Yeah...and I just bought a Radeon 9800 Pro. I wonder if it'll run HL2...

In the eight years I've been online, I've never once went to a message board and spoke ill of a game or the company responsible for the game. Sure, I've been banned from boards for sticking up for a game (Such as my ban for defending Unreal 2 in their official forum) but I could never see any point in mouthing off at the people who made the game.

Case in point: Pool of Radiance 2 by Stormfront. I had high hopes for the game, after all, I'm one of those crusty golden-agers who still plays the old SSI Goldbox games...so POR2 meant a lot to me. First, I realized the game devoured your O/S and forced you to re-install it, then I saw that the combat was imbalanced and did not follow standard 3E rules...then I realized that I was playing a bug-filled piece of garbage that made me want to tear the manual up and use it for toilet paper.

So what did I do? I put it in my closet, uninstalled it for the final time, and moved on. "Let the buyer beware" they always say. Did I blame Stormfront? Not really, since from what I heard, they were pressured by the publisher to get the game out on time. Same thing with Lord British and Ultima ascension. It wasn't the game maker's fault...it wasn't even the publisher's fault...it was the industry and its thirst for money and "the next cashcow" that drove them to make a piece of garbage.

When I got into PC gaming with my lowly little C64 back in 85, things were different. The industry was driven by geeks who did it for fun...it was run by enthusiasts...

Now it's run by guys in $5,000 suits with a cell-phone grafted to their ear. Those idiotic posters in that HW2 forum (And I read all ten pages) should be ashamed of themselves. Don't blame Seirra, they are doing the best they can. Instead, blame the corrupting influences within our hobby, namely "Mr. Bottom line".

I'm angry that Gothic 2 was suppose to come out last year and is still getting pushed back...but I'm not blaming Piranha Bytes.

And I just bought a nVidia card. Oh well

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22

Considering that all we've been told is that it will "be optimized for Radeon" and bundled with the card, I'm going to have to assume that they literally mean that it will be OPTIMIZED for Radeon and a copy with come bundled with Radeons.
I don't see any reason to believe that they're doing anything more than putting in a regular copy with Radeons, and taking extra time to make the game work better on Radeons. Not really all that different from what Nvidia has been doing with dev companies for the past couple years.

Prepare your "We Won't Buy Half-Life 2!" signs.

Joking aside, has anyone actually seen anything official from Valve on this issue? I have yet to. All I've seen is this mentioned at the Inquirer and Gamestar, neither of which I trust as far as I can throw Artie Lange.

And the "Ass of the Day" award goes to..............SIERRA!

I suspect Sierra didn't have anything to do with this. It sounds more like the rantings of one guy - who's gonna find Tuesday to be mightywarm, what with all the heat coming down on him from his bosses. I can hear it now:

"You DO realize we're trying to sell the company, right??? Alienating the g$*@#$n customer base is NOT what we want to do right now!!"

I look forward to hearing more complaints about how Sierra ignores the community. I'm sure accusing instead of asking, and bitching instead of learning will accomplish your goals admirably.

And the "Ass of the Day" award goes to..............SIERRA!





Supporter of the "A happy fredster is a muted fredster" fanclub.

http://www.kenandrews.com/

ya... getting frustrated is one thing... mouthing off to customers is another. Sierra does suck, they aren't the only game in town and they aren't the best either. Poor buissness decisions, Poor marketing, and little attention to community have turned sierra from a innovator to the brink of value ware.

I assume Rodberg won't have a job much longer.



______________
the mars volta

The wording of this makes me confused. When they say Half-Life2 optimised for Radeon 9800, to be bundled with ATi cards, do they mean the version you get with your ATI card will only work on an ATI card (similar to the way 3DFX used to bundle games that could only be played on 3DFX cards), or that Half-Life2 is being specifically coded to work better on ATI cards? I have a copy of Need for Speed 3 that will only work on the Voodoo3 3000 it came with. That doesn't mean that the full retail version wouldn't work on a non-3DFX card, just that the copy I had wouldn't.