Slashdot Mirror
Half-Life 2 Deathmatch Confirmed
Satertek writes "Following up a previous post, a teaser was posted on the Steam website with the image HL2DM.jpg entitled 'Soon', confirming rumors of a Half-Life 2 Multiplayer Deathmatch game. It was also brought up on the forums by Valve. It will be released alongside the SDK sometime this week." Update: 12/01 13:49 GMT by T : Since this was written, "this week" has turned into "now"; the update was released last night.
November 30, 2004, 8:05 pm valve
A Half-Life 2 update has been released via Steam. Please restart Steam to apply the update.
Included in this update:
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
* New multiplayer game featuring physics simulation system
Half-Life 2/Source SDK
* Includes game code needed to create Half-Life 2/Source MODs
* Ability to edit Half-Life 2 maps
* Maya model exporter
* 3d Studio Max model exporter source code
* Sample MOD with vehicles
Source Updates
* HTTP and non-HTTP map auto downloading functionality
* Enhanced dedicated server logging capabilities
* Various tweaks and fixes
*Also: A Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Map Making Contest has been announced. The winning entry will receive a cash prize of $5,000. Two runner up entries will receive a cash prize of $3,000.
Not to include deathmatch in the original release? Doesn't seem to make much sense that a multiplayer deathmatch is not included, especially in a game like HL2.....
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
Keep the deathmatch. When are they going to rip off Unreal Tournament 2004 Onslaught?
Now THAT's on-line gaming goodness.
While the deathmatch servers will not be running on the same hardware as the authentication servers (hopefully, anyway), let's hope we don't have the same opening day problems.
Lag is bad enough when it happens due to "normal" conditions...it would be pretty bad press if it happened because of server/networking problems at steam/valve.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
I've been playing it this morning. I'm not too impressed to be honest.
Whereas I'm getting around 60FPS in the single player game, the amount of crap (i.e. radiators, filing cabinates, chairs) that's being thrown around in the game really slows the game down and makes it jump around and stutter. I've also been experiencing quite bad lagging on the few servers I've tried.
It also appears that there's only two maps included... Well, that or every server admin out there has already decided that they'll only put two particular maps on rotation. (I may be wrong, I haven't checked this out properly yet.)
All in all, a nice addition, but either my computer or the game could do with some optimisation before it becomes playable.
Wow.. /. is another HL2 fanboi haven. :|
Oh well, at least maybe someone will start up a dedicated linux DM server since there aren't any right now
I know why they call it HalfLife. Spend any amount of time playing this thing and you have half the life you did before. In my case, that wasn't very much, but not it's even less... :(
For those who haven't had a chance to try it out yet, it's a mixed bag. The two levels included (the Prison [Nova Prospekt] level in SP, and the sniping part of City 17) are fairly small, and they allow you to use the Gravity Gun. They've smattered the levels with lots of throwable objects, so "throw and catch" isn't uncommon, but for those with only half-decent machines or connections, it starts to lag quite fast, especially with 16 players.
Weapons are pretty much the same as HL2SP/HL1DM. You've got your machine gun, grenades, crossbow (hell yeah). The only new one like I say is the Gravity Gun so you can mess with the physics.
It's a nice alternative to CS:S for those who don't enjoy it. However it's quite fast paced, and I think we need bigger levels before we can fully appreciate it. But, nice one Valve.
i hate being killed by a grav-gun fired toilet. ooooh da p41n!
IAAL
Since the latest update, I havent had any of the crashing problems I had previously been experiencing (yay). But I have also seen a performance hit of over 40fps! (previously >90fps, now mere 50fps) :/
I havent had any of the problems I see others mentioning about multiplayer performance hits- deathmatch has run just as smoothly for me as singleplayer, but all at only 50fps. I dont understand this, performance has been cut sharply in half, and the framerate is now noticeable
Anyone else experience this?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Considering you have to give Valve all the rights to any map you create for HLDM, you're basically being paid to create a HL DM map for them. Could some professional map designer tell us if thats a reasonable fee to be paid?
What happened to Doom 3? Doom 3 SDK was released a long time ago and there are few mods.
The mod maker Orange Smoothie has done nothing with the Doom 3 engine:
D3M: In general the whole Doom3 community is eagerly awaiting a modification that will bring Doom3 to the well known glory of Q3A for example. From your personal view, are you convinced to fulfill this task?
derean: Absolutely not, OSP for Quake3 has had hundreds and hundreds of man hours put into it by rhea and there is no way I could hope to put as much time into Doom3 as he did in Quake3. We can however provide a solid basis for future work and that's what we've set out to do.
May be 3D engines and SDKs are too complicated? Or was every body waiting the Half-Life 2 SDK?
I don't have a clue.
My city: Barcelona.
Ehm what? You don't know much about online gaming, do you? Valve don't run any game servers as far as I know. Servers are run by regular users, internet cafes, gaming centers etc, either by running a listenserver or by downloading and running a dedicated server.
One high end pc can host maybe one game of up to 30 players (without any lag), valve would have to have a huge server farm to be able to host games for all of its users.
Right, but of the two, UT2k4 is vastly superior when it comes to multiplayer. Doom 3 multiplayer is a joke. I don't think I know anyone who plays it.
Also; Remember that UT2k4 has been out for quite a long time now. While it has a very strong community, a lot of people have lost interest, so HL2DM could be quite a refreshing change for them.
I bought a retail copy of HL2. But I've ended up with HL2, the other game the name of which escapes me at this moment, an SDK and now HL2 multiplayer with the hope of future map downloads, map editors plus additional games and demos. I think thats quite neat.
BUT... if every computer games company starts doing this it won't be so neat - trying to work out which of the dozen client programs do what!
This release was a complete ledt down. It just seems like the only reason they released it was becasue people kept complaining about the lack of DM. 2 levels, not much thought put into them either. They are straight from the game. I guess they are counting on everyone else to design the levels for them.
Unreal Tourneyment 2004 beat it and Doom3 out the door, so when it comes to multiplayer:
who cares?
Uh... the several million people who have already bought HL2 or are considering it? I don't think anybody's buying HL2 strictly for the HL2 DM multiplayer, but it's a fun bonus.
I already own UT2004, Doom3, and HL2 - and I definitely care.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
My friend has been playing HL2 on a 950 duron and a 9800pro just fine. And when he upgraded to an 1800+ athlon, it just ran all around better.
As for the geforce, you'll be fine as well. I've been using an ATI 8500 rather well, so your 5700 ultra should be more than enough.
-Doug
Damn, I was really hoping it would be a Source update to TFC. I know it would be too much to ask for TF2, but I was also hoping for some news on how it's coming along, if at all.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Hell Team Fortress Classic Source would be good (as well as a mouthful)
CJC
I've got them all too, but I must point out that "quite a long time" is actually just a couple of months. It's amazing how fast people move on.
HL1 lived quite a long time, but I don't know that 2 will last as long, especially with the way it acts with nvidia cards in dx9. It's kinda sad. Multiplayer is an afterthought in alot of these games, and I've yet to see any real efforts to put together "structured" cooperative games. (I'd love to play through HL2 with a friend.)
Sigh
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
Who is Zonk, out of curiosity? First time I've seen that name. I'm also kind of curious why this is front page news.
Please help metamoderate.
I've a Athlon 2000XP, nVidia 5700 and it's rocking along at 1024x768. Sure, I've no AA and the textures are only at middle quality, but IIRC you need more than 512M of video RAM before the high quality textures will fit.
I played for 15 minutes this morning and found it to be okay. I managed to get a game without too much lag, though admittedly few people were playing with the gravity gun. Virtually everyone was simply running around with SMGs and the constant rat-tat-tat was everywhere.
I miss the limpet mines from HL1. There was something magical about planting them in out of the way places, waiting for that special little boom.
