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What Source 2 Means For Valve's ESports

Posted by timothy on from the not-to-mention-the-new-iron-chef-ingredients dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Valve's new game engine is looming, and it doesn't just mean changes to the company's most popular games for all players, but also two of the most popular eSports in the world right now, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. As a new article points out, Source 2's ability to process more on screen at once, even on feeble laptops with integrated graphics, could have a surprising benefit for top tier play and both games as a spectator sport. After all, if more players all over the developing world can access these games, we could see an uplift in the quality of play at the highest tournament level sometime down the line.

46 comments

  1. Those Brazilians need to get inside by aliquis · · Score: 1

    After all, if more players all over the developing world can access these games, we could see an uplift in the quality of play at the highest tournament level sometime down the line.

    GO INSIDE!

  2. if you can't afford a laptop to play cs:go or dota by XaXXon · · Score: 1

    then you can't afford a gaming house or multiple coaches or sports psychologists..

  3. More things on screen at one time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hopefully this means more hats for the next Team Fortress.

  4. eSports gear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NVidia, Mouse, Pepsi, Doritos.

  5. Forget Esports by shione · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Source 2 is what Valve have been waiting to finish before they bring out Half Life 3, Portal 3, L4D3 and TF3.

    Yes Half Life 3, I said it. Half Life THREE.

    What follows Source 2 is the '3' games. Afterall, you wouldn't continue your award winning franchise that everyone has been waiting for, on a aging engine, would you? And less face it, Source 1 is so behind modern engines, Valve really needs Source 2 finished to show HL3 in the best way possible.

    They need their own games to use as tech demos to get other developers onto using Source 3 too. And with their console coming out at the end of the year they need first party games to help it sell. Not saying that those sequels will come out that quickly with the console but you need Source 2 out before the '3' games come out and with the Steam console out soon, it makes sense for Valve to bring out the '3' games sooner than later. So it's getting closer guys.

    1. Re:Forget Esports by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Some suckers still believe that Half-Life 3 will eventually be released?

    2. Re:Forget Esports by shione · · Score: 1

      You would have be ignorant to believe Valve won't keep milking their franchises like any business does.

    3. Re:Forget Esports by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Some suckers still believe that Half-Life 3 will eventually be released?

      If HL3 is released, and its anygood, theres a billon dollars worth of sales for possibly the most hyped vaporware of all time. Duke Nukem forever flopped, because it was terrible, but Valve doesn't do bad games.

      Its absurd they'd leave that money on the table. Its there for the taking and it makes no business sense not to.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    4. Re:Forget Esports by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      They have better ways of making money already.

    5. Re:Forget Esports by amplesand · · Score: 1

      Eehh ... Like announcing a release of a Steam controller every year?

    6. Re:Forget Esports by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Half-Life 3 has never been announced, so I wouldn't call it vaporware. There has been no promise of it. The product only exists in speculation.

    7. Re:Forget Esports by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      No, not that. Their online game store and multiplayer games such as Dota and Left 4 Dead.

    8. Re:Forget Esports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can only have so many hats.

    9. Re:Forget Esports by ameoba · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Selling virtual hats.

      Pure. Fucking. Proffit.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    10. Re:Forget Esports by sixshot · · Score: 2

      Therein lies the problem... Source 2 may eventually have something developed on it. But as proven from Valve's track record, this fact still remains:

      There is no such thing as 3 at Valve. Ever. After all, everything stops at 2. Thus, once Source 2 is finally released to the public, you can say goodbye to any chance that another Source engine will come.

      Here, have a blue pill. Believe whatever you want to believe. Me? I don't believe in anything. I expect nothing from Valve until they actually show it or release it. Everything else is just speculation and conjecture.

    11. Re:Forget Esports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Every time someone makes a fat joke about Gabe Newell he pushes HL3 back. It is now projected for 3192, so our robot/lizard overlords will love it.

    12. Re:Forget Esports by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      In all fairness, I think they could make Half-Life 3 a feasible investment. They just have better things to do.

      I wonder what would happen if Valve handed off HL2EP3 or HL3 to a company like Gearbox. The demand for those games is pretty high, so maybe someone could still create them.

    13. Re:Forget Esports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Half-Life is what made the company. Outsourcing that IP and putting it at the mercy of an outside team would have implications for how the company perceives itself. This would be a very symbolic decision along the line of transitioning from a developer to a publisher. Valve carefully avoided that so far. They want to appear as a developer.

    14. Re:Forget Esports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Valve has said there will be no HL3 unless they have a technology to show off that is novel enough to justify it. I am hoping VR will finally push them.

    15. Re:Forget Esports by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Yep, that's a good point, I was thinking the same.

    16. Re:Forget Esports by PRMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd like to see HalfLife 3/Portal 3 be the same game. That would be amazing.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    17. Re:Forget Esports by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 2

      Valve absolutely does bad games, Half-Life 2 and the Episodes are great examples of them. Hell Episodes 1 and 2 were practically textbook examples of going directly from one bad gameplay trope to the next. Escort missions, poorly made infinite-respawning-enemy waiting rooms, a billion barred-door and seesaw physics gimmicks, on-rails "driving" sections, and so much bloom you may as well just stare at a lightbulb in a tub of jello.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    18. Re:Forget Esports by keltor · · Score: 1

      Half-life 2 is generally consider either one of the Top 5 games of all time, or literally the Greatest Game of All Time.

