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STEAM | April 2014 - Insert witty title here.

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OMG, fuck you Humble Weekly, fuck you.

So D2P refunded me and cancelled my preorder out of nowhere.
So I ran over to GMG and purchased Dark Souls II.

Well, because of Humble's "please try again later" as I was trying to redeem my keys, I am now locked out from redeeming anything.

DAMMIT. How long do I have to wait for this bullshit to reset?
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
OMG, fuck you Humble Weekly, fuck you.

So D2P refunded me and cancelled my preorder out of nowhere.
So I ran over to GMG and purchased Dark Souls II.

Well, because of Humble's "please try again later" as I was trying to redeem my keys, I am now locked out from redeeming anything.

DAMMIT. How long do I have to wait for this bullshit to reset?

About half an hour.
 

X05

Upside, inside out he's livin la vida loca, He'll push and pull you down, livin la vida loca
I've been playing Arkham Origins: Blackgate for about 45 minutes, and it's not been very good, so far.

Does it get better? How are the boss fights?
The game is just decent, the exploration is fine if you manage to get the hang of that weird 3D map (mind that the game itself is very short). Also I personally enjoyed the boss fights, but I'm aware I'm on the minority on that.
The regular combat is absolute shit though, it didn't translate well at all.
 

jediyoshi

Member
uplay: It's not us, it's you!

F5HBD6u.png
 
About half an hour.

I hope you are right, JaseC sensei.

So wait -- is this Steam's fault or HB's fault?
Could it be that I owned so many of the keys that as I was turning them into gift links, I hit some limit with Steam for redeeming keys for already owned games and it flagged me?

Either way, I'm not a happy camper.
 

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 just updated some of the server code that Enhanced Steam uses in regards to setting a custom profile background.

Data should now pull directly from the market database scrape that we do, meaning that as new profile backgrounds are added to games on Steam, I won't have to manually update them by hand to make them available for people to use as their background.

The cool part is that I made the server code match the client code seamlessly, meaning this won't require any extension updates to work. So - enjoy!
 

DocSeuss

Member
I just updated some of the server code that Enhanced Steam uses in regards to setting a custom profile background.

Data should now pull directly from the market database scrape that we do, meaning that as new profile backgrounds are added to games on Steam, I won't have to manually update them by hand to make them available for people to use as their background.

The cool part is that I made the server code match the client code seamlessly, meaning this won't require any extension updates to work. So - enjoy!

I think they could change your tag to "most useful person alive."
 

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Humble TSG bundle
TIER 1: 1$
  • Thomas Was Alone
  • Puzzle Bots
  • Dustforce
  • VVV
  • Cave Story +
TIER 2: 6$
  • Reus
  • Limbo
  • Cthulhu Saves The World
  • Mutant Mudds Deluxe
  • Lone Survivor
  • Element4l
TIER 3:10$
  • Teslagrad

and some other tiers with merchandise shit I'm not going to list
I already have all the games from tier 1, so I'm skipping this bundle (unless there are soundtracks, maybe). Thomas Was Alone is an incredible game, Cave Story was very enjoyable (played it on WiiWare) and Puzzle Bots was a hidden gem, a really nice game I got from a Groupees bundle and I decided to try one night due to boredom. I'm happy to say I really liked it; it's not a hard game, but the little robots are cute and each has its own personality (kinda like the blocks in TWA), not to mention that it has a reference to one of my childhood's favorite games:
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure
.

I don't know why Limbo is featured in tier 2; that one's been bundled several times as far as I recall.
 

Tellaerin

Member
Had these already, so here's a little something for the couple of folks who still don't have these yet.

ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
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 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:


VVVVVV -- MB-81E0972729492328
Cave Story Plus -- MB-B739C52B5C88CE48 - Taken by EdmondD. 1 entrants total.


t1398369353z1.png
 

C4rter

Member
Holy shit where did this come from, amazing game.