I don't want to because I recognize this could be something I want to buy, plus Valve has hinted that they've released marked copies of HL2 onto warez sites to ferret out the pirates and invalidate Steam accounts people use to play the pirated copy of HL2.
...HL2DM hadn't destroyed my STEAM.
Yes, it's just deathmatch
But some people LIKE death match. And it's a solid foundation for modders.
Yes, it's not as refined as UT2K4 or whatever
Do any of these other games have a GRAVITY GUN? No? Well let's continue then.
Yes, it's pretty laggy
Play with less people or on a really good server. I played one where the lag was good enough to be able to toss grenades back, and that was pretty awesome.
Yes, there are two maps out there
They're leaving it to the community here. I'm planning on making a map myself in a little while, actually.
remember, HL2 only came out two weeks ago, and we didn't even know that HL2DM existed for certain until last night.
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
i had a break from FPS's for a few years and then borrowed a friends Xbollox to play Halo, and suprisingly I started feeling dizzy and had a real problem standing up after only an hour. these games should come with a health warning... oh, they do. doh! they should ban them! yada yada yada...
When in multiplayer mode, your computer system now has to handle everything it was handling in single player, plus network traffic. The network traffic includes your computer now using your network card to the fullest, plus the added CPU time of the source engine computing that information into all the pretty graphics.
You do not just have one object being thrown around, but 2-20 now. The physics calculations the source engine was doing before has now gone up over 1500%. This all adds up to more CPU and RAM usage on your computer.
In MP, turn down your "Texture Detail" and hop down the resolution one notch. See how it plays, then gradually increase the settings until you hit the FPS rate you don't want to deal with. Tweaking is important. You cannot expect to run the MP of this game at the same settings you did as the SP, especially if you had the SP maxed out, due to MP requiring more resources than SP. In other words, it's completely normal to get FPS drops between MP and SP. Just downgrade your graphics. Not what you wanted to hear, but it is the facts.
I couldn't think of anything witty to say, so...you're stuck with this.
I downloaded the update for HL2 DM over steam last night around midnight and after it said everything was done, I tried to launch the game, but nothing would happen. Then I tried running HL2 and CS:S, neither would run anymore (tried restarting steam, rebooting machine, etc.). Then I headed on over to the steam forum and noticed that I wasn't the only one having the problem. Was this simply a matter of steam secretly continuing to download the game even though it told me it was done? Or was it some major bug they didn't find? I realize that whatever the problem was, it was fixed just a few hours later, but it seems like even if it was still updating the game, it shouldn't have any bearing on your ability to play other games.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I knew about this an hour before the content actually appeared on Steam. I tried to install it: nothing. Not only did Deathmatch not work, but single-player and CS:Source would not load. Their patch broke everything. I hit the forums and nearly everyone else was having the same problem. I don't know if they've fixed it since last night, I was up until 3am trying to get it to run.
I never had problems with Steam before, but now those complaints from two weeks ago hold a lot more weight. I couldn't even play single-player or Counterstrike.
They didn't... I couldn't even play regular half-life or half-life 2 while the release went on. It might have been the new patch they released though. Funny thing my computer downloaded the patch twice and the game seems to work now where before none of the source engine games would start up (even in offline mode).
I must say I enjoy the games themselves (although I beat half-life 2 much faster than the original). I just find this log on every time you play to be a real pain.
More importantly auto map download has been turned on for Counter Strike SOurce \o/ :D
Bring on all those ovely new maps
My Portfolio
Finally a spare couple of hours and now I've got to wait twenty minutes to download a feature I don't want.
How long before Valve start charging a subscription to play Half-Life 2 online through Steam and then disable users accounts of those who refuse to fork over the cash, hand over fist?
Valve and their ridiculous Steam system can take their business elsewhere. My brother bought half-life 2 and had to wait six hours over a 50k to even play the damn game. Now he can't have a no CD crack, can't resell the game, and (so he tells me) can't get unofficial mods for the game without being booted). He bought an over the shelf game, no EULA at all( That legal joke in the manual does not count. "By opening the box containing this agreement you agree to all these terms etc...." WTF! Not to mention he was too young to be party to any such agreement). Valve seem to want it both ways. They want the ease of an over the counter product, and yet still wish to licence this product once the sale is made. They are two completely different things. I can understand the need for security against warez, but you can't just apply an essentially illegal practice either(i.e. get kids to sign EULAs, after they buy the product). It's just dishonest.
Not to mention that the EULA is ridiclously open ended anyway. Valve can disable unofficial modders accounts, disable people they don't like(i.e. people who complain), disable people who exploit bugs etc... . And how easy will it charge a subscription fee for online play and then disable users to play on "unofficial"(free) servers where Valve isn't getting a slice.
Will Valve do all this? Maybe.
Will companies who follow Valves' example do this?
I can feel the fans flames beginning to rise. Just because Half-Life 2 is good doesn't excuse this. Remember, this is why so many moved to FOSS. EULAs and their ilk. As a long time game player, I'm personally deeply offended by this kind of anti-player, anti-consumer behaviour creeping into the industry. I guess in some ways, I still want the games I purchased over the counter to actually belong to me, and not just own a (possibly temporary) licence.
May the Maths Be with you!
Looking at a commercial grade project is probably a pretty bad starting point for someone who wants to build an FPS. The amount of code is overwhelming to say the least and since they don't usually provide you with their design docs you basically have to figure the whole thing out on your own, which is no small task. If you're only getting into the area I would suggest building the engine from scratch as the constituents of a 3d engine are pretty well known. Of course, your project won't have all the bells and whistles but you'll probably have a much better grip on the whole thing by the end.
I play on a AMD XP 2000+, Geforce 3, 512MB ram and it runs great. 1024x768, high everything except medium textures. Get some custom video drivers with improved image quality, and you won't mind medium textures at all.
HL2:DM on the other hand, could use some serious tweaking. It's quite playable though if you do a clean boot in XP. (Google it, MS has page about how to set msconfig.)
>then how come I can see a single field error in video running at 50 fields per second ?
Because your parents are aliens and when you leave the house, they shed their human skins and breathe dryer lint.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
How can people actually complain about being provided HL2-DM? Valve gave us CS first because they realized the popularity of it, and I am sure happy they provided DM finally. HL DM was the best version of any DM simply because it was far more than just running around and shooting, and brought back memories of DukeNukem DM. The variety in the types of weapons is what makes it fun, and knowing how to use them effectively in a heated battle is an incredible experience. What's more is Valve annouced a DM map competition.
For those of you who are having problems starting Source based games after installing HL2DM (eg.. start game, hear CD spin [if retail] and nothing happens), a possible fix I found somewhere is to load the following URL in a browser:
steam://validate/320
it will get Steam to validate your HL2DM files, it fixed the problem on mine.. may take a little while though!
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
Because disagreeing with anything Valve / Steam automagically makes it wrong these days, believe it or not. Tis the current mentality, and I do fear the future of gaming at the rate we're going.
Co-operative gameplay is what halflife 2 really needs. Co-op is what makes halo (1 & 2) fun and, for me and my brother, worth playing. So i want to see half-life 2 co-op.
It should work fine using the DX8 path; the Geforce 5 series reportedly takes a pretty big performance hit when trying to run HL2 using the DX9 path.
I much prefer CS:S. I hadn't played CS in over 2 years, but it's all coming back now, and it's just as much fun as ever :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Everyone is missing a very important point...where's Half-Life 2 Rocket Crowbar!?!? :)
In all seriousness, Rocket Crowbar for the original Half-Life was one of the most entertaining and least played mods of its time. I hope somebody does a sequel.
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
Well heck, it's pointless fun but it seems to me weapon balance is just laughable. Folks can take more than a whole clip of the machine gun pumped into them, but whack em with a filing cabinet and they're out cold.
It's like Valve had a meeting...
"I think we need to add some weapon balance for the DM."
