Lol, you tried contacting Sierra and VU games? No wonder they didn't do a damn thing for you.
Try contacting Valve: the support section of steampowered.com
Well, once I figured out how to create an account and file a ticket, I got help within minutes. I assume they are more more swamped now, but still: I don't see how it's horrible.
If you would read my post carefully, I actually said that it sounds like a great game.
Ah. Should I look before or after the part where you say "Half-Life 2 would have to be a fucking miracle of innovation in FPS to make me want to play it, but it doesn't look like that to me. Everything I've read makes it sound like the same-old FPS with better graphics, better AI, and the like. I think the IGN review even explicitly says something like "there's little innovation per se, just raising the bar on current gameplay." ???
I never mentioned anything about DirectX. Perhaps you'd like to take this into some discussion about the technical merits versus demerits of DirectX versus other things, but that's another can of worms entirely.
Given that the entire rendering engine is built on DirectX, I would think that you MIGHT want to mention DirectX at some point.
Maybe there's too many Valve fans here to step back and think that maybe, just maybe HL2 isn't the greatest FPS ever made. Is this sentance supposed to come before or after the sentance where you say that you aren't saying that Half-Life 2 is fun to play?
It's bunch of little things that, taken together, lead me to really be angry at Valve.
Let's see: they don't spend oodles of extra time and money to design a second rendering engine for a platform with a fairly low market/return for all the effort. And, since they aren't a business, but are instead some sort of a magical fairy princess that should know better, this is bad on them. They actually talk to the OS on which their game is designed to run on, so bad on them again. Also, they are trying out a new system of digital rights, so extra super bad on them for not just giving it away with no copy protecting aside from a stealable CD key and annoying CD check.
Shorter version: they didn't port DirectX over to Linux, so their game must not be fun to play.
I wish I could say that they treat their customers, but they've always treated me great. They respond to email questions personally, troubleshoot issues, take suggestions for features, etc. They figure Linux clients aren't worth the significant amount of time and hassle they could be spending on things like supporting 64bit processors or getting an Xbox port out. Yeah, other companies do it. They don't. Oh well. And fuck Bungie for not releasing a PS2 version of Halo!
Nope: one busted pre-load file (some issue with only partially pre-loading HL:S before cancelling that and firing up HL2). Just had to rename a file, restart steam, redownload, and I was good to go.
You honestly thought WATER looked better in Doom3? How can you be serious? Doom3's engine is very limited: there's just no way around this. Explosions, dust motes, HDR effects, subtler specular effects, all sorts of cool shaders: HL2 has the wow, kids. Doom3 is one, maybe two note.
It's a shooter, not an RPG: it's purpose is to push you through a storyline with lots of "event" combat (which Valve is great at pacing: they keep introducing a new element at each juncture, then combining them to build up more and more intense situations). You don't like the music, others do, no points off there just for your own opinion. And the jumping puzzles aren't either all that common or as frustrating, especially since they mostly now involve solving physics problems to avoid having to jump perfectly anyway.
HAve you seen the version of Doom3 someone got running on Voodoo2 SLI cards. First of all, pretty amazing achievement, but second of all, it shows exactly what you are talking about: blocky level design that really looks a great deal like a Quake2 level. However, that just isn't fair. Yes, Doom3 does cut down on the geometery to make the best use of bumpmaps and lighting. And the effect is astonishingly good looking. It may be a very limited SORT of good looking, but there is no doubt that the actual in game effect is incredible. The hell levels are particularly cool, as is the throbbing instestine stuff.
Doom3 definately takes the detail/shadowing cake at least in terms of bumpy goodness. Unfortunately, that's not all there is to engine beauty. HL2 has way better environmental effects. The texturing, diversity of environments and art design are tons better. And while the lighting is far cheaper in terms of real time shadows, the shadows ain't half bad for what they need to do, and the way light (as opposed to shadow) LOOKS in the game is just fantastic: it gleams off characters and objects, sublty shades everything dynamically, and so on. The stock characters in HL2 aren't as well developed as the Doom3 ones (the main characters are far more detailed than the average citizen), but they are creepily alive, and their eyes and features are amazing.
You've got to be kidding. The levels and variety and layout and heck the pacing and planning that goes into all the different gun battles and encounters by far blows Doom3 away, easily. I beame bored with repetative gameplay of Doom3 Reeeeeal fast. HL2 makes sure to build on every encounter: they slowly introduce newer gameplay elements and then combine them into new challenges and events (instead of moving room to room like in Doom3, you move from event to event). The put the ongoing story into the actual game instead of thowaway "the locker code is 345 and also I'm a scientist, hee hee!" PDAs. The weapons are more varied and interesting and even sound better. The enemies are far more creative and neato, and the environment is way more interactive. And that's not even talking about the absolutely awe inspiring Strider battle portion of the game, which is just godly.
