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UPDATE 1 [09/15/2016]: As of right now, the number of accounts that have been banned has more than doubled since this post was first published; 11,000 have been affected so far. This number is likely to rise even further as more offenders log into their Steam accounts.

ORIGINAL: According to reports, one of the largest VAC ban waves in years has hit. A little more than 4,000 accounts may have been affected.


That number comes from VAC-Ban.com. To corroborate with that data, a thread on /r/GlobalOffensive references posts from a couple of cheat provider forums. Some posts show staff stating that their hacks have been detected, and others are from users themselves complaining about being VAC'd.

If anything else needs to be said,...

Valve has released an update to the Steam customer review system. Building off of what it released last May, today's update is looking to improve the filtering of recent game reviews.

To be specific, Valve has made two major changes: (1) a new sorting interface has been added, allowing users to fine-tune the types of reviews they see, and (2) a preventative measure to curb review system exploitation has been implemented, targeting reviews from users that obtained the game through Steam product keys (as opposed to direct Steam store purchases).


The new sorting interface isn't especially granular in its options, but it's a great start. You can filter by the review type, purchase type, and the language. By default, only helpful reviews in your target language are shown.

The largest change, the one that is attempting to curb the review system exploitation, is specifically targeting...

After taking a break from Round-Up episodes last week due to a lack of talking points, our weekly news show returns to discuss the lost Half-Life art intended to be used for Steam trading cards; a new update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that overhauled crouching animations; and new Warhammer-themed items for Dota 2!

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In May of 2013, Valve introduced a Trading Cards system to Steam that allowed games to have a set of virtual cards, badges, emoticons, and profile backgrounds attached to them. Among the first games supported was Half-Life 2. However, its predecessor, the original Half-Life, has long gone without the same treatment, but that wasn't always intended to be the case. Today, we'll be delving into the unused materials that would have comprised Half-Life's trading cards on Steam.

In July of 2013, Valve hired Seattle-based artist David Thany to create trading cards, emoticons, and badges for big title games such as Half-Life and Hotline Miami to be released with that year's Steam Summer Sale. However, to date, the Half-Life artwork to remains unused. Contacting Thany to learn the story behind these pictures, he believes the reason why they...

Despite Valve's 20th anniversary passing us by this week, the company didn't really drop any big news outside of the promised release of Underlord, Dota 2's latest hero. To save us from solely talking about Underlord and the Dark Rift update here on the show, we also released some never-before-seen pre-release documents for Half-Life 1 for Valve's 20th anniversary, which feature insightful details regarding the game's design and ending.

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Hello, and welcome to ValveTime Articles. Today is August 24, 2016. On this same date twenty years ago, August 24, 1996, Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded Valve. To celebrate this special anniversary, we’re going to talk about two never-before-seen documents from the development of the original Half-Life.

Half-Life Alpha version .61 notes

This is a help document that was created for the Half-Life Alpha version .61 and is dated August 26, 1998, three months before the game’s release. We received it from an individual who worked at Sierra’s UK division. It was meant for employees at Sierra, then publisher for Valve, providing information on how to market and advertise the game. The file includes an overview, a walkthrough, description of locations, weapons, items, enemies, technologies, and other behind the scenes information, as well as information collected from various internet sources. You might recognize some of the sections from the Alpha version 0.52 which was...

As promised during the All-Star match back at The International 2016, this evening has seen Valve release a new major patch for Dota 2. Dubbed "Dark Rift", the update introduces the long-awaited Underlord hero, who uses his powerful area of effect spells to devastate team fights while also being able to teleport himself and multiple allies across the map to a friendly unit's location. As the last hero to be ported from Dota: All Stars, Underlord's arrival is well overdue, and his abilities will undoubtedly shake up the Dota 2 scene rather substantially.

Also promised in the interim between Underlord's reveal and today's update is the arrival of a new post-game summary. The summary, as shown in the Dark Rift update announcement page,...

Suuure, we might have let our Round-Up schedule slip once again, but it's not like we haven't been busy - just check out our front page! The past few weeks have seen Valve announce major new talking points for all of their currently active projects and hardware. News featured in this week's Round-Up includes Valve's upcoming studio move, the conclusion of The International 2016, the announcement of two new Dota 2 heroes, the end of Team Fortress 2's latest class-war, and...

After over a month of competition, the Meat vs. Match class war started with the Meet Your Match update for Team Fortress 2 back in early July suddenly came to a close earlier this evening. In a 56% to 44% split, the Pyro has beaten out the Heavy to become the first in line to receive the first of a whole new line-up of class themed updates.

The contents of the update and the balance changes set to be made within have yet to be properly be revealed, but new hats, weapons, and abilities are likely all on the table. A small reference linked in the Pyro's victory blog post appears to show Valve have taken notice of an open letter written by the community a while back. The letter, written largely by professional Team...

After over a week of competition in Seattle and months of build-up, this year's iteration of The International Dota 2 tournament has finally concluded following a 3:1 match-up between Digital Chaos and Wings Gaming at the Main Event. This makes the five Chinese players of Wings Gaming the most recent winners of The Aegis of Champions, taking home a total first place prize of $9,123,681.

Congratulations to the latest winners of The International!

Wings Gaming

• shadow
• bLink
• Faith_bian
• Innocent
• iceice

Of course, runner-ups Digital Chaos don't go home empty handed, taking home just over $3M. With 105 total picked and banned heroes,...

