New Map Editor and Second Add-on Announced by Valve for Portal 2

[Shawn Zipay]

That certainly didn't take long. Less than a day after the teaser broke about Valve working on a new editor comes official word from the company that a new map editor will be made available for Portal 2 alongside the release of the game's second add-on pack.

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the second game add-on for the year's highest rated multiplatform game, Portal 2, is in development and targeted for release early next year.

This major update will feature an easy-to-use in-game map editor that will let users design, build and share their own single-player and co-op test chambers with the community, who will be able to view, play and vote on them with a simple click.

In case you missed it, the second add-on pack will be made available "early next year." It wasn't very clear from the press release if the second add-on pack would also include new content, as was done with the Peer Review DLC, but we have an email in to Valve to hopefully clear up any confusion.

[Ev!L ErN!E]

Now why can't they do a map maker like this for all of Valves games, I mean it would allow so many other people a chance to build a cool playing map, and give the community that much more when playing games like CSS, TF2 and L4D2 etc.

[K-16]

Re: New Map Editor and Second Add-on Announced by Valve for Portal 2

Key word being cool playing map. Not easy to do that when you're using a drag and drop editor meant for arena-type environments. It can't apply for DoD, L4D/2, and TF2 (CP/PL) simply because the foundations don't work with arenas, and while deathmatch types are possible (CS, TF2 DM, HL2DM), it would be difficult to come up with effective game mechanics that are balanced and fun to play when dealing with live opponents, especially in team deathmatch environments (an extremely dumbed down rule of thumb by Dave Johnston [creator of the Dust series in CS] would be to have maps allow a general overall "8" pathway for accessibility to all bomb sites).

With a co-op experience that does not force a time limit (such as L4D), you don't have live enemies to ruin your core goal in whatever it is you're building. Therefore you can build your map the way you want it to be with drag and drop, rather than build your map the way it's meant to be built where you're forced to compensate to accommodate common design standards (ever heard of Z-axis fighting in deathmatch map designs? Cliff Bleszinski checks for that in UT maps).

So Portal is unique enough in its gameplay foundation that you can build maps like Hot Wheels tracks, versus requiring all out control for more complicated multiplayer games that require Lego. Don't get me wrong, building a good puzzle is difficult enough as it is, and there's no way I can come up with a satisfying puzzle that won't stump players, but will make players feel intelligent when solving them in a reasonable amount of time. I'm just saying simpler tools can make it happen, because it's only the puzzle itself that you have to worry about (only other design constraint I can think of is to avoid too much visual noise, such as background decorations that can distract and mislead players from seeing the hints and solving the puzzles).

I'm incredibly impressed that they can simplify the entity system (well, input/output with Source since they reduced entity usage since HL2). That is HELL to pull off, to pre-setup all entities to work with each other without requiring the creator to check for conflicts or incorrect settings. Absolutely impressive. Plus, we have the school who already beta tested the thing, so it's kid tested, Mother approved. For education... And for science...

Added later: I want to make an addendum since it actually counters what I just said. I said L4D can't be done with the click and drop editor (I know I said drag and drop editor before, but it looks more obvious to be click and drop), but that isn't necessarily the case for survival type maps. I wonder if it's easier to use this editor for that kind of gameplay compared to making puzzles? It's an interesting thought to have the community crank out survival maps and have it all consolidated in one site for people to rate and download.

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: New Map Editor and Second Add-on Announced by Valve for Portal 2

K-16: You are able to edit your posts again here. I forgot I had some broad permissions restricted when we had that security breach before.

I might actually try map making for Portal 2 if this is as easy as it sort of sounds. I could never wrap my head around Hammer. Even with some years of 3D digital design, Hammer was just so... ugh.