Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Why didn't you request a review copy? Something clearly is wrong with you.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
STEAM Announcements & Updates 2014 II - The Definitive Edition
- Thread starter MRORANGE
- Start date
- Status
Why didn't you request a review copy? Something clearly is wrong with you.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I guess if enough publishers / developers were to get together and tried to prove to the judge that this feature caused them lost revenue, it could happen.
Valve is walking a fine line. They are essentially a "middle man" service, a way for developers and publishers to connect with their customers (us) and charge a fee for said services.
On one hand, you want to listen to customer feedback and generally improve your service as best you can. Don't do enough and the customers may stop buying from you. On the other, these improvements could hurt your suppliers and cause them to retaliate. Piss them off enough, and they may very well leave your service. (EA, I'm looking at you!)
Valve has generally been pretty good about communicating with their suppliers, but I've talked with a few Steamworks developers who said they got notice of the "tag" feature less than 24 hours before it went live.
woo and indeed hoo
Banned
Baron von Loathsome
Member
The Wolf Among Us.
To me this (and Greenlight, and a few other Valve related things) just reeks of internal power struggle/clashes.
SteveWinwood
Member
Thanks.
trailmix16
Member
thanks Benedict
jediyoshi
Member
It feels like Valve are two steps away from just letting users write store page descriptions.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Or a company trying to figure out a situation that is shitty on nearly every platform under the sun for both buyers (who want more games) and sellers (who want to sell their games to the largest possible audience).
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but most of the things Valve has been doing lately (not what they say, what they actually do) looks fairly directionless. Or maybe like something two (or more) warring factions would do to a company.
La Mulana devs were told that Steam was not allowing OSTs as DLC anymore, now we have OST DLCs popping left and right.
Paranautical Activity devs were told they couldn't use Adult Swim as a publisher to skip Greenlight, now we have had games skip Greenlight by using a publisher (Wooden Sen'sey)
And of course, the damning evidence of ongoing Steam incompetence - jshackles is still not a Valve employee.
Nabs
Member
It's a War pack, so it includes CoH as well.
EA will be back. EA's disagreement with Valve was childish, though, and it probably would have continued to screw Steam users over even if it did get its way (we saw this with Dragon Age 2 and Alice: both didn't go up on Steam until after release so it was impossible for Steam users to receive pre-order bonuses). Here's a brief history lesson on that whole thing:
Speaking of the DLC policy, as I noted the other day, DLC apps available for purchase now have a "DLCAvailableOnStore" flag, so Valve may be preparing to loosen it a bit. My guess is that DLC would presumably still be required to be on Steam, but no longer would it be mandatory to offer it on the store itself.
It's one of the few games I really want this year, so I wanted to support the devs.
SteveWinwood
Member
War is bad.
Nabs
Member
<3 sega
war, war never changes...
AHA-Lambda
Member
Good God where is the Dead State demo?
SteveWinwood
Member
That's just them changing their mind as they find out what works and what doesn't. Greenlight didn't work the way they wanted, so they changed it. Same with OST DLCs. I don't believe that that shows there are "warring factions" in Valve, just that they change their minds to see if something else works. It's a good thing, it should be encouraged. It makes it the best it can be in the end.
Might have to double dip on Witcher 2.
woo and indeed hoo
Banned
I just finished reading that. What am I supposed to be getting worked up about? :/
I'm not familiar with this fellow so please forgive my ignorance given that I have only being playing pc games for less than a year. However, going from that article I rather like his style. Yes he's straight forward and even blunt but I don't have a problem with that. Far rather that than some mealy mouthed PR monkey.
no excuses. buy and play witcher 2.
one of the best rpgs I have ever played and a total steal at that price.
Nabs
Member
http://www.makewarnotlove.com/
Right now ROME II and Company of Heroes 2 fans are at WAR! Every victory you have in these two games until February 17th at 9am Pacific, counts towards this ultimate faceoff! The fans who earn the highest percentage of victories in that time will win access to free DLC! Free content will be available to download once the winning side is announced until 10am pacific Saturday, February 22nd.
Today's Daily is 75% off Toki Tori 2+ ($3.74).
SteveWinwood
Member
http://www.makewarnotlove.com/
Right now ROME II and Company of Heroes 2 fans are at WAR! Every victory you have in these two games until February 17th at 9am Pacific, counts towards this ultimate faceoff! The fans who earn the highest percentage of victories in that time will win access to free DLC! Free content will be available to download once the winning side is announced until 10am pacific Saturday, February 22nd.
Are their playerbases even similar? I'm assuming they thought it out, and hope it's close and exciting, but I can't help but feel it's going to be a blowout.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Do it for the achievement swaggggg. And trading cards to craft dat badge.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I actually agree with SteveWinwood on this one - I don't think they're doing this at random or to spar with each other, they're constantly trying out new ideas and features. Even tagging is a good feature, but I suspect it will undergo some most-likely radical changes in the coming weeks/months. He's right in saying that this sort of thing should be encouraged. I'm really glad that Valve doesn't have to answer to shareholders so that they can take risks like this one.
From the few Valve employees I've had the privilege of meeting and conversing with, they seem like a really tight-knit group of folks that generally all get along with each other. They think of their work day more as "hanging out", which is an aspect of working there that would really appeal to me.
