A Video of Valve's New Portal Game

bitwise xor said:
Meh, Prey really doesn't have any gameplay based around portals. Portals in prey are mostly 'pretty doors' and to create a few tardis'es. The fact they both have portals seems like a superficial similarity to me.

Besides, if Portal were a Prey ripoff it would have to be a halflife1-style rail shooter set on a doom3 themed tech/flesh spaceship with quake2/4 style human processing going on where you run up corridors shooting aliens with a Doom1 compliment of weapons + a sniper rifle.
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Dynamic portal tech was shown in a demo of Prey in 1998.They drop most of the cool features in the 2006 prey.But all was there at the time.Drop a out-portal here ,a in portal here,anywhere you wanted.
 
Vysez said:
I was about to mention the student's project Narbacular Drop*, but it has already been mentionned in this thread. The game mechanics in ND are mostly the same as those presented in that video of Portal, it can give you a nice idea of how Portal is played.
(Digipen should give their students basic courses on Marketing, especially for the names, I mean Narbacular Drop?)

That said, when I was watching this video of Portal, being the graphic enthusiast that I am, the first thing that I did notice was the DOF/MB effect on the weapon, it gives a very nice touch to the whole image.
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According to their website the Narbacular Drop guys have been working on Portal for Valve for the last year. Apparently, Valve liked the concept so much, they bought it.
 
That seems a really cool concept, it should open a lot of tatics to play.

It can also be a very good as a 3D puzzle game.

Looking forward to it.
 
I think this could create a game, SP and MP, with absolutely killer gameplay. Cool puzzles, but also some SWEET stealth.

And HL2 fits perfectly with the theme and worlds gadgets. The phys gun was great, now if they stumble across an enhancement for portals it would just naturally evolve the gameplay and matches Gorden very well.

/me drools at the idea of Gordon with the super phys gun (can pick up and toss enemies) and a portal gun. Now if they add an no-gravity level...
 
Shifty Geezer said:
How do you think they do the view through the hole, especially the recursive views? Multiple render to textures? I guess that explains in part why the scenery is simple. Nice lighting makes up for that and gives quality visuals without being costly.
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I was going to ask the exact same thing, how do they achieve this?

And from a design point of view, how they actually manage the movement of your character from one to another each time you enter and exit the same portal? I mean, just one step forward and i am in the roof, one step back and i am in the middle of the run, how do they achieve this?

This game will be indredible, i am extremely surprised with it.
 
Angelcurio said:
I was going to ask the exact same thing, how do they achieve this?

And from a design point of view, how they actually manage the movement of your character from one to another each time you enter and exit the same portal? I mean, just one step forward and i am in the roof, one step back and i am in the middle of the run, how do they achieve this?

This game will be indredible, i am extremely surprised with it.
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A mirror in a game is essentially a portal where source and destination are located at the same place ,except pointing the oposit direction: <-----|---->
you can change these rules (position ,direction).
 
[Dust off four year old dirt from "Welcome" mat]

http://www.ausgamers.com/pressreleases/read/2916010

Valve to Deliver Blockbuster Sequel With Steamworks Support

June 15, 2010 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises and leading technologies, today announced that it will deliver Portal 2 on the PlayStation 3 platform simultaneously with previously announced platforms. The PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 will be the only console version to include Steamworks.

"When the PlayStation 3 was introduced, I was the one of the platform's biggest critics," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "However, Sony Computer Entertainment has proved that the PlayStation 3 is the most open platform of all the current generation consoles and has worked extremely hard to make the platform the most desirable for consumers and developers. As such, we are delighted to announce Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 and believe the Steamworks support included will make it the best console version of the game."

Portal 2 is the sequel to the title named "Game of the Year" 2007 by over 30 publications around the world. Portal 2 promises to break new ground in next generation gaming by expanding the award-winning recipe of innovative gameplay, immersive story, and creative inclusion of music while also introducing multiplayer co-op game modes.

On the PlayStation 3 Portal 2 will be supported by Steamworks, a complete suite of game features and services including auto updates, community features, downloadable content, and more. Previously deployed on the PC and the Mac, Valve's Steamworks development platform will make it possible to deliver the higher level of service gamers have come to expect.

"Valve is one of the industry's leading studios and Portal is one of the most innovative properties launched in the past 10 years," said Rob Dyer, senior vice president of publisher relations at Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Valve's decision to bring Portal 2 to the PlayStation 3 with Steamworks support is incredible validation of the power and openness and momentum of PlayStation 3."

