iD Super Pack on Steam - not a good deal

[Fash]

This was an impulse purchase gone wrong... I like Steam, a lot, and I've been buying games through it. (Bioshock for $15? deal!)

They are now selling basically everything iD ever made, from Wolfenstein 3D to Doom to Quake 1, 2, 3, RTCW, etc.

Separately, the total cost is over $210, sold together for $69.

I at least expected RTCW (which I already own) to support my monitors native resolution, 1920x1200, and I didn't expect artifacts or graphical issues from telling Quake 3 Arena to go above 800x600. I have trouble getting any of these games to work above 800x600, and none of them support widescreen... Getting anything multiplayer to work is a crapshoot, too. They don't offer refunds, btw.

Silly me, I wasn't thinking... you've been warned, at least.

[Spang]

None of them support widescreen?

What a total shocker!

[cadalano]

i dont see what it has to do with steam. you could buy quake 3 retail and it wouldnt support widescreen, right?

[Fash]

It has to do with Steam in that they're advertising and selling the whole bundle together. That's all.

[Spang]

Did you get the whole bundle?

[Aardor]

Most of those games came out before widescreen monitors were really selling (hell, even LCD monitors where native resolution is important did not really exist when most of those games were released), so I see it as no surprise that they do not support widescreen. Even some more recent games by other publishers do not (Battlefield: 2042 comes to mind).

Are you running Vista? A friend of mine tried to play Quake 3 on Vista and said it didn't work at all, so that's probably more of a Vista issue than a steam/id issue. No clue about how it runs on XP though...the game came out before XP existed, so I could see some problems.

[Boogahz]

Most of those games came out before widescreen monitors were really selling (hell, even LCD monitors where native resolution is important did not really exist when most of those games were released), so I see it as no surprise that they do not support widescreen. Even some more recent games by other publishers do not (Battlefield: 2042 comes to mind).

Are you running Vista? A friend of mine tried to play Quake 3 on Vista and said it didn't work at all, so that's probably more of a Vista issue than a steam/id issue. No clue about how it runs on XP though...the game came out before XP existed, so I could see some problems.

BF2042 recently had a patch to fix the widescreen issues, IIRC.

[Fash]

Did you get the whole bundle?

Unfortunately, yes. I doubt I'll ever get my moneys worth out of that, but whatever... I'll get 20x value out of The Orange Box (which I bought for both PC and 360), so it works out.

Are you running Vista?

Absolutely not.

I totally realize that widescreen didn't exist when these games came out... in fact, the monitor I have now is my first widescreen. I just didn't even THINK about how the games might look before buying. I can deal without widescreen, but going back to 800x600 is out of the question.

[Aardor]

Most of those games came out before widescreen monitors were really selling (hell, even LCD monitors where native resolution is important did not really exist when most of those games were released), so I see it as no surprise that they do not support widescreen. Even some more recent games by other publishers do not (Battlefield: 2042 comes to mind).

Are you running Vista? A friend of mine tried to play Quake 3 on Vista and said it didn't work at all, so that's probably more of a Vista issue than a steam/id issue. No clue about how it runs on XP though...the game came out before XP existed, so I could see some problems.

BF2042 recently had a patch to fix the widescreen issues, IIRC.

Nice, game released October 18, 2006, widescreen support fixed May 15, 2008.

[miir]

I can't say I'm surprised that ten year old games don't have widescreen support.

BF2042 recently had a patch to fix the widescreen issues, IIRC.

DICE kept using the excuse that players using widescreen would have an unfair advantage which is why they never included widescreen support. You could force widescreen resolution in the games but the screen image would be chopped and/or distorted. If you tried to force widescreen FOV, you'd actually get booted from games.

I guess they finally caved in.
You just have to change the resolution in the game shortcut and change +fullscreen to +widescreen.

[cadalano]

thats a retarded argument. i wonder if they were serious

[miir]

Totally serious.

[Boogahz]

I can't say I'm surprised that ten year old games don't have widescreen support.

BF2042 recently had a patch to fix the widescreen issues, IIRC.

DICE kept using the excuse that players using widescreen would have an unfair advantage which is why they never included widescreen support. You could force widescreen resolution in the games but the screen image would be chopped and/or distorted. If you tried to force widescreen FOV, you'd actually get booted from games.

I guess they finally caved in.
You just have to change the resolution in the game shortcut and change +fullscreen to +widescreen.

It was easy to get the widescreen resolution in BF2042 (not BF2), but the map icons and squad boxes were broken in that resolution.

[Truant]

old games released in collector's bundles are almost NEVER updated to handle new graphics/display capabilities.
Hell, most of them aren't even updated to run on newer OS's.

Unless it's labelled as a remake, don't ever expect any old game (even if re-released and purchased new) to function with the same capabilities as new games.

[Fash]

Well.... Valve doesn't offer refunds for Steam purchases, but I sent them a nice email since I just had to try. I wouldn't have been upset if they said no.

Much to my surprise, a Steam message box informing me that I've been refunded was waiting for me on my desktop. I will reward them by buying more games.

[Aardor]

Well.... Valve doesn't offer refunds for Steam purchases, but I sent them a nice email since I just had to try. I wouldn't have been upset if they said no.

Much to my surprise, a Steam message box informing me that I've been refunded was waiting for me on my desktop. I will reward them by buying more games.

That is pretty sweet! I have been enjoying CoD4 a great deal (yeah, i missed the boat by a few months, but i can max out settings in 1920x1200 at 75+fps now), so i recommend that.

[miir]

That's classy.