I’m surprised anyone can manage to make a relatively bug-free game using UE3.

Which isn’t even a word!

Zing!

Payed by Nvidia if I recall correctly.’

Although I resent the fact that you called bullshit, I say … you spelt ‘paid’ wrong!

Zing!

Away, thanks for your post. I was not tryiing to “prove” nothing, just giving the information you ask for.

Le sigh.

Alright, since you’re so freaking insistent on how clearly and badly Valve botched up, let’s review.

- Content removed/unlock, not ready for release.

About the only point I can partially agree with, they took those two out to meet time constraints. As opposed to simply dumping them in because “hey the maps are there” and not doing any balancing. Problem is, I can understand why they did it, the game was undergoing constant revision up to release, and the decision to have a separate competitive mode came fairly late. So they didn’t have time to make redefine a couple of campaigns before ship time. I can’t say it’s a huge issue since they’re releasing them just a few months later.

- Lots of trivial bugs and map bugs, that show not enough testing. ( Like the ability to clone yourself. Imagine TF2 with the ability of the Spy to spawn a infinite ammount of clones of himself.)

As you say yourself, it’s a trivial bug, and one that was fixed pretty freaking fast once identified. Like, within a week. Not unsurprisingly, trivial bugs will always make it through to the end product (and the reason that there was never a bug of this nature in TF2 is because TF2 never had AI actors), so it’s a question of how fast they can be dealt with once they’re picked up in the wild. So far Valve’s record has been much faster and far more frequent than any other developer I’ve seen to date.

- Small errors on i18n packaging: If you change from spanish to english, the client needs to redownload things. This show some names are shared, and sould not, so files are overwritten.

Again, as you say, trivial, and fixed immediately after it was discovered.

- Basic gameplay broken. If survivors are intelligent, rushing or closet defense are “I win” buttons. Imagine Starcraft with one side having a weapon that is easy to get from the start and is “I win” button.

If you’re talking singleplayer, the game is most certainly NOT easy, most people I’ve seen play and have played with definitely die a tonne on the harder difficulty levels.

If you’re talking about VS, then I’m afraid you’re misconstruing the nature of the game: fundamentally that it’s asymmetric and designed around the infected having a tougher time of play. Until of course that it’s their turn, and then we see who the better team actually is. What I will say is that the point scoring system certainly has it’s issues. So far as I’ve seen, the better team usually wins. Sometimes it comes down to points, which as I said, definitely has it’s issues, but I can’t really call the gameplay broken.

The basic gameplay is only broken if you believe that both the infected and survivors sides are supposed to have the same chance of success. The game isn’t designed that way or with that intention in mind. This is also the reason that both teams swap sides on a level.

- Uncompatibility with some popular hardware, some 8800 nvidia cars (fortunally enough, I am not affected).

Fortunately, I am an owner of an 8800 Nvidia card and… hmm… nope, still seems to work. Tell you what, I’ll try whacking my card a few times with a hammer first…

Or perhaps you’re referring to the issue where Nvidia’s new release drivers caused issues

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=759292

- Remeved cut scenes

Design decision. I can’t say that having cutscenes slow down the gameplay in a multiplayer game would be particularly awesome to me.

- Comments of the authors limited to one campaing.

Only needs to be in one campaign. Anything further and they’re re-iterating everything they’ve already said (going over the course of 4-5 levels here) or having to go on about specific types of wall texture in each level.

I’m sorry, but you’re comparing Left 4 Dead to freaking KotoR II? You don’t remember a game more buggy than Left 4 Dead? Seriously? Sorry, I’m calling bull on that right now, I can easily think up five right away, and a whole freaking list later on if you give me time. If you want to see what a buggy and problematic game really looks like, you should’ve been playing Gears of War 2, a game they didn’t even bother patching for months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=cQ0gtjGxJs4

And that’s just a sampler of the kind of glitches you’d see.

