Valve hires Half-Life dev, kills off mod
VALVE SOFTWARE is a company that can seemingly do no wrong in the eyes of its many, many adoring fans.
So when it comes to inadvertently killing off one of the most popular Half-Life mod collections ever created, gamers are even now looking on the bright side.
Adam Foster is the maker of the 'Minerva' mod for Half-Life 2, a series of levels which charts an alternate storyline through Valve's epic universe. Available to download through Steam, it's won critical acclaim for its high production values and innovative gameplay.
But that work is now on hold because Valve has hired Adam to work on the next installment of the commercial Half-Life franchise, 'Episode 3', due out next year. He'll be designing fiendish maps, it seems, for the boys in Seattle.
Valve has a history of hiring talented developers from its community. Counter Strike, Day of Defeat and Left 4 Dead have all become Valve properties off the back of successful independent mod releases.
Adam says, "I seriously suspect this isn't the end for this particular chain of experiments in designing single-player Half-Life 2 maps", but that "Who knows " when Minerva would actually return.
With a nice fat cheque signing from Valve and a very tidy programmer's salary - Gabe Newell's company is one of the most lucratively run development houses around - we suspect the answer for Adam is really "Who cares?" µ
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Its good in one way

they actually hire people who know what there doing and are tallented while knowing the background of the franchise

unlike EA which just buys up smaller game companies and ends up buyign there IP and giving it to a bunch of their own developers who know hardly anything about the true stroy of the universe... CnC3 anyone
I'm actually suprised they didn't hire Adam a long time ago!
i sincearly hope this isn't a genuine attempt to put negative spin on this.
What a horrible way to report an inspiring, happy event. This guy worked incredibly hard releasing a substantial, professional quality game FOR FREE. 

He gets to work with his idols and get paid for it now. You still get to play his creations, as part of a Valve product. 

Crying about having not getting a (free) game anymore because the creator has had personal success is just childish.
It's not "killed off" - you can still download it for free.

Adam made this free mod for everyone to enjoy, now you're annoyed with him because you want more? Talk about selfish.

Why not say "thank you Adam and good luck" instead?

Cheers,
Pete
1. This isn't the end of Minerva. Adam getting more experience and tutelage from Valve veterans is probably a good thing.
2. Minerva, like all mods, is not downloadable from steam.
3. High production values and high quality is not the same thing. One man making maps on his Mac hardly constitue the former.
4. Left 4 Dead was a commercial product from the get go, never intended as a mod.

All in all awesome news that should make all fans of Adam Foster's work happy. I am convinced that this turn of events will both benefit the production of episode 3 and also result in a continuation of the minerva-storyline, possibly with higher production values.
Minerva, however, *does* have exceptionally high production values for a home-written mod. The production of it is nothing short of professional.
He already had Valve cooperation for the last of the Minerva episodes, he had access to EP2 assets before this was officially released.
Valve apparently helped playtest/streamline it as well.

So this is no surprise really. Minerva has some of the best maps in the Source engine, it's good to see that Valve recognises talent and uses it.
How nice.
"Valve hires talented mapper"
turns into
"Valve kills mod".
They're not EA, who actually killed a mod because it was essentially the same as Battlefield 2142.