The thing about that is when I buy a game off steam, I do so with the knowledge that I will never be able to resell it. Personally, I don't mind this, and the convenience in installation, activation, and playing on multiple machines overrides that consideration. Even if I bought hard copies I doubt I would resell them, I'm the type that still whips out my old copies of Baldur's Gate 2 or StarCraft.
Wait, from my understanding of this, all the cool crap going on at nexuiz.com is going to be for consoles only? What the hell? Maybe I'm misinformed but this looks a lot to me like some bozos taking an open source GPL'd engine and turning it into a closed source commercial product. I had to go check out wikipedia's page on the GPL to make sure I was remembering my licenses correctly. This really does look like a leeching off of a community effort. I don't really know how much of the Nexuiz codebase belongs to contributors, but I'm secretly hoping it's enough that these Illfonic guys don't get a free ride...
Not sure how true it is, but my Computer Science/Calculus BC teacher claims to have one of the first webpages put up on the internet. I would tend to believe him, as he is quite the CS wiz and he tends to be really current. Although looking at his webpage now I think he just got lazy and didn't feel like updating the layout. In any case it currently resides over at http://calcpage.tripod.com/. As the story goes it started out on a researchers network after a friend at some institute that I forget the name of told him about this crazy new thing called the internet. He's also the most innovative teacher in the school, for what it's worth. He's the only one that manages to make full use of the stuff from SMART Technologies that was just installed, taking video of his lessons recorded from the SMART system so students can catch up.
This sort of reminds me of what went on with Microsoft and Bungie. Bungie made a great game (Halo, though that's not to say their others weren't also great) and Microsoft wanted to milk that into oblivion. Fortunately, now Bungie has split and they seem to be back on track to their original designs. (I was a big fan of Marathon)
The serious problem IMO is when you hear about DLC being or having been released on launch day, which was the case with Dragon Age Origins and I believe Mass Effect 2. That just really pisses me off because they're withholding content that was developed alongside the full game. The concept of expansion packs used to be such that they would sell you a full game at standard price, then work on an XP for a year, then release that. Now they sell you less than a full game at full price and expect you to shell out more for the rest of the game. The fundamental difference is that with the old model, you were given everything that was ready for release at the release date. Any secondary content was developed afterwards, to foster continued interest in the game. Now the publishers so greedy that they believe a full game should cost more than the accepted standard price, so they give you half of what's ready for $50 and the rest in $10 packs.
I suppose that's true, although my grandfather had lots of depression problems that he just dealt with, and he lived a long and apparently happy life. I guess it depends on what you were cursed with and how well you could deal with it on your own. My point was that a lot of people were probably forced to deal with their demons themselves and were thus able to overcome then.
I'm replying to my own comment because I sort of feel bad. Some of the other replies have made a good point that not everyone will have as bad an experience as I have. When I was in the hospital, I met a lot of other people that had been through similar things. In many cases, they started out with a small problem but their condition was exacerbated by doctors' recommendations. I remember specifically one woman who had an anxiety disorder like me, but became extremely depressed and started cutting herself after her doctor put her on something. Since then she had been on perhaps a dozen different meds and sported scars up her arms and legs. I relate this story just to give my OP some additional perspective. Of course I realize that many people, maybe even most people lead better, happier lives because of assistance they've received from mental health professionals. Even so, please don't forget that there are at least some cases where more harm has been done than good.
To date, my psychiatrist has tried three times to wean me off of my meds. Each time, within a few days I have an episode. When I was put on this med, I was in the hospital under the care of a different psychiatrist. When he prescribed it, he said if I didn't take it they would sedate me and give it intravenously. This was after I already had a bad reaction to other medicine and they weren't sure what was going to happen.
I suppose you're right. Normally I'm much more balanced and neutral about issues like this, but my experiences with mental health professionals has really set up some unpleasant opinions. As I said in another reply, I've been pretty much backed into a corner at this point. Last week the doctor tried again to wean me off of my medication, this time in combination with a less dependancy-forming med. Unfortunately, I had a panic attack accompanied by a seizure. Fortunately, I was with family at the time, else I might've ended up in the hospital again. Probably the most traumatizing thing in my whole experience was the first hospitalization. I wonder if you could keep your perspective if your child was admitted to the ER and then you were told you could not see them for three weeks. I'm sorry, but I am the sum of my experiences.
