ValveTime

The fine folks over at TF2Maps.net have recently revealed their latest themed custom content pack for use in Team Fortress 2, created by forum users E-Arkham and Cinnamon (aka Aly). As you would imagine, this new "Japan Content Pack" is primarily themed around traditional Japanese architecture and foliage.


A wide number of high quality new props are featured in the pack, including various lanterns, bridges, trees, bamboo, doorways, structural supports, signage, a resupply locker, and even a themed upgrade station for use in the Mann vs. Machine gamemode. Most of the models included with the pack come in a variety of sizes and skins, allowing for map creators to easily develop the distinctive red and blue colour contrasts present within so many TF2 maps. Various themed textures and overlays were also designed specifically for the pack, including 7 coloured wood variants, bamboo flooring, and a number of signs. If that isn't interesting enough for you, the pack also includes a rather pretty blossom particle effect, which players can totally fail to notice as they rocket jump through levels at high speed blasting everything in their path.

Click here to check out the rest of the content included in the Japan Content Pack! [...]

Earlier today, Gabe Newell made true on his word to hold an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit if the"Heart of Racing" charity effort reached a donation goal of $500,000. Even if it was a day later than originally expected, Valve's co-founder took to Reddit and fielded a number of questions submitted and upvoted by the community. Gabe was joined by Valve employees Erik Wolpaw, Erik Johnson, Ido Magal, and Greg Coomer.

In the AMA (so far), Gabe has covered a broad range of questions, ranging from the location of the next Dota 2 International tournament to the reason why Gabe and Mike Harrington picked the name "Valve". (We think they made the right choice, since "ValveTime" sounds better than "RhinoScarTime".)

Click here to find out about some of the important answers Gabe and the others provided during the AMA! [...]

As you may have noticed, this past week wasn't particularly bustling with headline news, but there was definitely still enough developments to fill up an all-new ValveTime Weekly News Round-Up! In this episode, we talk about the public release of Steam Family Sharing, a major update to the Steamworks Development tools, the reveal of "Fantasy Dota", and much more!


As always, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to give our Dota 2 Announcer Pack a thumbs up over on the Steam Workshop. Thanks for watching.

It's been a pretty slow news week, so we thought we would fill up some of the empty space with a new episode in our A Minute With series! In this new episode, we relive some of our fondest memories from Valve's gameplay library by spending A Minute With Portal, Valve's critically acclaimed puzzle title from 2007!

A new announcement made to the private Steamworks Development Steam community group late last night has revealed that developers may now independently discount their games without input from Valve.

The updated Steamworks tools now provides third party game developers with the ability to configure their own discounts for their games within custom sale periods, a system which also allows developers to opt-into upcoming week-long sales without needing to receive an official confirmation from Valve. For the time being, all sales are limited to a two-week maximum duration and can be planned up to two months in advance.

While this probably isn't all that exciting news for the average Steam user, it does provide developers with additional tools to help further streamline the publishing process on Steam, something which is likely linked to Valve's rather optimistic plans for a truly autonomous digital distribution platform.

If you're a Steamworks Developer, you may want to head on over to the official group announcement to find out more. For everyone else who can't access the private Steam group, we suggest checking out the image below! Click here to check out a screenshot of the full announcement post from the private Steamworks Development Steam group. [...]