On the other hand... I think it was the guys at Penny Arcade who said "Thank god we're still fighting against Jack Thompson, else his replacement actually be competent."
I wore my "...And Justice For All" t-shirt to the last metal show I went to, and I overheard two guys talking about it behind me, trying not to let me hear:
Guy1: Aww, Metallica? They fucking suck!
Guy2: Wait dude, that's Justice. They were awesome in the 80s.
Guy1: Really?
Guy2: Yeah, go listen to Justice or Puppets, don't forget they had a bunch of other albums before St. Anger.
What are your machine specs? When was the last time you reformatted?
My machine isn't all that great (P4 3.2, Socket 478), but HL1 games load in about 5-10 seconds, and Audiosurf gets to the title screen in about 20-30 seconds.
There could be reasons out of Valve's control that your Steam experience sucks.
Do you run PeerGuardian? By default, it blocks "Limelight, LLC" servers, one of the companies Valve uses for their auth servers and content servers. If I have PG2 loaded when I start up Steam, it takes forever cause it has to find one of the very few auth/content servers that PG2 doesn't block.
The memory/bandwidth that Steam itself uses might be cut down if you use the minimal games list instead of leaving it on the big one. Kinda the same difference as using Winamp's new "Bento" skin vs putting it on Classic.
Automatic updates: do you have it set to manually download updates instead of grabbing them automatically? If so, that would certainly explain the behavior you've been seeing. On the other hand, I have noticed a few non-Valve games like Audiosurf that I need to double-click on in order to get them to download updates correctly. I think that might have been fixed in a recent update though. Try looking at your settings anyway.
If you move one of your 3 main fingers off of the movement keys for a bit, just shift it around. When I'm playing old FPSs that use C for crouch, I shift my hand when crouching so I can still move. Then it's pinky on A, ring finger for W, and middle finger for D, and index finger for C. If you have a game requiring the use of one of your fingers for another key, you could probably do something similar.
It's ok, Chicken Little. The sky won't fall just yet.
With that said... I for one welcome our new Washington overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Slashdot poster, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground data mines.
I taught myself to type, and I play FPSs, so even when typing, my left hand naturally comes to rest on WASD.
I have no problem reaching far-away keys even in WASD. I guess my hands are largish, but they're not monstrous. I don't often play FPSs that use all 103 keys (I've heard Crysis does), but even still, I don't have an issue hitting far-away keys when they occasionally come up (like N, which is "merge magazines" in Firearms)
As for typing in the dark, my keyboard is backlit.:-D
Right-click the game in Steam, go to Properties, Advanced tab, type in "-autoconfig". If I don't have that quite right, then sorry, but it's something like that. It auto-detects your hardware, and puts the graphical settings back at the recommended levels for the current hardware. I've had to do this a few times going back and forth between my CRT at home and my LCD at school.
I know that it makes sense sometimes, just like I wouldn't condone skipping new kernel installs, just so you can brag "I haven't had to reboot my machine in two years!". However, the point is that unless there's a new feature you need, like selinux, that at best it's a pain in the ass to have to reinstall just to get to the latest version.
I didn't know about the yum upgrades, and while that is cool, it even says at the top that it's not recommended, although the warning does sound kinda equivalent to Gentoo's "Don't install anything outside of the Portage tree. If you need to, then you should make your own ebuild.";)
I'd prefer a system where if I update all of my software from version 8, I'll have version 9, without having to reinstall the whole OS.
I know I'm kinda doing apples to oranges, but I'd prefer something like Gentoo, where the 2007.0 release is basically 2006.1, with all of the packages updated to the latest versions.
It's not religion, it's the "standard" ethics code of the U.S. as a whole. In Europe, sex and sexuality aren't a big deal, which is why you can get a French movie intended for fairly young audiences that has some nudity in it. Meanwhile in the U.S., you can axe-murder someone in a PG movie, but show a nipple and it's immediately rated R.
I haven't acquired ANY music in about 3 years other than one album that I bought this summer, and that's counting all methods of distribution. That should tell you something about how much I like the average songs I come across over the radio or whatever.
Honestly, one of the best things about filesharing in my experience is the ability to find stuff you WOULDN'T be able to find in stores. Over the past few weeks/months some of the main things I've been downloading have been TV shows from overseas. I'll buy the Series 2 DVD for "The IT Crowd" when it's released, but until then I have my TV rips of the show. I also downloaded "Ekipa" (The Polish "West Wing") for my girlfriend cause she's a big fan of the lead actor, and there's basically no way in hell she'd be able to acquire that otherwise.;)
I like someone else's solution from this thread. If you would otherwise just send a.doc, save it in.doc and.odf, and send both. Then they can see that the ODF will be 10x smaller, and it makes you look professional by informing them about the "new" format, and giving them the choice of whether or not to use it.
