cpoint: hot water Valve

[Thortok2000]

Edited by [user="152360"] @ [time="1087526737"]

Shouldn't Counter-Point have two people who disagree? I think that's what it meant by biased. Both people this time were biased the same way.



I think there's a major difference between Blizzard and Valve. Blizzard usually doesn't release deadlines at all. If it was blizzard, 9/23 would've been when they'd release the date in the first place. Up until then they'd say 'late 2003'. And then they'd make the date they gave.



Also, look at Battle.net compared to Steam. I'm not sure how either works, but I'm confident that while Steam seems to be more powerful, Battle.net is a whole lot more robust. As in, less buggy. Battle.net's patching mechanism could probably support the 'often-ness' of patching that Steam has shown.



However, Blizzard, instead of doing lots of tiny patches that they then fix again in the next patch, does one big patch and makes sure they get it right. In fact, their two last biggest patches, 1.10 for Diablo II, and 1.15 for WC3, both got publicly beta-tested. Their beta tests were almost finished products, that needed a bit of polish.



Counter-strike's only beta-tested patch was 1.6, with the beta steam. And when 'steam' became official (no word on whether 1.6 was official or not), there were still tons of bugs in both 1.6 and Steam. In fact, it's only today that the 'cancel' responsiveness has been improved, and that's been there since the beginning.



And you're wrong when you think big changes don't bring anti-Blizzard. Just take a look at the way they changed anonymous matchmaking in 1.15. I personally feel the idea is good but that there's some bugs in there that are causing erratic behavior, but most people think it's completely screwy and they should revert to the original ASAP.



In fact, there's plenty of anti-blizzard even without changes. http://www.worldofwar.net/randomravings/038.php



I think VALVe does a lot of things right, and also has a lot of good intentions that sometimes aren't implemented well. However, they are severely lacking in certain areas. Customer Support? Practically non-existent, and what there is involves standard FAQs and troubleshooters that won't ever solve esoteric problems. Take a look at Blizzard's website, and the support forum, and you'll see ten times anything VALVe has. And what about a phone number for contacting a live person?



The best thing about VALVe is their ability to design. Implementing this design (programming) is fairly well done but not top-notch. Steam itself is still buggy, but admittedly much less so than when it was 'official'.



Everything else about VALVe, especially PR, sucks. And even though they like and support the community, that's an entirely pointless idea if your PR sucks. You don't tell us what we need or want to know, you don't keep us happy and anticipating, you barely do anything announcement-wise, and some of the things you do announce get reverted later and we never know about it. The best source for news about VALVe isn't Valve itself, it's the fansites.



I'm not entirely anti-VALVe but I'm not a fanboy who can't see their faults, either. There's a lot of flaws in their company's structure, as many as there are in Steam and the Half-life engine, so much so that only the popularity of their previous hits keeps them alive at all. If HL2 doesn't rock, even if it's only 'mild', on average for any game, then VALVe's probably gonna go downhill.

[Bokuho]

Bit of a hard article to follow to be honest.... I noticed a lot of repeating of a couple of points...



Anyway, good read overall.



Personally I feel very cheated by VALVe, when it comes to CS at least. HL2.... I'm not too bothered about that as of yet. It's not released, we don't know what the final product will be like, for all we know it could be the most amazing game of all time that will never be beaten, in which case we'd have no right to complain. So I'm waiting for that to actually get released first before I praise or bitch about any aspect of it, be that the game itself, the delay, whatever.



CS:CZ, again I'm not too bothered about it. Okay, so it took a long time to come out... yes it had big delays... but at the end of the day, it's not like they promised us an amazing, all new gaming experience. They basically only promised a CS single player and some prettier models, and they gave us just that.



