I wasn't trying to bash Valve, far from it... more along the lines
of constructive criticism. If everyone thinks that (pardon my French)
everything they shit is gold, nothing will ever get done. Implementing a new
shader effect is all good, but implementing new shaders should NOT cause
major problems with any other mod. If it does, that shows poor design and QA
issues.
The main gripe that I have with Valve personally has to do with
their product release pipeline. It seems like the largest area where they
are lacking is in the QA arena. At my previous job writing network
management software, the QA team was a life saver. But you can't utterly
rely on the QA team to find everything, which is why before we even released
a new feature or bug fix to QA it went through hours of unit testing (and
not just from the code author). And this does not reflect poorly on the
individual team members, but more so upon the management and their lack of
understanding in Engineering practices.
I by no means meant for this thread to turn into a trolling fest, a
"Steam Sucks v Steam R0x0rs" brawl, or a central source of negativity. I was
bringing up areas in which Valve seems to be VERY poorly performing in an
effort to help them improve.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alexander
Galerakis
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 10:31 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [hlcoders] Last update has broken Mod shaders and is causing
crashes
I don't think it would be possible to release the SDK update before the
Steam/DoD: S releases... Wouldn't that mean that every single modification
out there would get HDR implemented before DoD: S' release, thus reduce the
impact the game has and almost certainly lower its sales?
As for caring about what brings them money, well, that's how every single
business in the world is run, and that's how Valve keeps its employers paid
in order to keep working and provide the community with hopefully good
games...
I don't think it needs to be said how much impact Valve had on the whole
modding community, perhaps second only to the original Quake...
It's not like they sit on their asses laughing at the problems they cause,
they still need to keep employers paid thus they still need to put out games
(and fulfill pre-release promises such as having DoD: S; people who bought
silver/gold have waited enough time for that), thus they are working on a
million and one things right now like improving the Source Engine,
supporting CS: S, putting out DoD: S, working on Aftermath, possibly TF2 and
God knows what else...
Everyone pretty much agrees that the original HL2 release felt rushed
code/SDK wise (for whatever reason, not going to go into that), and patches
like these, while they may break several things for people like you who have
worked a long time on their projects, are ultimately for the better since
they improve the engine and fix existing problems and add much welcomed
functionality and features...
This last patch seems to have broken things but IMO it only shows how
willing Valve is to help the community and provide patches FAST... Of course
there's not enough time for testing purposes when you need to get the thing
out because everyone is complaining his modification is not working
anymore...
So just let's all keep giving our feedback to help resolve the issues that
much faster. I do believe that even though Valve wasn't really doing any
announcements about this, the patches show they were listening and are
trying to do the best and as soon as possible to help people...
They could have simply said "wait for the SDK update to fix things up
yourself" but they didn't, they are trying to correct issues already while
finalising (or whatever) the next SDK update, which I'm sure you want as
much testing time as possible for it...
Anyway, of course people should demand things but I don't think everyone
should act like they know what's going on behind the scenes and blame them
for untested products... What other company is giving you this much freedom
with an engine incorporating this many features and is doing it with better
support?
I agree about the docmentation, that's a huge issue, but hopefully it will
in time be resolved... Perhaps Valve could recruit serious people from the
community to work together and fix that in the areas that are lacking the
most...
/me crosses his fingers for a fast and solid SDK update and possibly a patch
that fixes more things than it breaks even sooner than that...
Go Valve :)
----------
Mod HQ - http://ModHQ.notepadhax.com - Come get your Half-Life 2 news
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Everett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday - 27/9/2005 05:38
Subject: RE: [hlcoders] Last update has broken Mod shaders and is causing
crashes
> I'd have to agree with Teddy, it is quite irking to the development
> community that this many problems have arisen. It is almost as if you have
> no formal QA department that you go through, and that is just ridiculous.
> Do
> you only test what you make money off of before a release? Even DoD:Source
> has quite a few issues with it, and you publicly released it. It seems
> that
> the standard for a development studio on the PC-platform is to just keep
> releasing, and not thoroughly test your software. Just because you have
> the
> ability to release patches instantaneously doesn't mean you shouldn't put
> every single piece of your code through peer review or some sort of
> auditing
> process.
