Valve interviews

[Gwarsbane]

I have read these interviews and I'm surprised at some of the answers. They make me wonder what drugs the people at Valve are on.

http://www.halflife2.net/articles.php?article=30

Doug Lombardi Interview

Posted by Chris_D - 2005-06-30 16:53:28


Halflife2.net: Thank you for taking the time out to speak to us, time to chat with you guys is always appreciated. Half-Life 2 has been out nearly eight months now, how did you feel on the morning of November 16th when you knew that after six years hard work, the game was finally out and being played by hundreds of thousands of people? What was crossing through your minds the moment the game was officially released over Steam and how was the occasion celebrated?

Doug Lombardi: It was quite a moment. Traditionally, a product launch is a very removed occurrence – developer sends CD to manufacturing, weeks later the product is spotted on shelves, and then you start rummaging around to find out what folks think of it. This release was different. At midnight that night, we all crammed into one office and cheered as Gabe pushed the button to officially launch what accounted for almost six years of our professional careers. Over the following hours, we received mail from folks telling us how they were liking the game so far, what they enjoyed the most, etc. I’ve launched several products in my day (games and other media) but I’ve never experienced such a connected launch.


Halflife2.net: Now you have the benefit of hindsight is there anything regarding the development of Half-Life 2, or the actual game itself that you would have done differently? There were a lot of people that complained that the Half-Life 2 story didn’t contain as much depth as the original and that the ending was rushed. It was also accused that too much was cut from the game during its development, what is your response to such claims?

Doug Lombardi: With some 40 Game of the Year Awards -- including sweeps at major industry award ceremonies such as GDC and the AIAS Awards at D.I.C.E -- as well as earning the top spot for a PC game on both metacritic.com and gamerankings.com, it would seem we weren’t so terribly off the mark.


Halflife2.net: Though Counter-Strike: Source is still considerably more popular, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was, to say the least, a welcomed addition and a nice surprise to the community. At what point was it decided that you would include a death match component, whose idea was it and where will it go from here?

Doug Lombardi: My friend and Venezuelan gaming genius Adrian Finol put the early versions of HL2:DM together in his spare time as HL2’s development was winding down. He brought it in one day and showed it to a handful of other people, and a team erupted around him that day. We don’t have any major announcements to make on HL2:DM today, but we will continue to support it and have had a blast playing the community-created HL2:DM maps.


Halflife2.net: Steam has also caused a lot of controversy, especially since Half-Life 2’s release in November. People’s main issues being various bugs, connectivity issues, updates supposedly creating more bugs than they fix and the whole issue of Steam prominently being an online tool and as such often needing an internet connection, even with Offline Mode. Do you feel that Steam has been received well and can you see Steam being developed further and continued to be used for future projects?

Doug Lombardi: Absolutely. In addition to allowing us to sell our games, it has enabled the prevention of the “zero day” piracy problems other major releases incurred between gold and their launch days last year. It’s also allowed us to serve several updates directly to our customers since launch – including the delivery of new games such as Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and soon Lost Coast – and aided in our anti-cheat efforts. And in the coming weeks we will be announcing games created by other developers that will be made available via Steam.


Halflife2.net: What can you tell us about the upcoming episode Half-Life 2: Aftermath?

Doug Lombardi: Aftermath begins immediately after the end of Half-Life 2. So it is a continuation of the story. You are, once again, Gordon Freeman. Almost immediately, you are reacquainted with Alyx and other colleagues. Following your activities in Half-Life 2, City 17 and the Citadel are in a dire condition.


Halflife2.net: When Day of Defeat: Source approached beta and screenshots and movies started getting out into the internet, a lot of feedback I’ve seen suggests that some people aren’t happy with the way that the Source engine doesn’t seem to be using its full potential in this game. Are these opinions an accurate representation of what the finished product will be?

Doug Lombardi: We had some similar opinions once the beta began and that’s why we’ve been pretty quiet about DoD: Source in the past few months. We are, however, getting ready to show everyone what we’ve been up to, and I think folks will be quite pleased with how it's evolved.


