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STEAM | April 2014 - Insert witty title here.

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Dr Dogg

Member
I don't think anyone has posted this article as its own thread yet, but at PC Gamer we had one of our writers spend about two months inside a cheat selling website investigating it and trying the cheats himself.

He wrote a pretty awesome story about the cheating business, how it works, and how it makes millions a year.

The game he focused on was Counter-Strike: GO and the hackers he talked to talked about VAC a lot, so I thought it made sense to post here. Obviously I like it since I edited it, but I think PC GAF will dig it!

Hang on, wall hacks for $11 a month? I'm in the wrong business here!

Cheers for the link Wes I'll give it a read.
 
D

Deleted member 102362

Unconfirmed Member
I don't think anyone has posted this article as its own thread yet, but at PC Gamer we had one of our writers spend about two months inside a cheat selling website investigating it and trying the cheats himself.

He wrote a pretty awesome story about the cheating business, how it works, and how it makes millions a year.

The game he focused on was Counter-Strike: GO and the hackers he talked to talked about VAC a lot, so I thought it made sense to post here. Obviously I like it since I edited it, but I think PC GAF will dig it!

Looks cool, will check it out.

A reminder:

Hey, folks. I have some free Steam stuff for anyone interested.

CS:GO-related:
-1 Guarded Steam background

Coupons:
-50% Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden
-50% One Finger Death Punch
-50% Little Racers STREET
-75% Jack Orlando: Director's Cut
-66% Stealth Bastard Deluxe
-10% Toki Tori 2+ (x3)

and finally:
-a couple of TF2 crates

Add me on Steam if you're interested.
 

DocSeuss

Member
I really digged those threads you made, I just hardly post outside this thread.

Would this happen to have stemmed from the total biscuit thread?

This post, actually.

I just found another guy with the same illness as me but still fighting the fight so to speak. We've been PMing each other little life-hacks we use to try and help out his situation. I've had a pretty horrible decade or so, but have managed to battle through somewhat successfully. Although there are still difficulties in trying to completely get back to life, (particularly getting a job after a bit of a void in my CV due to everything - and obviously disclosing such stuff doesn't work so well most times) there is at least optimism and light at the end of the tunnel. Considering how dire the situation was years ago, and seeing no possible future, it's crazy to think now there is one close by.

Sounds a lot like my situation, including the time frame. As weird as this sounds, it's good to know that other people have similar problems. It lets me know I'm not alone and can deal, y'know?

PM if you need a chat or anything, or pop into this thread. It's always good craic. Shit gets better, it's just never clear when

I might do that.
 
Yeah but I had actually started on consoles and never finished it. Then I picked up the PC version and made it past Smough and Ornstein twice before stopping. This time I just sat down and instead of trying to follow builds and whatnot I just played it how I wanted to. It definitely grabbed me a lot more when I just decided to play it instead of worrying that I'm doing stuff wrong.

I just ask because you may have missed the extra content if you didn't follow any guides. It's really easy to miss, though the upside is that there are no invasive DLC messages
 

Uzzy

Member
I don't think anyone has posted this article as its own thread yet, but at PC Gamer we had one of our writers spend about two months inside a cheat selling website investigating it and trying the cheats himself.

He wrote a pretty awesome story about the cheating business, how it works, and how it makes millions a year.

The game he focused on was Counter-Strike: GO and the hackers he talked to talked about VAC a lot, so I thought it made sense to post here. Obviously I like it since I edited it, but I think PC GAF will dig it!

That was honestly a really good read. I love to see some investigative journalism, so more like that please!
 

Dr Dogg

Member
Gonna give that article a whirl. Seems thread worthy btw.

We'll with quotes like this definitely

John Gibson, president of Tripwire Interactive (Rising Storm, Killing Floor) told me plenty of cheaters feel differently. “We see a spike in hackers after we have a sale on one of our games,” he said. “Their last 10 Steam accounts have been banned, and the game is on sale for $3, so they’ll buy 10 copies for $30 on 10 different accounts and they’ll keep cheating.”

