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Source Engine SDK To Be Free
Following up on news from earlier this week that Valve made Team Fortress 2 free-to-play, we now get word that the Source engine SDK will be free to all as well. Quoting Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
"The Source Software Development Kit, for those of you who've never clicked the Tools tab in Steam, contains everything you'd need to make a mod, except for personal ambition. It has everything from the infamous Valve Hammer Editor to Face Posers and Model Viewers. At the moment, to gain access to the Source SDK you have to purchase a Source based game such as Half Life 2, or as the official website states, Team Fortress 2. Which is of course now free. [Valve's Robin Walker said], 'We are in the process of getting it all done. It’s a bit messy because we have multiple versions of the SDK, and there’s some dependencies we need to shake out. But yes, the gist of it is that we’re just going to go ahead and make the Source SDK freely available.'"
How much would it cost to release a port of Source to Linux? Come up with a figure, and we - the Linux gaming community, who bought every iD game ever written simply because it had Linux support straight away - will come up with the cash.
Go on, do it. The money is waiting.
Half Life 3.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
How interesting: It's software, it's free, and it's name Source, but it's not Free Software or Open Source. It's really a shame that with the thousands of words in the English language neither RMS nor Valve could come up with something more identifying.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Are Valve preparing to release something?
yes, valve, please go ahead, and put it on github.com - I "smell" a big chain of forks/contributers already :)
it wasn't me.
Considering there are a lot of other engines out there that have always had free mod making tools and some of those are open source, this isn't all that exciting. Congrats Valve, you've caught up with Duke Nukem 3D and Quake as they were in 1996.
The Source SDK being now free, everyone has now access to the mods in this list, most of them being free (Zombie Panic! Source, Age of Chivalry, Insurgency ...) or not costing much (Garry's Mod).
I guess they are planning to get more well-know given their projects (DOTA 2 especially)
What?
You could try using an OS that isn't virtually insignificant in the user desktop market. A market that developers look at and fear virtually no returns on their invesetment. A few potentially loyal sales doesn't really make a sound investment. Almost posted this AC but I'll take the karma hit if it comes. I shouldn't need to hide to post the truth.
Lucky I'm fluent in AC. ;)
Despite it now being free, I will neither play Team fortress nor use the SDK. I would do so, even at twice the old price, if I could run it natively on Linux.
To Valve, and all the other game developers: if you deprive us of your games, you deprive yourselves of our money.
just before HL2 was released.
Ah, thank you very much.
Most of us Linux users who also play PC games already have tried using an OS with greater market share. We even keep it installed, and boot into it when we want to play games that won't work in WINE. And every time we do so, our minds boggle at the idea that anyone would want to use it seriously.
Insert your own terrible car analogy here, I can't be bothered.
Valve has discovered that they're making more money from their cut of the thousands of non-Valve games on Steam than from the few dozen Valve games. It's why they can so frequently give away their games for free. It's why they can dump a fortune into developing Portal, which while clearly the worlds best puzzle game, offers little replayability.
I'd expect the Source SDK licenses will require that games are sold only on Steam.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I can see how the Hammer editor is cumbersome or missing a feature or two in places, but I seem to do pretty well building my future "dream" houses and walking around in it. Are there other, better solutions to use than the Hammer editor for Source games? (I am curious as to what they may update with this release.)
For those of you who don't keep track, the "Source 2009" version of the game engine used by Valve's multiplayer games has had a number of updates in the past year.
The problem is, the SDK hasn't reflected these changes.
So, right now, the final game itself has interesting C++ classes like CVoteController that don't exist in the SDK.
Does Valve plan on releasing an updated SDK along with making it free?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
If you've actually made a mod using source sdk, you have seen that the 2009 engine Just Doesn't Work (tm) and that every other engine has compile errors that you have to go and fix before you can actually compile it. Don't even think about adding custom shaders.