I'm sorry if you think I've done people a disservice. Perhaps you are right, perhaps the majority of people that seek help receive it and are better off. Unfortunately, I have problems accepting that. All anyone can say about this is based on their own experiences. While you've had a great experience and have come out a healthier person, I've had a shittier experience and I feel like I'm much worse off then I was two years ago. At the moment, I'm pretty much stuck with my current doctor because the hospital she works at is the only place I've found that takes my health insurance. Alas, therapy and meds are extremely expensive. It's come to the point where I need to see her to get more medicine, yet every time she tries to wean me off I have an episode.
When I started showing signs of mental health issues and went to see a psychiatrist, their reaction was essentially throw the book at me. They put me on wave after wave of things I can't even pronounce, some of which had horrifying side effects. Eventually, I had such a bad psychological reaction to one of the meds that I had to be admitted to the emergency room. That night, my attending physician signed me over to an insanity ward and I spent three weeks there, unable to leave. Seriously, I was not allowed to leave because I was considered a "danger to myself and others". I can assure you this was not the case at all until people started messing with my head.
My point is, these days with every small hiccup in orderly behavior, you get closer and closer to being tossed off a cliff into the pit of mental abnormality. Once you're in that pit, you're free game for doctors to control the way you think. I have friends that have gone through light bouts of depression but now will probably be on dangerous medication for the rest of their lives. I myself am on a dependancy-forming drug that alters the way I think and has a high risk of diabetes and liver failure. Years ago, there were no fancy drugs or somesuch to be prescribed for mental health conditions. For the most part, people just dealt with their issues. I would have gotten over my stress-related issues. Perhaps it would have involved a nervous breakdown, but the modern route put me through much worse.
I suppose I'm on the business end of the whole mental health thing, so I'm bound to be biased. Even so, you do not want to get involved in this stuff. I have yet to hear of anyone that has actually been helped, or even not hurt by psychiatrists.
It's funny you mention realism mods. I remember I used to play Star Wars Battlefront (the first one) on my PC all the time. It was actually rather dull until I found a mod that made all shots one hit kills. It also implemented realistic accuracy, so shots went wild if you fired while moving. It actually added some strategy to the game, and finally gave you a reason to go prone or crouch.
Personally, I think there's a place for both realistic and fantasy shooters. My two favorite games right now are probably Insurgency and Team Fortress 2, completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
On one hand, Insurgency can give you a nice rush of feeling in the ballpark of "OMG all my mates around me just got mowed down and now I'm crouched behind this oil drum oh god I'm gonna die" while allowed limited respawns to forgive minor mistakes and counter map imbalances. For instance, there's one map (sinjar) where as the marines are rushing up the hill in the beginning of the game, the insurgents sometimes launch RPGs or throw grenades down the hill. A bit of bad luck and you get blown up less than 30 seconds after your first spawn. If it was über realism, your fun would be over. The map is designed so that if you don't charge up the hill immediately, the enemy will dig in and you'll likely have a grueling 20 minutes of standstill. I'd say that in this instance, the designer wanted some way to ensure not all the marines made it up to the cap point, so he allowed for evil-ness with explosives. My point is, such a tactic would be unplayable in a realism game. In real life, the Marines would probably call in some danger close arty for good effect on target. While I applaud games of the Apocalypse Now type, trying to convey a strong message, I also enjoy things that are fun.
Now if you want to talk about fun, then Team Fortress 2 should definitely come up in the conversation. I swear that game is almost as awesome as sex. It's full of these really fun moments that I can only describe as virtual highs. Things like rounding a corner, and releasing an arrow from your bow to nail the minigun-touting fat guy between the eyes. Or how about sneaking up behind half the enemy team with a paper mask on your face and then stabbing those six guys in the back. And then you can close the game and watch the hilarious machinima videos released by the game developers that describe the cartoonish personalities of the in-game characters. Watching a round of TF2 can be like watching a coyote-roadrunner cartoon. Full of silly moments and fails and hilarity. I'd say that this game has more silliness than Viva Piñata and more depth than Modern Warfare 2. I mean I've played the game pretty much since it came out and I still haven't heard all of the in-game dialog.
In conclusion, realism can get your blood pumping, but pure cartoon fantasy can make you smile. They're both fun in their own way. Personally I think I prefer the fantasy aspect, but I make room for realism too.
Heh. They must hate the Call of Duty - Modern Warfare games then. Those things probably have the exact opposite effect.
