The Valve Developer Community

[Azlan]

Today, Erik Johnson announced a large project they have been working on for awhile, namely, the Valve Developer Community. [br]</br>
He made a post on HLCoders:

We've reworked our existing Source engine SDK documentation into a Wiki, which means that virtually all of the content can be edited by anyone with a web browser and useful information to share. We hope that this is an efficient and useful tool that the MOD community can use to share information on building a game using Source. The open nature of a Wiki raises some obvious concerns about what kind of content is contributed to the site, from worries about vandalism to honest inaccuracy and mistakes. There will be the occasional disruptive person, but the site provides methods for dealing with this.
[br]</br>
This is not Valve's site, this is the MOD community's site -- we've just helped out by jump-starting it for you. The new site should be treated like this mailing list -- as a place where you as developers can share information about how to make games using the Source engine. It should also a place where a number of people at Valve contribute fairly regularly, with the plan being to make it the most information-rich place on the Internet to learn about making a game using Source. [br]</br>

The site currently contains all of the SDK documentation ported over to the Wiki format, but this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the content that is useful for developers to know when it comes to building games using Source. Everyone should feel free to go in and make any corrections or additions they think are appropriate.

To join the Valve Developer Community, simply go here and register.

 

[Jeremy]

tis about time. only so much they can cover themselves

 

[Dr. Freeman]

hopefully this leads to better built mods and more creative ideas being used as well

 

[zodiak]

So basically there just copying hl2world who all ready has a wiki for half life 2 editing.

 

[Morganhahaha]

the hl2world wiki leaves out a lot of details in some of its tutorials, so I certainly hope thats not the case

 

[Physicles]

I hope those who posted on other wikis and other tutorial sites will repost their content to this official one. I can't wait to see it grow.

But there's something very unsettling about this. In Valve's absence, the community moved to fill in what was lacking -- in this case, with an SDK wiki and with numerous tutorial sites. Then, over six months after the SDK release, Valve releases the official wiki, seemingly ignorant of the wealth of information the community has already assembled.

So, many people worked many hours to meet a perceived need that Valve had intended to meet all along. Recall that this happened with HL2DM itself as well. Is Valve really in touch with the community? Please, Valve: tell us when you're working on something that will compete with or supercede a similar offering in the community.

 

[Varsity]

That is totally hot. Has anyone noticed the new stats page? HL1 (or should I say CS 1.6) really does dwarf Source.

 

[Insano]

That is totally hot. Has anyone noticed the new stats page? HL1 (or should I say CS 1.6) really does dwarf Source.

That's all going to change when people get better computers, they can run HL2 better and when some really popular Source mods are going to be released.

 

[MjM]

That is totally hot. Has anyone noticed the new stats page? HL1 (or should I say CS 1.6) really does dwarf Source.

Do they actually count CS 1.6 as third party? Thats a stretch of the term isnt it? The CS(1.6/:S) stats can be found on the other page they have.

Considering there are no 'big' mods on Source yet, i think those stats are really positive.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Interesting development....

 

[Dr. Shim]

Woo! [Begins to scream and howl like a drunk.]
This is wonderful news. I'm wanting to make games using Source, and this Wiki will surely help!
[Howls again.]

 

[Varsity]

Do they actually count CS 1.6 as third party? Thats a stretch of the term isnt it? The CS(1.6/:S) stats can be found on the other page they have.

Considering there are no 'big' mods on Source yet, i think those stats are really positive.

Good point.

 

[Sharrd]

I hope those who posted on other wikis and other tutorial sites will repost their content to this official one. I can't wait to see it grow.

But there's something very unsettling about this. In Valve's absence, the community moved to fill in what was lacking -- in this case, with an SDK wiki and with numerous tutorial sites. Then, over six months after the SDK release, Valve releases the official wiki, seemingly ignorant of the wealth of information the community has already assembled.

So, many people worked many hours to meet a perceived need that Valve had intended to meet all along. Recall that this happened with HL2DM itself as well. Is Valve really in touch with the community? Please, Valve: tell us when you're working on something that will compete with or supercede a similar offering in the community.

If they had it planned all the time then yeah, not saying anything about it was stupid. What I think happened, though, is that that they saw all the things the community put together in an attempt to make Source editing easier and thought that having an "official" site everyone will know about would help putting all that info in the same place. I'm sure there are alot of sites with the same information about Source editing up.

 

[Varsity]

Dammit, I'm addicted already.

 

[^Ben]

They probably had the idea already, because on the hlcoders list around the time the SDK was coming out we had a massive discussion about this.

 

[Ames]

Interesting. I'll go play around with this for a while.

 

[Geogriffith]

Damn, I'm really going to lose a lot of time to this thing. But I guess typing is a little better than gaming, right?

 

[Barking_Mad]

about time...

Its about time we had a cetral wiki that we can all contribute too, its a shame that theres no new documentation in there though.

Good stuff.