I think it has more to do with them having to go back and decide how to implement HDR into already-existing maps. From the sound and look of it, implementing it from the start doesn't add all that much development time.
As it is, the engine is pretty modular. If you want to make a mod that uses all of HL2's base weapons, textures, etc, you just want to include maps, then there's practically no coding involved, you just have to make the maps. See Minerva or Combine Destiny. On the other hand, if you wish to create a mod from scratch, that's perfectly possible too. See Eclipse or Insurgency. (note: Eclipse isn't even an FPS per se, so it's possible to even do genre changes)
I actually recommend trying out some map-making in the Hammer Editor. If you follow a tutorial, it's fairly easy to get something like an Iceworld clone (or an "orange" map), and if you turn out to be good at it, then maybe you can even join a mod team!
I think you're a little mistaken on the game-design process, on a few different points.
-Programmers do not make maps. If they're making a new episode with the same engine, the programmers would basically not have anything to do, except minor bug fixes. -Maps designed using templates would all look the same, and would therefore be boring. -"Not touching" the engine would lead to stagnation, where the game would not be using current hardware to its fullest extent. Do you want Valve to continue using the Half-life 1 engine, simply because it's stable? -Marc Laidlaw has the story written far ahead of where the games are, don't worry. -If you want a full sequel from Valve, have fun playing games from other publishers for the next five+ years.
Personally, I want quality games from Valve, I don't want the crap that other companies are producing. If EA were to make an episodic FPS series, I bet it would be six-month installments, but I can also bet that it would be crap.
It just occurs to me that it seems a little strange as a consumer to pay $60 for one game, and then pay $60 for another game that is using the exact same technology and is essentially a modification of existing software.
Or maybe he's the type of gamer that doesn't need new games every 5 minutes, and therefore hasn't noticed a seasonal decline, but rather a long-term one.
You're like the guy who screams "GLOBAL WARMING IS FALSE" whenever snowfall occurs. Try looking at the overall trend.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it was Penny Arcade that said something like "Thank God we're fighting Jack Thompson, else his replacement actually be competent."
On the other hand... I think it was the guys at Penny Arcade who said "Thank god we're still fighting against Jack Thompson, else his replacement actually be competent."
I wore my "...And Justice For All" t-shirt to the last metal show I went to, and I overheard two guys talking about it behind me, trying not to let me hear:
Guy1: Aww, Metallica? They fucking suck!
Guy2: Wait dude, that's Justice. They were awesome in the 80s.
Guy1: Really?
Guy2: Yeah, go listen to Justice or Puppets, don't forget they had a bunch of other albums before St. Anger.
What are your machine specs? When was the last time you reformatted? My machine isn't all that great (P4 3.2, Socket 478), but HL1 games load in about 5-10 seconds, and Audiosurf gets to the title screen in about 20-30 seconds.
There could be reasons out of Valve's control that your Steam experience sucks.
Do you run PeerGuardian? By default, it blocks "Limelight, LLC" servers, one of the companies Valve uses for their auth servers and content servers. If I have PG2 loaded when I start up Steam, it takes forever cause it has to find one of the very few auth/content servers that PG2 doesn't block.
The memory/bandwidth that Steam itself uses might be cut down if you use the minimal games list instead of leaving it on the big one. Kinda the same difference as using Winamp's new "Bento" skin vs putting it on Classic.
Automatic updates: do you have it set to manually download updates instead of grabbing them automatically? If so, that would certainly explain the behavior you've been seeing. On the other hand, I have noticed a few non-Valve games like Audiosurf that I need to double-click on in order to get them to download updates correctly. I think that might have been fixed in a recent update though. Try looking at your settings anyway.
If you move one of your 3 main fingers off of the movement keys for a bit, just shift it around. When I'm playing old FPSs that use C for crouch, I shift my hand when crouching so I can still move. Then it's pinky on A, ring finger for W, and middle finger for D, and index finger for C. If you have a game requiring the use of one of your fingers for another key, you could probably do something similar.
It's ok, Chicken Little. The sky won't fall just yet.
With that said... I for one welcome our new Washington overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Slashdot poster, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground data mines.
In case you're not aware of this: http://steampowered.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php Especially the third graph.
I taught myself to type, and I play FPSs, so even when typing, my left hand naturally comes to rest on WASD. I have no problem reaching far-away keys even in WASD. I guess my hands are largish, but they're not monstrous. I don't often play FPSs that use all 103 keys (I've heard Crysis does), but even still, I don't have an issue hitting far-away keys when they occasionally come up (like N, which is "merge magazines" in Firearms) As for typing in the dark, my keyboard is backlit. :-D
I imagine they'd be sorted by date, just as if you took one save file and plopped it in the folder on the other machine.
