I had the same problem and found that the problem was caused by the old pos modem that AT&T sent me. There is a easy fix, a moderate fix, and a hard fix.
The easy way is filtering the server results by ping less than 100. Some days when the connection is really good I'll have to set it to less than 50. But normally this will fix your problem.
The moderate way is to head into your steam options and knock your connection speed down a few notches. It won't really effect your game play, but it will let the game know to ease up on your network a bit.
The hard way is a registry fix.
1. Go to Start > Run and type in: regedit.
2. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\.
3. Create a new string value registry setting named CafeRate.
4. Give the CafeRate regkey a value of 10000 and progressively decrease the value until the issue is resolved. A rate of 3000 should be considered the minimum value.
There, now get back in the game.
Stupid html:(
Edit stupid html skills:(
I had the same problem and found that the problem was caused by the old pos modem that AT&T sent me. There is a easy fix, a moderate fix, and a hard fix. The easy way is filtering the server results by ping / Run and type in: regedit.
2. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\.
3. Create a new string value registry setting named CafeRate.
4. Give the CafeRate regkey a value of 10000 and progressively decrease the value until the issue is resolved. A rate of 3000 should be considered the minimum value.
You were hired to do a job and you got 100k for it. Shut up and be glad you have a job in this economy.
It always pissed me off how actors say that they 'deserve' millions on millions of dollars for their 4 hours of work a day. I'd be happy to see this trend not extend into the video game industry.
I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft see the opportunity for a semi-proprietary disc format here. They've got a stable and cheap format that's already gone through all it's development phases and is proven to hold 50 gigs. Five years from now getting a hold of a consumer level HD-DVD burner will be a real rarity, so piracy would be really hard.
Blue-Ray may have won the movie format war, but there's still a lot of potential in this format by virtue of it's soon to be obscurity.
The GIMP has problems in that it doesn't have all the tools that Photoshop has. I learned Photoshop first and came to rely on a lot of layer effect tools to get things done quickly. Sure Gimp has layers that you can apply effects to, and you can probably replicate all of the effects if you spent enough time. But what takes 4 clicks in Photoshop takes 6 layers and a two hours of careful filter placement with Gimp. The Gimp can do everything Photoshop can do, but Photoshop does it better, in less time, and with an easier learning curve. Gimp is good for dinking around at home, but I'd never use it at work. I'd say that the cliff shaped learning curve is very accurate. But the cliff levels off at about 75% of what Photoshop can do.
I couldn't help but post this amazing quote.
on
Fidel Castro Resigns
·
· Score: 1, Troll
From the article:
"Eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections. And I mean free, and I mean fair -- not these kinds of staged elections that the Castro brothers tried to foist off as being true democracy," Bush said, on the road in Rwanda.
Anyone get the vibe that Bush is just jealous. I think the United States needs a few of these free and fair elections unlike the ones we've had for the last 8 years.
"I'm quite confident he'd vote *against* any bill that proposed the government some how step in and regulate email of ANY kind, including spam."
You say this like it's a bad thing. You actually want the government reading your mail? Ron Paul does not want the government involved in screening our phone calls for us. He does not want the government screening our emails. It's not the governments job to do these things. That way lies a nanny state.
I am on the do-not-call list and guess what. I still get calls during dinner. This is your government at work. If the government stepped in to stop spam they would also take steps to enforce that you got the email that they deemed was not spam, and our in boxes would be flooded.
Then again I'm not retarded about typing my email address into every ad offering free porn and normally only get 3 spam messages a month. Maybe it's just that I don't see spam as a big enough problem to demand that the government read all my email for my protection.
The reason is Valve said, hey lets make a specific version of our games for countries with low income and sell it to them on the cheep. We'll put right on the box that this version won't work anywhere but in that country so that it doesn't hurt our sales.
People from other countries buy the game and can't play it. OMGWTFBBQ VALVE SUX!
Idiots. You have a version that's region free, and you have a version that's region locked to Thailand. You bought the version thats region locked to Thailand, and got exactly what you paid for. Nothing more, nothing less.
Listen to the end credits. You didn't kill her. Heck the song's title is "Still Alive". I wonder how many people 'get' that the whole game, from start to finish and especially after the incinerator, was one big simulation.
It's like people don't pay attention to anything after the game is over.
