Team Fortress 2 SDK Update Includes Source Files For 10 Maps

Valve recently announced on the Team Fortress 2 blog that they are releasing the source files to 10 of the game's maps, making it much easier for fans to customize them. They also said they'd be releasing more source files for maps and models in the future. "Here's the list of maps that are included in the update: Lumberyard, Ravine, Badlands, Dustbowl, Granary, Gravelpit, 2Fort, Badwater, Goldrush, and Hydro. For the beginner map makers out there, we hope this gives you an easier entry point by allowing you to alter or edit an existing map, as opposed to being forced to start from scratch. ... We also hope that it'll reduce the amount of confusion around the game logic and entity setup required for the various TF game modes."

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the SubZero Jarate. Coming soon to sniper.

I loved this

[Lifyre]

I remember when I was making maps for CS:S many years ago having the source for one of the maps was awesome. Everyone liked dust but I wanted to add some variety and put a sewer and such in. It makes it real easy for someone to make variations of a fun map so it isn't the same thing every go round.

Hell I've been told by friends that still play CS:S there are variations of my maps still being played, which is kinda sad honestly.

Re:I loved this

[icsx]

It's good thing that Valve supports the community and shows how they do things. People can learn by just opening the vmf files. In the past they had to decompile the original maps with vmex software but the decompile wasn't always 100% correct. Some Areaportals and such were left off.

Beginners mappers will do mostly remakes as it's rather easy but not all of them are interested of doing something original. These just released files are more inportant to the people who already know some mapping and perhaps have made some work of their own already. Only problem there now will be is the countless remakes of their maps. Some people do not see the problem in this but as a guy who runs TF2 servers or plays a lot of custom made maps, i can safely say that 95% of the remakes will be crap, won't be played on many servers and will have only minor fixes. As the map sizes are somewhat 30-50MB, it's also kind of pain to download the countless remakes since some servers do not provide fast downloads to their maps in-game.

There are some successfull remakes of the original maps too, which incorporate separate game modes. For example Dustbowl was made to Payload map and it is quite successfull. I could see how Granary would become a nice Payload Race mode map with the hands of someone.

Re:

[Lifyre]

Agreed, I am and was definately in the beginner category, granted I had a plan to make an original map but I never managed to get around to it. I wanted to make a DoD:S map of Hitler's Bunker. Still think it would be freaking sweet but since I don't play either of them anymore it really wouldn't be worth my time.

WTH?

[uncledrax]

Coming from a background in the UnrealEngine (and having no Hammer or whatever experience), I was actually a bit surprised that valve didn't ship them to begin with, for exactly the reasons they claim to be shipping them now.

Sure there are a few ways you can obfuscate maps for Unreal Engine as well, but there's no difference between the source of the map and what you're playing, at least in UTech up to 3 (I have no UE3 exp sadly).

Either way, I'm glad Valve is finally doing it..maybe they will start getting

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[uncledrax]

And I just read some of the other comments.. looks like a few ppl were already mentioning how UTech had it already.. why as Anon I have no idea, but whatever.

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[AstrumPreliator]

Hell I've been told by friends that still play CS:S there are variations of my maps still being played, which is kinda sad honestly.

I don't see why. CS:S still has a huge player base, although it's being eclipsed by TF2 at this point.

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[Toridas]

Eclipsed in the fact that Valve keeps releasing updates for TF2 and not CS:S, but not eclipsed at all with player base size. CS:S still has the most players of any Steam game by far. If you add up the people playing CS:S and the original CS, it has more players than all the other Steam games combined. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/ [steampowered.com]

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[Lifyre]

Sad that they're still playing my maps... They weren't that good years ago. I would like to think someone would have made a better map by now...

And nothing for the 360

[Anonymous Coward]

There's never anything for the 360.

Buying The Orange Box instead of just building a gaming rig: Worst. Decision. Ever. :(

Re:

[skreeech]

Had you expected something?

Re:And nothing for the 360

[Canazza]

There are multiple reasons for not getting things on the X-box

1) Valve like giving things away for free. MS don't. There is a limit to what MS constitutes as a 'patch' and what is DLC. MS practically force DLC to be pay-for (I think devs get 1 or 2 free DLC's)
2) X-box is a horrible environment for running the Hammer Editor (what is used to make Source Maps) - hell, it's quite clumsy on the PC (It's by no means the worst, but for my money UnrealED was always the easiest to use) They would have to develop a version that works using Console controls
3) The sources for maps are also Huge. Downloading/storing them on your XBox where they're just going to sit and take up space that could be used for something decent is just silly.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Console people have seriously got to get off their high horse of "if the PC guys have it, WE MUST HAVE IT!".

Editing a map with thumbsticks? Just who do you think you're kidding? Really. Have you ever even made a map?

