Valve bans 20,000 users from Steam
- Thread starter DuDe
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blizz
New member
If you want to have any market penetration you need to develop for the average install base not for the high end geeks. It's simple economics that if valve want to make money they have to make sure that Joe Blogs who bought his Dell a few years ago can play it. It won't look fantastic but it'll run.
Yes this bug is bad. A few people I know who make games for a living/fun have started throwing around the phrase "Game-breaker" in reference to this and the Halo 2 flying bug.
This is why I don't buy PC games, normally you need to patch them to actually run, and then the graphics aren't as advertised because your PC is a year old....
Yes this bug is bad. A few people I know who make games for a living/fun have started throwing around the phrase "Game-breaker" in reference to this and the Halo 2 flying bug.
This is why I don't buy PC games, normally you need to patch them to actually run, and then the graphics aren't as advertised because your PC is a year old....
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AlphaWolf
I prey, not pray.
You know, I am a bit dissappointed with the contents of the HL2 box. All it has is 5 CDs (sheesh, wasn't there this revolutionary technology invented seven years ago called a DVD?) and a little advertisement telling you to buy an ATI radeon x800. No manual or anything. Whats the point in giving you the CDs anyways? They may as well just leave a cdkey in the box and be done with it.
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Stalkid64
Citizen(sixty)four
We got the DVD over here in the good ol' UK. As for bitterness, not too sure where you're getting that. Mocking a test department that has obviously been fairly terrible? Well I can say for fact that whoever signed that game through QA wouldn't even be employed to make tea in the QA department I work in.
If they didn't test it enough that it slipped through completely, they're bad testers simple as that. If they did and knowingly signed off on it at gold, well... they have no pride at all in their work. I know testers who would rather shoot themselves than sign off on something of that `quality`.
The industry and progress within it depends on your reputation after a point. You have to be professional, not lazy. What do you think the reputation of those who let this through has become now, hmm..? Let's just say none too good.
(And FYI the problem is known - yet again I say it - to be completely 100% NOT dependant on spec, so that point is kind of redundant unless you just enjoy being a spec-whore.)
EDIT: You want bitterness? THIS is bitterness. Or possibly why American's are scary...
http://www.audr77.dsl.pipex.com/brillsite/hl2opinion.wmv
If they didn't test it enough that it slipped through completely, they're bad testers simple as that. If they did and knowingly signed off on it at gold, well... they have no pride at all in their work. I know testers who would rather shoot themselves than sign off on something of that `quality`.
The industry and progress within it depends on your reputation after a point. You have to be professional, not lazy. What do you think the reputation of those who let this through has become now, hmm..? Let's just say none too good.
(And FYI the problem is known - yet again I say it - to be completely 100% NOT dependant on spec, so that point is kind of redundant unless you just enjoy being a spec-whore.)
EDIT: You want bitterness? THIS is bitterness. Or possibly why American's are scary...
http://www.audr77.dsl.pipex.com/brillsite/hl2opinion.wmv
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Trotterwatch
New member
The problem is Stalkid, this is a major release for the Xmas period that had already missed it's intended release date (due to 'the hack'). I am almost positive that the Q&A department would have noted these bugs; that may or may not have crept into the product at the last minute. The problem is, Vivendi and Valve are not going to hold the game back anymore, lest they miss the lucrative Xmas period yet again.
Games get released with major bugs all of the time nowadays - it's hard to believe that Q&A is responsible for all of them.
Games get released with major bugs all of the time nowadays - it's hard to believe that Q&A is responsible for all of them.
Modem
ph33r teh hammy!
Stalkid64 said:
To defend 'em a little, Vivendi was under MAJOR pressure by HL2 supporters ect. ect. to get the game out the door. The likely did notice this bug, yes, but a simple reload of the save fixes it, and it only seems to happen a part of the way through the game. When you're under pressure by millions of people to release the game, and with all of the "Vivendi will hold HL2 back more because Valve is suing them and they are suing Valve" issue. If they heald it back, you know Valve and Vivendi would lose MAJOR business by delaying the game even just once more.
Modem said:
No, no, no...that is only your experience of the problem. There are countless others as it varies from PC to PC. Some dont experience it at all. On my computer however, it makes the game more or less unplayable. It is playable, and runs at a smooth 50-70FPS when not stuttering, but occasionally it stops for 4-5 secs every 5-6 secs. It can be VERY annoying. I don't have time to play it though nowadays so it's no issue yet, but it will be. Keep in mind that there are people with 2GB Ram and 6800 cards who also experience this, but perhaps to a lesser degree than I do, as I got it very bad.
My problem with Valve is that they don't answer people and don't give people information on it. You get more info on what's going on to fix it on other sites than Steam's own, as the Valve employees rather goes there instead. What's up with that?
Modem
ph33r teh hammy!
Well, since they finally admited that they have "issues" with the game with some people, they say they're working on it now, so hopefully it will be resolved pretty soon. That's quite the odd problem, though. Wonder what causes it? I'm just hoping whatever fixes that problem also gets rid of mine. Hmmm... they've probably been working on this for weeks now, so it should be soon... uhh... maybe, heh heh.
- Modem
- Modem
Stalkid64
Citizen(sixty)four
There's a 300+ page thread dedicated to people attempting to lock down the cause, completely without Valve's help now. Valve is blaming texture management issues, but more and more people believe it's one of the commonly known problems that the Miles audio system has, or is related to the positional audio `soundscape` information. A lot of testing and analysis has shown it is completely hardware independant and the system is often doing nothing at all to read from HD etc (i.e. the game can be proven to not be loading anything at all - you can stand still and just turn the mouse to make it occur) during the stutter phases which indicates a code bug; A bug which many Miles games also reproduce. It does get unbearable around coast/City 17. We've been trying to test it with the updated Miles DLL's but - pause for irony - Steam blocks you from replacing the files so we can't even test this possible fix! D'oh!
Fun fact - this bug is actually visible in the official E3 2004 Half-Life 2 trailer at a few points, which suggests Valve were more than aware of it.
Fun fact - this bug is actually visible in the official E3 2004 Half-Life 2 trailer at a few points, which suggests Valve were more than aware of it.
Modem
ph33r teh hammy!
It's already been in development for a long while on X-Box, so don't be surprised to see it be released. It isn't out of VALVe's reach to delay it (go figure) and go for X-Box2, since it'll be so much more graphically able to play it. I think X-Box still stands a good chance, though.
- Modem
- Modem