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[Stumpokapow]

Open world games in cities with no flying are fairly easy to optimize because buildings naturally occlude distant geometry and reduce rendering complexity.

Linear games are fairly easy to optimize because of line-of-sight occlusion and low required draw distances.

The tough one is rural terrain or flying because it requires you to do aggressive LOD because there's nothing there to cull geometry for you.

 

[Madrugador]

Small change I noticed.

 

[The Cowboy]

Woohoo, just got an email for my free Mafia 2 for the Gamefly 2K promotion (they apply a voucher for it to your Gamefly account) - not bad for 60p..

 

[toddhunter]

Probably the first of many...but here you go!

Just quote this message and paste the quote in the thread:

I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below containing the key.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If you are a lurker you are not eligible for this giveaway. You need five or more posts in either the current Steam thread or the previous one to be eligible
- This giveaway is a LIGHTNING raffle. The winners will be selected by random draw 15 minutes after the draw was created. Any games not claimed after that point will be given away first come first serve.
- This giveaway has a manual blocklist. The giver has identified members who abuse giveaways and restricted them from participating.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:

Mafia 2 -- MB-8099CB33C126231C - Taken by poopninjamvc3mk. 8 entrants total.

 

[poopninjamvc3mk]

Woohoo, just got an email for my free Mafia 2 for the Gamefly 2K promotion (they apply a voucher for it to your Gamefly account) - not bad for 60p..

Really? How long does this last?

 

[Kammie]

So I finally felt in the mood for a Metroidvania and started Aquaria the other night.

Ugh, I'm hating it. 6 hours in, and the only thing I've done is traverse huge empty environments which end in some door or passage I can't yet go through. I've only found one dungeon in all this time. This is just bad design. Things are supposed to open up gradually in this type of game, not this bullshit of huge open maps that have nothing but blocked-off crap.

I'll give it a few more hours, but I'm just disappointed since I was expecting to like it. Art and sound is great, but everything else (including tons of nonsensical design choices) just aren't up to par.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

It boggles the mind so many people misinterpreting the SteamOS announcement. They all see the game streaming part while also somehow completely missing that it's got its own OS and native game support. Though I suppose I shouldn't be that shocked anymore by how few people actually read the OP.

 

[Atraveller]

Yeah, there was like one visually stunning area.... that they just have you walk through. And then a bunch of reused crap and the most horribly designed area in the main game, some netherworld shit.

It's worth noting that unlike a great many of the people in this thread, I actually enjoyed the Skyrim content a lot and I didn't buy the DLC just to write mean things about it here.

I enjoyed Skyrim, for the first 100 hours. Playing through Dawnguard feels like a chore, go here do this, go there do that. I have yet to pick up Dragonborn, probably when it's less than 5 bucks.

 

[The Cowboy]

Really? How long does this last?

Its over (ended a day or 2 back), it was an offer for about a week I think. With certain 2K games you got a free Mafia 2 and 2 of the games where 75p (and there was a discount code to).

 

[Momentary]

So I finally felt in the mood for a Metroidvania and started Aquaria the other night.

Ugh, I'm hating it. 6 hours in, and the only thing I've done is traverse huge empty environments which end in some door or passage I can't yet go through. I've only found one dungeon in all this time. This is just bad design. Things are supposed to open up gradually in this type of game, not this bullshit of huge open maps that have nothing but blocked-off crap.

I'll give it a few more hours, but I'm just disappointed since I was expecting to like it. Art and sound is great, but everything else (including tons of nonsensical design choices) just aren't up to par.

Valdis Story. It's coming to Steam soon.

 

[jshackles]

It boggles the mind so many people misinterpreting the SteamOS announcement. They all see the game streaming part while also somehow completely missing that it's got its own OS and native game support. Though I suppose I shouldn't be that shocked anymore by how few people actually read the OP.

I couldn't agree more. Here are some of the questions I've been asked today:

• It's free? What kind of hardware does it come with?
• It says it streams directly to my TV - do I need a special antenna?
• Do I need a "Smart TV" for this to work?
• Can I use this on my Xbox 360/PS3/PS4/Xbone?

There have been countless others but these were the worst.

 

[MickeyKnox]

What a coincidence that both Android and SteamOS use a Linux distro...What a coincidence...