That reminds me of the modem rebate crap that I just had to go through with AT&T last week. Since the special rebate sticker that i'm supposed to affix to a postcard was accidentally left out of the box I have to request one by phone. Unfortunately the tech told me that there was nothing that she could do until my account had been with AT&T for at least 3 months. Something about a grace period to make sure that I'm not just signing up for service to get their crappy dsl modem for free after rebate. So to get this rebate I have to wait 3 months, call AT&T customer support then wait an additional 3 to 4 months for the rebate to arrive. Thats seven whole months before they have to give the rebate back. And you know what would suck even more? If they canceled my service I wouldn't ever get [error: connection to host lost]
This is kinda funny to me, because I had to do a recovery on my windows box last week. I eventually got so pissed off at it that I finally switched to Ubuntu.
I'm finally a statistic of the people that have been burned by windows on their shady practices and switched my OS.
I don't have a PS3 (and probably won't get one either) however I do think it's utterly awesome that you can plug in your favorite keyboard and mouse and go wild on the controller players. Sony may have messed up on a lot of things, however the ability to attach a keyboard and mouse to their system is not one of them.
RTFA: This is a new element in how the game implements it. Feign death is old as the sticks, however in this game you play as a genetic super soldier being fed a stream of happy 'nectar'. This nectar hides gruesome realities from their soldiers minds, meaning that if you play dead the enemy won't be able to see you at all. This may seem like a cheap trick (especially in multiplayer), however it looks like there will be a system of timed button presses in order to play dead that should keep this from being an instant invisibility trick.
I know that their drivers are crap, however what ever came of AMD's commitment to open sourcing their drivers? I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple hundred enthusiasts that could get these cards up to their maximum potential in a few weeks.
This is all another conspiracy by big buisness to create global warming. Their plan is now to try to steal the energy of the spinning planet in order to create an day that lasts longer than 24 hours!/straps on tinfoil hat and holds on for the ride.
About two months ago I would've agreed with you about the NBC Video Rewind. However they've really improved it over the last few weeks. Video quality is better than youTube and I haven't had it skip once on the 14.99 a month dsl package that I watch from.
I will give you points for accuracy about what it used to be. I tried watching it after hours on the work T1 line about 2 months ago and the video halted, audio got out of synch with the video and a lot of times the video wouldn't come back after the commercial breaks. Overall unwatchable. However now a days it has improved considerably. I don't know if it's still buggy for the safari browser (I don't own a mac), but it works wonderfully on FF2.0.
I actually make a point to watch missed shows from the producer now. Sure it has some commercial breaks, but they've done the right thing. They made a BETTER alternative. The video and audio quality is much nicer than youTube permits. How many times have we all heard some slashdotter complain that they'd support X company if they offered a nicer service than one they could get online for free? NBC has turned into that X company and has now bested the pirate uploads to youTube. We should be applauding and supporting NBC for this (even though they were bastards that put a hold on the next episode of heroes). They are beating the pirates at their own game and setting their selves up to make a profit in doing so.
Of course if you want copies of your favorite show in HD and on a disc the day after the show airs torrenting is still your only option. But that's another matter entirely.
Perhaps Nintendo is keeping the supply low on purpose. If you think about it, there will be no blockbuster games for the next 6 to 9 months, and the developers are still getting used to the control scheme.
When you look at it from the traditional gaming perspective, you would want to sell as many consoles as you can because the average gamer will have fun with the games that are there and wait out the 6 to 9 months for the real meat and potatoes games to be released. However the Wii is not marketed to the average gamer, it's marketed to the average Joe.
Average Joe will get bored with a console that has no games, and once the 'Magic' has worn off for them their Wii will become a forgotten dust collector. Nintendo doesn't want this, and the longer they can keep the average Joe from getting a Wii the better the chances that right as the magic is wearing off for them another big title will get released and rekindle their interest.
The sad fact is that Nintendo is caught in a narrow market gamble. The PS3 and 360 will float on based on the dedicated hardcore gaming crowd, however the average Joe crowd that Nintendo is banking on is much more fickle. Nintendo has to do everything in their power from now till December to keep their new fickle audience playing games. If they can't then every day that passes will dry up more and more of their audience as the magic leaves them. If the Wii doesn't have a beefy arsenal of games out by November they will have to face loosing this round of the console battle to the 360.
Nintendo has a great start for their console, but they need to play a delicate balancing act, regulating their supply and pushing for faster release dates. If they fail they face loosing the interest of average Joe, and delivering a last gen console with a fancy controller to the hardcore community. This will put them clearly behind the 360 in the console wars (even if they completely fail on both counts I can't see the PS3 beating them out.)