I remember playing America's Army when it came out, I think one of the things I found more annoying was you had to take "classes" and tests before you could actually play the game. Mandatory target practice is one thing, but virtual instruction that actually plays no part in gameplay is a bit idiotic.
Except the average schlub is probably illegally downloading movies or music. So when they find out that their internet company is going to stop them from doing it, they're going to react badly.
Piracy is very quickly becoming a mainstream phenomenon. It's not only "cool" to pirate stuff, it's practical and often expected.
Heh. When I read the title, I immediately thought of how my CS teacher takes certain days off from the curriculum to have 24-player games of BZFlag across the school network. There are games going on today, in fact, due to it being thanksgiving.
In any case, the CS classes in my school focus entirely on Java in the context of preparing for the AP. After the AP they do a tiny bit of basic graphics work. However for my independent study I'm writing a 2D RTS in Java.
I think video game design is a good way to teach important programming concepts and keep kids interested. For instance, my own forays into game design have taught me a lot about inheritance. I even wrote a heap sort algorithm the other day. I could definitely see the GridWorld (real-world coding example) portion of the AP taken from a game's perspective. You have a bunch of objects moving around on a 2D field and interacting with each other...
Seriously, this whole article sounds like a load of horsebull. As far as I know, things like RSA and AES use integer math for the encryption and decryption schemes. It therefore doesn't make much sense to use a product designed for large numbers of floating point operations, as I would imagine the PS3 is. I'm actually pretty curious how many GMIPS the PS3 can perform. In any case, why would they pay for a device that contains all sorts of hardware ancillary to the core processing task. For instance, any gaming system is going to have a fairly powerful GPU, as well as extraneous RAM and sound hardware, etc. Also, in terms of the 4 million passwords or keys or whatever per second, I just wrote a very minimalist C program to try cracking passwords on an encrypted disk image I just created and it was definitely not reaching 4 million tries a second on my Core 2 Quad...
Yeah pretty much everything on the Infinity Engine was great. However NeverWinter Nights for a long time made me think that there's no way a 3D RPG could ever be good. Oblivion only reinforced that sentiment. Then I played Mass Effect a few weeks ago and had a ton of fun. Granted it's more of an FPS that an RPG, but the storyline was great (BioWare quality) and overall I love the game. Anyway this review is piquing my interest, and I'm tempted to pick up this game and see how it is. I'm a little wary of that fact that it's not based on the tried and true Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, but I'm wondering if that's what has held back so many RPGs.
Yeesh. I just wrote an essay for my English class (a mock college application essay) in maybe 20 minutes. It came out to around 620 words, less than two pages. Personally, I believe writing skills are very important and that the college application process should be even more personalized than it is. This just sounds like the MIT applications office is getting tired of reading essays...
You know the whole story surrounding IPv4 and IPv6 really reminds of a cool short story written by Isaac Asimov called The Last Question. It's really an awesome story about how ever-increasing entropy means that human life will someday run out of energy. It entails various people from vastly different periods in future human history posing the question what will happen when entropy reaches maximum, how to reverse it, and then reflecting on a temporary solution. For instance, humanity is running out of coal and whatnot so they turn to the Sun, yet two men discuss how that is only a temporary solution and so on.
Admittedly I haven't tried doing the conversion recently, but in the past one would have to solve a large number of compilation issues related to compiler bugs and newer versions of libraries. Looking at the developer wiki article about compiling under 2008, this process seems easier than it used to be, but it's still extra unnecessary steps.
Gah! I'm wondering how this is going to affect the source engine. I'm not sure if Valve has migrated their codebase over to a newer version of Visual Studio, but the current versions of the public SDK still use Visual Studio 2005. Hopefully I'll still be able to tool around with my Source mods without too much trouble. As I recall it is possible to use the SDK source code with newer Visual Studio versions, yet you have to jump through some hoops to upgrade the project files.
I was really pissed when I discovered that Microsoft had discontinued all versions of Visual Studio Express under the most recent one (2008, I believe?). I had to go and get a copy of VSE2005 off of bittorent since you could no longer download it from the Microsoft web site.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing about that is when I buy a game off steam, I do so with the knowledge that I will never be able to resell it. Personally, I don't mind this, and the convenience in installation, activation, and playing on multiple machines overrides that consideration. Even if I bought hard copies I doubt I would resell them, I'm the type that still whips out my old copies of Baldur's Gate 2 or StarCraft.
