Blaming 3rd party publishers for leaking information is like shooting yourself into a leg. It's Sonys own fault that the information got leaked in advance. I guess Sony wants to be the one to tell the tale, which it's entitled to but if information is leaked, maybe they should pick the 3rd party's more carefully next time who they are going to tell in advance.
Since you pulled TF2 into comparison with L4D, let's make some comparison with accurate stats.
Team Fortress 2 had six (6) maps when it was launched. It's price was 29,99$ as a standalone version. TF2 maps are designed in the way as you go back and forth depending how you and your team is. They usually last around 30mins or even 1 hour, depending on server settings where you play at. At TF2, you find different positions favorable to different classes which increases the experience, each time. You learn the spots with each classes which you like to play on, where to be and so on. You learn the layout fast and know where to go but experience varies greatly because your enemy is _always_ human.
Now L4D costs that same as TF2 but in the past it cost total 50 bucks. Basically L4D had four (4) maps. They last each around 1 hour once you get the hang of them. Perhaps if you are pro, even ~35mins. L4D has only way route to victory in campaign mode. You may find additional weapons and you learn the spots where to be to win and what places to go. It nearly hasnt got enough variety as they promised. Same pipe to run through. You know where the regular and special enemies are coming from and how to counter them. Set tank on fire and just run away for 45 seconds and it dies. With few times playing through the maps, there just isnt anything left to play on. Agreed, there is plenty to play compared to some single player crap that costs 50 bucks but as for Valve style support and additional content, no.
So L4D has actually LESS to play for with default content than TF2 had, if you look at the time which you spent on each game. Of course as a newb, you are playing twice as that time but TF2 still had a lot more to play on than L4D had. I've spent a lot more time on TF2 than on L4D. I lost my interest into L4D after 3 months. Survival update brought me into the game for about a week, then i had gold medals in survival 12, silver in 2, bronze in 1 map(s) with 1-5 tries. I didnt even bother to play the rest as i would have wanted _new_ maps, not the same crap ones i got bored already. Survival wasnt a real update. It only brought the stuff the game should have had in the first place and one (1) new map, the lighthouse.
If you look at TF2, there are shitloads of new stuff since the release. Valve indeed promised more content to the game but they didnt really talk about new maps. Of course, everyone assumed that the game would have some, since CS 1.6, CS Source, DoD Source and TF2 had lots on the past. Looks to me as if they shoot themselves in the foot. Many people will buy L4D2 but L4D comes nonexistant in the moment L4D2 releases. Valve propably will shut their servers down too 6 months - 12 months after the release.
I just hope existing L4D owners will get L4D2 with 20% or more discount. Even more if the game will have same 4 campaigns as the older game had + survival mode.
Thing is, most games are already censored (no gore, no limbs and bodyparts are replaced with toys in Team Fortress 2) in Germany. Some games you cannot even sell there! For example a dude in Germany cannot buy Wolfenstein 3D from Steam. Now total ban for violent games? Pssh. Talk about overreacting.
TV is the biggest source for Violence. Ban it first.
As a side note, Valve just killed community mapping for original Left 4 Dead by announcing this so soon. Development SDK is still in beta for L4D and thus releasing information for L4D2, most of the people will move to that whilst skippijg the first game. I feel so abandoned right now. I have 2 maps ready for 5 maps campaign.
There has been also talk that the new game will have the old campaigns too.They say that the custom campaigns made for L4D will work also on L4D2 so why the hell they even bother to do SDK if they gonna screw us over by making us buy another game in which we already have like half? Money. Valve is gone greedy.
These level designers at Valve get PAID for doing maps. However, models, textures and brains are needed to feed the zombie designers that Valve has at their basement but if you get paid, do it the job for more than 40 hours a week, you get a pretty nice campaing out in a month or in Valves casem 2 months as they tend to "tune" them up, unless already existing models and graphics are used. Besides, level designers have modelers, animators, graphics artists and so on as their help.
It's not that hard to do a map. Average person can pull out one in 2 months of time with decent knowledge of Hammer editor. L4D campaign needs 5 campaigns but they are more easy to design than for their other games like CS Source or TF2. Those L4D maps are more like pipes, 1 way in, 1 way out. There isnt much diversity. I'm pretty sure i can pull out 5 map campaign within 4 months myself and i plan do do so too.
I think biggest problem here is money. Making a level designer to do something in yet unreleased product is more profitable than doing content for a game that is already out (and the content is free).
It's not overpriced anymore, costs only 29,99 or dollars in your local Steam client. Thats the price that the game should have had in the first place.
However, Valve made a huge mistake for delaying the SDK release this far. Game is already 6 months old and most players are bored with the old maps. This "survival pack" does not fill the gap, even though the SDK finally gets out. Some players come back to L4D with this, including me but there should have been more campaigns before this update.