I'll take the hit, I got more karma than God and therefor don't give a crap. unless you are a programmer Linux is COMPLETELY pointless. Its driver model is more than a decade behind everyone else which causes drivers to shit themselves with regularity, Hardware support for cutting edge? Fugetaboutit and for everything less than 3 years old spotty at best, Low resource? not since Ubuntu came along and frankly if you really cared about that TinyXP runs great on a 400MHz and uses just 64Mb of RAM for a full desktop.
The ONLY place Linux makes sense is to programmers. programmers can automate the entire process with scripting (to be fair Windows has gotten much better at this with Powershell) there are plenty of IDEs as well as OSes designed for HPC and scientific programming. So yes for programmers Linux makes sense. For the other 99.9995% of the planet that is NOT programmers? Honestly the driver situation alone makes it suck the big wet titty.
Finally most gamers actually care about performance and Linux GPU drivers are just...well they are shit. The FOSS ones are miles behind on features and rarely work with decent games, the proprietary ones drop support for older hardware while being seriously behind on the latest and greatest. maybe when the ATI FOSS drivers get up to snuff things will be different but for a game company to target Linux as a platform now would have to be insane. DirectX ties everything up all nice and neat whereas OpenGL is a bunch of GPU specific shims and is frankly a mess.
So I'm sorry but unless you are a programmer Linux just doesn't make sense ATM. Maybe when old Torlvalds retires you will quietly get an ABI and then drivers won't be such a clusterfuck but expecting users to keep up with every make/model/rev of hardware so they can go with their hat in their hand to some forum and ask "please sir, can I has sound?" only to be told "RTFM or go back to Winblowz noob!" simply doesn't cut it. Windows is only $100 and well worth that not to deal with the bullshit.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The biggest reason I never used the Source SDK was its dependence on Steam being installed and running. I want to be able to run the SDK tools, compile, and test my code on machines that will never be connected to the internet. That's what made working with the HL1 SDK so nice. If I needed four test machines I could easily do it. With Source SDK I'd have to install Steam, manage accounts, worry about connectivity, and all that crap. Perhaps some of these reasons contribute to HL2's low enthusiasm towards modding.
Hi hairyfeet.
HEY, LOOK GUYS, THAT'S hairyfeet, A KNOWN MICROSOFT SHILL.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Please, for the love of god, port Hammer Editor to OS X - it sucks that the only stable computer I have [as in, won't crash in the middle of rendering the map] doesn't have a port of this tool.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Hey look everybody it is Alex a KNOWN DOUCHEBAG! See how easy that is to make insults, especially when one has NO DEFENSE to what is being written? I love how the average Linux users acts like a 8 year old going "Nigger faggot" to everyone that doesn't kiss his ass, only instead of nigger and faggot it is shill and astroturfer.
For your info Mr Douche, I'm your worst fucking nightmare...I'm a retailer. I actually have REAL WORLD CUSTOMERS not some kids in their basements trying to stick it to "teh man". I have people that COUNT on their machines to...oh what is the word?....oh yeah ACTUALLY WORK not shit themselves and die because torvalds decided to Goatse the kernel again.
So you go wrap yourself in your little Tux blankie and pretend it is all just a conspiracy, Pretend that all those retailers in the entire USA don't avoid your crap because...well its driver model is crap...no it must be a secret cabal involving Bill Gates and the Illuminati. oh and don't forget to write M$ so you can be just like this guy which is who you sound like.
Run along pup, the grown ups have real work to do. Hey why don't you go compile something or send your pics of your "leet Linux desktop yo!" to KDELook and let the real men talk, okay junior?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You have an employer, and its customer is Microsoft. Your greatest accomplishment in life is copypasta karma whoring on Slashdot, and the best you can do for the rest of mankind is to die in a fire.
I do embedded systems development, an area where your masters failed miserably and Linux succeeded.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
lol, you look like a scrawny little bitch from your photo. get a haircut. btw, nice that you went with that whole 90s retro look for your site.
