Valve: no new engine anytime soon

Source it so old that it feels like it was designed for consoles. Levels are broken down into tiny fragments that require loading every couple of minutes. It looks ok but I think it has a "too clean" quality to it. The only thing it has going for it is that any video card made in the past 5 years can run it at 200 fps.
 
Source it so old that it feels like it was designed for consoles. Levels are broken down into tiny fragments that require loading every couple of minutes. It looks ok but I think it has a "too clean" quality to it. The only thing it has going for it is that any video card made in the past 5 years can run it at 200 fps.

Although the 200fps claim might be exaggerating a bit, I think its Valve's ideal to give as many people as possible access to their games. Producing another Crysis probably won't bring that result. Yes, if you lower the settings in Crysis, it runs ok on less that stellar systems, but most people aren't happy unless its running at 60fps with max everything.
 
Worst part of Valve's engine is how it tends to stutter audio-wise when loading in audio files, really weak. Don't think I've experienced this in any other modern engine.

That's always been a big problem of mine. I remember when HL2 came out and that happened and they swore up and down it wasn't their problem, it was the SBLive that had the problem and so on and so forth. Here we are years later and it still does that shit (not just HL2, TF2 does it as well and so on).

Valve designs good games overall, but I really feel they'd be better if they licensed another engine. Source isn't that great.

The alt-tab thing is another I have problems with. It works, but is all kinds of slow whereas most engines can do it immediately with no problems.
 
Well... Epic seems to make good, fast engines... Valve could afford to license UE 3.5+ or 4.0 and modify it for our PC-desires. Alternatively, idtech 5 (Doom 4 is supposed to make better use of the engine, as opposed to RAGE...which seems to be optimized for console performance) will likely be an efficient engine.

I think that'd be a good solution, because from the sound of that article, Valve doesn't WANT to make engines... they just want a tweakable platform for game development.
 
Although the 200fps claim might be exaggerating a bit, I think its Valve's ideal to give as many people as possible access to their games. Producing another Crysis probably won't bring that result. Yes, if you lower the settings in Crysis, it runs ok on less that stellar systems, but most people aren't happy unless its running at 60fps with max everything.

Any of the source games will run over 60fps with max everything on weak cards like the Radeon 5750 and Geforce 250 already.
 
Well... Epic seems to make good, fast engines... Valve could afford to license UE 3.5+ or 4.0 and modify it for our PC-desires. Alternatively, idtech 5 (Doom 4 is supposed to make better use of the engine, as opposed to RAGE...which seems to be optimized for console performance) will likely be an efficient engine.

I think that'd be a good solution, because from the sound of that article, Valve doesn't WANT to make engines... they just want a tweakable platform for game development.

Why would they spend money licensing someone else's engine and have to deal with extensive licensing agreements? Valve likes its engine and they like releasing mod tools. You can't do that with UE3 and Tech5 is neither out nor a proven engine. Valve doesn't want to make NEW engines they want to keep improving the one they have. They're not concerned with licensing it out to to companies or pushing graphical boundaries. Source was always designed to run across a large range of systems and it still does that. Valve designs games to be played by large demographics of people, not just those with the latest and greatest.
 
Apparently most of you can't read.

What Valve actually said is that they are going to continue to develop and improve Source, just like they have been doing for the last 7 years (see http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html). People calling it a 2004 engine need to get a clue, and people calling for them to make a new engine from scratch clearly have no concept of how big of an undertaking that is. It make no sense for them to scrap a perfectly good platform.

Portal 2 is the most entertaining game I've played in years, despite not having an engine with all the cutting edge bullet points of some other games. All of Valve's games have great visuals because they have fantastic artists and animators.

Apparently Dota 2 is going to have some nice new stuff added to the engine. Valve build the engine around the needs of the games, not the other way around.
 
Last edited:
Apparently most of you can't read.

What Valve actually said is that they are going to continue to develop and improve Source, just like they have been doing for the last 7 years. People calling for them to make a new engine from scratch clearly have no concept of how big of an undertaking that is. It make no sense for them to scrap a perfectly good platform.

Portal 2 is the most entertaining game I've played in years, despite not having an engine with all the cutting edge bullet points of some other games. All of Valve's games have great visuals because they have fantastic artists and animators.