People are so short sighted with this shit it blows my mind. They are even short sighted in the short term, let alone the big picture. TheD, this frustration isn't directed at you by the way.

Not that I have anything against Linux hell I'm all for a viable alternative to Windows for gaming but that fucking graph is malarkey . Who in the hell thinks they can get away with labeling that Y axis.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Not that I have anything against Linux hell I'm all for a viable alternative to Windows for gaming but that fucking graph is malarkey . Who in the hell thinks they can get away with labeling that Y axis.

Where the hell did you people go to school?

 

[poopninjamvc3mk]

Its over (ended a day or 2 back), it was an offer for about a week I think. With certain 2K games you got a free Mafia 2 and 2 of the games where 75p (and there was a discount code to).

Damn. Would've been on it

Probably the first of many...but here you go!

Appreciate the Mafia 2 . Been wanting to play this game forever.

 

[Grief.exe]

Not that I have anything against Linux hell I'm all for a viable alternative to Windows for gaming but that fucking graph is malarkey . Who in the hell thinks they can get away with labeling that Y axis.

Dat y

 

[Kifimbo]

Not that I have anything against Linux hell I'm all for a viable alternative to Windows for gaming but that fucking graph is malarkey . Who in the hell thinks they can get away with labeling that Y axis.

The important part is: gaming of Linux grew more than 150% in two months.

 

[Chance Hale]

Who is the guy who made the GTA V tweet?

 

[maneil99]

Can we do CSGO weapon Modbots?

 

[jediyoshi]

Who is the guy who made the GTA V tweet?

Just a tech writer that did a writeup. The actual source was a reddit post
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1my5e5/remember_the_gta_v_xml_file_from_the_xbox_360/

 

[AsylumX]

The important part is: gaming of Linux grew more than 150% in two months.

You can't measure growth like that. While their share grew, maybe the market shrink and there are fewer users in total. Maybe they all grew. Maybe the market has the same size and there was a transfer between OSs. There are a lot of variables that can be shown in a simple percentage chart...

 

[Kifimbo]

You can't measure growth like that. While their share grew, maybe the market shrink and there are fewer users in total. Maybe they all grew. Maybe the market has the same size and there was a transfer between OSs. There are a lot of variables that can be shown in a simple percentage chart...

True. But we know (without really knowing, no definitive numbers) the market grew. My guess is all three OS grew, but Linux grew much quicker.

 

[SteveWinwood]

You can't measure growth like that. While their share grew, maybe the market shrink and there are fewer users in total. Maybe they all grew. Maybe the market has the same size and there was a transfer between OSs. There are a lot of variables that can be shown in a simple percentage chart...

youre saying you cant gets lots of complicated information out of one simple graph?

good to know

 

[drizzle]

Uh-oh, Dawnguard update was pulled. Probably a mistake indeed.

Funny that the dawnguard quest presented itself to me. I quickly made a different save. I wonder what will happen now when the thing is pulled.

Edit: huh, interesting. I no longer have the DLC on Steam, but the Dawnguard content is still in my game, even after I verified the Skyrim content.

I guess the people that got it, got it?

 

[Stumpokapow]

So despite me maybe being critical of some of the bonehead assumptions in the other thread and here, I do think Valve is going about this announcement the wrong way. I get that they want to avoid a big event, but were I Valve I'd have led with the hardware announcement. The same day as the announcement I'd have interviews going live with a series of major gaming sites. There are a lot of people questions have that they wouldn't have if Valve had done the announcement in a more logical way.

It'll all get sorted out over a longer period of time so to some extent it's just a matter of shutting the hell up and not wasting your time correcting people until Valve releases more information.

Like, they could have led with:
We are producing a series of Steambox hardware. It's targeted at people who feel that PC gaming offers too many barriers. The cheapest model will be a set-top streaming box--you'll still need a PC capable of running the game you want, but it can be be plugged in anywhere in your house. It'll stream to your SteamBox, which uses the Big Picture interface and a controller. It's running off Linux. It'll be priced around $100. We think this is going to expand our audience bigtime. The streaming is very low latency.

