I decided to look at the archives of the site from when it was stiff being developed
and I found this interview...i dont know who on the staff did it but here it is
[13 July 2003 - 00:15 PDT GMT-8]
HL Gaming: When you were making Half-Life( HL) did you think it was going
to be so successful?
Newell: No, we had no idea. By the end of this year, we'll have sold around
2.5 million copies of Half-Life. Opposing Force is the best selling add-on for a
game ever. MODs for Half-Life are so popular (e.g. Counter-Strike) that they are
being turned into retail products.We certainly hoped that by listening to gamers'
issues and ideas for what they wanted out of action games that we'd be able to build
an audience, but nothing like what has happened.
HL Gaming: How man copies were sold? and are being sold now every month?
Newell: I'm not sure on a monthly basis, but the Game of the Year edition
was back up in the top 20 recently.
HL Gaming: When you worked for Microsoft, did you ever meet old Big Bill?
If so what was he like, think he has linux on one of his home PC's?
Newell: Microsoft was a very different place when I joined. Nobody had ever
heard of the company, it was the third largest software developer in the suburbs
of Seattle, and Bill would come play poker at the apartment my brother and I shared
with another programmer.
Most people don't realize it, but Microsoft shipped Xenix (it's variant of UNIX)
before it shipped Windows. For a long time Microsoft was the #1 vendor of UNIX in
the world (at least on a unit basis). Bill probably doesn't have Linux on any machine
he uses regularly simply because he believes in a phrase that Steve Ballmer uses
a lot - "eating your own dog food."
HL Gaming: Gordon Freeman, how did you come up with this charactor? Is it
based on anyone?
Newell: Gordon is basically a tabula rosa that doesn't interfere with the
players ability to immerse themselves in the game.
HL Gaming: The G-man, where did this character come from? Any past friends
or foes modeled after this one?
Newell: Marc Laidlaw and Chuck Jones were really the people who came up with
him.
HL Gaming: Have or do you play HL in your spare time? Multiplayer?
Newell: All the time. I was in a playtest of Frontline Force on Friday.
HL Gaming: What mods do you play for HL?
Newell: I play most of them just to get a sense for what people in the community
are coming up with.
HL Gaming: Are you a fan of Carmack's work on the quake series?
Newell: Absolutely. I don't think most people realize the extent to which
John has contributed to the overall gaming technical community. John is extraordinarily
open with other developers on programming and design issues, and his contributions
are not only the games he has made, but all of the other games he has helped make
better.
HL Gaming: As Lead Director do you still have time to be a gamer?
Newell: Yep. I've been playing Alice, Giants, Sacrifice, and Diablo 2 recently.
And Heroes of Might and Magic, which I can't seem to break myself of.
HL Gaming: Are you looking forward to any upcoming releases? Tribes 2, Duke
Nukem Forever, etc..
Newell: I'm looking forward to the Diablo 2 expansion, since I'm a Diablo
addict. I can't wait for Soul Caliber 2, and am pretty curious to see how The Bouncer
and Black & White turn out.