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STEAM | August 2014 - Everybody loves iDLEM@STER
- Thread starter MRORANGE
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YianGaruga
Banned
I guess people are scared that the same thing that happened to Dota keys is going to happen to TF2? Not sure though
Dota 2 had keys removed from the game so people are concerned the same thing's going to happen with TF2 keys.
Well this happened recently
More than likely because DotA 2 has now gone keyless that there is a knock on effect with the panic that the same might happen to TF2. Is TF2 even that popular in China? Seeing how many keys get sold day in day out Valve would be crazy to go the same route unless it was the same situation as DotA's
Ban Puncher
Member
So I bought a couple of CS:GO cases and keys and was all ready to go down the rabbit hole but then suddenly thought 'what the fuck am I doing?'.
Sold everything and am now 20 cents poorer overall but I think I learned a valuable life lesson.
Sold everything and am now 20 cents poorer overall but I think I learned a valuable life lesson.
YianGaruga
Banned
I don't think that's the case. Valve doesn't have anything to lose from letting it happen and publishers already can lock down cross-region trading manually.
a bit far fetched that they would remove the system.
was that change not announced ahead of time?
i read that it was changed because of the dota 2 china release and the local gambling laws.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/299500/
At the risk of being completely random, let me talk about International Snooker. Like many people, you may have purchased the "8 ball bundle" hoping for a decent sports game or two... or to get Pool Nation which looks fancy (but I didn't enjoy, see below). You may then be disappointed to see that all the other games are pretty much glorified spreadsheets. They are also not even that glorified.
International Snooker is different and I think well worth a look. Unlike the other games, you actually get to play the sport in question, which is snooker. From there, things are pretty standard except for one key difference. Each shot is more like a simulator than an arcade title. Whereas in Pool Nation you are lining up a shot and then wiggling the mouse to guess how strong to hit the ball, International Snooker takes an unusual approach.
You still line up your shot, with a variety of helpful indicators to let you know what will happen. But here you actually select your shot strength from a slider, with graphical cues to help you out here too. When you are happy with your shot? You basically hit the go button and it all plays out in front of you.
What this does is changes the game from an arcade experience, to almost a turn based strategy affair, which I find completely appropriate for the sport. While it may not hold your attention for long, it at least gives a subtle, but different spin on the genre and hence becomes my bundle "top pick".
Also Top Golf Pro 3 is worth a look. Because fuck me somebody put some effort into something that I can't see anybody, ever, wanting to play.
The way you shoot in International Snooker is the very thing I don't like about the game. It's not an uncommon way to have pool/snooker games do it that way. In fact most PC/Console games since the 80s to now have had this "set the power and spin, then press shoot to shoot" system.
The better system is the "mouse is the cue" system, it just takes a while to get used to the power. I've gone on about this quite a few times, but I hope Virtual Pool 4 gets greenlit soon so that you can enjoy a much better Snooker and Pool game.
From my understanding is that the previous chest system in DotA wasn't available in China since it was released there which I believe is to do with some legal requirement. The system for everyone else has been keyless for a couple of months and all the chests that can be opened by key that were on the market have been removed. Valve no longer sell keys so they are in a finite amount and the chests that the key open aren't dropped anymore so eventually they will run its course. This is more pulling everything into line with each other.
Now TF2 on the other hand hasn't had any of these issue so I have no idea why the prices are dropping other than blind panic. Then again take what I say with a pinch of salt as my TF2 days are long behind me and I've played very little of DotA 2 for fear of getting hooked!
YianGaruga
Banned
I heard that as well, but can't you still buy things from the market that give you random drops? I'm not sure what the change accomplishes in that case, but I don't know chinese gambling laws obviously
Hero Prinny
Member
Morning everyoneeee 
how we all doing? I gotta go help out my mom's bf at work today, what a bummer
how we all doing? I gotta go help out my mom's bf at work today, what a bummer Blue Ninja
Member
I could run BioShock Infinite on Max (with some stuff turned down to High) and achieve a pretty stable 60 fps.
I had to run ACIV at 30fps, but only because of that game's horrible, horrible Vsync.