With The International always standing as the biggest annual event for Dota 2, it shouldn't really be a surprise that Valve are using it as a platform to reveal new heroes and content - they've done it plenty of times before. However, while we all sort of expected the long-awaited arrival of Underlord (previously known as Pit Lord) during the All-Star match on Thursday, the community was recently surprised by the reveal of a brand new hero known as Monkey King.

Seemingly associated to the game's Monkey King Bar item, this mysterious new hero can seemingly use his extreme agility to overwhelm opponents before spawning hordes of rampant monkey duplicates to finish them off. Check out...

Do you remember Half-Life: Uplink? No, the film, not the demo with the same title. Well, we've covered the subject in detail in a previous ValveTime Database episode, which you can watch at the bottom of this post if you're interested.

We recently received never-before-seen production photos of the film from an individual who worked at Sierra's UK division, revealing a greater behind the scenes look of the filming and its shooting location. We'd like to thank our source for letting us share and preserve these photos.


Here is the...

In typical August fashion, Valve have recently announced the Sixth Annual Saxxy Awards, the annual TF2 and Valve-themed film making competition. This year's event is basically identical to the one held last year, featuring a total of six categories and the same exciting prizes. This year's categories are listed below:

• Best Action
• Best Drama
• Best Comedy
• Best Short
• Best Extended
• Best Overall

All videos submitted are limited to a duration limit of 3 minutes, except for those in the "Best Short" and "Best Extended" categories, which are limited to 1 and 5 minutes, respectively. Saxxy winners will receive a rare "Saxxy" weapon for use in Team Fortress 2 while "Best Overall" winners will also...

[UPDATE 2]

Valve is now planning to make the move in September.

[UPDATE 1]

In January 2017, Gabe Newell said in a Reddit AmA that Valve was going to move on July 22, 2017.

[ORIGINAL]

Under construction just two blocks away from Valve's current digs at Skyline Tower, the Lincoln Square Expansion project will feature a new tower with 710,000 square-feet of office space.


That's according to Kemper Development Company. This is a 100,000...

Phew! We've had four really busy weeks in between this Round-Up and our last episode. Although we weren't able to get any new episodes out, that doesn't mean we've skipped on news as our most recent episode recaps everything you might have missed in the absence of our Round-Ups. As for more recent news, expect to learn more about the unfolding outcome of the CS:GO gambling scandal, the on-going International 2016 tournament for Dota 2, and new VR updates for Dota 2 and...

With the Wild Card event for The International 2016 Dota 2 tournament starting in just a few days on Tuesday August 2nd, Valve have opened the event's official website. Like previous years, the event hub features as an overview for the tournament, including details about how to watch games live and via replays, how the $19+ prize pool will be distributed, how each team will be participating, and how you can keep up with all the real world action via social media.

Like last year, the extremely large prize pool will be broken up in such a way that every participating team is given something for their troubles, with positions 13th through 16th receiving a...

While those of us in the know fully understood Valve played no role with third-party gambling and betting websites, particularly those related to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and recent scandals, the company released a statement earlier today condemning their activities. In a blog post and press release by Erik Johnson, Valve confirms that they have never had any direct or indirect interactions with any of these sites, with the site owners instead simply taking advantage of the Steam OpenID API and bot accounts.


These actions, in particular the shady use of the OpenID API, are not permitted by Valve or the Steam User Agreement, permitting Valve to now clamp down hard on gambling sites and to take legal action against them where necessary. Thanks to recent shenanigans, which we discussed on...

Well, this was unexpected. It's been 7 years since Team Fortress 2 played host to all-out class warfare, but it would now seem the winner of 2007's WAR Update is fueling a brand new conflict - this time between the Pyro and the Heavy. The origins of this particular war, known as "Meat vs. Match", are unraveled in a new comic, showing the Heavy breaking into one of the Administrator's compounds to demand more weapons, only to have been beaten there by the Pyro.

Like the previous WAR Update between the Soldier and the Demoman, points earned in-game will be used as votes contributing to either Team Heavy or Team Pyro. However, unlike the previous update, it seems all points earned will contribute to...

We've all known it was coming for a long while now, but after a lengthy closed beta, Valve is now ready to release the highly anticipated competitive matchmaking mode into Team Fortress 2. As you might expect, the "Meet Your Match" update primarily focused on launching this new game type which enables users to enjoy TF2 in a more structured and balanced 6v6 format. Here's a short trailer!



Like competitive modes in other modern titles, TF2's competitive mode will feature a visible ranking system used to pit players, both playing solo and in teams, against those of equal standing in the hopes of making a fair fight. By participating in matches, players are then given a rank associated with their skill level, from the Rank 1 "Fresh Meat" to Rank...

After over a decade of designing and shipping t-shirts, hats, and toys for many of Valve's beloved franchises, the company recently revealed they would be shutting down their own merchandise store to focus all eyes on a new partnership with long-time partner WeLoveFine. With their own store now closed, the primary place to get your hands on Valve-themed merchandise will be "www.valvestore.welovefine.com", with WeLoveFine themselves seemingly handling all of the paperwork, assets, and distribution.

Given the increasing popularity of third-party sites like WeLoveFine and a shifting focus towards community-created merchandise, this transition makes a lot of sense both for Valve as a business and for all of us as consumers. WeLoveFine should now be able to focus on providing even more merchandise than ever...