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Monday, March 1, 2010

It must be nice to be Valve

Valve has made a handful of legendary games. They have an awesome digital distribution system, with DRM that people actually seem to like (compared to it's alternatives). They have a great reputation, mostly from making great games but also because they have do things like regularly updating Team Fortress 2 with new items and weapons (and bots!!!) at no added cost.

But that's not why I'm jealous of Valve at this particular moment. I'm jealous because all Valve has to do is post an update like this for Portal:

Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations

And they get a response like this. 64 pages of posts in 4 hours. Posts full of people scouring Portal for clues of how to use the radios recently scattered across the game, as well as trying to decipher the beeps they emit (morse code, some are thinking).

I promise you this, at this very moment there are a lot of people scouring Portal's game files. Some are checking the levels with 'noclip' on so they can walk through walls and look for newly-added secret areas. Others are unzipping game files to sift through models and maps, looking for anything new and interesting.

Team Fortress 2 gets very similar treatment. I had time sit at the edge of my seat and search for clues of what the last Team Fortress 2 update would bring. Unfortunately I'm too busy to follow the progress with Portal, even though I really, really want to.

Hopefully in a few weeks all will be revealed, and I'll hear about it from one of my feeds or one of my friends.

Til then, I'll try to restrain myself.

David

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