Info received from Valve ONLY - NO questions/discussion

[^Ben]

Ben Davison <[email protected]> Sat, Dec 18, 2004 at 11:37PM
To: Adrian Finol <[email protected]>
Hi Adrian,

You mentioned in a post to the hlcoders mailing list that the code for
HL2DM will be out "soon" will "soon" be this year? I ask this because
if it comes out within this year there is no point starting our MOD
code wise, because the HL2DM code will fill in a lot of blanks for us.

Thanks for your time.

--
- Ben Davison
- http://www.shadow-phoenix.com
Adrian Finol <[email protected]> Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 12:17AM
To: Ben Davison <[email protected]>
Hey Ben,

Sorry but it wont be until next year. There's a couple of stuff we are
working on that we want to get in the codebase before we release it.

Take care.
[Quoted text hidden]
Ben Davison <[email protected]> Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 12:39AM
To: Adrian Finol <[email protected]>
Thanks for replying Adrian.

Do you mind if I share this with halflife2.net? Also is it just me or
does HLMV crash whenever I close it.


[Quoted text hidden]

--
[Quoted text hidden]
Adrian Finol <[email protected]> Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 12:58AM
To: Ben Davison <[email protected]>
I belive David just fixed that HLMV crash on exit.

And sure, go ahead and post it.

 

[Varsity]

A PM on Steampowered.com:

Varsity wrote on 12-21-2004 11:24 AM:
I'm thinking of compiling a list of Steam content/auth servers from the information in steam.log. This could be used to make a .bat file that people could execute to ping the servers and see if their connections are at fault or not when they can't connect to Steam. Is this OK?

If you are asking people to send you the log file, make sure that they know there is personal information in it (their Steam account name).

Also, not all of the servers are ping-able. Some are behind firewalls that block those ICMP packets.

Also, this won't test whether or not they have the specific ports blocked. The user's firewall may allow outgoing pings, but who knows if it allows TCP connections to port 27032 or whatever.

There are also a lot of servers you won't find listed in the logs - those are only Content Servers. There are 80 or so CSes online and 60ish other servers, so compiling a full list would be pretty difficult.

For these reasons, I'm not sure if you'll be able to do what you want. We'd like to have something like this as part of Steam, but for the same reasons it's not trivial so isn't done yet.

Taylor

 

[Dan911]

FROM Yahn Bernier about tf:s

i asked
can u please jus tell me antyhing or at least reply to my email thank
you- a fan

he said

Hi,

Nothing new to report yet.

Thanks for writing in,

Yahn

makes me think is it canceled or has no work been done on it it lonng time... :frown:

 

[samuelk]

My original e-mail to Gabe:

Hi, Gabe

I have a question regarding physics in Half-Life 2. One of the things that impresses me about the physics system is the stability of stacked objects. I was a big fan of Trespasser (despite it's flaws), and although it was one of the first games to implement rigid body and limited ragdoll physics, there were issues with stacking objects (like crates) on top of one another. When stacking one crate on top of another crate, the top crate would kinda vibrate, takinga long time -- if ever -- to reach a rest state. This was a major problem considering that Trespasser had a few crate-stacking puzzles.

I've noticed this kind of problem in lots of other games that have rigid body physics. But I don't notice it much at all in Half-Life 2. Is there some sort of limit applied to the objects? For example, if Object A is stacked on top of object B, reduce object A's movement vectors to zero if it's amount of movement over a set time is below an established threshhold. I hope that makes sense. I'm not sure who would best be able to answer this question... could you forward it to the appropriate person if it's out of your area of expertise?

Response from Jay Stelly:

There are several technologies at work in HL2 that help with stacking. There is a stable low-level physics simulation (rigid body dynamics, friction, etc) as well as HL2's own stacking controller.
More technically - when the player releases the object to be stacked, a solver looks at all of the current contacts and the forces being exerted and removes any force that would push away any of the dynamic objects currently in contact with the player's object.
After that, it's just up to the core rigid body dynamics code (the friction solver and the contact solver) to keep the stack stable.

There is some general damping in the simulation (sort of what you mention below), but it's just there to remove noise in the solvers. It's always active at the same amounts; it doesn't remove any energy over time due to stacking or any other contact.

