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games·Gamesbysimple

Deadlock (Valve's Unannounced Title) Passes 12k Peak Players in Closed Alpha

https://steamdb.info/app/1422450/charts/

Valve keeping up with the trend of "worst kept secrets". You need an invite to join the alpha but since everyone who owns it can refer their friends, it spread very quickly.

I've been playing it the past few days and it's honestly very fun. Still a bit rough around the edges (especially in terms of balance) since it's in early access, but it has serious potential to be dota 2 levels of popular.

For the unaware, Deadlock is a 3rd person shooter MOBA. It feels like a mix of Dota and Overwatch/Team Fortress. Nobody is allowed to share footage or screenshots, but obviously with so many playing there's a ton of leaks out there.

View original on lemm.ee
EarMasterreply
lemmy.world

As you got invited by OP would you mind sharing your invites too? Asking for a friend me.

16
Owlreply
mander.xyz

I don't have the game yet. It used to be instantaneous but now it may take several days according to some people on the internet

8

Thats a shame... gives us time to become your friend though, right? I heard you enjoy games

5

I can invite too if people need it, shoot me a DM

4

I love your personality and think we could be great friends, too.

11
simplereply
lemm.ee

I think so, but it doesn't say how many you get.

5
sxtreply
lemmy.world

If you've got an extra still I'd be down

1

Any chance you can invite anymore? I’d love to give this game a try, huge TF2 fan.

1
Coelacanthreply
feddit.nu

Reminds me of the old Dota 2 closed beta days... Good times. Also on an unrelated note, if anyone has a spare invite my DMs are open.

5
Scratchreply
sh.itjust.works

I slept on my DOTA2 invite and only years later dumped 3k hours into it.

I won’t make that mistake again, given the chance.

3

I remember playing Dota 1 and 2 in parallel for a while because so few heroes were in the beta and I wanted to play new hotness like Ember Spirit. Fun times.

Quitting Dota has been great for my mental health, though. But I guess I'm at least curious enough about what the frog is cooking to risk getting addicted to something new.

1

I heard you got a referral, remember all those times I've helped you with (insert problem)? You wouldn't mind if I asked for a referral from you?

2
lemmy.world

Somebody needs to tell the games team that they make their own operating system. This is Windows-only. WTF.

37
Virkkunenreply
fedia.io

Runs perfectly fine on Linux though, with DX11 or Vulkan. On Windows, Vulkan has some performance issues that make it quite unenjoyable, but in Linux for me it plays a lot better with Vulkan than Windows DX11.

35
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

Runs perfectly fine on Linux though

The quality of Proton is not the point, the point is that they're not dogfooding their own platform. They'll likely follow the same course as CS2: Lengthy prerelease test exclusively on Windows, then a few days before actual release someone will port the game to Linux/SteamOS and release day is the first day of the Linux port's alpha test.

How can anybody at Valve expect game publishers to take Steam Deck and SteamOS seriously if the developer of the actual platform is not dogfooding it with their own games?

17
Virkkunenreply
fedia.io

Yeah I get what you mean, but with Linux gaming I think it's great enough that it runs with Proton and no one is blocking it. I also believe they'll port it to native Linux after the alpha stage is done, but remember that the game is in a closed alpha state, so at no point this should be taken as "Valve not dogfooding their platform". All we can do right now is wait and see.

8

with Linux gaming I think it’s great enough that it runs with Proton and no one is blocking it.

You clearly missed many news from the gaming sphere.

remember that the game is in a closed alpha state, so at no point this should be taken as “Valve not dogfooding their platform

Yes, it is. Sony is developing their games for PlayStation first and Windows as an afterthought. I'm not saying that Windows should be an afterthought but SteamOS should be a development target from day 1.

All we can do right now is wait and see.

Grab your Steam Deck, install Counter-Strike 2, and look at the state of Source2 games right now.

-4
Vilianreply
lemmy.ca

They are beta testing, remove the OS issue and they van focus on games issues

3
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

They are beta testing, remove the OS issue and they van focus on games issues

SteamOS needs to be day 1 development target for all things at Valve. With your attitude we end up with CS2 broken on Steam Deck until now.