Apparently Dota 2 is going to have some nice new stuff added to the engine. Valve build the engine around the needs of the games, not the other way around.

Portal 2 looks a fuckload better than Brink does and it runs a motherfuckload better as well. People keep citing games like Crysis and Metro 2033 and a "double standard" about PC gamers and developers and graphical quality.

I'm going to clear the air on this issue.

Developers can make games for one of two purposes: games that look really good and games that play really well. The two do not overlap. Metro 2033 plays like shit. It's a single player game meant to wow you with graphics, but nothing more. Same deal with Crysis. You play them once or twice, dick around with some mods to make them look even better, rave on forums about how pretty they are, then summarily forget them like yesterday's newspaper. Now, a game like TF2 or CSS can hold a steady audience of players for YEARS. You know why they hold that audience? I'll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with their graphical quality.

Games like Crysis and Metro are showpieces, nothing more. They look great, they play all right, but they are quickly forgotten in the minds of gamers who play their games for the GAMES. Not for the visuals. There's also a reason why Starcraft 1 and 2, despite looking like shit, are incredibly popular. They play well, so not only do we excuse the lack of graphical quality, we WELCOME it. They play better with good framerates, with a lack of postprocessing dusty ass visual noise a la BFBC2.

Sadly, the era of games being made to play and not to look at is coming to an end. Games today are about the spectacle. People don't care about tight controls, good netcode, good performance and clean visuals. They want uber-realistic visuals to push their system's to the max regardless of the fact that the quest for uber realistic visuals has been the primary culprit in the rape of gameplay.

Source sits in a nice middle ground. Games like SC1 and CS 1.6 go back a little too far graphically. They are a little too primitive, and it shows to anybody who has played them. Games like Brink, Crysis, Killzone 3, these have pushed for the visuals too much and they have simply forsaken good gameplay. People would rather have some vague sense of immersion from quality graphics than a strong sense of fun and competition from quality gameplay.

I suppose the day that Valve releases a shitty game with shitty graphics will be the day that we forsake them too. But as it stands, they haven't done that. They make games to play, always have, and hopefully always will.

There is a modification for Quake 3 Arena that has been in development, independently, for over a decade. The game is called Urban Terror, and this is their website: http://www.urbanterror.info/news/home/ . In the banner on that page are the words "fun over realism", the philosophy according to which they develop. I just wish more developers would adhere to such a philosophy.
 
Last edited:
I'm going to clear the air on this issue.

Developers can make games for one of two purposes: games that look really good and games that play really well. The two do not overlap.

Horseshit. Some of the best games ever made where some of the best, if not the best when they were released. BF2, possibly the best multiplayer game ever made, took a beast of a machine to run, 2x7800gtx to run at a decent framerate maxed out iirc.

Also, we all know how shitty this game was, and that it was really only a glorified tech demo:
KnskV.jpg


Metro 2033 plays like shit. It's a single player game meant to wow you with graphics, but nothing more. Same deal with Crysis. You play them once or twice, dick around with some mods to make them look even better, rave on forums about how pretty they are, then summarily forget them like yesterday's newspaper. Now, a game like TF2 or CSS can hold a steady audience of players for YEARS. You know why they hold that audience? I'll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with their graphical quality.

Could it be perhaps that the first 2 games you mentioned are singleplayer and the others are multiplayer? Nahh, that couldn't have anything to do with why they have replayability, that's crazy talk.

Games like Crysis and Metro are showpieces, nothing more. They look great, they play all right, but they are quickly forgotten in the minds of gamers who play their games for the GAMES.

Are you insane? Crysis is infamous. It's still talked about 4 years later. It was and still is a benchmark for pc graphics, and a damn fine game at that.

I'm not even going to adress any more of your post as I think I've said enough.
 
If valve can contine to release games that are as fun as Half-Life, TF, CS Source and portal, I could care less what engine they use.
 
I did not realize how many valve apologist there were.

Have you PLAYED Portal 2? Who would feel the need to apologize for that?