Then a few days later say:
We're also going to produce higher end Steamboxes capable of playing lots of games directly, these are more like replacements for home theatre PCs and geared towards bigtime gamers. They'll still be able to stream, but over time as more games are supported natively they'll have less streaming to do. And in addition to the hardware we're producing, we're going to work with OEMs who will provide a variety of hardware options.

Then a few days later go with:
Like we said, our hardware is running off Linux. We use a special version of Linux we're calling SteamOS. It has a lot of driver enhancements. And obviously, since it's Linux you'll be able to modify anything. We really think this OS is going to be viable going forward in the future, so we've worked with some AAA publishers to make sure more of their games support Linux. You can even run SteamOS on your computer today. It's free to download and use.

And we'll also be adding in video and audio support with some great content providers so that SteamOS is able to handle the multimedia stuff you like too.


I mean obviously to some extent I'm jumping the gun by predicting what they're going to say, but I think this order makes more sense. No one should be saying "What's the point of me using this?" because for most of those people there is no point for them using it. But if it was introduced in a way that it was made clear who it is for and why it exists, there'd be fewer questions.

 

[neoemonk]

I am giving away 2 Steam keys. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below that corresponds to the key you want (if you include more than one game, you will be blocked from entering).

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:

FTL -- MB-94FE9A843D886E90 - Taken by Gez
LIMBO -- MB-F7659ADD29DC218B - Taken by xBlain

These are left over from the last Humble Bundle. Hope they find a good home. I've played a ton of FTL, still haven't played LIMBO

 

[drizzle]

Like, they could have led with:
We are producing a series of Steambox hardware. It's targeted at people who feel that PC gaming offers too many barriers. The cheapest model will be a set-top streaming box--you'll still need a PC capable of running the game you want, but it can be be plugged in anywhere in your house. It'll stream to your SteamBox, which uses the Big Picture interface and a controller. It's running off Linux. It'll be priced around $100. We think this is going to expand our audience bigtime. The streaming is very low latency.

But what if there's no 100 dollar box?

As you said, we don't really know what else they're announcing.

 

[r3n4ud]

But what if there's no 100 dollar box?

As you said, we don't really know what else they're announcing.

Really hope a streaming box is in the works...

 

[Momentary]

These Negative Nancys are going to be singning a different tune come Friday. Valve wouldn't be getting people salivating like this unless they had their ducks in a row.

 

[Stumpokapow]

But what if there's no 100 dollar box?

As you said, we don't really know what else they're announcing.

But it's moot what they actually announce, you know. Starting with the hardware would allow them to emphasize the audience for the intended boxes, emphasize that it's for people that don't use Steam today rather than the people who do, emphasize the true value of streaming (rather than people thinking "why would I want to Stream my games when I could just play them?"). When you announce the OS before the hardware, no one really understands why the OS has the features it does.

Again, fretting about this stuff is sort of silly given that it's a long game and months from now the whole picture will be clear, but insofar as there are better or worse ways to unveil stuff, I guess it's OK to give feedback on it.

 

[AsylumX]

youre saying you cant gets lots of complicated information out of one simple graph?

good to know

It's always good to know, even how to be ironic...

 

[koolaroo]

I'm kinda hoping it won't be any sort of steam-box for me at least it has no appeal.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm guessing it'll be a partially closed system, with the parts that Valve can claim full ownership over being closed with the rest being open like the other Linux distros. I doubt Richard Stallman will approve of SteamOS

They can run closed-source software on it, but if Valve is modifying GPL or LGPL stuff and distributing it, they legally CANNOT avoid making it open-source themselves. At least, not without potentially doing a legal fight to try to set some sort of precedent, and I don't think Valve wants or needs to do that.

Having the operating system open-source and customizable would only really help Valve I would think, kind of like PC games being moddable or customizable extends their lifetime and player interest (StarCraft, WarCraft/DOTA, TF2, Minecraft, etc.). Most people might not want to tweak stuff in the OS but it wouldn't hurt to let advanced users do it if they want to.


Also, I'm guessing tomorrow is the hardware talk about the different versions of Steam boxes, and Wednesday is some sort of network functionality talk, possibly just more about family sharing/streaming.

 

[jediyoshi]

So glad MN9, Hyper Light Drifter, and now Shantae got funded. Next year (hopefully)/2015 got a whole lot cooler.

