PC Gamer UK Podcast: Episode 66 – Batarians Do Their Own Bullet Time
Graham, Chris, Tom Francis and podcast debutante Tom Senior gather to discuss the Steam charts, roBurky, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Call of Duty, The Witcher 2, Dishonored, Crysis 3, and more. We also find time to appreciate Drell fabulousness, pick apart the Valve employee handbook, get our real and fictional religions confused, and answer your questions. See below for show notes.
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Gabe Newell on the merits of not hiring managers
After the recent leak of Valve’s employee handbook to the public, many in the business world have become curious about the ins and outs of the developer’s practices. Bloomberg Businessweek sat down with co-founder Gabe Newell to ask him, among other things, why he chose to organize Valve Corporation in such an unorthodox manner.
Newell told the publication that Valve categorizes employees by “individual” and “group” contributors, rather than by the traditional hierarchy of supervisors and subordinates.
Valve working on Linux Steam client
Valve has confirmed that an official port of the Steam client is on its way to Linux, and will have a native version of Left4Dead to accompany its release. Gabe & Co have shown off working prototypes of both to top Linux blog Phoronix, and say that there are plans afoot to bring other titles to the platform too.
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 silence due to development “twists and turns” says Newell
Gabe Newell been talking about the Valve sequel everyone wants, Half Life 2: Episode 3, in terms of the Valve sequel no-one wants, Ricochet 2. With almost audible air quotes around each mention of a possible follow up to Valve’s year 2000 disk-lobbing multiplayer arena title, Newell told Seven Day Cooldown that the silence surrounding the next Half-Life is intended to spare fans from the unpredictable “twists and turns” of Valve’s iterative development style.
“We’d like to be super transparent about the future of Ricochet 2,” said Newell, “but the problem is that the twists and turns that we’re going through would probably drive people more crazy than being silent about it until we can be very crisp about what’s happening.”
Gabe Newell on EA’s Origin: “I don’t think they’re doing anything super well yet”
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell gave his views on Origin in the first episode of the Seven Day Cooldown podcast, suggesting that EA’s digital distribution service isn’t close to challenging Steam. “They have a lot of work to do to get to way they want to be and where I as a customer would want them to be,” he said.
“I don’t think they’re doing anything super well yet,” he added. “They have a bunch of smart people working on it. I think they’re still playing catch up to a lot of people who have been working in the space for a while. I think they’re recognising what the challenges are with building and scaling out this kind of system.”
Valve employee handbook leaks, read it here
The Internet is often a place for things that don’t belong on it. Things like a 56-page internal manual written for the people that work at the most private gaming company in the world.
Yep, you can read that now. What appears to be Valve’s 2012 Employee Handbook has crept onto the web, and it’s just as insightful to read as that incredible blog by Michael Abrash from last week.
It’s a rare, detailed self-description of the company that includes mantras like “We are all stewards of our long-term relationship with our customers,” policies like “Nobody has ever been fired at Valve for making a mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for us to operate that way,” and expressions of Valve’s independence that include “Fortunately, we don’t have to make growth decisions based on any external pressures—only our own business goals.”
DOTA 2 will be free-to-play, but will “have some twists,” says Gabe
“[DOTA 2] is going to be free-to-play. It’ll have some twists, but that’s the easiest way for people to think about it.”
As reported by Polygon, that’s what Gabe Newell had to say on a recent Seven Day Cool Down podcast. Valve’s big wheel has already admitted to playing the MOBA for a staggering 800 hours, and now he’s talking cash. Valve have already developed some interesting ideas on how to reward valued members of the community: the Team Fortress 2 workshop allows people to create in-game items, and make a significant profit if they sell. Now Valve are hoping to reward player’s good behaviour too.
Team Fortress 2 lore in 60 seconds
The folks at youtube.com/lore just published a dense, remarkably coherent explanation of TF2′s zany family feud. If you haven’t yet, watch the animated lore mini-tales of Portal, Half-Life, X-COM, Magicka, and Elder Scrolls.
