What I wanted to look at next is Valve's World Editor, Hammer. This is a really interesting piece of software that is formally known as Woldcraft, that they gave to the public as a map creation program for their audience. This piece of software is brilliant and has supported their game engine right back to when Quake and Quake II were released. The really nice thing about this piece of software is that it is open to anyone who has purchased a Source based game, which is Valve's game engine.
A really nice detail about this piece of software is that it engages the public with the game more in a way that they are able to interact with other players in custom made maps and these can then be shared online and play with anyone in the world. It is a nice way of bringing a community who play Valve games together as they are able to socialise and form groups that have evolved around playing these games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYxMr_wdHcQ
What I then wanted to look at was Source in more detail, which is Valve's game engine. Source was originally created in June 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source, and was followed up by Half-Life 2. Source was primarily created to power first person shooter but since then has been evolved into creating professional role playing, side-scolling, puzzle and real time strategy games.
It's also really interesting what they have planned for in the future as they want to be able to look more into new authoring tools, which means they just want to create better content that will be faster and more efficient essentially, as many people who work their have described the content with the current tool set as 'very painful' and 'sluggish' to use. So, they want to be able to improve this, along with start working alongside new software and systems like the Oculus Rift. They are also beginning work on their new game engine, Source 2, and have begun to give little bits of information to the public about this which will bring whole new features to games in the future. Then lastly they would also like to start working on file sharing and focus on this more. As they have the software in the form of Hammer, they want to make maps more assessable to the public and ensure that everyone is getting the most out of it.
(Original Left 4 Dead 2 at the bottom, faced against the new Source 2 engine version)
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