Posts by Defrag

  • Left4Dead 2

    Quote from Seldoon182

    Did you watch the interview before the release of L4D!?

    Nope. I bought the game because my mates were raving about it, not because of any kind of promise in an obscure video.

    Did you watch that video prior to purchasing it, or are you just using it to throw fuel on the fire?

  • Left4Dead 2

    Quote from kleinluka

    Just out of interest, how many hours do you all think you played Left 4 Dead up to this point?Because I really think that some people here are overreacting. "this game should have been 10-20$ at most" .... I don't know about that... I played it for probably well over 200 hours. A movie costs 20-30$ and lasts 2 hours on average. Other games last 10 hours and you pay a 60$.... so I think the pricing was justified. I also think making a sequel was justified by Valve, but I do agree that the timing of this is really poor because they haven't yet exhausted all the potential the first L4D still has to offer.

    My stats say 220 hours; I think it's probably quite a bit more.

  • Left4Dead 2

    Quote from Seldoon182

    Btw even if I didn't purchase L4D I joined the L4D2 Boycott steam group which reached more than 15 000 members. The group is on top 50 now and represent more than 10% of the official L4D official group. I joined coz I think that L4D2 is clearly dedicated to consoles. Consequently consoles kill my cpu. Look: Crytek made a engine especially for consoles (but isn't it what did you expect for CE3!?), Splash damage is currently working on Brink and oblige theirs employees to play with f***ing paddles... Seriously wtf !? I still want play Pc games not Consoles games adapted on Pc! And seeing VALVe (one of my favorite company), always dedicated to Pc falling on Microsoft and their f***ing partnership with EA trap make me really angry! Consoles is bullshit, playing games with paddle give me headache.

    Got overreaction? L4D was developed for the PC and 360 and I have absolutely no problem with it on the PC. The controls and gameplay are fine. What makes you think it won't be the case with L4D 2?

    Anyway let's face it, these 'boycott' groups mean nothing. The main way to take a stand against something is to not buy the product. However, I'm willing to bet that half of the people in that group end up buying L4D 2 anyway (in the same way that everyone used to bitch every week about every single CS patch, yet CS got more and more popular and the folk raging on forums continued playing).

  • Left4Dead 2

    Quote

    so just because stealing is popular, it is automatically legalized? and even if that statement wasn't a logical fallacy, i still wouldn't expect this sort of dick move pulled from a company of valve's stature.

    Come again? (didn't understand that.)

    Anyway, the point that I was trying to get across is that despite its apparent lack of content compared to the likes of TF2, L4D is a fantastic game and has delivered the most fun gaming times I've had in years. Maybe I'm just some sort of weirdo who latches onto certain games in a big way, though (that makes all of my L4D buddies weirdos too, though ).

    Furthermore, I think quite a lot of folk have got used to the fact that Valve goes above and beyond what most other companies commit to in terms of supporting their games. Over the years, the amount of stuff they've added to the likes of CS, TFC, TF2 and various other titles is bordering on the ridiculous, so the moment they don't show such a commitment, folk are very quick to criticise.

    Quote

    also the issues you mentioned are not reasons enough for a new game; they are reasons for an update to some of the systems used by l4d (you should know this as a programmer).

    The matchmaking stuff, certainly. The rest of the things I mentioned are gameplay problems that are non-trivial to fix. Valve has made several good tweaks to the gameplay after community feedback, so I'm not going to criticise them too much in that respect (e.g. booming ignores commons, smoker's tongue fixes and so on).

  • Left4Dead 2

    I think calling the original 'barren' is way, way wide of the mark. Each campaign takes roughly an hour to play through; 4 campaigns = 4 hours of gameplay right there. Some single player games last 4 hours start to finish while lacking any kind of replayability. When you play with three friends, L4D is eminently replayable; all of the maps are high quality. More to the point, I've seen the same 4 maps play out in markedly different fashions. The directory can completely change the way you play the map (e.g. no tier 2 weapons versus a tank) and it helps keep the game fresh. I've played well over 200 hours and I'm only now beginning to tire of it, and even then it's not down to the lack of level content.

    The lack of weapons is definitely a bummer, but the weapons present are solid and satisfying. To whoever said that TF2 is 'better value' because of the amount of stuff in it: I've got TF2 and despite the infinite choice, character and variety on offer, I find L4D to be better value 'cause I've played it more . TF2 is cool, but it doesn't make me want to play it anymore. There's nothing like booming a whole team followed by someone getting smoked off the edge, then two hunter 25s in the face.

    My criticisms of L4D (most of these probably are to do with versus)

    - Match making is abysmal. People constantly rage. There is no way to match up 4 v 4 or do anything of that sort. E.g. yesterday we waited 30 mins to get a game going. We played against some clan who were obviously looking to 'pub stomp'. After 3 maps of them failing to incap any of us or come close to putting us in trouble, they just stood in spawn and then shut their server down. The human element is worse than any of the game mechanics.

