Valve Week at 1UP.com -- Day Five

Sui

Sui

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This is it. VALVe week has finished. 1UP.com has finally released every last snippet of information that they were holding onto. But don’t be disappointed; they’ve left the best until last! Head over to 1UP.com and you can watch an exclusive interview with Gabe Newell, the managing director of VALVe software, and he certainly has a lot to say.

It's not everyday that the man most responsible for the creation of Valve Software decides to speak to the public about what's on his mind; when Gabe Newell speaks, we listen! Even more rarely does such a respected member of the game development community speak so candidly about the state of the industry, or in this case, its future. Why is Mr. Newell so frustrated about the next generation of videogaming? Check out our exclusive two-part video interview with the man behind Half-Life and see for yourself!
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[br]If you feel like downloading the videos rather than streaming them from 1UP, click here to go to their downloads page.
 
the interviews were very informative. I liked hearing Newell's opinion on next-gen consoles, hardware and software environments. His insight into how games and gaming as an aspect should be for the customer is clear and in my opinion brilliant. He brings into words why Steam is the future, and I support that opinion. He gives us the developer's point of view on Microsoft's Vista, on the 360, playstation, but also on the issues with display drivers. The interview is hitting the nail on it's head. I think this video should be shown to any gamer out there. Just because it gives insight on how bad hardware and software manufacturers are dealing with gaming and game developers.

A must see video.
 
yeah already got the links. just notifying the mods ;)
 
Link should be working now.

Oh, and WoW ftw \o/
 
Very interesting, this gives us Valve's future strategy for Steam.

I like how he's got a can of Diet Pepsi in front of him. ;)
 
WoW ftw ? What does 'ftw' mean ? and don't tell me that is what you think is most important on everything Gabe said :p
 
I said "WoW for the win", because it's a great game, and I've almost got my Undead rogue to level 60 ;)

It probably is the most important thing he said, as well... but it wasn't the fact that he likes WoW, it was the example of customer and developer communication that is important. Basically, Steam and MMOs are the future, not graphically obsessed console producers.
 
Were running Steam 2 and 3 at the same time? Nice
 
Great interview, great news post Sui :)
 
Gabe really doesn't like the PS3 does he? Looks like we're unlikely to see any Valve games on one soon...

Also, sounds like they're serious about actually getting Friends to work. Can't wait.
 
Can someone sum up that two videos, pls ???
 
I like the ideas they have on source impruvments....
Not all are possible but terrain lods (brushlods are a very nice idea)
 
Going on what Gabe said sony is really trying to makes it's games unportable in order to drive up sales. I really hope this bites them in the arse.
 
The reason we probably won't see any VALVe games on the PS3 is because of what Gabe said. While it is the strongest next gen console, it's also completely different. Now, I don't know these technical terms, but simply put, VALVe wouls have to, if they wanted to have a game or gameengine ported to the PS3, rewrite every line of code, and on top of that, it's apparently the most problematic code to write. From what I hear, that was a problem with the PS2 as well, that there was no easy way to program for it..

But I've got a couple of things to say about the interviews and what was shown. DoDS looks awesome! The smoke and the soldier running through, it's all looking really neat. And as for Gabe himself, I've never seen him in an interview before, and it's really noticable that he knows what he's talking about, and he has such a vision for the future. It's kinda like the Jason Rubin 2004 DICE thing, the two movies just made me go warm and fuzzy inside...
 
DoD : S looks awesome, but did i spot iron sights on the garand? im thinking some of the hardcore DoD players might not be happy..
 
The intro is great :p

"Has Uwe Boll approached you for making a HL movie?" :D
 
Insane said:
The intro is great :p

"Has Uwe Boll approached you for making a HL movie?" :D
Click to expand...

haha I laughed at that :LOL:
 
blinking halo said:
DoD : S looks awesome, but did i spot iron sights on the garand? im thinking some of the hardcore DoD players might not be happy..
Click to expand...
I spotted a rifle grenade in that video... aneyone play wolf:et?
hehehe. real physics rifle grenades, im going to be such a hoe.