Halflife2.net: Earlier this year there was the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch map contest in which we've now seen some very high quality maps emerge from it. What was it like judging the contest and did the quality of your maps exceed your expectations?

Doug Lombardi: Days before the deadline for submissions we had received less than a handful of entries and we were really starting to panic. Then, the day before the deadline, the postman walked in with a gigantic tub of CDs. The following day he delivered another -- much to our surprise and relief. We spent the following days and weeks playing a seemingly endless amount of great creations. And there were some heated debates between us as we narrowed the entries to shorter and shorter lists of finalists. In the end, we felt the contest was a great success and we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to enter their work.


Halflife2.net: How many maps will the Lost Coast level/s take place on and what are the system specs for being eligible for these maps? Any idea at this time when the expansion will be released?

Doug Lombardi: Lost Coast is the HDR level. It will require at least a 2GHz processor, 1 to 2GB of RAM, and the very latest GPU from ATI or NVIDIA. Once Lost Coast has shipped, we will be updating the Source SDK to include support for HDR authoring, and future Valve game releases will feature HDR modes in the video settings for those with the horses to run it.

Many have touted HDR in their engine or game. As a result, there are many different definitions of HDR. Here’s the list of features we’re including in our HDR spec:

Blooming. Used by designers to create a “blurred effect” on the bright edges in a scene, emulating a camera’s overexposure. This feature has been added to other applications and is often mistaken as a full implementation of HDR.

HDR Skybox. Authored by painting multiple exposures of the sky to allow for real-time exposure adjustment. For Lost Coast, over 16 variations of the HDR skybox were created.

HDR Cube Maps. Generated by the engine, using the HDR skybox in conjunction with the HDR light sources and HDR light maps. HDR Cube Maps allow for an object’s reflection to be cast in a manner that more accurately corresponds with the brightness of the source.

HDR Water Reflection/Refraction. Wherever the reflection of a light source is extremely bright, “white hot” spots occur along with blooming on water. A similar effect may be witnessed when under water looking out toward the sun.

HDR Refraction Effect. HDR light is transmitted through refractive materials, and takes on relevant properties of those materials (as when sunlight passes through the stained glass in Lost Coast’s Monastery and then casts colored light).

HDR Light Maps. Generated through a radiosity process, taking light bounces/global illumination into account. This may be witnessed inside the Monastery on Lost Coast, on walls opposite the windows where the sun is “blowing out” the wall.

HDR Light Sources. Uncompressed light values provide a higher range of light values for designers to draw from in any given scene.

Exposure Control. Enable “eye adjustments” to allow you to see a different range of details in dark scenes than in overbright areas.



Halflife2.net: Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak to us. I’m sure I speak for most when I say that there is an utmost respect for you and your games. You’ve managed to absolutely wow us with Half-Life 2 and the Source engine and we can only look forward to your latest projects! Thank you!

[Gwarsbane]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife...p_flashtop_read

If you played Half-Life 2, last year's blockbuster first-person shooter, then you know that the game ended in a cliff-hanger that left more questions than answers. The good news is that Valve is in the final stages of prepping Half-Life 2: Aftermath, the first expansion for Half-Life 2, due out later this year. Valve likes to describe Aftermath as a new "episode" for the franchise, and we know that it picks up immediately after the events of the main game. However, further details are few and far between, thanks to Valve's tight-lipped nature. That didn't deter us from throwing some questions at designer/programmer Robin Walker, and he helped fill in the bigger picture. For those of you who wish to remain totally in the dark about Aftermath, we should warn you that there are some minor spoilers below.


GameSpot: We know that Aftermath takes place immediately after the events in Half-Life 2, and we know that Alyx plays a big role in it. What else can you tell us about the expansion in terms of plot and setting?

Robin Walker: We don't want to spoil any surprises by getting into specifics. But to answer this in general terms, the entirety of the episode is set in City 17, and the driving force is the fact that, thanks to Gordon's actions at the end of Half-Life 2, the Citadel is about to give up the ghost in such a way that anyone left in the city will be killed.


GS: Some might be surprised to see that Alyx will return in Aftermath after the events in Half-Life 2, so can we also expect to see more of everyone's favorite Dog? How about any of the other major characters?

