News 
July 3, 2008 - 4:20pm PST
Team Fortress 2 Update Released (7/3/2008)
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:Team Fortress 2
- Fixed a memory leak affecting both clients and servers
- Fixed a malicious packet exploit
July 3, 2008 - 4:06pm PST
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Update Released (7/3/2008)
Updates to Rainbow Six Vegas 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:Rainbow Six Vegas 2
- Added new gameplay features
- Added UPnP support
- Added HostName and Ping sort for Match selection
- Fixed Some (3)Ping issues
- Fixed Terrorist hunt Spawning
- Fixed automatic weapons shoot without holding the trigger
- Fixed spawn with leader in Streets map
- Fixed Custom search issues
July 3, 2008 - 1:16pm PST
TF2 Trading Cards - Part 2
To continue from the previous week, today we have some additional finished trading card images for you to take a look at - the Heavy and the Medic.
This is a pair we've talked about fairly often, considering their usage and the vital role that they play in attack and defense. We've done a bunch of updates to the Medic recently, placing the Heavy next in line for achievements, unlockables and balancing additions.
July 3, 2008 - 12:31pm PST
Weekend Deal: SiN Episodes: Emergence - 66% off
This weekend only, pick up the action FPS game SiN Episodes: Emergence for just $4.99. Offer ends July 7th.July 2, 2008 - 5:35pm PST
Day of Defeat: Source Palermo Update Available Now
Leveraging the recently released set of free services available in Steamworks, the Palermo Update adds 51 achievements to Day of Defeat: Source, player avatar displays in the scoreboard and win panel, and detailed player statistics that are integrated with the Steam Community features (www.steamcommunity.com).In addition, this update adds support for popular features introduced in Valve's Team Fortress 2 (TF2), the PC title named multiplayer game of the year by Gamespy.com and PC Gamer. These include "nemesis/revenge" freeze cam and new effects driven by the particle system introduced to the Source engine for TF2.
Finally, this update also introduces a new map, Palermo, which is a remix of the most popular community map, dod_salerno, originally created by Magnar "insta" Jennsen.
For more information, visit the Day of Defeat: Source Palermo site.
July 2, 2008 - 4:12pm PST
Meet the Sniper in French and German
The short film, Meet the Sniper is now available on Steam in French and German.Stay tuned for Russian and Spanish versions!
July 1, 2008 - 6:11pm PST
A Heavy Problem
As Gabe mentioned in his lengthy response to an email recently, the next class pack will focus on the Heavy. For the Medic and Pyro packs we kept our goals for the pack pretty close to our chest, but for the Heavy we've decided to open up the process a little. Our hope is that you'll get a better insight into how we approach design problems, and have some fun thinking about the problem yourself. We do design collaboratively at Valve, and one of the side effects of it is that we really need to be able to evaluate design ideas as objectively as possible. Otherwise design meetings would devolve into subjective arguing. We've found that the best method of working objectively is to have clear goals up front. Once we've got clear goals, we can throw a bunch of ideas up on the board and measure how well each idea achieves those goals. Often the work of testing those ideas against the goals causes us to further refine or clarify the goals.
Here's a list for how to help define the problems we want to solve with the Heavy pack. It's pretty much exactly what we would start a design meeting with. Try coming up with a new unlockable for the Heavy that addresses the goal, while staying within the constraints as much as possible. The extra section includes other details that are useful when trying to compare two viable ideas.
Goal: Make the Heavy more viable when he has no Medic to pair with.
Constraints:
It shouldn't have a cumulative effect when being healed by a Medic as well. Heavy/Medic pairs do pretty well as it is.
It shouldn't significantly change the Heavy's role, relative to other classes. In particular, it shouldn't significantly encroach on another class's role.
It should be understandable for both the user and the player it's being used on.
Extra:
How much work is it? How many new models, sounds, effects, etc?
Does it deepen the Heavy's skill curve? Is it easy to learn? Hard to master?
Is it an interesting tool to choose relative to the base Heavy weapon it's replacing? What scenarios can you envision in which each is useful? What arguments can you raise for why each is better than the other?
How often does the Heavy need to think about it? Is it something he uses once every 5 minutes, or is it something he needs to be constantly thinking about? A greater impact on player decision making is generally a good thing.
How many other features of the game does it affect? Often, the best ideas are "economical", with a small set of required actions, but a wide set of resulting effects.
Finally, keep in mind the skillset required to be a good Heavy. He doesn't really rely on fine aim, since his minigun has such a wide spread, instead relying on more tactical skills, like these:
Being in the right place before he starts firing, because he has little ability to move while firing.
Good anticipation of enemy behavior, for both the above point and because his minigun needs to be spun up before firing.
The ability to estimate the amount of damage he's taking. It takes time for the minigun to spin down, so he needs to be able to know when it's time to retreat several seconds before his health has run out.
The ability to keep firing at a target while still keeping an eye out for other dangers, in particular Snipers & Spies.
Obviously, there are many more, like the full set of skills required to be a good user of an invulnerability charge. If you compare his combat related skills to that of the Soldier or the Demoman, you'll see he has a unique set that's less about aiming & dodging, and more about commitment choices and accurate battle evaluation. When thinking about your new unlockable idea, think about the new skills, or changes to old skills, that it'll require the Heavy to learn. It's best if those new skills aren't identical to ones required of other classes, or class distinctions become less interesting.
In the end, solutions almost always require tradeoffs, from the breaking of a constraint to the addition of a large chunk of work to solve understandability. A framework for objective evaluation is a great tool, but ultimately, something also needs to be fun, and that's hard to evaluate on paper. We try to end our design meetings with three potential solutions, and then implement crude versions of each. Playtesting those crude versions usually shows us some pros and cons that we didn't see in the meeting. Solving those cons, without giving up any of the pros, is the real meat of game design.
I hope you have some fun thinking about this with us.
July 1, 2008 - 3:31pm PST
Gamecock on Steam
Gamecock Media Group and Valve today announced an agreement to launch Gamecock titles on Steam. The first Gamecock titles available on Steam will be Firefly Studios' Stronghold Crusader Extreme and Insecticide Part 1.Additional Gamecock titles - including Insecticide Parts 2, Velvet Assassin, and Legendary - will be made available via Steam later this year.
For more information click here
July 1, 2008 - 2:00pm PST
Team Fortress 2 Update Released (7/1/2008)
Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:Team Fortress 2
- Fixed backburner's flame critical hits not being recalculated after collision. This meant that it would check if the target was looking away once and after that the flame could score a critical hit again even if the orientation changed
- Added back some damage falloff to the Pyro's flamethrower. Not nearly as extreme as it was before the Pyro class pack
- Fixed bug that caused Demomen to take a small amount of extra damage from their own grenades and fly farther using them
- Fixed spy getting stuck in players after removing his disguise
- Fixed spy stabbing and being able to go invisible instantly
- Fixed spy disguised as enemy medic being able to spam voice commands
- Fixed buffed health not decaying properly after being healed by a dispenser
- Selectable menus can now be operated with number keys even if they are not bound to slot1, slot2, etc.
- Removed the remaining speed adjustments for carrying intelligence (a couple of game modes still reduced your maxspeed)
- Fixed a buildable item placement bug where the object would not rotate after the user tried to place in an invalid location
June 30, 2008 - 2:52pm PST
Planet Busters Now on Steam
Planet Busters, a new single-player game from Slam, is now available on Steam. Combining puzzle-solving action with awesome firepower and spectacular explosions, Planet Busters also features Steam Achievements and over 50 levels.Buy it before July 8th and save 10% off the regular $9.99.