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Now the game will feature a FAMAS, a single player campaign with many scripted sequences, and upgraded visuals. But will the game be good or bad, and will its quality have anything to do its shaky and diverse history?
The sly duo of asspennies and rizzuh is back to answer that very question.
From: asspennies [mailto:asspennies@counter-strike.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 8:00 AM
To: rizzuh [mailto:rze@counter-strike.net]
Subject: Delay of GameWe've seen some big news recently, what with the recent (expected) announcement of Half-Life 2's imminent arrival. It's certainly been quite a wait for this one—a good 5 years, if it takes as long as November.
One thing that hasn't taken quite that long, it only seems like it, is Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. We've seen it go through three developers and as many complete redesigns. With all this delay, and with all these changes, one has to wonder. Will it be any good?
There are a lot of people who rue publishing delays as if they were the most objectionable thing on Earth. I'm not one of them. Publishing delays are a fact of life in the game design business. We've seen them have a wonderful effect on the final outcome (see Half-Life) and we've seen them destroy a game (see Daikatana, although it's questionable whether there was any game in there to start with.)
As it is, I have a very simple rule I apply to games that are delayed: They had better be good.
It's my belief that, since delays are in some cases inevitable, you better use them to make your game better and only release it when it's ready. In fact, if the delays are extensive and the product keeps getting moved back, your game better keep getting better and better. With all that time to work on it, it better not be crap. In a sense, I expect the quality of the game to be proportional to the delay since the announcement of its development. (Half-Life 2 is a special case—it still hasn't been officially announced, but it's likely been in development for quite a while, and based on its predecessor, it will be a huge disappointment if it is anything less than groundbreaking.)
If Condition Zero comes out and isn't exceptional, I'll be sorely disappointed. They can keep delaying it till the sun comes home as long as we ultimately get a fantastic game out of it. If it's merely good and nothing special, Valve and their rotating development contractors deserve all the criticism they get.
Hell, if Duke Nukem Forever ever comes out, it had better be the best game ever, because it's going to get no mercy otherwise. What do you think? Are game delays justified if the game that comes out is that much better for it? Will Condition Zero benefit or be harmed by the constant delays?
From: rizzuh [mailto:rze@counter-strike.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 3:22 PM
To: asspennies [mailto:asspennies@counter-strike.net]
Subject: Rain delaysGames don't just magically become bad because of time. Condition Zero and TeamFortress 2 won't just lose all of their gameplay because of delays. What gamers forget often, something that shocks me, is that the Daikatana effect was in full swing long before that crappy game was released. There was a lot of hype and then there were a lot of delays. The delays made gamers mock the game before it was released, but all of that would have been silenced if Daikatana was good. Well, lo and behold, it sucked more ass than a pedophile's vacuum. Delays didn't make the gameplay magically suck. It made the graphics out-dated, perhaps, but that is not what gamers really care about.
However, making games is a business. You do not run a business on a creative license of "do whatever the hell you want." The extreme delays in games like TeamFortress 2 and Condition Zero won't make the games worse, and will most likely make them better, but the end result is a collection of games that take 3 years to make, barely make profit, and severely test the gamer's patience.
No one in the damn world thinks to themselves, "Hey, this game is fun but it was delayed too often therefore it sucks." The game quality and release date have almost no correlation. Example: Counter-Strike's single-player spin-off Condition Zero has switched developers three times and has, of course, had three different design directions. What if Ritual Entertainment was the first developer? Them game that we're looking forward to now would have been released already, in the best condition that it could possibly be in.
Instead VALVe went through Rogue, who had an absolutely crappy comic book design, and Gearbox Software, who was turning the game into an arcade shooter. In the end, the "right" design was found and Ritual is making what is hopefully the best product. If the industry had any sense to it, Ritual would have won out in the first place and no money would have been wasted.
TeamFortress 2 has had multiple designs and multiple engines. If the design was right the first time, the engines would have never changed and, who knows, Counter-Strike might have been a TF2 modification.
Do I fault the industry for being perfectionist and switching things on the fly? Not really, but this kind of nonsense can't fly for long. When publishers realize that it could have been done right on the first try rather than the third then heads will roll and blank checks will no longer exist.
However, while we live in the age of irresponsibility within the industry, there's no reason to demand that games should automatically be better because of delays. Gamers should demand that every game they play be great, regardless of the time it took to make the game. The problem for the industry is making a great game without the delays. And, you know, no one is anxious to call delays mistakes when plenty of games like Half-Life and Max Payne are the direct result of a complete re-design.
Condition Zero likely won't suck, but if it does then why should it matter that they took longer to make the game? It'll be bad, or good, either way; now or then.
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