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June 12, 2000 |
Page 1 of 4 |
Daily editorial
on trends in the gaming
industry and
hot topics.
HERE
Interested in the process of game development? Sound, graphics, code, and design are all covered
in our game design section.
HERE
Back to Index
HERE
Here are the latest highlights and lowlights in
gaming for the week of June 12:
However, taking after the id Software model of continuing to
support the user community long after a game's release, I continue to be
impressed by Valve Software's efforts at extending Half-Life.
Although the game is a year and a half old, the engineers at Valve
are constantly working to improve the game's performance, as evidenced by
the latest patch released last week which includes a massive overhaul of
the online networking code. At the same time, Valve keeps releasing new content and
technology to the end-user community – just last week they put out a
capture the flag game mode for the add-on pack Opposing Force.
The result of all this is a constantly evolving game community gradually progressing
toward the technology in Valve's next projects such as Team Fortress 2.
While
many developers ship one game, patch it, and then go missing for the next
24 months while they develop a whole new iteration of technology, Valve's
step-by-step model helps make sure there isn't the usual progressive
decline of interest in a game. Their
ongoing support of the community is something to be commended.
(You can download the Half-Life patch through the in-game update
utility.)
The
Latest Half-Life Patch
It has become increasingly common in the gaming industry that developers
release a game and then put out a patch only if they need to fix major
incompatibilities or bugs. It's
quite uncommon that a game company will spend the time to patch a game in
a way that actually upgrades its functionality. If they do, such a
feature patch is often turned into a "gold" version of the
original game that must be purchased at retail.
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Copyright 2000, Ola Balola LLC
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