Crono: Sounds too complicated to balance or implement. How would the game know if people are "rushing you" - or if you specifically try to cover someone or help them? Short of telepathy, I can't imagine a definitive solution.
Posted by Campaignjunkie on Mon Sep 26th at 5:04am 2005
Crono: Sounds too complicated to balance or implement. How would the game know if people are "rushing you" - or if you specifically try to cover someone or help them? Short of telepathy, I can't imagine a definitive solution.
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Posted by Nickelplate on Mon Sep 26th at 5:08am 2005
I agree. Half-life and HL2 are great games. but the way they've conducted some of thier business seems no up to par on certain things. And, as always, I don't like steam because for some reason on my sustem, it takes up like 128MB of my resources... I also have some problems with the mapping setup, because the props and textures are really proprietary.
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Posted by Crono on Mon Sep 26th at 5:16am 2005
You can't control your employees completely. I just picked up an issue of the July/August IEEE journal. It had a nice article about "the threat from within" about people who while they're developing for a company will purposefully make code poorer then they're capable of. They'll make back doors ... files will suddenly "disappear" so on and so fourth. It's usually caused by anger, which is for all intensive purposes impossible to determine and look out for. Most of the major huge problems in most software is because of people who don't listen or people who're all to self important, however the current trend of "letting people go" and not fulfilling promises on the companies end has done nothing good.
It's fairly obvious that most everyone is in the mindset of personal gain now compared to 40 years ago, or so.
Anyway, with the whole valve thing: I respect them as developers. They make good games. They're fun. They'll be fun for a very long time. They made a revolutionary distribution system that cut ties with corporate thumb on their profits. But, like many companies they made mistakes. They got greedier, that's for sure. However, even with all of this, they're still developing things for free (HDR, lost coast) where as other companies would charge more on top of what you already paid for the little add ons.
I'm not saying they're perfect, I mean I listed my gripes, but, saying they're awful developers or something like that is pretty unfounded, because what they've developed is good. And before you flip off and rant about how HL2 has ridiculous standards, or even steam for that matter, look at other games that came out before it or right after it. Think of MoHPA for example, you pretty much can't play that on lower end hardware ... period. With HL2, it can be played on hardware all the way back to GF2 and 800Mhz processors. The only thing that really stays high is the ram requirement. (Changing it to dxlevel 7 will make everything run very smoothly) It's, quite honestly, one of the most scalable games I've seen. HL1 had more restrictions in some aspects. HL2 can be played low to run well or high to look fantastic.
On top of all this, they're strong believers in the mod community. However, then we come back to ... DoD was free and DoD:S isn't. (And I'm sure if DoD and CS was never free when valve picked them up they would have probably charged money). But, who knows?
CJ, it could work by checking the axis to allied ratio in an area and the percentage of people moving in what direction. Pretty simple actually. It would all just have to be coded very slick like so it could calculate all of this smoothly (I'm thinking just up the server spec requirements!) It all depends on the implementation, really. It could use the same style behind capturing a flag. Hell all of this could be used to build a stats system. Tell you how many chances you really have that you waste. It could also take HDR into account and tell whether or not you're "blinded" or whatever at the time. As long as any of this data is managed, which most of it is, you can use it in calculations. All of this is pretty simple calculations too, I think, division would be the most complex one. So, nothing too bad. It'd just require some more resources. Which would be easier to come by in the coming year.
Posted by Nickelplate on Mon Sep 26th at 5:25am 2005
I agree with you, except on one point. When you pointed out that the other games don't run on lower-end systems. Just like Valve couldn't be held accountable for the fact that thier product doesnt work on some configurations: other companies cannot be held accountable for thier product not working on low-end machines.
As games get better and more reaslistic, the engines have to keep track of more stuff, and more processing power is needed. You know that, i'm sure. So when a new game comes out like DOOM 3, how can they make it work on low-end machines?
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Posted by Crono on Mon Sep 26th at 5:37am 2005
They also developed the game with low-end in mind. D3 is sort of scalable. Honestly ... all valve really did was make it so you can turn off all the shader information, compressed textures, etc.
As for D3, it can run on lower end machines ... kind of. HL2 is actually only slightly more scalable.
BUT, something we're not considering is the operating system requirements. You can't put XP on a machine if it's below 1Ghz (or something like that). So, that plays a role too.
What I was talking about MOH though ... my computer can barely run it and my stuff isn't even two years old. That's the kind of crap I'm talking about. Stuff that's made to run on the newest hardware only. FEAR is another game that's suppose to be scalable.
