically mean less sales for Bloodlines, which is a Bad Thingâ„¢.
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<br>Now on the other hand, this could be good news. Why? Let's say Bloodlines <i>isn't</i> finished. The extra time available to Leon and his crew (and that crew is pretty much everyone at Troika now that ToEE is out) means they'll have the opportunity to fine-tune almost every aspect of the game. Bugs can be ironed out, graphics sharpened and anything else which they can do at the last minute will have time to be completed and refined. All of this giving Bloodlines the potential to be a kick-ass FPS game with some decent RPG elements (of course, if they have extra time and don't make it perfect and the game ships with bugs, the damage to Troika would be significant). The problem is that it'll still be coming out around about the same time as HL2 and Doom 3.
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<br>So, which is it? I honestly don't know. I don't think anyone actually knows at this point. Holding back a completed game would be frustrating for Troika. If HL2 is delayed until next year, one can only hope they'll be able to change the agreement and release Bloodlines before HL2, possibly touting it as a kind of teaser to Valve's coming HL2 technology. If HL2 isn't delayed and does come out some time this year (before Bloodlines expected release), we'll have to hope that Troika aren't having the same problems Valve are and that everything with Bloodlines is going to plan and is on schedule.
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<br>Of course, there's always the possibility that everything will work out fine, HL2 will come out, Bloodlines will be released soon after and everyone will be happy. Let's hope so, shall we?