Did you miss the menu where you can setup your own key bindings? It's a non issue.
No, I did not miss it. It's still stupid for two reasons: 1) The mouse isn't used. It's perfect for quicktime events. 2) The keyboard defaults are stupid. Note that I am still enjoying the game! It's quite possible for a game to have deficiencies while still being fun.
RandomEngy on
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
Some people think Black Mesa might be getting picked up by Valve in some capacity, based on some things the developers said and something by Gabe Newell. Probably people looking too much into it, but it could be neat.
Orange Box 2 (Purple Box)? Portal 2, Black Mesa, Episode 3, new Counter-Strike
That would be sweet.
Now they just need to announce Team Fortress 3, so I won't have to make room in my budget for the Burnt Sienna Box until next decade or so. :P
the orange box was such a good deal, they are going to have to pay me for taking it, to top it.
As we all do, brother. Scary thought - Half Life was released in 1998, Half Life 2 in 2004. That kind of gap was reckoned to be almost unprecedented for a direct sequel, but unless Half Life 3 (or 4, if you really believe all this 'the episodes are the real HL3' guff) somehow manages to come out in 2010, when it hasn't even been released, we're looking at a 7+ year gap between games! Someone born at HL's release will be going through puberty right now. Puberty.
As we all do, brother. Scary thought - Half Life was released in 1998, Half Life 2 in 2004. That kind of gap was reckoned to be almost unprecedented for a direct sequel, but unless Half Life 3 (or 4, if you really believe all this 'the episodes are the real HL3' guff) somehow manages to come out in 2010, when it hasn't even been released, we're looking at a 7+ year gap between games! Someone born at HL's release will be going through puberty right now. Puberty.
What's horrible is that we haven't seen ANYTHING related to EP3. Part of me wants to believe we're in for an amazing surprise with it... the rest of me just wants it now.
Seriously, the only reason I could think about not showing anything is that there's something awesome and massive they want to do and they're fixing up the ol' engine to handle it.
As we all do, brother. Scary thought - Half Life was released in 1998, Half Life 2 in 2004. That kind of gap was reckoned to be almost unprecedented for a direct sequel, but unless Half Life 3 (or 4, if you really believe all this 'the episodes are the real HL3' guff) somehow manages to come out in 2010, when it hasn't even been released, we're looking at a 7+ year gap between games! Someone born at HL's release will be going through puberty right now. Puberty.
What's horrible is that we haven't seen ANYTHING related to EP3. Part of me wants to believe we're in for an amazing surprise with it... the rest of me just wants it now.
Seriously, the only reason I could think about not showing anything is that there's something awesome and massive they want to do and they're fixing up the ol' engine to handle it.
I want to believe.
On the plus side, they did release that one piece of concept art. :P
Anyway, this was taken from a Gametrailers episode. It was done just after the release of Orange Box, and before the release of L4D, so take what's said with a HUGE freaking bowl of salt.
"From our point of view there's enough newness in there that we want to sort of spring it on people and say "here's a bunch of things you've never seen before", have multiple of those.
...
"There's stuff that visually hasn't been in games before and there's certainly a bunch of game elements, on the order of portal, that have never been done before."
"So even better than the Portal gun?"
"Oh Yeah."
Like I said, this was years ago so take it with a tonne of skepticism, a lot can change over a few years (and a couple of game releases). Personally I can't imagine what they'd be able to put in visually that nobody's really done with games yet, so I'd be happy to call that marketing hype right there. But I suspect Valve have probably got something special planned for Ep3.
How about some sort of time travel for Episode 3? You could find a portal gun from the Aperture Science ship, a Vort could do its Vort magic on it, and hey presto!
I can't even begin to fathom how it'd be possible without breaking the game, but it sounds cool in my head.
So there's a game for sale on Steam right now called 9th Company - Roots of Terror. It appears to be a pro-Soviet Total War style RTS set in Afghanistan.
9th Company Roots of Terror is an action-oriented real-time strategy game based on actual events that took place during the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan.
9th Company follows the story of a ragged band of young recruits undergoing brutal training in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley and culminates with a bloody stand against the Mujahideen warriors on a nameless mountain top in Afghanistan. It’s the Battle of Thermopylae all over again: one Russian fighter against 10 Afghanis!
