No joke I'm afraid. But I'm actually going to be travelling out there soon, it's a hastle to take the pc back, but really need to format C and sort out all this bs software, while I'm out that way :).
I have looked around and tested a few other compilers, but they don't work so good either, check
this out. "Valve suggests that you use Visual C++ .NET 2003. It's possible to get other compilers to work, but your results may vary".
Yeah more like won't work! This is what p*sses me off about valve, they say they're gonna do something and never do it like saying, oh we've been working closely with Microsoft (or SoftImage etc), to bring you free versions of these tools on SDK. Well I think it's bs! how many years do they have to talk to these companies to sort it out?
I guess the real problem is that there isn't enough demand in the community for these things, therefore why invest time and money in to it...
Current price for Visual C++ .NET 2003 Standard, $109 US. Do they seriously expect gamers to pay more than double the cost of the actual game itself, just for something like this??