Portal 2's 'Perpetual Testing Initiative' Launching May 8

Just started it up again yesterday. Man ... its pretty offing awesome.

IT'S HERE AND IT'S AMAZING

More Portal is always a good thing. It's like there is NO downside!

Why is this not coming to PS3? Surely the whole point of steamworks on PS3 was so Valve could push this content to there

I predict many Wheatley-quality levels.

In other words, fantastic puzzles.

This add-on will be awesome! When they release the map maker, I will be the first one to download it hahahaha! :D

sweet! mac support not being left in the dust is never a bad thing. wait....yeah...

I can't wait to play 1-1 in Portal 2.

I can see the content creator not making it to consoles, but with a patch they should be able to let consoles (at least the ps3) download and play user made levels LittleBigPlanet style, or at least i hope so.

All over it like a rash!

@Homelessbird said:

This sounds like a great idea!

Only one question: why the fuck didn't this happen with the release of Portal 2?

This seems like, literally, the most obvious thing to add to a sequel after Portal 1, since pretty much the only thing that game could be said to be missing is MORE CONTENT.

So why did they wait until people aren't really thinking about Portal anymore?

To get people back into it.

Finally! Can't wait!

Always Be Testing!

Fantastic. I will definitely create some levels, which will no doubt be crappy and filled with easy shortcuts. But I look forward to good levels designed by other people.

Bummer there's no news about console support. I'd like to play some of the user-generated stuff.

This is going to be interesting. Valve already lampooned shit fan-made levels in the main game when Wheatley made his own chambers, complete with "made by Wheatley" printed in textures on the side of the chamber. So either everyone will look at it and say, "okay, that's how not to do it! Thanks Valve!" Or they'll say "if it's good enough for Wheatley"...

...also worth pointing out the SDK has been out for a long time and user-made maps have been circulating for a long time (Valve even sponsored a competition for making fan-made maps at one point!), this will only make distribution easier for everybody, and making maps easier for those idiots who can't navigate the SDK. ...I mean Source SDK is sooo user friendly and totally not cumbersome or dated at all!

(Oh, Valve should release a similar editor for Alien Swarm while they're at it because the Source SDK is cumbersome and dated)

That editor is amazing.

I think Portal 2 is [Redacted] a great game and [Redacted] I'm [Redacted] looking forward [Redacted] to more testing.

I suppose this could be interesting, even though people have been releasing their own maps since the game came out.

Whatever, I might even reinstall Portal to give it a try.

Okay this sounds like a lot of fun both to play and to make! :)

No consoles? I am disappoint

More Portal 2? Yes please!

I cant wait!

Not gonna be made available for consoles? So this is barely news, then...

Cool. Looking forward to stressing myself out on some fanmade puzzles.

Looking forward to this.

fantastic. Can't wait for this!

Damn. So no new levels on PS3. I was happy when I saw the headline, sad when I read the rest.

@Goldanas: While that's an interesting thought, the article did say that custom maps would be downloadable through Steam Workshop. Unless that's making its way onto PS3 Steam as well, I don't know...

This sounds like a great idea!

Only one question: why the fuck didn't this happen with the release of Portal 2?

This seems like, literally, the most obvious thing to add to a sequel after Portal 1, since pretty much the only thing that game could be said to be missing is MORE CONTENT.

So why did they wait until people aren't really thinking about Portal anymore?

If anyone has the urge to play custom Portal 2 maps, check out http://www.thinkingwithportals.com/

I hope there is a good level selector for the user maps. Especially ones made with Hammer and not the WYSIWYG editor.

Wow, an actual headline. On topic: looking forward to getting back into Portal 2 with this.

Why'd it come out so late after the release of Portal 2? Seems odd to me.

Can't wait for this! More Portal is always good and more co-op levels is even better :)

That's fantastic! 
 
Edit: Oh, too bad it probably won't come to consoles... I missed that part.

But... there are already tools to make puzzles and a TON of user-made puzzles. I don't think the bottleneck here was the lack of a super-easy editor. Slightly more difficult tools generally just weeds out the wheat from the chaff.

@mewarmo990: Yeah I'm under a similar impression as well. It's possible that Valve were feeling lucky and tried squeezing in their 'Robot Enrichment Center' feature which might have soured Sony, so they scrapped the whole deal...

They least they could do is clarify the situation, I mean what is the point of Steam on PS3 if they couldn't perpetuate it's necessity?

The usermade puzzles will probably have some super hard stuff. Given my skill level at games, this sounds very appealing.

@mewarmo990: Maybe they won't include the editing tools, but will provide access to the user-created content, similar to how Sony let Epic do the same thing with Unreal Tournament III.

@MEATBALL said:

I just wanted to say that making a joke about people making cake-related jokes and how terrible it is is probably as bad as making a cake-related joke in and of itself.

Yup.

It's the same thing you criticize developers for when they have a joke in the game about how bad a particular game mechanic is.

I just wanted to say that making a joke about people making cake-related jokes and how terrible it is is probably as bad as making a cake-related joke in and of itself. Still love what you do, though.

So no cross-platform play for any potential user created co-op chambers? Huh.

I'll just drop these here then...

“With the release of the first Portal 2 DLC people will really see the value of Sony allowing Steam to be released on their system,” Newell said.

“I think you’ll see us pushing very hard in increasing the overall play value of Portal 2...”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/38486/Valve-We-need-to-reward-Sony-for-opening-PS3

Great stuff on Valve's part but it's a real shame this won't be available on consoles.

So no cross-platform play for any potential user created co-op chambers? Huh.

I'll just drop these here then...

“With the release of the first Portal 2 DLC people will really see the value of Sony allowing Steam to be released on their system,” Newell said.

“I think you’ll see us pushing very hard in increasing the overall play value of Portal 2...”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/38486/Valve-We-need-to-reward-Sony-for-opening-PS3

Considering their history? Can we make an exception since the only dlc to come out for Portal 2 made it to consoles.

Hell yeah, this sounds awesome, free DLC is always nice these days.

MOARRR SCIENCE!!

I downloaded nearly 100 mods for Skyrim from the workshop which I would never had done without it. It improved my experience with Skyrim several fold. Can't wait to download levels for Portal 2!

Cool. I was hoping for more co-op DLC, but maybe that'll come soon!