Source is still a perfectly usable engine - needs some tweaks, sure, and some obvious areas of improvement are visible...but none seem massive enough to suggest the need to 'throw it all away and start over', as some on the thread seem to be pushing for.
 
Have you PLAYED Portal 2? Who would feel the need to apologize for that?

I have. The "puzzles" were designed for people that don't have a functioning brain and 30% of the play time is walking down catwalks with no way to deviate from the path. If the exact same game were made by someone other than Valve it would be getting tepid reviews.
 
I have. The "puzzles" were designed for people that don't have a functioning brain and 30% of the play time is walking down catwalks with no way to deviate from the path. If the exact same game were made by someone other than Valve it would be getting tepid reviews.

Maybe, but if it was anyone but Valve most of you people wouldn't look for any excuse to shit on it. Works both ways.
 
If they haven't been developing a new engine then what the hell have they been doing? 4 years for episode 3?
 
People calling it a 2004 engine need to get a clue, and people calling for them to make a new engine from scratch clearly have no concept of how big of an undertaking that is. It make no sense for them to scrap a perfectly good platform.

People calling Windows XP a 2000 OS need to get a clue, and people calling for them to make a new OS from scratch clearly have no concept of how big of an undertaking that is. It makes no sense for them to scrap a perfectly good platform.
 
People calling Windows XP a 2000 OS need to get a clue, and people calling for them to make a new OS from scratch clearly have no concept of how big of an undertaking that is. It makes no sense for them to scrap a perfectly good platform.

Wow that was the dumbest......Actually it was a good attempt if you have no clue of the massive problems XP had that couldn't be fixed without a complete overhaul from the ground up. Most of Source's issues are theoretically fixable without making a new engine.
 
Maybe, but if it was anyone but Valve most of you people wouldn't look for any excuse to shit on it. Works both ways.

We wouldn't need to even think about it since it wouldn't be getting inflated scores solely due to it being a Valve game. :p
 
Wow that was the dumbest......Actually it was a good attempt if you have no clue of the massive problems XP had that couldn't be fixed without a complete overhaul from the ground up. Most of Source's issues are theoretically fixable without making a new engine.

Yet Valve hasn't fixed the massive amount of level loading, alt-tab issues, sound issues, etc. that have all been around for the past seven years. Hmm.
 
We wouldn't need to even think about it since it wouldn't be getting inflated scores solely due to it being a Valve game. :p

Maybe. Still Valve games both get inflated scores and a lot of fans simply shitting on them because they want something to bitch about. Neither is good for the industry.
 
Yet Valve hasn't fixed the massive amount of level loading, alt-tab issues, sound issues, etc. that have all been around for the past seven years. Hmm.

I did say theoretically. They need a new sound engine for Source, not sure why they keep ignoring it.
 
Maybe. Still Valve games both get inflated scores and a lot of fans simply shitting on them because they want something to bitch about. Neither is good for the industry.

I agree but nearly every game they've released since HL2 has had things that most gamers/reviewers will ding other titles for; a large amount of scripted events, repetitiveness even worse than the The Library in Halo:CE (HL2 airboat/driving sections, P2 catwalks and test chambers), lack of challenge, lack of variety, etc. Yet they always get a free pass.

I will admit that they do do some things right such as DLC, Steam, and the polish they put into their games is often industry leading.
 
Valve doesn't need to create a whole new engine from the ground up. They need to fork it like they did with Source from GoldSrc before HL2 was released. They'll get some I.Q. gains with a lower resource cost.
 
I agree but nearly every game they've released since HL2 has had things that most gamers/reviewers will ding other titles for; a large amount of scripted events, repetitiveness even worse than the The Library in Halo:CE (HL2 airboat/driving sections, P2 catwalks and test chambers), lack of challenge, lack of variety, etc. Yet they always get a free pass.
The reason Halo got ragged on for repetitiveness was because it used the same damn levels twice and just populated them with different enemies. You were literally repeating 1/3 of the campaign just to stretch things out. You may not have liked the vehicle sections of HL2, but that is a very poor comparison.
 
The HL2 driving levels felt almost exactly the same and were populated with exactly the same enemies. At least the different enemies in the repeated levels of Halo required different tactics. They were both repetitive and there solely for filler. Most reviews of Halo docked it for it, most reviews of HL2 either ignored it or skimmed over it.
 
