TF2 info from Gabe Newell's Reddit AMA

[CommodoreKong]

Gabe Newell did an AMA on Reddit today and we got some info from him and Driller on the future of TF2:

We are continuing to use Source 2 as our primary game development environment. Aside from moving Dota 2 to the engine recently, we are are using it as the foundation of some unannounced products. We would like to have everyone working on games here at Valve to eventually be using the same engine. We also intend to continue to make the Source 2 engine work available to the broad developer community as we go, and to make it available free of charge.

Based on this statement it seems like they may be planning on porting TF2 and CSGO to Source 2.


Posts by Driller (one of the members of the TF2 team):

TF2 has millions of unique players per month, and the team is staffed by a group of people that love and play the game. We're committed to supporting and growing TF2 with new features, content, and player experiences.

We're currently working on our next major update, which features a new campaign, the Pyro class pack, matchmaking improvements/features, and lots of game balancing improvements.

On the size of the TF2 team:

The count varies depending on what the team is working on, but the current count is 16. This includes programmers, artists, writers, level designers, and sound engineers.

As far as the 10th anniversary, we have lots of things we're excited to get into the community's hands this year, but we can't promise a major update will land on that day/date.

Some of the TF2 team's thoughts on comp TF2. Also they plan on explaining their balance changes in the future:

3: The team is usually so heads-down focused on working on the game that we sometimes forget to communicate when we should.

One of the upcoming blog posts we're planning talks about the game balance changes we're working on for the next major update - along with explanations for those changes - so the community can give us feedback prior to the release.

7: TF2's been around long enough that our philosophy on the way the competitive scene exists alongside the more casual scene has changed significantly. In the years following the initial release in 2007, we regarded the competitive scene as a separate set of customers, so we'd jump between shipping new content for casual players in one update and adding a bunch of competitive features in the next. These days, we regard that view as antiquated and instead believe we should aim for a single community with players existing throughout a spectrum between casual and competitive.

As a result, we've spent the last year or two working towards unifying the two parts of the TF2 community, to bring it more in line with the way CS:GO and Dota 2 work. One barrier was that TF pros played a fairly different game to what everyone else was playing (classes and weapons are missing, different game mode, etc.). So we shipped a set of features, like these: - introduced an official competitive matchmaking mode that is closer to what most players are familiar with - to serve as a bridge - added an in-game Twitch streamers list - to help highlight pro players and organized events - provided in-game announcements around major events - talked with many different groups of players and organizers to see what kind of unified format we could adopt.

There's plenty more work to do in this space, and at some point it may transition from adding features in the product to supporting the competitive community itself. In the near term we'll continue to work on pulling the community together, using as much player feedback as we can get, combined with the data we're gathering to see how the work we've done so far is panning out.

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

I wonder what they mean by campaign. I guess contracts or something related to MVM.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I wonder what they mean by campaign. I guess contracts or something related to MVM.

I would assume he just means another campaign with regular maps like Gun Mettle and Tough Break.

 

[Micnax]

I wonder what they mean by campaign. I guess contracts or something related to MVM.

TF2 storyline like the comics but animated with SFM and you play certain segments like MVM or such.

Or, y'know, one can dream.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I'm not sure why you guys are so confused about the term campaign in TF2, both Gun Mettle and Tough Break use the term campaign in their update pages. It's pretty clear he meant that sort of campaign.

 

[Mikroscopic]

Based on this statement it seems like they may be planning on porting TF2 and CSGO to Source 2.

Not sure if I'd make that jump.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Not sure if I'd make that jump.

I mean there's really only 2 ways to take "We would like to have everyone working on games here at Valve to eventually be using the same engine."
Either they plan on updating CSGO and TF2 to Source 2 (though of course the statement isn't a guarantee it will happen) or stop working on them and work on other games on Source 2, which seems unlikely since TF2 and CSGO are games as a service with economies that link to other Valve games.

 

[Mikroscopic]

How would they exactly go about doing that though? As far as I understand porting the game to an entirely new engine would be like making a new game, or at least be an overwhelmingly large update. What if there are a significant amount of regular TF2 players that are able to run Source but not Source 2?

 

[Yrr]

They aren't porting TF2 to Source 2 it would not be anywhere NEAR feasible

 

[CommodoreKong]

How would they exactly go about doing that though? As far as I understand porting the game to an entirely new engine would be like making a new game, or at least be an overwhelmingly large update. What if there are a significant amount of regular TF2 players that are able to run Source but not Source 2?

They already did it once with DOTA2. It's certainly not easy to port a game from one engine to another but it's something that can be done (and they probably already learned a lot from porting DOTA2 from Source 1 to Source 2).

Ideally Source 2 would run games better then Source 1 does (I'm not sure if anyone has actually done benchmark tests) with things like support for using all the cores of a CPU and support for Vulkan.

They aren't porting TF2 to Source 2 it would not be anywhere NEAR feasible

How else would you interpret the statement from Gabe saying they eventually plan on having everyone at Valve working on the same engine? Like I posted earlier I can really only think of 2 ways to interpret that, either TF2 and CSGO will eventually be ported to Source 2 or they're going to stop working on them and work on other games on Source 2. I find the we're going to stop working on them option pretty unlikely. If you have another interpretation I would be interested in hearing it.