9th Company recreates in detail the events that took place during the last large-scale Soviet military operation. Few know the history: the 9th Company of the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment came under heavy fire on “Hill 3234” on January 7th, 1988. They managed to stop several attacks by an estimated 400 Mujahideen and Pakistani mercenaries and held their position for two gory days. The company lost 6 men, and the remaining 28 of the total 39 were wounded. Two 9th Company soldiers were posthumously awarded the Golden Star medal and the title of Soviet Hero.
Is that even necessary? Some graphical enhancements and new maps for CS Source would do just as well.
They've already talked about how Counter-Strike 2 is in the works.
Well, considering the limed is exactly what they did with L4D2.... I wouldnt put it past them.
Better yet, they should make CS:2 a F2P game with an item mall.
Want an AWP....pay up.
Heh, remember the counter-strike economy thing? I wonder if that's still functional.
EDIT: Also, the limed description kinda applies to Counter-Strike: Source already. Only more new graphics and less new maps.
EDIT EDIT: Also, I wonder if the Orange Box 2 will have the long spoken-of updates to Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 that add in HDR (to HL2) and achievements from the 360 version.
Is that even necessary? Some graphical enhancements and new maps for CS Source would do just as well.
They've already talked about how Counter-Strike 2 is in the works.
Well, considering the limed is exactly what they did with L4D2.... I wouldnt put it past them.
Better yet, they should make CS:2 a F2P game with an item mall.
Want an AWP....pay up.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. I mean, L4D2 is more than just new graphics and maps, the gameplay is pretty heavily evolved from the original, to the point where most people that have played it don't want to go back to the first one. Heck, even from a content standpoint they certainly provided more campaigns and maps than the original game.
You could make the same comment about Episode 2. I mean, it's just a few new levels and a couple of new shiny effects right?
Hm. Prior to today, Jedi Knight worked mostly fine with a few minor artifacts and such - and the occasional CTD. I stopped playing it for a couple of weeks due to life intervening, and decided that I needed to play some more this evening. With this goal, I told steam to launch it, and then attempted to load my save; I was greeted with a black screen, followed by a crash.
I attempted, then, to load a different save; the same thing happened. I verified, defrag'd, and finally (after backing up my saves) removed all the local content, followed by downloading it again. My saves were already in place, so I attempted to load my game - and it crashed. I created a new character - and it crashed.
I also tried compatibility mode, but steam wouldn't let the game launch like that.
Machine: Windows XP x64 Professional; AMD 64-bit Dual Core 3800+; 3 Gigabytes of RAM; Nvidia 8800GTS.
No major changes to the hardware since I played it last; software changes would probably be limited to installing new games. I take that back, I also recall going through the process of updating the nvidia drivers.
Did a quick google-search, but my google-fu is weak and the only instructions I found were to alt-tab out and back in. This fails; the crash is being caught by the Visual Studio Just in Time Debugger. Which I'm also trying to remove, but that's an unrelated problem.
Hmmm..... try adding the fix a the top of the page.
Cheers - don't know if the first did anything for me, but the second got me to check the resolution, which has reset to 640x480. Bumping that up got me into the game.
Is that even necessary? Some graphical enhancements and new maps for CS Source would do just as well.
They've already talked about how Counter-Strike 2 is in the works.
Well, considering the limed is exactly what they did with L4D2.... I wouldnt put it past them.
Better yet, they should make CS:2 a F2P game with an item mall.
Want an AWP....pay up.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. I mean, L4D2 is more than just new graphics and maps, the gameplay is pretty heavily evolved from the original, to the point where most people that have played it don't want to go back to the first one. Heck, even from a content standpoint they certainly provided more campaigns and maps than the original game.
You could make the same comment about Episode 2. I mean, it's just a few new levels and a couple of new shiny effects right?
The original L4D was a pretty bare bones package when first released. I kind of get the feeling that they didn't expect it to take off as well as it did, and L4D2 is what they would have done had they expected it to be insanely popular.
Is that even necessary? Some graphical enhancements and new maps for CS Source would do just as well.