Wait, from my understanding of this, all the cool crap going on at nexuiz.com is going to be for consoles only? What the hell? Maybe I'm misinformed but this looks a lot to me like some bozos taking an open source GPL'd engine and turning it into a closed source commercial product. I had to go check out wikipedia's page on the GPL to make sure I was remembering my licenses correctly. This really does look like a leeching off of a community effort. I don't really know how much of the Nexuiz codebase belongs to contributors, but I'm secretly hoping it's enough that these Illfonic guys don't get a free ride...
Not sure how true it is, but my Computer Science/Calculus BC teacher claims to have one of the first webpages put up on the internet. I would tend to believe him, as he is quite the CS wiz and he tends to be really current. Although looking at his webpage now I think he just got lazy and didn't feel like updating the layout. In any case it currently resides over at http://calcpage.tripod.com/. As the story goes it started out on a researchers network after a friend at some institute that I forget the name of told him about this crazy new thing called the internet. He's also the most innovative teacher in the school, for what it's worth. He's the only one that manages to make full use of the stuff from SMART Technologies that was just installed, taking video of his lessons recorded from the SMART system so students can catch up.
This sort of reminds me of what went on with Microsoft and Bungie. Bungie made a great game (Halo, though that's not to say their others weren't also great) and Microsoft wanted to milk that into oblivion. Fortunately, now Bungie has split and they seem to be back on track to their original designs. (I was a big fan of Marathon)
The serious problem IMO is when you hear about DLC being or having been released on launch day, which was the case with Dragon Age Origins and I believe Mass Effect 2. That just really pisses me off because they're withholding content that was developed alongside the full game. The concept of expansion packs used to be such that they would sell you a full game at standard price, then work on an XP for a year, then release that. Now they sell you less than a full game at full price and expect you to shell out more for the rest of the game. The fundamental difference is that with the old model, you were given everything that was ready for release at the release date. Any secondary content was developed afterwards, to foster continued interest in the game. Now the publishers so greedy that they believe a full game should cost more than the accepted standard price, so they give you half of what's ready for $50 and the rest in $10 packs.
I suppose that's true, although my grandfather had lots of depression problems that he just dealt with, and he lived a long and apparently happy life. I guess it depends on what you were cursed with and how well you could deal with it on your own. My point was that a lot of people were probably forced to deal with their demons themselves and were thus able to overcome then.
I'm replying to my own comment because I sort of feel bad. Some of the other replies have made a good point that not everyone will have as bad an experience as I have. When I was in the hospital, I met a lot of other people that had been through similar things. In many cases, they started out with a small problem but their condition was exacerbated by doctors' recommendations. I remember specifically one woman who had an anxiety disorder like me, but became extremely depressed and started cutting herself after her doctor put her on something. Since then she had been on perhaps a dozen different meds and sported scars up her arms and legs. I relate this story just to give my OP some additional perspective. Of course I realize that many people, maybe even most people lead better, happier lives because of assistance they've received from mental health professionals. Even so, please don't forget that there are at least some cases where more harm has been done than good.
To date, my psychiatrist has tried three times to wean me off of my meds. Each time, within a few days I have an episode. When I was put on this med, I was in the hospital under the care of a different psychiatrist. When he prescribed it, he said if I didn't take it they would sedate me and give it intravenously. This was after I already had a bad reaction to other medicine and they weren't sure what was going to happen.
I suppose you're right. Normally I'm much more balanced and neutral about issues like this, but my experiences with mental health professionals has really set up some unpleasant opinions. As I said in another reply, I've been pretty much backed into a corner at this point. Last week the doctor tried again to wean me off of my medication, this time in combination with a less dependancy-forming med. Unfortunately, I had a panic attack accompanied by a seizure. Fortunately, I was with family at the time, else I might've ended up in the hospital again. Probably the most traumatizing thing in my whole experience was the first hospitalization. I wonder if you could keep your perspective if your child was admitted to the ER and then you were told you could not see them for three weeks. I'm sorry, but I am the sum of my experiences.
