Info you've NOT recieved from Valve

[Varsity]

I though this would be an interesting excercise. Post your list of quesions e-mailed to Valve that never got a response. Obviously, keep it sensible. Don't post spam, 'hi what's up', or common topics that have already been answered thousands of times.

Mine:

Will we see a Source tech demo/benchmark before, during or after HL2's release, or at all?

Quoted from Gabe in this e-mail: http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showpost.php?p=23903&postcount=2

> The way Source is designed, hardware manufacturers can update materials to take advantage of new hardware as it comes out by shipping updates (probably via
> Steam). So if they come out with a 512 MB card or double the number of instructions possible in a pixel or vertex shader, then customers who have that card can
> be updated to take advantage of that.

Does this mean that only those with the affected hardware will be updated? Surely if that were true it would reintroduce the 'which version do you have' troubleshooting headaches that Steam was partly designed to avoid?

My other question is will Steam feature some form of system spec analasys to check if your computer can play the game you are about to buy/download?

1. Does sound echo and reverberate around levels in Source? For
instance if something is happening around a corner does the sound
come around the corner or directly from the source (like in HL1)?
2. Entities still seem to be either 100% in shadow or out of it, like
in HL1. This is most visible in the Strider video with the windows
on the tram and the resistance fighters. Has this been fixed/improved?
3. Does/will Steam use a bittorrent-like uploading of content to
other clients?

 

[phantomdesign]

I think you have good intentions, but I'm afraid this thread is looking at becoming a flame-Valve festival. I just don't see this leading anywhere good. "It's probably not a problem...probably, but" as long as this remains civil we should be fine.

Personally they answered all of my emails, but all of my emails were relevant to HL2 moding.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Hi Gabe,
Could you walk into the offices of the DoD team and tell them to take out death cam and put bleeding back into the game?

 

[MoJo|Night]

I asked them about remote server admin for the multiplayer server using source and wether nor not they would be integrating server admin tools into steam.

Seemed sensible to me since so many new games come out with no server admin built into the clients and steam_iD's would seem the ideal way to authenticate it.

I didn't receive a reply but I know valve have been keeping very quiet about the mp side of things so it's more than understandable. I hope they took it on board as a suggestion though.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

I didnt save any of my e-mails, but here are a couple questions I asked

Will Hl2 support "Profiles" for different users? (something akin to FarCry, or BF1942/Bf:V). I often have friends/family over who play on my computer and we all like different control/sensitivity settings.

You have stated that Voice communication will use a better (higher rate) voice codec for HL2 multiplayer. Could you be more specific? what kind of compression are you planning to use/are using? and although the quality is better, what can we expect in terms of quality (will we be sounding muffled/gagged this time through)

Is it possible for the Source engine to influence a ragdoll death via animation? In other words, when something is killed... does it simply flop/crumple to the ground based on what hit it and how hard, or is there a way to apply some rudementary animation that may influence how the ragdoll reacts. (hitting a combine in the face with a crowbar, he reaches up and grabs his eye while he ragdolls backwards)

Will there be a way to remove a game AND their Icon from the steam "Games" menu? for instance I dont care for CS:CZ, or Ricochet, or even DMC.. they just add to the clutter... even when they arent installed they are greyed out... it would be better if I could remove them (and then perhaps if I change my mind, add them from the main steam window)

Is there/will there be a way to add third party games to Steam that dont use Valve tech? in other words.. lets say I want to add "Jongo's revenge" the 3rd person shooter from "erectile-soft" to my game menu (so steam can launch it) could I? and if I did, if my friends had the same game could we connect directly to eachother like other steam mods.

If an explosive (say grenades) were thrown into a thin corridor/vent, would the explosion/flames travel through the vent? or simply explode at the place they landed. I remember that explosives were said to do this back when TF2 was announced... and since has always made me hope it would see fruition in an upcoming game.

theres a couple I kinda remember see if I can think of some more later... they might be worded differently here, since I wrote them long long long ago.

 

[Axyon]

Keep this thread serious, guys... I don't want any spam or flaming.

 

[jonnyapps]

varsity i asked the same q as you: will we see any form of tech demo before it's release?

I said - not a playable demo as that would spoil things but perhaps an in-game demo recording of one of the binks or maybe the hdr.

No reply

it was sent to Rick by the way

edit: good thread idea by the way. hope not ruined by flames. If not it'll help us see any patterns in what they're keeping completely schtum about.

 

[madca7`]

hmm.. i think you send too many emails to valve . you shouldnt exploit that they are so community-friendly