Valve (was in the start a gang of modders I think. not sure)
Licensed the Quake I/II engine, remade it and customized it
into what we know as Half-Life.
The famous Counterstrike was a addon made by modders and Valve
worked with them to release it...
The world build tool that Valve use/used was also a 3rd party tool they baught I think.
Valve's been close to the mod community all the time.
Now with Half-Life 2 (not sure if they remade the engine from scratch
or continued on the Half-Life engine.)
They bring the Half-Life tech up to par with current tech.
As Valve said themselfs they aren't really doing anything groundbreaking new, but what they seem to be doing is taking all the cool features from existing games and combining it in a groundbreaking way.
Half-Life 2 has the potential to take the art of Machinima to new heights. (
www.machinima.com )
(Using a game engine/real-time world engine to make movies/animations)
Something I'm geeked at, i've been missing lip/eye/muscle details.
(got a few ideas I'm gonna try when Half-Life 2 is released and the mod tools are released
