Whether or not you liked it, you have to admit, 2010 was a fairly eventful year for the Valve community.
But what do you want to see in 2011?
It’s simple: think about what you want to see from Valve and the community in this lovely year, and post it in the comments section.
Anything you want, really. Separate these wishes into categories, if you like.
What about me, you ask? What does Vic want in 2011, Anno Domini? Ordinarily, I wouldn’t fill articles with my personal opinion, as I want LambdaGeneration to be more about the reader. I don’t want to force my opinions on others, but hell, this could be interpreted as another excuse for me to be lazy and do nothing, so hell, let’s go:
- Half-Life 2: Episode Three/Half-Life 3 Announcement
- At this point, I could care less if it comes out in late 2011 (which is quite unlikely), or mid-2012. I just want to see it already. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that it will be ground-breaking, but come on. It’s been over 3 years.
- Left 4 Dead 1 DLC
- Crash Course wasn’t very well received, and The Sacrifice, and No Mercy were given away to the L4D2 crowd. I think the L4D1 veterans deserve a little treat. It was never explained how the L4D1 Survivors got from Dead Air to Blood Harvest, and if it was needed, Valve could squeeze in a small campaign for the time between Death Toll and Dead Air. And what about the Keys?
And there are still quite a few bugs and exploits that need to be patched up.
- Half-Life 1 (and its addons) on the Mac
- Fairly self-explanatory. Half-Life: Source and Deathmatch: Source could be squeezed in there too, just for anyone who’d like to try out Half-Life with fancy new Source technology.
- Take a breather on TF2.
- Valve, you’ve literally given us cubic tons of content and support for TF2. But I think it’s time to take a breather; sort out all the bugs, all the optimization issues, all the weird mistakes, etc. Give the community some time to breathe, and once a bit of time has passed, the players have all the items they want, the game is bug-free, and once everyone is ready, then continue with the large updates.
- Fixes for Half-Life 2 and the SDK
- HL2 is still bugged for many people. It’s a shame to see what is considered the greatest game of all time in such a state for many people. An option to revert to the 2004 version for PC users would also be great (if done properly, this may get some released mods working), and optional full HDR for those with the necessary HDD space would be lovely. But overall, I just want to see these bugs disappear. Oh, and let’s not forget about the SDK, which has been brought to a deplorable state. If I had a penny for every time someone told me they’re having problems with their mod or map or project due to the SDK, we could turn LambdaGeneration into a magazine.
- Alien Swarm DLC
- While there are some amazing custom campaigns, what I want to see is DLC from Valve themselves. Very few campaigns have reached such a standard of quality, or as some call it, “Valve-quality”. If it comes down to it, I’m sure including community content in an official update (à la TF2 or L4D2) would also be nice. Perhaps some new Promotions, or new additions to the IAF arsenal?
- More support for Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
- It may not be as great as we wanted it to be, but it’s still the official Half-Life multiplayer game. What happened to the good old days, when it was supported with new maps? Bring on the updates, if you may.
As for what I want to see from the community itself, you ask? Fine, fine.
- Black Mesa.
- They may not be releasing any earlier than March, but apparently, there’s not a lot left to go. Will it come out this year? It’s certainly a possibility.
- Half-Life: Escape from City 17: Episode Two
- I know, I know. The Purchase Brothers are busy with a feature film. In February, it will have been two years since Episode One came out and dislocated jaws all around the globe. We’re really hoping we see more of this amazing series.
- Beyond Black Mesa
- It may not adhere to our oh-so-beloved canon, but what we’ve seen of Beyond Black Mesa has got us pretty excited to see the full thing.
- The East Accident
- After a promising trailer, the mod simply vanished. Supposedly, Roman is now working on a feature film, which is why it missed its “summer 2010″ release date, but we’re hoping we see more soon.
Well, that’s pretty much all for me.
Remember, head down to the comments section and tell us everything you want to see from Valve and the community in 2011, or in the future in general.
11 Responses to “What do you want to see from Valve and the community in 2011?”
I’ve added a small section featuring my thoughts on TF2, I figured you folks might find it interesting. It’s sandwiched between “Half-Life 1 on the Mac” and “Fixes for Half-Life 2 and the SDK”.
All I want is the SDK free of bugs, and Valve having a bit of care for their older games, like HL1, HL2DM could have a Community DLC like TF2, dont let L4D1 die, Add HDR to HL2 fix the gliches, make some performance improvements to TF2, and BMS and HL2:EP3 can have all the time they want, looking foward to see Portal 2, hope I will still be able to run it.
1. I want to see Half-Life 2 and the episodes updated to the most recent Source engine with full HDR support on all maps.
2. I want developer’s commentary in Half-Life, Opposing Force (by Gearbox) and Half-Life 2.
3. I want Left 4 Dead to get some of the same updates that Left 4 Dead 2 got which “fixed” the game (e.g., the tank is invulnerable and invisible to survivors until taken out of stasis, infected bots for unbalanced games, no auto-spawning during finales).
HL2 and the Episodes have been updated to the most recent Source branch (Source 2009, or Protocol 15), it’s just that it doesn’t use all of these new features, especially full HDR on all maps. Agreed on everything else.
1. EP3/HL3 (at least some solid info).
2. An apology to the community by Doug Lombardi.
3. The ‘We won’t make it in 2011′ Christmas announcement of BMS.
4. Portal 2.
5. A major SDK update, Those tools are old and not as easy to operate as comparable game engines. (Plus the option to use dynamic lighting instead of VRAD as seen in Portal 2 to save compiling time and texture memory).
Episode Three.
My most first thing i want to see (More released then see) is Portal 2.
).
Ofcurse i want to play Black Mesa: Source, Before 2 days i finished Half Life (Wanted to keep doing everything from start, But saw that i’m not crashing while playing Alien Swarm
And who can forget HL3 / EP3 ?
1) Portal 2
2) Episode Three announcement ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG16pfDZ3CM )
3) Beyond Black Mesa
4) Black Mesa Source
5) Half-Life: Escape from City 17: Episode Two
And many others but these are my top 5. This year seems to be full of epicness…
im in no rush to see HL3 released, in my opinion, the longer it takes, the better it will be.
Also, there are probably 3 things im hoping for the most;
A) for TF2 to get its shit together. more hats and weapons are being released than i can keep track of, they need to slow down a bit, remember the good days when the class packs were released? they recieved so much hype, revitalizing peoples love for TF2 and introducing new players alike. they need that formula again.
B) Black mesa source. i know the dev team are not working full time on it and have other things to do, but if they just focus on it and get it done, they will recieve so much community rep for it that they will be able to work at pretty much any game company they want! (also i really wanna play it).
and C) portal 2, the first was amazing, i want to see them top that.
I’m not in a rush to see it released either. I’m in a rush to actually see it. Agreed on the TF2 thing, especially since the game is pretty badly optimized and has a ton of glitches.
Totally agree!