They've already talked about how Counter-Strike 2 is in the works.
Well, considering the limed is exactly what they did with L4D2.... I wouldnt put it past them.
Better yet, they should make CS:2 a F2P game with an item mall.
Want an AWP....pay up.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. I mean, L4D2 is more than just new graphics and maps, the gameplay is pretty heavily evolved from the original, to the point where most people that have played it don't want to go back to the first one. Heck, even from a content standpoint they certainly provided more campaigns and maps than the original game.
You could make the same comment about Episode 2. I mean, it's just a few new levels and a couple of new shiny effects right?
The original L4D was a pretty bare bones package when first released. I kind of get the feeling that they didn't expect it to take off as well as it did, and L4D2 is what they would have done had they expected it to be insanely popular.
Left 4 Dead 1 was the first time they dedicated an advertising budget of $10 million to a game (and very likely, this amount was at least equal or greater than the development budget of the game itself). I'd say it's pretty apparent they believed they were onto something and hoped it would take off.
I think that Left 4 Dead 1 was a new IP, and just in general, a new idea and direction for Valve. It's pretty much inevitable that the first take was going to harbour a lot of things they thought could be improved. Heck, I recently played through HL2 again, and whilst it's still a good game, there's a lot of little gameplay concepts that I can't help but notice they've refined and changed over the episodes. That's not to say that they didn't expect HL2 to be popular, it's more that evolving gameplay mechanics is an iterative process, and you can't just lump everything in at once.
Guys, guys: they're not Blizzard, and L4D/TF2 is not WoW.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here?
That they might not forget one of their successful intellectual properties for nine years just because another one has more immediate press.
I was going to argue against this, but whatever.
Regardless of what Blizzard did or did not do, Valve has shown that they're willing to yank people off of the TF2 development team to finish up the Left 4 Dead games. It's why the big updates tend to be thin this time of year.
Guys, guys: they're not Blizzard, and L4D/TF2 is not WoW.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here?
That they might not forget one of their successful intellectual properties for nine years just because another one has more immediate press.
I was going to argue against this, but whatever.
Regardless of what Blizzard did or did not do, Valve has shown that they're willing to yank people off of the TF2 development team to finish up the Left 4 Dead games. It's why the big updates tend to be thin this time of year.
Hey, I'm not saying that they definitely will or won't "forget about" Episode 3, I'm just saying that it shouldn't be a foregone conclusion.
I think its been so long at this point, that whatever they bring to the table, it will be hard for fans to get excited with how long weve been waiting. Everyone will still get hyped, but I just dont see the rational expression of the new content being "omg this was so worth 5 years wait that they couldnt release this 2 years ago when they planned because a 2-4 hour finale has been in progress for at least 3.5 years now"
On the other hand its valve, and they havent dissapointed us on their own titles in HL2, I think were going to see something pretty incredible.(these are my hopes and dreams anyways)
Secondly the black mesa mod gave a yearly update: Surprise, it won't be out this year.
Hello Black Mesa fans!
We come to you once again with an update. It's now the end of 2009, and we know many of you have literally counted the days down until this fateful month. We are floored by the level of support you have given us and are very excited we're so close to reaching our goal.
Unfortunately, to our great disappointment, Black Mesa will not make a 2009 release.
Cynics may now rejoice, bets may be collected, and I think a mod team member has to eat his shoe, but we hope our loyal fans will forgive us and realize that the delay will translate into a better final product that's (hopefully) more easily available to everyone.
Once again we apologize for what has to be very disappointing news. We placed a 2009 deadline on ourselves to motivate us and bring this 6 year project to a close. And while we didn't quite make it, we have come very close, and you can expect a complete, polished game to hit your hard drives in the near future. We'll be sure and update if anything changes. Until then, hang tight, it's coming!
Secondly the black mesa mod gave a yearly update: Surprise, it won't be out this year.
Hello Black Mesa fans!
We come to you once again with an update. It's now the end of 2009, and we know many of you have literally counted the days down until this fateful month. We are floored by the level of support you have given us and are very excited we're so close to reaching our goal.
Unfortunately, to our great disappointment, Black Mesa will not make a 2009 release.