Jay

 

[Chris D]

Great stuff, keep the responses from Valve coming - we, just like the rest of the community, love to see this stuff :E

 

[skidz]

Ryan Sheffer
to GabeN
More options 23/02/05 (1 day ago)
I didn't know who to send this too, but I figured because you were the
big boss over at valve maybe you could help me with something or
redirect this message.
Ive been playing HL2 multiplayer and building maps to mess around in
but I realised there was no swim animation for CSS and I thought this
might be the same problem with HL2 DM as well but I don't know for
sure. I do know that if you die underwater the water sound plays over
and over.
My question is, does valve plan to update the player models with a
swimming animation so we can build those water world maps we all know
and love, and fix the water sound loop?
Plus someone told me that you can shoot underwater with any weapon in CSS.

Thanks for your time gabe, you have truly made an amazing game and I
cant wait for expansions and especially TF2.
--
~skidz

ReplyForward


Erik Johnson
<[email protected]> to me
More options 09:26 (8 hours ago)
Hey Ryan,

Yes, we will be adding this at some point.

Erik

-----Original Message-----
From: Gabe Newell
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 6:20 PM
To: Erik Johnson
Subject: FW: Player Swim Animation in HL2DM and CSS

 

[DarkStar]

Looks like we won't be getting the deluge of new content some of you suspected. The mythical "ATI levels" and "The Lost Coast" are indeed one in the same.

My original email to Gabe:

Hi Gabe, I've been a devotee of yours since you guys since you shocked the world with Half-Life.
I wanted to just say congratulations on actually upping the ante with Half-Life 2. I can't believe you did it -- but you did.

Anyway, quick question:
Is "The Lost Coast" simply the formal title given to the so-called "ATI levels" you talked about a while back?
Or are they two different beasts entirely?

Thanks for your time.

Response from Gabe after about 2 minutes:

Same

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

Here you go Chris

DigiQ8 posted this in the Aftermath forum

That's the plan.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ahmed Almutairi <**************>
To: Gabe Newell <*****************>
Sent: Fri Apr 15 13:43:53 2005
Subject: HDR in Aftermath ?

Hello Mr.Newell ^^

once again i want to say Half-Life 2 is the best game ever
now for my question , Does Aftermath got HDR feature ?

Thanks


Ahmed
Kuwait

 

[ríomhaire]

I e-mailed Gabe and asked him 2 storyline questions
-Did the Combine control the Xenians before HL1
-Are Race-X from Xen

Dear X,

Thanks for writing. Explanations outside the context of the game are
not really something we want to get into. Most of the things that are
hazy are that way simply because the right time and place has not come
about for clarifying these things in the context of the games. So, I
try not to say anything that would spoil revelations and backstory that
we may want to use in the future or are currently developing. The
relation between the Nihilanth race and the Combine is one of those
things. As for Race-X being from Xen, I'm not sure any of the aliens
we've seen were actually from Xen originally. Xen is a borderworld--a
place you have to go through to get to other places. It was colonized
by certain creatures that could adapt to it. The Race-X creatures
didn't seem particularly well adapted to Xen. I imagine their home lay
somewhere beyond.

Marc Laidlaw

 

[pizzahut]

My question to Gabe Newell:

is Valve going to attend E3 2005?

I know Valve is not on the list of exhibitors, however Valve could make
a guest appearance at another company's booth?

The reply:

Yes. We'll be in the MS booth showing HL-2 X-Box and Aftermath.

 

[Chris D]

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Deeming [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 8:37 AM
To: Doug Lombardi
Subject: Re: For immediate release

Just a clarification about "VU Games will cease distribution of retail packaged versions". Does this mean as of August 31 2005 there'll be a new publisher for Valve's titles?

Regards,
Chris Deeming

Hi,

We are making arrangements to continue retail distribution of our products post August 31. Should have more details to share soon.

Cheers

 

[petey]

Hi Jay, I saw the interview you gave for IGN and was wondering if the loading/streaming optimizations you've made for HL2: Xbox will find their way into the PC version of the Source engine.