Edit: Damn it. Top of the page for 50pppers so here's the link for context.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/30/h...ion-dollar-business-of-video-game-cheating/2/
 

DocSeuss

Member
I don't think anyone has posted this article as its own thread yet, but at PC Gamer we had one of our writers spend about two months inside a cheat selling website investigating it and trying the cheats himself.

He wrote a pretty awesome story about the cheating business, how it works, and how it makes millions a year.

The game he focused on was Counter-Strike: GO and the hackers he talked to talked about VAC a lot, so I thought it made sense to post here. Obviously I like it since I edited it, but I think PC GAF will dig it!

This deserves a thread. Someone post it (I made a thread today and one late last night about games missing on Steam, so I'd feel kinda guilty about doing a third thread).

Evan told me I should get back in touch with him last summer for doing some writing for PC Gamer (I had been in their top 3 for a news writer position, iirc), but last time I reached out to him, I hadn't heard anything. It was around the time Logan left (and he'd asked me to email him too), so I think I just kinda got swept under the carpet. You guys publish the kind of stuff I like reading and writing. I should reach out again, I guess.
 

Caerith

Member
can someone outline how we, collectively, can outmaneuver trading cards kamikazes? I usually list near the median price to try and widen that, is that a good or bad move?

Just wait it out. Card prices drop on the first day they're available, or when the game gets its first big sale, or when the game is included in a bundle, etc, as everyone rushes to farm their cards and put them on the market and get their money as soon as possible. Once they're gone, assuming there's any demand for cards, the prices will go back up and continue to climb as demand catches up to supply.

Croixleur cards, for instance, are $0.26 each. It was in a bundle and just became available to play today. In a few weeks, those cards will probably be worth a lot more. (Cherry Tree High Comedy Club was in the same situation, but I sold those cards for $0.80-$1.00 each just by waiting a few weeks after it got cards.)
 
Just finished Dark Souls 1. What an amazing game. I've been on and off with it for over two years now and it feels incredibly rewarding to finally finish it after all this time.

I'm so pumped right now. Enough to go and immediately buy Dark Souls 2.

I feel the same exact way, having finished it last night under similar circumstances. I'd been playing it on and off since it came out on PC. The most recent group of sessions is where it bit me hardest. That kicked in around Saturday, and I had long play sessions each day until I finished it.

"Incredibly rewarding" definitely describes it best. Congrats on the victory!
 
I don't think anyone has posted this article as its own thread yet, but at PC Gamer we had one of our writers spend about two months inside a cheat selling website investigating it and trying the cheats himself.

He wrote a pretty awesome story about the cheating business, how it works, and how it makes millions a year.

The game he focused on was Counter-Strike: GO and the hackers he talked to talked about VAC a lot, so I thought it made sense to post here. Obviously I like it since I edited it, but I think PC GAF will dig it!

Great read, the people running that cheat site sound...interesting.


That's it. Done.
 

Azar

Member
This deserves a thread. Someone post it (I made a thread today and one late last night about games missing on Steam, so I'd feel kinda guilty about doing a third thread).
Hopefully someone who digs it will make a thread. I try to keep self-promotion to a minimum, but I wanted to share!

Evan told me I should get back in touch with him last summer for doing some writing for PC Gamer (I had been in their top 3 for a news writer position, iirc), but last time I reached out to him, I hadn't heard anything. It was around the time Logan left (and he'd asked me to email him too), so I think I just kinda got swept under the carpet. You guys publish the kind of stuff I like reading and writing. I should reach out again, I guess.
We're always on the lookout for talented freelance! Stuff gets missed a lot. There just aren't enough hours in the day. If you have feature pitches, send me an email at wesley at pcgamer and I'll do my best to write back.
 

jediyoshi

Member
A wild BloodRayne Betrayal appears

header_292x136.jpg

http://store.steampowered.com/app/281220/
 

DocSeuss

Member
Hopefully someone who digs it will make a thread. I try to keep self-promotion to a minimum, but I wanted to share!


We're always on the lookout for talented freelance! Stuff gets missed a lot. There just aren't enough hours in the day. If you have feature pitches, send me an email at wesley at pcgamer and I'll do my best to write back.

