Quest to Nowhere

I have spent more time then I care to imagine playing videogames, a lot of that has been playing multiplayer shooter games like Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Perfect Dark, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and the like. As such, over that time I’ve come to some derive some theories on how multiplayer levels should be designed, based on my experiences.

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Valve, this is an intervention.

Valve, first off I love your work. Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2 (at launch,) all amazing games which I have spent more time then I want to think about playing, but every moment was great and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Which is what brings me here today, having this intervention for you, you need to realize Valve that you are hurting Team Fortress 2. I know you guys love it as much as I do, and you think you are doing the right thing, that’s it’s, “for its own good,” and that you “are just making it better.” But you guys need to take a step back an really think about what you are doing.

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When Valve released Lost Coast for Half-Life 2 they included a surprising little feature to the game, a developers commentary. As you walked through the level there were text boxes which let you hear someone on the Valve development team talk about certain aspects about the Lost Coast level. Most of them were about the High Dynamic Range lighting effects that were being added to the Source game engine, but regardless it was a nice little treat that really let gamers get some understanding into the their thought process in development.

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