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Hi, and welcome to 2013 and this year's first ValveTime Weekly News Round-Up.
Yes, that's right: we're back from our break.
Each week, we'll bring you the biggest talking points regarding Valve Software and the community.
Now, the news:
Predictably, the year has started off pretty slowly in terms of news,
so let's just get started.
Valve's annual money-making festival...
I mean-- Christmas game celebration, the Steam Holiday Sale,
has been extended for an additional weekend in order to highlight the sales
of some of the community's most sought-after games.
The Holiday Sale, which occurs every year,
was originally planned to run from December the 20th, 2012 until January the 5th, 2013,
but was recently extended by Valve for what has been dubbed an "encore weekend,"
which will see the sale extended from Saturday the 5th until Monday the 7th of January, 2013.
In case you haven't picked up all the game titles you want yet,
we'd highly recommend heading on over to Steam
to make sure you don't miss out on the final few sales.
The first Dota 2 update of the year was released earlier this week,
which has introduced a nice variety of changes and new content to the game.
Many areas of the game's HUD have received sizeable updates,
including the addition of new announcer previews and tweaks to the appearance on the shop UIs.
Laning music has finally made its return in the form of new ambient songs,
which can dynamically change to fit different situations.
Unreleased heros, such as Medusa and Troll Warlord,
have received a variety of updated textures and sound effects,
while Australian players have finally been given server support.
A link to the full changelog analysis on Cyborgmatt's Blog
will be provided in the video description.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of game updates,
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive received an impressive Christmas patch
on Christmas Eve which...
introduced Santa hats to kill cams...
Ooh, look at that...
But seriously, the game has also received a new rating and report system
similar to the one used in Dota 2,
which allows players to rate teammates based upon their behavior during a match.
We imagine this will help players quickly identify both the team players
and the bad mouthing individuals out there.
Valve didn't release a CS:GO Pro-Tips video over the Christmas break,
so sadly Nick can't put writing over that stupid moment like he does every week.
Team Fortress 2 also received a small patch over the holidays
which made a variety of changes to the Map Stamp system
which is used to support community map makers.
Valve have added strange kill tracking stamp filters and taunt trails
to help community supporters advertise their love for specific maps.
Head on over to the Team Fortress 2 blog via the link in the description
to read all about these changes.
Official Valve games weren't the only titles to receive updates over the break;
Sven Co-op, the extremely popular and long-running Half-Life mod,
was updated to version 4.7 on Christmas day.
The update introduced a brand new map called "Quarter,"
alongside a HUGE list of changes, bug fixes, and code modifications,
all of which you can check out in the link in the description.
Sven, the mod's creator, has also mentioned that the next version,
entitled "5.0," is going to be a "major stepping stone for the mod,"
so naturally we're excited to find out what might be introduced next time around.
Back to Valve news, we noticed that a lot of people
were complaining on our "2012 in review" video about the lack of Half-Life 3 news last year.
We're going to give you a little treat.
No, no, just kidding. It isn't really that exciting.
Shortly before Christmas, our investigator Barnz came across this image,
which shows Jeremy Bennett,
the art director for Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and the Left 4 Dead series,
wearing what can clearly be seen as a Half-Life 3 t-shirt.
Now hold your horses, people!
This photo was taken during Comic Con in August 2011
and has seemingly been sitting unnoticed on White Cloud World's Facebook page.
The photograph was taken a few good months before the now infamous t-shirt
which showed up on the Twitter in December 2011,
so we're not sure if the two are related and whether or not these hints
are some kind of secret viral marketing strategy by Valve
to get people hyped up about the game, but also,
it's not like the community could get hyped up any more than it already is,
but if you're interested, you can head on over to our site
via the link in the description for the full write-up by our reporter Smash.
In merchandise news, NECA revealed that they are currently working on developing
a large Atlas action figure for release in Spring 2013.
The model, shown here in prototype form,
is still quite a long way from release,
but we can apparently expect a "high level of detail, and complete accuracy,"
according to the official NECA post on their website blog,
which is available at a link in the description.
Oh, and take a look at this photo released by ThreeA toys
of a pair of scale Atlas and P-Body prototype statues which were on display at ACG 2012.
We had a feeling you might like that.
Finally, in a small but extremely nostalgic news story,
look what Geoff Keighley, producer and host of GT.TV,
found in an old collection of CDs.
As you can see, this small yellow disc contains an original alpha version
of the first Half-Life. which is dated December the 16th, 1997,
almost a full year before the game released.
We're amazed a gaming gem like this still exists, and
oh, Geoff, what we would do to get our hands on that CD.
Please send it our way!
Just don't let Gabe know.
And that brings us to the end of our first news for 2013.
Thanks for watching.
Don't forget to check out our "Valve: 2012 in Review" video
for a quick recap of the past year's events and releases.
Stay tuned for more ValveTime videos, news, and reviews coming soon.
Bye for now.