Cynics may now rejoice, bets may be collected, and I think a mod team member has to eat his shoe, but we hope our loyal fans will forgive us and realize that the delay will translate into a better final product that's (hopefully) more easily available to everyone.
Once again we apologize for what has to be very disappointing news. We placed a 2009 deadline on ourselves to motivate us and bring this 6 year project to a close. And while we didn't quite make it, we have come very close, and you can expect a complete, polished game to hit your hard drives in the near future. We'll be sure and update if anything changes. Until then, hang tight, it's coming!
Medieval 2 Total War is $5 now. Is it worth it? I've never played any of the total war games.
Yes, yes it is worth $5 (or £2.50! Wooo...). And it's actually probably a better introduction to the Total War series than Empire is, for all the latter's spectacle. Essentially you've got a split between 1) global map for turn-based building, unit training, diplomacy etc. (like a streamlined Civilization geared around conquest) and 2) amazingly epic RTS-style battles whenever conflict's involved. Think of thousands of gleaming knights sweeping across the plain only to be mashed into a fine paste by herds of war elephants. Actually, that might have just have been Rome: TW.
Given that this is the only installment in the series I don't actually own, can anyone confirm how much the 'Kingdoms' Expansion adds? I never seem to be able to finish more than a couple of vanilla TW campaigns before the next one comes out, but part of me objects to not owning it all, dammit.
Medieval 2 Total War is $5 now. Is it worth it? I've never played any of the total war games.
Yes, yes it is worth $5 (or £2.50! Wooo...). And it's actually probably a better introduction to the Total War series than Empire is, for all the latter's spectacle. Essentially you've got a split between 1) global map for turn-based building, unit training, diplomacy etc. (like a streamlined Civilization geared around conquest) and 2) amazingly epic RTS-style battles whenever conflict's involved. Think of thousands of gleaming knights sweeping across the plain only to be mashed into a fine paste by herds of war elephants. Actually, that might have just have been Rome: TW.
Given that this is the only installment in the series I don't actually own, can anyone confirm how much the 'Kingdoms' Expansion adds? I never seem to be able to finish more than a couple of vanilla TW campaigns before the next one comes out, but part of me objects to not owning it all, dammit.
If you're going to get the 'Kingdoms' Expansion make sure you buy them separately, £2.50 for M:TW2 and £4.99 for Kingdoms compared with £13.99 for the Medieval 2 Complete Pack
Posts
No, I did not miss it. It's still stupid for two reasons: 1) The mouse isn't used. It's perfect for quicktime events. 2) The keyboard defaults are stupid. Note that I am still enjoying the game! It's quite possible for a game to have deficiencies while still being fun.
the orange box was such a good deal, they are going to have to pay me for taking it, to top it.
As we all do, brother. Scary thought - Half Life was released in 1998, Half Life 2 in 2004. That kind of gap was reckoned to be almost unprecedented for a direct sequel, but unless Half Life 3 (or 4, if you really believe all this 'the episodes are the real HL3' guff) somehow manages to come out in 2010, when it hasn't even been released, we're looking at a 7+ year gap between games! Someone born at HL's release will be going through puberty right now. Puberty.
What's horrible is that we haven't seen ANYTHING related to EP3. Part of me wants to believe we're in for an amazing surprise with it... the rest of me just wants it now.
Seriously, the only reason I could think about not showing anything is that there's something awesome and massive they want to do and they're fixing up the ol' engine to handle it.
I want to believe.
...right?
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Episode what?
On the plus side, they did release that one piece of concept art. :P
Anyway, this was taken from a Gametrailers episode. It was done just after the release of Orange Box, and before the release of L4D, so take what's said with a HUGE freaking bowl of salt.
In any case, make of it what you will:
http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/gametrailers-tv/10?ch=1&hd=1
Skip to around 2:04. Regarding Ep3:
Like I said, this was years ago so take it with a tonne of skepticism, a lot can change over a few years (and a couple of game releases). Personally I can't imagine what they'd be able to put in visually that nobody's really done with games yet, so I'd be happy to call that marketing hype right there. But I suspect Valve have probably got something special planned for Ep3.
Yeah, I probably could have put more effort into that.