Are you nagging about "hardware support for cutting edge"? No, really? You do realize that this all depends on the manufacturers being retards and not releasing specifications, right? When the BIOS is based on hacks to make Wind-Blows work, and when manufacturers prefer to keep their specifications to themselves, or only share it with microsoft retards, we can't do shit. Do you think programmers shit out specifications for a new hardware that they just bought? Do you realize how hard it is to reverse-engineer a complete blob of compiled drivers for windows? So again, wind-blows users don't have a problem there since everything is MADE to work with their retarded shit. Apple sticks to a very limited set of hardware in order to avoid that specific issue. No wonder they also use EFI instead of the backward BIOS. I really don't see why Linux users have to take the flak for all that retarded shit going on. We might as well start manufacturing our own open hardware..
Riiight. Hey douchey, citation please? Someone must have forgotten to tell me where Ballmer parked the money truck. Hell I don't even get discount licensing I buy OEM boxes off Newegg like every other system builder.
Isn't it sad, how like a frightened child afraid to look under the bed, you cower at the truth? if your driver model isn't shit then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? Oh right because Linus shits itself and dies if you use the default repos! Man that is some excellent product you got there! you think I can get better QA than the third largest OEM on the planet? What, you expect me to tell paying customers "Go to the forum, kiss some loser ass, and maybe, just maybe, in a few days someone will have mercy and give you a big pile of bullshit that may or may not make your sound work again"?
Bleeding yet douchey? want some more? nice thing about having the truth on your side, you can keep throwing punches all day! How about how a decade old Windows beat the shit out of Linux on netbooks or how ASUS has given up on your bullshit or how about Walamart running away from linux as fast as it can? You got the crazy koolaid drunk enough to say they ALL are paid shills because they won't do your forum dance or CLI horseshit? Meanwhile your "hero" Torvalds the great says Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans!. Why don't you tell them that at work next week, see how quick you get a pink slip? More? How about you actually have the balls to celebrate getting a whole 1% market share while you are actually lower than JavaME and there is a whole website dedicated To your bullshit and excuses .
You see you whiny little delusional mama's boy, I'm your worst fucking nightmare...a retailer that still believes. I believe that the community doesn't have to take Torvalds shit sandwiches, I believe that things can be made better, I believe Linux can be something for more than douchebags like you that will happily take a cock slapping from linus as long as you can say you are sticking to "teh man". I believe that there can be Linux boxes on actual shelves and penguins on boxes.
So you go hide now mama's boy, you hide with your Tux blankie and keep saying your magical nigger nigger faggot, or should I say shill shill astroturfer, like it is a magical word that will make all the bad go away. But it won't change reality and the reality is your driver model is shit and more than 15 years behind everyone else and that is why retailers like me wouldn't piss on it, not some mythical money truck that sneaks up to my door in the middle of the night. So go compile something and leave the men to talk about the real world, okay little girl?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I see, Microsoft marketing is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
See? Thanks for proving you are a coward as I conclusively proved, with link after link no less, that your driver model is shit, retailers consider your product about as useful as an STD, and your ONLY answer? The ONLY thing you can come up with? Waaaah, he won't suck Linus' cock so he must work for M$! Wahhh!
Hell I even provided a link showing from the mouth of Linus himself that his "big plan" for the kernel is THERE IS NO PLAN just whatever itch he and his douchey kernel buds feel like, like it is 1993 and they are passing the kernel around on IRC. No care what pain he is causing the users, no giving a shit he is running off the OEMs, nope just Linus and his pals going Goatse on the kernel, not a care in the world.
So do us all a favor...kill yourself. If you are such a sheep that even when shown link after link, proof after proof that you are being fucked the ONLY answer you can come up with is "Waaah he doesn't like being fucked raw like me so he is a poopy head!" then please, make the world a better place...kill yourself. Suck on a tailpipe, eat a bullet, go play in traffic. this world is too full of cowering sycophants kissing the ass of anyone in power to ever miss you.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
And here is what happens when Microsoft marketing people are out of their talking points -- their monkeys are allowed to build the "arguments" themselves. This is how hairyfeet sounds when he doesn't have any copy to paste.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.