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STEAM Announcements & Updates 2014 II - The Definitive Edition

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R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Knurek said:
Why would you use Opera Next? You should really upgrade to Opera 12.16
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Seconded. Though the latest version of real Opera has been very unstable for me, freezing for seconds at a time every now and then. Hopefully it will be fixed soon, because I'm never going to install the crap that is Opera Next on my PC.

Mavromatis said:
But 20 is more than 12 and I really prefer working extensions instead of the broken ones. I'll continue to use old Opera in my DS and my nonsmart phone but that is it.
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True story: using Opera Next is bad for your health, and makes your dog hate you.
 
K

Knurek

Member
Oh, Ubi, you so funny.

4. Corrupted saves / can’t save
We truly are sorry concerning save corruption issues. We tried to reproduce this issue on our side but we weren’t able to do so.
(...)
Some fans found a workaround that we unfortunately can’t 100% support: delete corrupted saves (0 bytes) in this folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Orbit\401\RLD
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RLD, as in Reloaded, PC cracking group which released the scene rip of the game.
 
M

Mavromatis

Member
kurahador said:
Did youtube just got hacked or something?
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Looks fine to me.
And I guess I can post these as if they are related to the situation.
OeYiMTh.png

sXDWp4j.png
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R

Ravensmash

Member
Guys, is it at all worth uncrating any of my TF2 crates?

I only have series 75/76/77 at the moment, and while I know that the chances of getting an unusual are ridiculously rare, I'm wondering if any of the other more common items are regularly selling for decent prices.

Plus, it'd be amazing to uncrate a ridiculously expensive item :D
 
G

Glass Rebel

Member
DocSeuss said:
My last message might have seemed a bit more rude than I intended. I've been really busy all day, so I posted quickly, and I know that can sometimes come across as discourteous. Sorry if it seems that way.

I'd argue that Metal Gear Solid-style stealth, which is what you've been describing, has actively held back the genre as a whole for quite some time, and is detrimental to the way of which we think in stealth games on the whole. Blood Money's twist on the game is welcome because it rejects pattern memorization to some degree, opening up a broad avenue for ways in which we can rethink and approach stealth games.

Metal Gear Solid and the games that are influenced by it are... honestly, pretty bad stealth games, when all is said and done. They're rather limited and allow for pretty repetitive play with a lack of variation. Thief's take on stealth as a aural and light/dark (which influenced Splinter Cell), and Hitman's take on disguises both opened up the experiences we could have in these games.

There's so much more that we could do with stealth games, and we're held back by some of the worst games in the business, just because they're extremely popular. It's frustrating to me.
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Nah, I didn't think it was rude, I just thought we were misunderstanding each other. I definitely agree that many modern stealth games don't try enough to do in terms of environmental interactions. It's sad really because one would think that the powerjump from the PS2 era to last gen would allow developers to try some new stuff.

ricochetguro said:
God of War has lots of killrooms, and they also have you revisit locations at times(mostly in the second game) with new powers. In any case Lords of Shadows isn't really similar in structure to either as it's broken into levels which try to encourage replays(and playthrough of the trials) by having upgrades that you can come back to later. That's a pretty common trope across any action genre and certainly the Castlevania series itself. Every single level is entirely separate in any case, so it's definitely not like Devil May Cry.
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Both LOS and the Devil May Cry games have a level select screen that lets you revisit earlier levels while God of War has one continuous world with practically no interruptions except for cutscenes. Having just finished GoW1 and being in the process of replaying GoW2, there are several instances where you can skip large groups of enemies. LOS is less obvious about it but it definitely relies more on the killroom structure for its encounters.
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
Glass Rebel said:
Both LOS and the Devil May Cry games have a level select screen that lets you revisit earlier levels while God of War has one continuous world with practically no interruptions except for cutscenes. Having just finished GoW1 and being in the process of replaying GoW2, there are several instances where you can skip large groups of enemies. LOS is less obvious about it but it definitely relies more on the killroom structure for its encounters.
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Devil May Cry is broken into missions but they share the same locations often times. For example in DMC4 you're backtracking as Dante across every location you played as Nero in across several of these missions. Lords of Shadows on the other hand never reuses a location. Every single level is a new area, it's just like God of War or other action-adventure games where you go from place to place. It's just broken into chunks, with most levels starting immediately after the previous one. And God of War often locks you in or puts a time limit on a room. Also does similar situations where you have to defeat enemies to pull a crane. There are ways to avoid this but it's more exploiting the systems when it clearly wants you to fight.
 
