Alien Swarm

[Amerikaner]

Yeah, looks exactly like the mod, and that was awesome indeed

"Shame" refers more to the development... a promising coop game gets bought out because the publisher of L4D wants to curb the competition, then delays the game by two years and eventually degrades its status from "commercial" to "giveaway".

Saw 2 active servers for Alien Swarm today, 1 for Air Buccaneers, and sadly no one for Red Orchestra

I thought you had initially just made a really poor joke. They wanted to curb competition for which one of their in-house top down coop shooters? The one that doesn't exist? Unless you're referring to Alien Swarm competing with L4D which is an absurd argument. Then you complain about it being free, assuming since they aren't charging for it the final result will be less impressive than one that costs money? Do you not realize they went from a small independent studio to having the resources of one of the most successful developers in the world at their disposal? As far as a delay, how do you even know the game would have come out much sooner?

How terrible of Valve to hire modders and allow them to complete their original vision with world class tools and release it for free! One can only hope this never happens again!

 

[DraKon2k]

How terrible of Valve to hire modders and allow them to complete their original vision with world class tools and release it for free! One can only hope this never happens again!

Phew, thank god there are still nice publishers out there like Activision

 

[Crusher]

Oh the humanity! Feel Valve's wrath upon us all!

Also, if they didn't release it for free, it wouldn't be popular. It would be just another minigame. Now at least alot of people will play it and maybe there could be a sequal you have to pay for.

 

[The Masta]

how dare they release something for free. Think of the children.

 

[Nenjin]

AFIAK....Valve contacted the makers of the original Alien Swarm and asked them to develop it in the Source engine. This game is the result of those efforts. I believe Valve did it to showcase the capabilities of the Source engine beyond FPS, and probably contracted those guys to make it, and agreed to pay them directly instead of putting the game up for sale.

I don't know where this "Valve wanted to crush the competition" comes from....what competition? A dev house that made a popular game years ago that was doing nothing relative to Valve's market?

The guys at Team17 must be pissed though. Alien Breed is identical to Alien Swarm, except Alien Swarm looks better by a whole margin. Must suck to work on putting out a game...and then have Valve one up you AND offer it for free. So glad I didn't buy Alien Breed now.

 

[NoxNoctum]

This looks great.

But I have one question... why is Valve releasing it for free? I mean, that's ****ing great for us but why are they doing it? Is it purely to gain goodwill with the gaming community?

BTW, is there any way to preload this? It's releasing in 3 hours but I'd rather have it preloaded...

 

[NoxNoctum]

For the uninitiated;

YouTube - Air Buccaneers Comeback

That's some of the weirdest gameplay I've ever seen but looks awesome! What's the goal? Fly around with your team on a balloon and blow up other balloons?

Too bad I wasn't aware of it when it was popular

 

[SheepDip]

I don't see what the fuss is about, it's not like Valve is going to have raped the Black Cat studio - how exactly do you think this thing went down?

Valve - SIT THERE AND CODE THIS IN SOURCE

 

[Amerikaner]

But I have one question... why is Valve releasing it for free? I mean, that's ****ing great for us but why are they doing it? Is it purely to gain goodwill with the gaming community?

Aside from goodwill and showcasing different gameplay on the engine its a pretty genius marketing tool. Release a fun free game that requires Steam and now possibly tons of people who never had it will check it out and buy some other games.

 

[Mr. Explosion]

It's pretty much "business as usual" in the industry I guess. Publishers get rid of a competitor, hobbyist developers get a job in the industry, both parties are somewhat happy. If only it wasn't for one of them originally wanting to do more... just imagine a trimmed-down HoS being released as a free promotion for some future CoD. Awesome and free

 

[Amerikaner]

It's pretty much "business as usual" in the industry I guess. Publishers get rid of a competitor, hobbyist developers get a job in the industry, both parties are somewhat happy. If only it wasn't for one of them originally wanting to do more... just imagine a trimmed-down HoS being released as a free promotion for some future CoD. Awesome and free

Yeah they wanted to "do more" so badly but terrible Valve crushed their dreams by forcing them to take a job.

 

[Hirmuinen]

Aside from goodwill and showcasing different gameplay on the engine its a pretty genius marketing tool. Release a fun free game that requires Steam and now possibly tons of people who never had it will check it out and buy some other games.

This is the reason. I myself wondered a while ago, why woudn't Valve release something like HL1 or CS for free through Steam and they would get tons of new people on it. This is even better and I'm sure this will be a big hit that even the Steam haters can't pass.

Alien Swarms mod was a fun game, this one seems to be faster and more fun to play. Gameplay trailer reminded me of Diablo 3, both seems to have very smooth and colourfull graphics.

 

[Ender]

Too bad I wasn't aware of it when it was popular

To bad no one played it that much in the first place... think i played like 3 times where there where more then 4 people. Cool concept just wish it got more recognition.

And what is up with everyone knocking valve? They hired the devs had them work on l4d and then released there pet project on their network with 30 million gamers. ya damn evil valve.

 

[Nimsky]

Damn, I've never played the mod but that looks pretty damn cool. Top-down alien-killing co-op? Count me in. We should get together for a game some time.

And yeah, Air Bucs was awesome. Do you guys remember the Air Bucs party we had during a BFE:RO break? **** was so much fun. Retail Air Bucs would be great. Tripwire, if you're ever looking for a new project...

That's some of the weirdest gameplay I've ever seen but looks awesome! What's the goal? Fly around with your team on a balloon and blow up other balloons?

Too bad I wasn't aware of it when it was popular

Well, I played it like 4 or 5 years ago so I can't remember the exact goal, but I think it had a TDM mode. It was a lot of fun, you could enter other ships by jumping across or by attaching a rope, and then you'd get sword fights on a 6 by 2 meter ship, and you could set the balloons of enemy ships on fire, etc. It was hilarious. It was the second-best mod for UT2004 (the first one being RO of course ).

 

[Shepherd]

I swear you people will complain about anything.

Also, the release was postponed by 3 hours. Goddamn.

 

[Nenjin]

Awww, I dones got pruned from the thread.

I would find something non-Internet MP to do tonight, because I expect this download be slllloooooooowwwwwwww.

 

[Nenjin]

Apparently the unlock time is a lie. I'm downloading right now (Central US) at average Steam speeds. (800+ kb/sec)

 

[Crusher]

The time is a lie!

 

[mamoo]

Anyone else getting the 'This game in unavailable' message whenever they try to start this up? I guess it's the influx of players all at once.

 

[REZ]

I'm enjoying AS so far, pretty damn fun. The hacking parts are a blast and made more exciting when you hear your teammates trying to fend off the baddies while you work

fuuuu I need a better computer