It's a simple matter of what works on the system. PCs make games, so they're pretty good at making maps too. Consoles are great for playing games, but they don't make the best platform to develop on. Right tool, right job. Try not to mix that up.

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[Dan667]

Right tool for the job is a PC for playing games too.

Re:

[interkin3tic]

Console people have seriously got to get off their high horse

Wait... CONSOLE users get off their high horse? I think it's PC gamers with the false sense of superiority, (for instance suggesting that consoles are incapable of having map editors when they've been around since at least N64.)

Editing a map with thumbsticks? Just who do you think you're kidding? Really. Have you ever even made a map?

Yes. It wasn't a well done map by any stretch of the imagination, and any map editor takes some getting used to, but it would happen. People DO make maps using thumbsticks. Not the fastest way, but explain to me what you could design with a mouse and keyboard that you absolutely

Re:

[sexconker]

Excitebike (NES) had a map editor.

(Of course, you couldn't SAVE the map, there was some bug or something lol.)

Re:

[fyrewulff]

Yep, I've made plenty of PC maps. I've also made maps on consoles, with a thumbstick. Timesplitters 2 and 3, Far Cry for OXbox, Far Cry 2 for 360.. all have great map editors that don't require a mouse and keyboard (in fact, Far Cry 2 for 360 and PC have basically the same map editor, except the PC can get away with more objects/fidelity due to more available RAM).

Technically Halo 3 has a map editor, although you cannot edit geometry, just objects. But you can also use the objects to make actual levels on F

Re:

[tyroney]

Also, they had already pretty much filled up the 512MB of ram, and were having issues working on some way to squeeze in more content in the form of all the new weapons. I'd link the blog post, but I'm still in my pajamas.

Re:And nothing for the 360

[FOOSE]

http://www.tf2.com/post.php?id=2394 [tf2.com]

"The XBox 360 update is still being worked on. If you're wondering what's taking so long, since the content is "done" on the PC already, it's mostly been around fitting it all onto the XBox. The original version of TF2 in the Orange Box was very close to the XBox's memory limit, and all the additional TF2 content we've produced has pushed well beyond it."

Re:

[Jens_UK]

An $X0 game instead of a $X00-$X000 machine as worst decision ever? I wonder if I can spin that logic to my wife in such a way as to skip dinner at Chili's to buy a used motorcycle.

Re:

[sexconker]

"I'm thinking Chili's!"
"I'm hungry for something else..."

Give her some oral sexing. Make motorcycle noises during.

Re:

[larry bagina]

Could be worse. TF2/360 will eventually get updated (the limited memory makes it more difficult to pack all that goodness in). The PS3 version was outsourced to EA (ugh) and is a dead end.

Coming soon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another three hundred derivative and mostly unoriginal versions of 2Fort, including at least one where every texture is porn.

Re:

[soupforare]

I wouldn't mind a ctf_2fort_old that opens up the map a bit. Even after ~two years, it still feels cramped compared to qwtf. Might just be in my head, I guess.
How hard is hammer to use anyway? TF2 needs some q2 maps ported. :3

Re:

[ultraexactzz]

You're on your way to.... 2dongs

Re:

[cstdenis]

2 heavies 1 cup

Re:

[borizz]

2 scout moms 1 cup

Re:

[WWWWolf]

Another three hundred derivative and mostly unoriginal versions of 2Fort, including at least one where every texture is porn.

Ooh, I know this one! We'll get 2forts in Hell [somethingawful.com]: Reloaded! It's 2fort! But it is in Hell!

Yeah, 2forts is such a famous map that it has been subject to talentless duplication since the original Team Fortress came out, so this release doesn't really change anything. =) It just redefines talentless duplication. Yeah. Porn textures. That would be one way to duplicate talentlessly.

How about releasing the code?

[anomnomnomymous]

How about they start to release the code so proper modifications can be made? I find it quite strange that TF2 (after a few years), still hasn't released any of their code so people can start properly modding the game. Whereas there's a sortof other way to go about it (by using a plugin, called SourceMod [sourcemod.net]), but using that is still severely limiting the possibilities to what you can do.

I find it quite strange how Valve, who can only be praised for their open attitude towards the modding community in their previous games, has now so severely shut down their latest games on these fronts (Don't misunderstand me; I'm a leveldesigner myself, and -love- their support they've been giving me for both TF2 and L4D), and find it odd that no clear answer on this question has yet been given.

