Steam News

Half-Life 1 Engine Update Released

October 22, 2008, 4:40 pm - Valve - Product Update

A new set of Steamworks features have been released for all Half-Life 1 engine multiplayer games: Counter-Strike 1.6, Condition Zero, Team Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, Ricochet, Day of Defeat and Half-life 1 Deathmatch. The update includes Steamworks features such as player avatars in the scoreboard when playing Counter-Strike and Condition Zero. The update also contains several bug fixes, listed below. Note that this update will require all game servers to restart.

Bug Fixes

• Removed the need to manually re-login and re-authenticate to Steam while in game
  
• Fixed a crash on startup when running windowed with a non-standard desktop resolution
  
• Removed the display of saytext (in-game chat text) from players whom you've blocked in Steam friends
  
• Locked down several engine cvars to prevent malicious script exploits
  
• Enforced file consistency on several sprites in Counter-Strike
  
• Removed "ex_extrapmax" cvar (no longer needed)
  

• Added "-noaff" command-line option to disable setting of thread affinity
  
• Added "bannedcfg" cvar so admins can choose which file is written to by the "writeid" command
  

Half-Life 1 Deathmatch and Team Fortress Classic Update Released

April 23, 2007, 3:40 pm - Valve - Product Update

Updates to Half-Life 1 Deathmatch and Team Fortress Classic have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Half-Life 1 Deathmatch and Team Fortress Classic

• Fixed game server crash when lastinv was inappropriately used

Source and Half-Life 1 Dedicated Server Update Released

March 8, 2006, 6:06 pm - Valve - Product Update

Updates to the Source and Half-Life 1 Dedicated Server have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Both

• Reduced CPU spikes and overall load during server operation
  
• Fixed serveral crash bugs on Linux systems running older GLIBC versions
  

• Clamped the size of the WeaponList network message to prevent a potential buffer overflow exploit (found by Niall FitzGibbon)

Half-Life 1 Engine Update Released

November 21, 2005, 5:42 pm - Valve - Product Update

Updates to the Half-Life 1 Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Half-Life 1 Engine

• Fixed Asian language versions displaying corrupt characters
  
• Fixed Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes not loading cz_alamo2 correctly
  
• Fixed being unable to launch Half-Life: Blue Shift if you didn't own Half-Life 1
  

• Added new clientcvar2 cvar query interface for developers
  
• Fixed "-sport" and "+ip" command line options being ignored on startup
  

Source Engine and Half-Life 1: Engine Updates Available

October 3, 2005, 5:11 pm - Valve - Product Update

Updates to the Source Engine and Half-Life 1: Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Source Engine

• Fixed loading error when trying to debug Source MODs using the SDK
  
• Fixed a startup crash in Windows 98
  

• Fixed name exploit causing client crash

Half-Life 1: Engine Update Available

September 15, 2005, 6:04 pm - Valve - Product Update

Updates to the Half-Life 1: Engine have been released. The update will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Half-Life 1: Engine

• Fixed MOTD crash when viewing HTML pages with iframes

Half-Life 1: Engine Update Available

August 12, 2005, 5:11 pm - Valve - Product Update

Updates to the Half-Life 1: Engine for Linux have been released. Run the hldsupdatetool to apply the update. The specific changes include:

Half-Life 1: Engine

• Fixed crash on startup due to bad hostname settings
  
• Fixed crash on startup in threading library
  

Steam Games - Update Released

December 10, 2003, 7:03 pm - Greg Coomer - Product Update

An update for all Steam games has just been released. As always, Steam will update your games automatically -- you don't need to take any special action.

Dedicated server admins can get the update normally via the HLDS update tool, or the dedicated server update can be downloaded directly from this page.

Here's a complete list of the changes:

ALL GAMES:

• Fixed problem in Direct3D mode where the game would be unavailable for some users. Direct3D mode should work now, but note that OpenGL will provide a better play experience if your video card is capable


• Fixed regression that was causing the 'load failed' crash to happen on level change


• Optimized some of the particle drawing code


• For mod makers - debugging mods no longer requires the steam.dll to be copied into the game directory


DAY OF DEFEAT

• Added client side env_models for static prop type models


• Random class now abides by class limits


• No random class in clan matches


• Added exit decal on gunshots


• Restored door opening behavior to original style ( face the door and it opens away from you, face away and it opens towards you )