Anyways as a rebuttal to gabes concern to the ps3...
Im sure companies like EA:Sports will have the muscle to push through multithreading programming, and it will only make games more technologically extreem and graphically advanced.
Think about it, now you can use tonns of processing power to really make the football look real, the stadium audience can be more detailed than ever before!
Now game developers can concentrate on putting even more detail in thier game that... one would no longer need a good story or community to hold the gammer in.

anyways i find the image based rendering pretty interesting.
I mean, in a gamming industry that is trying to make games ever, more dynamic, here we get something that will add staticness to the game, instead of making more polygons we will get rid of all of them. Remember the old days of 2d scrollers with static backgrounds, aneyone play FF7? they places 3d animation on top of a 2d background and used simple animations to make up the rest of the scene. You make up as much of the environment as you need in 3d... but everything else that will remain static you don't render, people have been pushing soo much stuff through the 3d rendere that it is a wonder no one thought of conserving power by not forcing un-interactable things in the distance into it. We have pushed static 2d graphics as far away as possible, and it will be interesting how it will come back in this new form.
 
Like some others have said..... looks like Valve don't like PS3 very much, lol

Can't say I'm nuts about the idea of episodic games either.
 
§amW said:
Anyways as a rebuttal to gabes concern to the ps3...
Im sure companies like EA:Sports will have the muscle to push through multithreading programming, and it will only make games more technologically extreem and graphically advanced.
Think about it, now you can use tonns of processing power to really make the football look real, the stadium audience can be more detailed than ever before!
Now game developers can concentrate on putting even more detail in thier game that... one would no longer need a good story or community to hold the gammer in.
Click to expand...
Any company has the capability to program on the PS3, but what they don't have is the time and resources to do it. Yes it has a lot of power and can achieve great things and this is where the problem lies. To create something with such detail requires a lot of time, something that most companies can't afford. EA probably has enough money to experiment with the technology but who wants to see only sports games using the latest tech?
I am strongly against sacrificing "good story and community" in favour of detail. What I want to see is cinematic gaming, working like a masterpiece. Think about films. You have the big blockbuster movies that cost millions of dollars and then you have the quiet achievers that make a fantastic film from what they already have. This is where I want to see gaming headed.
Do you really want to see NFL 2006, 2007, 2008...all the same rehashes except with more complex grass each time? Gaming has to evolve using current techniques, not just pumping more juice in to the processor.
 
hi_ted said:
Any company has the capability to program on the PS3, but what they don't have is the time and resources to do it. Yes it has a lot of power and can achieve great things and this is where the problem lies. To create something with such detail requires a lot of time, something that most companies can't afford. EA probably has enough money to experiment with the technology but who wants to see only sports games using the latest tech?
Click to expand...

That's true with modern console / PC games, but what Gabe is saying is that it's incredibly hard to port games to and from the PS3, because the code is so very different. It's also incredibly hard to create, meaning that just "any company" can't program on the PS3.

hi_ted said:
I am strongly against sacrificing "good story and community" in favour of detail. What I want to see is cinematic gaming, working like a masterpiece. Think about films. You have the big blockbuster movies that cost millions of dollars and then you have the quiet achievers that make a fantastic film from what they already have. This is where I want to see gaming headed.
Do you really want to see NFL 2006, 2007, 2008...all the same rehashes except with more complex grass each time? Gaming has to evolve using current techniques, not just pumping more juice in to the processor.
Click to expand...

Heh... get with the times! :p HL2 has already done that, EPISODIC GAMING is the future!
*flies off into the sky like superman*
 
Now we really know what hype were the next-gen consoles. Pfffft, multi-threaded coding in my ass :rolleyes:
 
So what he's saying is, they're unfamiliar with the architecture & y'all think he's wholely justified in his criticism. He's just dejected because he wants to push more units with the least amount of effort & expenditure.

He has no argument, we're talking completely different platforms here, he's still thinking inside the (PC) box.

