Why valve is the best developer

[QUOTE="789shadow"]

[QUOTE="Trmpt"] Technically it IS an FPS.Trmpt

No, it is not.

So, anything in first person where you shoot ANYTHING regardless of context is an FPS?:roll: Name one enemy that you actually shoot at in the entire game.

[QUOTE="Skittles_McGee"][QUOTE="Brownesque"] Um.....try Zombie Mod for CSS which has been out for years prior to the release of Left 4 Dead?

Brownesque

But the aspects he mentioned, specifically its co-op elements, are new. At least, in this context.

I love Valve for TF2 and their community support. The rest of their games are meh to me.

jtickner

L4D 1 & 2 = Awesome
TF2 - Awesome
Half Life = Trash
Counterstrike = mediocre

i think valve is overrated

Right behind Kojima Productions of course :)

Valve is very good though. Half Life and Half Life 2 were 2 of the top 3 best shooters of all time, most will agree.

[QUOTE="Skittles_McGee"][QUOTE="Brownesque"] Um.....try Zombie Mod for CSS which has been out for years prior to the release of Left 4 Dead?

Brownesque

Valve is one of the best developers without a doubt, every game they've made has never dissapointed.

The only devs i think that are ahead of 'em are Unreal tech, bungie and IW.

BTW I just want to say that Left 4 Dead is a very, very poor example of a revolutionary FPS....

On part of the fact that Killing Floor, a UT2k4 mod, effectively included everything Left 4 Dead did, in 2007. In fact, their beta was released in 2005...

Killing Floor has 6 player survival co-op, extremely good enemy pathing and AI (at least in the retail version) with random spawns and attack paths (they often corner you), melee weapons, and a class based multiplayer component with unique mechanics surrounding on how classes support eachother (medic, demolitions, support, etc).

The melee weapons are the kicker, though. They have a fire axe, katana and a chain saw....sound familiar at all?

Enemies like the Bloat:

Look familiar?

They're nearly identical. They explode when you shoot them, deal poison damage when too close, and spew poisonous bile.

Then there's the flesh pound:

And the tank:

Which both charge you and clobber the piss out of you...effectively, same concept.

And many of Left 4 Dead's enemies are just variations on the same idea....they grab you and attack you and your teammates have to free you. Incidentally, clots in Killing Floor are exactly the same thing.

In other words, been there, done that. Left 4 Dead breaks no new ground. The only reason none of you know this is because Killing Floor was an obscure mod by a developer none of you heard of whereas Left 4 Dead has the support of millions of lemmings who've never heard the word "mod" before....and because Valve distributes Killing Floor and Red Orchestra, which means any conflict of interest would affect both Tripwire's (developer of KF) and Valve's income.

Brownesque

Umm except you can't be the zombies in Killing floor?

Killing Floor is a fun game, no lie. But the addition of being the special infected makes Left 4 Dead out of Killing Floor's league.

I don't know if I would call them the best developer, but they are certainly one of the most practical.

They produce games on a old engine; providing reliability, low development costs and a broad audience thanks to low system requirements. Yet in this day were games are running around with flashier graphics and technology; they have managed to be very successful.

They managed to stay popular and successful while keeping costs down, that's a big thing in today's market. At a time when developers are forced to invest 10s of millions into their games to get consumer attention, they have managed the same without relying on high risk budgets.

Some people may prefer big budget developers, but from a business perspective; Valve it beating most of them.

[QUOTE="htekemerald"]

[QUOTE="Vesica_Prime"]

Gravity gun, nuff said.

Vesica_Prime

Oh wait...

-Portal

-Dead Space.

-Bioshock.

-Doom 3 Ressurection of Evil

-Crysis

All high profile games, and they have a variation of the gravity gun.

Crysis did not have a gravity gun

Bioshock did not have a gravity gun

I have not played the other games but I imagine that they also did not have gravity guns.

Valve fanboys somehow thing that any enviromental interaction is due to the gravity gun.

[QUOTE="htekemerald"]

Half Life 2 did nothing for the FPS genera.

Half Life 2 had a terrible narrative

The modders mad an awesome modding scene

Sorry but Valve just gets way more credit than it deserves.

Dystopian-X

Yeah having Valve help the modders with extra tools, support and recognition doesn't mean anything.

And many other devs give its fanbase extensive modding tools, valve is not special in any way with this regard.

[QUOTE="Vesica_Prime"]

[QUOTE="htekemerald"] So inovative its been used in countless other fps games...

Oh wait...

htekemerald

-Portal

-Dead Space.

-Bioshock.

-Doom 3 Ressurection of Evil

-Crysis

All high profile games, and they have a variation of the gravity gun.

Crysis did not have a gravity gun

Bioshock did not have a gravity gun

I have not played the other games but I imagine that they also did not have gravity guns.

Valve fanboys somehow thing that any enviromental interaction is due to the gravity gun.

Valve is first, Blizzardsecond and Bethesda third IMO

joshonator12

.

Three of my favorite developers, glad to see some Bethesda love, brilliant developer, yet they get so MUCH hate!

...Valve is just Awesome, HL, L4D, TF ...beautiful games

Valve is first, Blizzardsecond and Bethesda third IMO

joshonator12

You forgot Bioware. :P

Bioware, Valve, Bethesda, and Blizzard.

