HL2DM Update today?

I heard about it from Steam. Can anyone confirm the rumor?

http://www.hlccl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47536

today is wednesday.....

Not for all places in the world. For Australia, it's already Thursday.

hahah, time zones.

From what I read, soon there will be 3 new wepons in hl2:dm, new maps
(contest winners+valve made, a new SP map, and a new lighting engin
thing.

What? I thoug this wasn't meant to be out for another week and a bit...

From what I read, soon there will be 3 new wepons in hl2:dm, new maps
(contest winners+valve made, a new SP map, and a new lighting engin
thing.

Then you have read wrong, the contest winners are to be released
(posted at steampowered) on the 28th. The "datacore" map and the 3 new
weapons are to be released tomarrow. The HDR "lost coast" is later on I
believe (I mean valve needs to post the min. requirements for the HDR,
and have you DL the map). And I have yet to hear of the single player
map/or even the "expansion" pack that everyone seems to be raving about
(I still have yet to believe them because no one has given me a link to
where valve actually said they are making an expansion).

edit: read about it here: http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/Feb4.2005/?l=

This says "in the comming months" for the HDR.

Time zones: If anything valve releases it in their standard time, which happens to
be Pacific standard time (where I am :biggrin: ) the rest of the world has to
wait. Thats how the release of HL2 was, 12:00 midnight here was when
everyone started playing :biggrin: .

There will be a lot of maps out soon because they are all waiting for the new weapons to place in their maps!

Lucky guy to who ever wins the compo :smile:

I heard it was coming out tommorow as well and something else on 28th....

If you read the contest rules, then you would know that the contest winners have been notified by now, their maps will be released/posted on the 28th at steampowered and they cannot tell anyone about it, so if the winner was here, then we wouldnt know about it, its all about that contract junk.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting omegaslayer</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>If you read the contest rules, then you would know that the contest winners have been notified by now, their maps will be released/posted on the 28th at steampowered and they cannot tell anyone about it, so if the winner was here, then we wouldnt know about it, its all about that contract junk. </DIV></DIV>
too bad the snarkpit avatars aren't webcams. we would be looking out for members with a non-stop smile on their face :biggrin:

Update is happening in around two hours, according to Steam.

members with a non-stop smile on their face

More like a silly grin with drool dribbing down the corner of the mouth. Oh boy, the anticipation is unbearable.

Me anticipates that the steam download servers will be more full than
ever before. Arm yourselves with patience and a few days off.

Me anticipates that the steam download servers will be more full than
ever before. Arm yourselves with patience and a few days off.

This is where ill say steam sucks, because everyone will be updating at the same time, sucking up the bandwith.

I could almost hear the echos in the forum right now. It's so empty because everyone is playing the HL2DM with the new weapons (or waiting for their computer to finish updating Steam). I am stuck at work, after working for twelve hours straight already. I am about to shutdown myself.

New map is pretty cool, a very nice reimagining of datacore. I couldn't
figure out what the wheel in the RPG room did though, anybody enlighten
me as to its purpose? I'm loving the SLAM (even though I haven't been
able to use it yet) and I also like that the stunstick and crowbar are
team exclusive - kinda encourages a bit of thought into what player
model you choose (stunstick all the time IMO :wink: ).

The combination of slam and physics should prove interesting. I can imagine some nice little traps, using the slam and concealing it with props. With all the little dark corners in hl2dm maps, the camping should be quite good.

I enjoy the SLAM, it was that aspect that was missing in HL2. When I
first loaded the new map, I ended up in a familiar part of the map, I
thought to my self, now this looks familiar, this is the imfamous dead
end. :biggrin:

I also like that frag grenades have a secondary fire now to throw them short distances :smile:

They always had that...

Anyways, the crowbar is awesome, as is datacore revisited. I don't know if I like the stunstick as it seems to be slower, but that's probably just because I'm not used to it. Now I just need to find a server where the opposition doesn't completely suck, seeing as I just dominated three different steamlab servers while going crowbar-only :/

ReNo, the wheel in the RPG room does the same as the wheel in the old Gauss pipe room, it causes a delayed explosion that kills anybody trying to get those weapons.

I just dominated three different steamlab servers while going crowbar-only

Man, you're that good huh? I wouldn't want to be your
opponent. I am probably one of those sucky opposition you
referred to.

It may just be the crowbar is overpowered. It's impossible to defend against with the grav gun and unless you have good aim the SMG won't stop a determined crowbar user who has full health. Plus if the guy with the crowbar has more running energy than you you're toast.

What makes it even worse (or better :biggrin: ) is that when used in conjunction with a grav gun you are literally unstoppable. If you miss with your throw at medium-to-close range just whip out the crowbar and go to town. Throw in some grenade cooking and some fancy new tripmines and I don't see how anybody could lose.

PS I'm really not that good at anything else besides HL2DM. It just seems made for my skills since they took out all the things I was terrible at in HLDM (long jump, gauss, shotgun double-barreled blasts that killed in one hit). I was good with the crowbar and I was really good with the demoman grenade launcher in TFC, and well the grav gun is 10x more effective than the gl ever was. :cool:

I don't usually play HL2DM. But I still have to have a play with the new weapons.

Darn, that means there's a SDK update aswell.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Edge3000</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I also like that frag grenades have a secondary fire now to throw them short distances :smile:
</DIV></DIV>
that's not new, it's been there since the start. :razz:

Most of the template respawns have broken on my map. However,
breakable props are now respawning on lockdown, I would guess that
they're related. Maybe I'll just make a test map and see how that
goes...

