Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: SkyGuyWhyValve should just do some jams. You don't need 75 people to make a game, get five, make some gameplay. It's the artsy stuff that takes time - graphics, sound, that stuff. And then all the programmer time spent messing with the engine to support the artsy things.

Gameplay though? Gameplay goes crazy fast when you cut the turnaround times of asking for animations and stuff to go with your experiments out of the picture. Mess with some gameplay, design some levels, go all untextured and programmer art and recycled assets from previous games and you're golden, five guys who know what they're doing can make a whole huge game like that in a couple months.

Get your five guys to make the whole game start to finish like that. It'll look like crap but that's not important, it just has to play good. Then, when it's already fun, and the levels are basically designed, and the story is written, then you bring in the big team for the final stretch on the expensive bits. Replace your boxy CSG test levels with real art. Animate new models. Bring in the voice actors and get the sound guys doing their thing. Screw with the engine to push boundaries, like you do. But the key here is that the game part of the game is already made, there's a very clear picture of what work needs to be done.

Heck, you're making Portal 3, right? Portal is 90% puzzles. And Valve made that whole slick fancy level editor for fans to use, right? The one that's so ridiculously easy to use that a braindead monkey can make Portal test chambers in a few minutes a pop?

Build the first version of Portal 3 in the Portal 2 test chamber editor. Do you even need five guys? You could have a comprehensive prototype in a snap and bring in the big guns to go from there. Bro if you really wanted to make Portal 3 you absolutely *could* solo it, forget all the polish, make the scaffolding. Save the set dressing for later, that's where the time is spent.

Or say you don't solo it. Say that you get all 300 people at the company... for one, single day. Everyone, business people included. Sit everyone in front of the portal 2 test chamber editor, even the accountants, remember, brain dead monkeys can do it. Have everyone shoot for 5 levels, tell them to go wild, make anything they want. See what they come up with. Make it a party, get everyone in a room together bouncing ideas off each other with the level editor right there to realize them as fast as you can think it up. Then have everyone play each other's levels, try to sort out the best stuff. Boom. Just like that, you've got a huge amount of content to jump off with. 300 x 5, we're talking 1,500 levels here, no way you can't find two dozen or so ideas worth exploring further.

And if it's a party? A party with 300 of the most creative people on the planet hanging out together to just make something? No risk, no strings attached? You're gonna get a lot more than just levels. You're going to get jokes out the wazoo. Story ideas. New mechanics, people going "wouldn't it be cool if...?"

You don't have to commit to a 3 year development cycle with all hands on deck, you can start something good just having a little bit of fun.

I will simply say that if it were really that easy, then that's how everybody would do it.

You would be amazed to realize how many parts of this world are run the very hard way simply because people don't know anything different. The human spirit is incredible, many people are massively successful doing things the worst possible way just because they grit their teeth and force through anyway, coming up with a wonderful product through sheer stubbornness. The game industry at large, and in fact, all of software really, are definitely done the hard way. It's a new industry, very much in its infancy, naturally nobody's really any good at it. What's 50 years in the grand scheme of things? Barely a single generation, two if you push it! Do you know how many generations it took us to figure out "put seed in ground, plant grow"? We're the forefathers those whippersnappers in 2200 will laugh at for doing things so stupid while they know better, because we passed on our knowledge learned through painful trial and error and they're standing on our shoulders.

We're like the Egyptians. Building the pyramids through sheer brute force, dragging massive blocks of stone across the ground 10,000 slaves at a time. Meanwhile across the pond, the Romans have figured out this amazing thing called *wheels*. Don't be so quick to assume that if there's a better way, you'd be using it already!

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Quoting: sub

Quoting: SkyGuyWhyValve should just do some jams. You don't need 75 people to make a game, get five, make some gameplay. It's the artsy stuff that takes time - graphics, sound, that stuff. And then all the programmer time spent messing with the engine to support the artsy things.

Gameplay though? Gameplay goes crazy fast when you cut the turnaround times of asking for animations and stuff to go with your experiments out of the picture. Mess with some gameplay, design some levels, go all untextured and programmer art and recycled assets from previous games and you're golden, five guys who know what they're doing can make a whole huge game like that in a couple months.

Get your five guys to make the whole game start to finish like that. It'll look like crap but that's not important, it just has to play good. Then, when it's already fun, and the levels are basically designed, and the story is written, then you bring in the big team for the final stretch on the expensive bits. Replace your boxy CSG test levels with real art. Animate new models. Bring in the voice actors and get the sound guys doing their thing. Screw with the engine to push boundaries, like you do. But the key here is that the game part of the game is already made, there's a very clear picture of what work needs to be done.

Heck, you're making Portal 3, right? Portal is 90% puzzles. And Valve made that whole slick fancy level editor for fans to use, right? The one that's so ridiculously easy to use that a braindead monkey can make Portal test chambers in a few minutes a pop?

