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General discussion (archive)Borderlands(113 posts)(113 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung:
You guys are blaming Steam but it's Relic's fault that these small patches require such large downloads through Steam. Valve games are mostly composed of a few very large cache files but you don't have to download a whole new 3gb cache file to update one part of it.
Relic needs to be providing Steam-specific patches to their games so that Steam can update parts of files instead of redownloading them. I think it's just as ridiculous as the rest of you do but you're directing your anger towards the wrong company.

What an ass-kisser.

So it is Steam's responsibility to modify all of Relic's patches? I am sure that Relic would LOVE to explain to Valve how every single element of their engine works and keep them updated on every change.
I know, you are going to say "but Steam can just extract the contents of the patch and swap files." Then they have to update all verification crap themselves (the "verify integrity" thing or whatever), and you still have the problem of anything that might be done dynamically or automated (changing a line of xml in ninety different files).
I love Relic (even if they got rid of Buggo. She/he was awesome and helpful), but this is really not Steam's fault. Hell, a lot of devs do crap like this to Impulse.
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung: What an ass-kisser.

Ass kisser or not, they've still got a point. Most patches require no more to download than if you downloaded the files yourself for a retail version. Having to replace the game each time is sloppy.
Unless Valve have it in for Relic and are stopping them from being able to provide the same service as every other developer, then it's Relic's fault and their fault alone.
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung: What an ass-kisser.
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Navagon: Ass kisser or not, they've still got a point. Most patches require no more to download than if you downloaded the files yourself for a retail version. Having to replace the game each time is sloppy.
Unless Valve have it in for Relic and are stopping them from being able to provide the same service as every other developer, then it's Relic's fault and their fault alone.

Just as well, I own CoH on retail and I have none of this foolishness.
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung: Just as well, I own CoH on retail and I have none of this foolishness.

Me too. Although it was still annoying having to download patch after patch after patch, even then. I've got those buggers backed up now of course.
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung: Just as well, I own CoH on retail and I have none of this foolishness.
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Navagon: Me too. Although it was still annoying having to download patch after patch after patch, even then. I've got those buggers backed up now of course.

Those patches were GINORMOUS, but they had a lot of content, showing that Relic cares for their customers, but not enough to make us download smaller files.
Then again, if you thought those were bad, the WoW patches were insane.
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung: Then again, if you thought those were bad, the WoW patches were insane.

I heard those things run into the GB. Not that I need another reason to avoid MMOs.
Posted October 28, 2009
Having bought Borderlands and played it about 4-5 hours with some friends last night here are my initial observations:
* 99% of the fun of this game is in multi-player. As a single player game it would probably be mediocre at best.
* Very much has a Diablo like feel just in the FPS genre.
* The game world feels a bit empty. Other than hostile mobs there isn't much in the way of neutral/friendly npcs walking around populating things.
* It's also static -- there aren't any random encounters. After you kill mobs they will eventually respawn at the same place so you basically know what will attack you where. As such, there probably isn't a lot of entertainment value to be had just shooting things once you've run out of quests/played the main story.
* I've been hearing about people completing the game fairly fast. I got to level 15ish last night in multi-player in just about four hours -- the level cap is 50 and I believe the main quest can be completed before that.
Overall (given the prospect of future support and DLC) I think this is fun and worthwhile game so long as you know one or more people who will be playing it, too. I don't know if I'd subject myself to strictly solo play and/or playing with random people online.
Post edited October 28, 2009 by Metro09
Posted October 28, 2009
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michaelleung:
You guys are blaming Steam but it's Relic's fault that these small patches require such large downloads through Steam. Valve games are mostly composed of a few very large cache files but you don't have to download a whole new 3gb cache file to update one part of it.
Relic needs to be providing Steam-specific patches to their games so that Steam can update parts of files instead of redownloading them. I think it's just as ridiculous as the rest of you do but you're directing your anger towards the wrong company.

What an ass-kisser.
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Gundato: So it is Steam's responsibility to modify all of Relic's patches? I am sure that Relic would LOVE to explain to Valve how every single element of their engine works and keep them updated on every change.
I know, you are going to say "but Steam can just extract the contents of the patch and swap files." Then they have to update all verification crap themselves (the "verify integrity" thing or whatever), and you still have the problem of anything that might be done dynamically or automated (changing a line of xml in ninety different files).
I love Relic (even if they got rid of Buggo. She/he was awesome and helpful), but this is really not Steam's fault. Hell, a lot of devs do crap like this to Impulse.

It's not Valve's (or anyone else's) responsiblity to do the work for Relic. But it is their responsibility accepting such poorly thought out solutions. Outside of the USA, caps are a way of life and DD stores need to be more thoughtful of this. Even if a customer doesn't have to deal with caps, that customer has to devote time to a large download. These companies make money by providing a service and this kind of stuff is just bad service.
Posted October 28, 2009
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Navagon: I heard those things run into the GB. Not that I need another reason to avoid MMOs.

Yeah, if you install a vanilla wow (no expansions), you'll probably download up to twice the installed size in patches. And the game takes about 4GB before patches. Much is replaced rather than simply added, so it doesn't grow too much... other than the downloaded patch installers.
My install now, with both expansions, is 14 GB - though I've removed the patch installers, so an patched but uncleaned installation would be a bit more.
Post edited October 28, 2009 by Miaghstir
Posted October 28, 2009
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Gundato: So it is Steam's responsibility to modify all of Relic's patches? I am sure that Relic would LOVE to explain to Valve how every single element of their engine works and keep them updated on every change.
I know, you are going to say "but Steam can just extract the contents of the patch and swap files." Then they have to update all verification crap themselves (the "verify integrity" thing or whatever), and you still have the problem of anything that might be done dynamically or automated (changing a line of xml in ninety different files).
I love Relic (even if they got rid of Buggo. She/he was awesome and helpful), but this is really not Steam's fault. Hell, a lot of devs do crap like this to Impulse.
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mogamer: It's not Valve's (or anyone else's) responsiblity to do the work for Relic. But it is their responsibility accepting such poorly thought out solutions. Outside of the USA, caps are a way of life and DD stores need to be more thoughtful of this. Even if a customer doesn't have to deal with caps, that customer has to devote time to a large download. These companies make money by providing a service and this kind of stuff is just bad service.

