Tag Archives: Valve

Train2Game News: Valve teaching with portals in education initiative for schools

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Valve will be giving away Portal 2 for free in its Teach with Portals initiative to help the teaching of physics and critical thinking in schools.

“The buzz surrounding the new role video games are playing in education, we had to throw our hat in the ring. Today, innovative educators are finding ways to incorporate Portal™ and Portal 2 into their classrooms—helping teach physics and critical-thinking skills. It’s eye-opening to see how video games can be used in amazing and unexpected ways to help educate our next generation.” reads a statement from Valve on www.learnwithportals.com/

“Using interactive tools like the Puzzle Maker to draw students in makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool and fun, which gets us one step closer to our goal – engaged, thoughtful kids!” add Valve

Students will also be able to design their own levels using the Portal 2 perpetual testing initiative level creator.

Watch the learn with portals education initiative in action in the video below, with Valve demonstrating Portal 2 to high school students.

There’s more Portal 2 news here on The Train2Game Blog, while you can keep reading for the latest from Valve.

What are your thoughts on the learn with portals iniative? How else can games be an educational tool?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Dota 2 officially confirmed as free-to-play by Valve

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Dota 2 will be free-to-play with a microstransaction store allowing players to buy community and developer created items, Valve has announced.  Steam Workshop will be the way in which players submit items to be used in the game.

“The opening of the Dota Store is a big part of our final push to launch,” said Dota 2 lead designer IceFrog.

“With support for the Steam Workshop, the majority of the items made available on day one were created and being sold by members of the community. By making the game Free to Play, we hope to give gamers the ability to decide how – and how much – they want to invest in the game.” he added.

The significance for Train2Game students is that, potentially, items they submit to the Dota 2 workshop could become a full part of the game.

Valve a targeting a full release of the RTS/RPG hybrid before the end of this year, with a Dota 2 closed beta currently underway.

Dota 2 follows in the footsteps of Team Fortress 2 in both allowing users to submit items to the Steam workshop and being free-to-play.

For the latest news from Valve, keep reading The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the decision to make Dota 2 free-to-play, with the ability to contribute items to the store?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game news: ‘Learn by making mistakes’ says Black Mesa mod project lead

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Train2Game Blog readers are likely to have seen one of our posts about the benefits of modding, but the benefit of building your own games or levels isn’t just that it’s good for your portfolio, you’ll also learn a lot while doing it.

That’s what happened for the guys behind Black Mesa, the much anticipated but rather delayed mod that’s bringing the original Half-Life into the source engine.  Project Lead Carlos Montero told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that, if anything, there are delays because the team are learning how to build a game, often by making then fixing mistakes.

“This hasn’t been about polish for polish’s sake; it’s been about learning all there is to know about how to make great games, and using it to make a great game. There aren’t any shortcuts there. We just had to learn by doing, by making mistakes, by screwing things up and starting them over again.”  said Montero.

“Sometimes along the way we have learned things that fundamentally changed our way of thinking, and sometimes we have gone back and fundamentally changed parts of the game to reflect that.”

The Black Mesa project lead added that, the team are very eager to release the game, but only when they’re totally happy that it’s good enough.

“So no, I don’t think it is tempting to over-polish at all. We are all eager to get the game out. We are dying to get this game out and show everyone what we’ve been working on, but we aren’t so eager that we would sacrifice our values and what we believe will make this game great. We aren’t going to put out something that isn’t good enough for us.” Montero said.

Read the full, fascinating, interview over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

In an interview with The Train2Game Blog, Valve’s own Chet Faliszek told us modding s a great way for aspiring game developers to  practice and show off their skills.

There’s more modding news on The Train2Game Blog, while the latest from Valve is here.

What are your thoughts on the comments from the Black Mesa project lead? Have you found modding to be a great learning experience? And are you looking forward to the mod eventually being released?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game news: Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative released

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Train2Game students can now build and share their own Portal 2 levels thanks to the release of the brand new and free Perpetual Testing Initiative update.

The puzzle maker for PC and Mac allows players to create new Portal 2 test chambers without the need to leave the game, with maps published directly onto Steam Workshop. Players can vote on and automatically download any user-created puzzles using the Workshop.

There’s more on the Perpetual Testing Initiative in the trailer from Valve and Aperture Science’s Cave Johnson below.

In an interview with The Train2Game Blog, Valve’s Chet Faliszek told us modding or using community creation tools is a great way for aspiring game developers to show off their skills.

There’s more Valve news right here on The Train2Game Blog.

Are you building Portal 2 puzzles yet? What do you think about the tools?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Gmae Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game news: Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative update to add level creation tools

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Train2Game students will soon be able to create and share their own Portal 2 level designs when Valve releases the free Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC next month.

The Perpetual Testing Initiative puzzle maker allows Portal 2 players to publish and download levels directly through Steam Workshop, where players can also rate the designs of others.

The free update comes to PC and Mac on Tuesday 8th May.

In an interview with The Train2Game Blog, Valve’s Chet Faliszek says modding or using community creation tools is a great way for aspiring game developers to show off their skills.

There’s more Portal 2 news right here on The Train2Game Blog.

So, will you be designing Portal 2 puzzles? And what are your thoughts on Valve releasing free content over a year after the game was released?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game news: Gabe Newell praises advantages of fan feedback to developers

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Fan feedback is one of the greatest assets available to game developers. That’s according to Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell in an interview with Seven Day Cooldown.

“What I think is best for the industry is that games developers used to be very far away from their customers,” said Newell.

“Nowadays you can have a game developer talking to a customer while they’re playing a game and fix an issue, or improve the experience, and do that in a matter of hours, if not minutes.”

Game developers often use beta tests to get fan feedback ahead of full game releases.

