Mistakes made by Valve

Technology and Gaming
#1

I think there were enough occasions in which Valve has wasted precious time and provided time for some projects not so important…like free games instead to focus on key titles, I know there is a big team but they need all the potential because, to create a game it takes too much time
The reason for Ep 3 delay is “the release of Episode 1 in June 2006. Episode 2 arrived more than a year after the first release in the series, coming bundled with Team Fortress 2 and Portal as part of The Orange Box in November 2007. Valve has not offered a time frame for the release of Episode 3”
Even though making these two games was necessary, had to pay as much attention for Ep 3 too

#2
  1. Left 4 Dead
  2. Steam for Mac
  3. Left 4 Dead 2
  4. Valve Time
  5. Half Life 2 Episodes
#3
  1. Left 4 Dead
  2. Steam for Mac
  3. Left 4 Dead 2
  4. Valve Time
  5. Orange Box (on consoles)
#4

I think Valve made a great decision in making Steam for Mac, because I had to use emulation to do that before, which sucked.

I just think they should employ more people in order to be able to work faster… But maybe that’s not possible at the moment.

#5

this is the order of priorities?

#6

This thread was a mistake.

#7

the biggest thing here is that there are separate dev. teams for the games, which means the work on L4D has little to no effect on EP.3. so devote more people to ep3 and less to other games? in just about any project, there gets a point where more people does not mean more productivity, in fact it has a backwards effect. more people means more conflicting ideas, more time has to be spent giving people necessary information to do their job.

EP.3 has huge shoes to fill, arguably the best FPS ever made and an absolutely key moment in events. it absolutely has to be done correctly otherwise its a hit to the franchise, and to the entire company more so than any other title Valve has released.

Personally i love L4D 1 & 2 and those games as well as Portal with a bunch of other games help provide the financial backing for the company. bringing games to consoles or to mac brings up a whole range of opportunities for people to play their games which then gives Valve the freedom to provide free DLC or free games.

#8

I’d say the Half-Life 2 episodes are Valves biggest mistake. This has nothing to do with the quality of the games themselves ofcourse, they are awesome. What I’m saying is that the idea behind it is a complete failure as it was supposed to solve the problem of having to wait many years for a new Half-Life game. By now Episode 3 could very well take as long as the original Half-Life 2 game.

#9

ok up here but it’s time for source engine to evolve I think this is one reason more important than creating a wide variety of games

#10

You’re bitching about a company giving away free games and expanding their markets? Wow. You’re just asserting that other games like TF2 and Alien Swarm are getting in the way of what YOU want them to make, and you don’t seem to have any evidence for that claim. As far you, I, or anyone knows outside of Valve there hasn’t been much cannibalization between development teams. Valve is huge company and they don’t use the same people for everything. No one knows why Ep. 3 is taking so long.

They go out on a limb to try something new every year, and you’re basically saying you want them to become as milquetoast as Infinity Ward and just make major releases from the same franchise all the time.

I do think L4D 2 was a legitimate mistake, but in general they’re doing things exactly right.

#11

I don’t think Valve has made any mistakes.
People need to quit being whiny little bitches.

#12

Steam

It’s a big problem for me, mainly in that it crashes every time I go near it by trying to update just about everything at once. I’m not a big fan of being shown adverts on the way to play a game for the spare half hour I get

That’s my experience anyway, I’m sure many of you find it more useful as more frequent PC gamers. The good news is that as developers I can’t really fault them, Steam is just the product of marketing

#13

I think Steam is a good idea, but technically it should be even better. Steam is to games what iTunes is to music, and it obviously works very well for Valve.

Maybe the Episodes were a mistake, but I’d rather play the episodes than not be able to play any new Half-Life games at all. I mean HL2 was a big jump from HL1, because it had entirely new stuff in it, while the episodes don’t bring that many changes compared to HL2. That is mostly due to the smaller amount of time between the releases.

It does feel better to have a huge, standalone game with a new plot and 90% new stuff, but they couldn’t do it. I hope Half-Life 3 is a real thing and that one day we’ll see that. But I don’t think we would have had HL3 even if they hadn’t released the Episodes.

#14

NO NO NO You misunderstood! Nothing it’s wrong with Valve!

#15

Woah.
Even Valve admits they make mistakes. We’re not really complaining, just highlighting the low points. Give me your absolute favorite movie, absolute favorite game, absolute favorite story, and no matter how much I enjoy it I will find many flaws in it that could be fixed to make it even better.

Valve has made lots of mistakes with its SDK. Even though HL2 is one of the more heavily modded games of late, sometimes its tools just plain SUCK. Face Poser for instance, has had an unfixed bug related to Phoneme Extraction ever since Windows Vista came out. Also, Hammer can be a real bitch to use sometimes.

I also agree that going episodic did NOT work for them. Comparing them to a company like Telltale Games, which actually achieves its monthly releases, it’s easy to see Valve isn’t really managing episodic. I honestly think what they should have done was make one game after HL2, midway in length between Ep1 + Ep2 together, and just release that as a conclusion to the Half-Life storyline, then move on to making other games. It’s obvious they have plenty of ideas.

#16

The only real mistake I can think of is not getting the Half Life 2 story out of the way before starting a whole other series.

#17

I do nothing of what you said, I expressed my opinion considering the fact that it takes much time to create a game and the HL franchise is the main reason for which the engine it develops, you noticed that HL Series games are the most detailed? because they have put on first position, through their Valve may promote their product (Source engine) performance is not reflected in the L4D or Team Fortress which are temporary anyway HL franchise will never die unlike the rest, thanks to franchise were noted in the market

#18

I forgot #6 Moving HL2 to the Episode 2 engine.

At least they should give people the option to run the original version or the new one.

#19

the only mistake made by valve in my opinion was the valve games in the xbox live

#20

Someone tried something if you want to play HL2 Update HL2 (mod for episode two) looks good :stuck_out_tongue: look in HD 1080p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R5Z8Vfv32s

Edit: What does this mean this list of you?

You think was a waste of time? to port HL2 from windows to consoles?

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.