So Valve should reject patches from their competition? Best case scenario: Customers get pissed off because Steam has a delay for new patches. More likely scenario: Someone hears this, and rather than screaming about how the voice of reason is an "asskisser", they scream that Valve are being biased and are trying to kill Relic because Relic is their competition.
Should Relic stop being lazy? Yeah. Is Valve at fault? Nope.
Oh, another fun story about CoH: Try to patch the retail copy through Relic's updater. That thing seems obsessed with slowly grabbing sequential patches, even when the cumulative ones are available. I bought CoH gold just to avoid having to patch my original (I had no interest in the expansion). Then I bought Tales of Valor (through Impulse) to never have to patch again :p
Post edited October 28, 2009 by Gundato
Posted October 28, 2009
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mogamer: It's not Valve's (or anyone else's) responsiblity to do the work for Relic. But it is their responsibility accepting such poorly thought out solutions. Outside of the USA, caps are a way of life and DD stores need to be more thoughtful of this. Even if a customer doesn't have to deal with caps, that customer has to devote time to a large download. These companies make money by providing a service and this kind of stuff is just bad service.
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Gundato: So Valve should reject patches from their competition? Best case scenario: Customers get pissed off because Steam has a delay for new patches. More likely scenario: Someone hears this, and rather than screaming about how the voice of reason is an "asskisser", they scream that Valve are being biased and are trying to kill Relic because Relic is their competition.

LOL, Steam already has a reputation for being slow with patches. And yes, they should reject poor solutions like this. And instead of being mute on the subject they should tell everyone who will listen the reason why there isn't a patch yet. So yes, by pushing something bad onto their customers (who are forced to accept these solutions because they have no other recourse due to Steam DRM), they are partially responsible. No amount of Valve kool-aid can drown out that fact.
Posted October 28, 2009
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Metro09: Having bought Borderlands and played it about 4-5 hours with some friends last night here are my initial observations:
* 99% of the fun of this game is in multi-player. As a single player game it would probably be mediocre at best.
* Very much has a Diablo like feel just in the FPS genre.
* The game world feels a bit empty. Other than hostile mobs there isn't much in the way of neutral/friendly npcs walking around populating things.
* It's also static -- there aren't any random encounters. After you kill mobs they will eventually respawn at the same place so you basically know what will attack you where. As such, there probably isn't a lot of entertainment value to be had just shooting things once you've run out of quests/played the main story.
* I've been hearing about people completing the game fairly fast. I got to level 15ish last night in multi-player in just about four hours -- the level cap is 50 and I believe the main quest can be completed before that.
Overall (given the prospect of future support and DLC) I think this is fun and worthwhile game so long as you know one or more people who will be playing it, too. I don't know if I'd subject myself to strictly solo play and/or playing with random people online.

Hmm, thanks a lot for this...I think you just turned me from "God damned, I would pay $50 if my PC could run it" to "Great buy at $20".
Posted October 28, 2009
Yeah I was pretty much of the same mind about it -- truth be told I essentially got this game for free (friend gifted it in exchange for past considerations). Had I not gotten it gifted I probably would have waited for a sale. However, if you can round up four people to get the pack I think it's worth it at $34ish or so. Let's face it, a night at the movies or a bar or whatever is going to cost at least that much anyway and you'll probably get more hours of entertainment out of this game than that.
Post edited October 28, 2009 by Metro09
Posted October 28, 2009
To provide a second opinion. I apparently have 5-6 hours logged (was 4-5 when I started a few hours ago :p), all SP.
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Metro09: Having bought Borderlands and played it about 4-5 hours with some friends last night here are my initial observations:
* 99% of the fun of this game is in multi-player. As a single player game it would probably be mediocre at best.

I would not say mediocre. I do agree that this game is meant to be played in MP, but it is still a hell of a lot of fun as a sociopath. I guess, if you enjoy diablo-esque games in SP (or Painkiller/Serious Sam), you'll love this in SP.
* The game world feels a bit empty. Other than hostile mobs there isn't much in the way of neutral/friendly npcs walking around populating things.

Well, it IS a hellhole :p
That being said, while I would enjoy a few more generic NPCs in the towns, I don't find this to bother me too much. It is more fun to just be able to shoot everyone
* It's also static -- there aren't any random encounters. After you kill mobs they will eventually respawn at the same place so you basically know what will attack you where. As such, there probably isn't a lot of entertainment value to be had just shooting things once you've run out of quests/played the main story.

I'll agree that grinding won't be much fun, but I don't like grinding in general, so take that with a grain of salt.
To clarify on respawning of "random encounters": Yes, the spawn points are fixed. But the enemies scale with you, to an extent.
Honestly, this game is worth 40 bucks in my mind. Full fifty if you have a regular group. But I am the kind of guy who enjoys wandering from point A to point B in STALKER or Fallout 3, so blowing stuff up is a joy.
Posted October 29, 2009
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Miaghstir: My install now, with both expansions, is 14 GB - though I've removed the patch installers, so an patched but uncleaned installation would be a bit more.

After having recently installed the Cinematic Mod for HL2, (18GB) that doesn't seem so big. But it's still pretty huge all the same. Empire Total War is 16GB too. And that's without any DLC.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Borderlands(113 posts)(113 posts)
(113 posts)