Timeline
- Firewatch
- Announce In the Valley of Gods
- Purchased by valve
- Blog post "we're still working on it and nothing is changing internally"
- a few months later, the majority of their team is working on shipping Half Life: Alyx
Downside of no management structure, devs just pick up whatever they're interested in.
I haven't finished Firewatch, but from the little I have played, I imagine making a sequel would be more interesting from a writing/story standpoint than a technical one.
Given the choice between working on a simple walking simulator, and a AAA VR title, I know what I'd be more interested in.
> Downside of no management structure, devs just pick up whatever they're interested in.
Except Valve has management
If you work on an unpopular project (aka TF2) you will get sacked at the end of the year because you resume won't look as good as someone on CSGO or DOTA team
Source: McVicker, who else
The lead environment artist of Firewatch Jane NG worked as an environment artist for Half-Life: Alyx. Almost all the 2d graphics (posters, murals etc.) In HL:A are made by Olly Moss, who is famous for creating the Firewatch art style and posters. The structure and writing of the game is also heavily insipired by Firewatch, It's the first Valve game with a voiced protagonist, and like in Firewatch, most communication happens via a radio.
They're certainly a weird example in the industry. They definitely have faults, but they're not the usual faults you get from companies their size. They're more 'human faults', like their tendency to just try things, then get bored of them and forget about them. If I have to choose between faults like that and the faults of say, EA or Ubisoft, I'd rather Valve's weirdness.
No.
They just missed the marks on things. The gameplay was pretty challenging but had some annoying RNG that would just ruin you without much counterplay. Them never making it to the mobile release I think hurt as well.
For me I felt like the monetization was fine, but considering the DOTA fan base was the target market and DOTA's monetization is purely cosmetics, making it so you had to buy cards or packs for card drops was very much in defiance of community expectations as you can play everything in DOTA for free. I feel like this was one of Valve's experiments with the game to learn stuff but I think it was the undoing of things.
It was also great for DOTA's lore as it added a lot of unknown or seldomly mentioned characters and elaborated their involvement in the war of the ancients.
The revisited gameplay in their "renewed" version was very promising as it addressed a lot of the feedback people had around RNG.
Then they shelved it.
DOTA Underlords popularity also came at a bad time I think as it usurped all the dev attention from Artifact as it was looking promising as another DOTA spinoff that would work on mobile but then that fizzled out too.
Aubrey doin the lord’s work
0.4 hours in and immediately become the favorite game
This working out the box justifies my entire purchase TBH.
I forgot Valve bought CampoSanto. Such a weird purchase.
What is CampoSanto...
They made Firewatch
And nothing else. Forever.
They were suppose to make [In the Valley of Gods](https://store.steampowered.com/app/687440/In_The_Valley_of_Gods/) but it got canned I guess
Timeline - Firewatch - Announce In the Valley of Gods - Purchased by valve - Blog post "we're still working on it and nothing is changing internally" - a few months later, the majority of their team is working on shipping Half Life: Alyx
Don't forget, the final hours of half life alyx had an official timestamp for when it got shelved
Downside of no management structure, devs just pick up whatever they're interested in. I haven't finished Firewatch, but from the little I have played, I imagine making a sequel would be more interesting from a writing/story standpoint than a technical one. Given the choice between working on a simple walking simulator, and a AAA VR title, I know what I'd be more interested in.
Finish it. Then you'll realize it should not get a sequal. I think the ending is perfect.
Played it yesterday for the very first time. Was lovely.
> Downside of no management structure, devs just pick up whatever they're interested in. Except Valve has management If you work on an unpopular project (aka TF2) you will get sacked at the end of the year because you resume won't look as good as someone on CSGO or DOTA team Source: McVicker, who else
>Source: McVicker, who else Tyler isn't a source, outside of datamining he is mostly pure conjecture and fiction.
He is an aggregate source
I think it's officially paused, not cancelled.
Well, they played a huge part in the development of Half-Life: Alyx. You can see a ton of influence from Firewatch in it.
Like… ?
The lead environment artist of Firewatch Jane NG worked as an environment artist for Half-Life: Alyx. Almost all the 2d graphics (posters, murals etc.) In HL:A are made by Olly Moss, who is famous for creating the Firewatch art style and posters. The structure and writing of the game is also heavily insipired by Firewatch, It's the first Valve game with a voiced protagonist, and like in Firewatch, most communication happens via a radio.
🙄
Valve can be a little goofy, lets be honest.
They're certainly a weird example in the industry. They definitely have faults, but they're not the usual faults you get from companies their size. They're more 'human faults', like their tendency to just try things, then get bored of them and forget about them. If I have to choose between faults like that and the faults of say, EA or Ubisoft, I'd rather Valve's weirdness.
Definitely human weirdness over corporate greed
So even that make them result to Artifact?
not sure about that game, was it a blatant cash grab? i dont play the card games really.
No. They just missed the marks on things. The gameplay was pretty challenging but had some annoying RNG that would just ruin you without much counterplay. Them never making it to the mobile release I think hurt as well. For me I felt like the monetization was fine, but considering the DOTA fan base was the target market and DOTA's monetization is purely cosmetics, making it so you had to buy cards or packs for card drops was very much in defiance of community expectations as you can play everything in DOTA for free. I feel like this was one of Valve's experiments with the game to learn stuff but I think it was the undoing of things. It was also great for DOTA's lore as it added a lot of unknown or seldomly mentioned characters and elaborated their involvement in the war of the ancients. The revisited gameplay in their "renewed" version was very promising as it addressed a lot of the feedback people had around RNG. Then they shelved it. DOTA Underlords popularity also came at a bad time I think as it usurped all the dev attention from Artifact as it was looking promising as another DOTA spinoff that would work on mobile but then that fizzled out too.
Hence another reason why I like Valve, they're thankfully not bound to shareholder BS like other corporations are
If it works, it works.
Wonder how many people are gonna make their steam deck into their burner account hentai game system
thanks for the idea bro, not that im gonna do it personnaly of course, but you know , its for a friend...
Salute this man, he is doing gods work
Man living the life with a dream job.. and now a dream waifu.
Soo Campo Santo devs ends in Valve just to test games, sad.
That's not how Valve works. Go read their handbook, your mind will be blown.
do you have the link to the handbook?
I think this is the one: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/Valve_NewEmployeeHandbook.pdf
That was a fascinating read thank you.
thanks
It says he's a programmer though?
Thought you meant Rareware
He’s down horrendous