-4
KeenFlamereply
feddit.nu

No. Development occurs on windows machines, so this is where they deploy. It's essential for a studio to work on core mechanics, gameplay loop and feel. It's obviously going to be steam deck day one.

3
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

No. Development occurs on windows machines

"Development occurs on" and "development target" are different things.

It’s obviously going to be steam deck day one.

Sure, like CS2 is on Steam Deck since day one and still broken.

-1

Who the actual fuck do you think wants to play cs on a motherfucking steam deck? And again, you of course target your own machine first for a pc game. It's how 99% of all editors work. Why would you try to argue something that you don't know how it works?

1
Vilianreply
lemmy.ca

A yes, because Steam Deck is the most optimal platform to play competitive FPS

3

A yes, because Steam Deck is the most optimal platform to play competitive FPS

That's not even the argument. The argument is that Valve's own game teams should be able to support their own hardware.

2
ngwooreply
lemmy.world

Valve is probably perfectly happy with just making sure proton compatibility is good. They don't expect developers to change their whole workflow to cater to the Deck, that's why they've done so much work with proton.

3

Valve is probably perfectly happy with just making sure proton compatibility is good.

Valve is happy that games break all the time? Yeah, sure buddy. If anybody at Valve was happy with that, maybe that Microsoft agent should lose their job.

They don’t expect developers to change their whole workflow to cater to the Deck

The point of cross-platform middleware is specifically not to "change their whole workflow". 🙄

that’s why they’ve done so much work with proton.

Valve is also doing much work with SDL and so on to target native development, that's why it's embarrassing that they don't target their own platform. All successful platform holders treat their platform as 1st class citizens: Sony targets PlayStation from day 1 of game development, so does Nintendo with Switch. Apple is not prioritizing Windows either.

Failing platforms are those where the platform vendor doesn't even believe enough in it to properly support it. Since over a decade Microsoft makes ARM-based Surface devices and to this day Microsoft has ported not a single game, not even casual stuff like Minesweeper, over to Windows ARM. "Microsoft is perfectly happy with just making sure Prism compatibility is good" and yet emulated applications crash, perform worse, and result in battery drain. Similar with Steam Deck: The only way to ensure games perform to their best and don't unexpectedly break on an update is proper SteamOS native versions.

-2
arefxreply
lemmy.ml

They are going to add Linux support the game is in alpha.

1
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

They are going to add Linux support the game is in alpha.

That's not day 1. Why do I need to say it over and over again? It's not like I spelled it out already: CS2 had a Windows-only pre-release and the Linux port was only added to the formal release, resulting in the Linux port being very buggy to this day! Their own platform needs to be the top tier development target from day 1. How is that difficult to understand?

-1
arefxreply
lemmy.ml

Because they are developing the game for windows first since that's where 93% of the customers are. Are you even thinking this through?

0
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

Because they are developing the game for windows first since that’s where 93% of the customers are.

Why not develop for Windows and Steam Deck equally then?

Are you even thinking this through?

Definitively more than you.

-2

You're pretty funny but you clearly aren't smart.

0
lemm.ee

It’s really not? You can play it perfectly fine on linux. Performs great for me with 0 issues so far.

2
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

It’s really not?

The quality of Proton is not the point, the point is that they’re not dogfooding their own platform.

You guys making the same comments over and over again. I can literally paste previous replies because nobody of you cares to actually read.

-2
lemm.ee

That’s because I don’t understand your point. You complain about it being only for windows yet push away their efforts of bringing windows games to linux (which is proton). So indeed, the quality of proton is very much the point as it dictates the quality of the game on linux to a general extent.

Not to mention that this IS an early development build, I would say that its perfectly reasonable for them to only make the early builds for windows since that is where a majority of the play testers are likely to be (not to mention that linux -> windows tools don't exist unless you want to game on WSL2).

So what are you trying to complain about? The fact that they aren’t exclusively pandering for steam deck users? If that is the case, I must admit that it’s very childish to just expect that and I hate other companies for making this the norm.

3
x00zreply
lemmy.world

All of their games have native Linux builds. So if this one doesn't support Linux out of the box, his opinion is quite valid.