Some of my own speculation of why they aren't releasing the mod-source for both TF2 and L4D are:
- The stats/achievement thing: I can imagine someone with access to the source would be able to make a certain mod which can fool the stats/achievement system, and as such someone can 'cheat': For myself, I don't put too much pleasure in unlocking them that way, but I can see how people would to cheat with enhancing their E-peen (so imo, a half-valid option).
- Afraid of people actually creating new content that can rival their next product: This is especially the case with L4D, whereas I can see that some of the things they're talking about in releasing in L4D2, has been stuff that me and a couple of my mates have been planning to actually do with L4D (but got severely disappointed at not seeing the source released). If this is one of their motivations behind this move... I can only be very disappointed.
- Valve considering the HL2-source to be enough to release to the public, as in the end, simply said, TF2 and L4D are only enhanced modifications of the Source-engine. Again, if this would be the case, I severely disagree, as L4D has several components which are fairly unique to that game, but beg to be enhanced/explored in modifications.

As noticed before, I'm a leveldesigner myself, so not too much into the whole coding-bit: But since the release of L4D we've been planning a certain mod/total modification for it, which is not possible to recreate using the SourceMod-plugin, and would even be more fudged up to create from scratch.

Other than that, the tools and documentation that they -did- release for the mapping community, is excellent, and a great help.

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[annerajb]

I agree with you when TF2 came out i always wanted to modify it because it had a bunch of interesting elements, But so far i have been dissapointed.

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[icsx]

Do you see *any* game developers releasing their engine sourcecodes so shortly after release? It's their product, there is no obligation to release the code. Yes, there are limits what you can do with plugins and mods. However, there are some great games made with these, like zombie panic in which L4D took some ideas. I'm sure Counter-Strike 1.6 sources would be released first but that game is like 7 years old. If any multiplayer Valve game gets their Sourcecode released, that is most likely the one. TF2 is

Re:

[anomnomnomymous]

I somehow didn't make myself too clear, but I wasn't meaning the source-code itself, but the source which can be used to make mods.

Re:

[AstrumPreliator]

I find it quite strange that TF2 (after a few years), still hasn't released any of their code so people can start properly modding the game. Whereas there's a sortof other way to go about it (by using a plugin, called SourceMod), but using that is still severely limiting the possibilities to what you can do.

They still haven't released the source code for Counter-Strike: Source or Day of Defeat: Source (not to mention the GldSrc games). They're not going to either. Counter-Strike: Source was very modable though. You couldn't add an all new weapon to the game, but through Eventscripts, SourceMod, MetaMod: Source, and Valve Server Plugins you could do a lot. For instance zombie mod was written as a MMS Plugin/VSP, GunGame was written in Eventscripts (which is itself a VSP). I haven't used SourceMod (also a VSP) e

Re:

[ShakaUVM]

>>How about they start to release the code so proper modifications can be made?

Ditto. I wrote CustomTF for the original Team Fortress, and would love to write a CustomTF2, but the tools out there right now aren't really sufficient to my needs.

It's a shame really. Robin used to be a very pro-open source type of guy (if the source for the original TF hadn't been released, it would have been too much work to replicate all their stuff), and Valve is usually pretty good at releasing modable source code, bu

Re:

[MChisholm]

Some of my own speculation of why they aren't releasing the mod-source for both TF2 and L4D are: - The stats/achievement thing: I can imagine someone with access to the source would be able to make a certain mod which can fool the stats/achievement system, and as such someone can 'cheat': For myself, I don't put too much pleasure in unlocking them that way, but I can see how people would to cheat with enhancing their E-peen (so imo, a half-valid option). - Afraid of people actually creating new content that can rival their next product: This is especially the case with L4D, whereas I can see that some of the things they're talking about in releasing in L4D2, has been stuff that me and a couple of my mates have been planning to actually do with L4D (but got severely disappointed at not seeing the source released). If this is one of their motivations behind this move... I can only be very disappointed. - Valve considering the HL2-source to be enough to release to the public, as in the end, simply said, TF2 and L4D are only enhanced modifications of the Source-engine. Again, if this would be the case, I severely disagree, as L4D has several components which are fairly unique to that game, but beg to be enhanced/explored in modifications.

I think #2 gets closest to what I consider to be the reason behind this - mods to multiplayer online games such as TF2, L4D and CS:S would fracture the player base.

Re:

[El_Muerte_TDS]

It's more that the editor for the UnrealEngine operates directly on the executable.

Re:

[inio]

Map files for unreal-engine games contain, among many other things:
* source geometry objects
* compiled BSP tree
* lights
* baked lightmaps
* source of any map-specific scripts
* bytecode-compiled map-specfic scripts

The source data isn't used by the game at runtime (save dynamic lights) but if you point the editor at any shipped map its all there (except 3rd party maps that have been cleaned/obfuscated). The same goes for the UnrealScript source of the engine itself: it's all available in the various .u files a

Great Work

[duncanbiscuits]

You may touch our L4D and sodomise it Microsoft but you will never take our TF2@@@

It's good that Valve is coming through

[Kevin108]

for their TF2 customers. Too bad us L4D players have been hung out to dry.