I'm sorry if you think I've done people a disservice. Perhaps you are right, perhaps the majority of people that seek help receive it and are better off. Unfortunately, I have problems accepting that. All anyone can say about this is based on their own experiences. While you've had a great experience and have come out a healthier person, I've had a shittier experience and I feel like I'm much worse off then I was two years ago. At the moment, I'm pretty much stuck with my current doctor because the hospital she works at is the only place I've found that takes my health insurance. Alas, therapy and meds are extremely expensive. It's come to the point where I need to see her to get more medicine, yet every time she tries to wean me off I have an episode.
When I started showing signs of mental health issues and went to see a psychiatrist, their reaction was essentially throw the book at me. They put me on wave after wave of things I can't even pronounce, some of which had horrifying side effects. Eventually, I had such a bad psychological reaction to one of the meds that I had to be admitted to the emergency room. That night, my attending physician signed me over to an insanity ward and I spent three weeks there, unable to leave. Seriously, I was not allowed to leave because I was considered a "danger to myself and others". I can assure you this was not the case at all until people started messing with my head.
My point is, these days with every small hiccup in orderly behavior, you get closer and closer to being tossed off a cliff into the pit of mental abnormality. Once you're in that pit, you're free game for doctors to control the way you think. I have friends that have gone through light bouts of depression but now will probably be on dangerous medication for the rest of their lives. I myself am on a dependancy-forming drug that alters the way I think and has a high risk of diabetes and liver failure. Years ago, there were no fancy drugs or somesuch to be prescribed for mental health conditions. For the most part, people just dealt with their issues. I would have gotten over my stress-related issues. Perhaps it would have involved a nervous breakdown, but the modern route put me through much worse.
I suppose I'm on the business end of the whole mental health thing, so I'm bound to be biased. Even so, you do not want to get involved in this stuff. I have yet to hear of anyone that has actually been helped, or even not hurt by psychiatrists.
It's funny you mention realism mods. I remember I used to play Star Wars Battlefront (the first one) on my PC all the time. It was actually rather dull until I found a mod that made all shots one hit kills. It also implemented realistic accuracy, so shots went wild if you fired while moving. It actually added some strategy to the game, and finally gave you a reason to go prone or crouch.
Personally, I think there's a place for both realistic and fantasy shooters. My two favorite games right now are probably Insurgency and Team Fortress 2, completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
On one hand, Insurgency can give you a nice rush of feeling in the ballpark of "OMG all my mates around me just got mowed down and now I'm crouched behind this oil drum oh god I'm gonna die" while allowed limited respawns to forgive minor mistakes and counter map imbalances. For instance, there's one map (sinjar) where as the marines are rushing up the hill in the beginning of the game, the insurgents sometimes launch RPGs or throw grenades down the hill. A bit of bad luck and you get blown up less than 30 seconds after your first spawn. If it was über realism, your fun would be over. The map is designed so that if you don't charge up the hill immediately, the enemy will dig in and you'll likely have a grueling 20 minutes of standstill. I'd say that in this instance, the designer wanted some way to ensure not all the marines made it up to the cap point, so he allowed for evil-ness with explosives. My point is, such a tactic would be unplayable in a realism game. In real life, the Marines would probably call in some danger close arty for good effect on target. While I applaud games of the Apocalypse Now type, trying to convey a strong message, I also enjoy things that are fun.
Now if you want to talk about fun, then Team Fortress 2 should definitely come up in the conversation. I swear that game is almost as awesome as sex. It's full of these really fun moments that I can only describe as virtual highs. Things like rounding a corner, and releasing an arrow from your bow to nail the minigun-touting fat guy between the eyes. Or how about sneaking up behind half the enemy team with a paper mask on your face and then stabbing those six guys in the back. And then you can close the game and watch the hilarious machinima videos released by the game developers that describe the cartoonish personalities of the in-game characters. Watching a round of TF2 can be like watching a coyote-roadrunner cartoon. Full of silly moments and fails and hilarity. I'd say that this game has more silliness than Viva Piñata and more depth than Modern Warfare 2. I mean I've played the game pretty much since it came out and I still haven't heard all of the in-game dialog.
In conclusion, realism can get your blood pumping, but pure cartoon fantasy can make you smile. They're both fun in their own way. Personally I think I prefer the fantasy aspect, but I make room for realism too.
Very astute. Unfortunately I ran out of mod points this morning.
Heh. They must hate the Call of Duty - Modern Warfare games then. Those things probably have the exact opposite effect.
I remember playing America's Army when it came out, I think one of the things I found more annoying was you had to take "classes" and tests before you could actually play the game. Mandatory target practice is one thing, but virtual instruction that actually plays no part in gameplay is a bit idiotic.