They may be great developers but what the hell is up with €1 = $1?

L4D 1 & 2 = Awesome
TF2 - Awesome
Half Life = Trash
Counterstrike = mediocre

i think valve is overrated

sikanderahmed

I agree with you. They are overrated. They may be decent but their support for their titles leaves something to be desired. Promising support for a title and then just dumping it for a sequel is not a good way to please fanbase and ensure customer loyalty.

Link.

There are other sites with similar information.

[QUOTE="sikanderahmed"]

L4D 1 & 2 = Awesome
TF2 - Awesome
Half Life = Trash
Counterstrike = mediocre

i think valve is overrated

jbc7343

their support for their titles leaves something to be desired.

I don't care who you are, you best be trolling.

i perfer mor realistic fps like MWoajlu

[QUOTE="HoolaHoopMan"]

[QUOTE="Brownesque"]

Which both charge you and clobber the piss out of you...effectively, same concept.

And many of Left 4 Dead's enemies are just variations on the same idea....they grab you and attack you and your teammates have to free you. Incidentally, clots in Killing Floor are exactly the same thing.

In other words, been there, done that. Left 4 Dead breaks no new ground. The only reason none of you know this is because Killing Floor was an obscure mod by a developer none of you heard of whereas Left 4 Dead has the support of millions of lemmings who've never heard the word "mod" before....and because Valve distributes Killing Floor and Red Orchestra, which means any conflict of interest would affect both Tripwire's (developer of KF) and Valve's income.

Brownesque

Except that killing floor is piss poor compared to Left 4 dead. All you do is survive until everyone dies. They're objectives in L4D, crescendo events, both camping and running now.

Plus the Boomer doesn't do "Acid Damage" at all, it attracts the horde, something anyone who has even PLAYED the game know about. The similarities of the games are obivously there, but Left 4 dead stomps it into the ground, really hard.

Valve is a great developer, there's no doubt. But most of their games feel the same because they play so simlarly.

Very few developers can claim to have influenced the FPS the way Valve has. id and Epic are two. Maybe Bungie. After that it gets iffy.

And let's not even get started on their great community and mod support, as well as the ongoing support for games like TF2.

And Steam. Let's not forget Steam.

The only thing I've cared about from Valve is Portal, the concept is unique, and for people who love physics, really fun.

Half Life 2 was OK, nothing I felt worth playing all the way through though.

And Left 4 Dead is a very shallow game.

Valve is a great developer, there's no doubt. But most of their games feel the same because they play so simlarly.

slothboyadvance

I'll outright state that I don't care much for Valve. Their inability to break off from FPS games is a downside. You may like it but being stuck in one genre is a big deal to me. The source engine is showing it's age. They basically seem unable to make a game in an orderly amount of time (Most companies could of made a couple of good sequels in the time it's taking for HL2 EP 3 to come out if it isn't canceled by now). The whole L4D fiasco basically killed their "community fostering" rep for me since they killed off a games community a year after launch just to make some more money. I never found HL2 interesting or revolutionary at all, sorry. Also their view toward the PS3 has been kinda unprofessional as they've basically insulted it's community and said "lol 360 is better!" and refuse to even work on the console.

I know this will probably induce some rage since saying you dislike Valve on a gaming forum is like insulting Tolkien at a fantasy lovers convention, but that is how I feel. They're okay but I don't see them as a shining God of gaming who would go bankrupt to help the players. They're a company just like all the other gaming companies and I look at them as I do with most of them, with caution. That isn't to say I never play a valve game, I play TF2 regularly and untill L4D1's community was shot in the head, I played that as well. But I simply don't wear these rose colored "Valve has never done anything wrong" glasses. They're okay but they arn't perfect and some people don't care for them just as some don't care for EA or Nintendo.

[QUOTE="muzik_mafia"]That's quite a claim.ZuluEcho14

I've said this before and it's caused alot of rage toward me but HL2 was incredibly bland to me. One moment I'm running over city roof tops....shooting the exact same enemies with no model variations...then I'm running through the sewers with the same guys chasing me, riding a poorly controlled water sky thing with the same guys chasing me, going into a powerplant like place with the exact same enemies chasing me. I think I was 9 hours in and I still had no idea what the game was about. I didn't know who these guys chasing me were, who Gordon Freeman was, why I was some savior, why these guys were after me, why some aliens ruled the world or something, what the point of the story was, what those zombie things were etc. And the story just never seemed to want to explain itself, it just stuck me in a very long chase scene and expected me to know the story before hand, which I didn't. And the gameplay really didn't feel unique to me. It was kinda different but really only in the setting to me and overall felt like it would have been more fun in third person.

overall felt like it would have been more fun in third person.

Pixel-Pirate

Valve is one of the best developers without a doubt, every game they've made has never dissapointed.

The only devs i think that are ahead of 'em are Unreal tech, bungie and IW.

Valve is an excellent dev. Half-Life 1 is the best FPS I've ever played next to Doom Goldeneye, Duke Nukem 3D, Halo: Combat evolvedm and the Marathon series.

In order for me to consider them the best dev, they'd have to make a game i consider to be one of the best. They do not.

I wouldn't say they're the best but they're pretty awesome.

Games like L4D2 and CSS are extremely fun. Portal is also genius.

Haven't played any of the Half-Life games so can't comment on those.