That's right, we played it on many LAN-Events. It supports 4 Player competitive gaming on one PC. Playing on a beamer with some friends and a few beers is pretty entertaining.
Don't know why it's only saying singleplayer on the storepage.
 
I just updated some of the server code that Enhanced Steam uses in regards to setting a custom profile background.

Data should now pull directly from the market database scrape that we do, meaning that as new profile backgrounds are added to games on Steam, I won't have to manually update them by hand to make them available for people to use as their background.

The cool part is that I made the server code match the client code seamlessly, meaning this won't require any extension updates to work. So - enjoy!

Would this be because I bugged you about those Aqua Kitty backgrounds not being in your list? ;)

Good job, you have demonstrated yet again why you are a valued member of the Council of Jases.

Edit:
Strange, I do not have the option to set my background any longer... what's up with that?
Edit 2:
It just took a really long time to show up...
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Child of Light is now region-locked at the activation level (AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting = false), but fortunately in this case Ubi priced the game in Brazil and Eastern Europe such that it doesn't matter much (BRL$35/499 Russiabucks/USD$12 on the Ukrainian store).
 
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away 4 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:
- 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:


Mutant Mudds Deluxe -- MB-4B4F6435AC885002 - Taken by Ingueferroque
VVVVVV -- MB-668149F46C3E7CBE - Taken by Crentist the Dentist
Reus -- MB-F82AE2D1DEDB0F9F - Taken by nexen
Thomas Was Alone -- MB-544ABB655AF4B4FD

Enjoy
 
It's only 10€ in Russia... mmmhhhhhh

Maybe I buy it after some impressions.

So this is an Early Access game, I guess everyone knows that, but what that means is not all of the factions, sub-factions, victory conditions and a few other aspects of the game are present yet. You can get a detailed list of everything that is and is not in the game on the store page. They even state that the data structure may change several times throughout the early access so you could lose saves and progress in the campaigns you're playing. Just thought I would make sure to mention and highlight that, it's probably a deal breaker for some.

Anyways...

You start off the game with a Hero, two military units and a settler. I didn't realise I had a settler in my army and moved around a bunch of turns before I figured this out. I started the game over, settled right away and then began exploring the world with my army. You seem to start the game off with a predetermined culture/empire border. I don't know if you need to expand that border through city improvements in your capitol to settle your cities further out or if settling cities outside that border expands your culture/empire border for you. I'm on Turn 20 in my game as the wild walkers and about to settle a ruin, which is perfect for settling according to my army that explored it, and it's right outside my current border.

The only victory condition in the game right now is domination so I'm trying to mostly building up an army and looking to expand my empire. City improvements are only going to come on an as needed basis.

Things I like about Endless Legend:
1. The quest system. This sort of teaches you how to play the game and provides you with basic rewards for completing them. One quest required that I explored three different ruins to get a small amount of a luxury resource, another has me looking for an item in one ruin and returning to another with a specific unit type at a specific level to gain a reward.
2. The sub-factions. These are sort of like Civ V's barbarian camps and City-States mashed into one. Rogue/Neutral units are generated by them, you can fight these units with no consequence and you can simply wipe their strongholds out if you want. You can also win them over to your side. You can outright bribe them for an amount of Dust or complete a quest to win them over. I don't know if these sub-factions are like Civ's City-States, meaning that their loyalty is something you can gain and potentially lose to someone else or if you can win them over permanently. I could've outright bought out the sub-faction near my capitol but their quest lined up with a strategic resource I'm already researching.
3. The user interface. This was a highlight of Endless Space and it's a highlight of Endless Legend. It's so minimalist and slick looking but, more importantly, it's so easy to use.
4. This game is pretty. The overall aesthetic is kind of like the user-interface in that it's a very minimalist looking game but that's what kind of sets it apart from other recent games in the genre. Age of Wonders 3 and Warlock 2 are not bad looking games by any means but they look incredibly similar. Endless Legends overworld map kinda looks like the intro to Game of Thrones. It's very stylised, simple but stylised.
5. The combat. When two armies engage in battle you get a dialogue window where you can choose a to manually engage in the fight or simply auto-resolve the fight (yay!), you also choose how your army will fight from three options. You do transition to a combat mode but that transition is much smaller than say Age of Wonders 3. The game doesn't load up a whole different map it just establishes a field of combat on the overworld map, all extraneous details from the map are removed, you position your units from the army stack where you want them and then initiate the fight.

