Drop technical support for toasters

[Teraku]

Seriously. I've had it with this constant "Keep it under 512 MB RAM" rule Tripwire seems to enforce while developing. It's really starting to restrain the game. Just now, I tried to toss my Support friend an AA12, which promptly disappeared because it was the end of the damn wave. And also, the clearing of actors causes a lagspike at the beginning of each wave, which really detracts from the game experience IMO.

Tripwire, do you really think clearing dropped weapons will help that much in keeping the game under 512 MB of RAM? Just drop support for old PC's already. You're making 20000 players suffer just because 5 players refuse to upgrade their toaster's hardware.

EDIT: Guys, I appreciate it if you bring good arguments or counter-arguments, but at least think them through. My main problem with Tripwire not wanting to drop support for these people is that the rest of the people have to suffer. Who knows what decisions Tripwire didn't go through with just because that would exceed the 512 MB's of RAM.

[Murphy]

Hm. Certainly a fresh, new perspective. I'm sure they never looked at it this way so: thanks for bringing that up.

I would go even farther though and make the idea even fresher!
Drop toasters on technical support!

Huh? How's that for a revolutionary suggestion?

[nutterbutter]

I agree with you 100%. However, what do you tell the people whose hardware can no longer run the game after the changes? They purchased the game. They should be able to run it.

[vealck]

Well, that 512MB limit can be useful when KF will be ported on mobile devices.

[Gartley]

It's a bit more than 5 people.

I would wager more people would want to keep playing KF then there are people wanting KF to be upgraded to current gen.

Real players don't give a crap about the weapon clean up thing, it only effects those that are so bad at the game they must spam M1. Next time either throw a weapons sooner or wait till the wave started. It's been around since xmas and it's not rocket science.

[timur]

so you want to take away the game as a whole for a number of people with bad comps, just so it can be more convenient for the rest? I mean, it really isn't a big deal- it is only a wave-end cleanup. Sure, more people have better comps nowadays, but you are sacrificing the entire game for the minority just for some small feature that most of the majority cares nothing of, and will only effect people once in a blue moon.

[nutterbutter]

Originally Posted by iwantoseeprofiles

It seems like you're thinking about it in terms of what's ethical. Yes, it would be a dick move to those 5 people, but it's a much bigger dick move to the >2,000 veterans who don't use toasters and have had their game as they know it taken away from because of the other group (eg weapons disappearing - that didn't always use to happen).

Not only ethical but legally actionable as well. Plaintiff John bought a game. Company SVH pushed out an update than made the game unplayable. John sues and he'll win.

Just because you want an update to a 3? year old game that uses a 5? gaming engine that is paid for by people who can no longer run the game doesn't mean you'll get one.

And for the people who are saying "Just new a video card" are ignoring people who run games like this on their laptops.

[Spicy]

Hmmmmmm.
Doesn't really affect me, so it kind of goes into the "don't mind/ don't care" pile.

*However* assuming I'm one of those people hovering around the minimum system requirements, I would be disappointed if TWI were to update the game in such a way that it was made unplayable for me. Granted, age of the game, availability of pc components, cost of said components make it so no one currently playing the game should be that far down the ladder in terms of a computer's ability to run the game. But I'm sure that is the case for some.

The only "loss" that I can really notice is removing non-spawn weapons from the game at the end of a trader wave. In the situation the original poster gave, yes, that blows. There's a sooper sekrit bonus though! It further encourages players to keep an eye on how much ammunition they're using. Too much and they have to use their 9mm for the rest of the wave. I think everyone can agree that this is a welcome change for one reason: Firebugs. I love playing Firebug. I really do. But when the end-of-wave change happened, I kind of got...excited...if you will, ( ) at the people crying about how it made Firebug even worse because you could no longer stockpile flamethrowers. Which meant a poorly-played Firebug could no longer blind the crap out of his team the entire wave.

Not really sure where I'm going with this post, but super-ultimate-main-point could be something along the lines of "take what we can get?" *shrugs*

[Teraku]

Guys, I appreciate it if you bring good arguments or counter-arguments, but at least think them through. My main problem with Tripwire not wanting to drop support for these people is that the rest of the people have to suffer. Who knows what decisions Tripwire didn't go through with just because that would exceed the 512 MB's of RAM.

Originally Posted by CandleJack

One thing that might be a good idea:

Instead of dropping support for potatoes, give servers the option to pick their level of power. Low-powered servers would run well on potatoes, and high-powered servers would run well on high-end rigs.

There, you might be splitting the community, but you can then tailor gameplay to different needs and get rid of certain laggy features such as trader time cleanup.

I definitely have to agree with this. Most people would be able to play on all servers, but people trying to use potatoes to power their PC's can just go play on Low-End.

[Lacedaemonius]

I'm for it, but there really ought to be a poll to better gauge player support/opposition

[YoYoBatty]

Originally Posted by nutterbutter

And for the people who are saying "Just new a video card" are ignoring people who run games like this on their laptops.

Most laptops today have decent video cards and are fairly priced, if it's bad one that it is obviously intel integrated/1st gen/2nd gen intel core series built in graphics chips. AMD Processors and 3rd gen intel core series have pretty good built in graphics but. And it was also mentioned that Killing Floor is mainly CPU power and will output extremely well on raw single core cpu power? So basically the solution is to sell/toss out the piece of crap and get a new one. If you choose to get one with an integrated crap graphics chip instead of AMD Radeon Graphics or Nvidia Gefore Graphics or The New integrated graphics chip then you clearly cheaped out/don't know your product.

And plus why would you want to game on a laptop anyways? Unless it's something that is actually good such as something made by Asus or Alienware (Overpriced though), it's not a very enjoyable experience.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by YoYoBatty

So basically the solution is to sell/toss out the piece of crap and get a new one.

So your solution is "buy better hardware", the very thing KF tries to avoid with its low requirements.

[nutterbutter]

Originally Posted by YoYoBatty

Most laptops today have decent video cards and are fairly priced, if it's bad one that it is obviously intel integrated/1st gen/2nd gen intel core series built in graphics chips. AMD Processors and 3rd gen intel core series have pretty good built in graphics but. And it was also mentioned that Killing Floor is mainly CPU power and will output extremely well on raw single core cpu power? So basically the solution is to sell/toss out the piece of crap and get a new one. If you choose to get one with an integrated crap graphics chip instead of AMD Radeon Graphics or Nvidia Gefore Graphics or The New integrated graphics chip then you clearly cheaped out/don't know your product.

And plus why would you want to game on a laptop anyways? Unless it's something that is actually good such as something made by Asus or Alienware (Overpriced though), it's not a very enjoyable experience.

1) Weren't not talking about laptops sold today
2) Many people can't afford to "toss that piece of crap and get a new one"
3) Many people can't afford to buy a laptop with dedicated graphics
4) Because that is the only computer they have
5) People have to work with what they can afford

You really sound shortsighted with your reply.

[Ajk1230]

So you want weapon drops to stay there all game long? That wouldn't make the game easy or anything...