0
lemm.ee

It’s not out of the box though is it? Considering that this is a game that hasn’t even been revealed to the world in the first place.

3

Ah I see. Sure, if there is no native linux build on the games release, I'll be complaining too.

2
lemmy.one

It's almost as if they are a for-profit company that doesn't want to waste development time on an OS that have significantly fewer players to sell to and will choose to optimize for Linux as an afterthought.

I use Arch, btw and play only on Linux, so I'm not being biased, just speaking truths.

-2
skulblakareply
sh.itjust.works

Yeah but Valve, who is making this game, made SteamOS and the Steam Deck in house. It's their own product. It would be a monumentally stupid move to release a first party game that doesn't run on their own first party hardware.

15

It's still niche. You're living in your dream world, not reality. It's the entire point of proton - not to have to create two versions of the game. As long as it's compatible it'll run nicely on their hardware.

0
Virkkunenreply
fedia.io

I wouldn't say that's the case because it's Valve, and they work on a very unique way. Besides, the work they did with Proton, SteamOS and Steam Deck shows that at no point they believe developing for Linux is waste of efforts or an afterthought. They go out of the usual way to make things better for Linux. I fully expect them to port Deadlock to Linux once it hits beta or release.

5

It’s almost as if they are a for-profit company that doesn’t want to waste development time on an OS that have significantly fewer players to sell to and will choose to optimize for Linux as an afterthought.

Yeah, why would Nintendo develop for Switch or Sony for PlayStation when it's clearly a waste of development time and and money and Windows is clearly the superior development target?

I’m not being biased, just speaking truths.

No, you speak nothing of truth regarding game development has a platform holder.

2
pycoraxreply
lemmy.world

I expected this from the start once proton was introduced, just not from Valve themselves... Welp. It's now inevitable.

-5
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

I expected this from the start once proton was introduced, just not from Valve themselves… Welp. It’s now inevitable.

Clueless people act as if Proton was like Java, a "write once, run everywhere" environment...🙄

-1
pycoraxreply
lemmy.world

Not sure what you mean here with your sarcasm. Proton means that developers can just write games for Windows and expect to make that version compatible with Linux with minimal changes as opposed to making a native Linux version.

As a developer myself, I know that it doesn't make sense for a developer in most cases to write a Linux version and support it when the Linux user base is tiny by comparison. It happened with OS/2 and it can happen again. Not to mention Linux game developer tooling pales in comparison to Windows with DirectX.

1

Proton means that developers can just write games for Windows and expect to make that version compatible with Linux with minimal changes as opposed to making a native Linux version.

SteamOS is Valve's own OS. Steam Linux Runtime is Valve's own development target. Steam Deck is Valve's on hardware. It's a stable platform that doesn't move constantly like chasing Windows compatibility through reverse engineering. Win32 is not Java, Proton is not OpenJDK. Windows games on Proton break constantly. The only way into the future is proper SteamOS versions, not buggy afterthoughts.

As a developer myself, I know that it doesn’t make sense for a developer in most cases to write a Linux version and support it when the Linux user base is tiny by comparison. It happened with OS/2 and it can happen again.

Steam Deck is not OS/2. Steam Deck is more like a video game console and needs to be treated like one with proper ports instead of broken shit like CS2, especially for Valve's own games. Portal on Nintendo Switch works better than CS2 on Steam Deck because it's a proper port, not an afterthought.

Stop repeating the same false arguments to me over and over again, as repeating those would make them right. If anyone of you would ever be put in charge of PlayStation, that entire business would collapse within months.

Not to mention Linux game developer tooling pales in comparison to Windows with DirectX.

Maybe Valve should improve that for their own platform then instead of relying of tools by a hostile competitor. It's just dumb.

-5
moxreply
lemmy.sdf.org

I'm with you in principle, but I think it's unlikely that Valve are building the game themselves, given that they haven't done much of that in ages.

It's reasonable to think their first priorities were finding a development studio [Edit: or even in-house developers] capable producing a good game, and helping them to do so. If the developers are most familiar with Windows tools and APIs, then the path to a successful game would be letting them use those, at least to begin with.

