Another one back from Valve. - Games

So, after reading about [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1071802-Back-from-Valve-L4D-Half-Life-DOTA-Portal-Edition"]Political Gamer's venture to the Valve offices[/URL], I thought, "Why not me?" So I emailed Gaben and a few emails later, me and a few friends were on our way to Valve! While I didn't mine the sheer amount of data that Political Gamer did, and I didn't get to see Meet the Medic, I DID find out some interesting factoids. But first, some photos, in JPEG or magical 3D (if you happen to posses one of those Nintendo 3DS devices): [B]2D[/B] -> [url]http://imgur.com/a/RU7yS#tnUBh[/url] [B]3D[/B] -> [url]http://www.mediafire.com/file/k111624btm9qzb6/3DS_Valve.zip[/url] We did have a chat with Robin Walker, and while I didn't have any tools with which to record said conversation, I can recall the important details: [list][*][B]On Meet the Medic:[/B] To start, YES, Robin Atkin Downes is still doing the voice acting. Robin said he didn't really get where the controversy rumors came from, but its all smooth as silk between everyone. I mentioned Political Gamer's remark of how the video was 90% done, and Robin said it wasn't quite that concrete, and that they've been working on this video for longer than any 'Meet the...' video to date. The process is that they storyboard and concept for most of the production when they make their videos, and once they're done and satisfied with that step, they just have the final animation whipped up pretty quickly. The actual video's release will be extra special, as they plan on doing a series of blog posts about the history of their work on Meet the Medic, and even going so far as to show a good number of past iterations before (or possibly after) showing the final product. I was only able to take pictures of the lobby area, but when we were touring through, I saw some concept pictures for Meet the Medic on a wall. One was of the Medic operating on the Heavy in a large room with some crazy gizmo with a bunch of lights hanging over the table. The other was of a Heavy in a wheelchair. [*][b]On Hats:[/b] After telling me that they JUST shipped today's TF2 update about twenty minutes before the chat, Robin said that they're finally going to get around to releasing the massive backlog of contributed hats more often. I of course asked him about the oft requested Tinfoil Hat, and he said that there were a lot of tinfoil hat contributions but none of them were really that good, in the sense that you couldn't really tell they were tinfoil hats in the first place. Sorry to any contributors that may have offended. [*][b]On Source Filmmaker:[/b] I opened this topic with, "Will Source Filmmaker release within my lifetime?" and after all of us joking around that I would be assassinated at some convenient point in the future right after it came out (at least I [I]think[/I] we were joking :ohdear:), all he could manage to say was that when they do release it, they hope to also release all of the assets from the 'Meet the...' videos so that we'd have ample tools to sort of remix the videos as it were (this could imply fully animated project files). [*][b]There's definitely something big going on with the Potato ARG, but he delved no further than that.[/b] [/list] Oh yeah, and even though Gaben wasn't there that day, we got to see his knife collection and it was spectacular. :byodood:

:neckbeard:

how did you get to visit valve just by emailing gaben

[QUOTE=skynrdfan3;29047657]how did you get to visit valve just by emailing gaben[/QUOTE] I basically asked about their tours and if I could go on one with a few friends and we scheduled a time for it.

Nice! It's a race to make the first good tinfoil hat now then I suppose.

Wait, they have tours :psyduck:?

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;29047725]Wait, they have tours :psyduck:?[/QUOTE] Evidently.

[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3533716/manydls.png[/img] Wow, I didn't know that many people [b]had[/b] 3DS's. [editline]7th April 2011[/editline] Oh yeah, almost forgot about Robin's answer to one of the great mysteries of the Medic: He's not a Nazi. Not because of controversy or anything, but because it would be easy and boring to slap the 'Nazi' label on the Medic rather than trying to go for a truly interesting psychotic German doctor they're establishing.

Awesome, hope you enjoyed yourself. Oh and it is only a matter of time before Gabe recieves a large amount of E-Mails concerning tours.