Except the average schlub is probably illegally downloading movies or music. So when they find out that their internet company is going to stop them from doing it, they're going to react badly. Piracy is very quickly becoming a mainstream phenomenon. It's not only "cool" to pirate stuff, it's practical and often expected.
Heh. When I read the title, I immediately thought of how my CS teacher takes certain days off from the curriculum to have 24-player games of BZFlag across the school network. There are games going on today, in fact, due to it being thanksgiving.
In any case, the CS classes in my school focus entirely on Java in the context of preparing for the AP. After the AP they do a tiny bit of basic graphics work. However for my independent study I'm writing a 2D RTS in Java.
I think video game design is a good way to teach important programming concepts and keep kids interested. For instance, my own forays into game design have taught me a lot about inheritance. I even wrote a heap sort algorithm the other day. I could definitely see the GridWorld (real-world coding example) portion of the AP taken from a game's perspective. You have a bunch of objects moving around on a 2D field and interacting with each other...
Fair enough. Sorry to doubt you at first, but at the time it seemed there was no basis for your claim.
Seriously, this whole article sounds like a load of horsebull. As far as I know, things like RSA and AES use integer math for the encryption and decryption schemes. It therefore doesn't make much sense to use a product designed for large numbers of floating point operations, as I would imagine the PS3 is. I'm actually pretty curious how many GMIPS the PS3 can perform. In any case, why would they pay for a device that contains all sorts of hardware ancillary to the core processing task. For instance, any gaming system is going to have a fairly powerful GPU, as well as extraneous RAM and sound hardware, etc. Also, in terms of the 4 million passwords or keys or whatever per second, I just wrote a very minimalist C program to try cracking passwords on an encrypted disk image I just created and it was definitely not reaching 4 million tries a second on my Core 2 Quad...
My 8800GT gets about 100 million passwords per second when cracking MD5 and SHA1 hashes. I thought the CELL was supposed to make the PS3 faster?
[Citation Needed]
Sorry to be an ass but that sounds a little outlandish...
Yeah pretty much everything on the Infinity Engine was great. However NeverWinter Nights for a long time made me think that there's no way a 3D RPG could ever be good. Oblivion only reinforced that sentiment. Then I played Mass Effect a few weeks ago and had a ton of fun. Granted it's more of an FPS that an RPG, but the storyline was great (BioWare quality) and overall I love the game. Anyway this review is piquing my interest, and I'm tempted to pick up this game and see how it is. I'm a little wary of that fact that it's not based on the tried and true Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, but I'm wondering if that's what has held back so many RPGs.
No I didn't mean they discontinued VSE entirely, I meant they discontinued all the versions older than 2008.
Yeesh. I just wrote an essay for my English class (a mock college application essay) in maybe 20 minutes. It came out to around 620 words, less than two pages. Personally, I believe writing skills are very important and that the college application process should be even more personalized than it is. This just sounds like the MIT applications office is getting tired of reading essays...
You know the whole story surrounding IPv4 and IPv6 really reminds of a cool short story written by Isaac Asimov called The Last Question. It's really an awesome story about how ever-increasing entropy means that human life will someday run out of energy. It entails various people from vastly different periods in future human history posing the question what will happen when entropy reaches maximum, how to reverse it, and then reflecting on a temporary solution. For instance, humanity is running out of coal and whatnot so they turn to the Sun, yet two men discuss how that is only a temporary solution and so on.
Admittedly I haven't tried doing the conversion recently, but in the past one would have to solve a large number of compilation issues related to compiler bugs and newer versions of libraries. Looking at the developer wiki article about compiling under 2008, this process seems easier than it used to be, but it's still extra unnecessary steps.
Gah! I'm wondering how this is going to affect the source engine. I'm not sure if Valve has migrated their codebase over to a newer version of Visual Studio, but the current versions of the public SDK still use Visual Studio 2005. Hopefully I'll still be able to tool around with my Source mods without too much trouble. As I recall it is possible to use the SDK source code with newer Visual Studio versions, yet you have to jump through some hoops to upgrade the project files.
I was really pissed when I discovered that Microsoft had discontinued all versions of Visual Studio Express under the most recent one (2008, I believe?). I had to go and get a copy of VSE2005 off of bittorent since you could no longer download it from the Microsoft web site.