I used to like valve, since steam I've started to loathe them.

Look at the price of HL2 Bronze on Steam, then look at the RRP.

Look at the price of HL2 Bronze on Steam, then look at what the dvd version sells for in shops.

Greedy buggers.

To get the latest versions of both mods, you must own a retail copy of Half-Life and register it with Steam or buy rent a of Half-Life from Valve to get Day of Defeat AND buy rent a copy of Counterstrike Zero from Valve to get Counterstrike 1.6. Counterstrike does NOT come free when buying Half-Life from Valve. Valve purposely charges extra.


Riley, you are an idiot.

Yes, you need to own Half Life to play them. But both are still free downloads.

From the CS webpage:
So how can I get Counter-Strike?
There are two ways to acquire and play Counter-Strike. First, if you own the game Half-Life, you can download it for free right here from the official web site.

COUNTERSTRIKE AND DOD ARE EVERY BIT AS FREE AS ANY UT2K4 MOD.


Jesus, you have absolutely no brain.

Umm, there was if they won, that's the nature of a contest.

Umm, there was no guarantee they would win when they started. Most teams in the contest put in the same or more hours of hard work and got nothing. THAT is the nature of a contest. There is no guarantee upfront that you will win unless the contest is rigged. It's free money, i.e. a bonus, if you do. Most mod teams never get any financial reward for their work.

complaining about them not fulfilling their end of the bargain after fulfilling yours is a legitimate complaint.

Epic mailed the prize money to some address given by someone on the team. It turned out to be the wrong one. Even if it was Epic's fault, Epic still eventually paid the team its prize money. It simply charged for shipping the money a second time. It was petty of Epic to charge for shipping, but it is also petty of Squirrel to complain about it. It's like bitching about having to pay a tip on a free meal.

to argue that they should not expect anything

I never wrote that or implied it. My point was that the prize was a bonus, and the amount spent for shipping is trivial compared to the prize money Squirrel received. Epic should have paid the reshipping fee, but maybe it felt that the team was in the wrong for not providing an accurate address.

This comment was edited on Jul 7, 06:15.

Valve used to bring mod makers out to Seattle all the time and had lots of mod fairs, where I'm pretty certain they were liberal with money.

I read about the few mod fairs Valve had, and I never read anything about any money being involved. It was simply a showcase for modders.

Valve put lots of money into both mods after their release to keep them going and make them more professional,

Valve put money into them when and after it bought them, but not before.

and both are still freely downloadable...and still give it away for free.

No, they aren't. To get the latest versions of both mods, you must own a retail copy of Half-Life and register it with Steam or buy rent a of Half-Life from Valve to get Day of Defeat AND buy rent a copy of Counterstrike Zero from Valve to get Counterstrike 1.6. Counterstrike does NOT come free when buying Half-Life from Valve. Valve purposely charges extra.

Personally I preferred DMC to TFC

Death Match Classic is Quake Deathmatch, and is hardly of use to anyone who has Quake (which I would bet most Half-Life users do).

This comment was edited on Jul 7, 05:45.

what epic did with SquirrelZero and his team is unjust and vile.
and Riley Pizt dont try to argue with it please,accept it- epic was wrong.charging for fedex,tha's just being petty.

valve is no better.between valve and epic, in my opinion epic is lesser evil.

There was no guarantee that all of your hard work would result in any financial reward.

Umm, there was if they won, that's the nature of a contest. The man has a legitimate gripe, the contest was hardly a service from Epic, it was a marketing effort that used the community in order to promote their product. It was intended to be mutually beneficial to the contestants (at least the winners) and Epic, and complaining about them not fulfilling their end of the bargain after fulfilling yours is a legitimate complaint. Although I do not think it’s a huge complaint, to argue that they should not expect anything is taking fanboyism to a rather frightening level.

I think you are wrong. Exactly who got this money? How much was it? There certainly were no official contests.

