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Half Life 2 Stuttering Bug Official
sinner0423 writes "Due to recent complaints on several forums, Steampowered announced they are working on a fix to this stuttering problem in Half Life 2. Usually, a game bug isn't news-worthy, but the sporadic nature of this bug makes me wonder - who else has problems with HL2 pausing/skipping? This site outlines the problem certain users are having in a very clear & concise manner, and also includes some stopgap solutions from Erik Johnson & other Valve employees."
...one might have thought given the year of so the game has thought to have remained in a workable state they might have come across a bug like this, especially if it's affecting large numbers of people...
from the you're-all-beta-testers dept.
...Usually, a game bug isn't news-worthy, but the sporadic nature of this bug makes me wonder - who else has problems with HL2 pausing/skipping?
Yawn. Every Linux distro gets released bug-free, right?
Well, you sure linked a ton of forums, how about you just read those threads? Or perhaps other gamer boards?
Listen, I know HL2 is the biggest thing to happen to the gaming community in quite some time. I know the controversy surrounding it, Gabe Newell, Vivendi, Valve and a piece of caerphilly cheese. I just don't see why a bug that is sporadic and what seems like a very minute number of people are having makes the frontpage.
Yes, I expected to get modded down.
No, I don't care.
Yes, I have "been around here for a while, and I know how the place works!"
No, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
this raises the question, "how many (known) bugs should be allowed to ship in a piece of commercial software?"
obviously its in the developer's best interest to hit production as soon as possible (to enter the market for the xmas feeding frenzy). so, some "minor" bugs are apparently considered acceptable.
i don't think so.
but some customers, in particular the die-hard fans, apparently are willing to accept some problems on day one and will put up with the problem until a patch is released eventually.
i wonder what the turnaround time will be. probably a few days. too bad its not open-source. we'd have a patch in a few hours.
The problem is that, in the end, nobody really cares. Loading seamlessly is hard and raises system requirements quite a bit (since not only do you need to hold two levels in memory at times, but you also need to be loading an entire new level while the player is playing.)
And in the end nobody's going to say "Well, I *would* buy Half-Life 2. But every ten or fifteen minutes I have to spend ten seconds waiting for a new level to load. So I won't."
And therefore it doesn't get changed.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Yeah, no loading screens at all, ever!
:-p
Oh wait, except that one before you can play, oh.. and the ones that come while loading games, and while not a loading screen as such, when entering buildings or starting missions, at times it can take up to around a minute with nothing but a black screen and the name of the place/mission in the bottom corner. And while walking around the map, or more specifically, while driving or flying about the map, sometimes the floor, walls or buildings don't actually load until after you have crashed into them, although that is somewhat more rarer than the above.
But apart from that.. yeah, none at all.
If that was the actual ratio of play time to load time, I doubt anyone would complain at all - I sure wouldn't. But the problem is that it takes quite a bit longer than that, which becomes especially noticeable during parts of the Route Kanal chapter - you cover so much ground so fast on the hoverbike, that there are places where you're loading a new segment every two or three minutes, and then the ratio becomes a rather aggravating three-minutes-of-play-time to one-minute-of-load-time. It's hardly a dealbreaker, and I still love the game, but it's a bit annoying.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
When open source applications have bugs in them, people report them to bugzilla or equivalent and wait. If anyone complains people say "they'll work on it, if you want it done faster, do it yourself".
As soon as the software isn't free all of a sudden its "those bastards releasing software with more than 0 bugs in it!"
Guess what. The introduction of money doesn't all of a sudden make developers more perfect. They have deadlines, priorities and are imperfect, like other people. Just because software is less than free doesn't mean you can expect it to be perfectly bug free.
It's also funny all the complaints about half-life 2 have to do with the steam system. Nobody seems to be making comments about the actual game itself. Oh, could that be because the game itself is an indisputably amazing work of art? Sorry warez dudes, you can't get a free ride on this one. For me, I don't mind as its probably the only PC game I will buy for the next 5 years. Half-Life 2 and its mods will probably be the only pc game worth playing for a long time to come. Half-Life 1 lived up to that, and I expect no less from 2. It's worth more than the lousy 50 bucks they charge for it. So quit your bitching. If you don't like the DRM, then crack it, just like you do with all the RIAA and MPAA DRM.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
In 5 years, once the activation server is down, or in 10 or whatever, what you got is a pretty coaster because you can't activate your legally purchased game without a crack.
OTOH about your points : * you can automatically patches if you program for it. That msot game except MMOG don't do it isn't because of a technical ground, but rather a money/marketing ground. So no advantage here. * I can install normal CD on many computer as I want, and only play on the one I have the physical CD. No change either here. * Delivery isn't as convenient as you say, if you do not have a broad band, or a nice DSL. Heck with a 26 modem I can order something on an online store and it is delivered at home. But Steam would be unusable on such a connection.
I am sorry, but you are overplaying the advantage a lot. True this is a new mode of delivery for those which want the game on the day retail begin to sell it, but do not make up things out of thin air. This is pretty much the only advantage, the rest is only nice for the company selling the game.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Earlier this year I read in several PC gaming mags about how 2004 was Year of the PC Game; about how Half Life 2 and Doom 3 would set the record straight and reclaim the crown of video gaming from the consoles. Doom 3 was fun, but didn't change the world, and Half Life 2 fully proves why the PC will remain a niche market. One person's comment here on this story tells people to quit whining about the problem because all they have to change their hardware around. That kind of comment - that it's a matter-of-fact that you have to spend hours monkeyassing with your PC to get a game to work - should deeply worry stalwarts of the PC industry.
Even with fairly rampant Xbox piracy, Microsoft's anti-piracy strategy with Halo 2 was transparent to nearly all xbox owners who legitimately bought the game. Yet, not only are all of HL2's users penalized for the piracy, but obviously the game was rushed through testing. Now, to be fair, testing a PC game is far more work than testing a console. But when that so-called mainstream gamer goes to pick up Half Life 2, they don't give a rip if someone else is pirating or if Valve didn't have the time or resources to check if their game worked. To them, the only thing that matters is that their game takes hours to work, and when it does it does so half-assed.
Console makers (Nintendo, MS, Sony) keep the publishers in check with quality issues like these. For the PC, there's no one entity at stake if PC games take 5 hours of work to run properly. But Valve is hurting not only themselves but the entire PC gaming industry by releasing games that require anti-piracy measures like Steam and then ultimately don't work.
I think the most interesting thing to note about HL2 is the fact that it does an excellent job of giving the *illusion* of emergent gameplay. For the uninitiated, emergent gameplay is a hot topic in gaming right now, and is basically a fancy term for the idea that the solutions to a given problem in a game should only really be limited by the creativity of the person playing it.
:-)
What makes HL2's design so interesting is the fact that while many of the puzzles and levels appear to allow the player a lot of choice, the game is actually *highly* linear in reality. There were a number of situations where I thought I'd found or thought up an alternate solution to a puzzle only to discover that the level was designed in such a way that only the "intended" solution would work. Disappointing in a way, but for the most part, they did an amazing job of keeping the illusion up.
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Sort of ironic given the G-Man's comment about "rather than giving you the illusion of free choice," eh?
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