Otreum

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Nathan joined Oct 22, 2007

I am now an independent developer learning to create my own game engine with C++ and Direct X, however to begin with, I will be learning C++ and openGL as that is what is taught in the Complete C++ training DVD from 3dbuzz.com (that's where i'm starting). I will be working on various projects that you may or may not see released, these projects are to keep practising various skills in games development. I have now gotten a minor and feature article published in the book: "FROM GAMER TO GAME DESIGNER: The official FAR CRY 2 Map Editing Guide", which I know is nothing spectacular, but still an achievement. My career goal is to have my own engine to develop retail games with so that I can have my own studio here in Australia, this goal will start small, eventually you may see smaller arcade games from me, and eventually larger games that I plan to contest big time game releases by larger companies.

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Blog RSS Feed Report abuse Latest Blog: Yet another reason I hate steam-ing pile of crap

0 comments by Otreum on Oct 12th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

So i've come to a great amount of frustration yet AGAIN with steam and it's stupid features.

This time, i'm going to complain about the damn auto update that steam uses.

I have been playing Empire: Total war a fair bit since it was released, and although I couldn't install Empire specifically to where I wanted to install it, I had an enjoyable experience with the game minus performance problems, random crashes etc.

So i've been playing on the 1.4 version of the game since 1.4 was released and i've been pretty damn happy, it ran better, there were no sound problems with the game, and no crashes (oh my!), but then a very annoying event occurred....STEAM AUTOUPDATE!

Little did I know that Empire: Total war patch 1.5 was a complete and utter failure, the patch finished, I tried to play and noticed that the game was kindof like it was when I first got it when it was unpatched; it took ages to get to the menu.
I then decided to try and load my save games and BAM!......CTD....I tried again, BAM, same spot, CTD, ....restart computer, tried playing again, BAM!, same problem, my saves games were kaputt.

I figured I was in a crap spot in the campaign anyway and wouldn't mind starting again as the Russians, so went to start a new game and BAM!.....CTD.
No matter what, I just could not get IN GAME, it only allowed me to browse the menu....which brings me to another note.

The menu has some annoying bloody advertisement that sits in the bottom right of the screen telling me about this new expansion that has come out. Not only that but my Empire: total war background video has changed to what you would think would be the background menu for the expansion, not the vanilla version.

I spent a while trying to restart and play the game, reinstall, repatch and so on, but no matter what, the game just would not run.

I then checked out the forums and it seems i'm not alone, it seems the 1.5 patch has messed up the game for anybody with a nvidia card using a certain driver, and there was a "fix" on the page.
The "Fix" was "update to the latest beta driver", so I did that but nope, same problem!

So I figured maybe I could just download the 1.4 patch and turn off autoupdate or something.
I checked around and ....oooooh yeeeeah, steam keeps games up to the LATEST patch, you can't pick any previous patches to update to, not only that but developers who use steam don't have external/manual patches, because steam is so l337 and all.
Now both because of Steam's piece of shit auto updater, combined with Sega's woeful 1.5 patch release, I can't play Empire: total war, and my save games are pooped.

So yeah, great work Sega and Steam, you make a horrible couple!

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Undertone: Music and Sound Team

Arts & Literature group with 80 members, must apply to join

Undertone is a music and sound based team. A "guild" of musicians in the mod scene. If your mod is in need of sound engineers or composers to create full...

Comments (0 - 10 of 39)

Joester Jun 27 2009, 12:09pm says:

Awesome Music, keep it up.

+1 vote reply to comment

Otreum Feb 10 2009, 10:37pm says:

HAHAHA, that boomerang idea sounds good actually...shame the last time I used one was about 10 years ago :S

I think the death toll has gone up to 187 or something now :(

They showed some really great footage earlier of Koala's approaching fire fighters for water..that kind of behaviour for a wild Koala is normally unseen, but I guess they realize that the fire fighters are trying to save their homes.
The footage showed a Koala holding onto a fire fighters arm with one hand, and the fire fighter had a bottle of water with him, letting the koala drink out of the bottle :)
He said that the Koala just walked up to him while he was having a drink, and put it's paw on his arm while looking at the water....how cute ^^

Apparently other koalas had been seen sitting on the sides of the roads, and some had gone into peoples properties in search of water and trying to cool down. One was shown laying down on cool tiles all spread out :)

It's nice to see footage of untamed koalas being so friendly and dosile, however at the same time it's rather sad to see that their homes, like peoples homes have just been burnt to ashes.

The temperatures where i'm living are a bit up and down. For example right now it's fairly cool, with a strong southerly wind, however yesterday was overcast, miserable, had strong hot westerly winds, in humid temperature...the day before that was just hot not humid..so yeah it's a bit all over the place.

+2 votes reply to comment

zahlenbechk Feb 10 2009, 10:47pm replied:

That's neat with the Koalas. I'm gonna see if I can find the video. :D
Hey I found a pic of what you were talking about. That is pretty amazing with a wild animal.

+1 vote reply to comment

Otreum Feb 11 2009, 2:20am replied:

Yeah it is, they showed the full footage of it walking up to him and the guy getting a drink bottle and everything :)
The RSPCA are looking after the koala since it had burns on it's feet the poor thing, but it's alive, and it can walk :)

It's hard to bring me to tears with anything, but watching footage that someone took which showed their house burning down, and how the guy with the camera spoke about some people he knew having been on the road just where the fires crossed, and he has no idea where they are or what happened to them...
It's tragic, it really is tragic, I'd like to volunteer and go into the SES which i've been considering for a few months now, but due to health issues, I would probably be a burden...I just wish I could help.

+1 vote reply to comment

zahlenbechk Feb 11 2009, 8:19pm replied:

Yeah it is a really sad story. It's hard to comprehend just by reading it in the news. Must be completely different to know people are suffering so close to home. I usually pretend to be an optimist, but there isn't much of that nature to say here.

Don't feel bad if you aren't fit to help. I'm sure they have lots of people as it is, and they will probably start up a donation fund thing for families with no where to go.

Take it easy anyway.

+1 vote reply to comment

Otreum Feb 10 2009, 5:34am says:

Hey zahl, thanks for the concern ;)
Thankfully I'm in New South Wales, the fires are in Victoria which is the state below NSW.
It's pretty bad down there, there has been non stop coverage on the fires for days now.
Some of our family members live in victoria but not where the fires are thankfully.

Just today we were very worried though since we live in a semi-rural area up on a hill with lots of grass around us. Across the valley, a few hundred metres from the house some moron decided to do some burning off today, and the wind was blowing pretty strong towards our house from the fire...you'd think people would have more sense than to burn off in these temperatures with these winds....bloody idiots that's for sure.

+2 votes reply to comment

zahlenbechk Feb 10 2009, 8:08pm replied:

Good to hear all is well with you and your family. Pretty crazy disaster for sure. The death toll was over 160 last time I checked which is friggin off the charts. Amazing that something like that can actually happen.

Is it really like 47 degrees C there? That is freaking intense. It was like negative 15C here today lol.

That's crazy about that guy across the valley; it's amazing how stupid people can get. I would have ran over there right away and threw a boomerang at him or some shit if I was you. OK sorry that was a cheap shot. :P But seriously, you should have ran over there and made him put the flippin thing out.

+1 vote reply to comment

zahlenbechk Feb 8 2009, 4:53pm says:

Hey Otreum, I read on the news about some pretty intense fires in Aussieland. What part of the country do you inhabit? Out of harms way?

+1 vote reply to comment