Er, every review I've seen criticizes the game for not having a HL2 themed MP. Most even say that that is what keeps them from giving it 100%s. What are you smoking?
Just asking: did you, when the game was originally unlocked, try to enable HL:S to finish downloading, and then give up when you saw it wouldn't be ready anytime soon? That seems to be the common vector for almost everyone with this problem: not having HL:S fully downloaded, but trying and then cancelling it midway, seems to have been the issue. Was it for you?
They did start out by pointing me right at their web-based support feature, which is actually pretty cool in itself (part of the overlap was that a dev contacted me directly AND I was working through the support forum). I think the devs are just excited as all heck to see their baby finally hit the streets, and they want to make extra sure that everyone can enjoy it.
But in terms of realism and quality, I have to say: HL2 beats Doom hands down. Doom's faces are plasticy and dull: the crude bump mapping stands out too often. Half-life2s are vaugely cartoonish but also erily alive. Not quite going for real-life, but distinctive and artistic. A lot of the art design in HL2 is like that: it has a powerful overall feel. I'm very very impressed, and people are saying that the actual game is even more polished and detailed than the binks.
Basically, the current thing to try is to rename or delete (I'd rename) the source models gcf in the steam/steamapps folder and then restart Steam so it redownloads it. Seems that some downloads of pre-load content were corrupted or slightly mismatched.
By the way, could everyone stop playing/pre-loading so that we can have the bandwidth to redownload quickly? Please?:)
You have to see them in motion and up close: you really can almost see their pores and such. And nothing in Doom3 compares to characters like Alyx. The way the light glows off her face and her necklace. The way the characters are alive with all sorts of tiny facial details and posture. Really pretty incredible. And that's from just seeing the binks: I've still yet to see them ingame.
Yep, I am glad. From all the gushing joy, it sounds like they deserved every cent, and my anger at not being able to play is muted by the incredible response I'm getting on them trying to resolve my issue so that I can play ASAP. Steam also makes it pretty easy for them to troubleshoot too: not only the usual memory dumps that I can send in, but I can also send in any of the content (gcf) files I'm using so they can examine exactly what went wrong and run whatever chunks they think might have gotten broken on my machine on their machines to reproduce the exact issue.
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Lol, you tried contacting Sierra and VU games? No wonder they didn't do a damn thing for you. Try contacting Valve: the support section of steampowered.com
What great friends you have! "We're very sad to hear that you don't steal shit like us!"
What they reveal is the base level geometry: astoundingly simple.
Well, once I figured out how to create an account and file a ticket, I got help within minutes. I assume they are more more swamped now, but still: I don't see how it's horrible.
If you would read my post carefully, I actually said that it sounds like a great game.
Ah. Should I look before or after the part where you say "Half-Life 2 would have to be a fucking miracle of innovation in FPS to make me want to play it, but it doesn't look like that to me. Everything I've read makes it sound like the same-old FPS with better graphics, better AI, and the like. I think the IGN review even explicitly says something like "there's little innovation per se, just raising the bar on current gameplay." ???
I never mentioned anything about DirectX. Perhaps you'd like to take this into some discussion about the technical merits versus demerits of DirectX versus other things, but that's another can of worms entirely.
Given that the entire rendering engine is built on DirectX, I would think that you MIGHT want to mention DirectX at some point.
Maybe there's too many Valve fans here to step back and think that maybe, just maybe HL2 isn't the greatest FPS ever made. Is this sentance supposed to come before or after the sentance where you say that you aren't saying that Half-Life 2 is fun to play?
It's bunch of little things that, taken together, lead me to really be angry at Valve.
Let's see: they don't spend oodles of extra time and money to design a second rendering engine for a platform with a fairly low market/return for all the effort. And, since they aren't a business, but are instead some sort of a magical fairy princess that should know better, this is bad on them. They actually talk to the OS on which their game is designed to run on, so bad on them again. Also, they are trying out a new system of digital rights, so extra super bad on them for not just giving it away with no copy protecting aside from a stealable CD key and annoying CD check.
Wait, what?
Shorter version: they didn't port DirectX over to Linux, so their game must not be fun to play.
I wish I could say that they treat their customers, but they've always treated me great. They respond to email questions personally, troubleshoot issues, take suggestions for features, etc. They figure Linux clients aren't worth the significant amount of time and hassle they could be spending on things like supporting 64bit processors or getting an Xbox port out. Yeah, other companies do it. They don't. Oh well. And fuck Bungie for not releasing a PS2 version of Halo!
Except the "lock" is a physics puzzle: little bit more interesting than just finding keys and walking into a door.
Me Techie support, Long Time!!!
Well, I do bow down and kiss their feet at one point....
Have you tried the new support ticket system at steampowered.com?
Do you have the water set to "reflect all"?
Nope: one busted pre-load file (some issue with only partially pre-loading HL:S before cancelling that and firing up HL2). Just had to rename a file, restart steam, redownload, and I was good to go.