I have no clue. I just have no clue. I don't know about the economics of building engines. But I will say this, Valve is way behind Crytek at this point. I love Valve and I love their work, but they are behind in the technology department at this point. The Source Engine is ungodly good and the games have been great, but games are just out of date. Portal 2 to me looks like a game from four years ago. I'm not saying they need a new engine, but I'm about as big a fan as anyone and I will tell you I will not buy another game at full price on this engine. Portal 2 has bargin bin written all over it.
 
Well, DICE somehow managed to turn out a brand new gorgeous DX11 engine, so why can't valve? DICE could've milked the same old FrostByte 1.5 engine for 7 years, talking up 'gameplay not graphics' but would that really have been better? I hardly believe so. I'm sorry, but you CAN do both, BF3 looks like it has gameplay and graphics to kill for, don't see why valve can't accomplish the same.
 
BF3 looks like it has gameplay and graphics to kill for, don't see why valve can't accomplish the same.
Really? I'm sure BF3 will have great MP, but nothing they've shown so far says to me that the gameplay is anything amazing. What they've put out looks like a prettier Modern Warfare.
 
Really? I'm sure BF3 will have great MP, but nothing they've shown so far says to me that the gameplay is anything amazing. What they've put out looks like a prettier Modern Warfare.

So you think it's one or the other? Anyways, the guns look like they have a nice feel, jets are in and they look really fun and smooth (granted only 2 seconds of video here), the larger destruction, longer view distances, etc. I am the type of person that thinks better graphics enables better gameplay. My favorite games are Crysis 1 and BF:BC2, what's a game where poor graphics made for better gameplay, because I can't think of any.
 
I can obviously tell by reading these forums that this message won't be heard until Battlefield 3 is released - DX11 title. So that means 2012 before company's might get a clue.

A History lesson from 2007:
Crysis and UT3 sold 86,633 units and 33,995 units, respectively, in the United States last month. Those numbers are considerably lower than those for, say, Assasin's Creed for the Xbox 360, which sold close to one million copies (980,000, to be exact) over a similar time frame. Call of Duty 4 was the clear best-seller last month, though, with a staggering 1.57 million units sold throughout November since its launch on November 6.

We have to buy PC games that are cutting edge to get cutting edge titles people. PC gamings fanbase has to put it's money where it's mouth is. Simple as that. Buy Metro 2033, buy Dirt 3, buy BFBC2 etc.

Everyone here better just buy BF3 (I DONT CARE IF YOU DONT LIKE IT JUST BUY IT CUZ ITS DX11!!) or else as PC Gamers we're totally F***ed from here on out, and we will all be running consoles or console ports from here on out. GG. Don't F this one up guys. Set aside 50 or 60 dollars, do it. PC gamings future really depends on it.


Just look at Crysis, that game came out in 07 and because it failed, sales wise we have sat through many years. Almost half a decade running less graphical games simply because of it's sales numbers. Facts. If you can spend 300+ on a CPU. 40+ on memory. 100-200 +on a mobo. For gods sake people spend 50 dollars on at least one of those high end DX11 titles when they are released.

Doom 3 has still sold more copies than Crysis, 3.5 to 3.0 million copies. Those games were the most cutting edge when they were realesed IMO at their times. Look at their sales, horrible. Now look at HL2 sales. 12 million. I bought HL2 and DOom 3 on launch day, I didn't get Crysis though.

If DX11 games don't sell more than the company predicts will sell. Competing companies are less likely to try other DX11 titles.

I'm guilty too, I should have purchased more DX11 titles. I think that is why TES:Skyrim is DX9. Because of the poor DX11 titles sales seen by other games. Across every title released so far basically.

I bet if BF3 did amazing, Valve/Gabe Newell would be speaking about their newest DX11 game engine being worth looking into for the HL3 release, Counter Strike 3 release ETC. as well next year. ;) We gotta buy these titles people, or just sit hear and complain on forums for years and years.

Morale of the story. Pirate DX9 games till they die off, like the old smelliness they are, and BUY UP all the minty fresh DX 11 games we can afford. :D

The tide will then change for PC gaming :D I'm buying BF3 and pirating Skyrim this year ;) And I'm staying away from steam games for awile too.
 
