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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Right Here
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
I've been following this new slowdown problem on my Half-Life 2 Stuttering Page. I am experiencing this issue as well and have received many reports of others with this problem.
I have posted an analysis of this issue with some performance graphs illustrating the problem and have forwarded it all to Valve.
If you don't want it, turn it off. If you don't like how it works, stop using it.