Hm, as a side note: Is it just me, or did Newell look a little like a hoarey Colonel Kurtz in that lighting?
 
atakgrbl said:
So what he's saying is, they're unfamiliar with the architecture & y'all think he's wholely justified in his criticism. He's just dejected because he wants to push more units with the least amount of effort & expenditure.
Click to expand...
If he's right about if 1 part of the code is wrong that it brings the whole game to a hault and that debugging it alot more difficult, then I think it's pretty justified.
 
Yeah I saw iron sights too (someone else posted that they did).

CoD anybody? I think it'll actually be cooler that way, but we'll see how it goes.
 
WhiteZero said:
If he's right about if 1 part of the code is wrong that it brings the whole game to a hault and that debugging it alot more difficult, then I think it's pretty justified.
Click to expand...

Exactly. You can just tell by watching Gabe speak that he knows his stuff.
 
WhiteZero said:
If he's right about if 1 part of the code is wrong that it brings the whole game to a hault and that debugging it alot more difficult, then I think it's pretty justified.
Click to expand...

I'll give you that, pretty decent justification. Although, it still circles back to familiarity of the architecture & such. Which was my initial argument about his argument.

It's good to hear Valve's opinions, nonetheless.

A side note to my side note: hoary*

edit: Also, I don't believe Source was initially produced to be especially portable, don't recall that being a selling point. Feel free to argue that, but if it was it hasn't been hyped quite to the level of, let's say RenderWare.
 
atakgrbl said:
So what he's saying is, they're unfamiliar with the architecture & y'all think he's wholely justified in his criticism. He's just dejected because he wants to push more units with the least amount of effort & expenditure.

He has no argument, we're talking completely different platforms here, he's still thinking inside the (PC) box.
Click to expand...

The guy did work for microsoft before he did start valve so that is the reason.
 
atakgrbl said:
So what he's saying is, they're unfamiliar with the architecture & y'all think he's wholely justified in his criticism. He's just dejected because he wants to push more units with the least amount of effort & expenditure.

He has no argument, we're talking completely different platforms here, he's still thinking inside the (PC) box.

Hm, as a side note: Is it just me, or did Newell look a little like a hoarey Colonel Kurtz in that lighting?
Click to expand...

I must disagree. Games are a big business. It is odd that Microsoft and console developers are not very helpfull towards developers. He has a very strong argument here. Now I am a person who has absolutely nothing with consoles, and I have been dreaming of episodic content with games. I am anti-console and have been for ages. The whole 'console-wars' is nothing more than beating money out of (young) consumers - in my eyes. That makes me a very strong fan of Valve and Steam. Now, there is simething to be said about consoles wanting exclusive games for their platform. But why make it so hard for developers to get the same content out on different platforms? It takes massive amounts of extra work that really is not necaserry.

Microsoft and Sony should take Valve's example: if they would give the same support to developers as Valve gives to mod-makers... things would be ideal.
 
i don't get gabes complaints. its like if he doesn;t get it, it can't happen. sony made ps, and ps2, they knwo what they hell theyre doing, more innovation came on those to systems then gabe ever made. now with the ps3, its even more.
valve didn't invent havoc, they didn't invent the q1 engine. they did source, and it handles facial animations great, which means more blend shapes and higher polycounts, but they never got beyond the tiny levels so you still have to load for 30 secs every 5 mins, very distracting.

don't worry about the ps3, it will work, he may not understand it, but it will work. About steam being the future, maybe for pc, but i seriously doubt that steam will be the microsoft of the future, owning 90% of game distribution over the internet. steam as it is now sucks, and i hate it, more hasle then anything, i would rather have a cd ,and download updates every 2 months then start my game and have to wait 30 mins to play it as steam updates. but this next version might be fixed, and i hope they update their sdk.

episodic games, well i don't have to buy them, prolly won't, can't stand giving my cc over the net unless absolutly necissary
 
Geronimous:

I find myself agreeing with most of that; excepting episodic content, which I find nearly as shady as the console porting business.

As to support, I really can't debate that issue fairly. Sony released a lovely Linux "hobby kit" for the PS2 & had quite a supportive semi-official community as I recall. I do hope their support for developers is similar yet more involved; atleast more verbose in their documentation.

I'll shush on this topic now, I really have no bones against Valve in general. They're shaking things up & only getting better with age.
 
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