Munro was right - unofficial screenshots

Mr. Redundant

Mr. Redundant

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a certain website known for posting questionable content before (and the first to release the now infamous "fugly" screenshots of HL2), have retracted their pics and posted this:

(babel fish translation)

Statement on Screenshots of 29.04.04, 19:47 Alex


Like it k?t the Highquality Screenshots from tonight sees disappeared. Reason daf?ist that us the Screenshots was passed on by a visitor, these it was however not yet officially approved.

Thus we have us finally in addition decided it again to down-increase, since we do not commit a copyright injury m?ten. In few days those exclusively pictures however also f?andere are approved and to it k?t expect that they are to be found then also again here.

I hope that it daf?Verst?nis have.
Click to expand...
 
didnt gamespy post better versions saying something like....

"we were waiting for the go ahead and here they are" or something like that?
 
Mr. Redundant said:
a certain website known for posting questionable content before (and the first to release the now infamous "fugly" screenshots of HL2), have retracted their pics and posted this:

(babel fish translation)
Click to expand...

That can´t be true even Gamespot has those screenies. Some one e-mail Gabe for Christsake.
 
the site in question has tons of beta info/shots... so why the hell would they out of nowhere remove the shots?.. they still have all the beta/leak stuff which is odd.. one would think that would be copyright infringement as well
 
Victor2 said:
That can´t be true even Gamespot has those screenies. Some one e-mail Gabe for Christsake.
Click to expand...


Please...end this insanity!
 
well ive emailed gabe about the screens...lets hope we get an answer back :)
 
deathryuu said:
well ive emailed gabe about the screens...lets hope we get an answer back :)
Click to expand...
everyone has, even Munro.. dont expect an answer anytime soon... or anytime :/
 
I sent a very well written e-mail to nearly everyone who would have the knowledge to answer these questions... no response. they are keeping quiet.

in other news, i went back over my PC Zone, and i saw that all the large shots, save the zombie-corpses was exclusive to PC Zone, and of a much higher quality than those released (it seemed that they featured higher quality textures, etc). it's hard to tell in a magazine, and it would still be nice to hear from valve... oh well, the game will be great.
 
Spiffae said:
I sent a very well written e-mail to nearly everyone who would have the knowledge to answer these questions... no response. they are keeping quiet.

in other news, i went back over my PC Zone, and i saw that all the large shots, save the zombie-corpses was exclusive to PC Zone, and of a much higher quality than those released (it seemed that they featured higher quality textures, etc). it's hard to tell in a magazine, and it would still be nice to hear from valve... oh well, the game will be great.
Click to expand...

Two weeks from now, we will get another message from Gab Newell with the message title "well this sucks, redux"...

This silence from Valve is deafening.
 
Dougy said:
didnt gamespy post better versions saying something like....

"we were waiting for the go ahead and here they are" or something like that?
Click to expand...

Those were for the ULTRA-hi-res versions of the screenshots which were supposedly meant for the magazines to scan into the pages than these meant for the internet news sites. I also e-mailed Gabe, nada.
 
I also e-mailed Gabe, not asking if they were legit, but if they were running at maximum details (I only assumed they were legit since bigger name sites started posting them, and I linked to one of the bigger sites)

No response here either
 
sigh...guess ill go play some CZ/CS while i wait for a response...after i eat my homemade wendy's chili(muahahaha you cant have any). :bounce:
 
Can you imagine all the e-mail Gabe gets? If I were him, I would have a spam filter up against any e-mail with the words "half life" in them.
 
Those shots were definately identical to the ones found in PCGamer. They looked pretty good shrunken down, as they were likely intended, and they look like ass when blown up big.

As I noted, however, every screenshot in PCGamer looks like ass in exactly the same way whenever it's larger than a tiny insert box. For instance, in the review of Far Cry (95% by the way!), all the screenshots of the game make it look like a pixely, texture blurred out mess. Which is nothing like how the game looks on a high end system with the details cranked up. As I speculated, gaming mags might have some policy that requires screenshots to be from a certain average system rather than super high res shots almost no one can get on their computers.
 
None of the screenshots on the web right now are official, even Gamespy's. I did get another email today confirming yet again they were indeed leaked. Shame they're on just about every bloody site now :)
 
CyberSh33p said:
isn't that an oxymoron? how can it be homemade if you got it from wendy's?
Click to expand...

maybe he mixed the chili with a frosty? ewww... (i used to eat my frosty with fries... but eh, that's not gross.)

anyways, does anyone happen to know where the leaked pics originated?
 
