Other Source games also get the </em>Half-Life 2</em> anniversary update treatment.
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Valve releases full Team Fortress 2 game code to encourage new, free versions
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The 64 bit support should allow them to run on Rosetta, as long as that's still supported?
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Kevin Purdy said:
Note this is all the TF2-specific code, but not the Source Engine it was built with.
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When I heard about this earlier today from another source (pun intended) I wondered if it was on purpose or an accident. This certainly sounds like on purpose.
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The Mac versions were never updated. On the contrary, Valve completely dropped Mac support and pulled the games from Steam.
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I know this is a free to play game, but I've always wished that it was more common for source code to be released for all games after they've had their time on the market. After over a decade, most games (except for a few that are evergreen) hardly generate much revenue anymore, so it would be a nice gesture to give back to the community by providing the source for people to learn from and tinker with.
Unfortunately, games like Super Mario Bros for the NES won't enter the public domain until after most of us are six feet under, so the very few games that do have source code from painstaking decompilation are stuck in a legal grey area.
Unfortunately, games like Super Mario Bros for the NES won't enter the public domain until after most of us are six feet under, so the very few games that do have source code from painstaking decompilation are stuck in a legal grey area.
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henrebotha
Smack-Fu Master, in training
I've been wondering for a while why open source games aren't more common, but I think this is exactly it: There's such a dearth of "serious" open source projects to learn from. Rocket League should have had its lunch eaten by an open source clone after the whole market fiasco, but unfortunately that hasn't happened.
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You can kinda see this in which open source games are most common - the id games like quake 3 and doom that got open sourced became the guts for a ton of shooters I played as a kid. Where there's not a good example to start from efforts are generally more rough.
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Early TF2 is the most fun I've ever had with an online shooter. I stayed through 2009/10 but it slowly lost its luster afterwards for me and I don't think I've even fired it up for over a decade.
Incredible memories though.
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One big reason why many games porbably will never be open source is 3rd party code. Overwhelming majority of games are built using Unity or Unreal Engine. For Valve that's not big issue, because Valve uses their own engines, but even TF2 has some 3rd party code. It's Havoc and Bink Video. Forutnetly for non-commercial TF2 projects licenses aren't issue.
edited last sentence for clarity
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It's not 100% vanilla, but I'd recommend Team Fortress 2 Classic as a potential alternative. It's made TF2 fun for me again.
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Even for non-commercial projects, the moment there is any distribution licensing still comes into play. And since open-source collaboration (or even just viewing) necessitates distribution of source code, you'll get bit real quick by the lawyers.
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Two days ago, Zesty Jesus put out his 4 hour video breaking down the mismangement of TF2 by valve since the Meet Your Maker update. Now Valve released their SDK for TF2. What a world.
He made a post on the messages for this video. The last sentence I agree with:
"This act is Valve putting TF2 out to pasture, and is a silent admission that they're done with any serious work on the game. Bittersweet, more bitter than sweet for me."
I love TF2. I am looking forward to see how the mod communities run with this release.
He made a post on the messages for this video. The last sentence I agree with:
"This act is Valve putting TF2 out to pasture, and is a silent admission that they're done with any serious work on the game. Bittersweet, more bitter than sweet for me."
I love TF2. I am looking forward to see how the mod communities run with this release.
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henrebotha
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Yeah good point. Licencing isn't my strong suit (I generally close my eyes and throw a dart at the options GitHub suggests), but I hope that the increasing presence of tools like Godot might over time break things open a bit more. Probably less likely when it comes to advanced 3D stuff though.
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Nice! I wish more companies would do this. It doesn't necessarily even require them to relinquish any hope of future monetization if they retain control of the game assets, though it sounds like, in this case, Valve is stopping any monetization that may have still been possible.
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I still occasionally jump in for some DeGroot Keep, but it does feel like a foreign land compared to the 2007-2014 heyday. The fact that it's still one of the most-played games on Steam is impressive though, most games barely last a year, let alone 18.
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I stopped playing, in part, because of the rampant sniper botting. Also, the sniper cheat-botting drove off most players, so it seemed like there wasn't much reason to keep playing mostly with just sniper bots. Might check it out again if they really did fix the cheating.
One thing I could never understand was, why did there end up being so many sniper bots in the first place? It almost seemed like someone, somewhere, had found a way to profit off the bots. Like, were the bots grinding for inventory items to sell to people, or something? By cheating, maybe they ramped up their scores rapidly and increased their drop rates to get a lot of inventory items fast, including rare drops more often?
One thing I could never understand was, why did there end up being so many sniper bots in the first place? It almost seemed like someone, somewhere, had found a way to profit off the bots. Like, were the bots grinding for inventory items to sell to people, or something? By cheating, maybe they ramped up their scores rapidly and increased their drop rates to get a lot of inventory items fast, including rare drops more often?
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nitro912gr
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
I can't imagine what those guys will do with the source code out now!