Generally, that's the plan. The xbox version of the Source engine is not the typical dead-end separate codebase you'd expect with a port; it's being developed in conjunction with ongoing work on the Source engine by the Source engine's original developers. Many of the xbox features have already made their way into the PC codebase. Some of the technology is xbox-specific, but will be implemented differently on the PC. (e.g. the xbox texture streamer takes advantage of the xbox's unified memory architecture and fairly transparent D3D layer - so we can use async DMA I/O to put a native-format texture directly into the chunk of memory that it will use. We can't get this done as efficiently on the PC because of necessary abstraction in D3D to support multiple video vendors.)

Jay

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

Not sure if anyone here will actually care about this but it was being discussed at the BMS forums so..

I asked...

I was wondering if you could settle a long-running discussion on a few
forums about Eli's leg, and where he lost it? The main arguments are
between him losing it helping Dr. Kliener over into City 17 or losing
it to a bullsquid back in Black Mesa. Any help, or a complete
explantion would be great! Thanks!

Marc Laidlaw replied (very quickly I should add ) with...

He lost it to a bullsquid while helping Kleiner get to safety, but I'm not sure if that was in Black Mesa or later

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

and again...

Thanks Marc. Will this ever be decided or should people draw their own
conclusions?

Just so you know it's a discussion for the Black Mesa: Source mod,
which is recreating Half-Life for Source. Apparently there are a few
people keen on 'seeing' this happen! Thanks for the quick reply.

Like many things in the HL universe, we like to reserve these things
until we can make some use of them. There's no point in carving a story
idea in granite, only to get there and learn that it leads to bad,
boring gameplay.

I hope mod makers don't spend too much time worrying about whether
they're in conflict with Half-Life. If they get something "wrong," we
won't change what we decide to do because of it. They can, if they
want, show Eli losing his leg to a bullsquid while helping Kleiner get
to safety in Black Mesa; but if I have an opportunity to later show Eli
losing his leg while helping Kleiner get into City 17, I'll go ahead and
do that. I'm not out to spoil the fans' fun!

Perhaps there are many many parallel universes, in each of which Eli
loses his leg in an entirely different way.

 

[Varsity]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Edwards [mailto:youwish]
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 11:20 AM
To: Alfred Reynolds
Subject: Data collection in Source

I've been looking at ways to get a wider profile of my computer than
the standard msinfo or dxdiag reports give. As well as SMART data from
my hard drive and a few other useful bits and pieces (stuttering is the
driving force here, not that it matters) I've come across the full might
of vprof.
With that, minidumps, and Steam there's a lot of from what I can
tell unused data collection potential. I'm just curious as to whether
you are considering tapping it?

We do use parts of it (for example, check out the Video Test in
Counter-Strike: Source, that reports back to us with a wide range of
video card performance parameters). Our surveys also give us interesting
data. Our real problem is distilling each data feed down into useful
indicators, that is something we are thinking about.

- Alfred

 

[DoctorWeeTodd]

Hi this is my first question and I hear you answer them. Theres been a lot of debate and just plain bitching among the fanboys on who you play as in Aftermath. According to G4 they claimed you play as both Gordon and Alyx but many of the geeks are denying this, though it's mostly prejudice on the G4 network. So just to set it straight to the mob, can you an actual representative for Valve Software tell us who are the playable characters?

Thanks for your time.

Hi,

In Aftermath, you reprise the role of Gordon Freeman.

One of the things we're trying to do in this new episode is extend the NPCs' AI. So, as Freeman, you'll be operating alongside Alyx -- and accompanied by Dog -- for a majority of the adventure.

Hope that clears things up.

Cheers

 

[MiccyNarc]

Is the G-man using Gordon to destroy the human race?

Just a random theory I've come up with.
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=79203
^^ For the whole thing.
Feel free to ignore this if you wish.

Not that I'm aware of, but he's a sneaky bastard ...

Didn't rule it out haha

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

Because this whole AdrianShephard/Gearbox/Valve thing has been pissing me off,

http://photobucket.com/albums/a350/Darkjakk/?action=view&current=adrian.jpg

Didnt feel quoting stuff, But yeah. NOW WE KNOW.

