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.

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



______________
the mars volta

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 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/

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!!"

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.

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.

And I just bought a nVidia card. Oh well

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22

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.

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

LMFAO!! That guy from Sierra was priceless!!! I've never seen anyone implode and commit career suicide like that before. Sure people bitched a lot on those forums, but I've seen worse. This guy's either a real panty-waist with paper thin skin or he's some loser who thinks himself far above a lowly PR guy on the message boards and is taking it out on the customers because his life blows! None the less, it was awsome! I suspect that Tuesday morning is gonna suck for this ass-hat. Definately a pillar of customer service this one.

I just want to point something out, as a former Sierra & WON.net employee (who was one of hundreds laid-off when Vivendi had to admit its 19 BILLION-dollar "financial irregularities"):

Yes, Sierra is a big corporate company (or, at least it was).

Yes, there is (or was) a LOT of mediocre middle and upper-management.

Yes, they ARE concerned about the bottom-line.

HOWEVER, please remember that the VAST majority of people in the company are just regular joes trying to do their job - given the restrictions of time, money, and orders from the management. The core of the company is still small groups of people "getting it done". Without them putting in a lot of work, a lot of the games you love would not make the shelves.

So keep that in mind before you flame someone - ask yourself "If I was working there, how would I take this message?" You'd be amazed at how much more info and cooperation you'll get out of folks if you treat them with respect... Asking questions like "Why wasn't this like X?" will get you a LOT FARTHER then accusations like "You shoulda made this like X, you #$*&@ idiots!!"

As one who had to deal with the community on a few occassions when WON.net was getting the shaft, I can truthfully tell you that its HARD to sit there and just take baseless criticism over and over. Or have people announcing rumors as "fact", or make totally false accusations (don't even get me started on the whole Soldier-Of-Fortune thing)...

You can't always talk details, due to legal issues; and if you try to defend yourself you either inspire more criticism, make the company look bad, or sound rude. The inability to really respond IN PERSON is harsh - if I could, I'd love to round up all the gamers out there and walk them through some publishing companies, and development studios - so they could see a few of the difficulties, restrictions, and financial realities that have to be balanced when making a game.

Most of the game players out there have never been - and never will be - involved with the creation and sale of a software title. Due to the young demographic, most don't even understand normal business practices or the economics & legal issues involved with games. It makes having online communities a VERY "double-edged sword" - as EVERYONE has an equal voice to pronounce "facts", even when they have no qualifications or information.

Now, I'm not saying that we have to *like* big corporations or anything - but to those who think that games don't have to be driven by the "bottom-line" at all, lemme ask you this: Are YOU going to put up the $2,000,000+ that it takes to make a "Triple-A title" these days? And if you DID, and then waited 2 or 4 or 5 YEARS for the title to actually be made - don't you think you'd be a WEE BIT interested in making your money back? Stop and think for a minute - I mean REALLY THINK about those numbers. Can you think of all the things you can BUY with $2,000,000? How about the YEARS of work - think back 4 years and try to remember everything you did every day of the week for that entire span. Can you concieve of working on ONE THING that entire time, from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday?

Now with these numbers in mind, wouldn't you be interested in making to pay off, when good marketting of a title at conventions and such before release could mean the difference between making a $1,000,000 profit, and losing a $2,000,000 investment (news flash: only the top _5%_ of all games break even or make money!!!)

I'm willing to bet that a LOT of you out there aren't even making a salary that's 2% of what most games cost... I'm not criticizing your income - I'm trying to get the point across that money is a SERIOUS DEAL in gaming. You don't have to like all the side-effects that this entails; but you do have to realize that this is a reality.

Okay, enough ranting for one night. Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
noel_wade@hotmail.com

Hehehe, Blue gets pushed over the line by Fredrickson/Fredster and stops posting.

Oh my, I have a sick imagination... 8D

The second they canned Babylon 5 - into the fire ... and a shit load of games and teams, you got an idea of EXACTLY where the company stands. They ARE hemeraging money and someone from the company does somthin stupid like that, and it makes you question the integredy of the people workin there. After that B5 debocal - I swore off sierra games, making an exception only for half life and now HL2. I hope valve finds a new publisher because it makes me sick that I'm helping to support the scurge of the industry.

I would like proof that sierra is listening to a damn thing anyone in any of their various communities has said

FINALLY someone has the guts to speak up against the masses of mindless whiners out there. It is about time that the whiners get some resistance. They constantly whine about games and try to order gaming companies around. They have no constructive criticism, but instead, ruins everything for everyone.

Marweas did the right thing. He left that piece of shit "community" because it simply isn't worth it to spend time there just to get bitching and whining back.

Let's face it. That "community" is mostly bashing Sierra and whining and bitching. That "community" is tiny. Why should the people from Sierra waste their time on an insignificant group of whiners?

Finally, I love this. Please let more gaming companies speak up against the crybabies in the world - maybe once day these morons will be silenced.

The second they canned Babylon 5 - into the fire ...

I'm glad someone besides me remembers that and still hates Sierra with a passion for it. B5, the game, coulda been the next Half-Life of space-sims, certainly better than Freelancer. Having played an alpha version at E3 years back, it just blew you away, much like Freespace did when it came out. What was Sierra thinking?!? They sacked B5 in favor of Homeworld. Blech! Let them burn just like Interplay, they've lost their way...

=-Rigs-=

All Day Repeat: Oasis - F*cking In The Bushes
'We put this festival on you bastards, with a lotta love, We worked for one year for you pigs, and you wanna break our wall down? Are you gonna' f*cking try it? Well, you go to hell! '

Looks like the board is down now...hmmm, I wonder why?

=-Rigs-=

All Day Repeat: Oasis - F*cking In The Bushes
'We put this festival on you bastards, with a lotta love, We worked for one year for you pigs, and you wanna break our wall down? Are you gonna' f*cking try it? Well, you go to hell! '

In short - no.

I have direct experience with this phenomenon, I have stood in the same place that this guy was standing and although I didn't bow out in the same manner he did, I DID stop posting at my game's forum and it was at the ORDER of higher management, because the amount of time I was spending firefighting was deemed to be all out of proportion to the PR value of said firefighting.

Now, some people will claim that if the game is good enough there won't be the NEED for fire fighting in public forums. It's a nice theory - except that by this yardstick there hasn't BEEN a decent game released in the last five years!

Back on track - I have two predictions:

1. That post was cleared via higher management, or the guy involved IS higher management.

2. It will have a zero effect on sales.


Eon

True it probably won't affect sales, but...
I can gaurentee that there's no way that post was cleared from upstairs. If that was the case he's have been told to just stop posting, end of story. As for being upper management, not likely he sounds too stupid, plus that crowd doesn't get their hands dirty EVER. I've worked in advertising for 15 years now and deal with clients who are more often thatn not, Satan himself. The number one rule?
Under NO circumstances do you EVER insult the customer. He may have been dealing with a bunch of whiners but not even
George Broussard has been this insulting to the customers and he's almost as big an ass-hat as Derek Smart. A bunch of whiners or not, these are the people who ALLOW you to have a job, NEVER BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS!!! It's the corner stone of business practice and there are no exceptions.

Tex & WebDemon -

While I agree that his post is certainly not great customer-service, lets remember that we're seeing a TINY snippet of conversation from what has probably been a months-long ordeal.

Before jumping on anything like this, remember that we don't know the full story. I haven't seen a single post on Blue's here by anyone that was a regular user of that forum - and Alex hasn't gone into detail about the history from his side either; so its safe to say that NONE of us have the right to make flat judgements about the entire situation - because none of use KNOW the entire situation.

--Noel "HB" Wade