So, to answer your question, you don't make something work on lower machines ... you design it that way from the beginning.
Posted by Nickelplate on Mon Sep 26th at 6:11am 2005
You can run XP on machines as low as 333Mhz, (and maybe even lower, IDK) just FYI. coz we've had it done at work. But that's beside the point...
I don't know anything about the MOH game you're talking about.
As for OS requirements, it's so much cheaper for game companies to make it work for the most popular hardware and OS's than to make it work for EVERYTHING... which boils down to thier profit-dominated thinking again.
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Posted by Crono on Mon Sep 26th at 6:18am 2005
I'm talking about Pacific Assault ... Battlefield 2 has some pretty high requirements too. Come to think of it, the second two Splinter Cell games were about the same. If they allowed the shader effects to be turned off Pandora tomorrow would run on MX cards, for example.
Obviously, develop for the most used product that you'd get the most profit off of, however, the other OS' are supposedly compatible. Well ... I wouldn't look at it like this, but I know it's the common ideology.
Posted by Gaara on Mon Sep 26th at 8:55am 2005
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Posted by fishy on Mon Sep 26th at 3:51pm 2005
It was made clear before the game came out what was included in each package and the bronze/retail packages contained only HL2 and CS:S.
no it wasn't. i'd have done without the game alltogether if it had been made clear that the retail version was the same as the bronze pack.
even better though, if i did want to upgrade to silver/gold/whatever, i can't. according to steam, my 'bronze' package was purchased online, and only one online transaction (of hl2) per customer is allowed.
tbh, i'm coming round to myrk's way of thinking towards valve.
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Mon Sep 26th at 4:34pm 2005
I mean, I bought the Silver package because I wanted DoD:S and I don't feel any enmity for Valve.
Posted by Nickelplate on Mon Sep 26th at 5:01pm 2005
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Posted by Crono on Mon Sep 26th at 5:18pm 2005
You have to pay $20.
Fishy, it does that for the retail packs too. If you own hl2 you can't buy the game again. However, it is ridiculous that if you didn't get anything over $55 you don't get HL1:S ... period. They don't have a purchase option for it.
Likewise, DoD:S should only cost $20 if you don't own hl2. (It's a mod, for Christ sake.) Besides the fact that the game simply costs more then any other game. $55 starting price. But ... they're not charging $20 if you want DOD:S .. they're charging $50 (You can buy a MP pack, which gives you access to everything that isn't the single player hl2 or hl1)
I don't understand how Valve made so much money with HL1 if they're doing this kind of stuff now. Because you also have to remember, when people buy it over steam 100% goes to valve. So ... you'd think those packages would be cheaper, right? (A good example is the Bronze/Base Retail package, they're $5 difference. Which is another thing that makes you wonder "wtf" about the CE edition compared to the Silver.)
I think the only thing they're really pricing fairly is Aftermath, if it is a full expansion, like they're saying, $20 isn't that bad of a price. (Taking that most expansions start out $10 under full game price).
Posted by Nickelplate on Mon Sep 26th at 5:34pm 2005
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Posted by fishy on Mon Sep 26th at 5:45pm 2005
that's what i'm saying. the retail version is all i had access to at the time, so i got screwed over. it'll be a cold day in hell before they get another penny from me.
Posted by Andrei on Mon Sep 26th at 6:03pm 2005
Posted by rival on Mon Sep 26th at 6:12pm 2005
personally i see nothing wrong with valve.
sure they charge more for games and such, but that is how business is conducted. more money for valve = an even better HL3.
even steam: when it f**ks up during an upgrade i still dont take my anger out on steam because i know it was probably something wrong with my comp. anyway ill stop now - i love valve because they make great games. (by the way what was wrong with HL2???)
Aftermath? it is a full expansion? it was supposed to be out this summer but does any one know anything about it? if you do please tell!
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Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Mon Sep 26th at 6:19pm 2005
rival, just search any gaming site like IGN.com for information on Aftermath. There are videos and screenshots and interviews and articles galore.
Posted by rival on Mon Sep 26th at 6:25pm 2005
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Posted by Andrei on Mon Sep 26th at 7:02pm 2005
Well I was kinda thinking of using it with my steam account, as the steam login seems to be the only barrier, but somehow I don't feel like gambling my account.
Posted by Nickelplate on Mon Sep 26th at 7:16pm 2005
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