I was actually thinking of doing a post on GAF asking about pitching and stuff. I think the only reason my stuff's been accepted at Kotaku is because I've been involved in the community so long, my quality is known. My pitching skills, I think, are crap. I do good work, I think. My most recent article has about 300 comments, 30,000 hits, and 25 recommends, which is pretty good, as I understand it. My previous work had over 160,000 and 200,000 hits, respectively...

I just don't really know how to pitch.
 

Kiru

Member
Bear with me for a sec..

I was laid off 3 years ago, and took the opportunity to finish my degree and to try and re-enter the workforce. Long story short, I'm currently working two part time jobs and recently obtained the REACHIT grant for the purpose of career re-transitioning (I was in IT 20 years ago, finally getting back to it) In the past week, I earned 3 MTA certifications (Networking, Security and OS) and almost obtained a fourth (Gaming Development) that I missed by 4 points. By the end of this training initiative, I expect I'll finally have a full time job again, making hopefully twice what I previously had been making.

I'm getting my house refinanced (or a forebearance) soon, and to celebrate my turn of good luck (and the arrival of tax refunds) I'll be gifting someone a game of their choice ($10 or less) 3 hours from now. It can be on GreenManGaming, Steam, HumbleStore, etc -- winner will PM me what and where.

With any luck, I'll be able to do more giveaways once I land the full time IT job I'm hoping for (as an aside, if anyone is in the Charlotte, NC area and is hiring or knows someone who is, drop me a line :D)
Awesome. Congrats on your accomplishments Cth! :)
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
A while back, maybe this month, a user posted that they had finished Bioshock Infinite - Burial at Sea but wanted someone to walk them through what happened in terms of the plot so they were sure they had it right. I can't find the post. Anyway, I finished both episodes today, so I thought I'd write the shortest possible summary of the plot of the entire BioShock series. I will leave out the politics and philosophical themes, and just describe what literally happened.

Full spoilers for the entire series of BioShock and the DLC divided by game. Don't say I didn't warn you.

BioShock
It is the early 1960s. You play as a man name Jack. The game opens with you in a plane crash near a lighthouse. Inside the lighthouse is a sub which Jack takes down to Rapture, an underwater city run by a man named Andrew Ryan. You learn that the citizens of the city are basically quasi-insane feral drug addicts, hooked on ADAM. ADAM is primarily extracted through a type of sea slug and used to give people what amounts to super powers called Plasmids. In order to make it easier to harvest ADAM, a technology was invented by a scientist called Bridget Tenenbaum to transform little girls into zombie-like Little Sisters who go around harvesting ADAM. Because they are just little girls, they are protected by giant mechanical men. Jack is asked to help an Irish Man named Atlas reunite with his family. Upon getting to his family, the submarine they are in is exploded. Jack is now instructed to get to Andew Ryan and kill him. Jack discovers that he is subject to a form of mind control where the phrase "Would You Kindly" forces him to obey people's commands. Andrew Ryan commands Jack to kill him. It turns out that Jack was a son born to Andrew Ryan and a mistress, and was experimented on by a scientist known as Yi Suchong. He was sent to the surface world and false memories were implanted in him of a life he didn't really live. After killing Ryan and basically setting Rapture to self-destruct, Jack goes after Atlas--who was originally a citizen of Rapture named Frank Fontaine who was involved in smuggling and believed killed by Andrew Ryan's goons. Jack rescues the Little Sisters, who help him kill Atlas, and returns to the surface with the Little Sisters. End of game.

BioShock 2
This game has no relevance to the plot of the series and is not canonical. It also isn't well written. Move along.

BioShock Infinite
It is the turn of the century. A man named Booker DeWitt is rowed to a lighthouse. He has been hired to go to a city in the sky, Columbia, in order to retrieve a girl. He is a war hero guilty of some pretty brutal stuff in one of the wars between the United States and Native Americans. He then worked for the Pinkertons, a sort of private security force that suppressed unions, among other things. DeWitt enters Columbia. Columbia is a floating city that was built as part of a World's Fair exhibition by a prophet / leader named Zachary Comstock. Comstock used Columbia's arms to attack the Chinese during the Boxer Rebellion. Booker enters the city, which appears to be idyllic but is actually facing civil unrest at the hands of a band of anarchists called the Vox Populi (voice of the people). He rescues the girl he was sent to rescue, the daughter of Zachary Comstock, who is named Elizabeth. She is cooped up in a tower. Elizabeth has the power to open tears in the fabric of reality, presumably to different times or places. She is guarded... or protected? by a giant mechanical bird named Songbird.