[QUOTE=usaokay;29048052][img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/15VVS.jpg[/img_thumb] The back of Michael Cera's head.[/QUOTE] Yeah, me and my boys Michael Cera, Will Ferrel and Neil Degrasse Tyson went up to Valve where we met Robin Walker and we all went to a screening of The Dark Night Returns where we met Christopher Nolan and we all chatted over brunch later. :c00lbert:

You went to the Valve HQ and took 6 pictures?! I'd be all over the place with my camera.

[QUOTE=Stupideye;29048240]You went to the Valve HQ and took 6 pictures?! I'd be all over the place with my camera.[/QUOTE] Like I said, I was only allowed to take pictures of the lobby and most of the pictures I could manage to take with my 3D's poor excuse for a camera were blurry crap. I don't know what made Political Gamer so special. :smith:

Can we expect Meet The Medic this year? or within the next 2 or 3 (or even this) month(s)?

[QUOTE=MacD11;29048298]Can we expect Meet The Medic this year? or within the next 2 or 3 (or even this) month(s)?[/QUOTE] [sp]"Soon."[/sp] If the concept art is anything to go by, this will definitely be worth it. It's a shame I couldn't get a picture of Heavy wearing his distressed/confused face in a wheelchair.

[QUOTE=Funny Hats;29048338][sp]"Soon."[/sp][/QUOTE] okay sweet, 2013 isn't that bad of a wait.

[QUOTE=Funny Hats;29048338][sp]"Soon."[/sp] If the concept art is anything to go by, this will definitely be worth it. It's a shame I couldn't get a picture of Heavy wearing his distressed/confused face in a wheelchair.[/QUOTE] one more question. do you THINK that they will release animation and models from past versions of Meet the Medic into sfm as well as the ones from the final version and the other meet the teams? cause if the Distressed heavy in a wheelchair was added, i would love to use it in SFM.

[QUOTE=MacD11;29048377]one more question. do you THINK that they will release animation and models from past versions of Meet the Medic into sfm as well as the ones from the final version and the other meet the teams? cause if the Distressed heavy in a wheelchair was added, i would love to use it in SFM.[/QUOTE] I'm not sure, but that would be sweet. Hopefully it'll be in the final version though, that picture was disturbingly amusing, it was also definitely an SFM render rather than a sketch like the other two images I saw.

Did you see the portal 2 beta tester's room? There's this piece of concept art that I want to verify with someone else because I didn't quite get a good look at it.

Got any pictures of his awesome knives? And by big, I assume you mean "We're leading up to more hats."

[QUOTE=JaxJesse315;29048479]Did you see the portal 2 beta tester's room?[/QUOTE] They showed us the rooms, but I guess we weren't worthy enough to play Portal 2. They DID say that there was some press playing the game today so I'd expect some preview articles popping up on various gaming blogs soon.

Was the massage room still there?

[QUOTE=usaokay;29048052] The back of Michael Cera's head.[/QUOTE] I'm so happy I wasn't the only person to think this

Did you get any signatures/tears/blood samples?

[QUOTE=GhostSonic;29048522]Did you get any signatures/tears/blood samples?[/QUOTE] I got a massive TF2 mousepad (I'm talking ludicrously big) as swag and got that signed by Robin Walker.

you can just call them the fuck up and get a tour?

[QUOTE=Uberslug;29048573]you can just call them the fuck up and get a tour?[/QUOTE] Yes, why is this so weird to everyone? Is the concept of non-concrete social interaction as a means of getting something so alien to the denizens of the internet?

[QUOTE=Uberslug;29048573]you can just call them the fuck up and get a tour?[/QUOTE] Or just email them the fuck up and ask politely.

[QUOTE=Funny Hats;29048500]They showed us the rooms, but I guess we weren't worthy enough to play Portal 2. They DID say that there was some press playing the game today so I'd expect some preview articles popping up on various gaming blogs soon.[/QUOTE] Yeah I never got to play it either, anyway did you see some concept art of the two co-op bots standing on some kinda walkway being over looked by people in windowed boxes?

[QUOTE=JaxJesse315;29048636]Yeah I never got to play it either, anyway did you see some concept art of the two co-op bots standing on some kinda walkway being over looked by people in windowed boxes?[/QUOTE] As far as portal concept art goes all I remember was a lot of stuff featuring panels.

did political gamer tell gaben he was press or some shit?