I lost my interest months ago. I know every goddamn pipebomb, pills, etc locations and i hardly go down or lose any health during campaign, even on expert mode. No challenge, not enough to play so i quitted.
This is a fact. I have used internet for long time and my own personal feeling from ads turned from positive to way negative years ago. When i found AdBlock Plus and happen to use some of the sites from another temporarely pc which does not have it, i am amazed how full the screen is. The space that ads are covering is overwhelming. Some sites even have annoying moving ads as background! I cant stand that kind of crap.
Well, Microsoft wants publishers to make players pay for extra content so maybe this is intentional addition for as cheap price as it can be. Hell, Sony even makes the company pay for bandwidth so it's sort of understandable in their point of view but ours - not.
Now after the weekend is over and it has been more than a week already, the players count has dropped rapidly. Nice warmping up for old game but it just didnt last. It should be updated regularely to keep people's interest on it. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/ (Click link view stats per game)
Well apparently RIAA is not suing anymore. Instead they try to get ISP's into their bandwagon to cut off connections if people do illegal stuff. However, why any ISP which is doing commercial business would do this for free or why would they even consider going after their paying customers in the first place? ISP is not a police and people's privacy must be respected and law followed.
Well how good will Aero run then? Would be (sounds like) pretty shitty user experience for me but hey, it runs! Something to brag about for Microsoft and then users who use it will say hey this windows 7 lags more than my Vista because someone screwed them again upon buying decent pc.
Indeed. With selective pricing they can get more money from another and sell cheaper to a more larger volumy buyer (or just make them pay more if they dont know how to demand..)
New Outlook 2007 uses Word as rendering instead of IE. First of all, i have to ask WHY but i guess delayed IE 8 explains it. Microsoft doesnt even want to use their own older browser theirselves.
IE does a lot of things right, which no other browser does.
Yeah, a lot of BAD things like fucking up compatibility, usability and ignoring standards. All the things you listed are secondary compared to its main idea - to show websites. They are building IE to be something megalomaniac thing that just wont work without a whole bunch of other programs and software.
I bet this announcement was made only because too many people reacted the previous statement and PR persons got dispatched out like raving dogs. Btw, does talking about DRM break ToS or their forum rules?
Basically (country wide in Finland) 99,5% of the given votes got accepted. 0,5% includes ones that cannot be read or do not appear to be given to candidates, etc.
If the E-voting would have been country wide, that percentage of accepted votes would be around 97,5%. I dont know about rest of the countries but here that would be a shitload of votes that didnt count. It means that around 50 000 voters of total at given elections would go to vote, draw a donald duck on the paper and slip it into the bottomless pit of votes and while doing so, they would know that its pointless to vote in the first place.
People who created the machine screwed up. The machine clearly is not user friendly nor does it serve its purpose. User error is the biggest error there can be and the weakest link too. It has been and will always be. People are not made for machines, machines are made for people. Dont you ever forget that.
Steam didn't even list that "SecuROM built in" before people started complaining about games having it on top of Steam's own DRM. I guess the developers do not want to create a separate version for Steam that does not have SecuROM included or its decided at developers HQ (or their parent company HQ) that all games will be sold with SecuROM because they paid for to use it and it will protect their games from piracy (yeah right).
Steam is ok. If it holds the level of DRM that can be accepted, i can live with it as long as it doesnt get any tighter. You can download games that you own from anywhere and run them on any computer that you wish. I find this very easy as long as your connection is good and there isnt rush on Steam content servers. Well you can always "crack" the Steam games by using "no Steam" which means that if someone shares their pair of the games, everyone with cracked version can play them so its similiar to pirated version of the game that has no SecuROM drm included. Maybe this is the reason why there is extra SecuROM along (which does not help though). This is just a proof that no copy protection is perfect but this (Steam standalone DRM) is the best i can live with. Bye bye Mass Effect and all SecuROM games, you got left in the store!
Ive used Steam over 4 years now. Only problems i've had with it are slow download speeds and authentication errors while playing Valve's own games or their game mods (rest of the games do not use similiar authentication aka SteamID). 3rd issue is the fact that the client sometimes lags untill you restart it. Eats a lot of CPU when its been on long time.
Slashdot Mirror
Blaming 3rd party publishers for leaking information is like shooting yourself into a leg. It's Sonys own fault that the information got leaked in advance. I guess Sony wants to be the one to tell the tale, which it's entitled to but if information is leaked, maybe they should pick the 3rd party's more carefully next time who they are going to tell in advance.
Since you pulled TF2 into comparison with L4D, let's make some comparison with accurate stats.
