Valve

Steam has metroized their forums.

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Most of you know that I like Steam/Valve quite a bit. Still, I have no problem pointing out something I don’t care for. For awhile now with the new Steam interface it was known that you could start your own group forum discussions for your own groups, and Steam even had their own set of forums that were like the old forums, only accessible via Steam though. Well, with the latest updates Steam has made you can say goodbye to the SPUF you know and love.

For the steam browser this is a good interface, for the regular browser this is counter intuitive. I hope enough people complain about this to bring back the original forums. Unlike other companies, Valve actually listens to people. And if enough people feel the way I feel they may be able to sort something out.

Edited for teh grammarz.

Valve making a new game engine perhaps?

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Taken from here.

Gabe Newell: We’ve been working on Valve’s new engine stuff for a while, we’re probably just [incomprehensible, subtitled as: “waiting for a game to roll it out with”]

Fan: Is it going to be more than just an extension to Source? Is it an entirely new engine?

Gabe Newell: Yeah!

Hmmmmmm… Episode 3 anyone? 😛

Steam to have closed beta in October for their Linux platform.

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If you like the idea of gaming under linux you may want to consider reading this article.

Things have been going well. We will be having an internal beta starting next week, and a private external beta for 1,000 users sometime in October.

The private external beta will include:

Steam
One Valve game
Support for Ubuntu 12.04 and above

It will not yet include:

Big Picture mode
Additional Valve games

For existing Linux users, the external private beta is a good release for seeing where we are in running our games on Linux. We will be using a sign up page for the external beta. Information about the sign up will be announced in a future post.

For those new to Linux, we recommend waiting for a subsequent release where more features are implemented along with improvements to the user install experience.

I’m more of a fedora distro kinda person, but I’d still be willing to hunker down and give Ubuntu a shot. With the rise of Windows 8 this will most definitely be a step in the right direction on Valve’s part.

Steam’s Big Picture Mode: Aka AntiMetro

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In case you haven’t heard (and you probably have) steam has a “big picture mode” for people using TV’s to game on.

So far it’s been very easy to understand. Unlike metro, it isn’t shoved in your face upon launch. Also the interface is pretty straight forward even for a beta. You can even type to your friends using a controller!

Not something I would use everyday (I game on a regular large monitor) but still a very nice option.

Source Games On Linux? Yes please!

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Valve has put yet another blog together. This time for linux.

Last year, a team was put together to get Steam and Valve games to work in Linux. So far they have done a good job getting Left 4 Dead 2 to work natively with U’buntu.

“We’ll be posting more information about those projects (and others) on a regular basis. Since this is a new effort for the team, we’d love to hear your opinions about the blog so shoot us an email. We also encourage you to leave comments and ideas for future postings. We want this to be a community of game developers, communicating with each other and talking about current efforts and future efforts in a powerfully creative environment.”

For more information check out their official blog! Because I can’t be arsed to quote the entire thing.

[The Engine Room] Episode 2: Otis Escape

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After finally finding time between his chronic masturbation and chronic laziness, Yutram decides to tackle a mod by a German group called 580 Studios. And by “tackle a mod,” we mean “stall for time,” because the mod in question is marked released minus an installer.