"Weapon balance? What's kind of physics is that?"
Oh well, still fun. Oh, and quick tip: Grenades + Grav gun = grenade launcher. Don't know why more folks don't make use of this. Drop a grenade in front of you with alt, pick it up with the grav and wait a few ticks, then launch it like a rocket. Or fling one waaay long at the people who think they can just run.
When in multiplayer mode, your computer system now has to handle everything it was handling in single player, plus network traffic
minus AI. i have no sexy or exciting internet articles to back myself up, but i would have thought that dropping AI for a game like Halflife would bump the framerate up rather than down. i can run CSS at a higher resolution than HL2 on my 3ghz p4/9500pro, i had assumed that AI was the factor.
You can NOT download DM by NOT clicking on Half-Life: Deathmatch in the game list. And by NOT clicking download.
You have to put in some effort to download it, it's not automatic.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
create a game like Half-Life 2, but SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME why they can't write a reliable instant messenger client!!
(Friends program used with steam)
Did you ever try Sven Co-op for original Half-Life?
They are suppose to come out with a version for HL2.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
Half-Life 1 "only" had deathmatch when it came out. Big fucking deal. Just wait for the mods over the years like you did last time.
HL2 runs surprisingly well on an older machine. It looks pretty great on my 512MB 1.8 P4 with geforce4/4600.
This is quite unlike doom3 which looked like garbage (i.e. worse than quake 3) unless I ran it my newer machine that has a 6800 card.
When I saw the tech demos of HL2, I was getting excited at the concept of a CounterStrike game where you could move items around and build barricades, etc. So okay, putting the gravity gun in a multiplayer game is over kill, but being able to drag crates around to set up ambushes or jump up to certain areas of the level would improve CS a lot.
I'm finding CS:S just doesn't hold a candle to games like RTCW when it comes to variety.. every run is identical with little strategy involved (might be different in a clan, I don't know).
As far a fun gaming goes, CS ranks pretty low on my scale. I would rather play MOO (original) than CS. As far as team-based action is concerned, CTF, team-DM, Tribes, team-fortress (whatever happened to this?) are so much more fun than CS it is amazing to me that anyone even plays CS.
Turn your graphics down until you get a reasonable framerate. Far Cry did the same thing for me because I was trying to run it at a setting my machine wasn't equipped for. Turn it down until you get 60fps or so and it will help tremendously.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Today i've tryed hl2dm, and personally i prefer hl1dm, its much more fun.It seems like Valve wanted to make a surprise without working much, well that's a good intention :).
Some dude said that no other game has a gravity gun, well doom3 has it, just download the mod from planetdoom.com
Now about doom3 modding and mapping check doom3world and take a look at this very interesting project.
Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
... IIRC you need more than 512M of video RAM before the high quality textures will fit.
I think YRIncorrectly. The game runs a system probe when it's started the first time and sets the initial recommended preferences accordingly. With my 128MB Radeon 9600XT, HL2 selected "high" texture quality as default.
When in multiplayer mode. . .
He isn't complaining about a frame rate hit in multiplayer compared to single player. He's complaining about a frame rate hit in single player since installing death match.
The physics calculations the source engine was doing before has now gone up over 1500%.
You only want to be told where things are.
Your local machine only calculates your local physics. The machine of each other player calculates their local physics. It's distributed computing. No need for everyone to calculate everything and then try to snyc the results. A location grid is sent to the server (just a triplet of numbers for each object), which colates them, then sends the results to the client machines, which merely have to display them. There's the issue of lag, so you are running a predictive algorithm, and some error correction, but that's a far easier task on the cpu than actually doing the physics calculations. This will, indeed, result in a frame rate drop at times, but generally only when things are getting really messy. And the physics involved in a shooter are pretty simple anyway. You should see what they look like in a high end flight or driving sim. Framerate in those is physics limited because of the load on the cpu. Shooters are video limited because of the load on the GPU.
Of course in multiplayer you eliminate the overhead of AI calculations.
In other words, it's completely normal to get FPS drops between MP and SP.
But not 50% all the time, and certainly not in single player mode as well.
KFG
I have a question about the backups you can make with Steam. Is it possible for me to burn the HL2 files to a dvd, and then have my friend able to install HL2 using that dvd (he has his own steam account and bought the game but is on dialup so downloading the game is well.. rough)... not sure how valve handles this..
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
This brings up a good point. Does anyone know of a really good multiplayer, four person, co-op game for a console (PS2, gamecube, xbox)? Can be any genre - doesn't have to be fps.
My brother-in-law has a 96" projector screen in the basement and it's a blast to play on, but we would like to have a cooperative game to play. Played Halo 2 last weekend, but the co-op was only two people.
Any suggestions???
Find coupons in Greeley
Yea- mod me troll. Did you even read the post? More than half of us who have paid for this game cannot get it to work properly because of server/network problems on their end. Their tech support even CONFIRMS this.
I did not slam them in any way, I just said I hoped they got the issues ironed out before they added more fuel to the fire.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
to update linuxreadme.txt
gg valve
In response to the guy who said he, and a bunch of people on the Valve message boards were having problems with the download - they must have fixed it pretty promptly, I grabbed it and was playing with no issues around 3am Eastern time.
It is a simple deathmatch, and for now that's fine by me - I never really got into Counterstrike, and I tried CS: Source but the problem with CS being "the most popular online game in the world" is that many of the people you wind up playing with play a LOT. To say they know the maps and strategies well is a major understatement. I don't much care for that kind of learning curve in a team game, to fail as an individual is one thing, to bring down a team with you is quite another. Same reason I hated Little League - my own team wanted to kill me for missing easy catches and not being able to hit even the easiest pitch.
Anyway, that's the nice thing about a simple deathmatch, if I stink up the place (at first - I'm actually fairly decent at these sorts of games) no one gets pissed but me.
Having said that though, it is a bit too simple, so I really hope that Valve keeps improving it, or some industrious modders do. Here's what I'd like to see (very minor and vague spoiler warning for the single player game):
The option to give everyone the gravity gun and ONLY the gravity gun. It's a nice weapon but if someone has the missile launcher, RPGs or any other powerful weapon it kinda sucks in comparison - however a match with everyone on equal footing, no extra weapons, just a lot of objects to throw around and optionally some health and shield packs.
Smaller explosives to throw with the GG. You can hurl exploding barrels at people, but they fill up the field of vision, so if you find a barrel running around with it isn't really an option. On a side note - this game really makes the best use of fiery barrels since Donkey Kong. It takes the exploding barrels that have been standard issue in every game of this type since Doom 1 and makes a couple simple changes that make them so much more interesting.
Also like to see an option for vehicles. Can we get drivable versions of those Combine gun-trucks? Maybe the flying vehicles too?
I'd like to be able to make a custom deathmatch which uses a modified versions of the Super Gravity Gun - modified so it can't grab other players but can grab their corpses. It'd work like this - you get one point for killing another player with an object, two points for killing another player with a player corpse and five points for killing another player with their own corpse. When killed a player respawns but their corpse stays as an object in the game. If they're killed again the first instance of their corpse disintegrates. Each round is to 40 points by default, but this should be definable on the server.
Lastly - more maps - two are fine for now but they'll get old quick. This is the one thing I have complete confidence I will see however, so no worries there.
One additional thing, I don't have a great deal of experience running servers for FPSes but I tried it out tonight, both the create game option in HL2: DM, and the Source Dedicated Server - however I did not see my server show up on the list in either case. I was able to join other open games with no problem. Anyone know if there is a trick to this, or can I not run the server and play on it at the same time?
If you've got some info on this please email me at zippyzero@yahoo.com - thanks
Your local machine only calculates your local physics. The machine of each other player calculates their local physics. It's distributed computing.
Wrong. The network latency is too high for all physics to be run on the server and transmitted to players. Client-side prediction is required.
