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STEAM announcements & updates 2013 II - ITT we buy $1 games and complain about them

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Grief.exe

Member
It could be a driver issue, and I will have to wait until CoH2 launch to see what the true potential is.

Because if I can get 70+ fps maxed out on a 64 man server with maxed AA and everything on Battlefield 3, and I can't even average that in this game, which is ugly to boot, something is wrong.

Not to mention I can't find a game. So in Company of Heroes fashion, their matchmaking is still broken. I couldn't even play multiplayer in CoH1 because of intense lag or not being able to connect, even with open ports.

BETA

I don't own the game but I can't imagine you being limited with that system, so I'll have to defer to other people with CoH 2 and nVidia cards. :/

*edit* I was wanting to get an nVidia card so I could finally use the wonders of PhysX and SGSSAA and so forth, but that's kind of disheartening news. :p Normally I thought nVidia works pretty closely with game devs.

Game isn't out yet and Nvidia doesn't seem to be focusing driver updates on it yet.
 

jediyoshi

Member
as a sidenote I really dont like the new profiles either. I don't like how having the last games you've played on top of comments/etc is supposedly an improvement over constantly having them on the bar on the right, occupying less space, stuff like that. It's super big, super ugly.. old one was way better.

Original was way dumb seeing as how recently played took up both a section on the main column alongside the side bar just making it repetitive info. Refocusing more game oriented info to the forefront over comments makes sense from what I've seen. Comments sections are usually dead on even my most active friends' pages. Since Groups are such a static, constant thing on profile pages it makes sense to push them over to the side bar as well. Functionally my only issue is that it's 3 recently played games as opposed to 5, but that's pretty minor.
 
Redeemed Cave Story+! Thanks!

I know it's not the take one/leave one thread, but there may be a key for Double Fine Prototypes hidden in this post. Just sayin'. You don't even have to offer Dear Esther if you take it.


Took the bundle, thanks. There might be a code for Intrusion 2 in this post.
 
Original was way dumb seeing as how recently played took up both a section on the main column alongside the side bar just making it repetitive info. Refocusing more game oriented info to the forefront over comments makes sense from what I've seen. Comments sections are usually dead on even my most active friends' pages. Since Groups are such a static, constant thing on profile pages it makes sense to push them over to the side bar as well. Functionally my only issue is that it's 3 recently played games as opposed to 5, but that's pretty minor.
Maybe I was more used to it but I found the old profiles conveyed the info better.
 

xelios

Universal Access can be found under System Preferences
I'm glad they reduced the number of recent games shown, it felt a bit too long before. Feels just the right length now to reach the comments.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
it's all minor but im just ocassionally commenting on it cause it's like the first move Steam has made that I dont like, really.

But what about the move where Steam got added all those strict publisher rules that made EA upset for very legit reasons? You liked that Steam move?
 

Blizzard

Banned
As abstract puzzle games go, I think English Country Tune is pretty decent. It felt mind-expanding in an odd way, as if after you felt it become easier, each new world or mechanic would make you go wait, now I have to think about THAT?

But above all I perhaps remember it for a quote from a New Yorker review: "Who knew, it seems to ask, that your mind could be at home in such strange places?"
 

Exeunt

Member
Took the bundle, thanks.

No problem—enjoy!


On a different note, I'm kind of looking forward to when the trading card system goes public, since the system would allow me to make a bit of money back from finally playing Portal 2... Does that make me a bad person?
 

KarmaCow

Member
I'd take one if you're offering! I'll probably still be playing Morrowind for another week or two though.

Is it bad to play Portal 2 before the first?

You have probably absorbed most of the stuff you need to know about Glados and Aperture through osmosis if you've been around since Portal 1 came out.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
EA's faux dummy spit was so transparent.

"We don't want to have to sell DLC for our Steam games via the Steam Store!"
*pulls games that the policy doesn't apply to*

I'm not sure who it was trying to fool.
 

Exeunt

Member
You have probably absorbed most of the stuff you need to know about Glados and Aperture through osmosis if you've been around since Portal 1 came out.

I also just did a little Googling and it looks like Portal's a really short game. Might not be worth it to wait for cards anyway.

EDIT: And thanks to rainking, I am officially in trading card land. Looks like some Portal marathons are in order in the semi-near future!
 

Salsa

Member
EA's faux dummy spit was so transparent.