    19. Re:Forget Esports by weilawei · · Score: 1

      This. Would buy in a heartbeat, unquestioned.

    20. Re:Forget Esports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And hats made by others players

    21. Re:Forget Esports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who knew that giving your extremely popular, well refined, genre defining games away for free but charging for vanity items was such a good business model.

      Well. If it's stupid but it works.. It's not stupid.

  6. Initial engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have to wonder, did they just do such a marvelous job on Source 2, or was the first version so bad ?

    Maybe it was just the cost to optimize it so well initially.

  7. 120Hz display needed by Blaskowicz · · Score: 0

    I doubt you can play an FPS at top level with only a refresh rate of 60Hz. Back in early 00s you played CS at 85 or 100Hz and Quake 3 at 100 or 120Hz (regardless of whether you can hit those framerates consisently, the higher refresh still is useful)

    Perhaps a 300 euro desktop will play CS:GO adequately (choose hardware adequately) but a 120Hz or 144Hz is another 300 euros. Back to double the cost of the laptop with Intel integrated graphics.

    1. Re:120Hz display needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bullocks. People played CS at frame rates higher than 60 due to ignorance and buggy vsync support. Quake 3 players used higher framerates due to the fact the game's engine was flawed and calculates jumping height and distance based on framerate.

    2. Re:120Hz display needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this is true, until the recent advent of 120hz lcd's CRT's were commonly used by Quake players until pretty recently, and some pros still use them - additionally CRT's remain in use in the fighting game community, most notably as the tournament standard still for Smash Bros Melee, due to the speed of that game + the slow refresh rate and input delay inherent to most LCD's, including many of the current 120hz and likely even 240hz displays

  8. Forget the fucking Gameplay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ESports are all about the GRAPHICS, man, the fucking GRAPHICS.

  9. Re:if you can't afford a laptop to play cs:go or d by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

    What about a room with low power, silent, diskless linux workstations. Each with an Intel or AMD APU (such as 15 watt AMD Carrizo or next-gen Atom, both are SoC on a simplified motherboard). One cheap file server/master server with an SSD, a couple fanless switches. You go there and use the workstations / game stations rather than own, configure and operate your own. Seems the running costs would be rather low. You do need a fiber optics connection to the internet for competitive low latency and concurrent use of upload though.

  10. Uh no. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    After all, if more players all over the developing world can access these games, we could see an uplift in the quality of play at the highest tournament level sometime down the line.

    In a word, no. If you can't afford competitive hardware, you can't afford a competitive network connection, either.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re: Uh no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      word is the majority of the worlds kids play football.

      Outside.

      With a ball.

    2. Re: Uh no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes! real sports! physcial aptitude. espots is not a sport! just like astrology â(TM)S is not a science. competitive gaming yes. sport no! crap like this is why we are so damn fat and diabetic in our culture! Each one of these contestants should be required to run ðYf or swim ðYS or hike a mile in time beforehand!

    3. Re: Uh no. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      word is the majority of the worlds kids play football.

      I have activity-induced bronchial asthma, you insensitive clod! I was born with it. Now tell me again about how I should go do some running, and while you're at it, why don't you count the grains of sand you've trapped?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Uh no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Define "competitive network connection"

      I remember reading of somebody playing Quake 3 via a 56k modem and consistently beating people playing on broadband in one-on-one matches.

    5. Re:Uh no. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I remember reading of somebody playing Quake 3 via a 56k modem and consistently beating people playing on broadband in one-on-one matches.

      I remember reading of a unicorn that shit brownies and pissed apple juice, and when it farted, the air smelled like hot buttered popcorn.

      Back in the Quake 1 days, you could meaningfully play Quake 1 via a modem, via Quakeworld. You could meaningfully play Descent via modem. Some of the very early RTSes had direct modem modes, IIRC. But you cannot practically play any even vaguely modern game over a modem connection. If you do win, it will be because the antilag handed you victory.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:Uh no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In a word, no. If you can't afford competitive hardware, you can't afford a competitive network connection, either.

      You may not be able to afford competitive hardware AND competitive network connection, but it's easier to find money for one than for both. Still a net win I think

  11. Hats? So many hats! by PatientZero · · Score: 1

    I can't wait for the Half-Life 3 hats and custom crowbars!

    --
    Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
    I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
  12. Upgrading Dota2 and CS to a new engine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Um, I'm not sure it's such a great idea for the pro players in Dota2 and CS to have their games entirely rebuilt on top of a new engine. All kinds of things they practiced will suddenly start working differently. I guess this is one of those issues with esports that ball sports don't have to deal with. FIFA is not required to completely rewrite soccer and modernize it for modern gaming platforms every few years. Maybe that why some soccer stars can play the same game professionally for 20 years.

    1. Re:Upgrading Dota2 and CS to a new engine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was available as a DLC, player with the old and the new engine can play in the same game session. As such i'm rather sure the new engine is verry backwards compatible when it comes to your gameplay code.

  13. What a shit article by JohnStock · · Score: 1

    Seriously.. "Particle physics is like dots and stuff"