To ensure responsiveness, the players' PCs must do the physics calculations locally, re-syncing with authoritative server updates whenever availible. That kind of programming is a difficult art.
It would be sad for a 60hz framerate to be wasted because tumbling debris only updates at 9 hz.
some error correction, but that's a far easier task on the cpu than actually doing the physics calculations.
No. It requires all the work of doing the full physics calculations, and then some additional work to decide when to override with server updates.
No, I don't "know much about nothing". READ THE POST. If Valve/Steam already has problems with authenticating- and don't pretend they don't- what's going to happen when more players are added as more people buy for the multi-player option? Think about it, if you build a highway, and that highway is immediately overwhelmed by traffic, would you add more features to make more people want to use that highway before trying to fix the problem? If you have played HL2 multiplayer (I have, so have other posters), you would see that they ARE having problems with lag as more players enter a room. I am not the only one with this problem, look at dedicated HL2 forums- there are lots of problems with the multi-player mode already.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
Ah, maybe it's based on the AGP bus speed or something, and decided that it can shuffle them back and forth fast enough.
... in north Korea, old people are dying.
So now us on 56k without HL yet have even more things to download.... they really need to make good old .exe patchs so we can use download managers and such.
I like muppets.
"You misspelled Tribes. Granted, Onslaught isn't an exact replica of Tribes' gameplay, it shares more in common than it differs."
Tribes:Vengance, UT2k4... It's so hard to tell them apart these days, y'know?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Is the physics engines' power over the weapon spawns. Since everyone spawns with the gravity gun, it is a no brainer to fill up on a weapon and next time it spawns, fire it up onto a building where no one can get it. Weapon spawn entities do not expire and refresh after they have been moved. Good stuff!
I'm playing on an Athlon XP 2200, only 256MB of RAM, a GeForce4 Ti, and it flew - I'm amazed.
Doesn't look as pretty as everyone else, but with the movements so realistic, I'm still dragged into the suspension of disbelief.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I can't speak for everyone, but here is one possible reason people are behind the hackers:
Once you pay for the game and bring it home...
* It REQUIRES YOU to create a steam account just to install. They were honest and revealed in the EULA that they required an email and that they would share "some information" with third parties. So... You just gave them over $50 and they are now trying to hustle you for an email so they can sell it for a nickel?
* Once the game is "installed", you must "unlock" it in order to play. On my system, this took bloody ages. This is in addition to the usual business of typing in CD keys the size of nuclear launch codes just to prove to the software you own the game.
* You must be online to play the game so steam can log in and "verify" blah blah. Note that this is for a SINGLE PLAYER game you must be on line, just to make sure you're legit. If Steam goes down, you can't play. (Okay, there is an "offline" mode, but its more of a hack than a feature, as it involves copying files around just to trick Steam into acting like you're signed on)
* Steam runs in the background, updating stuff, ALL THE TIME (unless you disable it). Imagine if everyone did this. Your system tray would cover half of your desktop, and a large portion of your system memory and bandwidth would be consumed by all these busybody apps running in the background, updating, and bringing "special offers" to your attention.
* Despite all this security, the game STILL REQUIRES that you have the CD in the drive.
* Just for fun, go to Steam's website and try to figure out how to submit a bug. Last night (Nov 30) Steam stopped working while the patch came out. I couldn't play my game. I went to the website to find out why, and there was no way to let them know I was having a problem. No email links, no bug report form, and the forums were down.
* All of this hassle, and Steam really doesn't offer ANYTHING for the end user. If you download the game, they don't even give you a break on the price. In fact, if you download the game, you can't get a refund for any reason. All of this, and what's in it for us?
So yeah, I do hope the hackers are able to crack the game. Then I can download the crack and play the game without needing to use Steam. The LAST THING I want to see is other game companies following Valve's example.
Wal-Mart could nearly eliminate shoplifting (which I'm sure costs them millions) if they just frisked everyone as they came out of the store. Yet they don't. Steam is the software equivalent of giving you a pat-down when you leave the store with your paid-for merchandise. They need to knock it off.
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
Somewhere I have (several) discs containing XSI:EXP 3d software, have never installed it, but as I understand it was to be the app used with HL2, so are Maya and 3ds in addition to XSI, or instead of it? Apparently part of the delay way back when was Valve suddenly switching their whole workflow to the XSI platform.
(XSI:EXP is free by the way!)
Don't know what servers you picked, but I only had the problem you're describing with one of them... maybe your comp or connection need some tuning? Just a thought...
Honestly, I had a blast playing it this morning... lots of action... people improvising with the gravity gun all over the place; there's nothing quite so cool as getting kills with a thrown filing cabinet. People were very good-humored about it too. Getting fragged with a filing cabinet is new/different/cool... without the humiliation of getting knifed in the original CS).
Tip: get the RPG launcher and camp on the roof... you'll rack up some serious frags.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
This multiplayer and movable objects is really what HL2 is all about. The build options are really very striking.
I played deathmatch, but it really isn't what it is all about. Deathmatch is a taste to show the community what it is really all about. Imagine a capture game with breachable walls and doorways, and people slapping up chickenwire and "nailing" wall objects to keep the windows from getting naded, things like that. The piles of junk to keep the attacker options down, and the attackers blowing debris to get to it. rfare, they are urban-like warfare on a map that only looks like urban warfare on the outside. When you can use a couch for cover and move it to hide, then we will be happier. Much happier. Deathmatch is too fast. Counter Strike is aggavatingly fast. It gives you no time to give an option about outplaying your opponent. With objects and physics, you will soon be able to do it.
Look, most of you are crabbing this one... but if it was team deathmatch with liftable steel plate barriers, and sticky mines, you would be screaming like a monkey at the top of your lungs with joy. Don't worry. It's coming. Either by Valve in a week or two or by some modders. Some things are just downright obvious. Movable barriers, wall covers, breachable areas, and everything like that is coming, it is just a matter of who is going to do it.
But why stop there?
The good news is it isn't going to stop there. With an independent physics based system, imagine the "space marine" fantasies that we always had as a kid. You and some buddies online blowing out an airlock and gravity catapulting your way through a chain of asteroids to infiltrate a stranded mothership.
Right now we are playing with standard physics settings, what is going to happen when they start messing with those settings? "Woot, I say, my good fellow, woot indeed."
IMHO, Valve solved the largest problem and my biggest gripe with 3D video games when they made a physics engine that wasn't so wonky it made me laugh. It is simply a matter of time before the next killer multiplayer comes out, and it isn't going to look like CS. I personally can't wait to flip someone's minitank with my little Somali street trash barrier. But hey, keep griping, you'll shut up soon enough when you throw someone through a building in a superhero mod.
umm yeah a very good reason... If you incrementally add features through a service that checks to see if you have pirated software it makes pirated junk less and less useful encouraging you to actually buy the game instead of yanking it off of kazaa..
A location grid is sent to the server (just a triplet of numbers for each object), which colates them, then sends the results to the client machines, which merely have to display them.
So you think the server trusts the data it gets from the client? I would hope not...
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I'm running basically the same system (double the ram, but a GeForce2MX400, and it also plays great! Visual quality is as good as I've ever seen on this card, too (which is not saying much, but still).
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Huh...I didn't think you could gravity gun the toilet. I must return to the john and try it! My personal favorite gravity gun implement had been, of course the devastating, indestructible and semi-transparent radiator, but I may now have a new favorite.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
I dunno, I run with full textures on my 128 meg GeForceFX 5600 card. Game runs good too with everything turned on. Full water, textures, shaders, shadows, etc. Surprised the hell out of me. Athlon 1.7ghz, 1 gig of RAM.
BytesTemplar.com
The fun part of CS is that if you are on a good server with good players, you get to think tacticly and strategicly instead of just going in guns a'blazing. The fun part of DM is that if you are on a good server with good players, you can go in gun a'blazing and not have to think about tactics or strategy. Both are good in moderate quality doses. But both will also suck if the people you play with or the server itself sucks.