 

[Kadayi]

From an email received today from Gabe:-

Q) Do you ever invisage FPS technology that will allow us to engage in co-operative /multi-player play across differing maps at the same time without recourse to a principal server like a mmporpg? So for example on one map my avatar might flick a switch, which causes a door to open on another map that my friend tobes is playing on? (I'm not aware of any game that presently allows this, so forgive my ignorance if this is already possible). One of the first things that struck me about Source was the quality of the characters and it really got me thinking that there exists so much more potential for character driven games (especially co-op) however the one map scenario really restricts things in the sense that, the map exists as an objective to be overcome rather than a virtual space to be revisited. It's a complex question with a lot of what if's about it, but if you have the time to answer I'd appreciate it

A) Yes. This is an idea that goes back to Quake 1. The issue is more game design and having a robust enough system for managing the economy. I don't know of any FPS company that hasn't thought about doing this, so I guess I'd agree it's a good idea that needs a lot of hard work to pull off.


Q2) Are you looking with Steam 3 to add dynamic updates, so we don't need to restart to know whether there have been changes?

A2) Yes. It's one of many reasons to move away from the connectionless approach we had for Steam 1 and 2.

 

[NeptuneUK]

marc: Those things came through during the portal storms, which continue
erratically to this very day. Some of the critters came early
(immediately after the Black Mesa Incident) and adapted to Earth. I
think the poison headcrabs must have eaten something poisonous at one
point, and liked it so much they added it to their repertoire.

The bullsquids are around here somewhere.

-----Original Message-----
From: meh
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:04 AM
To: Marc Laidlaw
Subject: so where did they come from? and where did they go?

never really thought of this before, but... where did poison headcrabs,
fast headcrabs and antlions appear from??
and will we find out where the all the bullsquids went? oh woe become
us!!

 

[NeptuneUK]

marc: Hi,

As you probably know, we don't talk about any of our plans until we've
made public announcements, so I can't say one way or another. I will
say that the Lost Week is one of my favorite parts of HL2.

Marc


-----Original Message-----
From: Gabe Newell
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:23 AM
To: Marc Laidlaw
Subject: FW: HL2 expansions



-----Original Message-----
From: meehh
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:18 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: HL2 expansions

are there any current plans to develop a blueshift/opposing force style
expansion pack in the near future for half-life 2? this is where the
player experiences the half-life universe from another character's point
of view.
for example during the week (or 2?) gordon and alyx went missing (this
part of the HL2 universe is begging for it, seeing as the player has no
knowledge of what happened during the the time they were absent apart
from that the uprising has begun) er yeah, thanks in advance

 

[NeptuneUK]

It's virtually certain.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gabe Newell
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 2:41 PM
To: Marc Laidlaw
Subject: FW: just a quick question (i bet you hear that a lot!)

yours

-----Original Message-----
From: meehh!
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 2:35 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: just a quick question (i bet you hear that a lot!)

in one of the overwatch radio messages i heard:

"rank leader, reminder: 100 sterilised credits qualifies non-mechanical
reproduction simulation "

so do the combine get rewarded with some 'you-know-what' for good work??

;-)

 

[NeptuneUK]

CP/Metrocops are humans at the first level--basically unaltered
volunteers. From here, if you are hardcore, you must volunteer for
modification in order to become a soldier, so advancing in rank requires
surrendering even more humanity.

This stuff was certainly thought through in advance; sometimes we just
make things up though.

-----Original Message-----
From: meh!
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 11:25 AM
To: Marc Laidlaw
Subject: metrocops human?

hi,
A) are the metrocops standard humans who have not been brainwashed or
augmented?
from what i can tell:

1) Barny has managed to stay undercover as one undetected
2) The overwatch radio message "memory replacement is the first step
towards rank privileges" suggests that if the CPs have to go through
brainwashing of some sort and only then they are they granted access to
higher ranks.
3) The overwatch 'non mechanical reproduction simulation' message, one
can only but imagine.
4) The general 'human-like behaviour of the CPs compared to the
soldiers, such as the can and the trash can incident at the start of the
game

also

do you thoroughly think all of these kinds of things through when
developing the story or do you hope that some fans dont overanalyse
absolutely every small aspect of the story

 

[NeptuneUK]

Erik Johnson: Hi,

The HDR solution we're going to ship will run on virtually any DX9
capable video card. It is a fairly expensive process, so if you aren't
in the x800/6800 family of cards, then performance might not be OK for
you.