    - It really sucks at letting players join games sometimes. You can have one game where it works flawlessly (someone quits, another joins within 5 seconds!) and others where it fails to function at all (5 maps of 4v3).

    - Ironically, I think the length of the campaigns has been part of L4D's downfall. More isn't better. Committing to an hour+ long game isn't easy, especially when one team is getting comprehensively beaten. The really long game times are great when you're having an evenly matched game, but when it's a mismatch, it drags on for the losing team. I think most folk are used to 15-20 minute round times. Dip in, dip out. 5 maps and 1 hour+ is too much of a stretch. IMO they'd be better off structuring it around a 3 or 4 map stretch.

    - Cheap tactics. Lots of the panic events can be bypassed or nullified through the use of questionable tactics. It totally removes the sense of urgency and tension when teams do this (e.g. closet camping, shooting alarmed cars and running inside, rushing crescendos breaking the director / AI)

    - The scoring system is fairly muddled.

    My interest in L4D2 is centred on whether Valve has done anything to correct these problems. It's the matchmaking and people issues that let L4D down. Overall I'm not sure about Valve releasing this as a full game so quickly simply because I don't know what changes they're making. If it's just a superficial change with some new weapons and levels, it'll be hard to buy into. They obviously know what they're doing and I'm going to buy it regardless, but I feel they may have misjudged people's expectations. I am fully satisfied with my L4D purchase purely because of the fact that I've played it to death and loved it (200 hours = ~10 pence per hour of entertainment), but if a lot of folk are not happy with the amount of stuff L4D came with, they're probably not going to shell out another 30 quid on L4D 2 if it looks like more of the same.

  • Left 4 Dead

    Regarding stutter problems: Make sure you have multicore rendering turned off. I have what feels like horrible mouse lag with it enabled. The game plays nicely without it, though.

    Also, yay for new maps.

  • IGDA Discussion Over "Crunch Time" Development

    T=Machine blogs about quality of life and the IGDA; it's well worth a read -- particularly the bit about crunch being a blokey euphemism, when in fact it means "unpaid overtime".

    Anyway, I don't understand how anyone is meant to get more work done during an extended crunch. The 'normal' amount of work done per hour can probably be sustained for a month or so (so that you get more work done at a similar quality level). However, beyond that you're effectively spreading the same amount of work (or less) over a longer period of time because, when doing a mentally demanding task, you cannot sustain it. If you devote 10 hours a day every day to a complex task, then there is absolutely no way in hell you can work with the same level of accuracy, quality and intensity. Most people's brains just don't keep going like that (I bet some folk can do it, but they are in the minority). I find myself flagging at the end of 8.5 hour days (1 hour lunch break), so I'd hate to have to face up to a lifestyle that involves waking up, going to work, going to the pub for an hour, then going to sleep.

    You may be able to keep churning through it, especially if some of it is repetitious, but it's not sustainable. If you crunch hard, there is surely no other outcome than less work being done (per hour) and the work being of a poorer standard when compared to normal working conditions. I'm sure they've done studies on this -- you end up with ~6 weeks of crunch being sustainable and then, beyond that, things nosedive and everyone loses.

    The project I work on has absolutely zero overtime and I've seen no pressure being placed on folk to do so. However, a few of my friends worked on Crackdown and it wasn't the same story there. What I will say is that one of my mates liked crunching. As alien as it may seem, he said it fostered a great team spirit and it was a lot of fun. Now that he has settled down, I'm not so sure he and his girlfriend would like it quite so much... Realtime has just introduced paid overtime too, so at least if we ever go down that road we will get some compensation for it.

  • Game industry questionmarks

    I would personally do a degree if you can. Why? Because I had loads of free time at university. I used the time to learn more level design, modelling, scripting and some texturing in addition to graduating my programming course. I wasn't amazing at any particular thing (I learned to do these things because they interested me!) but the point is that I had the time to do it all, plus I have a degree to fall back on. If you do a games-related degree, tread very carefully, though. Make sure the course is reputable and has a high number of graduates that enter the industry.

    Given enough time and dedication, anyone with talent can become good enough to secure a job in my opinion. Just do what Erratic, Hourences & co. advised -- make stuff. Make lots of stuff. It doesn't matter if you throw some of it away or you don't finish everything or it's not a success, just make it, then make even more. Jeff Atwood wrote a particularly good article about why quantity is so important. IMO it applies to near enough every field.

    Also, it's worth looking into modding. You learn a lot about collaborating with others, it may offer some external pressure to commit and you will also make some good contacts for the future

    Good luck!

  • Modding tips series I've started writing

    Posted a couple of more things.

    As for the iterative vs. big release: I personally think both approaches can work. If you have something unique that nobody else is doing, or doing well (see: GMod) then if you hit 'em between the eyes they will keep coming back. If you have something that is basically competing with retail games (anything to do with WW2...) or remaking something then if it doesn't have the immediate bombast and quality that people expect, I don't think people will play it.

    I didn't really consider this until FF had been well into development. I made FF because I wanted to make FF, so I s'pose I was blind to the issue until we were too far underway to consider iterative releases and the impact they would have.