Let's just hope that they're being guided along to way toward design decisions that make a native port relatively easy if the game turns out to be good.

Edit:

The project is reportedly led by "IceFrog", which looked like a studio name when I first read it, but it's apparently a person. So maybe this is in-house development after all. Great! It would be nice to see Valve making significant games again.

Nevertheless, gathering a team with the talent and vision to make a good game is harder than finding people who can learn a certain API or platform, so if they have the former, it would make sense to let them target the platform they already know and get the game out the door. Doing it in-house just makes it even easier for Valve's linux folks to guide them in design choices that would simplify multiplatform support later. (Cross-platform development isn't all that hard if you plan for it from the start instead of painting yourself into a corner.) If the game is well received, it would then make sense to invest more time into training the devs on linux and doing a linux-native port.

Or to put it another way: Yes, Valve has an OS that keeps them independent from Windows, but that's just one tool in their kit. Proton is another tool. That gives Valve flexibility in how they bring a game to market, and how they prioritize/schedule various phases of the project. This still-unannounced game might be Windows-only for now, but I would not assume that will be forever.

-11

Ice frog is the handle of the dude that took dota from tryndamere and ryze and turned it into dota all star the version of dota most people think of when they think of dota 1.

1
woelkchenreply
lemmy.world

If that studio’s developers are most familiar with Windows tools and APIs, then the path to a successful game would be letting them use those, at least to begin with.

So you're saying, if Sony or Nintendo made a new console and contracted an outside developer, that developer should develop for Windows instead of the new consoles because they are unfamiliar with the new tools and APIs? Why even develop using Source Engine (2)? Why not also give in to a total Unreal Engine monopoly because that's what every game developer knows? CS2 on Steam Deck is bad right now.

-2
moxreply
lemmy.sdf.org

No, that is not what I said at all. Either you've misunderstood, or you're arguing in bad faith. Given that you're now pushing an unrealistic all-or-nothing point of view and putting words in my mouth, I think it's some of both.

3

Don't waste your time. These people are blinded by idealism and don't care about reality, just being angry.

2

I noticed this soon after posting. Tried to edit them, but must have missed this one

1
lemmy.today

Anyone interested in an invite?

  • Yes, I'll remove you after the invite.
  • No, we can't play together.
  • Yes, drop your profile here/dm

If you don't get the mail, this is probably due to playtest schedule, they may give you access when the playtest is open, after that you can always play vs bots

Or https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/4511003785958903445/

Edit: What have I done? :O so many users want to try it

15
Cris16228reply
lemmy.today

Added. When invited please let me know if you can see it

2
Mosesreply
discuss.tchncs.de

I accepted but dont see you in my friendslist, and do not have the game in the library. Could you add me again?

1
Cris16228reply
lemmy.today

You should get a mail from steam

Hello , You have been invited to join the Steam Playtest for Deadlock!

I have removed you already after the invite

1

Added. When invited please let me know if you can see it

You should get a mail from steam

Hello , You have been invited to join the Steam Playtest for Deadlock!

2
digivationreply
lemmy.ml

Can't see it yet but I'm on my phone. I'll check on the desktop when I get back to the computer

1
Cris16228reply
lemmy.today

You should get a mail from steam

Hello , You have been invited to join the Steam Playtest for Deadlock!

1

Thanks, nothing yet but I'll give it a bit more time since the forum thread says it could take up to 3 hours

EDIT: Just showed up!

1

Added. When invited please let me know if you can see it

You should get a mail from steam

Hello , You have been invited to join the Steam Playtest for Deadlock!

2
Cris16228reply
lemmy.today

Added. When invited please let me know if you can see it

You should get a mail from steam

Hello , You have been invited to join the Steam Playtest for Deadlock!

2
Cris16228reply
lemmy.today

Added. When invited please let me know if you can see it

You should get a mail from steam

Hello , You have been invited to join the Steam Playtest for Deadlock!

2
lemmy.world

Thank you so much! Unfortunately I can't see it (yet), didn't realize it was a European playtest so maybe that's why

1
way_of_UwUreply
programming.dev

Woah, this hasn't been on my radar at all. Thanks for being generous and sharing!

