Well...at first i was truly exited when i saw trailer and tried beta. Few bugs on beta but what the hell i thought, full release is just behind the door. Now i have it, hehe ...not working... and no it's not just me, everyone has, tons of bugs and crashes...i haven't completed even my first training because i couldn't do that. Even beta was much more stable...could it be steam what's causing it - i don't know, but atm i'm soo pissed of because of waisting 4 hours of my life for absolutely nothing though my hopes were high...shame!
Steam is just a platform for downloading and playing games... it's just an applet launcher, with a friends interface built over it. I have heard other bad things about this so I'm sure you're not alone.
well...considering i played beta, was working fine, as i said few bugs but i hoped by full release they'll be eliminated (reported myself few of them, hoping to ease their work).....BUT, when the game was released, all was messed up, most people couldn't even start the game (including me at first), there were tons of more bugs compared to beta, way to go release team... (thatswhy i love lfs :tilt
Steam can't cause a program to have errors as it only loads the files, it doesn't run them.
I have seen several games recently that work fine during the beta, but then the release version doesn't work correctly.
When Shadow Run (horrible game) hit shelves, it woulden't even start on most computers, it would just give people a blank screen. It took a few weeks for it to get completely sorted out.
Developers are depending on steam and other distrobution systems way to much for patching the problems after the game is released because they are in too much of a rush to get it shipped these days. Gone are the days of games being released in a stable and fully functioning state.
I can't create an account or login to my old one. I can't complete any training level without it plastering "YOU ARE FULL OF FAIL" all over my screen. I can't even play online, the only thing there is in the game, apart form the 4 or 5 training missions, that don't work.
I've heard of buggy games, but this is taking it a bit far. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing sure is looking good right now :rolleyes:
I've used steam for many years and apart from the occasional annoying update problem, it's been mainly fault free..
Infact if I could run all of my games from steam, I'd happily do so.. everything's in one folder, easy to find, easy to maintain, community centre, store and downloads all in one fairly easy to navigate client. Steam always downloads at my normal internet speed so I have no complaints..
I can get in pretty easily on Windows 7 RC1. I can't and won't play online though because I heard that the AA server was overloaded. It's pretty cool until you run into these problems:
No hud. It also means no radial menu so you cannot do certain actions like chose a 40mm smoke grenade. You also do not know when ammo runs out, how much HP you have, stamina, etc.
Cannot finish some types of training because of the above. Also, some types of training will fail you even with a good score because of server issues.
Mouse sometimes freezes but keyboard still works.
Crashes sometimes.
Minor graphics glitches.
...and so on. I still have some hope for it though because they are probably trying to resolve these issues right now. I'd give it a max of a week for improvement.
Edit: If you set Anti-Aliasing to Application-controlled in the Nvidia control panel, the hud shows up.
Steam is great, used it since release - i often get about 3mb/s downloads aswell so can't complain
AA3 on the other hand is a steaming pile of turd. Can't believe they didn't know the game would be popular. Surely they can see how many preloaded the damn thing???
Yeah, read it on a german newssite today. They fired the whole team and now the Army wants to develop the game by themselve... they did not hire even one of the original developers.
Sounds like I should hold off on AA3 for a bit. For those who have HL2 and want a great combat game try the Insurgency mod.. Great game.
I have very mixed feelings on Steam. It does have some good features, such as friends lists, chat, auto updates etc BUT its primary purpose is DRM. Anyone that denies this has their head in the sand.
Here is an example of the bad side... I purchased GTA IV in good faith believing my system was up to it. Could not get the game running no matter the settings/tweaks. Any attempt to ask about refunds resulting in my support questions being closed without answer. Attempts to re-open the questions got the same. No emails at all were answered on the subject. I was just stonewalled.
I thought about disputing the CC charges until I found that could result in my account being closed, hence all my Steam DRM controlled games being taken away from me.
Steam is DRM, in the same way LFS World is a DRM because you need to connect to really use the software. The key difference with Steam is there is a single point of failure for ALL your games. If something happens to Valve kiss your entire games list goodbye. But that would never happen right... lol
Judging by what I could read on the news and on other sites in the net (also here), it sounds more like the game is full of bugs because firing the team was planned ahead by the Army / Government. They fired people, didn´t hire new ones and had deadlines no one could fullfil. It looks like the Army wanted to have a "finished" Game ASAP, so they can get rid of all the employees like a pickle on their a*se.
I don´t get the point in releasing a buggy game, just that it´s released. And then 1 Minute later tell the people that you now have your own developers to create games. I´d expect the next game to be buggy as hell two. Development ov AA3 costed to much money, why not finish it properly? But you never understand bureaucracy
And it really doesn´t matter... it was / is a free game and I rarely played it (AA 1 for maybe 1 hour or so). So I don´t really care about the game. But what I don´t like is how they treated the developers.
Also the game has only one purpose. Recruiting young men / women for the Army. Maybe this is why the game is rated 13+. How sick is that? They´re not allowed to see a naked woman, but make them ready for the Army... I should (and will) stop here. It´s getting really OT now, sorry.
Treating employees like that happens all the time in Business and it´s sad that sometimes people are treated like fatstock.
The developers were put under a ton of stress to get the game finished in such a short timespan, and they were underpaid. And a day after release, they were all fired. Also, it's the fault of the Army (the ones pressuring the developers) for not putting the game download on multiple locations such as filefront, rapidshare, etc. This game is used as a recruting (or propaganda) tool, so they cut down on the gore to suit teens near recruting age, which is around 15-17. The U.S. Army admitted to this themselves.