Throughout the game, there are things that are obvious anachronistic to the time where the game is set--songs that were composed after the game was written, technology which did not exist at the time, etc. Booker and Elizabeth have a tumultuous connection, and she deplores his use of violence. He escapes with Elizabeth in an airship, following the directions of his clients to deliver Elizabeth to New York City. She attempts to escape, seeing Booker as more captive than liberator.

Columbia's civil war starts in earnest. The leader of the Vox Populi, Daisy Fitzroy, agrees to help Booker if he runs a fetch quest for them. The details of this are not particularly important, but during the course of doing so, Booker and Elizabeth enter into one of her tears in reality and emerge in what appears to be a slightly parallel dimension where the same civil war is occurring, but Booker in this reality is dead. Daisy in this reality has been using Booker as a martyr, and thus wants to stop the living Booker. Elizabeth ends up killing Daisy to save an innocent child. Having grown and lost her innocence, she cuts her hair. Booker and Elizabeth escape on the airship again, only to be attacked by Songbird and crash into Columbia.

Throughout the game, it is noted that two scientists named the Lutece Twins were responsible for much of the invention that had occurred in Columbia. In fact, they are not twins. They are the same person in difference realities; suggesting a sort of quantum divergence where in one reality the child was born male and in another reality female. They each, in their own realities, discovered a way to open a gateway between realities, and crossed into the present reality where they met. While experimenting with the Lutece's device, Comstock is rendered sterile. Despite his sterility, he has a religious vision of the future where his daughter, running Columbia, rains hellfire on New York City. As a result, he kidnapped a child from another dimension--Elizabeth. The source of Elizabeth's powers are that while being brought across dimensions, the portal between dimensions closed, amputating her finger. This made her stuck in between dimensions, and gave her the power to manipulate reality. Comstock imprisoned Elizabeth for this reason and built a device to suppress her powers.

In an attempt to destroy this device and escape, Elizabeth is captured. Booker is drawn into the 1980s where he meets an older Elizabeth who, fulfilling Comstock's prophecy, is destroying New York City. She gives Booker information necessary to shut down Songbird and rescue Elizabeth. He rescues her and chases Comstock. When they meet, Comstock explains that Booker is responsible for Elizabeth's suffering, and allows himself to be killed by Booker. Booker disables the device keeping Elizabeth's powers in check. Songbird attacks the pair. Elizabeth, now at her full powers, draws all three into another dimension.

The other dimension a city that is underwater. Songbird is outside in the water, and drowns. Players recognize this place as Rapture. Booker and Elizabeth take the submarine to the surface and exit the lighthouse that Jack entered in BioShock. But this time, there are hundreds of lighthouses. Connected. There are an infinite number of dimensions, a true multi-verse. And Elizabeth sees all possibilities, and all realities. There is always a man and always a city--in some dimensions, Rapture is built by Andrew Ryan. In others, Columbia is built by Comstock. Columbia's technology was developed in part because a scientist named Fink used the tears in reality to communicate and steal ideas from the technology of Rapture in other dimensions. We also learn that the songs that are played in the wrong generation in Columbia come from other dimensions. Everything is connected. Elizabeth walks Booker through a nexus connecting all dimensions, and explains what's going on, as she now knows what she must do. Booker was Elizabeth's father. She was known as Anna DeWitt (AD on his hand). When she was a girl, Booker racked up gambling debts and sold her to pay them off. When he regretted his choice and tried to stop the Lutece Twins from taking Anna, the ensuing struggle caused the amputation of her pinky as noted, above and set the whole thing in motion. In fact Booker was not hired to save Anna; the Lutece Twins chose to have him do so because they hated what Comstock did to Elizabeth. His memories of being hired were partly implanted and partly made up by his brain to make sense of the parallel dimension he found himself drawn in. There are an infinite number of dimensions, each with different outcomes.