RW: Many of the Half-Life 2 characters will be returning in some form or another, including Dog. In some cases, such as Alyx, those characters have learned new things that have interesting gameplay repercussions.

GS: After the cryptic ending of Half-Life 2, we have to ask: Will we learn more about Gordon Freeman in Aftermath? The Combine? The G-Man? Can you promise that at least one big secret will be revealed?

RW: We will be doing what we usually do in these games, which is answering some old questions while raising new ones. Dr. Kleiner will be on hand with some informed opinions, as well as a bit of speculation.

Other mysteries will be introduced for the purpose of gradual revelation. We believe that theorizing about the meaning behind the clues in the Half-Life 2 universe, and the motivations of the characters within it, is one of the fun things about being a Half-Life 2 fan.

GS: In terms of length and number of levels, roughly how large is Aftermath compared to Half-Life 2?

RW: Half-Life 2: Aftermath is a new episode in the Half-Life story, so it's intentionally shorter than Half-Life 2. We're still finalizing the exact length, as this is the first time we've released a new episode for one of our games.


GS: We learned at E3 during the demo of Lost Coast that Aftermath will include high-dynamic range lighting, which should help the game realistically model the way the human eye reacts to light. But do you envision a lot more fun with the gravity gun and physics, and are there plans to introduce any new weapons, or any new items, options, or features that will make Aftermath's gameplay as distinctive as the gravity gun made Half-Life 2's gameplay?

RW: Aftermath adds a variety of new ways in which the player interacts with the Half-Life 2 world. Alyx, and other allies, learn new abilities to help you. Your enemies, both old and new, haven't been resting either.

GS: Will the original voice actors from Half-Life 2 reprise their roles in Aftermath?

RW: Yes, where Aftermath features characters from Half-Life 2, the original voice actors returned to play those roles.

GS: We know that Valve has a history of working with outside contractors to provide expansion-pack content for its previous work. Why the decision to make Aftermath in-house at Valve? Will keeping work on new Valve projects become the company's new standard operating procedure, or would Valve consider working with outside studios again in the future?

RW: Building a game like Half-life 2 involves building a lot of tools and technology. As we build them, we learn how to use them. By the end of the development, we know the tools much better than we did at the start, and as a result, we can build much cooler content. After Half-Life finished, we moved on to Half-life 2 immediately, which meant taking on a lot of new problems. This meant we didn't get to build that new Half-Life content we'd just learned to build, and we gave the fun of building it to other companies.

With Half-life 2 we decided to build that extra content ourselves. Right now, we're better than we've ever been at building Half-Life 2-type content, and we'd like to have the fun of doing it for a while.

GS: Half-Life 2 was a universally acclaimed game, but was there anything in the game that you wished you had more time to work on that you're setting out to fix or add to in Aftermath?

RW: The biggest regret we had about Half-Life 2 was that you didn't spend enough time with the major characters. Players spent small sections of the game with allies, and interactions with them were fairly constrained. As a result, this is the first challenge we set out to tackle in Aftermath.

GS: Are you planning to do anything special with the multiplayer gameplay? Any plans to expand on the existing Half-Life 2 deathmatch or add new multiplayer modes? Considering that Counter-Strike: Source, the upgraded version of the popular multiplayer game, came bundled with Half-Life 2, could we expect to see, oh, maybe, Team Fortress 2 coincide with the release of Aftermath?


RW: Aftermath is focusing on single-player. However, it's likely that some of the new pieces created for Aftermath will appear in deathmatch.

GS: So let us guess that Aftermath will be done when it's done? But any hints as to when that will happen?

RW: Should be done in a few months and available for everyone to play well before the end of this year.

GS: Wow. Thanks, Robin.

By Staff, GameSpot  POSTED: 06/29/05 03:24 PM

[Gwarsbane]

http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=479

Distribution Revolution Q&A: Valve

Doug Lombardi of Valve begins our series of Q&As on the new trend in digital PC game distribution.