Valve job ad seeks engineer: “we’re developing hardware”
Rumours that Valve are developing their own “Steam Box” hardware platform were all but denied by Valve’s Doug Lombardi when Owen asked him about it at GDC, it does look as though they’re making something, though. Engadget noticed a job ad on Valve’s job site looking for an electronics engineer.
Here’s the first line of the ad: “For years, Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences. Now we’re developing hardware to enhance those experiences, and you can be a key part of making that happen.”
DC Universe Online adds perks to its subscription option, lockboxes for everyone
Like ‘em or not, lockboxes are the latest craze in free-to-play games. These little chests of mystery show up on your fallen foes sealed alarmingly well, and often require a special key purchased from the cash shop to open them. DC Universe Online will be the latest to jump on this trend with next week’s patch, but it will at least allow subscribers to open all of them for free. In addition, subscribers will be getting a few other nice perks starting next Tuesday.
Valve actively seeking Linux devs
Oh happy day. As someone who resents leaving the safety of his Ubuntu desktop every time I want to play a game or do some benchmarking, today’s headline from Phoronix.com is frankly the news I’ve been waiting for for years.
Valve has been recruiting for at least one Linux specialist to help port Windows games with this job ad since January. But it looks like they’re getting very serious, and keen to push on with the project. Phoronix’ Michael Larabel has received an email from Gabe himself asking for help head hunting.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gets Arms Race mode and Aztec
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive beta keeps getting bigger. The latest patch has added a new Arms Race mode playable on Shoots and Baggage. In Arms Race, every player starts with the same weapon, and gains a new one with every kill. The first player to get a kill with the final weapon, the knife, wins the round. Dead players respawn immediately and the round time is extended to give players time to murder their way through CS:GO’s arsenal.
The patch adds a few new weapons, too, including the Scar 20, an auto-sniper for Counter-Terrorists, the G3SG1, an automatic sniper rifle for Terrorists, and the Zeus x27, a one shot insta-kill taser available to both teams in casual mode.
If you’re looking for something less wild, the classic Aztec has been added to the map rotations. Here are the patch notes in full from the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive site.
Team Fortress 2 update adds new hats and stat-tracking “strange parts”
Revenge! Charity! Stamps! These will be the dominant market forces in Team Fortress 2′s economy of death over the next week or so. A post written in the guise of TF2′s announcer on the TF2 blog announces that three “absolutely unique one-of-a-kind hats” have been added to TF2. They won’t go on sale in the Mann Co store, though. One of each will be awarded every day to the player that gives the most gifts, wins the most duels, and buys the most map stamps during that 24 hour period.
Dota 2 China launch is “mandatory if we want DOTA to succeed” say Valve
Enthusiasm for Dota 2 is steadily growing as more and more participants are invited into the beta. Dota 2 regularly features on Steam’s most played list, but those numbers are nothing compared to the number of Dota fans worldwide. One of the biggest international markets is China. Tim spoke to Doug Lombardi recently about Valve’s plans to bring Dota 2 to Chinese audiences.
“You’ve got to address that market, it’s the biggest DOTA population in the world, right?” he said. The problem is that Valve can’t release Steam in China. Publishers need make distribution deals with Chinese companies to gain access to that vast player base. Valve have previously teamed up with Nexon to release Counter-Strike Online in Asia. Now they’re looking to forge a similar deal for Dota 2.
Dota 2 patch files tease microtransactions: masks, taunts and Dr. Kleiner included
Dota 2 player Cyborgmatt has been rummaging through the files of a Dota 2 test build, and has found evidence of dozens and dozens of items that we might be able to buy in the final release. They include new announcers, taunts, new couriers, new hero items, hero skins and more.
There are two types of announcers listed, a general announcer who will commentate on important in-game events like the fall of a tower, and a kill streak announcer whose job it is to shout things like “DOUBLE KILL,” or “UNSTOPPABLE” or “GODLIKE” when one player goes on a roll. One of the announcers is listed as Dr. Kleiner (item_description: “Oh Fiddle Sticks!”). That’s just the start.