D

DexterPepper

Member
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
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.
- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:


IL-2 Sturmovik- -- MB-4C1D777882DFA507 - Taken by ricochetguro. 2 entrants total.


t1392043793z1.png
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.
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
didamangi said:
Try SGSSAA if you're using nvidia.
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SGSSAA is way more demanding than simply downsampling though. Suppose it's all dependent on the resolution and amount of AA used though.

Edit: I will say the one thing I'd never noticed about Lords of Shadows until I nearly finished my replay on the PC version is that the camera is constantly shaking.
 
P

phoenixyz

Member
ricochetguro said:
SGSSAA is way more demanding than simply downsampling though. Suppose it's all dependent on the resolution and amount of AA used though.
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It also depends on the game. Some games need 2x2 downsampling to get a decent AA result, but are nice and smooth at 2xSGSSAA, which is a much smaller performance hit in most cases.
 
D

didamangi

Member
ricochetguro said:
SGSSAA is way more demanding than simply downsampling though. Suppose it's all dependent on the resolution and amount of AA used though.
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Maybe it's my old card (GTX 570 with 1280MB VRAM) but downsampling is more demanding for me than SGSSAA and with worse result than SGSSAA as well in the games I've played.

The last few months I've played Enslaved, Remember Me, Spec Ops TL, Arkham Origins, The Bureau and Castlevania and even playing most of those games with 2x SGSSAA@1080p really makes the difference for me.
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
DexterPepper said:
.
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Thanks a lot! Always wanted to spend more time with the series outside of Cliffs of Dover which is really weird and half-broken.

And the link you posted shows that SGSSAA doesn't work very well with Castlevania which I confirm. Blurry and shimmering lines everywhere, they recommend to downsample.
 
G

Glass Rebel

Member
ricochetguro said:
Devil May Cry is broken into missions but they have the same locations often times. For example in DMC4 you're backtracking as Dante across every location you played as Nero in. Lords of Shadows on the other hand never reuses a location. Every single mission is a new area, it's just like God of War or other action-adventure games where you go from place to place. It's just broken into chunks, with most levels starting immediately after the previous one.
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But that's exactly what I've been trying to say all along. I'm looking at structure from a very basic perspective. The way Castlevania breaks the story up in chunks immensely affects the pacing and the atmosphere its trying to convey. I'm not talking about the game leading you to areas you have visited earlier but the player having access to an actual level select screen.

ricochetguro said:
And God of War often locks you in or puts a time limit on a room. Also does similar situations where you have to defeat enemies to pull a crane. There are ways to avoid this but it's more exploiting the systems when it clearly wants you to fight.
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I know that it does but take the Cliffs of Madness in GoW 1 for example. During the portion where you need to get the two necklaces you can avoid practically every single enemy. And then there's the enemies hanging from the climbable walls, the various traps and environmental puzzles that are lighter in LOS and even more so in DMC etc.

Anyway, I think we're moving in circles here and remembering the games quite differently.
 
L

Levyne

Banned
I tried downsampling/injecting in LoS but couldn't get it to improve. The game looks pretty good anyways, outside of those cutscenes, which ended up being less frequent as the game went on, I feel.

I have a 780 and even then I feel downsampling is too much of a performance hit. Maybe I need a second...
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
Glass Rebel said:
But that's exactly what I've been trying to say all along. I'm looking at structure from a very basic perspective. The way Castlevania breaks the story up in chunks immensely affects the pacing and the atmosphere its trying to convey. I'm not talking about the game leading you to areas you have visited earlier but the player having access to an actual level select screen.



