Valve Complete Pack

When Portal 2 was announced, the news dropped through an elaborate scavenger hunt puzzle that sent thousands of players crawling all over the internet. Years later, we finally get to see some of the work that went into making that alternate reality game, as told by celebrated Half-Life modder (now Valve employee) Adam Foster in a blog post at Gamasutra.

Foster, one of the designers of the ARG puzzle from Valve, describes the elaborate trail of puzzles that the Portal-playing community was able to decipher. It began with a seemingly mundane game update for Portal 1: “changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations.” That update changed the radios found throughout Portal into Morse Code-dispensers. The code was deciphered into slow-scan television images. Somehow—my knowledge of information theory and cryptography ran dry a paragraph ago—these images were combined into an elaborate code, which was then hacked. Remember: none of us is as smart as all of us.



The result? A phone number to an ancient modem in Foster’s kitchen that slowly drip-fed Portal 2 concept art to announce the game to the world. The ARG team at Valve did a fun thing with no budget, and it caught the attention of the world’s games media. It was also an intricately designed puzzle that, despite a few false positives, played out exactly as Valve designed. As Foster writes, “Estimated time to 'solve' the initial puzzles: seven hours. Actual time to solve: seven hours and sixteen minutes. This wasn't an accident.”

We are all just puppets dancing on Gabe Newell’s strings, aren't we? Check out the full blog post from Foster for a lot of fascinating details about ARGs and the devious geniuses at Valve.

There will be Negevs.
We recently set up a ridiculous number of servers for the latest and greatest games—plus a few classics. To celebrate, we want you to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with us tonight!
The festivities will kick off on our new Arms Race server that features some of the coolest Arms Race-compatible maps on the Steam Workshop.
We’ve also got plans for Community Fridays that’ll take place every single Friday here at PC Gamer. The game will change each week, but the time will always stay the same—5 PM PDT / 8 PM EDT.

How to join

Join the PC Gamer Steam Group to be notified of events
Subscribe to our CS:GO Steam Workshop Classic map collection and Arms Race map collection (this will auto-download and auto-update the maps we run on our server through Steam—MAXIMUM CONVENIENCE!)
Join the server (“PCGamer.com | Custom Map Arms Race IP: 8.6.76.59:27015) around 5 PM PDT / 8 PM EDT
Have fun; be the kind of person you’d like to play games with

Thanks to GameServers for hosting all of our amazing servers. Think we’re missing an amazing map, mod, or config? Shoot an email to ben@pcgamer.com or jake@pcgamer.com.
If you’re not a fan of CS:GO, jump into some of our other game servers or join us this Friday for the first ever Community Friday.

Here at PC Gamer we like to play PC games. Sometimes, we even like to play them with other people. That’s why we’ve got a huge lineup of game servers hosted by GameServers.com. Feel free to hop on whenever, or join us on Community Friday or during our other random events.

All servers hosted in the US. We'll update this list with PC Gamer UK's servers as soon as possible.
CS:GO Arms Race


The in-game matchmaking system only lets 10 players duke it out in Arms Race. Our server has room for 24 players with the latest and greatest custom Arms Race-compatible maps from the Steam Workshop.
CS:GO Classic Casual


Our very first community events took place on the server we like to call: The Psychedelic Den of Map Experimentation. Try out some of the best maps available on the Steam workshop in our 24-player, 128 tick server.
Rising Storm


Join the Axis or Allies as we battle it out on PCG’s Rising Storm server. Territories mode is the name of the game with our soon-to-be ranked server.
Battlefield 3


Vehicle enthusiasts can drive around in our 64-player Battlefield 3 server. Watch out for mortars!
DayZ


Part of the public hive, our DayZ server is a great place for you to scavenge for loot, meet new friends, or hunt down some bandit scum.
Minecraft


A 32-player Minecraft server with the Tekkit Classic mod installed. Download the Tekkit client before jumping on to play!
Team Fortress 2


Show off your hats and other accessories on the PCG TF2 server. We’re running the official maplist with support for 24 players.
Left 4 Dead 2


If you’re looking for a reliable dedicated server for your co-op zombie escapades, look no further than the PCG 8-man Left 4 Dead 2 server. Pick your favorite flavor of L4D2 and murder some zombies.
Unreal Tournament 2004


A staple of the PCG offices, now you too can join in on the fun with our 32-player UT2K4 server.
GoldenEye: Source


If it wasn’t already clear, PCG loves mods. In fact, we love them so much that we’ve set up a 16 player GoldenEye: Source server for you guys to play on.
Natural Selection 2


For whatever reason there’s a 10-slot maximum on our Natural Selection 2 server. We like to think that this encourages teamwork.
Killing Floor


Another co-op zombie classic, jump into our 6-player Killing Floor server to play with other PCG community members.