• Fixed sniper rifle lowering when a sniper moved, even though he was still scoped


• Fixed a bug where you would drop your weapon, pick it back up and it would have less ammo


• Re-added weapon names to console death messages ( bob killed fred with garand )


• Added "teamkill" text to the console death messages ( bob teamkilled chuck with kar )


• Fixed being able to jumpshoot if the minimap was open fullscreen


• Fixed a cut off label in scoreboard


• Now cannot +use grenades while deployed


• "hud_draw 0" now hides the spectator bar


• Fixed player animation being 90 degrees off on mg sandbag deploy


• Fixed spectator angles on minimap player icons


• Fixed strange health numbers drawing in the spec bar


• Fixed gunshot decal on subsequent bullet hits


• Added control point name to log file cap messages


• Fixed hud reset on stop demo recording


• Fixed ammo on mg42 and 30cal view model not showing above 8 bullets


• Fixed player models jittering because of animation blend


• Fixed an evil evil hack that stopped the player from shooting when their mg42 overheated


• Fixed some more empty cells in the scoreboard showing up as squares


DOD HLTV

• Fixed client env_models drawing


• Fixed brit sleeves


• Draw objective icons on hud and in minimap


• Draw grenades on the minimap for both teams


• Fixed teams and playerclass in the scoreboard


• Added timeleft and number of hltv spectators to the spec bar


• Fixed weather effects not drawing


• No vgui menus in hltv spec


COUNTER-STRIKE:

• Fixed shield exploit that involved dropping a weapon and buying a pistol in a specific order; you must restart your dedicated server to pick up this change


TEAM FORTRESS CLASSIC:

• Fixed icon for ALT-TAB menu and window title bar not being displayed properly


• Moved flaginfo to the chat text area so it will work properly

Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic Updates Released

October 10, 2003, 3:01 pm - Greg Coomer - Product Update

Updates for Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic have just been released through Steam. These are server updates, so once admins have restarted their servers the update will take effect. Here is what's included:

Team Fortress Classic

• fixed teleporter crash


• fixed spectator crash


Counter-Strike

• fixed shield not resetting player max speed when dropped


• fixed being able to throw shield through walls if close enough


• fixed dropping shield while reloading pistol causing the reload to happen faster


• fixed case where shield could become invisible to other users


• fixed typos in de_aztec and de_airstrip map descriptions

Status Update: New Installers to be Released Tomorrow

September 15, 2003, 5:06 pm - Greg Coomer - Product Update

Well, the release process last week and over the weekend was pretty rocky. The community managed to get 500,000 accounts created and are currently seeing about 15,000 people playing Counter-Strike 1.6 at any given time. We know that the conversion process has been anything but smooth for many of our users. We're going to get this fixed. We've done our best to support the Half-Life community over the past 5 years, and we're still committed to doing whatever it takes to make the community happy. We've listened to the response, and we'll be repairing the problems with Steam until it performs the way we all want it to.

Tomorrow we will release new installers which include the cache files for all of the games available via Steam (Day of Defeat, Team Fortress Classic, the dedicated server, etc). If you haven't already done so, please use the installer that includes Counter-Strike and Half-Life.

Here's what's going on at Steam HQ:

• We ran into some pretty serious bandwidth and server limitations after the release last week, which has caused several other problems like long wait times and UI unresponsiveness. The load is starting to die down now and we're getting more content servers lined up, so these problems are becoming less frequent. As more people begin using the new installers which include the game caches, their experience using Steam will improve greatly. If you're having problems connecting to Steam or launching Counter-Strike, please download the latest version of the installer and give it a try.
  
• Some other Steam problems -- "JIT" error messages, expired ticket errors, etc -- will be fixed with a Steam update this week.
  

• Counter-Strike 1.5 is still available, and will be for a couple of weeks. After we're confident that the Steam authentication servers are functioning as they should (and not before), we'll be turning off the WON servers and migrating everyone over to the new system.
  
• There have been some reports of the Conversion Wizard failing during account creation. If this happens for you, please try downloading and installing the most recent version of the Steam client from one of the mirrors listed on this site.
  
• We're preparing a new installer on CD for cyber-cafe owners. Contact biz@steampowered.com if you're interested in receiving this.
  
• We've heard from several people who are having trouble getting their MODs working with Steam. We've updated our FAQ with new information about this. Check it out and then email us if you're still having trouble.