In all dimensions, Booker's rescue of Elizabeth failed, even having killed Comstock. Elizabeth knows that to stop the cycle and truly save herself everywhere, the pair must stop Comstock from ever being born. Elizabeth takes herself and Booker to a baptism scene on a hill--in fact, Comstock is not "born". Comstock is Booker. In some dimensions, he chooses to be baptized and ends up building Columbia. In others he rejects baptism and stays Booker. Elizabeths from every dimension drown Comstock-Booker in the baptismal font, ending all possible realities where Comstock ever existed. Thinking of dimensions as branching off infinitely with each choice made, Elizabeth prunes the tree of possibilities so that none of the events of BioShock Infinite were ever able to happen. Booker awakes to find Anna in her crib.

BioShock Infinite - Burial At Sea Episode One
Booker--possibly not the same Booker, but a Booker is hired by an Elizabeth (this one different looking, though) to find a girl named Sally. Booker says this is impossible, as he knows Sally, and she is dead. It is implied that Sally was Booker's daughter. Elizabeth insists, and Booker joins her.

The two walk through Rapture before the collapse of society. They learn that Sally has been taken to Rapture's prison. In fact, Rapture's prison are the old buildings Frank Fontaine--Atlas--built. When Fontaine was "killed" by Andrew Ryan, his builders were sunk even deeper and converted into a prison. Within the prison, Booker and Elizabeth find Sally hiding in the vent system. She won't come out. Booker explains that Sally was an orphan who he took pity on and fed. This Booker has a gambling problem too, and lost Sally at a gambling venue. She was found dead, floating in the water. In fact, she was not dead, but rather kidnapped in order to be converted into a Little Sister. When Booker and Elizabeth find Sally, she is typically zombified. The only way to get her out of the vent system is to turn up the central heating and flush her out--Booker agrees despite feeling she'll be burned to death.

Upon getting Sally out, almost, Elizabeth reveals herself. In fact, Booker is not Booker. He's one dimension of Comstock. In this dimension, when Comstock tried to acquire a daughter, she was decapitated in much the same way that Elizabeth lost her pinky finger. Comstock was brought to Rapture by the Lutece Twins as a sort of way to escape his guilt over the death of the child. Comstock remembers this, but confesses everything is hazy and it doesn't remember. Elizabeth doesn't care, and has her revenge by having a Big Daddy kill Comstock.

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode Two
Elizabeth is wandering around a nice happy day in a beautiful cobblestone section of Paris. She runs into Sally, and things immediately turn dark. Sally escape and Elizabeth follows until she gets to a door. When she enters, she is being rowed by the Lutece Twins to a lighthouse. They remark that by choosing this path, Elizabeth is giving up her powers to see into other dimensions, but Elizabeth has to do it. She is returning to Rapture because she feels guilty for her part in Rapture-Sally's life and her choice to revenge-kill Rapture-Comstock.

She returns to the place where Rapture-Comstock was murdered, only to find that in fact she too was murdered. Basically, what happened is that all Elizabeths across all dimensions, who existed in a state of quantum flux, died. One Elizabeth remains, this one, who is mortal and has no more powers. She is found by Atlas (yes, that Atlas), who moves to kill her. A mental vision of Booker tells her what to say to survive--she agrees to help Atlas escape the prison and return to Rapture in return for Rapture-Sally. She finds Suchong's Tear Device, which Suchong and Fink from Columbia used to communicate. She enters it, returning to Columbia. In Columbia, she steals a special quantum particle from Fink which is used to make Columbia float.

While in Columbia, she learns that Daisy Fitzroy was never going to kill the child, but instead had to die so that Elizabeth could become who she is today. Paradox!

