Portal 2′s Perpetual Testing Initiative

Valve has announced their new free Portal 2 DLC, which is effectively a map creator kit, in the best way possible – a memo from Cave Johnson.

TO: All Aperture employees
FROM: Cave Johnson

COMPANY MEMORANDUM

Cave Johnson here. Your boss. It’s come to my attention that some of you are concerned after receiving my all-staff memo yesterday (“You: Design Test Chambers or You’re Fired”). So to put your minds at ease, let me clarify: You are not mentally ill and you did read the memo just fine. It was real. You should be designing test chambers, right now and at all times, or by God I will fire you.

To celebrate the release, Portal 2 is on sale for $6.79 from Steam which is a bargain for how much time you’ll spend solving, and now creating, the ingenious puzzles it contains.

Check out the trailer for the new Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC below.

Gabe Decrees DOTA 2 Will Be Free

While Valve is hard at work on the beta development phase of DOTA 2, gamers have been waitin’ and debatin’ on whether the game will have an up-front fee, or if it’ll be entirely free.

Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, has confirmed that the game will be free ‘with a twist’ while speaking to the Seven Day Cooldown podcast:

“It’s going to be free-to-play — it’ll have some twists, but that’s the easiest way for people to think about it,” Newell said.

“We’re trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else [are] recognized and accommodated. We all know people where if they’re playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they’re playing we would [rather] be on the other side of the planet.”

“It’s just a question of coming up with mechanisms that recognize and reward people who are doing things that are valuable to other groups of people.”

Gabe went on to explain that good behaviour could include anything from players who write useful guides or who volunteer their time to teach newer players. He said he couldn’t think of any existing free-to-play models that are the same as what Valve has in mind for DOTA 2, however I can.

League of Legends, a rival MOBA game, has a similar system of reward with it’s Summoners Code of Conduct and Tribunal. Players are encouraged to vote on breaches of this code in a Tribunal process that rewards them with in-game currency. Unfortunately the rewards are fairly minor, much less currency than one could earn by simply playing a game of LoL, which stops most players from participating in the Tribunal on a regular basis.

Riot has released statistics claiming the Tribunal is a resounding success, so hopefully if Valve plan to include more substantial rewards with DOTA 2‘s incentive system, it should be a successful model.

Source: Polygon

Steam Has Been Haxxored

Steam has confirmed that one of their databases was hacked earlier this week with a post on their forums:

“Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.”

“We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.”

If it’s anything like the PSN hack earlier this year, it’s unlikely that any credit card details were compromised. However it wouldn’t be a bad idea to reset your Steam password and keep a close eye on your credit card statement.

Now all I need is someone to hack my Xbox account and I’ll have the trifecta. That’s not an invitation.

Portal 2 OST: Volume 1 – Songs To Test By

Valve have released the Portal 2 Original Soundtrack to download for Free – yes, FREE!

Volume 1 – titled “Songs To Test By” contains 22 tracks from Portal 2, and as an added bonus there is also a few ringtones available from the website to download to your Android iOS Device.

You can download Volume 1 from the Thinking With Portals Website, or alternatively you can grab it from the 3FL Mirror.

Source: Think With Portals

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The Final Hours Of Portal 2 Available On Steam

Last month a little application was released for the iPad called “The Final Hours of Portal 2″.

This application was a Interactive Documentary that included interactive diagrams, 360 degree photos of Valves office and design labs, and even let you see before and after shots of Portal 2 chambers post-destruction.

Good news is for those of you who don’t have an iPadiPad2 is that the documentary is now available from the Steam Store for purchase – so if you have a bit of spare cash and want a good insight to how Portal 2 was developed, then head over to the Steam Store and pick this up.

Source: Steam Store

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Portal 2 Beta Modkit Released

Valve have released the Beta Modkit for Portal 2 today – allowing anyone who owns Portal 2 to download the Modkit and start authoring maps for Portal 2.

Included in the Modkit is:

• Updated Version of Hammer, The Source Level Editor
• Updated Faceposer
• Example Maps and Instances to build new maps
• Updated suite of command-line compiling utilities

Valve have suggested that if you have any problems or issues that you email the Portal 2 Mapper Mailing List.

Source: Portal 2

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Team Fortress 2: First Annual Saxxy Awards

The most recent update to Team Fortress 2 introduced a new feature for both players and server providers.

The update was titled “The Replay Update” and introduced the replay editor for players to edit their replays using a inbuilt UI and then export the video, or upload it directly to YouTube for your friends to watch.

In addition to this update Valve are currently running the First Annual Saxxy Awards in which players can submit their videos to be judged in 20 different categories – such as:

• Most Inventive Kill
• Biggest Massacre
• Most Dramatic
• Best Editing
• Most Epic Fail
• And many more.

Entries into this competition have to be created between 12:00:00 AM GMT, Thursday May 5th, 2011 and 11:59:59 PM GMT, Thursday May 19th, 2011 – and must be submitted to Valve before 11:59:59 PM GMT, Thursday, May 19th, 2011 to be considered.

More information on replays can be found on the Official Replay Update website.

Source: Team Fortress 2 Website

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Portal 2 Update Released

Valve have released an update for Portal 2 on the PC and Mac which aims to fix a few issues with Alt-Tab crashing the game. Also included in the patch was Updated Localization Files, and a new method for handling Mac OSX Crashes.

In addition to the above changes Valve have also fixed a few bugs in the Robot Enrichment Center, fixed the game from crashing when changing video settings and not exiting the game, and also fixed the issue where a player would get stuck at the start of Chapter 6.

You can grab the full patch notes over at the Steam Store.

Source: Steam

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Portal 2 DLC #1 Includes New Test Chambers

Last week Valve announced that Portal 2 would have DLC content coming as soon as Summer this year, and now Valve have released a little more information on the DLC pack titled “DLC #1″.

From what little is known about the first DLC Pack coming out for Portal 2 is that it will include new Test Chambers, Leaderboards, and a new Challenge Mode for both Single and Multiplayer.

Portal 2 DLC #1 will be free to download for PC, Mac, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 owners.

Source: GamingUnion

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The Final Hours of Portal 2

An interesting application arrived on the Apple AppStore last night called “The Final Hours of Portal 2″, the application was released for the iPad and is a behind the scenes look at the development Portal 2.

The Final Hours of Portal 2 is a 15,000 word interactive experience that lets you play with portals in interactive diagrams, view 360 degree panorama photos of Valves office and design labs, and even destroy Aperture Science test chambers by swiping your finger over the screen.

The application itself costs $2.49 from the Australian AppStore and is definitely worth the read if you have enjoyed playing, or intend to play Portal 2 – however if you want to avoid and potential spoilers to the game it would be best to finish Portal 2 first.

Source: AppStore

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