> Shooters are video limited because of the load on the GPU.
:)
Unless they're limited by the CPU first, UT2004 being a prime example on my machine. Which probably doesn't send position vectors back to the server. Angle vectors, sure, when 'fire' or 'move forward' etc. events are sent.
I haven't found a toilet in single-player I could pick up and toss, yet. I'm in the citadel now, and I'm guessing everybody in there either craps in their little man-pod or has had their colon removed and replaced with the air filter from an '82 chevette, so I'm not holding out hope of finding one I can try the super-grav-gun on.
"Well Valve did this contest so if you want to keep your job you have to take a huge pay cut or we'll fire you and just do a similar contest for a fraction of what we're paying you."
I have no idea how anyone can claim it's better than any of the more recent FPSes. If you want variety, options, and not just boring kill everything modes, then CS does not deliver. Compare CS and Desert Combat. DC has real world vehicles, excellent weapons, a real need for coordinated attacks and movements.. and CS has... ummm.... errr..... nothing but the weapons. You want to talk team-based action? Come back to me when you can call in an air strike, artillery barrage, or naval bombardment when you get pinned down.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
I'll have to agree with you there. To me, CS is a joke. With the far better games available in the same genre, I have no idea why anyone plays CS either.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Counter-Strike Source is a port of CS 1.6, not Condition Zero. Unfortunately, for some crazy reason Valve decided to port over the older, crappier hostage AI from CS 1.6 instead of the interesting, semi-realistic behaviour of the condition zero ones. Don't expect the bots to be any better.
The network latency is too high for all physics to be run on the server and transmitted to players.
.
.and then some additional work to decide when to override with server updates.
Who said anything about running physics on the server? The server doesn't run any physics at all, it simply collates the data, which is why servers are often older machines sitting off in a corner somewhere. The server is the device that needs maximum bandwidth, not cpu power.
Client-side prediction is required.
I said that.
To ensure responsiveness, the players' PCs must do the physics calculations locally, re-syncing with authoritative server updates whenever availible.
To insure maximum framerate (responsiveness is an entirely different issue) it must do something more complicated than that. It must decide when it is necessary to approximate doing the full physics locally and when it is unnecessary. When server data is nearly sufficient and when it isn't. It needs to predict the degree to which it needs to predict and only perform that degree of prediction which it needs to.
An object that has been traveling straight and level at 200 mph for the past week and a half needs the calculation of no physics to predict where it will be 0.1 of a second from now. In fact, you might well suspend predicting its behavior completely until you recieve data indicating that it's no longer safe to do so, thus relieving the local cpu entirely.
Conversely 20 cubes tumbling through the air and impacting each other requires a greater local calculation to make a prediciton of their behavior, even in the next 0.1 second.
Things not within the realm of the local player need not be overtly dealt with at all client side, whereas in single player mode they often require the continuous running of some sort of physics.
One assumes there will be a server update coming along in a fraction of a second, or the player is out of the game. This affects the degree to which one must calculate physics locally.
That kind of programming is a difficult art.
Calculating all the physics locally and re-syncing with server data when available is barely more difficult for the programmer than writing the physics of the game in the first place.
Proper online gaming predictive programming is beyond a difficult art. It is black.
If some game architects take the easy way out and place the difficulty on the client's cpu instead of their own programming ability, I understand, but it costs the client framerate, making for a poorer online gaming experience.
It requires all the work of doing the full physics calculations. .
Error correction (in game data terms, as opposed to raw data terms which is handled by your network card) doesn't require the calculation of any physics at all. It needs to calculate the difference between the current local behavior of an object and the server data, and present it to the gamer in as "pretty" a manner as possible. Hopefully without fucking things up royally in the process.
. .
Server updates are authoritative. The server is the only thing in the whole bloody mess that has any idea of the actual state of the system. Even when it's wrong it's still authoritative. Kinda like the judge who sent you up for something you didn't do. One may, up to a point, test that authority, (and I hope your lawyer at least tried to), but only up to a point.
One applies server updtates, and in their absence one must, of necessity, make a prediction, but one always regrets having to do so.
Lord knows, we shall always be full of regret, shan't we?
KFG
"Flaming horse damage table"
;-)
Some AD&D types may understand
I would hope not...
As would I.
However, I also hope it has at least reasonable trust in the data it sends, or the whole online gaming thing comes apart at the seams (which does not mean I hope my client trusts the data from the server either, but, ultimately, someone has to be in charge, and that's the role, and the only role, of the server).
KFG
Except for the fact that you're violating your own physics. If you can build a road block why the hell can't I destroy it with a minitank?! Great physics there, I'm sure you've taken into account the huge hardware stress a player's GUI will experience when hes picked up by another player and then flung using the game's physics engine too.
Valve created a digital sandbox with excellent physics but worthless balance. The gravity gun basicly nullified every other gun in these two maps. Machine gun? Too weak and inaccurate. Rocket launcher? Miss once and you're owned. Grenades? Too long of a fuse and you can't 'cook' them. But the gravity gun can pick up a DUMPSTER and use it as a SHIELD and as a ONE HIT KILL WEAPON. Way to balance Valve.
They had a problem authenticating because of the mad rush of people that logged on to their server at once. Imagine the slashdot effect, imagine that 1000x worse, and thats what probably hit Valve. It happened to Blizzard and WoW too. If you authenticate now, you're not gonna have any problems.
At first, I thought the headline read "Half-Life 2 Deathmarch" and I was trying to figure out how in the hell a product which has been successfully released already could be on a death march :-)
"MHO, Valve solved the largest problem and my biggest gripe with 3D video games when they made a physics engine that wasn't so wonky it made me laugh." Valve didn't make the physics, so far as I know. Valve made Source. Havok made the psychics engine. It's also used in Max Payne 2, Psi-Ops, PainKiller, and more.
Yes, a lot of changes were made and Source physics aren't just cookie cutter Havok code, but Valve keeps on getting credit for something folks should be singing the praises of Havok for. Havok, and it's proven cross-platform, cross-genre usages are way better than a single good FPS engine.
If I'm wrong, I'd be glad to hear the reasons why.
The single-player plays fine on my 800MHz P3 system (with GF4 TI card, and 1GB of main memory) with medium detail settings at 1024*768. I was *stunned*. This is the first FPS I've ever been able to play at 1024. The game is merely good, but the engine is awesome.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"IMHO, Valve solved the largest problem and my biggest gripe with 3D video games when they made a physics engine that wasn't so wonky it made me laugh."
http://havok.com/
http://havok.com/clients/valve.php
Havok physics is at the heart of the eagerly awaited Half Life 2 from Valve Software. Physics gameplay is considered one of the key new departures in the sequel and is an integral part of the game experience.
"Making a game with the complex physics interactions and physics gameplay of Half-Life(R) 2 is really hard - but it would have been impossible if we hadn't started with robust fundamental physics technology from Havok." Jay Stelly, Valve
"Havok has been working with Valve for almost three years to deliver breakthrough physical gameplay. Havok 2, launched at GDC 2003 incorporates all that we have learned from working with each other, particularly in the area of character control and ragdolls"
Dr. Steven Collins CTO, Havok
Can we please not give all the credit to Valve?
Wrong.
Come on, the guy was using EXAMPLES, not saying that all of the examples would be in the same mod.
As for your supposed gravity gun "imbalance": you cannot pick up a dumpster or, indeed, anything larger than a file cabinet or book case. Second, it actually takes some aiming skill to kill someone with a thrown file cabinet -- it's not a skill-free weapon. Finally, there aren't always throwables lying around, and even when there are, they don't jump into your gun instantaneously. I must have killed 100 people with the SMG or the Magnum from close range while they desperately tried to suck up a file cabinet from 50 yards away.