More and more, gamers are seeing major AAA PC games available both in retails stores and increasingly available via paid Internet download. Is the long awaited move from brick and mortar stores to PC game digital distribution finally going to happen? Gamecloud decided to examine this growing trend by getting opinions from game developers, publishers and other members of the industry to see if this move will change how PC gamers get their games. First up is Doug Lombardi, the marketing manager of Valve who created their Steam system to distribute all of their games, including Half-Life 2.

Gamecloud - First, why did Valve wish to get into distributing its games via the Internet?

Doug Lombardi - After shipping a number of multiplayer games, such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic, we wanted to solve a number of issues that would improve the customer experience. We made simple advancements such as including a server browser within the game itself that, at the time, was a nice step forward in putting players together. But, as online gaming grew, it was obvious that things such as auto-updating and more sophisticated anti-cheat measures were going to be requirements. We couldn't find an existing solution for these issues, so we started development internally. Several other features have been added along the way. Steam is now the backend for all of our games, serving millions of gamers, allowing us to conduct more robust and secure betas of new products, and sell the final products directly.

Gamecloud - While Steam was around before Half-Life 2 was released, that game most likely tested Steam's viabilty when it was launched last November. Overall is Valve pleased with the way Steam has handled the load?

Doug Lombardi - Absolutely. In addition to allowing us sell our games, it enabled the prevention of the "zero day" piracy problems other major releases incurred between gold and their launch days last year. It's also allowed us to serve several updates directly to our customers since launch - including the delivery of new games such as Half-Life 2:Deathmatch and soon Lost Coast - and aided in our anti-cheat efforts.

Gamecloud - In addition to the software, Valve has had to pay for a lot of server and backbone infrastructure for Steam to work. Is it fair to say that the company has not yet paid for the development and infrastructure of Steam?

Doug Lombardi - We have not released any financials on Steam nor Steam sales.

Gamecloud - Valve will soon lose VUGames as its retail store publishing partner. Will the company's new retail partner allow Valve to have a better deal on its Steam sales than VUGames did?

Doug Lombardi - So far, Steam has been solely a Valve venture. However, we're extending the many opportunities Steam affords to third parties and we're happy to distribute any developer or publisher's games via Steam.

Gamecloud - When will we hear more about Steam being used by other developers besides Valve's games and is it Valve's intention to have Steam licenses be a solid revenue stream for the company, much like its Source engine license?

Doug Lombardi - The first announcement will be made in early July. More to follow.

Gamecloud - Many people are saying that PC gaming will become less of a force in retail stores, especially when the next generation of console games (PS3, Xbox 360) are released. Do you believe that Internet distribution will become a bigger force in selling PC games in the next few years, even for high profile titles?

Doug Lombardi -There's no doubt that consoles account for a huge part of the total gaming platform. However predictions that the Windows gaming platform is on the verge of extinction are usually based on reports of retail sales and do not account for any of the many other revenue streams available from PC-MMRPG subscription fees, Steam sales, OEM sales, etc.

Gamecloud - Of course, distributing on the Internet also frees game developers from dealing directly with publishers. Do you feel that this will also allow the freedom for games to be more creative and take risks in gameplay design and content?

Doug Lombardi - Creativity and risk are not popular in the green light room at the publishers' offices these days - ask any developer who's pitched an original game idea in the last 12 months. So yes, the ability to create a game of any size and completely of your own design is a central benefit to this alternative form of distribution. Counter-Strike is a great example of a project that would have been killed in a traditional green light meeting (no single player, extreme difficulty from the first moment of play, etc). In addition, with Steam these authors have a place where they can sell their works and pocket the majority of the revenues earned.

Gamecloud - Finally, can you give us your final word on PC game Internet distribution and where you see it going in the near future?

Doug Lombardi - We've had the opportunity to brief a number of legendary and aspiring developers about what's available to them with Steam, and the reaction has been positive. Whether they proceed with Steam or another electronic distribution method, I think the near term prediction is that many others will be giving it a shot and expanding on this great experiment. The more interesting questions are what will we all learn as this experiment broadens and then how will that knowledge relate to the more distant future.

[Power and Glory]

Can't wait to hear for the conspiricy theory on this one from you. God forbid the company is doing some PR and promoting it's products just like any company would.:rolleyes: