Otreum

games
mods
addons
downloads
videos
- audio
- images
- youtube
news
- features
- events
- modcast
- dev banter
- blog
tutorials
engines
developers
groups
forums
store
- twitter
- facebook
- steam
jobs!

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.

Latest Media

We're sorry, but no images, videos or audio files have been added to this gallery.

If you would like to share media with the community, sign up and you can.

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!

Media RSS Feed Latest Audio

You need to have Flash and Javascript running in your browser to see this player.

Groups

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 (30 - 39 of 39)

Neurological May 16 2008, 6:14pm says:

I did read your comment on undertone, and wll, some of us actually play guitar on the tracks. I think midi guitars are lame. All my stuff on undertone is with real instruments.

But if you wanna look into guitar virtual instruments I can suggest East West Monsters of Rock VSTi (wich is still far from a real guitar).

+1 vote reply to comment

Otreum Apr 23 2008, 9:01pm says:

no worries SamG

+2 votes reply to comment

samGwise Apr 23 2008, 9:27am says:

Cheers for the Add Mate!

+1 vote reply to comment

Setis Apr 15 2008, 12:36pm says:

hey otreum, just wanted to let you know that the tracks all work again now. Not sure if you've already listened to them or not, but if you haven't, pop on over to the profile Moddb.com

Thanks for showing your interest in our mod! :)

+1 vote reply to comment

Otreum Apr 17 2008, 5:31am replied:

thanks for the heads up. I like what I hear :)
Keep it up mate :)

+2 votes reply to comment

Phoenix85 Mar 19 2008, 10:44pm says:

Thanks for the kind words on the Undertone page, Otreum. I threw you an invite to the group. We'd love to hear some of the music you are creating for your modification and would be happy to include it in the next music pack so you get more publicity.

0 votes reply to comment

Otreum Apr 7 2008, 4:41am replied:

No worries. I'd like to share my music publically I really would, but i'm choosing to lay low until my mod is finished. It's just the way I want to do media. I'm a one man mod team, so I'd rather be flat chap working on my mod than juggling between PR and mod work. (I can do both easily, but I'd rather have more to show for my mod, sure I have alot, but not enough to really WOW anybody. I believe in showing ingame stuff, so when my mod is finished, THAT is when I will be doing PR and a media campaign which I can solely focus on :)
All I can say is that you'll hear about my mod one day and It's going to be big. I have high hopes, just so long as I stay on track.

+2 votes reply to comment

freedomorfire Mar 11 2008, 5:13pm says:

hey thanks for the review..

just read it :)

+1 vote reply to comment

Otreum Mar 11 2008, 10:27pm replied:

No problem mate, I think you've got plenty of potential there, I think that if you're trying to go for the whole horror thing, watch a crap load of new and old horror movies, even if the flicks are utter crap, you will find that even the worst ones do have their creepy music.

I think that for ambient background music, a good reference is the movie "The Relic" and "Jeepers Creepers" (1 and 2), and even the aliens movies. They use some really spine chilling music and daunting music.

As for the scenes of walking around in an empty street, the music would need a bit of bass and a slow rythm like a heartbeat or walking pace rythm. A bit of mystery with the use of fading low or high pitch strings like the violin really help too.
There is alot to learn with music, but I think the best thing is to just experiment like crazy with the genre you want to do, and when you make the music, keep stopping and closing your eyes to visualize the scene where it would be used or how that music would change in an instant if say a monster attacked suddenly or a horde of zombies came running out of a building after you.

Anyway, I have to reformat my computer (it's too hard to mod when the computer gets a BSOD from doing more than 2 tasks at once :P) so i'll leave you to whatever you're doing.

Keep up the good work, and get that creative energy flowing.

+2 votes reply to comment