Valve in the Community

One of the things I really like about Valve is their personal involvement in the community, namely responding to emails and comments from the community themselves.

I've talked to people and heard stories of the Valve team reviewing people's maps, responding to level design questions, responding to 'how can I get a job in the games industry' questions and much more.

I think that's really cool and humbling and I don't know of any other studio, big or small that has this level of involvement within the community.

So has anybody here had a Valve employee respond to a question or comment of theirs?

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Aaron's Stuff

It's the main ideology behind what makes them so successful.

But, no, and I've never asked.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Not me, but I have heard good things before.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yeah I would suspect that the employees are encouraged/obligated to respond personally to the community because it cant be a coincidence that several Valve employees have responded to numerous questions and comments from the community.

And I apperciate that they do that even though I've never sent Valve any emails or anything.

Warning rant:

They're not perfect though. Their "surprise" they did last year was considered overly hyped up by many people (including me) and it still doesn't make up for the fact that their intention for episodic content completely failed and we still haven't seen Half-Life 2 Episode 3 after four years, yet they are capable of releasing a Left 4 Dead sequel a year after the original release which created a bit of angry noise amongst the community.

As a result of this, I think the expectations for Episode 3 are quite high and I hope they deliver otherwise I'll be a bit disappointed and I say this as a fan of the Half-Life series.

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Aaron's Stuff

Hey Aaron, we have a rant thread now. Try to post rants there next time.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'm pretty sure Turtle Rock Studios is responsible for Left 4 Dead. And considering they're in California and not Washington along with valve, they're pretty much a secluded self sustained studio who is owned by Valve.

So it would make sense for them to have their own product.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

My story:

Back when I was tweaking the map compiler code I had a question about it, and I emailed gabe about it. About 1 day later I got an email from someone named Yahn, who was a primary architect in valves version of the BSP file, and he answered my questions.

Later on that year I was at the GDC presenting Eternal Silence (Halfe Life 2 Mod) at the IGF (because we won a contest), and Yahn and someone else stopped by to have a look at our game. It was kinda a cool circle. I got both their business cards and they're still sitting at home in my GDC bag (Valve had the most abstract business cards i've seen yet).

Le Chief said:
Warning rant:

They're not perfect though. Their "surprise" they did last year was considered overly hyped up by many people (including me) and it still doesn't make up for the fact that their intention for episodic content completely failed and we still haven't seen Half-Life 2 Episode 3 after four years, yet they are capable of releasing a Left 4 Dead sequel a year after the original release which created a bit of angry noise amongst the community.

As a result of this, I think the expectations for Episode 3 are quite high and I hope they deliver otherwise I'll be a bit disappointed and I say this as a fan of the Half-Life series.

People wanted CS2 and Portal 2 first. Gabe encouraged people to email him about which games they want to see next when L4D2 was coming out, and I guess they were following what the people wanted: Portal 2.

Yeah I agree their surprises have been lacking a bit lately. I mean it was cool about Alien Swarm, but yes we wanted E3.

Screw that, I'm counting down the hours until Portal 2.

Considering Portal 1 excited me almost as much as a dog turd in the neighbors yard 3 houses away, you can imagine my excitement about portal 2.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

"omegaslayer" said:
Back when I was tweaking the map compiler code I had a question about it, and I emailed gabe about it. About 1 day later I got an email from someone named Yahn, who was a primary architect in valves version of the BSP file, and he answered my questions.

Later on that year I was at the GDC presenting Eternal Silence (Halfe Life 2 Mod) at the IGF (because we won a contest), and Yahn and someone else stopped by to have a look at our game. It was kinda a cool circle. I got both their business cards and they're still sitting at home in my GDC bag (Valve had the most abstract business cards i've seen yet).

Wow nice. I'm going to the Australian equivalent of one of those conferences later this year, doubt anybody well known is going to be there.

There seems to be a lot of noise for Portal 2 on the internet. I must be one of the few people who would rather see HL2:Ep3 before Portal 2.