In our daily DoD: Source playtests I run with HDR on on a 9800XT and my
framerate is fine for me, but you'll have to try it out on your card
yourself.

Hope this helps.

Erik

 

[Kirix]

To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Father Grigori's age?

How old is Father Grigori? He looks a little young..



Hi, Andrew,

I am not very good at telling ages by looking at people, so I couldn't tell you exactly. To me, he seems just about old enough.

Marc Laidlaw

 

[Kadayi]

Earlier post quoted for the sake of continuity:-

From an email received today from Gabe:-

Q) Do you ever invisage FPS technology that will allow us to engage in co-operative /multi-player play across differing maps at the same time without recourse to a principal server like a mmporpg? So for example on one map my avatar might flick a switch, which causes a door to open on another map that my friend tobes is playing on? (I'm not aware of any game that presently allows this, so forgive my ignorance if this is already possible). One of the first things that struck me about Source was the quality of the characters and it really got me thinking that there exists so much more potential for character driven games (especially co-op) however the one map scenario really restricts things in the sense that, the map exists as an objective to be overcome rather than a virtual space to be revisited. It's a complex question with a lot of what if's about it, but if you have the time to answer I'd appreciate it

A) Yes. This is an idea that goes back to Quake 1. The issue is more game design and having a robust enough system for managing the economy. I don't know of any FPS company that hasn't thought about doing this, so I guess I'd agree it's a good idea that needs a lot of hard work to pull off.

Q2) Are you looking with Steam 3 to add dynamic updates, so we don't need to restart to know whether there have been changes?

A2) Yes. It's one of many reasons to move away from the connectionless approach we had for Steam 1 and 2.

A further response from Gabe received today to further questions following that email:-

Q3) With respect to multiplayer/multi-map gaming (I think I just coined that phrase...) is it an area of investigation/development you see Valve looking into as a company? Or will you leave it to your competitors?

A3) Sooo many things to do, so little time.

Q4) No one really seems to have really picked up on the Imaged Based Rendering Technology (IBRT) that you mentioned in the interview. If I recall correctly you had stated that this was something that Gary McTaggart was developing originally for HL2 but never made the technology cut off deadline in 2002. It sounds quite an exciting technology based on what you say (Genuine ingame busy city streets would be gameplay nirvana imho as opposed to the sleight of hand techiques used in the GTA series). Obviously at the moment the focus is very much on the forthcoming HDR technology, however are we lightly to see a showcase of the IBR tech before the years end or will we have to wait till E3 2006? Also is it something that can be applied retrospectively like HDR (some levels in HL2 will get revised to HDR if I have my facts straight), or is it something that we are might likely to see exclusive to HL3.

A5) You could retrofit IBR to do really spiffy sky-boxes, but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting as designing content with IBR in mind. I think Crytek are actually doing the most interesting work in this space with their carding mechanism, but I'm not really up to speed on what everyone is doing right now in this space.

Q5) Single player or multi-player mods, what holds the greater interest for you personally?

A5) Hybrids (e.g. multi-person, strongly authored experiences).

Kad

 

[azumi]

-----Original Message-----
From: Helena Kjörling [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 5:29 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Hi!

Hi Gabe!

Thanks a million for taking time to write to me, it really means a lot! Yes my
friend Colt is really special, a man who stands by his word.

Ofcourse I have a million questions, but I don't want to take up too much of
your time, so I'll try to keep it short. First and foremost, I was wondering a
little bit about HDR. Will you use HDR in all your games from now on, or was Day
of Defeat just a try-out? It's really amazin by the way, what technology can do
these days, makes the games look more and more realistic.
And another thing, I read somewhere that you weren't gonna use HDR in HL2, but
when I played last night (for the fifht time) and HL2 upgraded, I saw that I now
could use HDR? Anyway, that's amazing and it took me by suprise!


I talked to Erik Johnson about selling and sending poster and stuff outside USA,
and he told me the sad news that you don't do that? I hope in a near future that
you'll be able to, because I would die for a Gordon-poster (well almost )
Specially from you guys at Valve (ofcourse I can buy one from ebay or whatever,
but so not the same thing!)