People calling Windows XP a 2000 OS need to get a clue, and people calling for them to make a new OS from scratch clearly have no concept of how big of an undertaking that is. It makes no sense for them to scrap a perfectly good platform.

You don't actually think Microsoft started from scratch with Windows Vista or 7, do you?

Perhaps Valve should start putting version numbers on the engine to keep idiots happy.
 
So you think it's one or the other? Anyways, the guns look like they have a nice feel, jets are in and they look really fun and smooth (granted only 2 seconds of video here), the larger destruction, longer view distances, etc. I am the type of person that thinks better graphics enables better gameplay. My favorite games are Crysis 1 and BF:BC2, what's a game where poor graphics made for better gameplay, because I can't think of any.
Not sure how you deduced that. Of course better graphics can add to the immersion factor, but the underlying gameplay has to be fun. If BF3's SP (which is all they have shown so far) just ends up being CoD with shinier graphics, then that's what it is... nothing more.

And your last question is silly, because no developer designs purposefully bad graphics. I thought Crysis looked great as well, but if I've got to pick one FPS to keep for the rest of eternity I'll take the original Half-Life any day. If I had to pick between Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect 2, I'd take KOTOR... etc.
 
And your last question is silly, because no developer designs purposefully bad graphics. I thought Crysis looked great as well, but if I've got to pick one FPS to keep for the rest of eternity I'll take the original Half-Life any day. If I had to pick between Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect 2, I'd take KOTOR... etc.

If I had to play a game right now I'd almost always take the newer shinier one to the older classic :p If I had to keep a game for the rest of eternity and play no others then I think I probably wouldn't play any games at all ;)
 
I do understand the mentality. I know a lot of folks who find Link to the Past to be their favorite Zelda game. I'm playing it now for the first time and while it's good, it just doesn't hold up to the 3D ones for me. All things being equal though (same style and everything) I'll play an older game with better gameplay over a newer game with better graphics. Of course, the ideal is the newer game that has both!
 
Horseshit. Some of the best games ever made where some of the best, if not the best when they were released. BF2, possibly the best multiplayer game ever made, took a beast of a machine to run, 2x7800gtx to run at a decent framerate maxed out iirc.

Yeah the idea that graphics and gameplay are mutually exclusive is silly, it's rare to see good graphics and good game play together, but it's certainly do-able and developers should always strive to achieve it. BF2 is a perfect example, it looks the tits when it came out, it had a relatively harsh DX9 only requirement which for it's day alienated a bunch of players, but guess what, people upgraded to play the game and quite rightly so.

I did not realize how many valve apologist there were.

A lot, I think some of the [H] members are starting to really see this now, all you have to do is imagine what peoples reactions would be like if it was someone like EA making these valve titles, they'd get ripped to shreds for some of the stuff they pull.

I have. The "puzzles" were designed for people that don't have a functioning brain and 30% of the play time is walking down catwalks with no way to deviate from the path. If the exact same game were made by someone other than Valve it would be getting tepid reviews.

My thoughts exactly, if you're even mildly coordinated and/or good at puzzles the singleplayer isn't really any longer than about 4 hours, about an hour of which will be spent following linear pathways linking the rooms and watching the loading screen.

The amount of moaning and complaining for something like MW2 only being 6 hours and I blow through Portal 2 singleplayer in 4 hours and it's somehow no big deal, at this rate singleplayer games will be 20 minutes long.
 
Really? I'm sure BF3 will have great MP, but nothing they've shown so far says to me that the gameplay is anything amazing. What they've put out looks like a prettier Modern Warfare.

I think most people who would be getting BF3 are getting it for the MP.

I'm certainly not expecting any epic SP experience
 
The amount of moaning and complaining for something like MW2 only being 6 hours and I blow through Portal 2 singleplayer in 4 hours and it's somehow no big deal, at this rate singleplayer games will be 20 minutes long.

Pretty much. You don't see the same amount of rampant and hysterical defense of CODMW2's SP length, linearity and dated graphics from some 5 million players that you do from Valve fans.
 
Back
Top