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What do you all make of this?
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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by G4MER on Wed Dec 21st at 8:44pm 2011

http://www.black-aperture.com/



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by omegaslayer on Thu Dec 22nd at 5:59am 2011

The day the internet stood still...

Edit: also nice find. I don't know if this is a spoof, or we're finally getting something from valve...


Posting And You



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Riven on Fri Dec 23rd at 11:55pm 2011

Is that domain registered through Valve?


Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Crono on Sat Dec 24th at 1:13am 2011

No, it's not legitimate. If it is, Valve went through great expense (but then didn't pay the $8 fee :P)

You can get some more information from a whois and iptrace: http://pastebin.com/gD47Xiq4 http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/sg2nlhg96c1096.shr.prod.sin2.secureserver.net

Pretty sure Valve isn't in Singapore :P


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by sgtfly on Sat Dec 24th at 5:07am 2011

It's fake definately. I don't believe it's even in development at this time.


Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Flynn on Sat Dec 24th at 9:20am 2011

This is what bought me rushing back smiley


Just Kidding

Just Kidding



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Riven on Sat Dec 24th at 5:40pm 2011

*Fonzie:* Ayeeeee...


Been about what, since August we last heard from ya?


This would certainly be good cause to come rushing back indeed, but alas, false alarm. You may return to your rock now. lol smiley smiley


Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Le Chief on Sun Dec 25th at 11:54pm 2011

The falling lambda background looks fake.


Aaron's Stuff



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by sgtfly on Fri Dec 30th at 2:30pm 2011

IMHO I think we'll need to see a Source 2 engine first.


Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Crono on Fri Dec 30th at 8:29pm 2011

We probably won't. The Source engine is very scalable, as it is ... and all that'd be holding it back from expansive open environments is the level data structure and renderer ... which is hardly the bulk of a game engine.

Considering they change the renderer all the time ... that part is covered ... and Valve has been pretty clever when it comes to handling the ancient BSP structure for levels.

I think as it stands, the Source engine isn't necessarily holding them back from making an HL3 (or finishing HL2EP2). Which, I imagine would be a big requirement for developing a brand new engine (something they've said they explicitly aren't going to do)

Iterating technology is usually better than scrapping it and starting over. There's a wealth of great tech in Source engine, it'd be silly to trash it just so you can call something Source 2 or something.

Not to mention I doubt they're going to invest that same kind of money they did to make Source again. I don't think their middleware is really supporting the company, their game sames and steam is. So it wouldn't make financial sense to start over either. You know, Source engine isn't as prevalent as Unreal Engine, CryEngine, Criware, Gamebryo, etc. There's not really a big incentive to blow millions on building a new engine.

The only downside is ... if Steam is any indication, Valve does not build things modularity ... which is a very bad idea. (requires specific implementations per platform and configuration)


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by sgtfly on Sat Dec 31st at 2:49am 2011

Uhmm....I'll get back to you on this.


Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Riven on Sat Dec 31st at 4:24am 2011

Quoting Crono
The only downside is ... if Steam is any indication, Valve does not build things modularity ... which is a very bad idea. (requires specific implementations per platform and configuration)


True, they aren't very modular in that sense, and I think Unreal is much more prevalent due to it's ease of use. Source is mod friendly, but not like Unreal. I think because ID goes above and beyond to make the engine developer-friendly; they have a large department dedicated to dealing with licensing and developer support. Source, while having a large modding community, is very much proprietary and only explicitly updated for specific game title demands.

Until the day Valve decides licensing should be their new market venture, I don't think we're going to see any amazing new tools crop up en masse for the Source SDK. They did that for Steam for paying developers, but of course, those tools aren't making games, just selling them better.

I see the Source engine being updated for a while yet. I'm still impressed with what they've been able to do with a BSP engine, so I have no worries, they can make it stand up to the demands of next generation games.

Are their any other recent/modern main-stream (not indie) game engines still using BSP?

[EDIT]: I googled for it, and found the Torque game engine?




Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Crono on Sat Dec 31st at 6:31am 2011

Brink and Prey 2 are running on the idTech 4 engine so they're still using BSP. Prey 2 isn't even out yet.

Oh yeah Torque.

I think a lot of engines support BSP, they just allow you to choose your datastructure.

Yeah, Unreal Tech is more prevalent because they license the shit out of it :P People don't really license the Source engine. I mean, honestly, as a developer why would you choose Source over Unreal Engine or CryEngine? They all cost about the same, but the others offer significantly advanced tools for game creation and analysis.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by sgtfly on Mon Jan 2nd at 2:38pm 2012

This is my opinion.
I stick by my guns here, I don't think we'll see it until a Source 2 comes out. Whether it's a completely new engine or a heavily modified Source engine with a new name slapped on it.
I believe Valve knows the Source engine is reaching the end of it's capabilities and it would be very shortsighted of them to not develop a new engine for future games. I don't believe they are not doing that.
Don't get mad, but I think it's naive to think with all their resources that they couldn't build a new engine and still keep most of their SDK and file formats basically intact. I think it would entail mostly new facial animation, physics and improved graphic features, and probably updated to use Directx 11.
I don't think they would hesitate to pull the trigger and do this. Considering the fact they've done well with all their other projects they can take their time and do this right.
As we all know Valve is usually never in a hurry to rush things out before they're ready.







Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Crono on Mon Jan 2nd at 7:01pm 2012

It's a 200 person company ... not exactly a power house in engine development. It's unlikely that they could juggle a new engine, a couple games, and support for all their existing games, as well as steam with only 200 people (which is their current tally of employees)

I think it's a little misunderstood what it means to build a new engine. Or even what a game engine does.