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Aaron's Stuff

What's wrong with you people???

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http://maze5.net

mazemaster said:
What's wrong with you people???

Everyone spoiled the shit out of Portal the week it came out. I knew every detail of the game before I ever played it. And even thought I love the game ... it severely diminished my enjoyment of it.

No amount of information avoiding was possible, people just blurted it out without warning and at every opportunity.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

You clearly should have bought it sooner. Don't make the same mistake twice.

Le Chief said:
Wow nice. I'm going to the Australian equivalent of one of those conferences later this year, doubt anybody well known is going to be there.

There seems to be a lot of noise for Portal 2 on the internet. I must be one of the few people who would rather see HL2:Ep3 before Portal 2.

Is it the actual GDC? Because I know they go to china, texas, san francisco, and one wild card.

I can see why you want E3 over Portal 2, I kinda do too want to see the conclusion of the series. But expect to see E3 stuff in Portal 2, they take place in the same universe after all, and I know valve will probably drop a hint at E3 sometime after Portal 2 comes out.

French Toast said:
You clearly should have bought it sooner. Don't make the same mistake twice.

I didn't have the money to buy it. Nor do I have the money to buy Portal 2. I should be able to buy the game A MONTH after it comes out and not have to worry about asshats ruining the shit out of it.

It's not like it was two years later or something. Even if I had the game the day it came out, these people were getting it at midnight, beating it, and spoiling it the next day. How is that okay?

"omegaslayer" said:
I know valve will probably drop a hint at E3 sometime after Portal 2 comes out.

Just like the last four E3s where they dropped major Episode 3 hints? Oh wait, no that didn't happen. What always happens is, people go, "Okay, Valve, you're not releasing anything else, now, so when is EP3 coming" and they announce a new project. What's going to happen at this E3 is, they'll talk about sales from Portal 2 and then spend all their time on DoTA 2, hyping that up. They MIGHT show a teaser trailer for something else. But they've been pretty adamant that they're not going to talk about anything until Portal 2 and Dota 2 are out the door.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Crono said:
Just like the last four E3s where they dropped major Episode 3 hints? Oh wait, no that didn't happen. What always happens is, people go, "Okay, Valve, you're not releasing anything else, now, so when is EP3 coming" and they announce a new project. What's going to happen at this E3 is, they'll talk about sales from Portal 2 and then spend all their time on DoTA 2, hyping that up. They MIGHT show a teaser trailer for something else. But they've been pretty adamant that they're not going to talk about anything until Portal 2 and Dota 2 are out the door.

Sorry I didn't mean E^3 the expo, I mean that they may drop a hint about Episode 3 after portal 2 or in portal 2.

But yeah I get what your saying. DoTA 2 is their other project. And I should take some advise from you crono, its better to get the game when its 5$, rather than when its 60$. Maybe bum an account from one of us? (though with the new steam hardwareID system, that might prove a problem)

Methinks too that valve might be afraid of "repeating" themselves too much with Episode 3, so they may be doing other projects in the mean time while they have their engineers working on HL3 (LOL).

1 last thought: Its been about 5 years since HL2 came out. Thats still 1 year less than the time between HL1 and HL2 was released (within sig figs). I feel kinda lucky that we've gotten 2 episodes within those 5 years, rather than teaser trailers about HL3.

Uh ... Hardware ID ... I think that's an optional feature for people who don't want phishing. Because one of the basis' of Steam is you can play your games on any computer you want.

Well, I don't buy the games for $5 ... not the ones I really want. But yeah ... frankly, the majority of PC games I buy are DIRT cheap. And they're not even a year old. But Valve stuff, I try to pony up for faster ... it's just ... I'm tired of this "you gotta get it the day it comes out and beat it in 48 hours or all bets are off" bullshit.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Bah, now I have to choose between Portal 2 or half a new video card. Considering I'm cruising with integrated graphics currently the video card is pretty high on my priorities, but still... Portal 2...

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Now remember kids. Asking questions is a good way to get censored by the government.