If you're still giving out invites, I'd like one as well!

1
programming.dev

friends for over 30 days apparently for everyone here asking for invites

14
lemm.ee

Looking for new friends with benefits. If you know what I mean.

12
lemmy.world

I vow to invite everyone from this thread if I receive an invite myself. https://steamcommunity.com/id/Wilzax/

Edit: added every friend code or profile link I could find under this post. Quick links are single-use so I couldn't add those.

Game invites take an unknown number of hours to reach your account once sent. They seem to go out in waves. Happy gaming everyone!

10

@Wilzax coming through! Got my invite, thank you! Hopefully see you online sometime!

1

Ooooh pick me

edit: to the beautiful soul who sent me the invite, may all of your shits be swift and unable to clog the toilet.

4
lemmy.ca

For the unaware, Deadlock is a 3rd person shooter MOBA. It feels like a mix of Dota and Overwatch/Team Fortress

So like SMITE?

9
simplereply
lemm.ee

Not really, SMITE is a moba that happens to be 3rd person, Deadlock actually plays like a 3rd person shooter that needs proper aiming and headshots and a much faster pace.

10
bionicjoeyreply
lemmy.ca

I see. This is probably a pretty niche reference nowadays, but is it more similar to Monday Night Combat? That was an actual shooter IIRC and had moba mechanics like lanes and creeps.

4

MNC and dota 2 had a baby that's what deadlock is basically

It's about as far away from smite as you can get

Smite is basically third person mobile league of legends overly stream lines and crappy. That and smite 2 is already dead. Hi rez is basically one bad quarter from closing up shop.

2

Good, cause I played the Smite 2 alpha and it was kinda garbage. I literally said out loud "this is like Dota for babies". It didn't even have good FPS mechanics to make up for no depth.

-1

It's actually closer to Battleborn. Like the other commenter said, it's more of a third person shooter with MOBA elements. There's focus on movement (you can dash, double jump, crouch slide, some characters fly), headshots and distance change the damage and melee/parry are just a button, while every character has guns as their man attack means. For the moba elements, it changes a bit since there's 4 lanes and it's a 6x6.

5
lemmy.ml

I'd love to get an invite, too. Thank you very much.

8
archerreply
lemmy.ml

Sorry was sleeping already, send you a new invite

0

Any chance you can invite people? Would be grateful!

1
catloafreply
lemm.ee

I will give you one (1) good vibe in exchange for an invitation

4

Any chance you can invite people? Would be grateful!

1
drphungkyreply
lemmy.world

Then me! I'll do whoever is next in the chain!

Got one over on the reddit thread. Still waiting for it to come through because apparently there's a delay, but I'll invite some folks once it comes in.

1
drphungkyreply
lemmy.world

Sent. Should come through in a couple hours I guess. They're pretty slow.

2

Very much appreciated! I'll send it to the next person in the thread. Is the invite just an item in my Steam inventory? Or something within the game itself?

1
Coelacanthreply
feddit.nu

Sent you a friend invite to be able to send you a playtest invite. Remember to pass it along in the chain.

1
Flubareply
lemdro.id

I'm going to send you a friend invite shortly so I can provide a playtest invite.

2

Woo! It's a fun game. Definitely more my style than Dota.

2
lemm.ee

I'd like to give it a try. Anyone got an invite?

7
fedia.io

Valve keeping up with the trend of "worst kept secrets"

Well it's very intentional I believe. You can invite an unlimited number of friends and there's no NDA or anything, they just casually ask you to not share details about the game since it's still a work in progress and in alpha, despite it looking like mostly finished to be fair. Characters are fully voiced and nothing really screams placeholder content, and most updates are regarding "balancing" and mechanic changes, just trying out what's best.

7

The release notes don't mention it much, but the map detailing and art is getting massive improvements in each update

1

Any chance you can invite anymore? Would be grateful!

1
lemmy.dbzer0.com

Yeah i feel like im late to the train of comments asking for a friend invite to the alpha, but if anyone wants to add me on steam and invite me that would be awesome.