 

[Grief.exe]

I'm kinda hoping it won't be any sort of steam-box for me at least it has no appeal.

The Steam power user isn't the target market for these announcements.

The OS, controller, and streaming box will interest us, but they are looking to pull in new users.

So glad MN9, Hyper Light Drifter, and now Shantae got funded. Next year (hopefully)/2015 got a whole lot cooler.

Star Citizen already has that shit handled.

I'm actually hyped for AAA in 2014, haven't been for a long time. Dark Souls II, Titanfall, MGSV, GTAV, Destiny, assuming they all have PC ports. Going to be a good year.

 

[Gvaz]

Yay Underrail is finally on steam!!

Except we wont get our steam keys from groupees until at least tomorrow :|

 

[neoemonk]

If the streaming works well I might not need a PS4 next gen. The timing on this announcement is very interesting.

 

[toddhunter]

If the streaming works well I might not need a PS4 next gen. The timing on this announcement is very interesting.

I don't think it ever really did. You never needed a PS4...except for playing PS4 games where it will still be the only option.

---

As for the announcement, I'm going to look very silly soon I'm sure, but I'm still not convinced there actually will be any hardware hence how they are revealing this makes more sense.

I think they'll stick to the OS and games and included games and services now, with the last piece of the puzzle being some sort of "greenlight" process for things to be included in the distro. Valve might release recommended specs...but I don't think they'll ever build and support a "box".

 

[koolaroo]

For me it would be ideal if announcement two is the hardware and then three is the next source engine and one game to showcase it but that is probably too optimistic
Edit: never mind dreams have been squelched

 

[Joe Molotov]

Yay Underrail is finally on steam!!

Except we wont get our steam keys from groupees until at least tomorrow :|

It's Groupees, so it'll probably be like a week from now.

 

[Grief.exe]

For me it would be ideal if announcement two is the hardware and then three is the next source engine and one game to showcase it but that is probably too optimistic

No game announcement this week.

Via Valve employee on Twitter.

 

[D3RANG3D]

It's Groupees, so it'll probably be like a week from now.

Aw yiss!

 

[kurahador]

But what if there's no 100 dollar box?

As you said, we don't really know what else they're announcing.

Unless SteamOS can be modded into a tv OS, I don't see how there won't be a box.

 

[Joe Molotov]

No game announcement this week.

Via Valve employee on Twitter.

Oh, that's what they'd like you to believe!

 

[Momentary]

For me it would be ideal if announcement two is the hardware and then three is the next source engine and one game to showcase it but that is probably too optimistic
Edit: never mind dreams have been squelched

Announcement 2 should be the box and 3 should be the new engine PLUS never before announced ports or exclusives from their partners.

 

[Joe Molotov]

PLUS never before announced ports or exclusives from their partners.

Halo 3, Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3, and Black Ops 3.

 

[Syphon Filter]

Oh, that's what they'd like you to believe!

I rather it not be games related.

 

[RionaaM]

I know this isn't Steam related, but... WTF is Battlelog supposed to be? Who thought having to go through a browser to launch Battlefield 3 was a good idea? And I had to install a plugin to make that work, that's so stupid.

Not to mention that whenever I want to change servers, I'm forced to exit the game, choose it on the browser and wait until it opens again. Ridiculous.


Steam related: Tomb Raider is still pretty good. This is one of the very few games I've played where I want to completely 100% it.

 

[Derrick01]

These Negative Nancys are going to be singning a different tune come Friday. Valve wouldn't be getting people salivating like this unless they had their ducks in a row.

This was probably the biggest announcement as far as ideas goes. Aren't we expecting the others to be the controller and the actual device, or one of the devices? That doesn't seem very exciting.

 

[scorpscarx]

This was probably the biggest announcement as far as ideas goes. Aren't we expecting the others to be the controller and the actual device, or one of the devices? That doesn't seem very exciting.

I think they pretty much have to release some hardware now because I'm pretty sure this OS business is nothing but confusing for the majority of people who actually might use it to stream games.

I was thinking about it today some and it's only a good thing, they augmented the Steam experience, this will hopefully catch on and get more people interested in building PC's.

 

[rainking187]

Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to Manage Chaos is unlocking on Steam in two days. It was in the Groupees Doujin bundle.