It's perfectly possible, for example, to build a renderer that uses DX11 (GROSS!) on the Source engine. There's not really anything to stop that. Enhancing the physics and facial animation systems (which they have done also) is also perfectly possible.

It just doesn't make sense to continually create new engines unless A) you license them and/or B) they are fundamentally different.

For example, there's no way id could have made Rage on idtech 4. The closest they got was trying megatextures out in Quake Wars. But, overall, the data streaming systems, and other tech that they built for idtech 5 wouldn't have worked. (They're complex subsystems, not things you can explicitly point out in game)

With that being said, it's going to be less likely for studios like Valve to start making more engines ... they're going to want to do this as least as possible because it's very expensive. It's cheaper and more efficient (engine wise) to develop something that can be extended and changed.

There are plenty of engines out there that do not have various numberings and have been modified for about ten years (Chrome Engine) it's perfectly possible to do and doesn't lead to the type of restriction you're talking about.

There's already iterations of the source engine out with these types of changes, (i.e. Source, EP1, EP2, Portal 2 iterations are all different) It's strange to suddenly assume they'll trash all of that. :P

Now, I'm not saying valve will never make a new engine ... but the wait for these games has already been ridiculous, and the last time they made an engine they went dormant for 5 years. In this game society now ... which is different than ten years ago, they wouldn't be able to do that. And they probably don't want to. So, I really doubt that, even if they're designing some new tech (which they always are), that they're going to halt anything for it ... In any case, even if they do that, they'd probably pump HL2EP3 out before it to alleviate the wait :P


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by sgtfly on Mon Jan 2nd at 9:24pm 2012

You just said it, they did develop Source several years ago and made HL2 and the episodes and several games since. Didn't hurt them in any way then, quite the opposite.

Now with the advent of Steam, that I'm sure has become more profitable or equally as to the games they make. They could easily add more people(if needed)to design and implement Source 2 with out so much as a hiccup. Besides if Source is any measure I'm sure they would use the new one for just as long a period as they have now.

Why can't Valve do it if id can or Epic. For most indie game studios out there it's much easier to license and build on someone else's engine and tech, because they don't have the resources of a Valve or id or Epic.

Also just because you only have 200(it's actually around 260) employee's doesn't mean a thing. What did 3drealms have for years maybe 30 at most? They changed or modified how many times before they went broke and still almost made it. I'm pretty sure Valve is one the bigger stucios employee wise that there is. Also with rumored revenues of around 80 million a year profit in the opinion of a lot of people, money wouldn't be the issue.


That said I don't see how it would be any problem for them. I believe they don't feel the need to do things the way everyone else does, and they don't.

As far as licensing it, they do that already with Source engine so that's a moot point.


Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Crono on Mon Jan 2nd at 11:27pm 2012

We're talking about the same company, right? The same one that almost constantly says they can only do so many projects at once because of their small company size, that's why there's no Linux version of steam. Or HL2EP3 yet?

200 or 260 people, is still not enough to develop multiple games, a distribution client, retroactive support, AND develop brand new tech at 100%. I mean you can say 260 people is a lot, but realistically the man hours required to build tech is substantially large compared to the value it provides.

I'm just going by what they've said. And they've pretty much said they're not making another engine for the foreseeable future. It's in various interview videos around the net.

But to be clear ... they don't HAVE to make a new engine. I mean, they really don't. The tech in Source is not bad. Sure it needs to be iterated upon, and maybe altered in various aspects ... but as for starting over ... there's not really a reason to do it. And to be clear, a renderer is NOT a game engine (I see this confusion a lot, and it's just not accurate)

About Epic, they're a middleware company. Sure, they make games too, but it's not their primary income. They didn't make Unreal Engine so that they could make the Unreal game, they made the Unreal game to sell the Unreal Engine.

Id is primarily ran by a guy who only cares about doing cool new stuff in the graphics space and efficiency ... so of course they're going to have new tech all the time.

There's a pretty big philosophical difference between making tech to support your games (valve) and making games to support your tech (epic) and their development strategies are entirely different as a result. I'm not saying valve won't make new tech (obviously they're constantly iterating on source engine) but it just doesn't make sense right now. I mean, the source engine isn't done with its lifespan yet, Portal 2, for example was one of the best looking games last year, which was largely do to a new renderer. And all I'm saying is, Valve isn't going to make an entirely new engine until they have to ... and I don't think they have to yet.

We'll see what happens after DOTA2 and stuff comes out.

The only thing I could imagine them doing is re-labeling source engine after changing the level structures ... which wouldn't actually be a new engine, but purely a way to differentiate assets. But that's NOT the same as building a new engine.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by sgtfly on Tue Jan 3rd at 1:43am 2012

Nuff said.


Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Orpheus on Tue Jan 3rd at 3:16pm 2012

I've only been marginally following this discussion but it seems to me that its a bit premature to think that the source engine has reached its limits.
They said the same thing 3 or 4 years before HL1 actually started to show signs of reaching the end of its lifespan. The level editors like us extended the HL1 engine years after it was deemed a dead horse. It seems to me that if us rookies can extend an engine, cannot the pro's do likewise?

Anywho's, maybe you guys covered this point I dunno.

Also, the only limits I see with source is the lack of user usability. I don't see near as many mods as there were with HL1. Of course, I haven't been looking all that hard.

/useless jibbering.



The best things in life, aren't things.



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 Re: What do you all make of this?
Posted by Orpheus on Tue Jan 3rd at 9:31pm 2012

Slightly on topic. You guys should talk to Rabid Monkey. (Spencer Rose)
He is currently making a new game with the source engine out of Denver.
He has some informed opinions about Source.

Or

You could just ignore my post. Either way, Spencer is a good guy. He will talk to you if you ask.



The best things in life, aren't things.




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