My last question is just one for fun. How long did you think about making a game
like Half Life 2, before you actually did it. I mean, where you "before your
time" and wishing years ago that a game like Half Life 2 would be possible to
make, but the technology only allowed you to make a game like Half Life (not
that that's a bad game, but the possibilities sure has changed since then). Or
did you do Half Life and then though about Half Life 2? I hope you get my
point.. just something I've been thinking of

Again, thanks a million for your time! It's really wonderful to see that you
takes time for your fans, makes us love you guys at Valve even more!

Best regards
/Helena, Sweden

-----------------------------------

Hi, Helena.

HDR is a pretty useful technology, and we expect that all of our games going
forward will incorporate it, and we'll be gradually be updating our older titles
to take advantage of it as well.

The HDR option is there, but the lighting, sky maps, env_cubemaps, etc...
haven't been changed. It would take one artist about 100 days to go through and
update everything, so we're waiting for someone to free up to go back and do
that.

Kathy, can you help Helena out on the poster?

When you think about games you think about long-term and short-term at the same
time. For example super long-term we know that people will have direct neural
connections to games (e.g. the electronic vision systems have gone from 16
pixels to 3200 pixels in pretty short order). However we don't know even
vaguely when this will happen (standard deviation of 10 years). We also can't
really think of ways that this fact changes what we are actually doing as there
aren't any long lead-time pieces of work we would need to do to be ready for
this.

That's an extreme case, intended to illustrate the kind of probabilistic
thinking you do at a game company. Other examples are you assume the steady,
rapid growth in graphics performance and functionality (easy to plan for), and
you know that software is going to have to transition at some point to
multi-threaded execution (hard to plan for).

Gabe

 

[jheaddon]

From Robin Walker:

-----

Our work on XBox HL2 has involved streaming a lot of our content (It streams everything except entity & brush data). Our plan is to move most of that code back over to the PC version so that everyone can take advantage of this. We don't have a timeframe for that yet, so I wouldn't rely on that happening for you to succeed in your own projects.

-----

Asked about passive-progressive map loading for seamless (or near seamless) level transitions on the Source engine. Good news i guess for the future!

 

[A.I.]

That's my #1 feature.


-----Original Message-----
From: UnGooglable[mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 1:32 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: For Steam III

What about setting your settings like nickname, keyboard controls etc.
in the Steam itself instead setting up things in every game again and
again. Would come handy wouldn't it?

Cheers,
xxxxxxxx

 

[MoD]

Tf2™

Exciting news for me!

From: Tzafrir Rehan [mailto:*******]
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2005 3:28 PM
To: Robin Walker
Subject: Commentary in Lost Coast


Dear Robin, hello.

I've played through the Lost Coast with commentary enabled, and was quite thrilled to hear your voice speaking, as you co-designed the best (and first) teamplay-multiplayer game, Team Fortress, it's half-life port, TFC, I play for some years.

I must say I was shocked when I heard you go all about the technical stuff... "Shouldn't this guy be busy making TF2"?

It's been so long now... And Gabe promised new information after half life 2's release!!!

Well, it's been out for some while now, hasn't it?

Please - We Are Waiting...

--
Tzafrir Rehan,

a.k.a. MoD.

Fear not, TF news is coming. Sorry for the silence, but as you can see from all the stuff we're releasing these days, we've been busy on other things, all of which needed to be wrapped up first for various reasons.

Robin.

 

[CrazyHarij]

Don't post any unanswered questions in here, only e-mails with answers from Valve are allowed.

 

[diluted]

Day of Defeat: Source retail

I emailed Doug Lombardi about a DoD:S standalone retail version, and this is what he responded with..

My e-mail:

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff [mailto:nospam@nospam]
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 2:23 PM
To: Doug Lombardi
Subject: Day of Defeat: Source retail packages?

Hello Doug,
I was wondering if you could tell me if there are plans to release Day
of Defeat: Source as a standalone retail package, and if so, when this
might happen. Currently, all I can find in the stores is DoD:S bundled
with CS:S, but I already own CS:S so I don't really want to purchase it
again just to get DoD:S. I would purchase it through Steam but can't due
to lack of a credit card.
Thanks in advance!

Jeff

His response:

Hi,

Yes. A stand alone retail version is coming in early February for about
$20.

Cheers

 

[RP.]