Basically, the balance is great and allows players a real freedom that just isn't in any other game. So stop being wrong.
"Honey, it's not working out; I think we should make our relationship open-source."
I don't like team based games. Maybe it's because I don't have any friends.
$100 to whoever can most accurately estimate the number of gravity-gun only servers. And you're not allowed to hold the jar.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Unreal Tourneyment 2004 beat it and Doom3 out the door, so when it comes to multiplayer: who cares?
Uh... the several million people who have already bought HL2 or are considering it? I don't think anybody's buying HL2 strictly for the HL2 DM multiplayer, but it's a fun bonus.
I'm not buying HL2 because of the lack of multiplayer options that interest me (no co-op, no 'bots). HL1 was an interesting game, but I didn't find it to be very fun without friends to share the game with - share being the operative and important word. To be more explicit, deathmatch isn't sharing - at least to me (and the folks that I play with). I played it for a couple of hours and went back to Quake II - an inferior game in every way except the one that mattered to me - it had co-op.
I realize this puts me in the minority, but, sooner or later, I think that most of us will begin to tire of blasting our buddies. I think it is part of the maturing process, but maybe that's just me... Of course, with new players picking up games all the time, the trend won't be recognized by the gaming companies.
As I sit here and type this, I realize that a few design trends are shutting me (and people like me) out of the gaming market. I see them and I hope that things will shift back, but I suspect that they won't...
One factor that has influenced design trends with many recent games is the growth of console games. I think this has dumbed down designs. Designers look for a way to make a cross-platform (console/computer - not the same as Windows/Mac/Linux) design, and they design for the lowest common denominator. Things that work well on computers, but do not work well on consoles (like co-op or interesting multiplayer modes) get axed. Call of Cthulhu originally was supposed to have a co-op mode. Now that a cosole port is being made, all mention of the co-op mode has vanished from the previews, website, etc. It is not alone in this trend.
A second trend is the rise of the massively multiplayer on-line game. I think that the co-op market in standard games is being abandoned because the designers assume that those who desire co-op play are being catered to by the MMOGs, and they will gravitate there. This might be true for some, but I can say with conviction that it is not true for everyone. Some of us don't enjoy the MMOG game. This is certainly true for me.
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
The only recent releases I can see innovation and improvement happening is in the Unreal engine games (UT2004 was a massive improvement over UT2003) and Red Storm's multiplayer games (not Splinter Cell). In fact, at the last LAN party I attended, we played NeverWinter Nights more than anything else. The fact that we're still playing two year old games at LAN parties speaks to the lack of interest in modern designs.Anyhow, back to the subject of the original posting... Adding two DM maps to HL2 does nothing to increase my desire to purchase the game. I hope that, as some point, we'll see a real, fully functional (all of the levels, all of the encounters) co-op mode added to the game.
I bought the box. Amazed it plays on a Toshiba Satellite that is a couple of year old. However, I will say as an avid gamer, this is the worst distribution mechanism I have ever seen.
The thing took me over 3 hours to install, patch and attempt to play. I had not used Steam before, no reason to. Then, insult to injury, I have to be ONLINE(?!) to play the SINGLE PLAYER(?!). WTF?
The game is amazing, they did a fantastic job. But I expect a better experience from my gaming companies than what I found. After all, I BOUGHT THE FRIGGIN GAME, like I buy ALL the games I play.
Valve is pushing the envelope with them, and I cannot blame them for attempting to cut down on piracy, but the inconvenience caused by their distribution or unlocking mechanism is beyond what I had previously thought a gaming company might do. There were literally thousands if not tens of thousands who awaited this game with slobbering anticipation, and then they take one in the poop even if they bought the box version!
If they were going to make it so much better to do a totally online download and install, I wish they would have at least TOLD us the preferred method, and WARNED the general public that their box version would need significantly more patience than doing the online purchase.
Yes I am still pissed about this even though I love the game.
I am not bitter... I am alum-flavored...
After seeing all the bashing of Valve over things like the media being required to be present, did anyone stop and think that maybe the reason there is such draconian protection measures in the retail version is because Vivendi required it as part of the distribution contract? There is *no* logical reason for Valve to require a physical disc to be present once you've registered the product in Steam. So the only logical reason I can come up with for why it's there is because they were required to by their distribution contract. Yes, there is also the conspiracy theory that Valve wanted to people to buy it via Steam so they added media protection to generate unrest. I don't buy that though.
"The server is the device that needs maximum bandwidth, not cpu power."
Heh well then i guesss you ahven't been running any Sources servers lately.
Ever since the addition of steam the requirements for the server has gone up quite considerably...
Right now we have a clan server (dual p3 650s, 768 of ram, 1mb/sec or more of bandwidth)that runs CS:Source with 18 player limit, at 14 players the cpu utilization is at 88% constant...
But pre-steam we could run 2 CS 1.5 or earlier servers with a maxplayer limit of 20 (so 40 clients total) and maybe hit this level of utilization but usually it was at about 20-30% per server...
You say that, even though you seem to acknowledge that the server should not trust client data in a reply to my post below.
The fact is that the physics are probably calculated (in whatever manner or precision I don't care) on the server as well as on the clients: the latter so that the client can display something while waiting for the server, the former because the server must never trust any client to do any real work for it. In fact, given a sufficiently fast connection, clients might drop processing physics, but the server has to do it, simply because there is no other way.
And in fact, older machines might not be up to the task anymore these days, I just did some searching around and here is from a post on the srcds.com forums:I guess it's worse with games like T:V and UT2004 that sometimes have 20 to 30 players on. The days when you could have three dedicated servers running simultaneously on a an old P2 are gone...
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
The point is in real life, with real physics, both things happen, depending on the situation.
Minitanks and real tanks do destroy road blocks, and road blocks do destroy and disable tanks.
Most games, in the past, haven't been able to support this level of flexibility. Half-Life 2 has given this flexibility, even if it hasn't been taken advantage of yet.
I think the mods he has suggested sound great!
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Subject says it all.
I have no doubts that the goodness of Half-Life Deathmatch will be as good or better than the original in the Source Engine Flavor.
-WeAz
There has been one critical, logical flaw in all of my reasoning which no one has previously pounced upon.
I have been talking generically, while the subject was specifically Half Life, and I'm afraid I'm utterly ignorant of Half Life, let alone Steam.
In my defense I might point, however, that your server does, indeed, meet most people's definition of the sort of old box that they wouldn't want to play single player on, but functions well as a 14 player server.
KFG
There are at least 20 other and mostly better games that are tactical. Get out of the mid-90s. CS may have been cool then, but there are many other games that do the tactical thing much better. And they don't have quite as many 12 year-olds either.
Yeah, but will the modders own their work, or does Steam get to decide when and for how long you can enjoy the fruits of your own efforts modding the game?
Edith Keeler Must Die
What I don't understand about this thread is why so many people are bitching and complaining about a new feature, provided for free, which wasn't listed anywhere on their box/license agreement.
How can so many people be so whiny and selfish? Valve repeatedly said the only multiplayer they were releasing with HL2 was CS:S. Now you've got another form of online play, completely free! So the first thing you do is get on Slashdot and bitch about it? Do you somehow retroactively feel you were entitled to this free update, and should have received better?
I know, welcome to the intarweb.
-sig removed for tax purposes-
I imagined two geeks strapped in front of computers in a big cage with lethal syringes at their necks, playing half-life 2
Not that I'm accusing the poster, but I think that people predisposed to steal simply like to make excuses to appease their conscience. It's about taking responsibility for your own actions versus blaming others for them.
:D But did I pirate to get back at a company I think slighted me? Of course not! I did it because it was easier and cheaper than going out and buying it!
;)
Me? I'm a reforming pirate. I'm *mostly* legal and the big OSS movement has helped in a big way because I'm a cheap SOB.
