[QUOTE=Reg;20649906]I'm working on a serious source mod, called [url]Operation Lambda[/url]. Right now we just started, but we have a clear storlyline and a huge will to take this to something excellent. Our team is composed by 32 developers, and I'm the lead mapper. I am interested about how you people at Valve decide how the storyline unwraps, and add detail to it. Right now our approach is to have a basic storyline written down, and then draw map layouts (I draw them in Photoshop, what do you guys use? I'm really interested in new solutions), and based on how they look, we apport modifies to the original storyline. I'm not really convinced about this method tho, because we've only designed the first map and the story already changed a lot.
If you know anything about this, I'd be really glad to hear your answer :)
And thanks for all the games you personally brought us, expecially Portal. It was my first pc game :D[/QUOTE]
I'm looking forward to that mod. You guys sound like you have a very serious team in place and that's a good sign. I also like your web site layout too. Very easy to navigate and sharp-looking. Might want to fix the link though.
[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;20653431]Hey PersonGuy, what are your favorite Valve games and what are your favorite non-Valve games?[/QUOTE]
Tough choice between Episode 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. Yoshi's Island, GoldenEye, Galaga, Majora's Mask, Smash TV... probably a bunch of others I can't think of at the moment.
Person guy, would valve let one of the employees take a camera and give the fans a tour of valve's office. Also it would be cool if you could do a meet the developer type video for youtube (on the valve channel of course). Where you'd run around with a camera and introduce us to the devs and they tell us what they do at valve (not like what project they are on.... obviously). Just iv always thought valve should do like a monthly or bi-monthly youtube video where they could answers fans questions (like ones you could actually answer not like ..... er um whan is epsode three comin out??....er der). Oh and also what kind of hours do u guys have at valve (like what time do u have to be at work and what time do u guys go home at night and what days u work?). Do you guys ever have parties at gabes house or have valve gatherings out side of work?
Thanks
Yea theres a good question. Do you guys have a social life with each other outside of work as far as parties and the like. Also what time do you guys go in and get out? Is it a schedule or sorta everyone works at their own pace?
[QUOTE=Just2Rusty;20599945]What game are you working on that you can't talk about?
We can keep a secret ;)[/QUOTE]
The fact that 21 people tagged this "disagree" means at least facepunch is honest about itself. :P
Thanks for being the first valve employee to openly talk to the people! AWESOME
[QUOTE=PersonGuy;20660366]For the first 1/3rd of developing Portal we didn't have any story... just the test lab setting. We focused on the gameplay. Once we had that nailed down, we used the gameplay (a small resource) constraints to decide what kind of story we could tell. Then we got Erik Wolpaw, the funniest man on the planet, and he magically made the story awesome. In other words... everything just fell in to place... I don't know how we did it or what is the right way. :/[/QUOTE]
Thanks, but what if it was something more storyline-based, like Half Life 2? Would you go differently on that one?
[QUOTE=PersonGuy;20660483]Tough choice between Episode 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. Yoshi's Island, GoldenEye, Galaga, Majora's Mask, Smash TV... probably a bunch of others I can't think of at the moment.[/QUOTE]
Remembered a few more over night: Deus Ex, Contra: Hard Corps, Ico
[editline]04:54PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=apierce1289;20660718]Person guy, would valve let one of the employees take a camera and give the fans a tour of valve's office. Also it would be cool if you could do a meet the developer type video for youtube (on the valve channel of course). Where you'd run around with a camera and introduce us to the devs and they tell us what they do at valve (not like what project they are on.... obviously). Just iv always thought valve should do like a monthly or bi-monthly youtube video where they could answers fans questions (like ones you could actually answer not like ..... er um whan is epsode three comin out??....er der).[/QUOTE]
Interesting idea. It may run against general philosophies of having the games speak for themselves and be the stars, rather than the developers. But I'll see what other people think.
[editline]04:57PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Alyx Zark;20660749]Yea theres a good question. Do you guys have a social life with each other outside of work as far as parties and the like. Also what time do you guys go in and get out? Is it a schedule or sorta everyone works at their own pace?[/QUOTE]
Sure, there's definitely groups of people who do stuff together outside of work. Hours are flexible, so you just come and go whenever you want (aiming for 40 hours a week and some constancy). My start time fluxes by an hour or 2 each day. We usually schedule meeting just before or after lunch so we can be reasonably sure everyone needed will be there.
[editline]04:59PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=usaokay;20661063]Hey beep beep Jeep, where did the idea for Narbacular Drop come from?[/QUOTE]
Kim explains it pretty well here: [url]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/narbacular-drop-interview[/url]
I have your PDF about Portal's post-mortem.
[img]http://www.hl-inside.ru/images/news/test_chamber_00_beta.jpg[/img]
If it's not a secret, can you tell more about this stage of development? Or actually - all about old versions of Portal and it's storylines, I'm a [B]big[/B] fan of alpha-beta versions of whatever. I read trough Raising The Bar for about 50 times and so on.
[QUOTE=inkystinky;20663811]Thanks for being the first valve employee to openly talk to the people! AWESOME[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't call it open...
In fact, this whole thread kind of backfired on me. I wrote that long post in hopes that people would get all the info I could give in one place and realized I have pretty much no information on Portal 2... preventing IM spam and such. Instead it sparked you guys to ask a pile of other random questions. It's been fun, just unexpected. :)
[editline]05:06PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Reg;20664915]Thanks, but what if it was something more storyline-based, like Half Life 2? Would you go differently on that one?[/QUOTE]
It's a good question, I just don't think I can answer it very well. Lots of people at Valve (besides the writers) put serious thought and effort into the story parts of our games... which is great, cause I know it's important to a lot of players. I'm really not that skilled at it or interested, so I haven't quite figured out how it works.