Edit: It seems like one of the members of the CSGO team made a comment about porting parts of CSGO to Source 2 so maybe that will happen with TF2 as well?

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

I'm not sure why you guys are so confused about the term campaign in TF2, both Gun Mettle and Tough Break use the term campaign in their update pages. It's pretty clear he meant that sort of campaign.

I was unaware of that.

 

[Idolon]

I mean there's really only 2 ways to take "We would like to have everyone working on games here at Valve to eventually be using the same engine."
Either they plan on updating CSGO and TF2 to Source 2 (though of course the statement isn't a guarantee it will happen) or stop working on them and work on other games on Source 2, which seems unlikely since TF2 and CSGO are games as a service with economies that link to other Valve games.

Two things:

• There's a third option: Make a new entry in the series rather than port it to Source 2. If TF2 were to be ported to Source 2, all 101 of its maps would need to have their lighting redone. I think if Team Fortress ever sees itself on the new engine, it'll be as a new title. That could be a while.
• "We would like to" does not mean that they have any sort of plan to make that happen. This is just acknowledging what the ideal situation would be, regardless of whether or not it is feasible.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Two things:

• There's a third option: Make a new entry in the series rather than port it to Source 2. If TF2 were to be ported to Source 2, all 101 of its maps would need to have their lighting redone. I think if Team Fortress ever sees itself on the new engine, it'll be as a new title. That could be a while.
• "We would like to" does not mean that they have any sort of plan to make that happen. This is just acknowledging what the ideal situation would be, regardless of whether or not it is feasible.

I'm thinking a third entry in the Team Fortress series is pretty unlikely to happen anytime soon since the current game has an economy and is a game as a service.

And yeah Gabe isn't guaranteeing that CSGO and TF2 are going to be ported to Source 2 but it sounds like they're considering it. There are probably long term advantages to moving all active projects to Source 2, they don't have to worry about new employees being familiar with Source 1 if they want to work on TF2 or CSGO.

 

[fubarFX]

I'll just point out that I don't see why tf2 and tf3 couldn't coexist, if it's working for cs1.6/css/csgo.
Granted, no other cs game prior to csgo had an economy but you get my point

 

[Another Bad Pun]

either way, there's a chance source engine's days are numbered -
Valve may be working on replacements for tf2 and csgo as we speak, or maybe game conversions will happen. If a game were to be ported over to Source 2, CSGO seems like a more likely option than TF2.

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

I imagine if TF2 was to be ported to source 2 it would be as a slimmed down version that removed a lot of bloat from the game such as maps and game modes people don't like/don't play. That would be removing maps related to Arena mode and possibly stuff like TC, RD, and/or mannpower. Since TF2 is trying to branch into competitive, I imagine a source 2 port would focus on things related to that while bringing over the economy.

Who knows really.

 

[BigfootBeto]

Spoiler: *insert big, all-caps speculation text in upper left*

Based on what has been said here, looks to me like we've got a potential Orange Box 2: A new TF3, A new CS, and a new something else. To be released at the same time as the Valve-related movie is released.

The dream is there.

Also it would be even cooler if it's literally an orange box Steam Machine that comes bundled with all the games, but that's just as unlikely as anything aforementioned.

That's my speculation anyway.

Regardless, I just want to say that my favorite part from all of this is that at least now we know that the TFTeam has good intentions.

 

[CommodoreKong]

This reddit post has all the questions answered by Gabe Newell (scroll down to the comments for the other Valve employees)

 

[Yrr]

They aren't porting TF2 to Source 2, what they may instead do is drop TF2 so that everyone is working on Source 2 or simply implement like 1 or 2 features of Source 2 INTO TF2

Alternatively "everyone working on Source 2" is just a long-term goal that assumes the death of older games

 

[Fruity Snacks]

They aren't porting TF2 to Source 2, what they may instead do is drop TF2 so that everyone is working on Source 2 or simply implement like 1 or 2 features of Source 2 INTO TF2

Alternatively "everyone working on Source 2" is just a long-term goal that assumes the death of older games

Adding Source 2 features into Source 1 would be quite the task, maybe even harder than porting.

So either, TF2 is getting a port to Source 2, TF2 is not and it's done and over (doubtful), or as Idolon put it, it's getting a new installment. OR part 2 - they said "They would like to" - they may not even worry about TF2 and leave it on Source 1.

Alternative note: My little squirrels tell me that there is probably already a TF2 and CSGO internal port as of a few years ago, but I can not confirm such a thing 100%, so take it with a grain of salt. I didn't see or hear of it when I was at Valve.

Re: @Idolon thing, Last I heard they had a BSP importer, so it would be a task to redo all the lighting, but not hugely bad. The issue would be with massive maps like, Snowplow or Hydro. Who are... special.

----

The interesting thing that I read from the AMA from Dave was that they originally kept Comp and casual as two seperate entities, but now, want to combine them. I don't want to say that it sounds like they consider the community implications of that, but after 10 years of seperate communities, it's like combining oil and water. It kind of also goes against what TF2 had as a perk that games like Overwatch don't have, which is proper social spaces. I'm unsure if they considered the fact that both communities have developed such a strong identity that they might as well be at each others throats.