SPOTLIGHT
- NEW SITE!Welcome to our newly designed
website created by our very own Yorick.
There's been a big reshuffle and lots of
new content added so check it all out!
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:
Added "Custom" tab to the server browser
Servers can now specify metatags describing the custom rules they've adopted
Players can use tag filtering to find servers running the custom rules they want to play
Added options for servers who want to become custom games: Disable critical hits (tf_weapon_criticals), eliminate respawn times (mp_disable_respawn_times), and raise maxplayers above 24
Initial release of Tournament mode (mp_tournament)
UI for handling team naming, ready mode, and win results
Disables team player limits, autobalancing, and intermission
Class balancing
Reduced Soldier's maximum rocket reserve ammo from 36 to 16
Reduced Demoman's maximum sticky bomb reserve ammo from 30 to 16
Reduced Demoman's maximum grenade launcher reserve ammo from 40 to 24
General
Added protection against voice command spamming. Dramatic reduction in teleporters needed
Fixed mp_timelimit ending the map during the middle of a round on maps like Dustbowl and GravelPit
Fixed "lastdisguise" command not remembering if you were disguised as your own team
Added "Toggle Disguise Team" binding in Options->Keyboard to toggle the disguise team for the Spy's PDA
Changed PDA menus to accept keys bound to "slot1", "slot2", etc., and "slot10" cancels
Fixed Spectator targetID not using team colors
Changed team autobalance code to not balance the teams when the active round timer shows less than 60 seconds
Fixed "-maxplayers" on the command line not correctly setting the maxplayers value for the server
Fixed Badlands never having Sudden Death triggered
Fixed Engineer being able to detonate buildings that are being sapped
Changed Engineer buildings to detonate when a player disconnects instead of blinking out
Fixed potential client crash for players being healed by a Medic or dispenser
Made several improvements to server-side stat reporting (not related to individual player stats)
Gametrailers have released a promo video of the next episode of their Gametrailers TV series. They announce in this promo that they will be visiting Valve to get an interview with Gabe Newell where he apparently has something interesting to say regarding Counter-Strike 2. There will also be new gameplay footage of Left 4 Dead and a new Team Fortress 2 map, possibily Goldrush. The show will be airing on USA channel Spike at 1am on Friday but until then you can watch the promo here.
P.S. They also show some wicked footage of Lego: Batman which goes straight into my wanted list.
The Eternal-Silence team have released a short video of their latest 3.0 test. You can find this video on YouTube here. They also looking for more testers so if you're interested head on over to their site.
Valve’s Doug Lombardi has confirmed on videogaming247 that highly anticipated zombie shooter Left 4 Dead is not coming to Sony's PS3. “We were really crappy at bringing games to consoles,” said Lombardi.
EA wanted to do Orange Box on PS3 and they handled it, Left 4 Dead isn’t coming out on PS3 because we’ve not had that call. If the phone rang we would have the conversation, certainly, but it hasn’t happened.
Is Valve giving up on porting / developing games on consoles? nope, as Lombardi revealed that “If Valve were to develop in-house for another format, it would be the Wii." because its growing and there is already a huge user-base for Nintendo's highly successful console.
GDC 2008 has wrapped up on it's final day today, giving developers more time to polish up their new products for this years E3Expo. From Valve, nothing much was said or heard from them, other than Kim Swift's supposed "slip up" (we know how Valve thinks) on a future sequel to Portal. Packed wall to wall, one of GDC's ballrooms held the highest attended panel discussions hosted by Valve's very own Kim Swift and Erik Wolpaw. A discussion topic behind the design and writing aspects of the game were the focus of, what gamers call a "fresh title," their carefully crafted game, Portal.
Through the carefully measured use of GLaDOS's dialog, the team was able to guide players into becoming attached to the Weighted Companion Cube. Of course, this attachment only really existed so that it could be exploited when GLaDOS demands that the player "euthanize" the cube by throwing it into an incinerator, but it also helped players solve the puzzle while preserving and even bolstering the story.
Gamespy was just one of many attendees joining the panel. You can read their impressions and summary of the topic over at their website here.
More cake, please.
I have recently had the pleasure of conducting an interview with some of the key people behind the Half-Life Short Stories mod. Fielding questions to Samon, Yorick and Au-heppa we talked about the genesis of Half-Life Short Stories, the two mods involved in the project and their views on the modding scene itself.
Chris - "Half-Life: Short Stories - who came up with the idea for this and what was the driving factor behind setting it up?"
Yorick: It was actually Heppa who came up with the idea, and I've often kicked myself for never actually having thought of it, because it's so damn brilliant for a mod. We always wanted to tell stories, Samon and I, but they often ended up being too ambitious for mods. I was pretty close to giving up on modding and sticking with fiction, when he and Heppa got this thing rolling. The opportunity to tell a whole set of small stories was just too perfect to pass up.
Samon: His original idea was to provide small, concentrated Episodes in the Half-life universe and it happened to coincide with something Yorick and I had been discussing at the time. The idea of a series of episodes played from different perspectives and connected by an overall storyline was something we were very interested in getting into. So when he proposed to combine the two projects we jumped on it.
Au-heppa: Now that I think of it the original idea wasn't so specific. Mostly I just wanted to create a mod with several different characters with different perspectives. This is basically why I chose a Civil Protection player character.
