MODS available directly through steam

[Chunks]

I just got a news update about this... the mods include age of chivalry, insurgency, zombie panic, and a few others.

Congrats to all involved. It was pretty awesome of valve to do this.

I couldn't find a news item anywhere on their site... weird.

here is the copied press release from steam:

"As a part of our continuing efforts to support the MOD community, we will begin hosting selected MODs directly on Steam starting next week. The first five MODs to ship on steam will be Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. As always, owners of any Source game will be able to download and play all of these MODs for free.

Once installed, these MODs will appear in your "My Games" list and will receive automatic updates just like other games on Steam. Also, these MODs now take advantage of Steamworks, which provides stat tracking and tighter integration with the Steam community.

We're excited to see MOD developers get wider recognition for the hard work they have done, and we hope to support more MOD teams in the future. Watch for the official release next week!"

[Minos]

About fucking time! I just hope mods get popular again just like they were a few years ago.

I also wish they add PVKII sometime...

[Ginger Lord]

Valve finally (partially) deliver their promise to host mods on steam after what? 5 years?

[-HP-]

Finally!

[2d-chris]

Without trying to upsetting the mod community, Mods are about ready for a proper release, but only fairly recently.

I wish Fist Full of Frags and PVK2 where on that list, I'm sure they will be soon though

[Jetsetlemming]

Valve finally (partially) deliver their promise to host mods on steam after what? 5 years?

There have been mods available on Steam since forever. These mods are special because they get Steamworks integration, are in the Orange Box engine, and have achievements.

[2d-chris]

He means directly hosted on steam, all the mods on there at the momment are only links to website.

[Furyo]

I honestly don't ever remember Valve promising that kinda thing, and in the past we have had other answers such as " all content would have to be Valve approved etc" It's a pretty nice move, which also basically means Steam gives them a way to support mods without purchasing them, which only means more and more will benefit from it.

[jaboo224]

It is very nice of valve. But it needs PVK2

[Ginger Lord]

I honestly don't ever remember Valve promising that kinda thing.

They did say about it when Steam first went live, only other thing I can find is some old hlcoders emails:

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 13:03:28 -0800

From: "Eric Smith"

To:

Subject: [hlcoders] Steam and Mods

Reply-To: hlcoders@list.valvesoftware.com

We'd like to begin collecting builds from Mod teams interested in

distributing their Mod on Steam.

Players will be able to click on the icon for your Mod in the Games list

to install your Mod and then get all of the files they need. This means

they won't need to visit a web site to download the content and install

it manually. We will be able to release new versions of your Mod on

Steam so everyone will automatically get the updates.

Dedicated servers will also be able to get the content for your Mod.

We should be ready to start distributing Mods on Steam in the next few

weeks. In the meantime, if you'd like to have your team's Mod included,

please put together a complete build of what you'd like to release (.zip

or .exe) and send me an e-mail with a link to the file so I can download

it and get things ready on our end. Make sure the build you give us has

been tested with Steam.

Please also include contact information for a Mod team member for us to

communicate with if we have any questions/problems.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Eric Smith

Valve

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 22:01:30 -0800

From: Alfred Reynolds

Reply-To: hlcoders@list.valvesoftware.com

To: hlcoders@list.valvesoftware.com

Subject: RE: [hlcoders] Steam and Mods

It will remain under control of the Mod team, we will simply provide the

delivery mechanism. You will need to go through us to publish updates

and we will do some very, very basic QA.

[Furyo]

I see, clearly other priorities came in the way. The most important one probably the fact they needed to establish Steam as the leading digital distribution platform, something no amount of mods could ever do, and using the bandwith for that purpose and nothing else was a smart move. Now that this is starting, I only hope this is the first step towards the global client based distribution of all things mod in the future. Steam has a peer to peer system already, it would be so sweet to enable it for players to share the custom maps and models on the fly, with no waiting time.

[Steppenwolf]

Better late then never!

[cyberjunkie]

Will updates be covered by Steam too? cause that'll be something. I'd love to see weekly or monthly updates for the mods something like what Valve does for TF2.

[Jetsetlemming]

I doubt Zombie Panic: Source is gonna be getting any updates, for one. It's got promise but the mod team hates work as far as I can tell, leaving it unbalanced and a bunch of maps shit to play. It's a shame, because if you get on the right map (like subway) it's AMAZINGLY fun. But the primary game mode requires the humans to actually kill off the zombies, which move faster (humans have a slightly faster base run rate but weapons slow you down, so it doesn't matter, you're always slower), take way more damage, and have 30+ pooled extra lives to respawn with. Not to mention limited ammo. If the game would even just accept zombie winning is inevitable and do something like celebrate the last remaining survivor as the winner or something, even that would be acceptable, but it's all or nothing.

[Ginger Lord]

Better late then never!

Indeed, don't get me wrong I'm glad this happened. Just wished Valve sort of let the community know in the 4 or 5 years inbetween about the delays and not just "maybe soon"

Not sure they picked the best 5 mods to start with though. I would have definitely got PvK2,Fortress-Forever,Dystopia rather than AoC/DIPRIP/Synergy.

Edit: Minerva too.