Build the first version of Portal 3 in the Portal 2 test chamber editor. Do you even need five guys? You could have a comprehensive prototype in a snap and bring in the big guns to go from there. Bro if you really wanted to make Portal 3 you absolutely *could* solo it, forget all the polish, make the scaffolding. Save the set dressing for later, that's where the time is spent.

Or say you don't solo it. Say that you get all 300 people at the company... for one, single day. Everyone, business people included. Sit everyone in front of the portal 2 test chamber editor, even the accountants, remember, brain dead monkeys can do it. Have everyone shoot for 5 levels, tell them to go wild, make anything they want. See what they come up with. Make it a party, get everyone in a room together bouncing ideas off each other with the level editor right there to realize them as fast as you can think it up. Then have everyone play each other's levels, try to sort out the best stuff. Boom. Just like that, you've got a huge amount of content to jump off with. 300 x 5, we're talking 1,500 levels here, no way you can't find two dozen or so ideas worth exploring further.

And if it's a party? A party with 300 of the most creative people on the planet hanging out together to just make something? No risk, no strings attached? You're gonna get a lot more than just levels. You're going to get jokes out the wazoo. Story ideas. New mechanics, people going "wouldn't it be cool if...?"

You don't have to commit to a 3 year development cycle with all hands on deck, you can start something good just having a little bit of fun.

Are you working in project management?

(I hope not :grin:)

Gonna have to quash you're hopes! Yep. Works damn well actually, way better than you'd think. I don't do AAA though, it's a money pit that, pushing the boundaries. I aim for Double A. Fast, cheap, get a whole lotta content done real quick. Nothing new of course, the idea is do the established things really good, things someone else has already figured out and written an instruction manual for. Preferably multiple instruction manuals, you want lotsa perspectives to point out the speedbumps you might run into. GDC vault is my favorite thing. XD

Maybe I wasn't very clear with how I wrote that - that's definitely not going to get you something you can ship, especially not at Valve quality. But it's a start. A strong start. The idea is that they're having trouble starting something because they're not willing to commit the resources to knuckle down and bring in the team for a significant amount of time. A few really solid prototypes can help alleviate that and get the ball rolling.

Valve knows how to develop a game. They don't need me telling them how to do that. Valve's problems are all politics, the place is run like a democracy and you have to campaign to get anything done. A game jam? Well that's a sick campaign stunt.

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Valve should just do some jams. You don't need 75 people to make a game, get five, make some gameplay. It's the artsy stuff that takes time - graphics, sound, that stuff. And then all the programmer time spent messing with the engine to support the artsy things.

Gameplay though? Gameplay goes crazy fast when you cut the turnaround times of asking for animations and stuff to go with your experiments out of the picture. Mess with some gameplay, design some levels, go all untextured and programmer art and recycled assets from previous games and you're golden, five guys who know what they're doing can make a whole huge game like that in a couple months.

Get your five guys to make the whole game start to finish like that. It'll look like crap but that's not important, it just has to play good. Then, when it's already fun, and the levels are basically designed, and the story is written, then you bring in the big team for the final stretch on the expensive bits. Replace your boxy CSG test levels with real art. Animate new models. Bring in the voice actors and get the sound guys doing their thing. Screw with the engine to push boundaries, like you do. But the key here is that the game part of the game is already made, there's a very clear picture of what work needs to be done.

Heck, you're making Portal 3, right? Portal is 90% puzzles. And Valve made that whole slick fancy level editor for fans to use, right? The one that's so ridiculously easy to use that a braindead monkey can make Portal test chambers in a few minutes a pop?

Build the first version of Portal 3 in the Portal 2 test chamber editor. Do you even need five guys? You could have a comprehensive prototype in a snap and bring in the big guns to go from there. Bro if you really wanted to make Portal 3 you absolutely *could* solo it, forget all the polish, make the scaffolding. Save the set dressing for later, that's where the time is spent.

Or say you don't solo it. Say that you get all 300 people at the company... for one, single day. Everyone, business people included. Sit everyone in front of the portal 2 test chamber editor, even the accountants, remember, brain dead monkeys can do it. Have everyone shoot for 5 levels, tell them to go wild, make anything they want. See what they come up with. Make it a party, get everyone in a room together bouncing ideas off each other with the level editor right there to realize them as fast as you can think it up. Then have everyone play each other's levels, try to sort out the best stuff. Boom. Just like that, you've got a huge amount of content to jump off with. 300 x 5, we're talking 1,500 levels here, no way you can't find two dozen or so ideas worth exploring further.

And if it's a party? A party with 300 of the most creative people on the planet hanging out together to just make something? No risk, no strings attached? You're gonna get a lot more than just levels. You're going to get jokes out the wazoo. Story ideas. New mechanics, people going "wouldn't it be cool if...?"