What I think most companies are overlooking here when they ask if episodic content is going to work is that the episodes have to be released in intervals on time every time. Instead of relating episodic gaming to Malcom in the middle, you have to relate it to shows like Lost, and Prison Break. Prison Break lost me completely when they took a 3 month break because American Idol took over it's time slot.
Episodic gaming is no different. If you release a new episode on time every time you build anticipation for it, if you give the BS line that "It'll be done when it's done." People are going to forget about it and then it's not episodic, it's sporadic. Have them come out on the same day every year and keep to that schedule and you'll build anticipation for it, people will be able to play a game and then say, "I can't wait for next years episode."
I think the perfect example of a proven track record for this is in an episodic release of a non-episodic game. How many of you know someone that owns gets excited over the next edition of Madden 2kx. It's already working wonders for games that produce ABSOLUTELY NO ADDITIONAL CONTENT IN EVERY EPISODE. If you keep every game to a complete experience with a start and good ending, I can't see how the addition of a plot would ruin what is already a tried and true formula.
I think this is a good thing for the gaming community as a whole, and wish more people would do things like it. By dividing it up you (should) accomplish 3 things. 1. A balanced and stable game engine. In this case HL2. It was a good engine filled with fun extras like throwing things around and it came with a good game. 2. Plot. The seccond installment can't get by on the "OMG LOOKIT TEH PRETTIES!!!" It's already been done. If you plan to sell a game the seccond time it's gotta have good gameplay and good plot or no one will buy it. Period. 3. Speed. You've got your developers used to how to write a good story and build good clean maps with the engine. By the third episode they'll be able to crank out quality encounters at a mile a minute, and have the feedback from the other episodes about what the fans liked and what fell flat.
It all boils down to a LACK of advanced cutting edge graphics, and the focus on actual gameplay and story or the games will fail. In my oppion that's as it should be.
Slashdot Mirror
I had the same problem and found that the problem was caused by the old pos modem that AT&T sent me. There is a easy fix, a moderate fix, and a hard fix.
:(
Edit stupid html skills :(
The easy way is filtering the server results by ping less than 100. Some days when the connection is really good I'll have to set it to less than 50. But normally this will fix your problem.
The moderate way is to head into your steam options and knock your connection speed down a few notches. It won't really effect your game play, but it will let the game know to ease up on your network a bit.
The hard way is a registry fix. 1. Go to Start > Run and type in: regedit.
2. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\.
3. Create a new string value registry setting named CafeRate.
4. Give the CafeRate regkey a value of 10000 and progressively decrease the value until the issue is resolved. A rate of 3000 should be considered the minimum value.
There, now get back in the game.
Stupid html
I had the same problem and found that the problem was caused by the old pos modem that AT&T sent me. There is a easy fix, a moderate fix, and a hard fix.
The easy way is filtering the server results by ping / Run and type in: regedit.
2. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\.
3. Create a new string value registry setting named CafeRate.
4. Give the CafeRate regkey a value of 10000 and progressively decrease the value until the issue is resolved. A rate of 3000 should be considered the minimum value.
There, now get back in the game.
You were hired to do a job and you got 100k for it. Shut up and be glad you have a job in this economy. It always pissed me off how actors say that they 'deserve' millions on millions of dollars for their 4 hours of work a day. I'd be happy to see this trend not extend into the video game industry.
I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft see the opportunity for a semi-proprietary disc format here. They've got a stable and cheap format that's already gone through all it's development phases and is proven to hold 50 gigs. Five years from now getting a hold of a consumer level HD-DVD burner will be a real rarity, so piracy would be really hard. Blue-Ray may have won the movie format war, but there's still a lot of potential in this format by virtue of it's soon to be obscurity.
We have this in the states too. It's called HIPPA. Look it up.
The GIMP has problems in that it doesn't have all the tools that Photoshop has. I learned Photoshop first and came to rely on a lot of layer effect tools to get things done quickly. Sure Gimp has layers that you can apply effects to, and you can probably replicate all of the effects if you spent enough time. But what takes 4 clicks in Photoshop takes 6 layers and a two hours of careful filter placement with Gimp.
The Gimp can do everything Photoshop can do, but Photoshop does it better, in less time, and with an easier learning curve. Gimp is good for dinking around at home, but I'd never use it at work.