Valve used to bring mod makers out to Seattle all the time and had lots of mod fairs, where I'm pretty certain they were liberal with money.


Counterstrike and Day of Defeat were not developed by Valve nor even given away for free by Valve. They were mods developed by the user community which happened to be later bought by Valve, and are no different from mods for Unreal engine games in being freely downloadable.

Not really. Valve put lots of money into both mods after their release to keep them going and make them more professional, and both are still freely downloadable, just like all the Unreal mods. Valve charges extra for CS:S, which has no bearing on the fact that they financed CS and still give it away for free.

Team Fortress is the only free addition to Half-Life by Valve of note, and it isn't worth much more if anything than one of Epic's bonus packs.

All opinion, not one that can be supported. Personally I preferred DMC to TFC, but I loved Quake.

I could be wrong, but I believe Valve gave much more money to mods, and gave it to them to help development not reward for it.

I think you are wrong. Exactly who got this money? How much was it? There certainly were no official contests.

Valve supported HL with HLDM, HL Team DM, Team Fortress Classic, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, and Deathmatch classic.

Counterstrike and Day of Defeat were not developed by Valve nor even given away for free by Valve. They were mods developed by the user community which happened to be later bought by Valve, and are no different from mods for Unreal engine games in being freely downloadable. As I pointed out below, Valve charges even extra for Counterstrike today if a Half-Life subscription is purchased directly from them. And, adding deathmatch to a game is hardly a bonus. It's basically a requirement. Team Fortress is the only free addition to Half-Life by Valve of note, and it isn't worth much more if anything than one of Epic's bonus packs.

This comment was edited on Jul 6, 20:50.

ooooh....team fortress talk. cue the following quote from Valve's project page: "Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms is Valve's upcoming multiplayer game....".
Such a shame that the link to the project website is somewhat broken. I was looking forward to this game so much just based on those very early gameplay clips they released. Guess the bruthas are still out partying with the duke

Epic has held two "Make Something Unreal" contests with thousands of dollars in prize money. Valve has held none from what I have seen especially not with the payout of Epic's.

I could be wrong, but I believe Valve gave much more money to mods, and gave it to them to help development not reward for it.

And while Epic has given us a lot, Valve supported HL with HLDM, HL Team DM, Team Fortress Classic, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, and Deathmatch classic.



That said, Epic has basically eaten the engine-for-hire market. id and valve aren't doing much. Jupiter is brand new, but it doesn't seem to be going far.

Epic is becoming nearly a monopoly, but at the same time in-house engines seem more common, too.

We have nothing more to talk about then

I hold to the fact that you cannot have an informed opinion on this. The money we EARNED was not free. It may not have been guaranteed to us, but it most definately was not free. If you insist on taking this position, i insist that we stop this discussion.

So when someone treats you poorly, you just say, "oh well, i'm sure there are other people out there who are worse off than me, so i'll just sit here and take it?"

Absolutely not, but I look at the big picture. You entered a contest as did many others. There was no guarantee that all of your hard work would result in any financial reward. You were fortunate enough to win a prize. Most other contestants were not so fortunate. Therefore, the money you received for your efforts was a bonus. The money was free since you were not guaranteed to get anything for your work.

It was an absolute insult for a billion dollar company to charge us for the FedEx after screwing up the shipping the first time. Would you not be insulted?

I would not be insulted since the mistake was not personal or intentional.

You may think that i don't have a right to complain here...

You have a right to complain, BUT you are essentially complaining about receiving poor service after a free meal.

This comment was edited on Jul 6, 18:06.

While I certainly applaud and respect your development efforts, many people who work on mods never see a dime for their work and would gladly trade places with you to get prize money despite the minor problems in actually receiving it.

So when someone treats you poorly, you just say, "oh well, i'm sure there are other people out there who are worse off than me, so i'll just sit here and take it?" I hope not. You can literally do that for everything in life, because there is inevitably someone worse off than you. It doesn't invalidate my point that the money we earned was not free.