Seriously, there was the odd glitch and bug with Team Fortress 2, GASP, right from release. Like I said, it’s impossible to actually find and test every single combination of circumstances that may occur, you do as thoroughly as you can, and when a glitch turns up in the wild, you fix it. So far, I can’t say I’ve seen anything slow about Valve’s responses to any issues that have cropped up in their multiplayer games to date.

Alright, since you’re so freaking insistent on how clearly and badly Valve botched up, let’s review.

- Content removed/unlock, not ready for release.

About the only point I can partially agree with, they took those two out to meet time constraints. As opposed to simply dumping them in because “hey the maps are there” and not doing any balancing. Problem is, I can understand why they did it, the game was undergoing constant revision up to release, and the decision to have a separate competitive mode came fairly late. So they didn’t have time to make redefine a couple of campaigns before ship time. I can’t say it’s a huge issue since they’re releasing them just a few months later.

- Lots of trivial bugs and map bugs, that show not enough testing. ( Like the ability to clone yourself. Imagine TF2 with the ability of the Spy to spawn a infinite ammount of clones of himself.)

As you say yourself, it’s a trivial bug, and one that was fixed pretty freaking fast once identified. Like, within a week. Not unsurprisingly, trivial bugs will always make it through to the end product (and the reason that there was never a bug of this nature in TF2 is because TF2 never had AI actors), so it’s a question of how fast they can be dealt with once they’re picked up in the wild. So far Valve’s record has been much faster and far more frequent than any other developer I’ve seen to date.

- Small errors on i18n packaging: If you change from spanish to english, the client needs to redownload things. This show some names are shared, and sould not, so files are overwritten.

Again, as you say, trivial, and fixed immediately after it was discovered.

- Basic gameplay broken. If survivors are intelligent, rushing or closet defense are “I win” buttons. Imagine Starcraft with one side having a weapon that is easy to get from the start and is “I win” button.

If you’re talking singleplayer, the game is most certainly NOT easy, most people I’ve seen play and have played with definitely die a tonne on the harder difficulty levels.

If you’re talking about VS, then I’m afraid you’re misconstruing the nature of the game: fundamentally that it’s asymmetric and designed around the infected having a tougher time of play. Until of course that it’s their turn, and then we see who the better team actually is. What I will say is that the point scoring system certainly has it’s issues. So far as I’ve seen, the better team usually wins. Sometimes it comes down to points, which as I said, definitely has it’s issues, but I can’t really call the gameplay broken.

The basic gameplay is only broken if you believe that both the infected and survivors sides are supposed to have the same chance of success. The game isn’t designed that way or with that intention in mind. This is also the reason that both teams swap sides on a level.

- Uncompatibility with some popular hardware, some 8800 nvidia cars (fortunally enough, I am not affected).

Fortunately, I am an owner of an 8800 Nvidia card and… hmm… nope, still seems to work. Tell you what, I’ll try whacking my card a few times with a hammer first…

Or perhaps you’re referring to the issue where Nvidia’s new release drivers caused issues

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=759292

- Remeved cut scenes

Design decision. I can’t say that having cutscenes slow down the gameplay in a multiplayer game would be particularly awesome to me.

- Comments of the authors limited to one campaing.

Only needs to be in one campaign. Anything further and they’re re-iterating everything they’ve already said (going over the course of 4-5 levels here) or having to go on about specific types of wall texture in each level.

I’m sorry, but you’re comparing Left 4 Dead to freaking KotoR II? You don’t remember a game more buggy than Left 4 Dead? Seriously? Sorry, I’m calling bull on that right now, I can easily think up five right away, and a whole freaking list later on if you give me time. If you want to see what a buggy and problematic game really looks like, you should’ve been playing Gears of War 2, a game they didn’t even bother patching for months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=cQ0gtjGxJs4

And that’s just a sampler of the kind of glitches you’d see.

Seriously, there was the odd glitch and bug with Team Fortress 2, GASP, right from release. Like I said, it’s impossible to actually find and test every single combination of circumstances that may occur, you do as thoroughly as you can, and when a glitch turns up in the wild, you fix it. So far, I can’t say I’ve seen anything slow about Valve’s responses to any issues that have cropped up in their multiplayer games to date.