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Hi, and welcome to the ValveTime news.
Each week, we’ll bring you the biggest talking points regarding Valve and the community.
Now, the news:
Mere minutes after we released our last Weekly Round-Up episode,
we were alerted about some new information regarding Valve’s Source 2 next-generation engine.
The information was located on Neogaf in a post by a user known as "crazy buttocks on a train."
Screenshots from the leaked PowerPoint presentation provide some extremely interesting insight
into the possible future of Valve’s game library
by showing an updated test build of Left 4 Dead 2 running on the Source 2 engine.
The screenshots, while not exactly high resolution,
show the enhanced level of detail possible with the new, upcoming engine,
including higher quality models, improved lighting and shadow systems, and more realistic foliage.
The map shown appears as a totally redeveloped version
of Left 4 Dead 2’s Plantation level from the Swamp Fever campaign.
However, the PowerPoint presentation was shown in a deliberately obscure format,
thus limiting the information which can be gathered from the other 19 slides,
13 of which are completely blocked by the PowerPoint interface.
While one of the slides is simply a filler page showing the Valve logo,
five of the seven shown slides contain extra previews of the enhanced detail
by comparing locations from the Source 2 version of the map
to the original Source 1 level available in Left 4 Dead 2.
We were later sent a higher resolution version of the image of slide 16 from the PowerPoint presentation,
which provides an even better look at the foliage and lighting effects on display.
Slide 20 is particularly interesting, however,
as the page discusses the “Redesigned Tools and Workflow” systems set to be provided by Source 2,
which most likely relates to an improved version of Hammer.
Unfortunately, only the top four lines of the slide are available, which read as follows:
Let’s just say the mere mention of graphical user interface and automatic compiling
should be enough to get the modding community hyped.
Since the initial leak on Monday, multiple reliable sources have claimed
the Powerpoint presentation was actually created and distributed privately in 2011,
making the demonstration build three years old.
So we’re even more excited to learn about the Source 2 engine
and how development may have progressed in the meantime.
We feel the need to stress that, while the screenshots do indeed show an updated version of a map from Left 4 Dead 2,
this does not mean that an updated version of the game will arrive on Source 2
as a standalone release or within Left 4 Dead 3,
as several members of the ValveTime staff believe the Left 4 Dead 2 build
is simply being used as a separate test bed to demonstrate the improvements over Source 1.
Even though we didn’t get a look at Left 4 Dead 3 or Half-Life 3,
we’re pretty excited to learn more.
And, to be honest, we’re pretty happy nothing from either of those games was given away or spoiled.
For a closer look at the screenshots and the PowerPoint presentation,
be sure to head on over to our article at ValveTime.net,
which is available in the video description alongside links for everything else we’re talking about.
Minutes after the Source 2 leak was posted to our website,
the Dota 2 team felt it was the perfect time to bombard our news team
by revealing Day 2 of the New Bloom Festival update.
Day 2 revealed the release of a brand new hero in the form of Terrorblade,
a powerful agility hard-carry hero who can use his demonic abilities
to trick his enemies by creating dangerous illusions of both him and his enemies.
His ultimate, known as Sunder,
allows Terrorblade to instantly exchange his health pool with that of an enemy or allied hero,
potentially altering the flow of battle in a heartbeat.
Like Legion Commander, Terrorblade also launched with his own unique arcana-quality item,
which is set to be released later this week on February the 6th.
Day 3 also revealed the arrival of a new hero, this time taking on the form of Phoenix,
a ranged strength hero capable of initiating team fights
and dealing large amounts of damage over time using his fire-based abilities.
His ultimate, known as Supernova, allows Phoenix to transform into a large, immobile sun
which will deal damage over time in a large 1,000-unit area of effect for a six-second duration.
If the Supernova is not destroyed by the enemy during the six-second duration, the sun will explode,
stunning all units in range for 2.5 seconds before restoring Phoenix to full health.
The update also introduced a pair of new modes
in the form of Random Ability Draft and Replay Takeover.
Random Ability Draft, as the name suggests, provides players with random heroes
before starting a draft period similar to Captain’s Mode,
only this time with all of the abilities from heroes currently in the game.
