toblix

Half-Life 3

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Look at the rest of the site. It's all jokes.

It'd never happen, because Valve is a fan of putting their games in as many hands as possible - else console versions wouldn't exist. In fact, console versions run directly counter to everything Fake Gabe says in that article.

But, Thrik is maybe correct in that they'll use it to push Linux in some fashion.

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Having met Gabe a few times the first thing I thought reading that page was "Bullshit, Gabe doesn't talk like that!" I guess they weren't to know though

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You don't even have to have met him, it's 100% unbelievable on its face. Valve's revenue comes, by and large, from non-Linux users. They're still a corporation after all, as much as fanboys like to forget.

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At the same time, I don't think it is far fetched that someone as ballsy and powerful as Valve is right now would do something like that. Newell has been saying some extreme things about Windows 8, and I am excited to see where that leads us.

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He also said some extreme things about PS3 and that's since been completely flipped on its head.

Gabe is a man who voices his opinions, but I think he a) goes where there's money and B) goes where people want games.

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He also said some extreme things about PS3 and that's since been completely flipped on its head.

Gabe is a man who voices his opinions, but I think he a) goes where there's money and B) goes where people want games.

How has it been flipped on its head? I seem to recall him saying that it's a pain in the ass to make games for the PS3 and given that Bethesda still hasn't figure out how to get Skyrim to work on the console I see no reason to think he was wrong about that.

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I recall he was singing Sony's praises when Portal 2 came out because Sony was very helpful about integrating Steam(Works) with the PS3, and generally seems more positive about them. It's quite a stark contrast to his earlier 'PS3. SHIT.' comments, which his current attitude towards Windows 8 is interestingly reminiscent of. Perhaps Valve sees the sense in using strong words to encourage more cooperation from otherwise steely giants.

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Well, he can praise Sony for having sensible policies about Steamworks integration and cross-platform multiplayer and stuff while still maintaining that the Cell architecture of the PS3 is a nightmare to program for, right? That doesn't seem like a stark contrast to his earlier statements - in fact it doesn't seem like a contrast at all. They're two different and completely compatible statements.

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Original attitude: fuck the PS3! Nothing positive whatsoever to say about it.

New attitude: yay PS3! Congratulating Sony for being super open and awesome and open.

The reasons are unrelated, but it is a complete reversal of attitude. Surely you can see that...

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Well, his exact phrasing was:

The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think it's really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted," said Newell. "I'd say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a 'do over.' Just say, 'This was a horrible disaster and we're sorry and we're going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it.'

(source: http://www.1up.com/news/gabe-newell-ps3-total-disaster)

The comments are "compatible" but only in the loosest sense of the term. If it were anyone but Gabe (like anyone from EA or Activision) I suspect the tone of these replies would be totally different.

Personally, I have no issues with people changing their minds about things.

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Personally, I have no issues with people changing their minds about things.

Yeah, me neither. I was just using it as an example to emphasize my point, which is that Gabe goes where the people are. Which I only made to counter the premise that an obviously fake article presented.

Video games.

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What's he even said about Windows 8? There was the comment about it being a disaster but I think the context for that was more the closed nature of the store than anything else, right?

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His complaints lie entirely within the context of closed vs open platforms, as far as I'm aware.

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What's he even said about Windows 8? There was the comment about it being a disaster but I think the context for that was more the closed nature of the store than anything else, right?

That's pretty much what he said, yea:

“In order for innovation to happen, a bunch of things that aren’t happening on closed platforms need to occur. Valve wouldn’t exist today without the PC, or Epic, or Zynga, or Google. They all wouldn’t have existed without the openness of the platform. There’s a strong tempation to close the platform, because they look at what they can accomplish when they limit the competitors’ access to the platform, and they say ‘That’s really exciting.’”

“We are looking at the platform and saying, ‘We’ve been a free rider, and we’ve been able to benefit from everything that went into PCs and the Internet, and we have to continue to figure out how there will be open platforms.’”

“The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior."

“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality."

source

Oh, he also elaborated a bit here.

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There's going to be a couple of disappointed Ricochet fans at some point in the future..

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If the Source 2 engine is as sweet compared to today's modern engines as the original Source was compared to its contemporary competition, I'm going to be really glad. It probably won't be, but it'll still probably be sweet. I remember spending way too much time in that apartment building entrance in the HL2 intro, strafing back and forth in front of the door and looking at the bicycle through the sweet distorted glass window.

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Yup, distorted glass material was da bomb back then. I spent ages in Kleiner's lab just looking him and stuff (his crotch) through his magnifying glass!

I think the big thing now will be Global/Indirect/Magic Illumination stuff, but hopefully they'll have other surprises up their sleeve to seperate them from UDK, CryEngine, Unity, WizardRender™ and so on..

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Yeah, based on my very fleeting, baseless impressions of how things are, Epic and Crytek are really engine-centric and have become so advanced Source probably won't be able to beat them on their really impressive strong points, like hot-compiling C code whilst moving real-time lighted celestial bodies around to demonstrate how gravity affects highlight shadow refraction in dynamic water beads on moist surfaces, BUT what do I know. Hopefully they'll be able to have more of what they're good at – impeccable design of everything. My number one request for their next engine: no more loading pauses.

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God yes.. Seamless asynchronous loading of level data or whatever it will be called is my most anticipated feature. If Nintendo could do it in Metroid Prime on a GameCube, then surely it's possible on today's PCs.

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Yeah, it's easy to forget that Source was literally mind-blowing technology when the first leaks of it hit the web. I remember being in absolute disbelief that those first dock videos could possibly be rendered in real time.

It's also pretty fucking mindblowing that it wasn't too long after that Idle Thumbs' forums opened, come to think of it. ;(

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I'm going to go back and see if I can find a thread discussing the Source engine before or right around its release.

edit: Some good stuff here and here.

It's Alyx. And she's probably the hottest woman ever in a computer game. Hmm, maybe that's a discussion worthy of its own thread!

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