Team Fortress 2 had six (6) maps when it was launched. It's price was 29,99$ as a standalone version. TF2 maps are designed in the way as you go back and forth depending how you and your team is. They usually last around 30mins or even 1 hour, depending on server settings where you play at. At TF2, you find different positions favorable to different classes which increases the experience, each time. You learn the spots with each classes which you like to play on, where to be and so on. You learn the layout fast and know where to go but experience varies greatly because your enemy is _always_ human.
Now L4D costs that same as TF2 but in the past it cost total 50 bucks. Basically L4D had four (4) maps. They last each around 1 hour once you get the hang of them. Perhaps if you are pro, even ~35mins. L4D has only way route to victory in campaign mode. You may find additional weapons and you learn the spots where to be to win and what places to go. It nearly hasnt got enough variety as they promised. Same pipe to run through. You know where the regular and special enemies are coming from and how to counter them. Set tank on fire and just run away for 45 seconds and it dies. With few times playing through the maps, there just isnt anything left to play on. Agreed, there is plenty to play compared to some single player crap that costs 50 bucks but as for Valve style support and additional content, no.
So L4D has actually LESS to play for with default content than TF2 had, if you look at the time which you spent on each game. Of course as a newb, you are playing twice as that time but TF2 still had a lot more to play on than L4D had. I've spent a lot more time on TF2 than on L4D. I lost my interest into L4D after 3 months. Survival update brought me into the game for about a week, then i had gold medals in survival 12, silver in 2, bronze in 1 map(s) with 1-5 tries. I didnt even bother to play the rest as i would have wanted _new_ maps, not the same crap ones i got bored already. Survival wasnt a real update. It only brought the stuff the game should have had in the first place and one (1) new map, the lighthouse.
If you look at TF2, there are shitloads of new stuff since the release. Valve indeed promised more content to the game but they didnt really talk about new maps. Of course, everyone assumed that the game would have some, since CS 1.6, CS Source, DoD Source and TF2 had lots on the past. Looks to me as if they shoot themselves in the foot. Many people will buy L4D2 but L4D comes nonexistant in the moment L4D2 releases. Valve propably will shut their servers down too 6 months - 12 months after the release.
I just hope existing L4D owners will get L4D2 with 20% or more discount. Even more if the game will have same 4 campaigns as the older game had + survival mode.
Thing is, most games are already censored (no gore, no limbs and bodyparts are replaced with toys in Team Fortress 2) in Germany. Some games you cannot even sell there! For example a dude in Germany cannot buy Wolfenstein 3D from Steam. Now total ban for violent games? Pssh. Talk about overreacting. TV is the biggest source for Violence. Ban it first.
http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_dockstart_052809.html http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_fireammo_052809.html http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_fryingpan_052809.html http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_gardenmaze_052809.html http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_kitchensmoker_052809.html http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_saferoom_052809.html http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_alarm_052809.html http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14352245/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_gmp_axeownage_052809.html
Review: http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/988/988161p1.html
As a side note, Valve just killed community mapping for original Left 4 Dead by announcing this so soon. Development SDK is still in beta for L4D and thus releasing information for L4D2, most of the people will move to that whilst skippijg the first game. I feel so abandoned right now. I have 2 maps ready for 5 maps campaign.
There has been also talk that the new game will have the old campaigns too.They say that the custom campaigns made for L4D will work also on L4D2 so why the hell they even bother to do SDK if they gonna screw us over by making us buy another game in which we already have like half? Money. Valve is gone greedy.
These level designers at Valve get PAID for doing maps. However, models, textures and brains are needed to feed the zombie designers that Valve has at their basement but if you get paid, do it the job for more than 40 hours a week, you get a pretty nice campaing out in a month or in Valves casem 2 months as they tend to "tune" them up, unless already existing models and graphics are used. Besides, level designers have modelers, animators, graphics artists and so on as their help.
It's not that hard to do a map. Average person can pull out one in 2 months of time with decent knowledge of Hammer editor. L4D campaign needs 5 campaigns but they are more easy to design than for their other games like CS Source or TF2. Those L4D maps are more like pipes, 1 way in, 1 way out. There isnt much diversity. I'm pretty sure i can pull out 5 map campaign within 4 months myself and i plan do do so too.
I think biggest problem here is money. Making a level designer to do something in yet unreleased product is more profitable than doing content for a game that is already out (and the content is free).
It's not overpriced anymore, costs only 29,99 or dollars in your local Steam client. Thats the price that the game should have had in the first place. However, Valve made a huge mistake for delaying the SDK release this far. Game is already 6 months old and most players are bored with the old maps. This "survival pack" does not fill the gap, even though the SDK finally gets out. Some players come back to L4D with this, including me but there should have been more campaigns before this update. I lost my interest months ago. I know every goddamn pipebomb, pills, etc locations and i hardly go down or lose any health during campaign, even on expert mode. No challenge, not enough to play so i quitted.
