Valve Takes the Whole "Prey Thing" One Step Further

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Valve Takes the Whole \"Prey Thing\" One Step Further



So, yea, Prey just got less fun by comparison.

[HaemishM]

So it's a puzzle game masquerading as an FPS.

[Yoru]

That and TF2 bundled into the HL2:E2 purchase?

Sold. Just give me a few rooms with funky physics, various objects (some explodable), a few harmless NPCs and I'll have hours of guilty giggling fun.

[Moaner]

Wow.  That looks rather unique.  I Just went from not caring about Portal to really looking forward to it.  Seems like it will mesh well with Gmod.

[Strazos]

I think my CPU just assploded from thinking about running that thing.

Some of the moves executed in the demo....all I could say is, "WHAT!?" I am in disbelief.

Oh yeah, bundled with TF2? Pfft, pre-ordered.

[stray]

Awesome

[Zetleft]

whoa  /keanu


Yeah my system would die trying to run that, but I'll have to make sure :)

[stray]

Spicoli and Neo in the same thread. The hype is strong with this one.

[Strazos]

Just think of it...warp jumps....people flying in all the wrong directions...throwing nades into portals...

[schild]

Well, Prey does a lot of it, the portals are just pre set. Needless to say, I'd kill for this portal shit to be in every Valve game.

[Strazos]

Dude, you could be sniping at one chokepoint, and have a portal set up so you culd effectively watch and snipe another. Pure genius.

[schild]

Yes. By letting you decide where to put the portals, it is indeed Camper's Paradise.

[Fabricated]

Wacky. Team Fortress 2 AND Portal + Episode Two? If that's true the argument about Steam being a ripoff go right out the fucking window.

Even at $30 that'd be a steal. They had better allow modders access to the portal tech though.

[Jain Zar]

That is fucking impressive.

[Samwise]

They had better allow modders access to the portal tech though.

After watching the video a couple times, I'm fairly convinced that the portals are a clever combination of the camera/projection and teleport functions that are already available in Source.  The "portal" is just a video screen, like the ones they've had since the first Source tech demo, combined with a simple teleport trigger.

[schild]

YES, BUT A GUN THROWS IT.

A GUN THROWS IT.

FUCKING MAGIC.

[Strazos]

It's magic if I can shoot people through the portals.

[schild]

You can in Prey. No way Valve would be showed up by Broussard and Co.

[Trippy]

You can in Prey. No way Valve would be showed up by Broussard and Co.

Except the video never showed you firing a weapon "projectile" through the portals (you can toss objects through with your grav gun hybrid but that's it). In other words Samwise may be right and it could just a simple object teleportation hack which might not currently support firing weapons through them.

[Krakrok]

I want to shoot a guy in the back with the portal and jump through it.

[Prospero]

Look at the part of the video where the turret is bobbing up and down as it "falls" between the two portals in the floor. The portal looks like it has "depth." I suspect projectiles will go through just fine.... or at least I hope so. 

[Trippy]

Look at the part of the video where the turret is bobbing up and down as it "falls" between the two portals in the floor. The portal looks like it has "depth." I suspect projectiles will go through just fine.... or at least I hope so. 

I put "projectiles" in quotes cause many FPS weapons are "hitscan" weapons meaning there isn't actually a projectile that travels through space so there's nothing to actually teleport. Sure if you are firing a slow ass rocket launcher missile that would probably work since you could in theory teleport that through but what if you were firing a shotgun or chaingun? That would be more difficult.

[schild]

In Prey, machine guns work fine.

[Samwise]

I want to shoot a guy in the back with the portal and jump through it.

Brings telefragging to a new level.

[bhodi]

Actually, hitscan is even easier. You simply, during the hitscan test, calculate the angle and re-test as if you were firing out from the portal's location. There's no need to call the teleport code, simply add/subtract math for the angles will suffice.

[Trippy]

Actually, hitscan is even easier. You simply, during the hitscan test, calculate the angle and re-test as if you were firing out from the portal's location. There's no need to call the teleport code, simply add/subtract math for the angles will suffice.

That's true if the engine knows that the portals are actually "holes" in the geometry and not just special textures/decals overlaid onto exisiting geometry that would normally block shots.

[Sky]

Portal and TF2 are certainly more compelling than a 5 hour FPS add-on imo. Since it's mostly about multiplayer, it's pretty much not for me, but it sounds cool.

[WindiaN]

skill maps with portals?!!?! mmmmmmmmmmmmm

EDIT: just a scenario: after conc jumping towards a wall, in mid-air shoot the portal to some platform and make the entry where you are going to hit. Possibilities are endless...

[bhodi]

That's true if the engine knows that the portals are actually "holes" in the geometry and not just special textures/decals overlaid onto exisiting geometry that would normally block shots.

Maybe I didn't explain properly. Hitscan wouldn't treat them as holes in the geometry; hitscan doesn't do anything but raytrace to see if you can hit what you aimed at. It doesn't really have any concept of the 3d world in general. It can't really be a special texture/decal overlaid onto existing geometry - it would have to be an object, since textures/decals aren't mutable once the level is loaded. So, it detects that you've hit the object, a portal. Additonal code is spawned that fires the same hitscan weapon you fired, from the exit portal location, using the appropriately calculated complement angle.

[Sairon]

Yea, imagine creating 2 holes directly oposite to each other though, then switch of the hit box for yourself and fire a straight bullet. It would have to trace the bullet for eternity. I guess shit like that could fuck up multiplayer, situations where there will be extremly long traces should apear fairly frequently if placing portals all over the place becomes popular.

[Strazos]

That could possibly crash a server.

[HaemishM]

Wacky. Team Fortress 2 AND Portal + Episode Two? If that's true the argument about Steam being a ripoff go right out the fucking window.

Even at $30 that'd be a steal. They had better allow modders access to the portal tech though.

Yeah, I'm afraid I may just have to get Episode 2 for the Team Fortress alone. The other stuff is just gravy.

[WindiaN]

i wonder if you can shoot a portal through someone else's portal...

[Sairon]

http://www.fz.se/filarkiv/?file=mov/team_fortress_2/tf2_teaser01_720p.wmv

Downloading it, description says it introduces the classes in TF2.

[bhodi]

That could possibly crash a server.

Eh, not really. Unless it's been specifically set up by someone in the map editor, to create two portals and have a gun fire between them, it's highly unlikely and I'd say even nearly impossible to get the thing to bounce more than 10 or 15 times. Removing the fact that you'd be standing in the way of the bounce, servers can easily handle 15 people firing at once, which is essentially what portals would create. Furthermore, if you were looking for a specific counter, you'd simply have a counter that increments every time it bounces and simply stop it at 10 bounces or so.