Things I don't like about Endless Legend:
1. Unit movement. There isn't a hex overlay of your units possible range of movement that turn. Maybe these's some display option I need to find and this is a feature but as of now it's possible to end a turn when a unit can still act. There is an refresh icon with a number by it showing the number of units that can act by the next turn button but if you move the unit once and it still has the capability to do something but you leave it, that's the equivalent of Civ V's pressing F to ignore moving that unit. This was sort of a general knock against Endless Space, you could press next turn without having production or research set and sort of not know it. They eventually fixed that in ES and the same is true for EL but the unit thing bugs me. I'm just so used to Civ V and that game holds your hand in ways this doesn't.
2. The game doesn't seem to like alt-tabbing. This could simply be my rig showing its age, I do need a new processor, probably a new mobo and a RAM upgrade but the game took a while to come back from alt-tabbing, it almost didn't come back. The only reason I stopped playing was so I could post this. Yeah, it's definitely my rig showing it's age.
3. There's no hex overlay on the world. Hopefully this is just an option I need to find and turn on. One thing I like about Civ and Europa Universalis is how there's all manner of different hotkeys for turning on and off different display modes for the map on the fly.

So far, even in this early alpha state, Endless Legend is looking good, really good. It definitely has that "one more turn" vibe for me, the only reason I'm not playing it right now was so I could make this post. Endless Space was good but this looks like it could be great. I need to play the game more to make a more concrete judgement but the fact that I want to play the game more is already saying something about it to me.

So here's my capitol and initial border. I've got two armies ranging around, exploring the surrounding regions. The city directly south of my capitol is the sub-faction I'm currently tyrying to win over through a quest. Despite engaging in diplomatic relations with them, they still generate units which attack my armies.
C41FD96AE3A775F0E0BA07B1CE6839B4A5F42BB5


Here's the city view. If you've pllayed Endless Space alll of the icons on the tiles surrounding my border will look familiar, science, food, production and dust (the currency in the Endless games). In the bottom lefthand side you can see all of the things I can currently build and my current production queue.
E79558DD662E393D83892CEA910412E6756B55FB


Not an amazing screenshot here but these are the options for interacting with neutral sub-factions once you do some early game research. I can engage them in combat, don't know if you can win them over this way, buy their loyalty outright or complete a quest to gain their allegiance.
6BEAF380D21522E3186166B692F13AEAD779A8BC


I chose the quest since I was already researching the strategic resource they're after.
C04FDBB45C298557D585BDDFBB59606D9986B28C


Despite wanting to be best buds they're still generating hostile units that attack mine. Here's a view of the combat mode. This is what I meant by a minor transition, you can see how all detail is removed from tiles that have been established to be the field of combat.
E7064785304232ED839E98D79E3D52E09E30BECF
 

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.
Would this be because I bugged you about those Aqua Kitty backgrounds not being in your list? ;)

Good job, you have demonstrated yet again why you are a valued member of the Council of Jases.

Edit:
Strange, I do not have the option to set my background any longer... what's up with that?

Thanks. I'm working on adding a "Loading..." dialog to this in the Chrome version. Seems I announced it and a ton of people went to go update their background at the same time, crashing our poor server. It pulls the list of available backgrounds before displaying the dialog, presently.

I guess just keep trying every 5-10 minutes.

EDIT: I also feel like I should point out - if you guys want faster / better servers to run some of Enhanced Steam's features (like this one) you can donate to my severely underfunded Patreon campaign.
 

aku:jiki

Member
Yessss, a few more wins in the Isaac bank! A little boring that I have to beat it 9 times before I unlock more progression but I'm still addicted like a crack fiend.