I'd say that the cliff shaped learning curve is very accurate. But the cliff levels off at about 75% of what Photoshop can do.
From the article: "Eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections. And I mean free, and I mean fair -- not these kinds of staged elections that the Castro brothers tried to foist off as being true democracy," Bush said, on the road in Rwanda. Anyone get the vibe that Bush is just jealous. I think the United States needs a few of these free and fair elections unlike the ones we've had for the last 8 years.
So does this mean that we can get our fancy cigars again?
"I'm quite confident he'd vote *against* any bill that proposed the government some how step in and regulate email of ANY kind, including spam."
You say this like it's a bad thing. You actually want the government reading your mail?
Ron Paul does not want the government involved in screening our phone calls for us. He does not want the government screening our emails. It's not the governments job to do these things. That way lies a nanny state.
I am on the do-not-call list and guess what. I still get calls during dinner. This is your government at work. If the government stepped in to stop spam they would also take steps to enforce that you got the email that they deemed was not spam, and our in boxes would be flooded.
Then again I'm not retarded about typing my email address into every ad offering free porn and normally only get 3 spam messages a month. Maybe it's just that I don't see spam as a big enough problem to demand that the government read all my email for my protection.
The reason is Valve said, hey lets make a specific version of our games for countries with low income and sell it to them on the cheep. We'll put right on the box that this version won't work anywhere but in that country so that it doesn't hurt our sales. People from other countries buy the game and can't play it. OMGWTFBBQ VALVE SUX! Idiots. You have a version that's region free, and you have a version that's region locked to Thailand. You bought the version thats region locked to Thailand, and got exactly what you paid for. Nothing more, nothing less.
Listen to the end credits. You didn't kill her. Heck the song's title is "Still Alive".
I wonder how many people 'get' that the whole game, from start to finish and especially after the incinerator, was one big simulation.
It's like people don't pay attention to anything after the game is over.
That reminds me of the modem rebate crap that I just had to go through with AT&T last week. Since the special rebate sticker that i'm supposed to affix to a postcard was accidentally left out of the box I have to request one by phone. Unfortunately the tech told me that there was nothing that she could do until my account had been with AT&T for at least 3 months. Something about a grace period to make sure that I'm not just signing up for service to get their crappy dsl modem for free after rebate.
So to get this rebate I have to wait 3 months, call AT&T customer support then wait an additional 3 to 4 months for the rebate to arrive. Thats seven whole months before they have to give the rebate back. And you know what would suck even more? If they canceled my service I wouldn't ever get [error: connection to host lost]
Wait, which one is worse. After years of 'all your base' I'm pretty good at understanding Zero Wing speak.
This is kinda funny to me, because I had to do a recovery on my windows box last week. I eventually got so pissed off at it that I finally switched to Ubuntu. I'm finally a statistic of the people that have been burned by windows on their shady practices and switched my OS.
I don't have a PS3 (and probably won't get one either) however I do think it's utterly awesome that you can plug in your favorite keyboard and mouse and go wild on the controller players. Sony may have messed up on a lot of things, however the ability to attach a keyboard and mouse to their system is not one of them.
RTFA: This is a new element in how the game implements it.
Feign death is old as the sticks, however in this game you play as a genetic super soldier being fed a stream of happy 'nectar'. This nectar hides gruesome realities from their soldiers minds, meaning that if you play dead the enemy won't be able to see you at all. This may seem like a cheap trick (especially in multiplayer), however it looks like there will be a system of timed button presses in order to play dead that should keep this from being an instant invisibility trick.
I know that their drivers are crap, however what ever came of AMD's commitment to open sourcing their drivers?
I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple hundred enthusiasts that could get these cards up to their maximum potential in a few weeks.
Am I going to be the first person here to think these engineers sound like they're just having way too much fun with this?
Also I wonder what would break first, the wing, or the connection to the plane. I'm expecting the video to hit the internet in about a week.
This is all another conspiracy by big buisness to create global warming. Their plan is now to try to steal the energy of the spinning planet in order to create an day that lasts longer than 24 hours! /straps on tinfoil hat and holds on for the ride.
(more crickets)
So.... how bout the weather.
About two months ago I would've agreed with you about the NBC Video Rewind. However they've really improved it over the last few weeks. Video quality is better than youTube and I haven't had it skip once on the 14.99 a month dsl package that I watch from.