"We don't want to have to sell DLC for our Steam games via the Steam Store!"
*pulls games that the policy doesn't apply to*

I'm not sure who it was trying to fool.

it was weird in general, I didnt really agree with what either was allegedly trying to do

not a big loss since EA has been pretty much putting out garbage ever since Origin released
 

Ezalc

Member
Well, since I feel kinda bad for this, I bought another bundle so I could give you hotline miami


Also had the other games to gift, so quote me so I could send the respective keys of the game that you want

Thomas Was Alone
AwesomeNauts
Intrusion 2
Proteus
Little Inferno
Dear Esther
Capsized
Tiny and Big in Granpda's Leftovers
English Country Tune
Oil Rush

Are you still giving out Proteus? I have a few keys from the Groupees bundle if you'd want to trade.
 

crozier

Member
Haven't played any of the Dungeon Siege games. I know they're cheap but still, which ones are recommended?
I can't speak for all of them, but 3 isn't bad so far. Nice graphics, lots of class choices, strong writing for this genre....NOBODY playing MP, though. Hopefully tomorrow or this weekend at the latest.
 

Milamber

Member
I am level 10 and have yet to receieve a foil :( I've done about 4-5 games over the last few weeks and not even one foil.

I guess you have to go the distance for getting foils now. Is your steam level all that matters? Really, atm the trading card beta is just a Fool's Game. There is no hurry to get a foil as this will last 'Til the End of Forever.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
it was weird in general, I didnt really agree with what either was allegedly trying to do

not a big loss since EA has been pretty much putting out garbage ever since Origin released

Steam is missing The Saboteur, though. :( I have it on Origin, of course, but it's the one EA game I actually want to see on Steam.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Just add it as a non-steam game.

It's not that I want to launch it through Steam, but rather that I want to have the game itself on Steam. I like to keep my library as centralised as possible and seeing as I have my two other Origin games on Steam already (Alice and Crysis 2), if The Saboteur popped up on the store one day I'd have no need for Origin and thus one less auxiliary client.
 

Grief.exe

Member
I wish Battlefield games would come back to Steam.

Bad Company 2 is still my 2nd most played game, after DOTA 2. Battlefield 3 would actually be my top game.

All the guys I played football with in College play BF3.
 

cicero

Member
what's more; it's ruining the "importance" some people gave to the gameplay trime tracking since everyone's just idling like crazy people

yeah I still dont hate this any less
haha. Come on now, salsa. Caring about gameplay time tracking over the ability to idle for an hour or two for cards that you can sell for credit to buy more games? I think I have made at least $20-25+ off of selling cards and invites so far, no foils, and I have several more cards still waiting to be bought. As for me, I want more games, not pointless gameplay time tracking integrity.
 

Salsa

Member
haha. Come on now, salsa. Caring about gameplay time tracking over the ability to idle for an hour or two for cards that you can sell for credit to buy more games? I think I have made at least $20-25+ off of selling cards and invites so far, no foils, and I have several more cards still waiting to be bought. As for me, I want more games, not pointless gameplay time tracking integrity.

I dont mind the commercialization, I just wish that if the cards have to exists then they would be tied to achievements instead of gameplay time

this would probably make them more expensive too

I know the cheevos are easily fakeable but Valve have shut some of that down before, and it's not like faking gameplay time by idling isnt basically cheating too
 

cicero

Member
Really Big Sky is an awful twin stick shooter but I just got a Dinosaur card so now I'm torn.

I almost kept my Dinosaur card just because of the description.

Rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr,
rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr,
rawr rawr rawr rawr BOOM.


Steam is missing The Saboteur, though. :( I have it on Origin, of course, but it's the one EA game I actually want to see on Steam.
I am tired of not having the time trials DLC for Mirror's Edge on Steam. I am still trying to get my old pre-Origin Steam version of Mirror's Edge activated on Origin so I can finally play the Origin DLC I bought on Amazon. That I actually have this problem after having paid for my copy of the base game and DLC is quite annoying. Pirating it would have been far easier.

EDIT: This is a traitorous thing to mention in this thread, of all places, but anyone interested in the only option to play the DLC now, Gamestop currently has a $5.99 sale on the Origin Mirror's Edge Bundle HERE.
 

cicero

Member
I dont mind the commercialization, I just wish that if the cards have to exists then they would be tied to achievements instead of gameplay time

this would probably make them more expensive too

I know the cheevos are easily fakeable but Valve have shut some of that down before, and it's not like faking gameplay time by idling isnt basically cheating too
Actually, I like this solution. Like having the good old summer camp achievements, but neverending.

Now Valve needs to add special rare random hats for their games for every ten levels you achieve.
 

Milamber

Member
Geez, I may have to start caring about Origin account if I wanna play them. Now where the heck can I find my old user/pass? I'm pretty sure I made one for that EA play thing in Hot Pursuit. That turns to an Origin account, right?
 

jediyoshi

Member
Maybe I was more used to it but I found the old profiles conveyed the info better.