I know that it does but take the Cliffs of Madness in GoW 1 for example. During the portion where you need to get the two necklaces you can avoid practically every single enemy. And then there's the enemies hanging from the climbable walls, the various traps and environmental puzzles that are lighter in LOS and even more so in DMC etc.

Anyway, I think we're moving in circles here and remembering the games quite differently.
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The atmosphere is contained within the levels themselves, and the world map works given the extremely large scale of the game. You really do undertake quite the journey by the end. Don't really think the 5 seconds in a menu to start the next chapter affects the pacing or atmosphere, and it certainly doesn't draw comparison to how DMC handles its mission structure and repeated environments.

And Lords of Shadows has areas where you can run from enemies too if you want, but why you would do so and lose experience is a mystery to me. Lords of Shadows has far more puzzles than any of the God of War games outside of Ascension as well, but both are rather unique within the genre for containing them. DMC has the annoying spinner but is generally very combat focused outside of the first game.
 
L

Leg-End

Member
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
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
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Sid Meier's Railroads! -- MB-5F826BFCC7551B4A - Taken by animlboogy. 6 entrants total.

t1392056798z1.png
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Enjoy.
 
G

Glass Rebel

Member
ricochetguro said:
The atmosphere is contained within the levels themselves, and the world map works given the extremely large scale of the game. You really do undertake quite the journey by the end. Don't really think the 5 seconds in a menu to start the next chapter affects the pacing or atmosphere, and it certainly doesn't draw comparison to how DMC handles its mission structure and repeated environments.

And Lords of Shadows has areas where you can run from enemies too if you want, but why you would do so and lose experience is a mystery to me. Lords of Shadows has far more puzzles than any of the God of War games outside of Ascension as well, but both are while unique within the genre for containing them. DMC has the annoying spinner but is generally very combat focused.
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I don't see how it wouldn't affect it when it's exactly what jaundicejuice and me were talking about. That continuous, unbroken experience is one part why people enjoy the God of War games. It's fine if you don't feel this way but it's weird to enter a discussion about it and claim that it doesn't matter.

And I definitely disagree with the bolded.
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
Glass Rebel said:
I don't see how it wouldn't affect it when it's exactly what jaundicejuice and me were talking about. That continuous, unbroken experience is one part why people enjoy the God of War games. It's fine if you don't feel this way but it's weird to enter a discussion about it and claim that it doesn't matter.

And I definitely disagree with the bolded.
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God of War is a continuous experience and the levels are designed as such, although God of War II is a bit more grand in geographical scale than the others. Lords of Shadows has an entirely different structure with all of the chapters bringing you to different locations and parts of the world, with such things being branched by cutscenes. Also keep in mind that the God of War games are generally about 8 hours long(II is a bit longer) and subsequently cover a lot less ground. And it's not really weird to state that I don't think something has a massive effect on the pacing when it's a direct response to your statement. As you mentioned, that would be my opinion :p

And I'm not really sure what there is to disagree on in terms of puzzles. As mentioned Lords of Shadows is quite long so I suppose on that virtue alone it's going to have more puzzles than the God of War games on their own but even so I think it focuses more on them. The exception being Ascension where I'd say a good half of the game is based on the time device being used for puzzles. Still, both game focus on puzzles quite a bit and it makes them unique amongst action games. Now God of War definitely has much more varied platforming, with the spike walls, underwater traveling, and so on. They're very different games despite some basic similarities in combat and structure. Lords of Shadows often has more open areas.
Parsnip said:
Does anyone over here use custom themes for Windows 8(.1)?
Any favorites?
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For steam itself? If so I really like Metro for Steam
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
morning gaf

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C

Copons

Member
Hello, here's two games you should already have, but just in case there's some lazy ass bastards around (especially if you never played Psychonauts: I'm talking to you, lazy ass bastard!)

ModBot said:
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PS: as this is a super cheap giveaway, there's no need to thank me, neither in PM and especially nor in thread. :)
 
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