I was a broke college student at the time. It was an absolute insult for a billion dollar company to charge us for the FedEx after screwing up the shipping the first time. Would you not be insulted? You may think that i don't have a right to complain here, and that's within your rights as a person, but you are on the outside looking in, not on the inside looking out, and so i just don't think you can have a fully-informed opinion on this. Also, like i said, this is just an example. There have been other problems.

Define free. If you call working on a project for 2 years that sold who knows how many UT2004 copies for them free, then yeah, i guess it was.

While I certainly applaud and respect your development efforts, many people who work on mods never see a dime for their work and would gladly trade places with you to get prize money despite the minor problems in actually receiving it.

All the mods that won worked hard to do it.

I would say that many if not most who didn't win also worked at least as hard as those who won.

This comment was edited on Jul 6, 17:18.

However, you do realize you are complaining about minor problems in receiving free money?

Define free. If you call working on a project for 2 years that sold who knows how many UT2004 copies for them free, then yeah, i guess it was. Keep in mind that when we released back in 2003, there were about 1500 people registered on our boards and our mod was downloaded 25000 times in 3 days. That sells UT2004 copies. Now, we weren't in it for the money, but we did work hard to make those contest deadlines, some of us staying up for several days at a time, and i don't think that should be ignored. We earned that money, i hope you realize that.

All the mods that won worked hard to do it. Some, however, were not treated equally afterwards. Also, that example i gave below is just a small piece of the problem. I won't be going into the rest though.

edit: Just to note, i don't think that selling UT2004 copies should have anything to do with their judging of us in the contest, i just mentioned it as a reason why they could be showing us a bit more respect when it comes to handling certain situations like the one below.
This comment was edited on Jul 6, 16:50.

but when you actually have to work/correspond with them, it becomes a chore. We were winners in the MSU contest they sponsored, and all 3 times they had to send us our prize money they sent it to the wrong address...

Epic should be more professional in some respects for sure given the money it makes. For example, the master server for its games fails too frequently from my observation. However, you do realize you are complaining about minor problems in receiving free money?

This comment was edited on Jul 6, 15:24.

Besides I read in the other Steam thread that you're a troll. Is that so? Perhaps we could compare notes, or just snuggle.

Spume and Riley, sittin in a tree...

--------------------------------------------------------------
GW: Nilaar Madalla, lvl 19 R/Mo / Xylos Gath, lvl 10 W/Mo

I have to apologize for the way I feel... http://www.nin.com

Epic/Unreal is definately the 800lb. gorilla in the engine wars. They're the ones to beat, and I for one am glad. They've been great to the community and their licensees as well.

Good for them.

Yeah, nearly as much as Valve.

LOL! Valve is not even close. Epic has held two "Make Something Unreal" contests with thousands of dollars in prize money. Valve has held none from what I have seen especially not with the payout of Epic's. Epic's game engines allow the content of its games to be modified including maps, and Epic allows the content of its previous Unreal games to be used in mods for later ones. Not only do Valve's games not do this, Valve has protected the content in the Steam versions of its games with the GCF file format and provides no tools to access it.

Valve may have provided Team Fortress for free for Half-Life, but Epic has provided bonus packs and additional content for all of its Unreal games which exceed what Valve has ever provided for free. Counterstrike and Day of Defeat were not Valve products. Today, Valve even charges separately for Counterstrike if you buy rent Half-Life from it via Steam.

Besides I read in the other Steam thread that you're a troll.

LOL! Wow, you are lazy. You couldn't even read my posts for yourself and come to your own conclusion. "Troll" is just a label from idiots who can't justify their irrational or indefensible positions.

This comment was edited on Jul 6, 15:32.

However, historically Epic has done more for customers of its own games with additional free content and with mod development resources and contests with cash prizes than most other game developers.

Yeah, nearly as much as Valve. Besides I read in the other Steam thread that you're a troll. Is that so? Perhaps we could compare notes, or just snuggle.