Depends on what you're looking for. The old profiles' main focus was the comments, which from what I've seen in most cases are pretty dead all around for people. Below that were Groups, which are something that people don't typically, actively go about changing and updating as far as what's displayed.

The first things on the side bar is just a big link dump of user actions, most of which are totally repetitive and have your eyes glaze over immediately as a result. 'Send a message' is surpassed by sending them an offline IM now. 'Games' is a repeat of the all games link under Gameplay Stats. 'Groups' is a repeat of the groups link that already takes a main section.

The gameplay stats, which were pushed off to the side originally, give a better idea as to what the user is currently up to and sensibly now moved to the forefront. Profile comments, which are probably the most unique functional things the profile pages offer, still are on the main column but just get moved down. And now all the repeated stuff was consolidated and pushed up saving the vertical scrolling needed.
 
So since I'm an engineer, I obsessively did more experiments.


  • Tried disabling adapter in Network Connections, same problem
  • Tried overwriting winui.gcf with an old version from a backup hard drive, same problem
  • Tried copying a winui.gcf from a different backup directory, same problem
  • HOWEVER, note that in the second directory mentioned above, I have an old version of Steam.exe, which DOES bring up the window with the button to start in offline mode. But, clicking the button to start in offline mode just brings up another error window saying that the it cannot connect to the Steam network.
  • Tried running Steam.exe from a backup Steam folder on an external hard disk...SUCCESS! Got the window with the offline mode button, and it worked, got to the games list, launched Team Fortress 2 and Mirror's Edge to make sure it worked, which it did.
  • Tried copying winui.gcf from the working offline steamapps folder to the broken one...same problem.
  • Tried copying AppUpdateStats.blob and ClientRegistry.blob from the working offline folder...same problem.
  • Replaced Steam\userdata directory with one from working offline directory...same problem
  • Replaced Steam\steam with one from working offline directory...same problem
  • Tried running Steam.exe as administrator...same problem
  • Replaced Steam\appcache with one from working offline directory...same problem
  • Replaced top-level files in Steam\config with ones from working directory...same problem
  • Deleted steamapps\appmanifest_440.acf (was modified recently)
  • Copied everything top-level from the working Steam offline directory, as well as the entire bin folder. Once I did this, Steam gave me the offline button, and it brought up a game list, but it seemed weird, showed a red message from Steam support alert at the top, and only showed two games installed.
  • At this point I tried deleting ClientRegistry.blob and AppUpdateStats.blob and launched Steam.exe again...and got back to my original problem, the popup I posted earlier.
  • Copied old ClientRegistry.blob and AppUpdateStats.blob back again, got to glitchy games list again.
  • Tried ONLY deleting ClientRegistry.blob and restarting Steam.exe...same problem. Had to get old blob again.
  • At this point, just out of curiosity, I tried my old external hard drive Steam.exe running off of the external. It STILL worked and brought up the good games list, not a glitchy one.
  • Copied the modern-day Steam.exe back, tried deleting the bin directory and everything but Steam.exe,
    and ran Steam.exe. It recreated things, but brought up the original popup error I had earlier today.
  • After this I gave up and reenabled the network connection, restoring my various modern-day backups to the Steam folder, noting in the process that Steam had forgotten the password, so I had to do the Steam guard support email thing to get back in.


Conclusion of all of the above:
  • An old Steam install directory from 2010 on an external hard drive still works in offline mode, which is nice.
  • Unfortunately, enough has apparently changed since then that I do not know ANY way to recover Steam if you get in this situation now. However, I will try backing up winui.gcf, ClientRegistry.blob, and AppUpdateStats.blog from the Steam directory with working modern-day offline mode running in case this happens to me again so I can experiment further.


VALLLLLLLLVE
Try this:
Always Force Offline Mode
Forcing Offline Mode will make Steam to always open in Offline Mode, even with a working internet connection. A prompt will appear and the options Retry and Offline Mode will show up. Retry will simply restart Steam and cause the same menu options to come up, whereas Offline Mode will take one into the Steam game library.
This step still requires the authentication to be carried out.
Create or edit the steam.cfg in this folder (the same folder as the steam.exe):
C:\Program Files\Steam\
Enter the following and save:
Code:
BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
ForceOfflineMode=enable
This file always worked for me and I am still using it on both my netbooks.
 
The best thing about origin is that can activate EA games from amazon on it, plus 20 bucks to get all the C&C games is fucking awesome.
 
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