Master Source Filmmaker user Zachariah Scott returns once again with an amazing piece of work, this time crossing the world of Team Fortress 2 with that of Godzilla.
It's... look, I'm starting to think Zachariah Scott isn't one man, and that he's instead a complex computer program nestled beneath Valve headquarters, devoted entirely to designing and rendering terrific movies at record speed.
Big trouble in Rumble City [ Saxxy Awards 2012 ] [YouTube]
Steamrep forum user base64, having noticed a strange spike in transactions for a rare in-game item, decided to do a little private investigating. And uncovered some very strange happenings.
Picking up on a weird increase in trades for "earbuds", a rare item in the game, his investigations led him to discover a closed Steam group that was involved in highly suspicious item trading. The report is a lengthy and surprisingly fascinating read, but for the time-starved, let's cut to his tl;dr hypothesis:
tl;dr A group of Russians bought >5,000 Keys from Store today using illegitimate credit cards and bought few hundred Buds from TF2 Outpost at an ridiculous price of 28-30 Keys (The average yesterday was 25.5 Keys). They have been doing this for quite a long time and their activity today is alarming.
One motive for this could be the hilariously bizarre (if unlikely) possibility that Russian gangsters are using Team Fortress 2 to launder dirty money. Another, more likely outcome is that a band of crims have got hold of some stolen credit cards, and are spending the cash on rare TF2 items they can re-sell.
Today I discovered that there are tons of Keys with doubtful origin injecting into the market [Steamrep, via PC Gamer]
It might not be tear-worthy, but it's certainly a touching account of the Team Fortress 2 characters coming together in a moment of need. And that song ain't half bad either.
Lozeng3r's dramatic take on Team Fortress 2 is a submission to Valve's second annual Saxxy Awards, which will be open to votes in two days.
Team Fortress 2 - Till Death Do Us Part (Saxxy Entry) [YouTube]
Remember when you first finished Half-Life 2: Episode 2? The excitement? The shock? You were ready to set out with Alyx at your side, ready to show those alien bastards who's boss. The trilogy, and with it, the Combine's rule over Earth, would end soon.
Except it didn't. At the time of this writing, almost five years have passed since the supposed release date of the final installment in Gordon Freeman's saga. Half-Life 2: Episode Three was slated to arrive Christmas 2007. It didn't. As the weeks and months went by, confused fans tried to glean whatever information they could from Valve, but, by and large, they were unsuccessful. The company remained silent.
In this Kotaku Timeline, we follow the fans' process of dealing with Valve's silence, cataloging their forays into leaked code, and their communications with the developers. We detail the ways the gaming press interacted with Valve over the years, and list what little has been revealed. In addition, we will keep watch over the game, and take note of any events, good or bad, in the months and years to come.
There were no mentions of the final episode—called Half-Life 3 by some—between 1999, when Valve registered the domain halflife3.com, and 2006. But then, announcements were made, and names were dropped. And so this is where our timeline begins...
In the May issue of the print version of PC Gamer, Valve Software co-founder Gabe Newell talks about Half-Life 2 and its episodes (including Episode 3!), and why he thinks episodic gaming is the way to go. A full transcript is available through the link below.
GTTV: Episode 3. What do we know about it? What can you tell us?
Gabe: From our point of view there's enough newness in there that we want to sort of spring it on people and say "here's a bunch of things you've never seen before" — we have multiple of those.
GTTV: And that's graphically, or in terms of the gameplay, or...
Gabe: There's stuff that visually hasn't been in games before, and there's certainly a bunch of game elements, on the order of Portal, that have never been done before.
GTTV: So even better than the portal gun?
Gabe: Oh yeah.
GTTV: Really? New gameplay paradigms?
Gabe: Uh-huh. I think that we're really happy with how the Orange Box did, and we'd do an Oranger Box next time, certainly.
The first pieces of concept art for Episode 3 are released. Take a long, good look at them, folks, 'cause you won't be seeing anything like these for a while.
Steamcast: Alright, first question: this is one of the most commonly asked questions that we had received and we've tried to format it into something you might be able to answer: you'd kept Episode 3 under incredibly heavy wraps thus far; we'd like to know why have you chosen to adapt such a reclusive approach this time around, as opposed to previous releases. Was it based on the reception you'd received about letting out too much info prior to Episode 2, or just something completely different?