CS though, is a different story. They've really cheated us on that. What started out as a free mod that listened to what it's community really wanted has turned into any other corp. game, with little priority laid on the community. There have been many suspicious changes to CS over the last year or so that make me believe VALVe actually want us to stop liking CS, either that or they want us to all play it their way and only their way. For example, with the coming of CS1.6 we've had models being switched to the other side of the screen, effectively foiling custom model uses for a short time and eliminating some older models, overall reducing the amount of custom models options that are out there today, we've had the spray.wad file changing file name for no reason what-so-ever, causing much confusion and rendering many CS websites to become out-of-date and useless, we've had the crosshairs changing size for no reason at all (as in literally - there was no excuse nor reason for them to change the crosshair, it just put more work on their shoulders and wasn't asked for by the community), though admittedly they have fixed that now, yet this fix still comes quite late, given that it should never have been changed in the first place. Then there was the mysteriously big skull headshot icon. Again, why? There's been adjustments to certain weapons (G3/SG-1, SG-550, AW/M, Scout) that have been met with great disapproval by the community, other weapons have been added, complained about en masse yet not changed (e.g. shield {too biased}, FAMAS {too useless is the most common argument there}), Some weapons in the game remain totally pointless (e.g. UMP45, P228. Note when I say 'pointless', that does not mean that they're also useless as weapons, just that there are better weapons in the game for the same sort of price band), not to mention the many bugs in the game, some dating years back, which are still around...



Then there's Steam. Is it helpful? Yes, overall. Does it run okay? Yes, most of the time. Was there a need for it though? No. Does it allow CS to run just as smoothly as it did on WON? No. Does it allow people off all connections and PC spec to play CS comfortably? No. In fact I myself was forced to upgrade from 56k to Broadband solely because of Steam. That's double the cost per month just to be able to continue playing one game. And I know I'm not the only one. Then there is the fact that even though VALVe are rolling in lolly, even though their wallets are bursting, they still didn't shell out for enough servers with the power to handle running a program like Steam. They've said they didn't realise it would be such a work load - well, firstly that's bullshit, they could have gone to one of hundreds of sites and found out how many CS players there were out there, or they could have just got more servers once they realised they didn't have enough. Have they taken any action though? No.



VALVe stopped listening to what the community really wants a long time ago, and for that they have lost all respect I had for them. Of course it doesn't help that they've not even ever made a single game engine from scratch themselves.

[HankPym]

Thortok2000 wrote..

Also, look at Battle.net compared to Steam. I'm not sure how either works, but I'm confident that while Steam seems to be more powerful, Battle.net is a whole lot more robust. As in, less buggy. Battle.net's patching mechanism could probably support the 'often-ness' of patching that Steam has shown.

I'm not sure that comparison is fair because Steam has a very different intent than Battle.net. Steam is Valve's attempt to take control over the publication of their own software, whereas Battle.net is "merely" a server browser (essentially, and I know it's a really good one). Steam is a very complicated beast, and sure there are bugs. But the only problem I really see with it is that it's probably ahead of its time. I think one day this will be the primary method of software delivery.



I'm with you on most of what you said about PR, though.

[LoveYourDEagle]

I rather thoroughly enjoyed this CounterPoint. For those of you who think that this is written solely by two 'pro-Valvers', I should mention that the first whole page is devoted to a rather anti-Valve standpoint (unless you skipped it altogether), and that Rizzuh and 'Pennies give their two cents (pardon the bad pun), offering their opposite opinions on the subject.



To be truthful, I have played CS a grand total of 10 or so times since Valve's Steam platform was released, since I do not own an actual copy of the game, and being a dial-up user, downloading the oft large updates for Steam and its adjacent games would merely be impractical. And like most casual gamers, I cried foul when my beloved 1.5 (with which I've had tons of fun and great times with at local LANs) was changed.



And then, as soon as Steam was released, came the reports of bugs. And the stream of patches and updates that fixed the bugs. And like every other gamers, I shook my fist belligerently at Valve for altering one of my most loved games. However, I've seen the attempts made to correct these bugs, and while I could bemoan the state of CS, I choose to applaud Valve for continually attempting to improve version 1.6.



And why, you may ask? I'm not an optimist. Truthfully, I'm typically a cynic and have a pessimistic attitude. But there's merely no point in me complaining about the state of a game which I have no control over. And at least Valve is trying to fix the errors that have come with this new platform, instead of leaving it as is.



This is just my opinion, however.

[Thortok2000]

HankPym wrote..

I'm not sure that comparison is fair because Steam has a very different intent than Battle.net. Steam is Valve's attempt to take control over the publication of their own software, whereas Battle.net is "merely" a server browser (essentially, and I know it's a really good one). Steam is a very complicated beast, and sure there are bugs. But the only problem I really see with it is that it's probably ahead of its time. I think one day this will be the primary method of software delivery.



I'm with you on most of what you said about PR, though.

So the biggest difference is Steam allows you to download a game you never had on your comp, while Battle.net only patches?



Anyway, like I said, Steam is 'stronger', capable of more, but Battle.net always works.