I will give you points for accuracy about what it used to be. I tried watching it after hours on the work T1 line about 2 months ago and the video halted, audio got out of synch with the video and a lot of times the video wouldn't come back after the commercial breaks. Overall unwatchable. However now a days it has improved considerably. I don't know if it's still buggy for the safari browser (I don't own a mac), but it works wonderfully on FF2.0.
I actually make a point to watch missed shows from the producer now. Sure it has some commercial breaks, but they've done the right thing. They made a BETTER alternative. The video and audio quality is much nicer than youTube permits. How many times have we all heard some slashdotter complain that they'd support X company if they offered a nicer service than one they could get online for free? NBC has turned into that X company and has now bested the pirate uploads to youTube. We should be applauding and supporting NBC for this (even though they were bastards that put a hold on the next episode of heroes). They are beating the pirates at their own game and setting their selves up to make a profit in doing so.
Of course if you want copies of your favorite show in HD and on a disc the day after the show airs torrenting is still your only option. But that's another matter entirely.
The real question I have is how it took this long to penetrate to upper management.
Perhaps Nintendo is keeping the supply low on purpose. If you think about it, there will be no blockbuster games for the next 6 to 9 months, and the developers are still getting used to the control scheme.
When you look at it from the traditional gaming perspective, you would want to sell as many consoles as you can because the average gamer will have fun with the games that are there and wait out the 6 to 9 months for the real meat and potatoes games to be released. However the Wii is not marketed to the average gamer, it's marketed to the average Joe.
Average Joe will get bored with a console that has no games, and once the 'Magic' has worn off for them their Wii will become a forgotten dust collector. Nintendo doesn't want this, and the longer they can keep the average Joe from getting a Wii the better the chances that right as the magic is wearing off for them another big title will get released and rekindle their interest.
The sad fact is that Nintendo is caught in a narrow market gamble. The PS3 and 360 will float on based on the dedicated hardcore gaming crowd, however the average Joe crowd that Nintendo is banking on is much more fickle. Nintendo has to do everything in their power from now till December to keep their new fickle audience playing games. If they can't then every day that passes will dry up more and more of their audience as the magic leaves them. If the Wii doesn't have a beefy arsenal of games out by November they will have to face loosing this round of the console battle to the 360.
Nintendo has a great start for their console, but they need to play a delicate balancing act, regulating their supply and pushing for faster release dates. If they fail they face loosing the interest of average Joe, and delivering a last gen console with a fancy controller to the hardcore community. This will put them clearly behind the 360 in the console wars (even if they completely fail on both counts I can't see the PS3 beating them out.)
Yojimbo.
What I think most companies are overlooking here when they ask if episodic content is going to work is that the episodes have to be released in intervals on time every time. Instead of relating episodic gaming to Malcom in the middle, you have to relate it to shows like Lost, and Prison Break. Prison Break lost me completely when they took a 3 month break because American Idol took over it's time slot.
Episodic gaming is no different. If you release a new episode on time every time you build anticipation for it, if you give the BS line that "It'll be done when it's done." People are going to forget about it and then it's not episodic, it's sporadic. Have them come out on the same day every year and keep to that schedule and you'll build anticipation for it, people will be able to play a game and then say, "I can't wait for next years episode."
I think the perfect example of a proven track record for this is in an episodic release of a non-episodic game. How many of you know someone that owns gets excited over the next edition of Madden 2kx. It's already working wonders for games that produce ABSOLUTELY NO ADDITIONAL CONTENT IN EVERY EPISODE. If you keep every game to a complete experience with a start and good ending, I can't see how the addition of a plot would ruin what is already a tried and true formula.
I think this is a good thing for the gaming community as a whole, and wish more people would do things like it. By dividing it up you (should) accomplish 3 things.
1. A balanced and stable game engine. In this case HL2. It was a good engine filled with fun extras like throwing things around and it came with a good game.
2. Plot. The seccond installment can't get by on the "OMG LOOKIT TEH PRETTIES!!!" It's already been done. If you plan to sell a game the seccond time it's gotta have good gameplay and good plot or no one will buy it. Period.
3. Speed. You've got your developers used to how to write a good story and build good clean maps with the engine. By the third episode they'll be able to crank out quality encounters at a mile a minute, and have the feedback from the other episodes about what the fans liked and what fell flat.
It all boils down to a LACK of advanced cutting edge graphics, and the focus on actual gameplay and story or the games will fail. In my oppion that's as it should be.