JEMC said:
Yes, I actually do.
I really don't know how big, in terms of manpower and investment, was DOTA 2. I know it's a sequel to a Warcraft 3 mod and that Valve hired the man behind the mod (or the one in charge at the time) to make the "sequel" but, as I said, I don't know how much of Valve' staff was actually involved in making it. In any case, that's one game. Before that came CS:GO which again I don't know much was Valve involved as it wa developed by Hidden Path, and before that was Portal 2, made by the same team that made the first game and that were bought or hired by Valve. And it's almost the same situation with Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead so, again, what has Valve, the main Valve that made Half Life, made during the last 10 years? Lastly, Source 2 may be free, but so are Unreal Engine and CryEngine. Why would someone choose Source over other engines widely used and, and this is my guess, with better support from Epic and Crytek? |
p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }"Yes, I actually do."
It is okay to be wrong, I guess.
Portal 2 was made by some members of the Portal team.
Portal was made by about ten people max, with about 2.5 years of development time.
Some members of that ~ten person team were already Valve employees, such as Half-Life composer: Kelly Bailey (no longer works at Valve).
The Portal team members who were hired into Valve for Portal, came from the student project: Narbacular Drop.
Portal 2 took much longer and had a much larger team (3 times larger or more, about thirty-ish people).
The development of Portal 2 is pretty interesting.
As I understand it:
After the completion of The Orange Box (Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal and the the nine year dev cycle for TF2), Valve went into experimentation mode.
Valve's employees formed many small teams, where heaps of small gameplay experiments were conducted.
One of the experiments that showed promise was eventually called F-Stop.
F-Stop was supposed to be the core mechanic behind Portal 2, replacing Portals.
A Portal game, with no portals rubbed the play-testers the wrong way, so after about six or so months into development Portal 2 was rebooted.
Basically a whole game, and then some was cut from Portal 2 (I don't want to spend all night typing out this post, so I am stopping here).
Valve has stated that they may revisit the F-Stop mechanic in the future.
Stars of Blood was a Space Pirate game - cancelled.
Well with Crytek, there is always the chance that they may try to sue you later down the line.
So there is that.
Unreal Engine demands that the developers / publishers pay royalties, not So with Source 2 (from what we understand).
Source 2 is being developed alongside Valve’s VR projects and their 2D titles.
VR support from Source 2 will very likely be industry leading.
Source 2 will be battle hardened by, potentially, some of the best games produced by man.
Source 2 can be tightly integrated into Steam as both are produced by Valve.
Source 2 will have a dedicated group of people who are really knowledgeable about Source 2, due to coming from the Source / Source 2 modding scene.
Half-Life 2 took about five years to produce, with the team growing to about eighty or so team members.
Gabe didn’t work on the title for the most part.
Half-Life 2 was originally going to be darker, the concepts and assets we have from that period are quite interesting / cool.
There is too much to go into detail here; look-up the 2003 Valve hack.
I really have no idea how much effort went into Dota 2.
I do not play Dota 2, and I do not follow the game in any capacity.
People seem to like the game; it is good: apparently.
CS:GO is now in-house from my understanding.
The game has about thirty or so Valve employees working on it, last we heard (early 2017).
There is talk of a survival mode (PUBG, maybe) being in development for the game (maybe a spinoff / or new IP in the same world, Half-Life and Portal share a universe).
Left 4 Dead (1) was developed by Turtle Rock Studios , who were bought by Valve.
Valve moved the employees they deemed to be important into Valve proper and eventually let Turtle Rock Studios go.
Valve kept the Left 4 Dead IP, and produced Left 4 Dead 2 in-house, the game released one year after the first game causing backlash.
Left 4 Dead 2 is now seen as the better game, and no-one has an issue with it.
I still have no idea how Valve of all developers managed to make such a well received game in under a year.
The same developer who spent nine years developing TF2.
Valve is not a main HL team, and smaller satellite teams.
Valve is a single mass of individuals.
If Valve wants to spend a decade or two developing HL3, go for it.
As long as the game is perfect, I cannot complain.
Half-Life 2 is a design masterpiece; I am willing to wait a while for something that raises the bar, once again.
I would spend the time to properly source the stuff, but it is 1am and I cannot be bothered digging through interviews, GDC talks, ect.
Take everything at about a 90% accuracy rating.