4

Looking for an invite. Will forward to 10 others in this post if it will allow me

4

Understood thanks. Saw a lot of people using the quick links so I thought it was fine.

Updated my link

1

Man I sure do love DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2. I have thousands of hours in these games. This sounds amazing.

3
ooo
lemm.ee

Bit late here, but looking for an invite! Have wanted to try a game like this for a while

3
sh.itjust.works

Oh Valve, knowing threads of people asking for invites will build hype.

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler I am asking for an invite maybe please :::

2
fedia.io

There's quite a lot that can be gleaned from the depots for the game on steamdb: https://steamdb.info/app/1422450/depots/

I don't know if this information is already public but here are a couple of quick inferences I made by looking a the files. I'm not overly familiar with Valve's intellectual properties so I don't recognize any specific characters or franchises.

There's likely a hero named Yamato who has the abilities:

  • Shadow Form
  • Power Stance
  • Infinity Slash
  • Healing Slash
  • Flying Strike

There's a lot more hero information but that's the top one in the depots.

The game might be called "Citadel", or it may have just been called that internally at Valve. The reason I suspect that is because of there appears to be a game folder called "citadel" which appears to be the main game folder.

2

The game was called citadel and was half life themed, they dropped that for neon prime and made it Sci fi, they then dropped that aesthetic changed the name to deadlock and went to a supernatural early to mid 1900s NYC noir aesthetic. A lot of the files still use the citadel name, but it's just leftover and means nothing anymore.

125hrs in the game over the last 6 weeks, it's great.

4
lemmy.world

If someone had a referral that would be great. Had no idea you can refer friends in.

2

Anyone trying to share an invite code? My gratefulness would know no bounds.

2
lemm.ee

I'll post here if anyone feels generous with a key.

2
lemmy.world

Hey buddies! I'm also looking for a friend (sorry guys, if anyone could give me a code/referral I'd be really grateful).

1
Harvey656reply
lemmy.world

Is this some sort of Phishing website? Anyone on a more locked down machine verify?

1
Mojavereply
lemmy.world

Bro it's steam's own link shortener, it's one Google away..

4

Damn, your machine must have been heavily locked down to be able to figure that out!

5

Just another person asking for an invite. I want to invite my brother.

1

Thank you for the invite and holy crap. That game is so much fun. Derailed all my plans for the night.

1

I'm willing to trade cute animal pictures for an invite. Hit me up if you're interested.

1
lemmy.world

My body is ready for an invite in exchange for undying loyalty

1

Would love an invite as well :) Thank you in advance if anyone does decide to give one!

1

Somebody wants to invite me? I can play with you during EU evenings, if you want.

0
  1. I feel like Steam has gotten rid of the invite thingy, because I can clearly see the "Buy Now" button.
  2. I don't have VR 🥲

Nvm, I was looking at the wrong game. Doesn't look even close to a Third Person Shooter. More like an Inside the Person Shooter

-2
SuperIcereply
lemmy.world

It literally has the second most concurrent players of any game on Steam at the moment and still has over half of the concurrent player numbers compared to its peak 8 years ago.

6
djsaskdjareply
reddthat.com

Are there certain markets where it's significantly more popular? I've never met anyone in the US that plays it.

1
drphungkyreply
lemmy.world

Where would we meet you? Outside? I don't go there, I'm too addicted to DOTA.

3
ECBreply
feddit.org

The US was always kind of a dead region for Dota, but it is/was very big in europe (especially Russia), south America, China, southeast Asia

2

Yo be fair a large and I do mean VERY large chunk of those players are in the Chinese custom games. It's not abnormal for like a third or more of the player base of dota 2 at any given time to be playing the custom Chinese games.

Dota 2 is as much a games platform as it is a game it self. Much like warcraft 3 was, or roblox or fortnite is now.

There's been instances where a new update for some of the more popular Chinese custom games can spike the number of people playing. Them to half the entire player base.

It's very very fair to say dota 2 isn't that popular. Cause the game itself isn't... It's custom game modes and gatchas are.

Hell there's one custom game that's literally a mobile gatcha game that i saw pulling over 60k players by itself.

1