You honestly thought WATER looked better in Doom3? How can you be serious? Doom3's engine is very limited: there's just no way around this. Explosions, dust motes, HDR effects, subtler specular effects, all sorts of cool shaders: HL2 has the wow, kids. Doom3 is one, maybe two note.
It's a shooter, not an RPG: it's purpose is to push you through a storyline with lots of "event" combat (which Valve is great at pacing: they keep introducing a new element at each juncture, then combining them to build up more and more intense situations). You don't like the music, others do, no points off there just for your own opinion. And the jumping puzzles aren't either all that common or as frustrating, especially since they mostly now involve solving physics problems to avoid having to jump perfectly anyway.
HAve you seen the version of Doom3 someone got running on Voodoo2 SLI cards. First of all, pretty amazing achievement, but second of all, it shows exactly what you are talking about: blocky level design that really looks a great deal like a Quake2 level. However, that just isn't fair. Yes, Doom3 does cut down on the geometery to make the best use of bumpmaps and lighting. And the effect is astonishingly good looking. It may be a very limited SORT of good looking, but there is no doubt that the actual in game effect is incredible. The hell levels are particularly cool, as is the throbbing instestine stuff.
Doom3 definately takes the detail/shadowing cake at least in terms of bumpy goodness. Unfortunately, that's not all there is to engine beauty. HL2 has way better environmental effects. The texturing, diversity of environments and art design are tons better. And while the lighting is far cheaper in terms of real time shadows, the shadows ain't half bad for what they need to do, and the way light (as opposed to shadow) LOOKS in the game is just fantastic: it gleams off characters and objects, sublty shades everything dynamically, and so on. The stock characters in HL2 aren't as well developed as the Doom3 ones (the main characters are far more detailed than the average citizen), but they are creepily alive, and their eyes and features are amazing.
You've got to be kidding. The levels and variety and layout and heck the pacing and planning that goes into all the different gun battles and encounters by far blows Doom3 away, easily. I beame bored with repetative gameplay of Doom3 Reeeeeal fast. HL2 makes sure to build on every encounter: they slowly introduce newer gameplay elements and then combine them into new challenges and events (instead of moving room to room like in Doom3, you move from event to event). The put the ongoing story into the actual game instead of thowaway "the locker code is 345 and also I'm a scientist, hee hee!" PDAs. The weapons are more varied and interesting and even sound better. The enemies are far more creative and neato, and the environment is way more interactive. And that's not even talking about the absolutely awe inspiring Strider battle portion of the game, which is just godly.
Er, every review I've seen criticizes the game for not having a HL2 themed MP. Most even say that that is what keeps them from giving it 100%s. What are you smoking?
Just asking: did you, when the game was originally unlocked, try to enable HL:S to finish downloading, and then give up when you saw it wouldn't be ready anytime soon? That seems to be the common vector for almost everyone with this problem: not having HL:S fully downloaded, but trying and then cancelling it midway, seems to have been the issue. Was it for you?
They did start out by pointing me right at their web-based support feature, which is actually pretty cool in itself (part of the overlap was that a dev contacted me directly AND I was working through the support forum). I think the devs are just excited as all heck to see their baby finally hit the streets, and they want to make extra sure that everyone can enjoy it.
But in terms of realism and quality, I have to say: HL2 beats Doom hands down. Doom's faces are plasticy and dull: the crude bump mapping stands out too often. Half-life2s are vaugely cartoonish but also erily alive. Not quite going for real-life, but distinctive and artistic. A lot of the art design in HL2 is like that: it has a powerful overall feel. I'm very very impressed, and people are saying that the actual game is even more polished and detailed than the binks.
Are they helping you personally too? Erik Johnson and the gang? Pretty cool to have the actual developers on the phone to help out when you need em. :)
Basically, the current thing to try is to rename or delete (I'd rename) the source models gcf in the steam/steamapps folder and then restart Steam so it redownloads it. Seems that some downloads of pre-load content were corrupted or slightly mismatched.
:)
By the way, could everyone stop playing/pre-loading so that we can have the bandwidth to redownload quickly? Please?
You have to see them in motion and up close: you really can almost see their pores and such. And nothing in Doom3 compares to characters like Alyx. The way the light glows off her face and her necklace. The way the characters are alive with all sorts of tiny facial details and posture. Really pretty incredible. And that's from just seeing the binks: I've still yet to see them ingame.
Yep, I am glad. From all the gushing joy, it sounds like they deserved every cent, and my anger at not being able to play is muted by the incredible response I'm getting on them trying to resolve my issue so that I can play ASAP.
Steam also makes it pretty easy for them to troubleshoot too: not only the usual memory dumps that I can send in, but I can also send in any of the content (gcf) files I'm using so they can examine exactly what went wrong and run whatever chunks they think might have gotten broken on my machine on their machines to reproduce the exact issue.