I could run Metro: Last Light with pretty much all bells and whistles on, and get a stable 60fps as well.
As for the Witcher 2, I had to turn down some settings, but the game seemed to run smoothly as well.
AHA-Lambda
Member
How many/what F2P games are there that drop cards without spending any money?
AHA-Lambda
Member
Well this is a fun way to spend Sunday lunch time, TV on and removing and then relisting 100+ cards from the market. It's just as tedious as it sounds. Also why is no one buying my junk backgrounds and emotes? They're 3 p you cheapskates!
Well some of the settings in The Witcher 2 are brute forced to work and going from the lowest settings to the highest requires quite a shift in hardware. For me at 2560x1440 and with 2 780s I struggle to maintain 60fps in cutscenes with bokeh DOF and Uber Sampling just cuts my framerate by half and upto 3 quarters. 1920x1080 is fine but I can dig a slithly lower framerate here and there for much more eye candy. But thankfully there are so many settings to adjust you can quite easily tailor the game to run a quite a wide range of hardware. I'm sure III will be the same if not better in that regard but I guess we'll have to wait an see but by going how you fair in other games, especially Last Light which has quite a few nice bells and whistles (look at me parroting you now!) I'd imagine you'd get something on the level of what a Xbox One would perform at but maybe with lower texture detail and maybe having to forgo most costly AA methods.
Black Flag is a really funny game that the engine is locked to 62fps max but in some section I get about 50% GPU usage but in any area with a bit more foliage than normal, like the hideout and around warerhouses it shoots up to the high 90's on both cards. I'll get around 55fps in those situation but remove one GPU and I'll drop to 40fps so it's more over the case that the abundant tessellation used of foliage is way more heavy that the result it produces. Other item of geometry are fine due to being much larger and not as finely detailed but it doesn't help that there is no in game setting to directly turn it down without cutting all the other settings lumbered in under environmental detail.
When you compare the massive amount of configurable settings you get with a CDPR title to that of a Ubisoft as well as the way they are described what each setting does you can see why some people have issues with Ubisoft games. Both have really high settings that require massive of GPU power but CDPR at least give you way more flexibility to tinker. There are some ini tweaks for most Ubisoft engines but it's the same with Unreal Engine 3 titles why not just have a front facing GUI for people to be able to configure this themselves, especially for those scared of editing text files.
Well some of the settings in The Witcher 2 are brute forced to work and going from the lowest settings to the highest requires quite a shift in hardware. For me at 2560x1440 and with 2 780s I struggle to maintain 60fps in cutscenes with bokeh DOF and Uber Sampling just cuts my framerate by half and upto 3 quarters. 1920x1080 is fine but I can dig a slithly lower framerate here and there for much more eye candy. But thankfully there are so many settings to adjust you can quite easily tailor the game to run a quite a wide range of hardware. I'm sure III will be the same if not better in that regard but I guess we'll have to wait an see but by going how you fair in other games, especially Last Light which has quite a few nice bells and whistles (look at me parroting you now!) I'd imagine you'd get something on the level of what a Xbox One would perform at but maybe with lower texture detail and maybe having to forgo most costly AA methods.
Black Flag is a really funny game that the engine is locked to 62fps max but in some section I get about 50% GPU usage but in any area with a bit more foliage than normal, like the hideout and around warerhouses it shoots up to the high 90's on both cards. I'll get around 55fps in those situation but remove one GPU and I'll drop to 40fps so it's more over the case that the abundant tessellation used of foliage is way more heavy that the result it produces. Other item of geometry are fine due to being much larger and not as finely detailed but it doesn't help that there is no in game setting to directly turn it down without cutting all the other settings lumbered in under environmental detail.
When you compare the massive amount of configurable settings you get with a CDPR title to that of a Ubisoft as well as the way they are described what each setting does you can see why some people have issues with Ubisoft games. Both have really high settings that require massive of GPU power but CDPR at least give you way more flexibility to tinker. There are some ini tweaks for most Ubisoft engines but it's the same with Unreal Engine 3 titles why not just have a front facing GUI for people to be able to configure this themselves, especially for those scared of editing text files.