I also wanted to create new NPCs, to have a bigger variation of NPCs to use. I really love creating new NPCs in Source, not just design them, but to create all the different parts. See the creature come alive... and then shoot them...
But there wasn't any firm story in my head at first. At one point the idea I had was a bit like Smod, but instead of new weapons and so on, I would have new NPCs. But no real story. That changed kind of quickly when I joined with Samon and Yorick.
You can read the interview in its entirety right here and check out the mod here.
In an interview on TomGames, Doug Lombari talked about Steam's evolution and growth, as well as forthcoming Valve titles and the future of PC gaming, at GDC 2008 this week.
Rob Wright: So what's next for Steam this year? Are you looking at different types of content?
Doug Lombari: We're looking at more casual games and international games. And we're also looking at other types of content like video and music. We're definitely having those conversations and meetings, and we're reaching out to folks with other types of digital entertainment. I think before the end of the year, you'll probably see some pilot programs with other digital entertainment on Steam.
Valve is now looking beyond games at other digital entertainment such as video and music. Read the full interview here.
Doug Lombardi, Valve's Director of Marketing, had previously stated that "more Portal is definitely on the way". However we weren't sure if he meant a new update or a sequel. Until now on tonight's episode of X-Play Kim Swift confirms Mr.Lombardi statement and announce the sequel to Portal.
"Well, I believe Doug Lombardi who is our lead marketing director at Valve, has announced Portal 2,"
You can watch the full interview on G4TV website. We still waiting for a confirmation from Doug Lombardi, stay tuned.
In other news Portal's credit song, Still Alive Confirmed for Rock Band release. The news comes from Valve's GDC party, where Coulton took the stage to sing the song he wrote overtop of the GLaDOS vocals, according to Harmonix's Sean Baptiste.
At this year GDC with five nominations, Portal was the night's big winner at the GDC Awards. Valve's Puzzle game won the ceremony's top prize, Game of the Year 2007, as well as Best Game Design and the Innovation Award.
While recapping all the nominees, Portal was the crowd favorite, drawing loud cheers from throughout the hall. Mr.Newell took first crack at the acceptance speech with a haiku:
Orange Box puzzle game?
Digipen students are smart.
The cake is a lie.
Congratulations to Valve and the Digipen students, you deserved it. To view you full list click here.
OXM recently revealed the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead, OXM confirmed Left 4 Dead going to be console exclusive to 360 which means that there is no PS3 version (sorry PS3 players).
They also mentioned that a separate game company named Certain Affinity is handling the Xbox 360 version, a small game developer founded in November 2006 based in Austin. Certain Affinity is led by Max Hoberman, a 10-year Bungie veteran who was multiplayer lead for both Halo 2 and Halo 3.
Looks like Valve are trying to avoid the lag problems they had with Team Fortress 2 on 360 so they brought Certain Affinity to handle 360-specific elements like matchmaking, Live support, console customization, and 360 gameplay tweaks. Read the full article on Left4Dead411.com.
Valve's just released another update for Team Fortress 2, mostly consisting of bugfixes.
* Fixed Badlands exploits and missing textures
* Fixed tv_enable resetting maxplayers value
* Fixed a case where a spy stabbing from the front of a player would score a backstab
* Fixed stats being reported incorrectly for some players
* Dropped weapons now replenish half of your max ammo when picked up
* Added exec'ing a cfg.cfg file on the client when you select a class to play (for real this time!)
* Reverted mp_forcecamera changes from previous release and set TF2 default back to 1
CVG has
posted the
third and final part of a feature focussing on The Orange Box. This time the
spotlight is focused on Team Fortress 2. The article has several bits of new
information including the new matchmaking system.
"We're working on matchmaking right now for Left 4 Dead," claims Walker, "and
the plan is to roll that back into Team Fortress 2 and all our other multiplayer
products. We've no firm plans in terms of being able to say what exact
feature-set you'll get, but there's absolutely some matchmaking systems going
in. In terms of more generalised matchmaking, not so much on the individual
level, but on team and clan levels, that's something we'd really like to get
into Steam at a basic level, so that it supports any product.".
This week the Eternal Silence 2 team
have released two images of their new UTF Gunship and have a little to say about
it:
Players familiar with our 2.0 release will remember this as our APC ship, which
allowed players to form attack squads and land on the enemy capital ship
together.
In addition to that functionality, we've added something new this time. Gunships
are now a mobile spawn point. Players can spawn directly inside, getting to the
front lines of the battle much faster than before. Gunship pilots no longer need
to wait for a full ship before setting out. We've mentioned this a couple of
times before, but we also fixed that annoying gunship lag that we had in 2.3.
We're pretty excited about that.
Anyway, it's been a busy week here at ES and I've got to get back to work. Our
leader, Dan Menard, is heading off to San Francisco for the Game Developers
Conference. That's where we were invited last year for
winning Best Multiplayer FPS mod, a competition which unfortunately has been
discontinued. Dan is there again, however, and he will be giving us a report of
how things go. Stay tuned to
his blog for
that, or just check back here next week, when we'll surely be linking you.
If you can break yourself away from Team Fortress 2 for a few minutes you
might want to head over to the
Fortress Forever site. They have just released version 2.0 of their Team
Fortress modification with a ton of new changes and features. The list is far
too long to post here so check out their
site now for more info and get
the update!