Portal 2 is targeted for launch in 2011 on the PlayStation 3, PC, Mac and Xbox 360 platforms.
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[gt]101563[/gt]

Is Steamworks good ?
 
From what it seems, Steamworks is the part of the platform that gives you Achievements and game updates, which is already built into the Xbox360 platform. The features that they might include in Portal 2 for the PS3 that I haven't seen on their Xbox 360 titles is the "Cloud Gamesave". Unless I'm overlooking something, that's the only item missing.
 
Their L4D2 series on PC and Xbox360 have a weekly poll that users can vote in, but I don't know if that's part of Steamworks or their own engine.

I'm trying to figure that out myself. I don't see anything that the MS doesn't provide for on XBox Live already.

Here's Valve's public API listed -- https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/api. The top categories described include:
  • Stats & Achievements
  • Multi-player Authentication/Authorization
  • Peer To Peer Multi-player Authentication/Authorization
  • Matchmaking
  • Community
  • Peer-to-peer networking
  • Steam Cloud
  • Valve Anti-Cheat
  • Voice
  • DRM
  • CEG Overview

Under Community the first sections says:

The Steam Community API is a set of functions to access details about other players in the system. There are several bits of data you can query of a user:
  • SteamID - their unique identifier in the system
  • Persona name - their nick name / display name / player name
  • Persona state - offline or online
  • Avatar - the image associated with this user
  • Game info - which game a user is running, and which game server they are connected to, if any
  • Clan memberships - which groups the user is a member of

The API will only have information about other users that the local user has come in contact with. A user always knows the state of all their friends, users with whom they share a lobby, and users who are in their groups. Users also have the details of other users on a game server, if the game server is connected to Steam and using the Multi-Player Authentication API. Each of these entities (users, game servers, lobbies, and clans) are all referenced by a SteamID.

There's more information on Community Data -- https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/community_data

Steam provides access to community data in an XML format that can be consumed by game developers and other community sites. It is important to note that a player's data might be unavailable if the player's privacy settings prevent the data from being exposed.
  • Player Profile
  • Player Game Stats
  • Leaderboards
  • Groups

On a different page they say the following, which has me wondering if they mean they provide a web forum for the game developers and users, or if it's just a simulated user / group with IM/Texting like functionality.

Steam Community Integration
Official Game Groups - Communicate directly with users by using your dedicated game group
Official Avatars - Create official avatars that users can use for their Steam Profile
 
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Portal is ok, but it was pretty overrated. Maybe if I'd gone in without having read all the lavish praise on it beforehand, I would have had lowered expectations and been a lot more excited. But as it was, it didn't just thrill me, though it was ok. Still, it's pretty unique and I might be down for another round.

I'm wondering how they're going to make a full $60 game of it though.
 
I'm more curious about steam integration on ps3 than I am about the actual game. I'm assuming achievements will be synced across all steam platforms, where on 360 you're unlocking Live achievements, not the Steam achievements. So on PS3 if I installed the game on PC, I could see which achievements I'd unlocked on PS3 for that game. Cloud syncs save information, so you could play on PS3 and maybe your laptop and not have to replay anything. Game updates is kind of weird. I wonder if they mean patches, because it would be surprising if PSN gave up some quality control on that. This could also mean they get the same free add-on content the PC gets, where Live forces them to charge for it on 360.

One other big question is whether they'll have cross-platform play for upcoming titles. With Move, or mouse and keyboard support, it seems PS3 should easily be able to play with PC guys. Wouldn't be much different than playing on a lower end PC. That would be a pretty big win for PS3.

Would they be able to layer their own friend, group, message and chat features on top of PSN? I doubt it.

I was talking with Robert and we were saying Sony should make a deal with Valve to provide the back-end for PSN to handle friends, Voice chat, game invites etc etc. Seems like it would be a smart deal. Sony is behind the game, and Valve is pretty much on par and in some ways ahead of Live.
 
http://www.thekartel.com/zylvin/blo...form_co-op_between_ps3_and_pcmac_for_portal_2

When questioned on the cross-compatibility between Steamworks and Steam, specifically playing co-op on a computer with someone on a PS3, he said it was "something the team is gunning for." We also confirmed with Valve developer Mike Dunkle who said "The plan is you will be able to play between console and PC."

What's interesting about this scenario is that it could theoretically be applied to any of Valve's online games, meaning the entire Orange Box and any other games on Steam and consoles.
Click to expand...
 
From consumer perspective...

Valve should make their games work on all platforms. i.e., if I buy a PS3 Portal 2, I should be able to download and play it on Mac as well (but not at the same time).
 
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