The Valve co-founder said fan-feedback about video games provides better opportunities to make customers happy than it does feedback about films.

“Steven Spielberg is pretty much screwed. By the time he gets feedback on his movie, it’s too late. He’s done. Everything he could do to make customers happy, he’s lost that opportunity by the time he can get reactions from his customers.”

“The closer developers are to their customers, and the more the line blurs between both, that gives us a gigantic advantage over any other entertainment field.” Newell added.

Listen to the full Gabe Newell interview on the Seven Day Cooldown podcast.

Train2Game students can get some great advice from Gabe Newell about being successful by focusing on your customers here on The Train2Game Blog. You can also get a fantastic insight to life at Valve thanks to the recently published online employee handbook

Keep up to date with the latest news from Valve here on The Train2Game Blog..

What are your thoughts on Newell’s comments about fan feedback? Is getting more and more important in game development?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Develop]

Train2Game news: Valve employee handbook offers great insight into life at the company

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Train2Game students can get a great insight into what life is like for those working at Valve Software, thanks to the publication of a guidebook for new employees.

Dubbed ‘A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when there’s no one there telling you what to do,’ the Valve employee guidebook offers advice on everything from settling into the company, to deciding what projects to work on in the company’s manageress structure  to how to move your desk.

The handbook ends with an amusing glossary of people in terms detailing how Valve co-founder Gabe Newell is “Of all the people at this company who aren’t your boss, Gabe is the MOST not your boss, if you know what we’re saying.”

The Valve employee handbook is a fascinating read, and you can see it for yourself right here.

Perhaps you can take a small step towards working at Valve by taking in Gabe Newell’s advice to aspiring game developers here on The Train2Game Blog.

Keep up to date with the latest news from Valve here.

What are your thoughts on the Valve employee handbook? Does it inspire you?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game news: Valve reveal how CS:GO beta heat maps influence design decisions

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Train2Game News readers should find this interesting; Valve has released data about the science of player actions during the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive beta, and how it ultimately effects their design decisions.

The developer has released heat maps of the map de_train showing where 6.5 million bullets have been fired during the beta. You can see it in full here.

“Recently we have discussed how we incorporate feedback into our design decisions. In addition to valuable feedback on the forums, another important form of feedback we receive is gameplay data.” read an update on the Counter-Strike blog.

“Our data collection is extensive. We track nearly every player action, from individual bullets fired to weapon purchases, and the resulting data can be used to help us evaluate game design decisions.”

The post added the heat map helps the Valve development team gain insights into player habits.

“A straightforward way to visualize the data we collect is through heat maps. Heat maps can reveal player preferences, choke-points in maps, sight-lines for snipers, and much more.”

In an interview with The Train2Game Blog , Valve’s Chet Faliszek said that beta testing is an important part of the game development process for CS:GO.

“It’s really important to us because we’re going to let that drive the release date,” he said.

“Because we’re really looking to get the feedback from the community over the changes we’ve made. We’ve brought over some stuff that was good from Counter-Strike: Source and we’ve brought over some stuff that was good from 1.6, so it’s going to be interesting to see how the communities react” Faliszek added.

There’s more Counter-Strike: Global Offensive news right here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on Valve using heat maps to help make design decisions? Are you taking part in the CS:GO beta?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game news: Valve developing own “platform hardware” says job advert

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Train2Game students will be aware that Valve have long been innovators when it comes to developing software, with games such as Half-Life and Portal being classed as all-time greats, while Steam revolutionised digital distribution of games.

But now it seems Valve are looking to develop their own hardware, according new job advert for an Electronics Engineer at the company.

“We’re developing hardware to enhance those experiences, and you can be a key part of making that happen. Join our highly motivated team that’s doing hardware design, prototyping, testing, and production across a wide range of platforms,” reads the Valve job advert.

“We’re not talking about me-too mice and gamepads here – help us invent whole new gaming experiences.”

The main duties of the role are listed as “Work with the hardware team to conceive, design, evaluate, and produce new types of input, output, and platform hardware”

Earlier this year, rumours suggested Valve might be building their own PC or console system, which was dubbed by the internet as ‘Steam Box’ The rumours were denied by Valve, but could this be it?

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for all the latest news from Valve, including our interview with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive writer Chet Faliszek, who offers some great advice to Train2Game students about getting into the industry.

What are your thoughts on Valve’s job advert? Do you think they’re looking to launch a console? If so, do you believe it can be successful?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Engadget]

Train2Game news: Community created Left4Dead 2 DLC Cold Stream almost ready

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Train2Game students might be interested to hear that Cold Stream the latest instalment of Left4Dead 2 DLC is almost ready for a full release.

The significant thing about Cold Stream is that it’s a community created campaign, the brainchild of a Left4Dead 2 player that started out as a personal project but is now almost ready to become part of the full game.

“Now that we have a solid version of the maps (some minor changes still coming), we are focused on the DLC and getting some pesky bugs out of the shipping version. As soon as we have a release date we will let you know.” read the Cold Stream update on the Left4Dead blog.

You can find out more about the community created map for Left4Dead 2 here on The Train2Game Blog.

Using community creation tools and modding aren’t only great ways for Train2Game students to practice their skills, but it can potentially provide a way into the industry. That’s what Valve’s Chet Faliszek, writer of Left4Dead, told The Train2Game Blog in an interview towards the end of last year.

“It’s a really good way for someone to get noticed because it shows that you’re able” he said.

“Normally modders have to work as a team and that’s important, and they also have to be able to finish something and that’s really important. So those two things together are a really good way to demonstrate that you’re ready to work in the industry.” Faliszek added.

For all the latest news about modding, and how it can be a great benefit to you, keep reading The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on a community created campaign becoming an official part of Left4Dead 2?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.