The Leaked Video spoken of previously in the news is on IGN.com

There are also several new gameplay movies similar to the trailer. In some strange coincidence, new trailers of both TeamFortess 2 and Portal have also been "leaked". They can be found at the same location as the EP2 videos.

Be Warned: The clips of Episode 2 are somewhat spoiling to the games new features. Check it all out here.

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

• Counter-Strike: Source
• The radar display has been enhanced
• de_train has received a High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting treatment, as well as some bug fixes and layout tweaks
• The player's eye height while crouching now matches their in-game player model eye position more closely
• SourceTV now shows the weapon in first-person view
• SourceTV supports the tv_transmitall command
• Assorted exploit fixes

A new version of ogsWatcher (v1.0.7) is now available for download, Get the new version here.

ogsWatcher is a Windows service which provides the means to declaratively configure multiple Source and HLDS game instances (DOD:S, CSS, DOD, CS 1.6 etc.) and to automatically run those games servers as either background or foreground tasks. Key features include:

• highly reliable crash protection
• support for both the SRCDS and HLDS engines
• easy configuration via an XML config file
• many configurable settings
• runs as a true Windows service
• automatic start and recovery capabilities
• embedded high precision timer to enable higher server FPS
• srcds tasks can be run in foreground or background
• automatically restarts failed servers
• graceful shutdown closes log files correctly
• detailed documentation

I am not going to say what this video is about, but I'll tell you that you won't regret downloading this 12 MB WMV. This video was supposedly "leaked" from Valve, but I suspect that Valve employee intentionally sneaked it to the European gaming site so that gaming fans will distribute this video without Valve having to waste their own resources in the distribution process.

How clever of them! Enjoy.

If you get a STEAM ID validation error when you try to connect to a server, you may need to re-login to your Steam account. This problem surfaced for many servers after the most recent Steam client update.

To reset your Steam account, select "Settings" from the Steam menu and click on "Log in as a different user..." Confirm logging out, and log back in with the same login name and password (your existing Steam account).

This fixed the issue for me without having to delete system files.

A fairly large update has been released for Day of Defeat and SourceTV. This update contains enhancements and bugs fixes for both DOD: Source and SourceTV. Restart Steam for the updates.

• Day of Defeat: Source
• Improved hitbox detection for player body parts that extend outside of the bounding box
• Fixed players being able to capture areas from farther away than intended
• Fixed an exploit where player could plant the bomb and switch teams, causing the bomb to explode and give the point ownership to the wrong team
• Fixed bell sound playing on knife impacts
• Fixed players switching to the tnt view model if they picked it up while a smoke grenade was deployed
• Fixed several map exploits
• Fixed minimap cap areas showing the number of players present even if those players were on the owning team
• Fixed a case where user could crash the server with a client command
• Fixed a case where dod_Jagd would not respond to mp_timelimit changelevels
• Fixed an exploit that could be used to throw grenades farther than intended
• Fixed logging events kill_planter and kill_defuser showing incorrect data
• Fixed several cvars not being saved in the config ( death effects options, hud_centerid )
• Fixed animation issue where player would not have an animation if they expended all ammo
• Fixed issue where a player would be stuck on spawn if they were defusing when the round restarted

Soon, we'll be releasing the first in a series of updates to Counter-Strike: Source which will be focused on moving the core Counter-Strike gameplay forward.

The first update will include an updated version of the map Train, which will feature an HDR lighting pass, some minor layout changes, and a number of small bugfixes.



The second facet of this release will be a completely reworked radar system. There will be a significant change to the aesthetics of the radar, but there are also some fairly significant gameplay ramifications to the new system. One example: when you look directly at an enemy for a long enough time for their name to appear on your screen, everyone on your team will be able to see that enemy in the radar. We're planning on releasing this first update in about two weeks.

After Valve updated the SDK for Episode One content, many functions of the SDK stopped working. Hopefully this update fixed all the problems:

• Source SDK
• Fixed compilation issues for Linux dedicated server in SDK
• Removed 3D Lighting Preview menu choice from Hammer
• Fixed SDK Launcher bugs when performing outdated MOD check
• SDK Wizard now creates 'maps' directory underneath the new mod directory. This prevents a map compilation error
• The 'cs_milita.vmf' distributed with was loading in a bad state if the grid is set to be displayed at startup. New version has grid off

The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) launched today the Championship Finals website at http://www.TheCPL.com/finals/.
The CPL 2006 Championship Finals, taking place Wednesday, December 13 to Sunday, December 17, 2006 at the landmark Hyatt Regency hotel in Dallas, is primarily sponsored by AMD and ATI, and co-sponsored by Pizza Hut, BenQ, Plantronics, Razer and Insomnia365. The event will host two PC tournaments for Counter-Strike 1.6 and Quake 3, and offer $150,000 in cash prizes.

The new website has detailed information on hotel reservation discounts, travel discounts, ground transportation discounts, tournament prizes & rules, etc.

Competitor registration for the CPL 2006 Championship Finals will open Thursday, August 10th @ 1pm central on a first-come first-served basis, and the admission fee is $30.00 per person.

The "BYOC-only" registration will open a week later, on Thursday, August 17th, 2006 @ 1pm central. Other registration types will open at a later date.

New updates for the Source SDK have been released. Included in this update are major features and fixes for the tools in the Source SDK. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

• Major New Features
• Half-Life 2: Episode One enhancements
• NPC behavior enhancements
• New Tool application called 'Source SDK Base'
  • Uses the latest shipping version of the Source Engine (HL2: Episode One)
  • This content will be updated whenever a new version of the Source Engine ships
  • Mod makers should always use its SteamAppId (215) in their single player and multi-player mods
• Many other improvements and bug fixes