[NightSh4de]

That was a refreshing article to read. Very nice.



Well I'm gonna talk about the CS updates. I didn't start to play CS till the very end of 1.4. I played it one day and then the 1.5 update cam out. I have basically raised myself in CS on the 1.5 system. I got used to it and became a good ass player. I'm not the best and not the worst. On the 1.5 server i played on I was the 2nd best guy in my clan and on the server. Well anyways about the updates. In 1.5 a lot of people(most people) Liked it a lot better than 1.4 because it was more of a 1.3 feel that they knew and loved. The only problem with 1.5 is now that its out for like a 1 1/2 with no updates all the people that have been playing CS for years are starting to get bored with it since it is the same. Newbies in 1.5 had a lot harder time towards the end since so many people have been playing 1.5's style for a year or so. I mean in a year of the same hitboxs and gun recoil and so on your gonna get good and your gonna know how you gun works. Many newbies got dishearten and stopped playing because they sucked. Two of my newbie friends did stop after not long playing. Me though, I kept playing because I loved the game play. I was in love with a FPS for the first time in my life. I missed the rush of HL since i didn't play PC games back then, so CS is my first love of a FPS. I have since played HL and like it but nothing compares to CStrike to me. Well towards the end of 1.5's major life a lot of my friends I meet on CS stopped playing do to boredom of the game. When 1.6 came out a lot of people converted and a lot didn't. It felt like the CS community was being ripped in two. I think Valve went about the update wrong about how they made 1.6 on Steam right off. Too me I think they should have ran Steam on betas for 1.5 for about half a year to adjust players before the made the switch to 1.6. The switch to 1.6 made a BIG jump in game play or all aspects. The keep updating which is good and bad. I don't feel they are making it easier for newbies much since there are still a ton out there that suck at it. They are fixing small mistakes that people blow out of proportion. Its not that bad that they redid the hit boxes. Shields are a topic of debate when 1.6 was released. People went on and on about how they sucked but if you cared so much about them you should make a server and TURN THEN OFF. Its not hard. Its a minor thing and most people don't use them. Plus they are weak and easy to get around anyways. I don't hate or love Valve. I respect them for everything they have don't for FPS games. I mean what would people be doing if Valve never made that old but good HL engine all those years ago??UT wasn't that good of a game and no other games seem to have the awesome feel of the HL engine. I think people should respect and love changes since you can adjust to them easy. No one here owns CS. They have just bought a license to use the game. If you bitch loud enough you know you can get people to do what you want them to do. Valve has seen its mistakes and have tried to fix them all in CS and I love CS today just as much as I did when I first played it all that time ago. Go CS and I hope to be playing it for years to come no matter what changes come and go to it.

[jlbmw2002]

Edited by [user="79794"] @ [time="1087527848"]

-I like STEAM (But I'm glad I got alittle (300hmz > 750hmz) better computer before it was out) and might be fan boy of Valve... sometimes...

-I like Valve, I think its their stuff, You should be glad that game makers make games that you like, its their time that they are wasting, not yours. Your time is freely playing games or doing job to get money to buy huge mutant man-eating chickens.

-Yea I was mad when Half Life 2 was delayed even though I couldn't even play it if it was out.

-But still their time, not ours, we do others things, while they do their thing.



--I played Half Life because of the 300hmz... still good, started on CS 1.5 (or near end of 1.4... I forgot...).

[rizzuh]

Thortok2000 wrote..

Shouldn't Counter-Point have two people who disagree? I think that's what it meant by biased. Both people this time were biased the same way.

Counter-Point is always between asspennies and I. We happen to agree on this issue, but we still wanted to look at this issue. Maybe next time we'll find ourselves disagreeing more!

Bokuho wrote..

Bit of a hard article to follow to be honest.... I noticed a lot of repeating of a couple of points...

Yeah, I don't think my writing was at its best. Hopefully next time each reply will cover a less related range of topics.

[fonaul]

the long rants is why i wanted to keep my comments short (nightshade's bit is a chore).



one simple example of valve's behaviour, in regards to lack of respect of the fans, is with the enforced inclusion of games dmc and richochet in previous updates of half-life/cs.

[*update checkers would say your version of half-life wasn't up to date if you deleted death match classic mod, very annoying to have to re-download in 56k modem days]



like the mention of steam's caching system, files are put onto your pc that u did not choose to have, in most cases didn't even want at all(condition zero).



it feels like in many cases valve tries to 'tax' the popularity of cs.