But you're right, there is a compelling argument that Steam doesn't know what they're doing, since I still don't work for Valve.
MMBosstones86
Member
PandaPedinte
Member
http://www.makewarnotlove.com/
Right now ROME II and Company of Heroes 2 fans are at WAR! Every victory you have in these two games until February 17th at 9am Pacific, counts towards this ultimate faceoff! The fans who earn the highest percentage of victories in that time will win access to free DLC! Free content will be available to download once the winning side is announced until 10am pacific Saturday, February 22nd.
It's an interesting idea I'm curious if it's going to be succesful.
This is a good game and deserve more love.
SteveWinwood
Member
It's very similar to the Demoman vs Soldier even from forever ago in TF2.
I'd say what you're seeing is more of the downside of a corporate structure that encourages people to work on what they want to rather than from a top-down plan. There are definitely benefits to Valve's approach, especially when you extensively employ intelligent, creative self-starters, but there are occasional drawbacks too.
A steal at that price (both of them). I just wish they would have added Witcher 1 cards...
Yes, if you like Total War, it is in very good shape now. It wasn't great at launch, but the game is certainly up there with the best in the series now.
Too bad the metacritic rating is static as the game is much improved. Plus workshop support means you can make the game better if you don't like the Vanilla version.
crimsonheadGCN
Banned
Krome Studios is looking to finally release the episode 2 DLC for Blade Kitten. Atari is surprisingly being cooperative about it.
Now that OMG Zombies! is out I guess I can post my impressions.
I just finished OMG Zombies! fellow GAFfers:
What it started to be a basic and simple point and shoot-to-kill started to become more and more addictive as you played and unlocked new levels.
The game offer you 100 levels and you unlocked them as you go through them. When you clear a level a percentage will show on how many of them you killed/were left to kill. It is wise to always aim for the 100% as you will want it to unlock further levels. At the start this is going to be very hard, the reason is, you only have 2-3 bullets to shoot and not only they do low damage but the Zombies are on level 1. You can level up you enemies, yes. The more you level them up the more splash damage they make or the bigger the impact is, etc. Different zombies have different effects. The can blow up and and provide a chain of explosions, shock others, melt as they walk by, shoot others (some of the zombies have a pistol or a assault rifle) and so on.
You will repeat earlier levels but this time you will be more prepared once you start to level zombies up (or your gun, or making barrels more powerful). Because the gameplay mechanics are rather simple and easy getting into this game it shouldn't be a problem but it can become more and more addictive because I found an odd satisfaction with the fact that, with just a single bullet I can kill them all from all those reaction shots and other effects from the zombies.
The time to completion I posted above was gameplay only. No idling. Took me that time to finish all the 100 Levels at 100% in every single one of them, and it was worth it. The only achievement I have left requires a major grind and time spent in the game.
Regarding the ending you can have more than a different ending and you can have a" good" or a "bad" one. The Story itself is presented in a Comic Book style which is a nice thing. As for the price it's a no-brainer (eh!) specially with a 20% OFF with Achievements (and Cards too!). If there's any question, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them.
I just finished OMG Zombies! fellow GAFfers:
What it started to be a basic and simple point and shoot-to-kill started to become more and more addictive as you played and unlocked new levels.
The game offer you 100 levels and you unlocked them as you go through them. When you clear a level a percentage will show on how many of them you killed/were left to kill. It is wise to always aim for the 100% as you will want it to unlock further levels. At the start this is going to be very hard, the reason is, you only have 2-3 bullets to shoot and not only they do low damage but the Zombies are on level 1. You can level up you enemies, yes. The more you level them up the more splash damage they make or the bigger the impact is, etc. Different zombies have different effects. The can blow up and and provide a chain of explosions, shock others, melt as they walk by, shoot others (some of the zombies have a pistol or a assault rifle) and so on.
You will repeat earlier levels but this time you will be more prepared once you start to level zombies up (or your gun, or making barrels more powerful). Because the gameplay mechanics are rather simple and easy getting into this game it shouldn't be a problem but it can become more and more addictive because I found an odd satisfaction with the fact that, with just a single bullet I can kill them all from all those reaction shots and other effects from the zombies.
The time to completion I posted above was gameplay only. No idling. Took me that time to finish all the 100 Levels at 100% in every single one of them, and it was worth it. The only achievement I have left requires a major grind and time spent in the game.
Regarding the ending you can have more than a different ending and you can have a" good" or a "bad" one. The Story itself is presented in a Comic Book style which is a nice thing. As for the price it's a no-brainer (eh!) specially with a 20% OFF with Achievements (and Cards too!). If there's any question, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them.
As always, apologies for the low grammar vacabulary.
PandaPedinte
Member
Yeah I remember the Demoman vs Soldier competition, how active player base of Rome II and CoH 2 are? Is there much difference in the number of players beteween both games?
crimsonheadGCN
Banned
JaseC, do you own Blade Kitten? There's a chance that the current sub for the game will no longer be available if Krome Studios cannot get it transferred over from Atari. They'll be forced to make a new one for Blade Kitten + Episode 2 DLC.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Quick, Jace Hall, this is your chance!
- Status