Half-Life Fallout: HLF Debate: A New Source? - Half-Life Fallout

Source's biggest problem is the inability to stream data. Its a huge fucking problem actually, but numerous Valve personal have vocalised similar thoughts so it should be way up the top of the list of "shit we need to fix".

Otherwise Source will stay as it is. It was built to be modular, and Source today isn't comparable to Source of yesteryear. Those hoping for Crytek-esque hardware melting engines from Valve really don't understand why Valve do what they do, and why such endeavours are little more than money sinks.

EatChildren, on 17 September 2011 - 03:35 PM, said:

I wouldn't call pandering to the mod community as a money sink. They are in a position to offer them the most out of all the other companies without hurting their bottom line, yet they fail to improve in the area that made them great in the first place. Steam is what is important to them now, everything else is just inconsequential...

Graphics isn't everything, its making art out of an engine that matters...

Modular as in Valve can build off base Source to add new features and effects, not modular as in modding.

What I meant by money sink engine design is that nobody is going to make state of the art cutting edge engines that push PCs to breaking point, like what Crytek did with CryEngine 2. Some people seem to think that Valve should make a Source 2 that is, for all intents and purposes, a crazy advanced benchmarking tool that only a fraction of the PC community can max out. My point was this wont ever happen, not just because its a waste of money, but because it goes against what Valve hope to accomplish with their engines and games (mass market usage).

Indeed, I think I said the same a page back.

Still the question is can Valve make such major improvements like some form of data streaming and making their tools more user friendly through the modular design of Source?

EatChildren, on 18 September 2011 - 05:17 AM, said:

Yes, I did not mistake your meaning, each new engine iteration requires a new set of tools, those tools really make the engine a viable base for modders, its not just the graphics that improve...

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Nobody builds a new game engine to run on current hardware you plan out with the expectation that your engine will be playable at max within 1 or 2 years once its out (affordable higher end cards to the masses.


A few years ago, everyone was joking about Crysis and how it would melt down your computer, now its a reality that even cheap affordable systems can more than handle it. You cant build an engine to be inmediately obsolete.

Also, I am not expecting for Valve to make Source 2 (should be 3 really since there was major updates to Source) a nuclear reactor core for your system, I want valve to have an engine that modders can use and build wonderful games out of, Source makes a hurdle out of this and the blocky graphics is just adding salt to the wound...

Most mods I hear about are source mods, usually HL2 or HL2 episode based. Where did you get that idea that people prefer to mod on other platforms? Crysis had arguably great mod tools, but after trying a handful of them out, I oculdn't find a single one that amateurish crap bordering on unplayable. Epic put some good efforts towards their mod community, and some good games were unreal 3 mods. but then, they migrated to either the Unreal Development Kit, or a fully licensed Unreal Engine game.

Like I said in the opening debate, there are much better alternatives than making full conversion mods of a game if you want to create something new, you can just get a cheap or free toolset and start from there.

This is the natural evolution of garage game development, better and more affordable tools, not tied to a different commercial game.

So should valve, as a game company, replace their separate SDKs for every game with an a general SDK without preexisting assets? It would be the best way to "make the tools better". But it also means that they would become an engine licenser, and that's a very different business model compared to being a game maker and publisher as they are now.

I think the evolution of steam and the lack of EP3 should make it obvious that they are now first a publisher and second a developer.

I dont see valve doing much in the way of improving their SDKs, its too tied to their engine.

suicide_mission, on 18 September 2011 - 05:28 PM, said:

Way to avoid my argument and try to change the subject.

Valve has released one quality game a year, every year, since 2006. Not to mention the free DLC and everything else they do for already released games.
Tell me the name of another developer that releases high quality game every year.

suicide_mission, on 19 September 2011 - 01:05 AM, said:

CryEngine 2 was far and away ahead of its time, and there exists not a single engine since that is comparably advanced. Not Unreal Engine 3, not Source, not even CryEngine 3 with the DX11 patch. Nothing like CryEngine 2 will ever be made again. It costs too much money with little to no return. Its bad business regardless of how fancy it looks.

Brumisator, on 18 September 2011 - 10:33 AM, said:

There is no avoiding, Source SDK has been out for almost a decade, it was one of the major early SDKs to be readably available to anyone who owned a valve game, you should expect several mods to be based on it, you cant throw away 5 years of work just because a new engine speeds up development by 2 years. What you should look at is the comparison between gldSource mods vs Source mods, the difference is obvious, people are getting fed up with Source and abandoning projects.

Also, the crappy mods for unreal et all speak volumes more about how easy and fast it is for someone to develop on it not how crappy the engine is.

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ummm, pretty much every other developer, depends on what you consider a high quality game, also, valve spent several years developing their games list, with a large gap where nothing was released, im sure you think its fine to neglect that, the last few years were the culmination of that sequenced releases.

The free DLC & games thing isnt Valve being nice, its keeping people hooked to steam, its a cash cow for them, im surprised they havent started the free games for continued purchasers of steam offers...

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thats fine, valve only needs to license it, they can afford it (they are giving games away for gods sake), but only if they are interested in advancing game development.

Valve's product turnaround, relative to other developers, is still quite good, and the intentions of their free DLC is completely irrelevant as someone still needs to make it. The idea that Valve is more of a publisher than game developer is completely absurd.

And they're not going to license any engine, because it's not in their best financial interest.

I don't really see what point you're trying to make, other than having a stick up your arse about Source. It's a seriously outdated engine crummy engine. I don't think anybody is going to argue otherwise. The point is Valve doesn't give a shit, and don't have any reason to give a shit.

suicide_mission, on 18 September 2011 - 04:49 PM, said:

Arguably because a lot of those projects turn out too be bigger endeavors than the people can handle. In general there's a lot more resources and work involved in creating a mod than there used to be, since the production values and capabilities of the engines they're build on went up. And in general mods that fall through are generally trying to be too ambitious or end up with people jumping ship because of lack of time.
Plus you are either dealing with mod teams with people who offer varying amount of time to the project or a single person doing it on his own. Both have stumbling blocks that hamper their expedience, which in terms makes it seem like development is stale and may lead to canceling a project.

That said, I have heard that the Source SDK tools are rather cumbersome to use.

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I think it's more a difference in mentality. Those crappy mods are probably build with less attention to quality and more about expedience (and not exclusive to any one engine). Quality mods often take a lot more time to build.

Berrie, on 19 September 2011 - 01:11 PM, said:

Like Black Mesa ...

I tried to work with source sdk, its a mess, everything is jumbled across different files and the documentation has always been incomplete. There isnt enough examples to explain important functions and macros or how to properly implement it, just how people have discovered how to use it with their own implementation.