I think I'm down for it. Could probably go more than 4 playersAlright PSA time!
AGE OF EMPIRES 2 HD SUNDAY GAME NIGHT 7PM PST
Tomorrow night at 7pm PST, I will be hosting matches of AOE2HD, and your invited! If you would like to play a match or two, go ahead and say so and I'll add you to the list:
1. Khronico
2. ????
3. ????
4. ????
......
Also, if you have a preferred game mode you would like to play, make your voice heard and I'll make a strawpoll with the 4 most popular choices. The winner will be the inaugural match of the night!
This is my first time hosting internet matches so it may or not be lag free. It probably won't.
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MarcoZombieCannon
Member
Over my dead, big-giveaway-losing body
jim-jam bongs
Member
Unbanned just in time to lose another giveaway!
Snakethesniper
Member
isn't therapeutic killing them all?
sucks that witcha 2 spiders affect you
i don't mind them too much since they move really weird (like they just warp into place instead of descending like scary spiders do) and are generally really strange looking
they remind me a bit more of crabs than spiders
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
I never even thought of them as spiders. And looking at them again I still can't see it.
yeah i tend to generally ignore any games with spiders in them. sucks that a lot of RPGs have them. this is why im excited for fable anniversary. finally a RPG that doesn't have spiders
there are Arachas which is a crab - spider. just googling the pictures makes me not want to play the game at all
yea they're pretty weird
actually kind of cool looking
i mean as someone that's pretty traumatized by spiders myself i didn't really find them bothersome at all. and i can't finish more than half the games i play
but yea what applies to me doesn't necessarily apply to you
Blue Ninja
Member
In any case, sounds like something I can live with for a couple of months until I buy my new GPU. I would've bought it sooner, but I can't resist that Master Chief.
I'm getting Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, GTA V and Metro Redux for PC. They'll be fine.
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Oh yeah those things
Atraveller
Banned
They don't look like spiders...
jim-jam bongs
Member
Obviously they look enough like spiders to be an arachnophobia trigger for kudo, no need to delve into it further imo. Phobias aren't really something you can rationalise, they're entirely subconscious.
this shit doesn't work like that
if your brain tells you to fear you fear, doesn't matter if it's pixelated or low res or crab looking or whatever
like i can't play minecraft cos spiders
it's very stupid
yea i was just sharing my experience as a fellow crazy person
but yea everyone's different
Welcome back! You never know it might be a sign.
In any case, sounds like something I can live with for a couple of months until I buy my new GPU. I would've bought it sooner, but I can't resist that Master Chief.
I'm getting Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, GTA V and Metro Redux for PC. They'll be fine.
I've always gone about my upgrades like this. Until there is a game you really, really want to play that even with your current hardware won't run at all then that's the time to upgrade. Battlefield 4 was what made me upgrade the last time and despite being bitterly disappointed going back through my library with newer hardware was like gaining 100's of new games. I upgraded at the time time when Quake, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Crysis and The Witcher 2 came out respectively due to having hardware that either I knew couldn't run them or had bought and was left with really, really bad performance.
There are varying levels of fear, I guess. Real spiders freak the heck out of me but video game spiders do nothing.
Atraveller
Banned
So a normal person then.
What is normal around here anyway?
Ingueferroque
Banned
yup i had to download a no spiders mod for minecraft every time a new patch was released. funny thing is i have never seen a spider irl before. just from all those shows like fear factor
yea basically you're normal and we're crazy
even the word spider sends a chill down my spine
i haven't seen that many either 'cept when i went to northern argieland jungle. saw a few decent sized ones there, not something i'd recommend
really sucks that you'll miss out on witcha 2, it's a pretty good game, and i know the feel.
not being able to ever again play some of my favorite games from my teenage years like thief or resident evil 2 is scuh a bummer
On a similar note, you may wish to avoid Divinity: Original Sin as it features multiple battles with giant spiders.
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
That's why he has the mod to replace the spiders.
Atraveller
Banned
I got my friend a steam wallet card from freaking CVS, and it also sells food, what the hell.
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