Maybe this is why at some point valve went silent after inviting them to stop distributing TF2 classic and come to talk about it?
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Winamp might be a case study in why more proprietary code bases don't go open source after a time.
It appears Winamp had been violating open source licenses all along, while distributing under a proprietary license (and until the opening, nobody could prove it easily). Also, they apparently accidentally released source for other proprietary code that was included in their product, which they didn't have an open source license for.
Open sourcing software can be a legal minefield if you you haven't been open source all along.
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One of my favourite game studios Unknown Worlds Entertainment of Subnautica fame, started off as Half-life modders. I spent many hours playing the Natural Selection mod.
I'm looking forward to what projects get spawned from TF2, now that all the code is available.
I'm looking forward to what projects get spawned from TF2, now that all the code is available.
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Oh no. There goes my time..
I'll just medic main cuz there is no way I can pull off airshots with soldier/demo anymore!
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I would bet they were, since I still remember the days of idle servers where people would leave the game running overnight while they took damage in order to trick the item drop algorithm into thinking they were playing. Over time, the algo writers probably figured out that tens of thousands of people weren't actually playing and adjusted it to require shots fired/other interactive elements, hence sniperbots.
But even before the bots, I still remember Sniper being the class of choice for the CoD weirdos obsessed with K/D in a game where only the objectives mattered. 2fort was basically just 6 snipers on each side dueling over the middle while everyone else tried to actually capture the intel.
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Regarding CoD weirdos, I would point out that while the objectives are ultimately what matters, in general the side that kills the other side more often usually has a significant advantage with the objectives.
Controlling the middle is a pretty big part of 2fort, denying the other team passage, while clearing the way for your teammates.
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That does lead to sort of a "WoW Classic" issue where some players want some new features and others don't. Be it quality of life or gameplay.
I have a few thousand hours in TF2, even made some workshop content. But as an example I love Payload maps which weren't released until 2008. Now that still predates the cosmetic update (2009) which is where many people draw a line.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, fwiw I also want a "restored" version of TF2 that has everything I want. But everyone has a different idea of what the "golden age" was. Vanilla 2007 Pryo without airblast? Not my cup of tea.
I saw someone else mention TF2 Classic and I intend to look into it and see what "version" of the game it runs, might be right up my alley.
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scottslayer
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Having this open would have made sense a decade ago at the height of custom servers and modding but not now.
I would be happier if this act wasn't just recognition that the game truly is on life support waiting for the flatline.
I would be happier if this act wasn't just recognition that the game truly is on life support waiting for the flatline.
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The problem with making a Mac port is how fast they become obsolete.
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For some value of "fast." TF2 was released on Macs in 2010, 32-bit support was dropped in 2019. The game was still under active development and maintenance during that period, so whatever reasons Valve had for not investing resources in the Mac port, that wasn't it
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Or, worse, the FF7 issue.
I got super-excited when I heard they were remaking FF7. I was very disappointed to find out that it wasn't a remake, but instead a completely new game with a FF7 skin; they were just calling it a remake.
More folks need to take a cue from Nintendo's recent remake home runs. Stuff like Link's Awakening, Super Mario RPG, Metroid Prime, 1000 Year Door, and the like.
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Eh, honesty I would have preferred a direct port with only graphics upgrades like they did with Metroid Prime because the game is freaking slow compared to the Gamecube version.
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It has enough options that it really isnt a specific "version".
I dig most of the maps from any era, but IMO gameplay was best before new weapons were added, when each of the 9 classes only had one loadout. I hung on a bit after new weapons were introduced, but I couldn't take hat fortress.
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Like Half-life, Counter-strike or Team Fortress? Source is made from Quake engine. There's still remnants of it in there.
I wrote this as a joke, but now I feel like it reinforces your point...
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I think the larger issue is Apple's lack of commitment to Mac game developers, as well as their disdain for backwards compatibility. In the 2010's, Mac gaming was making some real headway in terms of game ports. And then Apple pulled the rug out from under the game developers by killing 32-bit compatibility in their OS. They didn't have to; they wanted to. Every Mac gamer saw their Steam collection become worthless with their next Mac OS upgrade.
I can play the PC gaming hits of the 90's on my Windows 11 PC, but my Mac is limited to 64-bit games created in the last eight years.
And given that Mac OS still only has a paltry 14% marketshare, I don't blame Valve for losing interest in the Mac. It's hardly worth the drama.
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I tried it, couldn't really get into it.
But I'm a bit older probably. My fondest online shooter memories are from Quake MegaTF in '99/'00/'01. Where I worked back then we had our own internal server, and would play almost every day during lunch. Even had a few maps we created. Plenty of online play as well. Second place would be UT'99, I still jump on a sniper server every once every couple of months. I haven't really found anything that comes close to either of those for me.
But kudos to Valve for continuing to be a great gaming company.
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