Players will then take turns to select three abilities and one ultimate,
potentially allowing for limitless combinations of heroes and abilities,
such as Luna using Pudge’s Meat Hook or Crystal Maiden using Lion’s Finger of Death,
to name two examples shown on the Day 2 update page.
Replay Takeover, however, is less of a main gamemode and is more aimed at players
looking to improve their play by “taking over” heroes within an existing replay
to try and change the outcome of a match.
A replay can be revisited countless times,
potentially allowing high skill and professional players to use the mode to learn new strategies
or to avoid making certain mistakes in the future.
Day 2 of the patch also revealed the 6.80 balance patch for the game,
which includes a rather absurd amount of changes to the game’s items, heroes, and modes.
We’re not going to cover the individual changes here, so if you’re looking to learn more,
we highly recommend checking out Purge’s own patch analysis video,
which he uses to discuss various strategies and hero picks
which may change or develop as a result of this update.
Additionally, if you’re more interested in the Chinese-themed cosmetic items introduced with the patch,
check out the Day 3 update page, which provides a small preview
for the kinds of couriers, item sets, and ability modifiers introduced to the Dota 2 Store
when the New Bloom Festival arrived on Wednesday.
On Monday February the 3rd,
a new announcement post on the Steam Universe community group revealed Steam Music,
a music management service set to arrive on the Steam platform sometime in the near future.
The service will allow users to manage albums and listen to music within the Steam Overlay,
removing the potentially frustrating act of having to swap back to the desktop
just to change playlists or to skip an unwanted track.
After pointing Steam at the music directory,
users will be able to play albums and create playlists in a new section of the Steam Overlay, shown here,
which will also feature volume and playback settings, including shuffle and continuous play.
The system appears to feature all of the bells and whistles one would expect from a music player,
including support for various audio formats, folder management, and album covers.
As with most Steam features, Steam Music will be slowly rolled out across the community
in a closed invite-only beta which will be expanded by including randomly selected individuals
from the newly created Steam Music group.
After the beta period concludes, the service will be made available to all users
across the Steam client, Big Picture mode, and SteamOS.
For more information about Steam Music and the upcoming beta,
be sure to head on over to our full write-up on ValveTime.net
or the official announcement posts on the Steam Universe and Steam Music community groups.
Earlier this week, we were intrigued by a new Portal 2 mod
which was recently added to Steam Greenlight ahead of its official release this summer.
The mod, known as "Aperture Tag," plans to combine the best puzzle mechanics from both Portal
and the original Tag student project to create some pretty intense, fast-paced gameplay
using a Tag-style paint gun.
We thought we would give the mod a quick mention here so those of you interested in the idea
can head on over to Greenlight to vote and to support the developer.
In merchandise news, NECA released a pair of photographs to their Facebook wall earlier this week
which provides a close look at the upcoming RED Engineer and Spy figures
set to be released in April as part of Series 3 of their Team Fortress 2 action figure range.
Like their older counterparts, the figures feature multiple points of articulation
and will likely come bundled with promotional codes which can be entered
to receive Genuine-quality versions of in-game hats for the respective class.
Speaking of Team Fortress 2, CorridorDigital recently released
their latest live-action video, known as Team Snow Fortress.
The video takes a look at how the Team Fortress 2 crew might go about having a snowball fight...
you know, should all of their weapons suddenly break during a match on Viaduct.
The video is as high quality as we have come to expect from CorridorDigital,
and we definitely recommend giving it a watch if you’re interested in Team Fortress 2 or... winter.
And that brings us to the end of another week of Valve news.
As usual, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and to follow us on Facebook and Twitter
to stay up-to-date with all the latest Valve news as it happens.
Glenn, our site director is celebrating his birthday this weekend alongside Nick, our lead content creator,
as the unlucky pair were unfortunately born a day apart, give or take a few years.
Instead of buying them a pair of presents,
why don’t you just head on over to our Dota 2 Announcer Pack to rate it positively!
Heh, we’re really getting good at this emotional blackmail stuff!
Anyway, thanks for watching and bye for now.