You don't have to commit to a 3 year development cycle with all hands on deck, you can start something good just having a little bit of fun.

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I think I'd rather they just release SteamOS as a distro that can be installed on whatever, and start manufacturing Steam Controllers again. I'd much rather just build my own gaming PC or otherwise get a prebuilt of some kind and then install SteamOS than be locked to whatever arbitrary hardware Valve would come up with. It makes sense with the Steam Deck because it's a portable device and your average Joe can't just build his own one of those. And it makes sense for Playstation and Xbox because they have exotic, weird hardware architectures and a walled garden to play in, plus dedicated widespread developer support to take advantage of that hardware.

But if we're talking about something that just plays steam games tied to the wall and plugged into your TV... well that's just any old PC, isn't it? Valve would essentially be equivalent to some random boutique PC builder like IBuyPower or something and I think that's a waste of their time. There's already plenty of people providing in that space. SteamOS is really all they bring to the table that we don't already have. So they should just focus on making SteamOS really good, IMO.

Even normal, technically inept gamers understand the concept of a gaming PC and how to get one and then plug the HDMI port into a TV, you know? There's not much else Valve can provide hardware-wise that the general public doesn't already have, except maybe a slick sci-fi VCR shaped case like Playstation and Xbox come up with every generation. XD

Especially because they'd probably target console prices? Like a $600 computer, probably with an APU in it... and that wouldn't *just* be an average gaming PC, it'd be a *crappy* gaming PC. At that price point you'll struggle to make anything that's meaningfully faster than the Steam Deck itself. And while it's way impressive as a handheld, it's a really slow gaming PC. I mean, who goes out and buys a brand new PC like "OH BOY! I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY GAMES AT 28fps 800p and the lowest settings!"

Don't bother, just let me hook up the stupid expensive $5000 PC I would have gotten anyway.

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Quoting: denyasis

Quoting: setzer22Currently, the only comfortable way to game on the deck is to go via the Steam interface, and even things like emulators need to be wired as non-steam games or they simply won't work well. We need more Lutris, we need more sc-controller, and we need more of whatever is to come that will help us make our Decks less "Steam" gaming machines and more "Linux" gaming machines

I also agree, but I'm a little less skeptical than you. I'm probably in between you and Liam Dawe.

Valve is definitely in the Extend phase of EEE for Linux and wine, and I can see at some point they may consider making the jump to Extinguish (pairing steam off of Linux into it's own thing), but I don't see that as likely or feasible.

1). They lack the resources. Valve is 100% dependant on the free labor of the open source communities. While they've done great work, most of the heavy lifting was done long ago by others.
2). Linux being open source, it simply can't be tossed out, the way Microsoft or Apple can get rid of stuff since it's all in house.

Linux will be just fine.

Quoting: Liam DaweI actually agree there too, which is why I cvM37x2bjoTnEsqontinue to hope the Deck pushes Linux Gaming forwards, so that a bigger market opens up so more stores and vendors take notice :)

I would love to see more Linux support, I hope more games target native/wine in the future.

By chance, are there indicators on how well the deck is doing? I don't read much gaming news elsewhere, and it seems it's doing really well in reviews from what I can tell.

If by "How Well the Steam Deck is doing" you mean sales, then it is doing *very* well. By unofficial estimates orders are booked out all the way to mid 2023, Valve is selling literally as many as they can make and then some. On the Steam Deck reddit they're tracking how many orders have been filled relative to when people made their reservations. Supposedly there are so many people in line, that since February they've only fulfilled the first 12 _minutes_ of reservations made after they went up.

Given that I guess it depends on your perspective - if you're Valve, it's a massive, unprecidented, completely unexpected success, they have an order of magnitude more interest than expected. It could not possibly be any more successful, they literally can't make units fast enough to sell. But from another perspective aside from Valve's, say you're watching market share and hoping for Linux to overtake windows? Then it's a drop in the bucket, sales are heavily constrained by Valve's supply. Not a great success by that metric yet, but that metric is obviously unrealistic, IMO it's more impressive than disappointing that you could consider it through that lens at all.

In summary, Steam Deck is doing fabulously, far beyond all expectations, but isn't big enough to take on the Sonys and Microsofts and Nintendos of the world yet. Give it a few more years, it'll get there. Maybe by Steam Deck 3, assuming Valve can count that high.

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Quoting: constI remember shared resources was supposed to be a big thing. Are Atelier series and Nioh 2 really the biggest titles that suffered from it?

No I think it was also one of many issues plaguing Persona 5 Strikers. It's probably not in the list because it still has other issues keeping it broken, video codecs are also borked. It was also needed to get the GTA 5 mod manager working.

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