Well, I got a response from the editor and he gave us (hl2grounds.net) permission to do so. As for Gamespy and Gamespot, well I talk to a guy I know from Gamespot and they were givin permission on these screenshots.

For this, I emailed Gabe on how great the article was and the footage and he gave a simple reply:

Date: 4/29/2004 14:03:35 -0700
From: "Gabe Newell" <[email protected]>
To: "ecko!" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: hl2grounds.net Thx Guys

Thanks.
Click to expand...

So as for being official, well for the sites that have permission means official for them..;)
 
ecko! said:
Well, I got a response from the editor and he gave us (hl2grounds.net) permission to do so. As for Gamespy and Gamespot, well I talk to a guy I know from Gamespot and they were givin permission on these screenshots.

For this, I emailed Gabe on how great the article was and the footage and he gave a simple reply:



So as for being official, well for the sites that have permission means official for them..;)
Click to expand...
lol, hey echo =]
 
lol sup Gambone... with Gamespot and here.. you must be busy..;) sorry guys back on topic.. I apologize.
 
Munro said:
None of the screenshots on the web right now are official, even Gamespy's. I did get another email today confirming yet again they were indeed leaked. Shame they're on just about every bloody site now :)
Click to expand...

Interesting indeed.. an e-mail back from VALVe, I presume?
 
wow, maybe some of your should relise you dont...actually...know..."Gabe". He probably wont respond to ANY of you. Trust me, as someone who had to do customer service as apart of my normal job as a photo editor, I and many others just randomly went through emails and would respond to like 3 or 4 in a sitting out of 30 or 40, lmao! I dont know how many "Gabe" gets, but I would imagine its normally in the hundreds on a daily basis, then when something like this comes out, probably in the high hundreds. He MIGHT not respond to ANY of them if he gets to many, if you do get a response, its probably someone else.
 
I think that the better-looking screens are legit, and were released along with some shoddy beta screens from a crap PC by whoever leaked all these.

The helicopter, the close-up combine and the zombies all look fine, but the rest are out of place with their worse-than normal graphics.
 
The plot thickens! I highly doubt any of those are from the stolen build, though..
The prison shot made for a good wallpaper :)
 
The thing is, all of these screens, including the ones that look lousy, appeared exactly as you see them in US PCGamer. It may not have been legit to release them blown up, but they are legitimately the shots that the magazine was sent to be used.
 
I think the unofficialness of them is likely that they were given to gaming mags to use for tiny insert shots: they were never meant to be released online and publically in such a high resolution.
 
Mr-Fusion said:
That's a whacked out theory Mechagodzilla :/
Click to expand...

Yeah, I didn't know they were all in print from real magazines.
Sorry about any confusion.
This is what happens when my fact-checking staff takes the day off. :p
 
Apos said:
The thing is, all of these screens, including the ones that look lousy, appeared exactly as you see them in US PCGamer. It may not have been legit to release them blown up, but they are legitimately the shots that the magazine was sent to be used.
Click to expand...

However, it is illogical to keep hi-res shots away and give internet sites only med-res shots. It's like saying "Sure we'll give you Far Cry screenshots, but we'll make them lower resolutions for you". We now have the technology to handle high resolutions.
Knowing that the one's Gamespot and Gamespy have are official (being actual business entities, they go through the red tape), calling the exact same screenshot but with more pixels "unofficial" is...illogical.

/me seriously needs to get away from Mr. Spock. :P
 
But if you are taking shots at a certain res in the game, then blowing it up larger than it was taken at will make it look crappy.

What is clear is that halflife.de got them from somewhere they shouldn't have, at sizes that make the game look bad and so Valve would be unhappy about.

And, as I noted, gaming mags have low res, low quality shots in them all the time: even for games that can look as great as Far Cry can.
 
So... there were some high-res, high quality offical ones? And some low-res, low-quality ones intended for mag shots? Or what?

Y' can cut the confusion with a knife...
 
why does everything new that valve show.. Why does at least 1 person have to spoil it with a stupid thread. Pc zone went over to play the game and they got screenshots and they released it in their mag! so that means they are official real screenshots
 
Sure there official, but halflife2.de got those screenshot in a high resolution form, from some staff member apprently from "pc games". So these screenshots where approved to put in the magazine as smaller images but not for highresolution images to put up on websites.
 
If you ask the editor of the magazine who leaked them of course they'll let you post them ecko, although they're not really the people you should be speaking to :) Valve didn't want these out in the public yet they were meant for magazines only. They where never 'officially' released or permitted to show on sites, they were leaked. Don't expect a great deal around E3 time now although there will still be new stuff.
 
I had a feeling that there was something fishy about those screenshots.
 
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