>
> The amount of support you offer the community is almost laughable;
> I've received better support from companies that I haven't even bought a
> product from. It seems like some of the Valve programmers need a crash
> course in unit testing, or the QA department (if it exists) needs to step
> up
> to the plate. You can't assume that every single portion of code you write
> is as if from God himself, because that only hurts your companies
> reputation
> and the community at large.
>
> I hate to have done this massive rant on the mailing list, but it's
> almost as if you aren't being held accountable by anyone for your
> mistakes.
> I for one will not sit idly by while I put work into a project that,
> ultimately, only you receive a profit on. I'd rather invest my blood,
> sweat,
> and tears into someone else's platform if the level of support remains
> this
> low. I applaud you for listening to the community at times and
> incorporating
> some requests into the code base, it shows true effort. One area that
> would
> provide tremendous amounts of help is if you release a source SDK update
> before a steam update, and give us time to incorporate any changes you
> make
> into our own code base. A large step in this direction would be to release
> very WELL documented change logs, and not just document general changes.
> One
> great sources of aggravation that we, the community, feel comes from the
> lack of communication... especially when our products are left hanging for
> days at a time, literally unplayable.
>
> I hope you take this message as an item to encourage you to do
> better, and strive in the right direction... not a message meant to
> criticize you for all wrong-doings. That gets us, the community and you
> (Valve Software), nowhere and only ultimately hurts our relationship.
>
> Thank you.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Teddy
> Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 8:57 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [hlcoders] Last update has broken Mod shaders and is causing
> crashes
>
> I've fixed all the shader issues in Dystopia, however there's no point
> putting out an update till we get the SDK update, as there's still
> quite a few crashes occuring in the engine code since the last update.
>
> On 9/27/05, Alexander Galerakis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I'm not a coder or team member of Dystopia but when trying to start up
> their
>> modification (I'm fully updated, have a DX9.0c compatible GPU, latest
>> drivers, clean and tidy PC, etc, not a PC newbie) it brings up this
>> error:
>>
>> Game shader 'game_shader_generic_sample.dll' trying to override a base
>> shader 'Bloom'.
>>
>> That pops up on start up and of course the game doesn't even start at
>> all.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Erik Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Tuesday - 27/9/2005 03:06
>> Subject: RE: [hlcoders] Last update has broken Mod shaders and is causing
>> crashes
>>
>>
>> > This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>> > --
>> > [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
>> > The release that went along with the DoD launch today should have fixed
>> > the broken custom shaders in MODs.
>> >
>> > If people are still having trouble with this specific issue, let us
>> > know.
>> >
>> > Erik
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> >
>> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Everett
>> > Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 9:31 AM
>> > To: [email protected]
>> > Subject: RE: [hlcoders] Last update has broken Mod shaders and is
>> > causing crashes
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Still not working, same crashes with the error as stated before. The
>> > problem
>> > seems to be with the DLL tier0_s.dll.
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Justin
>> > Krenz
>> > Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 11:03 PM
>> > To: [email protected]
>> > Subject: Re: [hlcoders] Last update has broken Mod shaders and is
>> > causing
>> > crashes
>> >
>> > Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab -> Environment Variables button
>> > -> look for "sourcesdk" in the list of System Variables. This was also
>> > after I ran the SourceSDK from the Play Games window in Steam and chose
>> > "Refresh SDK Content".
>> >
>> > If that doesn't work, try the following:
>> >
>> > "c:\program files\steam\steam.exe" -applaunch
>> > 220 -dev -allowdebug -game
>> > "<your mod's directory ie c:\mod\mod>"
>> >
>> > Then I suppose you can try attaching your debugger to it.
>> >
>> > Ben Everett wrote:
>> >> Hmm... I'm still unable to get my mod to work when being launched from
>> > VS.
>> >> Same errors as before. I've tried using all of the tips you guys have
>> > left
>> >> but nothing as of yet. The sourcesdk env variable you are referring
>> > to, is
>> >> this in VS or Windows? Could you provide a example key-value pair?
>> >>
>> >> And any word on Valve as to a REAL solution? It's kind of disturbing
>> > that
>> >> they haven't responded to any of our issues (I know that I at least
>> > check
>> > my
>> >> work e-mail on the weekends).
>> >>
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives,
>> > please visit:
>> > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives,
>> > please visit:
>> > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives,
>> > please visit:
>> > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
>> >
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives,
> please visit:
>> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives,
> please visit:
> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> please visit:
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>
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