Anyone else having problens accessing the sourceSDK after this update? It says copying files and crashes when it's about half-done.

[5 minutes later]

Oh, great: it screwed-up the game configs; again! Thank you, steam, you fat useless torture instrument!

I read others were having same problems but mine updated fine!

Perhaps it does it to those who copied the gameinfo.txt and accidently used the HL2 SP one instead :/

You have to update the game config files after the update is
complete. I did just that and everything works fine after the
update.

However, I did find annoying little things in dm_steamlab. Valve
mappers aren't too careful about adjusting the exact placement of
models. Consequently, some textures from the models overlap with
that of the adjacent brushes, causing the nasty-looking texture overlap
effect that we all try to avoid.

An example of this is in the room with an upper deck that has a red
valve. Look closely at the bottom of the white metal railing in
the upper deck. The base of the railing overlaps with the ground
brush, causing it to flicker when each player movement.

This also happened frequently in Ravenholm in the single player
game. I figure if they had six years to build this game, they
should be better about taking care of these details.

If you took the time looking for little errors such as that or misaligned textures you'd find so many your head would spin. Does that make the game any less fun? No way. You hardly even notice them unless you are specifically looking for them. This was no different in HL1 either, as there are tons of misaligned textures and oddities if you look closely. Since the general player won't notice them or will be too busy actually playing the game there's little benefit to devoting time and energy on things that will not improve the levels beyond making it so amateur mappers such as yourself and I can't complain. That time would be better spent making additional levels or working on enemy placement or pacing or whatever.

The only mapping complaint I have with dm_steamlab is that they failed to clip off many of the little details which could easily catch players in the middle of a firefight. However, since speed is not the focus of HL2DM it probably doesn't matter much.

The lab rooms seem like a bit of a damp squib - and it has lost a great deal with vertical connection between the top .357 room (as in datacore) being removed. Also the RPG room is too easy to lock down when you take into account you can get combine energy balls on tap.

SLAM's are a bit naff IMO, but the stun stick is great fun for catching the less able players unaware. Also Yak, I agree wholly with your analogy of better play since they got rid of long jump, and especially the gauss. Eeevil things that they were.

For all the moaning that has gone about HL2DM I agree with pretty much none of it, the whole thing is great fun provided you have a half decent connection.

I enjoy HL2DM, but I don't think you could call the LJ or gauss evil
things that were good to have removed. Each to their own and all, but I
felt they added such a cool dynamic to the movement around levels, so
much so that you could enjoy yourself even when you weren't in a fight.
The gauss is the main reason why I'm mapping for AG2 as opposed to
standard HL2DM.

I think the stun stick is unfair. Especiallly for those (me) who have a crappy slow graphics card and get beaten every time the spawn.

And that update that messed up my gameinfo.txt made me so angry. I wanted to map for HL2 but they had me searching for a solution on how to fix the problem.

I notice that valve seems to be very half ass with small details.
Its strange for me becuase I nit pick my map to death. I will
align textures that the player will almost never see. Then I play
hl2 and start to see crazy texture problems.

But you never really see those problems untill you look for them.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I enjoy HL2DM, but I don't think you could call the LJ or gauss evil things that were good to have removed. Each to their own and all, but I felt they added such a cool dynamic to the movement around levels, so much so that you could enjoy yourself even when you weren't in a fight. The gauss is the main reason why I'm mapping for AG2 as opposed to standard HL2DM.
</DIV></DIV>

I'm not saying they were evil and deserved to be removed, I was just saying that I was personally terrible at using both of them, especially in tandem the way the 'pros' do it, and their removal eliminates a huge weakness I had in my game. I miss the gauss rifle as I always felt that was a cool gun, but it's not a gamebreaker in my opinion when a weapon that was used for fast movement and skyhigh jumps was removed from a game that is obviously focused on some realism and slower more tactical movement.
The LJ, however, is a different story. I will go to the grave contending that it was distinctly biased towards low pingers and put high pingers at a decided disadvantage. Not only was it difficult to use it when your ping is causing you to jump into things and targets to skit about on the screen, but when someone else was using it they would be almost impossible to kill as the prediction wasn't good enough and they would basically vanish and reappear in different places, covering huge distances without actually showing the player's path between start and end points. You'd be lucky to see them mid-longjump. Once a low pinger gets the LJ they are basically unhittable by high pingers. Course this is all moot now that most people have miniscule pings, but it doesn't change the fact that it was unfair at the time.

Put them together and you get complete bulls**t. I personally would rather face off against a guy with the Egon and full ammo than some guy jumping ridiculous distances and killing everything in his path with the gauss using the aid of some macros.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Yak_Fighter</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext> I personally would rather face off against a guy with the Egon and full ammo than some guy jumping ridiculous distances and killing everything in his path with the gauss using the aid of some macros. </DIV></DIV>
You just stated earlier how it was a pure ping balance issue. Where do macros come into this? You have a solid argument in your case already, let's not resort to name-calling.

the crowbar is clearly the best weapon in hl2dm now, its so easy to dominate a large team, from behind :razz:

I loved the hoover type gun in HL1 (forgot the name :S)

The Slammer's have pissed me off because people put them in places where we spawn and we blow up everytime!