[daniel88c]

really tho, what the heck was up with that big ass skull icon, that was totally random

[Jaxon]

I stand corrected, gooseman is alive. Maybe he disappeared after getting fed up with all the BS out of this community.

Bokuho wrote..

Then there's Steam. Is it helpful? Yes, overall. Does it run okay? Yes, most of the time. Was there a need for it though? No. Does it allow CS to run just as smoothly as it did on WON? No. Does it allow people off all connections and PC spec to play CS comfortably? No. In fact I myself was forced to upgrade from 56k to Broadband solely because of Steam. That's double the cost per month just to be able to continue playing one game. And I know I'm not the only one. Then there is the fact that even though VALVe are rolling in lolly, even though their wallets are bursting, they still didn't shell out for enough servers with the power to handle running a program like Steam. They've said they didn't realise it would be such a work load - well, firstly that's bullshit, they could have gone to one of hundreds of sites and found out how many CS players there were out there, or they could have just got more servers once they realised they didn't have enough. Have they taken any action though? No.

Remember the Sierra Updater from the original Half-Life installs? It did its job before Half-Life was so popular that updates swamped the patch servers.



Steam is Valve's content distribution system. It allows them to bypass the publisher when releasing new products. I'd like to see anyone attempt something as ambitious as Steam. To deliever FULL installs of their products and the associated updates to their customers. Now, instead of not playing CS for a day while you wait in line or find a mirror for the new HL and CS updates, you wait for twenty extra seconds before you jump into the server. Trying to serve that much content to the largest target of players in the world isn't something that just anyone can do. Steam has it's kinks, but because of it's nature, those kinks can be almost immediately removed. I applaud Valve for having the guts to give a project like this a try. I know how hard it is to deliever, even small amounts, of on-demand content to a minimal audience.



This doesn't compare to Battle.Net, which is a matchmaking/game browsing service, with a content server for patches on the side. Steam is how to get games to your computer without paying extra for the box or the materials of the game. Friends, server browsing, are all just things that would be "nice" to have.

Bokuho wrote..

VALVe stopped listening to what the community really wants a long time ago, and for that they have lost all respect I had for them. Of course it doesn't help that they've not even ever made a single game engine from scratch themselves.

So, the list of people you actually do respect must be pretty short. Very few people have written their own engine for any time of game.



And when you say "listening to what the community really wants," you mean "listening to the parts of the community that want the same things I do." Five years after being released, what other games are still getting weekly or biweekly updates? Obviously the ideas for the content of these updates are coming from somewhere.

[Fajo]

Ava3ar wrote..

as far as i know goose works for valve too, and you can mute, go into friends and use "list all players" and then click the gits name, thus muted.

Thats not what I ment if you watch sometimes when you mute people it mutes like 10 other people also its annoying as hell becuse then i have to listion to the little SOB so I can hear when someone else speaks =\

[^.j()$h.^]

and surely you don't see people posting "F*** Blizzard!" on message boards across the land.

When I followed the Blizzard community, that is all you saw. Are you kidding me? Most of the community flipped at Blizzard for announcing Starcraft: Ghost instead of Starcraft II. Though I do agree Valve takes the biggest beating.

[I2o[G]uE TacT-X]

Jaxon wrote..

Steam is how to get games to your computer without paying extra for the box or the materials of the game.

Ummmm... No. At a reatail store, you'll find Condition Zero for $39.95. On Steam, you'll find it for $39.95. It's the same price, but you don't get the box and the manual. If you buy Half-Life over Steam, you'll be paying $39.95. If you buy it at the store, you'll be paying $14.95. So, it's actually more expensive over Steam and you're getting less.

[skankuser]

I know most of you are valve fanboys believe that valve is apparenttly god or something, because you seem to continiously suck up to them. I'm sorry, but what fragmaster said was true. Giving a release date that they thought later couldn't be reached was totally wrong. They should have told it's fans earlier. And it's clearly obvious that having this steam crap and updating all these mods that are based on a 6 year old game is just the lazy way out instead of making a good game that doesn't look like crap anymore. Now be honest, most of counter-strike's success comes from it's ability to play on the crappiest of computers. I bet I could get an Apple II to run it, probably even an Atari. The only way valve is gonna prove me wrong is if Half-Life 2 ships, and it turns out to be as good as people thought it was going to be. But if it doesn't, I'm sure these retards will still be singing it's praises.