Gabe Newell: I think that what's going on, you know, we're sort of always experimenting, we're always trying out different kinds of things, and that has positive as well as negative consequences for ourselves and for the community—so if you look at our different products, we're trying out these different rhythms. (Ed.: Here Gabe talks about how Valve handles updates for Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.) Right now, the Half-Life 2 episodes themselves are on a third sort of rhythm, and, you know, we think it makes sense for the product and for what we're trying to do there. The reason that we're not talking about anything is mainly that we don't have anything to say; it's not like we decided we released too much information, it's just that if we had information that we were in a position to deliver to people, we would—and right now we don't have anything to say about it. It really is a consequence of these different rhythms to release schedules we're trying out. (...) So, Ep 3 is sort of victim to our willingness to experiment, and as soon as we have stuff that we're ready to say about Ep 3, we will.
Steamcast: Alright, fair enough.
Steam forum denizen StickZer0 (his image to the left) happens upon several Episode 3-related files while poking around in the Alien Swarm SDK.
A pair of young Canadian gamers show up on the lawn of Valve Software HQ, wielding cardboard signs, demanding that Valve release some Episode 3 info.
A redditor posts an e-mail exchange he's had with Gabe.
Reader Naroon sends in an Episode 3-related easter egg from Saints Row 3.
An Uber Entertainment employee sees someone wearing a very peculiar shirt at a game developer event in Seattle.
A new site displaying a huge Half-Life 3 logo appears. While a troll, it's still somewhat clever. At least we get a sweet wallpaper out of it.
Garry Newman, the man behind the vastly popular Garry's Mod, tweets a picture of a Half-Life 3 shirt supposedly sent to him by Valve. Later, he says it was only a joke. This of course kicks the LambdaGeneration rumor mill into overdrive.
A resourceful Steam forum user uploads all the Half-Life references he could find in CS:GO's files. Unsurprisingly, nothing of real value is found.
Vaguely lambda-shaped onion ring? Half-Life 3 confirmed.
A redditor tries to start a hoax involving a supposed pre-order ad for Episode 3 at Best Buy. It doesn't work out.
Valvetime posts a bunch of concept art that they've received from an anonymous source. However, the images are at least four years old.
Mad Catz releases an ad for their new keyboard that shows a Half-Life 3 icon. Wild speculation and nerdrage follow.
Zachariah Scott, a cinematic designer at BioWare, may have an unfair advantage when it comes to Source Filmmaker clips, seeing as he's not exactly an amatuer, but whatever. If professional videos are what we get when professionals use the tool, then we're all winners.
In this clip, TF2's Medic has an...episode after the loss of his beloved bird. It's far more haunting than I would have thought before I pressed play.
Bad Medicine [YouTube]
Team Fortress 2's new Mann vs Machine mode gets surprisingly thoughtful in this series of pieces done by artist biggreenpepper.
tf2 Heavy MVM [DeviantArt, via Dotcore]
Photoshop artist Valentin Baguirov used a combination of Photoshop and Valve's Source Filmmaker to create these movie poster beauties. Drag the slider over to compare and contrast.
You can view the full-sized versions—both original poster and Team Fortress 2 poster—below.
TF2 Movie posters [Behance via Dotcore]
It was Valve boss Gabe Newell's birthday on November 3, and to mark the occasion, some kids from 4chan's /v/ (the board's video games group) went and paid him a visit in the flesh.
In addition to giving him a giant card (which they do every year), and getting the chance to wish him a happy birthday in person (not to mention pick up some swag), they also presented him with a gift. A box. Which Newell was charged $2.50 to open.
Inside? A hat.
I won't say this often, but well played, /v/, well played.
UPDATE - Now with video.
For Gabe's birthday, 4chan's /v/ sent him THIS card [Reddit]
The fancy "In Motion" DLC for the PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 is available today.
We last saw "In Motion" at E3 this summer, where a Sony representative demonstrated how the Move works with the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The DLC adds new kinds of controls to the game, including, notably, the ability to scale a cube in size while holding it. (Just when you thought you had mastered thinking with portals, along comes a whole new mechanic to trip you up.)
The "In Motion" DLC also includes new levels to go along with the new controls, and that, of course, require features like portal surfing and item scaling to solve.
Portal 2 In Motion DLC Launches Today on PSN [PlayStation Blog]
On the one hand, I'm extremely excited to see an Adult Swim/Valve mix that doesn't just involve a sign-up sheet and a hat.
The claymation is also a nice touch. But this feels more like Adult Swim saying, "Hey, here's a thing that sorta looks like a thing that you play online sometimes," rather than actually doing a proper spoof off of Team Fortress 2. It's kinda silly, maybe even kinda funny, but all around not the kind of witty and on the nose humor you may have expected from such a collaboration.
But then again...Hey! Here's a thing that sorta looks like a Team Fortress 2 thing, and that's neat!
Robot Chicken - TF2 short [YouTube via Reddit]