Q: What was the most ridiculous idea someone ever suggested for Portal/Portal 2? (Within Valve, i mean)
What do you think of original Half-Life, and its expansion packs?
[QUOTE=-TRASE-;20665261]I have your PDF about Portal's post-mortem.
[img]http://www.hl-inside.ru/images/news/test_chamber_00_beta.jpg[/img]
If it's not a secret, can you tell more about this stage of development? Or actually - all about old versions of Portal and it's storylines, I'm a [B]big[/B] fan of alpha-beta versions of whatever. I read trough Raising The Bar for about 50 times and so on.[/QUOTE]
That looks like it's from the first month or so. I have to head out to GDC, but maybe when I get back I'll write up a little about it. Or maybe I'll conveniently forget... who knows. :P
[editline]05:10PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Hybrid 4F;20665378]What do you think of original Half-Life, and its expansion packs?[/QUOTE]
Love them to death. Though Blue Shift less than the rest.
Also I wanted to ask a simpler question: When I play HL2, and see combine console and monitor - are these small details and buttons on them just placed on them with no purpose, or do they have some explanations like this button is for screen changing. Same with the ambient sounds like car horn in Half Life 2 beginning.
Was there one person in particular who coded the whole portal system in source, did it take long to get from a working version until you were happy with how it felt, acted etc
-snip-
[QUOTE=PersonGuy;20665138]Remembered a few more over night: Deus Ex, Contra: Hard Corps, Ico
[/QUOTE]
Awesome, thanks for the answer. Deus Ex is freaking awesome. (They're making a third one, too)
I bet this has already been said here for a million times but... VALVE ROCKS!
I've been loving you since 1998. ;)
I'm from the Operation Lambda team too, like Reg. :)
I have a question too actually: Have you ever done any "bad" things at Valve that everyone has hated/gotten angry at you for?
Also, you should get more Gatorade ;)
I have a question story-wise for the Portal series. Was it from Day 1 planned to involve Aperture Science and GLaDOS? Or did you guys have some other ideas but agreed on one? I'm curious to see what were some of the original ideas behind it all. I realize Portal has the Aperture story with portal tech and such to tie into the Half Life saga but surely it could have been done differently. Would you be allowed to tell us some scrapped plans or ideas?
I love you :h:
:siren: [highlight]WARNING: BLATANT OVER-EXAGGERATION IN THIS POST.[/highlight] :siren:
So, way back in 2007, a friend of mine was like "Wow, Valve is awesome. You should get one of their games," and I was like "But I can't play M games. :saddowns:" And then they were all like "Yo dawg you gots to play Portal. I's da shiz yo! Fo shnizzle!" So I got Portal and was all "OMGWTFBBQthisisthebestgameeverI'vegottogoplayallofValve'sothergames!" And then I convinced my parents to let me buy M games and got addicted to TF2 (:saddowns:).
Whose idea was it to bridge Aperture Science into Episode Two and the Borealis? Was it just kind of an afterthought for the sake of bridging the games (maybe to get people playing Ep. 2 interested in Portal), or are Laidlaw and the HL writing staff serious about incorporating Portal fiction into the HL world?
[QUOTE=KarmaPolice;20674376]Whose idea was it to bridge Aperture Science into Episode Two and the Borealis? Was it just kind of an afterthought for the sake of bridging the games (maybe to get people playing Ep. 2 interested in Portal), or are Laidlaw and the HL writing staff serious about incorporating Portal fiction into the HL world?[/QUOTE]
Coincidently, GameInformer's next piece of info is about the connection between HL and Portal and why it came to exist: [url]http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/03/10/opening-the-portal-exploring-portal-s-creation-and-its-ties-to-half-life-2.aspx[/url]
I feel like GI's article didn't really elaborate much on it though, other than saying the need to reuse HL art assets caused them to tie the Portal story in to HL. I'm more interested in how the decision came to make Aperture Science a major player in Episode Two.
couple questions:
1. Where do you get these wacky, crazy, and altogether awesome ideas for games, in game items, etc?
2. I code, and I've noticed that while coding a semi-large chunk that it's easy to get disheartened, lose interest, or get headaches. How does a valve coder keep himself mentally alert, focused, and encouraged?
just curious.
I've got 3 things to ask.
1. How did you guys encode images into the "dino" soundfiles? I would like to try that one day...
2. Are you guys ever going to have a "limited edition" type thing for Portal 2? I know you guys aren't making it but im asking cause I think it would be pretty cool, you know, having one of those small 1/8 scale replicas of some random item in the game that usually break the 1st day you get them to call your own.
3. Can we stop here? It's not bat country.... yet.
[QUOTE=F T;20678198]I've got 3 things to ask.
1. How did you guys encode images into the "dino" soundfiles? I would like to try that one day...
[/QUOTE]
he wasn't in on the ARG.
also i would like to know if there will be some collectors edition too, i would like a Real metal 1/8th scale Companion cube or something if you guys do.
Q: seriously personguy why can't i be you your hairstyle is as awesome as your job
[QUOTE=F T;20678198]I've got 3 things to ask.
1. How did you guys encode images into the "dino" soundfiles? I would like to try that one day...[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television[/url]
read up
Q: What type of math do you need to learn for C++?
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