Right-click the game in Steam, go to Properties, Advanced tab, type in "-autoconfig". If I don't have that quite right, then sorry, but it's something like that. It auto-detects your hardware, and puts the graphical settings back at the recommended levels for the current hardware. I've had to do this a few times going back and forth between my CRT at home and my LCD at school.
I know that it makes sense sometimes, just like I wouldn't condone skipping new kernel installs, just so you can brag "I haven't had to reboot my machine in two years!". However, the point is that unless there's a new feature you need, like selinux, that at best it's a pain in the ass to have to reinstall just to get to the latest version.
;)
I didn't know about the yum upgrades, and while that is cool, it even says at the top that it's not recommended, although the warning does sound kinda equivalent to Gentoo's "Don't install anything outside of the Portage tree. If you need to, then you should make your own ebuild."
Like I said in another one of my replies, I prefer the Gentoo system. The system gets updated with the packages.
I'd prefer a system where if I update all of my software from version 8, I'll have version 9, without having to reinstall the whole OS.
I know I'm kinda doing apples to oranges, but I'd prefer something like Gentoo, where the 2007.0 release is basically 2006.1, with all of the packages updated to the latest versions.
It's not religion, it's the "standard" ethics code of the U.S. as a whole. In Europe, sex and sexuality aren't a big deal, which is why you can get a French movie intended for fairly young audiences that has some nudity in it. Meanwhile in the U.S., you can axe-murder someone in a PG movie, but show a nipple and it's immediately rated R.
I haven't acquired ANY music in about 3 years other than one album that I bought this summer, and that's counting all methods of distribution. That should tell you something about how much I like the average songs I come across over the radio or whatever.
;)
Honestly, one of the best things about filesharing in my experience is the ability to find stuff you WOULDN'T be able to find in stores. Over the past few weeks/months some of the main things I've been downloading have been TV shows from overseas. I'll buy the Series 2 DVD for "The IT Crowd" when it's released, but until then I have my TV rips of the show. I also downloaded "Ekipa" (The Polish "West Wing") for my girlfriend cause she's a big fan of the lead actor, and there's basically no way in hell she'd be able to acquire that otherwise.
I like someone else's solution from this thread. If you would otherwise just send a .doc, save it in .doc and .odf, and send both. Then they can see that the ODF will be 10x smaller, and it makes you look professional by informing them about the "new" format, and giving them the choice of whether or not to use it.
I think it has more to do with them having to go back and decide how to implement HDR into already-existing maps. From the sound and look of it, implementing it from the start doesn't add all that much development time.
As it is, the engine is pretty modular. If you want to make a mod that uses all of HL2's base weapons, textures, etc, you just want to include maps, then there's practically no coding involved, you just have to make the maps. See Minerva or Combine Destiny. On the other hand, if you wish to create a mod from scratch, that's perfectly possible too. See Eclipse or Insurgency. (note: Eclipse isn't even an FPS per se, so it's possible to even do genre changes)
I actually recommend trying out some map-making in the Hammer Editor. If you follow a tutorial, it's fairly easy to get something like an Iceworld clone (or an "orange" map), and if you turn out to be good at it, then maybe you can even join a mod team!
I think you're a little mistaken on the game-design process, on a few different points.
-Programmers do not make maps. If they're making a new episode with the same engine, the programmers would basically not have anything to do, except minor bug fixes.
-Maps designed using templates would all look the same, and would therefore be boring.
-"Not touching" the engine would lead to stagnation, where the game would not be using current hardware to its fullest extent. Do you want Valve to continue using the Half-life 1 engine, simply because it's stable?
-Marc Laidlaw has the story written far ahead of where the games are, don't worry.
-If you want a full sequel from Valve, have fun playing games from other publishers for the next five+ years.
Personally, I want quality games from Valve, I don't want the crap that other companies are producing. If EA were to make an episodic FPS series, I bet it would be six-month installments, but I can also bet that it would be crap.
It just occurs to me that it seems a little strange as a consumer to pay $60 for one game, and then pay $60 for another game that is using the exact same technology and is essentially a modification of existing software.
Map-making isn't trivial, that's why.
Then you would've ended up with HL2 coming out in 2004, and HL3 coming out in 2008 or 2009. Personally, I'm happier with Ep1 in 2006 and Ep2 in 2007.
I doubt that the release date could've been moved up simply with the non-inclusion of HDR.
Or maybe he's the type of gamer that doesn't need new games every 5 minutes, and therefore hasn't noticed a seasonal decline, but rather a long-term one.
You're like the guy who screams "GLOBAL WARMING IS FALSE" whenever snowfall occurs. Try looking at the overall trend.
You bought a painting, and it came with a free print? :)