CS:S future models

Originally posted by BooTs
Opinions About The Leet Krew Model
I know they have not made it yet but they eventually will. My question to all of you is which model do you want them to remake: the old 1.5 one with the green shirt, tan pants, and shades. Or the 1.6 version which was an Arabian person. In my opinion i hope they make the 1.5 version. What do you think?

Originally posted by cliffe
It'll be the 1.5 version (non-CZ version).

Cliffe
VALVe

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=381817&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

 

[Maxey]

Neat tiny bits of info coming up!

Me:
Hi Yahn,

I was wondering if it would be possible to have a loadless single-player game on the Source engine and still use BSP mapping.
Maybe in thoery you could split the BSP files into tiny bits and have them load dinamically - forward and backwards - on fly in-game. Is that even possible?

Anyway this leads to another question, are you guys thinking on a way of getting rid of mid-game loadings for once on future builds of the Source engine? I think that would be great and lead to an even bigger immersion on future Valve games.

Cumpliments,

Luis Demétrio

Yahn:
Not possible because the loading code is hidden inside the engine and not exposed to MODs. There is work that should alleviate load times and make the engine more streamable. That'll come out over time as we continue to work on the engine.

Yahn

Me:
wow, I wasn't expecting the response to come so fast!

I wasn't referring to mods but about the engine and BSP mapping by themselves. AFAIK I think it isn't really posible to use dynamic stream level loading with BSP, but nevertheless I was wondering if it was still possible using some tricks on a given engine.

I was also wondering if you guys are planning on using real-time dynamic shadows on future incarnations of the engine. As hardware keeps getting more and more powerfull as time goes by, it shouldn't be impossible to make a full scale soft shadowed game.

Yahn:
We do plan on improving the shadows at some point.

Yahn

Yay!

 

[RP.]

SourceTV

In an email forwarded to GotFrag, Valve reveals an update is in the works for Source TV to be released soon.

We have some SourceTV changes in the pipe, they will hopefully ship around Episode One's release. - Alfred Reynolds, Valve Software

Update: GotFrag has recieved the following response directly from Valve;

yes, SourceTV will be updated soon. beside a bunch of bug fixes it will include first person views. - Martin Otten - Valve Software

Big thanks to Martin Otten and Alfred Reynolds of Valve Software for the replies.

This was posted on CSnation.net, and I didn't found the original new post on GotFrag.

 

[RP.]

Me:

Hi Alfred!
Are people who have only HL2 will be able to play on "Episode 1" based mods and vice versa?
I really hope it'll be like it (altough that for me it won't matter as I already own HL2 and will sure buy EP1 when it's out), since if it won't be like it, it'll devide the mod community into 2.
-----
One small question, is there a plan to update TFC in the future?
see the VERY BIG bug list in the TFC forum, would be nice if some of those where fixed.
-----
Thanks in advance, and keep it up!

Alfred:

You will need to own Episode 1 to use its content initially. If you
purchase just EP1 you will still have access to the base HL2 content, so
they will be able to play HL2 mods. HL2 owners will need to also own EP1
to play EP1 based mods.

We have no TFC updates in the pipe right now.

- Alfred

 

[Barney_Calhoun]

I recently emailed Gabe, congratulating Valve on EP1 and asking them to put some Team Fortress merch in the store... this is the reply:

Well, what I'd really like to put in the store is TF2 itself...

Thanks for the mail, Ben.

Gabe

\o/

 

[Dr. Freeman]

i emailed Gabe about the headcrabs being sold out and when people can expect the Valve store's supplies to be replenished.
Jason Holtman is the person taking care of that and this was his response:

Thanks. There will be more. Will take a bit of time and the headcrab may have friends as well.



Jason Holtman

so the ever popular houndeye might be available? probably not since it all seems to be based on Half Life2 and onwards but i suppose ya never know.
Antlion, Strider or Dog anyone? :cheese:

 

[Sloth]

Just wondering - is anybody still asking many questions of valve?
Or are they just not posting much?

 

[FISKER_Q]

Well i can post this answer i got regarding the TF2 Group shot, also wrote this in the news story.

In-game.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas Larsen [mailto:x]
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 10:48 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: Team Fortress 2 Group Shot


Hey Gabe,

The shot you provided in your earlier press release was that an ingame shot, or a render?

Thomas Larsen