I just updated some of the server code that Enhanced Steam uses in regards to setting a custom profile background.

Data should now pull directly from the market database scrape that we do, meaning that as new profile backgrounds are added to games on Steam, I won't have to manually update them by hand to make them available for people to use as their background.

The cool part is that I made the server code match the client code seamlessly, meaning this won't require any extension updates to work. So - enjoy!
Hmm, is this whole feature really a wise choice if you're trying to get hired at Valve? I mean, it does the exact opposite of what Valve is trying to do with backgrounds...
 

Grief.exe

Member
So far, even in this early alpha state, Endless Legend is looking good, really good. It definitely has that "one more turn" vibe for me, the only reason I'm not playing it right now was so I could make this post. Endless Space was good but this looks like it could be great. I need to play the game more to make a more concrete judgement but the fact that I want to play the game more is already saying something about it to me.

Whoa, I'll have to keep my eyes on Endless Legend then.
 

Zafir

Member
3. There's no hex overlay on the world. Hopefully this is just an option I need to find and turn on. One thing I like about Civ and Europa Universalis is how there's all manner of different hotkeys for turning on and off different display modes for the map on the fly.
If you mean seeing the hexes, you can toggle on the individual hexes, there's a button on the next turn circle. There's also a button for turning on FIDS(resources) display.
 

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.
Hmm, is this whole feature really a wise choice if you're trying to get hired at Valve? I mean, it does the exact opposite of what Valve is trying to do with backgrounds...

I'm sure that if any offense were taken, they would take way more offense to Enhanced Steam displaying prices for games from other online retailers.

Last month I visited Valve's headquarters, and asked them point blank if any of Enhanced Steam's features that didn't line up with Valve's business interests were the reason I hadn't been hired.

They told me that they see features like that as a way to measure and improve their own way of doing things. They see Enhanced Steam as a kind of "this is what our users are asking for" and follow it up with "What can we do to improve this?"

Of course, they could have just been being nice. But there have been several ES features that Valve took and made their own. Either way, I've let them know on several occasions that if there is ever a feature in Enhanced Steam that they want me to remove, all they have to do is ask.
 
I am getting so sick of these old ass games spamming the new release list, TB was dead right with this. These publishers need to stop, Valve needs an overhauled system. Just write the actual release date, they can still pop up but don't annoy everybody like this.
 
Thanks a lot! :)

Looking good so far, but I think I wait a little before i bite

I'm sure that if any offense were taken, they would take way more offense to Enhanced Steam displaying prices for games from other online retailers.

Last month I visited Valve's headquarters, and asked them point blank if any of Enhanced Steam's features that didn't line up with Valve's business interests were the reason I hadn't been hired.

They told me that they see features like that as a way to measure and improve their own way of doing things. They see Enhanced Steam as a kind of "this is what our users are asking for" and follow it up with "What can we do to improve this?"

Of course, they could have just been being nice. But there have been several ES features that Valve took and made their own.

If only they took that attitude when it came to helping users via Steam support...
 

BinaryPork2737

Unconfirmed Member
I am getting so sick of these old ass games spamming the new release list, TB was dead right with this. These publishers need to stop, Valve needs an overhauled system. Just write the actual release date, they can still pop up but don't annoy everybody like this.

Speaking of which, another old game, Vangers just popped up. There's really been a flood of older games reaching Steam lately. Some of them I'm very interested in, like Harvester, but others are pretty forgettable. The same could be said for new releases as well, of course.
 
If you mean seeing the hexes, you can toggle on the individual hexes, there's a button on the next turn circle. There's also a button for turning on FIDS(resources) display.

Ooo, thank you. I'll make sure to try those out right now.

That game looks like a mod of Warlock Master of the Arcane, which in turn looks like a mod of Civilization 5:
Code:
[IMG]http://puu.sh/8lXtk.png[/IMG]

Personally I think Endless Legend looks waaay better than Warlock: Masters of the Arcane. Although my machine probably isn't doing the game any great justice. I really just need to build a new tower at this point.
 

