The friend locator and instant messaging system that never quite worked on Steam is finally coming back next week. It's been completely unavailable for months now, with no purpose but the butt of many jokes at Valve's expense.

According to the weekly Valve update:

The Friends system is also nearing the end of its beta phase, and will soon be available to everyone running Steam. [...] There are also a number of additional features we'll be adding to it over time. Early next week, we'll be updating Steam with a convenient way to join the Friends beta.

Sweet! Also news worthy is that high dynamic range lighting is being added to some older Counter-Strike: Source maps, including the classic de_dust.

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