Valve: Future Hardware Plans

    Just curious:


    For aspiring mappers, with all these engines becoming free, what would be the best option? For indie it's Unreal. But for mappers it's perhaps Source 2? I mean, you have a lot of online games that are actively being played. If your work is good, you should get server time. What do you guys reckon?

    For mapping Source 2 it would depend on if any source games (other than dota 2) are compatible with source 2. The toolset isn't really the issue with Source, it's not hard to make maps for source games, its more the tech that is holding it back, the way you optimize, the amount of models you can/should utilise (which at the same time is one of its strengths) etc.

    That's basically a question I was going to ask myself as I'm finally getting back and actively working on game stuff: is Source still relevant?

    I guess that when you know how to build a map it doesn't matter much what toolkit you use, but how quickly you can get acquainted in learning new ones.

    So I think there is no escape in having to try stay up to date and do something on every engine.

    I guess that for starting, Source is probably easier? I mean brushwork is easy to grasp, while other engines seem to rely on meshes to build anything. I have no modelling skills and I was thinking "great UE4 is free, but how long before I have something for a portfolio?". Also there are no ready games to map for really. And that's the same problem I was having last year when I wanted to try Unity: I can run it on a Mac (on which I was limited to), but what game allows modding or custom content?

    Well, I'm asking from a writers perspective. I'm not that interested in what would be easier for someone to learn. What I'm trying to ask is what would make more sense? If you go the Unreal route you can make maps for the new UT. That's basically it at the moment. That's why I said it's probably more interesting, engine wise, for indies or people that want to try and make their own games.


    Seeing the huge popularity of CSGO and DOTA 2 it would make a lot of sense, especially with the focus on content creation, to port both to Source 2. Which would make it a more logical aspiring mapper seeing how they can get their maps played in both games. Hell, they can even make money from it. Plus, the Valve community has always been huge on mods. I see more possibilities there to be honest. But that's why I'm asking. You guys are the experts.

    I think we've seen that Valve doesn't need to have the most user friendly state of the art engine to corner the market on user generated content. The games they make are so good and so huge that the engine matters a lot less.

    Plus even if UE4 is unbeatable, Source2 will still probably be excellent.

    source 2 will still be relevant if you can continue to get a one year salary from creating a glossy sticker, even if you have to import it into the engine via .cmd scripts

    Man. I can't even imagine the amount of mod/game start-ups that are going to appear as soon as Source 2 gets released. If even a 10th of them are any good there's going to be plenty of work for aspiring mappers.

    As a guy who prefer doing playable content instead of portfolio art scene, if Valve makes good game as they did with source I will use it for sure. Like UE but UT is meh...

    Yeah but they said "free for content creators"… which makes me think that people making hats and maps are going to pay royalties the moment their item sells (of course), while if you want to make a brand new game on Source you will still have to pay a license of some sort.

    I hope they just worded badly the press release.

    Of course while there are no UE4 games open to custom content, Source is much better choice.

    About server time… I think there's also a lot of "luck" involved. There's so much content coming out, and community is not so inclined in trying stuff. Definitely thanks to the workshop subscription system and the Operations, CSGO has leapt forward, but success still not granted. It's kinda the same clutter problem that there is on app stores.

    Source has the weaker tools but games like CS:GO or TF2 provide the players to create maps for and bigger asset libraries for mappers to use - as of today. I'd still encourage everyone to check out what Epic is doing now though. Download the Epic Games launcher/UT or see the image below to see what I mean. Selling of user generated content for UE4 has already begun. The engine is free now and there is tons of good documentation. UT is in a playable state and ready to map or mod for. You can share complete games for free or sell weapon skins. UE might not have the player base yet, but when Epic is bringing in a lot of users (be it through UT, Fortnite or other titles), you could benefit greatly as an asset creator in a blue ocean (be it through sales or mere exposure of your work).


    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/mTsX6UO.jpg]

    If you haven't seen it guys, look at the first video of this article :

    http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/4/81506…ive-vr-gdc-2015


    We can clearly see how things work and how fucking perfect this system seems to be.


    Actually, this is exactly like the fake video we had in 2005 just before the announce of the "Wii" (or "Revolution" at that time), a fake video that invented a new gaming system :

    External Content www.youtube.com
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    The difference is that ... this time it's for real guys !!!!!!!!!!

    I'm so excited !!

    Quote from El_Exodus

    Now (back) in the Steam Store:


    Steam Machines:

    http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines


    These are nice and all and I really hope they do well and shake up the console market a bit since the current next gen consoles are really lacking in power it seems.


    But my biggest worry with these Steam Machines is that the common gamer might not understand the system specifications and how they might effect how well a game runs. I mean someone might buy the cheapest steam machine and buy the next Withcher game expecting it to run perfectly smooth but it might not since the machine might not be powerful enough (I'm not looked at many of the specs but this problem could occur I guess.)


    I would have thought Valve would have made it simpler for people to see at a glance which games will work well on which Steam Machines so the consumer can make a more informed choice about which machine they buy.


    Some colour grading system would be nice I guess. E.g: "This Steam Machine is rated Red and will play any games rated Red at 1080p 60fps etc."


    Just my two cents.


    Good luck to Valve and its partners though!

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