This is a fact. I have used internet for long time and my own personal feeling from ads turned from positive to way negative years ago. When i found AdBlock Plus and happen to use some of the sites from another temporarely pc which does not have it, i am amazed how full the screen is. The space that ads are covering is overwhelming. Some sites even have annoying moving ads as background! I cant stand that kind of crap.
Well, Microsoft wants publishers to make players pay for extra content so maybe this is intentional addition for as cheap price as it can be. Hell, Sony even makes the company pay for bandwidth so it's sort of understandable in their point of view but ours - not.
Now after the weekend is over and it has been more than a week already, the players count has dropped rapidly. Nice warmping up for old game but it just didnt last. It should be updated regularely to keep people's interest on it. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/ (Click link view stats per game)
No wonder SF got changed into FIN -> we are now finnished.
a "working hard" Zune
Well apparently RIAA is not suing anymore. Instead they try to get ISP's into their bandwagon to cut off connections if people do illegal stuff. However, why any ISP which is doing commercial business would do this for free or why would they even consider going after their paying customers in the first place? ISP is not a police and people's privacy must be respected and law followed.
Because new shit doesn't fit to old abit. Comprende?
Too bad. I even have Abit mobo on my desktop even now. I got atleast 1 year to find a replacement before this PC goes past it's time.
Maybe it runs Crysis, but not Aero. ;)
Well how good will Aero run then? Would be (sounds like) pretty shitty user experience for me but hey, it runs! Something to brag about for Microsoft and then users who use it will say hey this windows 7 lags more than my Vista because someone screwed them again upon buying decent pc.
PS3 = same shit, different asshole
Indeed. With selective pricing they can get more money from another and sell cheaper to a more larger volumy buyer (or just make them pay more if they dont know how to demand..)
Why get 80GB when you can get 1TB for little over double of that price? Are you in selling/marketing department? They usually bend numbers...
New Outlook 2007 uses Word as rendering instead of IE. First of all, i have to ask WHY but i guess delayed IE 8 explains it. Microsoft doesnt even want to use their own older browser theirselves.
You're not looking at the whole picture.
IE does a lot of things right, which no other browser does.
Yeah, a lot of BAD things like fucking up compatibility, usability and ignoring standards. All the things you listed are secondary compared to its main idea - to show websites. They are building IE to be something megalomaniac thing that just wont work without a whole bunch of other programs and software.
I bet this announcement was made only because too many people reacted the previous statement and PR persons got dispatched out like raving dogs. Btw, does talking about DRM break ToS or their forum rules?
Don't forget fart, turd, and twat!
Basically (country wide in Finland) 99,5% of the given votes got accepted. 0,5% includes ones that cannot be read or do not appear to be given to candidates, etc.
If the E-voting would have been country wide, that percentage of accepted votes would be around 97,5%. I dont know about rest of the countries but here that would be a shitload of votes that didnt count. It means that around 50 000 voters of total at given elections would go to vote, draw a donald duck on the paper and slip it into the bottomless pit of votes and while doing so, they would know that its pointless to vote in the first place.
People who created the machine screwed up. The machine clearly is not user friendly nor does it serve its purpose. User error is the biggest error there can be and the weakest link too. It has been and will always be. People are not made for machines, machines are made for people. Dont you ever forget that.
Steam didn't even list that "SecuROM built in" before people started complaining about games having it on top of Steam's own DRM. I guess the developers do not want to create a separate version for Steam that does not have SecuROM included or its decided at developers HQ (or their parent company HQ) that all games will be sold with SecuROM because they paid for to use it and it will protect their games from piracy (yeah right).
Steam is ok. If it holds the level of DRM that can be accepted, i can live with it as long as it doesnt get any tighter. You can download games that you own from anywhere and run them on any computer that you wish. I find this very easy as long as your connection is good and there isnt rush on Steam content servers. Well you can always "crack" the Steam games by using "no Steam" which means that if someone shares their pair of the games, everyone with cracked version can play them so its similiar to pirated version of the game that has no SecuROM drm included. Maybe this is the reason why there is extra SecuROM along (which does not help though). This is just a proof that no copy protection is perfect but this (Steam standalone DRM) is the best i can live with. Bye bye Mass Effect and all SecuROM games, you got left in the store!
Ive used Steam over 4 years now. Only problems i've had with it are slow download speeds and authentication errors while playing Valve's own games or their game mods (rest of the games do not use similiar authentication aka SteamID). 3rd issue is the fact that the client sometimes lags untill you restart it. Eats a lot of CPU when its been on long time.