Now let's take the opportunity to preview the upcoming Day of Defeat: Source, which as discussed previously will be released on September 26th, 2005.

Yes as you can see from the above, I am a Steam subscriber and I've already completed the pre-load of DoD:Source. After experiencing game play in the Valve gaming demo room, I am excited to check it out in full at my leisure.

Now let's move on to some in-game snapshots, courtesy of Doug Lombardi and Valve, just click on the thumb nailed images to see full hi res shots:

 

During our question and answer session Valve remarked there will be 4 maps initially available on DoD:Source. Those maps are entitled Avalance, Flash, Donner and Anzio, some of which you'll see above. These maps have all been rebuilt using HDR technology albeit in a more toned down form from that included in the technically advanced Lost Coast expansion.

You'll find Day of Defeat:Source to be a great online shooter, like the initial HL2 mod was. However the caveat is this time you get to enjoy the game with better lightning effects and resonating sound effects. DoD continues to be a game related to WWII action based on teams. Players will respawn after dying. You will have American and British troops, opposing the Wehrmacht forces of the Germans. The updated game definitively has a much better appearance with finer texture mapping, including the HDR rendering. You will have the ability to either toggle on or off HDR in game through the video options panel, per your own system specifications, etc. The main advantage of using HDR in game, is that is allows real-time lighting adjustments dependent on where the player is moving in the game, or what spot in the game he is looking at. Valve will continue to produce updates to DoD:Source with periodicity, meaning look for updates as they become available from Valve and the modding community at large.

Finally one more bit of some eye candy for you thanks to Valve and their responsiveness to my being so inquisitive:

CS Assault snapshots are located above - below you will see the Counter Strike Source model sheets which Valve provided to me.

I had the opportunity while visiting the Valve offices in Bellevue, Washington to take quite a few pictures around their facility, both the afternoon before the event, the day of the event, and following the event when I returned to pick up a disk with the presentation, including Lost Coast. I was able to spend another couple hours talking to several Valve staff members, asking additional questions and taking a few more photographs for posterity.

Below please find some of the photographs I took around the Valve facility. Needless to say it is a very very cool place to work. Upon entering the main Valve office, I happened to look up and noticed a fierce headcrab positioned just under the ceiling.

Above note the bookcase displays I found walking about the Valve offices. The 3 black cubes in the left side bookcase represent 3 patent awards received by Gabe Newell while employed at Microsoft.

Above note the large valve as you enter the main lobby of Valve itself. Everyone plays with the valve, trust me! There was also a small table displaying some figures you may recognize.

In the above picture, notice a fraction of the various gaming awards that have been received by Valve from various gaming community entities.

 

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