However let me add that Valve has done things I don't like. For example the Steam client has some glaring bugs that have existed for a long time. The "friends" feature for exmaple would rock if it worked, but 90% of the time I cannot connect to the friends server. But I respect the work that has gone into the game and I don't encourage anybody to steal it. Besides, a friend who doesn't play FPS games gave me his ATI HL2 coupon so I still got the game for free.
I say that moral pirates are fooling themselves. Robin Hood my ass.
I've only played one map, and it largely consisted of me throwing tables at fellows and them dodging and then throwing office chairs back at me...
Sort'of like some game of furniture pong (shiny anistropic shaded pong, but pong none the less)
I've always maintained that in the land of FPS, they made just one game (Mario's swat the fly game) and the graphics gave just got better over the years...
'plex
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
yah it "works" for 14 people but I wouldn't call it well, as a server also needs headroom for spikes in activity, pings, connections, downloads (in game, etc) and logging... so everytime that 88% hits 100% even for a few seconds it creates lag for players which is detrimental to keeping a server populated.
;)
I have run multiple gaming platform servers on this same machine (quake3, ut2003/4, bf1942, etc..) and only lately with steam have we seen it brought to it's knees... alot of people on the HLDS (half life dedicated server) mailing list seem to have come to the same conclusions...
So just FYI, not bashing your game server knowledge
Checkout the SDK code released today, it has loads of references to TF2:
// Only support prediction in TF2 for nowd .h(78 ):#if defined( TF2_DLL ) || defined( TF2_CLIENT_DLL )) :// Purpose: TF2 commander mode movement logic
(77):
C:\MyMod\src\game_shared\baseviewmodel_share
C:\MyMod\src\game_shared\gamemovement.cpp(3990
C:\MyMod\src\cl_dll\in_camera.cpp(434):// Do allow third person in TF2 for now
This was a great move. They recognized that they had alienated a section of their fan base, and moved accordingly to capitalize on it and theoretically profit by selling more copies.
Bravo, Valve!
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
I'm not buying HL2 because of the lack of multiplayer options that interest me (no co-op, no 'bots). HL1 was an interesting game, but I didn't find it to be very fun without friends to share the game with - share being the operative and important word. To be more explicit, deathmatch isn't sharing - at least to me (and the folks that I play with). I played it for a couple of hours and went back to Quake II - an inferior game in every way except the one that mattered to me - it had co-op. I realize this puts me in the minority, but, sooner or later, I think that most of us will begin to tire of blasting our buddies.
I think there are some fundamental design reasons why cop-op is tough to implement. Most games that tell a story attempt to do so through scripted events. HL2's scripted events happen in real-time, inside the game engine. How do you handle these when two players are in there at once? They could be in totally different parts of the level. One person would see all of the scripted stuff, and one wouldn't.
What happens if one player's actions make part of the level impassable to the other player? The environments in HL2 are pretty dynamic and having completed the game, I can forsee a lot of instances when a player could be "cut off" if he were lagging behind the other player, with no way to proceed through the level. I guess you could have some sort of "teleport" function to let the other player catch up to the first player, but.... that's kind of corny.
I mean, co-op is a lot of fun, but I don't think companies are willing to sacrifice the design of their single-player game to make it compatible with a co-op play mode. I can see how a simple blast-em-'up like Serious Sam (god, I loved that game) or Q2 works well for cop-op, but I can't see it working too well for a "richer" game like HL2.
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
In a sense, yeah. HL2 is the same old FPS, executed very well in terms of story and graphics. However, the use of physics in HL2 is pretty revolutionary. Objects fly around like actual, well... objects and it's not just eye candy - a lot of the puzzles in the game depend on the clever manipulation of those objects.
For example, at one point, there's a ramp you need to drive your hovercraft over. But it's too low, and it's partially submerged in water. I found some floaty plastic barrels and placed them in the water under the ramp. Their buoyancy caused the ramp to rise to the proper angle. I was then able to drive my hovercraft over it and continue with the level.
There are a lot of puzzles like that, and even when you're not doing puzzles like that, most of the objects in the environment act in a "realistic" physical manner which adds to the fun when things are being thrown about by explosions.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Gamecube has Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and Zelda: Four Swords. But you need 4 GBAs (you can sub in GB Player + small TV also).
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Oh yea I remember, ist LAG!!!!
You say that, even though you seem to acknowledge that the server should not trust client data in a reply to my post below.
.the latter so that the client can display something while waiting for the server, the former because the server must never trust any client to do any real work for it.
As I also said the client should not trust data from the server. Nonetheless trust must be assigned to the untrusted, just as in the Real Word (tm).
As a result of this the Real World (tm) does not run as we might like. Neither do online games. We have to be a bit "Zen" about this, or else the road runs to madness. We must both strive to reduce imperfection, but also know when and where to cease striving and accept that imperfections are inevitable.
The fact is that the physics are probably calculated (in whatever manner or precision I don't care) on the server as well as on the clients:
Given your paranthetical I acknowledge that this is wise, and sometimes even necessary, in certain games. It depends upon the nature of the game universe.
. .
No, because the client is authority on what happens locally. When I move my controller, that is what happens. I, the gamer himself, is authority of my actions. Only my local machine can be trusted to calculate the effects in real time. What is displayed to me must be as close as possible to a true instantaneous reaction to my inputs. I cannot brake from 200 mph into a hairpin by sending my controler inputs to the server, having the server calculate the physics and sending the results back to me. What's more my local machine can calculate these physics just as accurately and trustedly as the server can, and can do so without also having to calculate the physics of the car behind me at the same time. The server must accept these calculations as "true" (it may have some algorithm to verify that trust before it "trusts" it, but that's an AI issue, not a physics issue) and there isn't a high end gaming machine in the world that wouldn't be brought to its knees by a three car race, let alone a 40 car race, if it had to do all of the primary physics itself.
Yet my 900mhz box with 128mb PC133, which can be brought to its knees by a single car without AI if I crank the effects up to max, can run 20 client cars without a hitch because the clients are computing what each car is doing.
In fact, given a sufficiently fast connection, clients might drop processing physics, but the server has to do it, simply because there is no other way.
c, not just a good idea, it's the law. There will never be such a sufficiently fast connection. It's the reason I have to give up gaming online entirely when and where I have to rely on satellite for my internet connection, even with the primary physics being computed client side.
Where the server does properly handle physics is in the universe at large, as that is where it is authority. Most of the time, most of this stuff, is adequately handled by AI though. Bots. Canned Goods. A train doesn't need real physics. It just needs to go down the track at the right speed in the right direction. More complicated behaviors of more complicated objects may need more complicated pseudophysics, asymptotically approaching game physics as needed.
But yes, the server is the proper place to calculate this and the proper authority over reporting its location. And the client has to trust it.
At the interface between the local world and the universal world there will be some level of AI to try smooth over the rough edges, which you can see by playing different games is done with either more or less success.
And in fact, older machines might not be up to the task anymore these days, I just did some searching around and here is from a post on the srcds.com forums:
This appears to be an issue with Steam specifically, not game architecture (or even Half Life architechture) generically, and just what Steam is doing, well, I admit I haven't a clue.
KFG
You're a "trees" kind of guy, missing the forest and the point.
This appears to be an issue with Steam specifically, not game architecture (or even Half Life architechture) generically, and just what Steam is doing, well, I admit I haven't a clue.
It's not an issue with Steam. All dedicated servers for current generation multiplayer FPS games have similar hardware requirements. When Tribes: Vengeance was released this was quite an issue, if I recall correctly.
And as for server-sided calculation, well, shrug, I think you're wrong. All modern games calculate all gameplay-related physics on the server, no input from the client is required apart from the relayed/interpreted user input (ie mouse, keyboard, etc.). Calculating the physics for a 32-player game of T:V is possible, as are the physics of a 10 car race - both should be obvious, since a single computer can and does handle both in single player games. It's non-trivial, which explains the relatively higher system requirements.
