In einem neuen Interview gibt erzählt "Valves" Erik Johnson neue Infos zum kommenden "Counter-Strike: Condition Zero" zum besten und verrät auch gleich, wann denn "Counter-Strike 1.6".

Obwohl in dem Interview mit "HomeLAN" direkt nach Gründen für den Entwicklerwechsel gebohrt wird, will Erik da nicht so richtig Tacheles reden.
Um "CS" auf sehr gutes Singleplayer-Niveau zu heben bedarf es halt extra viel Zeit und die wird gerade von "Ritual" gebraucht - der erste Entwickler war ja bekanntlich "Gearbox".
Ob und wenn ja welche Elemente die das erst Team entworfen hat übernommen wurden bleibt leider auch unbeantwortet.
Dafür klärt uns Erik über die genau Levelanzahl auf: 20 Missionen mit jeweils 3-4 Unterlevels werden es werden.
Am Schluss gibt's aber die eigentlich wichtige Enthüllung: Am 7. Januar wird die Betaversion von CS 1.6 über Steam an die Fans ausgeliefert.
Interessant ist auch die Nachricht, dass "Valve" nun auch das "Day of Defeat"-Team aufgekauft hat. Neuigkeiten zu diesem Thema gibt's schon im Januar.



HomeLAN - CS: Condition Zero seems to have had a checkered past in terms of its development. Do you feel that the various switches in developers will hurt the game overall?



Erik Johnson - Building the best single player experience within the Counter-Strike universe has proven to take longer than we originally hoped, and we've made a variety of changes along the way. But we still believe in the viability of single player CS game, and we're very excited about the direction it's taken since we've partnered with Ritual.



HomeLAN - Is Ritual starting from strach on their work for Condition Zero or will there be anything transferred from Gearbox's work on the title?



Erik Johnson - Ritual is making CZ their own project. That said, Gearbox created a lot of cool stuff for them to work with. We're still working out the plan for which pieces from the Gearbox development cycle will be showing up in the final CZ product.



HomeLAN - What can you tell us now in terms of the actual content for Condition Zero, in terms of number of levels, weapons and other gameplay features planned?



Erik Johnson - There will be 20 single player missions, which are made of 3 to 4 actual levels each. There will be 10 new items that will be new to Counter-Strike. Some of these are items that you use at a specific point in the single player game, and some are weapons that will be in both the single and multiplayer games. Condition Zero will have a new user interface, which we'll be releasing first as part of Counter-Strike 1.6. Finally, the AI system is being extended from the original Half-Life system to account for CZ's play style.



HomeLAN - Will Ritual work as Gearbox did with members of the Counter-Strike mod community with content for the game?



Erik Johnson - Yes. Most of the community work will manifest itself as new multiplayer content that will ship in the Condition Zero box.



HomeLAN - Are there still plans to sell Condition Zero via the Steam broadband service as well as in normal retail stores?



Erik Johnson - Absolutely.



HomeLAN - At the moment, what is the current status of the game's progress and what is the new release date of the game?



Erik Johnson - We're in alpha of the game right now, which means that most of the missions have been roughed out and need a number of passes on them to get gameplay perfect. The target gold date is in May.



HomeLAN - Let's talk about Counter-Strike in general. The Half-Life mod and the full retail version are still extremely popular online games. Did Valve and Minh "Gooseman" Le ever anticipate this kind of popularity would stay behind the title for this long?



Erik Johnson - I don't think anyone could anticipate that Counter-Strike would still be this popular at this point, but it's pretty clear that people are still having a lot of fun playing it.



HomeLAN - What can you tell us at this point about the planned release of Counter-Strike 1.6 and Steam 2.0?



Erik Johnson - We're planning on releasing the beta of Counter-Strike 1.6 via Steam on January 7th.



HomeLAN - What can you tell us about future plans for Steam in terms of Valve's and other third parties future uses for the service?





Erik Johnson - So far, Steam has gone through an extended beta on multiple continents with over 100,000 gamers. In January, we will be rolling out Steam Beta 2.0. Then, when CZ is finished, we will make it available via Steam as well as through traditional retail outlets. For now, that's all we can discuss. Obviously, there will be further announcements in the New Year about more products being made available via Steam, both from Valve as well as other developers and publishers.



HomeLAN - A few months ago, the Day of Defeat mod team was acquired by Valve. What can you tell us at this time about Valve's future plans for Day of Defeat?



Erik Johnson - We'll have some news on Day of Defeat coming in January.



HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the progress of the Counter-Strike Xbox port at this point?



Erik Johnson - No news on the Xbox version of CS right now, but we'll be talking about this very soon.