Grief.exe

Member
I am getting so sick of these old ass games spamming the new release list, TB was dead right with this. These publishers need to stop, Valve needs an overhauled system. Just write the actual release date, they can still pop up but don't annoy everybody like this.

Or completely overhaul the front page.

Opening up the floodgates on your store is fine as long as you have systems in place to manage the flood of garbage.

New releases tab can still be relevant, but that can't be your go to item on the page anymore as it has been overwhelmed on a daily basis. Maybe a tab for new games that has very positive word of mouth from Steam users, or just genre new release tabs, or both!

Great games are currently getting pushed off the front page by a stream of mediocre games.
 

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 am getting so sick of these old ass games spamming the new release list, TB was dead right with this. These publishers need to stop, Valve needs an overhauled system. Just write the actual release date, they can still pop up but don't annoy everybody like this.

I've asked my Valve contacts to PLEASE add the "actual release date" information to the Steam API. It's already in their database obviously, as it's being used on the store page. If they add the info to their API, I can make a MUCH better "new releases" filter.

If only they took that attitude when it came to helping users via Steam support...

I'd like to think that, although customer service isn't exactly my specialty, I've wrote enough helpdesk software to know what works and what doesn't. I'd like to think that if I were hired by Valve, I could help them build some better internal support tools that would let them help customers more accurately and promptly.
I'd also suggest they hire JaseC.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Or completely overhaul the front page.

Opening up the floodgates on your store is fine as long as you have systems in place to manage the flood of garbage.

New releases tab can still be relevant, but that can't be your go to item on the page anymore as it has been overwhelmed on a daily basis. Maybe a tab for new games that has very positive word of mouth from Steam users, then further sort those by genre.

Great games are currently getting pushed off the front page by a stream of mediocre games.
My favorite front page GUI feature in the normal Steam client is how if you are trying to look through the second or third (or tenth) page of new releases/sale games/whatever, and then you click on a game, and then you're finished reading about it and click back...you reset back to the first page and have to go through them all again, for every single game you click on.
 
I've asked my Valve contacts to PLEASE add the "actual release date" information to the Steam API. It's already in their database obviously, as it's being used on the store page. If they add the info to their API, I can make a MUCH better "new releases" filter.

That would be amazing, but I have always noticed that Valve's "release date" is literally just the date it was released on Steam, not when it actually was released. Even on store pages, and for games of all ages. Steam: The Release Date is a Lie.
 
I've asked my Valve contacts to PLEASE add the "actual release date" information to the Steam API. It's already in their database obviously, as it's being used on the store page. If they add the info to their API, I can make a MUCH better "new releases" filter.

I'd like to think that, although customer service isn't exactly my specialty, I've wrote enough helpdesk software to know what works and what doesn't. I'd like to think that if I were hired by Valve, I could help them build some better internal support tools that would let them help customers more accurately and promptly.
I'd also suggest they hire JaseC.

Good, if you do get hired and do that, you can help JaseC, myself, and others get their Stormrise OEM issue resolved. ;)

And if they allow remote employees (like JaseC), maybe you can tempt me to come on board too... :p
 

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.
That would be amazing, but I have always noticed that Valve's "release date" is literally just the date it was released on Steam, not when it actually was released. Even on store pages, and for games of all ages. Steam: The Release Date is a Lie.

While sometimes it's false, I've found that at least 80%-85% of the new releases in the last few weeks have been accurate. For example, Mashed lists it's release date on the store page as Jun 25, 2004. On the home page, it's a "new release" and has a release date of Apr 24, 2014.

Good, if you do get hired and do that, you can help JaseC, myself, and others get their Stormrise OEM issue resolved. ;)

And if they allow remote employees (like JaseC), maybe you can tempt me to come on board too... :p

I already told JaseC he would have to move stateside. My guess is that he'd do it for his long anticipated copy of Wheelman.
 
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