It can't be too hard though, since the client has to be able to calculate the physics and still leave most of the system free to create graphics and sound and remain responsible, which entails that the physics we have in today's games are still fairly simplistic by comparison to what scientific, non-realtime simulations can do. But then, we just need corpses toppling over comically, not atoms and or muons. And I'd hope that car manufacturers have better traction simulations than those of say, Richard Burns Rally - which are already really good as far as PC racing games are concerned.
Whether the client "trusts" the server is immaterial in this context - it better adapt to what the server says, or else the game just isn't playable, but this is stricly a one way adaptation, they don't meed in the middle. No trust is necessary since the server is in the position of power, metaphorically speaking.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I was trying out hl2dm, and it wasn't too bad. Ignoring the fact that i only get about 9 fps, I was doing decent, up until i came up close to someone. When i'm a foot away from an enemy, my first instinct is to whip out my crowbar and start smacking him in the face. but wait... they don't give you a crowbar! arrrgh.
Alright, you're right.
Havok definitely deserves some props for this one.
Biggie 'em up!
After reading quite a bit about the authentication stuff, I've decided not to purchase the game. I *never* pirate games, not only because it's wrong, but because I have a great deal of respect for the resources that are required for a game of such high quality. Fortuanately, there *are* other games available, and I will be looking to one of those instead.
. . .as are the physics of a 10 car race - both should be obvious, since a single computer can and does handle both in single player games.
.
.20.
No auto racing simulation does this, not even the "hard core" sims. Real physics are only computed on the player's car. The rest are bots. Bots don't need to know the exact torque on their left driveshaft ("You" do, however). Only where their next waypoint is. This is trivial.
It's non-trivial, which explains the relatively higher system requirements.
It's nontrivial because computing the physics of a single car in a "hard core" sim such as Papyrus's or the more advanced noncommercial projects is nontrivial.
And I'd hope that car manufacturers have better traction simulations than those of say, Richard Burns Rally. .
Be careful what you wish for, you might end up disappointed. I've done some work in this field. I have chosen to focus on racing sims because it's the field where as a physicist I have done orginal research, written scientific simulations, both non-realtime and realtime, done real automotive engineering and worked on "games," as well as playing them.
I'm hardly the world's foremost expert on any of these things, but I'm not just pulling shit completely out of my ass either, and I know some of the world's foremost experts on these things.
Look, try this. Download the code of one of the open source racing or flight sims. Read it. I have. You'll find the physics are nontrivial. You'll also find they're computed client side and only trivial state data is sent to the server so it can relay to the other players where you are. The server has no need to know the exact torque on your left drive shaft, and neither do the other players. "You" do, however.
This is the reason why FPSs have been the leader in game graphics. Racing and flight sims cannot spare the computing power for graphics, the physics eats it all.
World data, however, is trivial. Which is to say nonexistant, because there are no objects in the world that require physics other than the player cars.
What the hell the "latest generation" FPSs are doing server side that requires so much work, well, I don't know. They don't have to make the pretty pictures. They don't have to make any pictures at all. I've never so much as seen one run. I obviously haven't read their code either. I'm stuck with older generations for that, as are you.
Go, read code.
Then maybe try writing a nontrivial driving sim with your all on the server side idea. Show it to me. If it works I owe you a beer or something, because I'm betting you won't even be able to drive your own car around the track with a ping of
KFG
Okay, since you claim to be fairly knowledgeable, I'll give you the racing sims. You brought them up in the first place, and it probably wasn't too smart of me to address them considering the fact that I don't even play them online very often. But first-person shooters are what this discussion started out with, and with them all relevant and authoritative computations are done on the server side. You claimed the opposite.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I'm not going to toaly slate CS, despite the urges to. It's just not my cup of tea (especialy since I only drink coffee)
It is a pseudo-realism mod that, for me, get's boring after a while. I'll be rooting for DOD:S all the way. DOD is a great game, and fixes all the ircks I have with CS. So hopefuly DOD:S will just plainly kick arse.
HL1 lives so long partly because of the modding community. So while official HL2DM maybe won't last so long, the mods will still be around for a while to come. There are several mods aiming to do co-op. It may even become a part of BM:S (http://forum.leakfree.org/index.php?c=7&sid=629a4 2bbd709745ea4b071f7ae3570d5
Or perhaps TF2, which is already in the works? ;) :)
But yah, thats bound to be different. TFC:S would be quite nifty, but I think my above logic is all you'd get from Valve
I think there are some fundamental design reasons why cop-op is tough to implement. Most games that tell a story attempt to do so through scripted events. HL2's scripted events happen in real-time, inside the game engine. How do you handle these when two players are in there at once? They could be in totally different parts of the level. One person would see all of the scripted stuff, and one wouldn't.
What happens if one player's actions make part of the level impassable to the other player? The environments in HL2 are pretty dynamic and having completed the game, I can forsee a lot of instances when a player could be "cut off" if he were lagging behind the other player, with no way to proceed through the level. I guess you could have some sort of "teleport" function to let the other player catch up to the first player, but.... that's kind of corny.
Agreed and understood. This is the classic argument made against making co-op friendly games. I'm not sure that it is entirely valid. Yes, cut scenes make it hard to do a co-op game, but are they truly necessary? Maybe I'm the atypical player, but I always found cut-scenes to be more annoying than helpful. I dislike situations that I can't interact with, affect, or prevent. They are intended to help the sense of immersion in the game world/story, but, to me (at least), they snap me back to the realization that this is just a game and I can't do anything about some things...
I mean, co-op is a lot of fun, but I don't think companies are willing to sacrifice the design of their single-player game to make it compatible with a co-op play mode. I can see how a simple blast-em-'up like Serious Sam (god, I loved that game)
I agree. Simple game, but a ton of fun with some buddies to share it with... not pulitzer prize stuff, but more fun than I have had in many other games...
or Q2 works well for co-op, but I can't see it working too well for a "richer" game like HL2.
And I counter that HL2 is, in reality, poorer for it. It can be done - Valve chose not to do it (just as they did for HL1). I refuse to buy the argument that a game can not be co-op friendly and immersive (or "rich" as you term it).
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
In a sense, yeah. HL2 is the same old FPS, executed very well in terms of story and graphics. However, the use of physics in HL2 is pretty revolutionary. Objects fly around like actual, well... objects and it's not just eye candy - a lot of the puzzles in the game depend on the clever manipulation of those objects.
For example, at one point, there's a ramp you need to drive your hovercraft over. But it's too low, and it's partially submerged in water. I found some floaty plastic barrels and placed them in the water under the ramp. Their buoyancy caused the ramp to rise to the proper angle. I was then able to drive my hovercraft over it and continue with the level.
There are a lot of puzzles like that, and even when you're not doing puzzles like that, most of the objects in the environment act in a "realistic" physical manner which adds to the fun when things are being thrown about by explosions.
Sounds like they did do some interesting work, but not enough to make me change my mind, or negate my remarks about their design choices. BioWare, in explaining their choices for NeverWinter Nights expansions, used the term "zots". Zots represent programming/design effort to make something work. In any project, there are a fixed
But first-person shooters are what this discussion started out with, and with them all relevant and authoritative computations are done on the server side. You claimed the opposite.
:)
Aha! Now you have finally nailed me on what I have already admited in another post is the critical flaw in my argument.
We were not discussing games in general, or even FPSs in general, but Half Life 2 specifically.
And, as stated, I have not even seen HL2 run.
I'll still stand you a beer (seriously) if you prove to be correct though.
KFG
HL2 is a great game. But give Havok its proper credit.
... you cannot pick up a dumpster or, indeed, anything larger than a file cabinet or book case.
;-)
Unless, of course, you're Dog.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
This won't stop them: they have a device that sees RIGHT THROUGH your tinfoil hat!