I can't even begin to fathom how it'd be possible without breaking the game, but it sounds cool in my head.
They've already talked about how Counter-Strike 2 is in the works.
....A Valve made MMO would be my ultimate desire. Honestly? Probably the only thing that could ever compete with WoW.
Is that weird? It seems weird.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here?
Well, considering the limed is exactly what they did with L4D2.... I wouldnt put it past them.
Better yet, they should make CS:2 a F2P game with an item mall.
Want an AWP....pay up.
Heh, remember the counter-strike economy thing? I wonder if that's still functional.
EDIT: Also, the limed description kinda applies to Counter-Strike: Source already. Only more new graphics and less new maps.
EDIT EDIT: Also, I wonder if the Orange Box 2 will have the long spoken-of updates to Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 that add in HDR (to HL2) and achievements from the 360 version.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. I mean, L4D2 is more than just new graphics and maps, the gameplay is pretty heavily evolved from the original, to the point where most people that have played it don't want to go back to the first one. Heck, even from a content standpoint they certainly provided more campaigns and maps than the original game.
You could make the same comment about Episode 2. I mean, it's just a few new levels and a couple of new shiny effects right?
Cheers - don't know if the first did anything for me, but the second got me to check the resolution, which has reset to 640x480. Bumping that up got me into the game.
The original L4D was a pretty bare bones package when first released. I kind of get the feeling that they didn't expect it to take off as well as it did, and L4D2 is what they would have done had they expected it to be insanely popular.
Left 4 Dead 1 was the first time they dedicated an advertising budget of $10 million to a game (and very likely, this amount was at least equal or greater than the development budget of the game itself). I'd say it's pretty apparent they believed they were onto something and hoped it would take off.
I think that Left 4 Dead 1 was a new IP, and just in general, a new idea and direction for Valve. It's pretty much inevitable that the first take was going to harbour a lot of things they thought could be improved. Heck, I recently played through HL2 again, and whilst it's still a good game, there's a lot of little gameplay concepts that I can't help but notice they've refined and changed over the episodes. That's not to say that they didn't expect HL2 to be popular, it's more that evolving gameplay mechanics is an iterative process, and you can't just lump everything in at once.
I was going to argue against this, but whatever.
Regardless of what Blizzard did or did not do, Valve has shown that they're willing to yank people off of the TF2 development team to finish up the Left 4 Dead games. It's why the big updates tend to be thin this time of year.
They hired the DotA guy so I imagine he's doing something.
I'm pretty sure that was silently removed due to all the people hating it.
While I might not want to play it, I think it'd be interesting to see what Valve would do with a new Counter-Strike game.
Hopefully not take it in the same direction of MW2. I don't want to have to grind for weeks to use a Para.
On the other hand its valve, and they havent dissapointed us on their own titles in HL2, I think were going to see something pretty incredible.(these are my hopes and dreams anyways)
Wow, I never realised. Huh.
"leading a team at Valve". I wonder what he's doing, indeed.
Helping Gabe level up his death knight.
I'm sorry guys. I accept full responsibility. Do with me what you will.
:winky:
:winky:
Wait, let me rephrase.
Do with me what you will. But nothing in the butt.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Yes, yes it is worth $5 (or £2.50! Wooo...). And it's actually probably a better introduction to the Total War series than Empire is, for all the latter's spectacle. Essentially you've got a split between 1) global map for turn-based building, unit training, diplomacy etc. (like a streamlined Civilization geared around conquest) and 2) amazingly epic RTS-style battles whenever conflict's involved. Think of thousands of gleaming knights sweeping across the plain only to be mashed into a fine paste by herds of war elephants. Actually, that might have just have been Rome: TW.
Given that this is the only installment in the series I don't actually own, can anyone confirm how much the 'Kingdoms' Expansion adds? I never seem to be able to finish more than a couple of vanilla TW campaigns before the next one comes out, but part of me objects to not owning it all, dammit.
It's worth $5 yeah.
A valve MMO would never get done ever. Not in this Universe's lifetime.
If you're going to get the 'Kingdoms' Expansion make sure you buy them separately, £2.50 for M:TW2 and £4.99 for Kingdoms compared with £13.99 for the Medieval 2 Complete Pack