She returns to Rapture where she is confronted by Andrew Ryan, who she basically tells to eff off. She uses the particle to float the prison back up to mainstream Rapture. Atlas does not deliver Sally to her. Instead, he tortures her to find out what Andrew Ryan's "Ace in the Hole" is. Elizabeth ends up cooperating again and goes to Suchong's lab where she witnesses him being killed by a Big Daddy. The game explains that Big Daddy and Songbird are like similar concepts across different dimensions, which was obvious in BioShock Infinite but I guess some people didn't figure it out. The Ace in the Hole is none other than Jack.

Elizabeth delivers the "Would You Kindly" phrase to Atlas, who murders her. As she dies, she sees flashes of the future; Atlas will send for Jack from the surface world. Using the mind control phrase, he will come to Rapture. He will help Atlas kill Andrew Ryan. And unbeknownst to Ryan, Jack will end up killing Atlas too. In so doing, Elizabeth has caused the events of the original BioShock. Sally is one of the Little Sisters Jack saved. Full-circle. Elizabeth dies.

I actually thought Burial at Sea kind of sucked and that the story sucked, but there you have it. If anyone was confused, hopefully now they're not.
 

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.
Enhanced Steam 6.0.1 was just rejected by Mozilla. I'm tired of jumping through hoops for these people.

I'm going to stop publishing updates to Firefox for a while, and look into self-hosting the files myself. I know I won't get as much exposure as the Firefox Add On market thing provides, but they're dictating an incredible amount of work that is entirely unnecessary and (quite honestly) at this point seems personal.
 

BinaryPork2737

Unconfirmed Member
Since it's a major title arriving late next month:

STEAM | May 2014 Who watches the Watch Doggies?

Or maybe something Killer is Dead relates since it also comes out next month.

Or this:

STEAM | May 2014 - This MAY be another title


Whoever selected the set of screenshots shown on the Centration store page should get smacked upside the head.

I was going to make a post on that. It's some of the most boring promotional screenshots I've seen yet.
 

Copons

Member
If you look closely to Stumpo last post you end up seeing a picture of Jesus Christ smiling between the lines.
Or a boat. I always confuse them.
 

Nabs

Member
The Steam Beta Client is up:

Steam Client Beta Update - April 30
We've just published a new beta which includes the following changes.

General:
  • Fixed several small memory leaks in the Steam client
  • Fixed a rare crash on workshop image update inside the library details view
  • DLC can now be disabled in the DLC properties page for a game

Windows:
  • Fixed a case where Steam could be seen as a voice application on startup and Windows would lower sound of other applications

Steamworks:
  • Fixed some AppVerifier errors/warnings caused by Steam that could make it hard for games to use AppVerifier to verify the rest of their code

Big Picture:
  • Added new profile section to the main menu replace the old community section. This brings Big Picture more up-to-date in terms of design and features with desktop/web community and adds better activity feed and profile views.
  • Improved movie playback support and support for animated gifs
  • Adding of non-Steam games is now directly supported in Big Picture
  • Non-Steam games now show icon art when available and when no custom art has been set in Big Picture
  • Fixed a bug where screenshot/out-of-focus mode could kick in when Big Picture had focus if you transitioned into it while already running a game
  • Fixed a bug where focus may end up in an unexpected place if the button currently in focus is deleted from the UI

In-Home Streaming:
  • The In-Home Streaming feature is now available to everyone running the client beta
  • Added an intro dialog the first time you start streaming a game
  • Show a dialog if the game needs cloud sync resolution before starting
  • Improved D3D asynchronous capture performance
  • Improved OpenGL asynchronous capture performance
  • Fixed slow system reporting for Fast and Balanced settings
  • Fixed several causes of infinite latency when client is too slow
  • Fixed client crash changing resolution with software decoding
  • Increased precision for refresh rate and capture framerate
  • Reduced latency when streaming at the client refresh rate

Steam Music Beta:
  • Improved crawling speed
  • Respect multiple albums in one directory and respecting disc number if available in tag data
  • Better handling of faulty tag data
  • Faster display of album and artist library views
  • Music features now available while offline
  • Duplicate artists bug fixed
  • Better compatibility with MP3 files containing cover art of unusual or big sizes
  • Database overhaul improves data quality; requires one-time automatic rebuild of beta testers’ libraries
 
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