If you’ve got server requests, plugins, mods, or other suggestions, email jake@pcgamer.com or ben@pcgamer.com.

Are we finally going to be able to play Half-Life 3? While Valve isn't exactly holding press conferences or sending marching bands through the streets yet, a recent slip in its system supposedly exposed the details of every project it's ever worked on—including the long-fabled conclusion to one of gaming's best series, as well as Left 4 Dead 3 and Source Engine 2.

The tip-off comes to PC Gamer via ValveTime, who recently received alleged screenshots of Valve's internal project-tracking software (Jira) during a momentary lapse in which is the system was made public (it has, of course, since been locked up tight again). The images show a 42-employee mailing group for a project entitled "Half-Life 3," as well as a mailing group for "Left 4 Dead 3" with 68 recipients.

Meanwhile, the development of Source 2 appears to be plugging along nicely, with the numerous groups devoted to the project hinting it's in full swing. Other project listings include familiar names such as "Return to Ravenholm," "Steam Box," and "Episode 3," as well as the more mysterious "F-Stop" and "SteamMMO."

One of the screenshots sent to ValveTime.

Before we start waving about banners emblazoned with Gordon Freeman's handsome face, we have to keep in mind that this info dump is in no way an official confirmation of anything. Firstly, these screenshots come from an anonymous source and cannot be verified. Secondly, Jira catalogs everything that has ever been worked on within Valve's walls, regardless of development stage, and some of the listed titles may very well have been canceled years ago.

ValveTime hypothesizes that games further in their development cycle have multiple mailing lists, as Left 4 Dead 3 does—suggesting that it is in active development. This is in contrast to Half-Life 3's single  group, which suggests that its development is either inactive or in the very beginning stages.

We'll be keeping our ears perked for further details. In the meantime, let's pray that a tiny Half-Life 3 embryo is kicking about somewhere in the Valve HQ, preparing to grow into something grand.

eSports network StarLadder TV has dropped the banhammer on Aleksey "Solo" Berezin and four of his teammates on Dota 2 team RoX.KIS. StarLadder TV claims RoX.KIS purposefully fed during a Star Series match to win a $100 bet placed on eSports betting site egamingbets.com.
Berezin has been permanently banned from all StarLadder competition while his teammates have received three-year bans. Team RoX.KIS has been banned for one year.
StarLadder TV got in touch with egamingbets.com to find proof of the $100 bet as well as the cash withdrawal into Berezin's account. StarLadder has a full post up on its site along with screenshots of the transactions, although it's all in Russian.
RoX.KIS maintains that the team is innocent, going so far as to say that the bet came from an unknown account with an IP that doesn’t match Berezin’s IP. “We think that the evidence base is very uncertain in this case. We've been able to insist on more thorough investigation of the incident and we believe in the innocence of our players and staff, and inadequate solution on the case,” said in a statement that was translated.
From where I'm sitting, it's suspicious that the $322 winnings were deposited into Berezin’s WebMoney account, even if the bet wasn’t placed with his usual IP. Addressing the alleged feeding, RoX.KIS says that the “match was just a formality,” because the team couldn’t have made it to the LAN finals.
After an even early game, the match seems to edge into zRage’s favor around 16 minutes into the VOD of the full match. To my inexperienced eye, the game doesn’t seem like an explicit attempt to throw—aside from a few bad plays. If anything, the fact that a loss for zRage would have meant relegation is just one more reason that zRage would try hard to win.
If the situation wasn’t confusing enough, fans betting branches in the GosuGamers.net non-money betting system clearly favored RoX.KIS with 84 percent of branches wagered on RoX.KIS’ victory.
Despite the strides that Valve is making in reforming the Dota 2 community, it seems that the eSports scene still has a bit of a ways to go. The strict response from StarLadder TV is the bright spot in a situation that doesn’t really benefit anyone.

Thanks, joinDOTA.