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STEAM | December 2014 - Read OP for winter sale questions

I don't get the gem values for some stuff. For example I have an emoticon that is worth 40 cents but I would get only 20 gems but another emoticon that is worth 3 cents can nab me 100 gems. what...

Decided to check on some indie stuff like Shovel Knight, Pier Solar, Kamui..etc and there are no auctions for them. I probably won't bother with this stuff and some of the bids on the newer stuff (which will surely be cheap during the winter sale) are crazy. Those son of a guns at Valve come up with some wacky stuff to nab people's wallets and inventories!
 

Volimar

Member
Ah. That's exactly what ModBot is for. ;)

image.php


Saoirse doing her best Elizabeth Olsen impression.
 
I don't get the gem values for some stuff. For example I have an emoticon that is worth 40 cents but I would get only 20 gems but another emoticon that is worth 3 cents can nab me 100 gems. what...

Decided to check on some indie stuff like Shovel Knight, Pier Solar, Kamui..etc and there are no auctions for them. I probably won't bother with this stuff and some of the bids on the newer stuff (which will surely be cheap during the winter sale) are crazy. Those son of a guns are Valve come up with some wacky stuff to nab people's wallets and inventories!

The gem stuff seems like Valve's attempt to reset the community economy. Burn up the worthless stuff so that it will sell for more post-event, and thus give Valve more of that sweet cut.

Their economist is earning a paycheck right now, I bet.
 
Thanks again to jshackles' big ol' giveaway, here are some impressions for Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden.

This game is made by the same people who made the previous game I reviewed, Nightmares of the Deep: the Cursed Heart. And in some ways it's better, and in some worse. But more on that in a bit.

The story:

Sometimes a screenshot is worth a thousand words. Here are my screenshots with associated captions. Let's just say the story will be familiar to most gamers. Just see for yourself.

The story: You play a female protagonist - unnamed - who's engaged (maybe even married to? She says at one point "for better or worse" to the guy) to a diver named Robert Merceau...because every diver's last name has to sound kinda like Cousteau. He goes missing, and the Coast Guard found no trace of him, so naturally when you go searching you find him pretty much right away. Along the way you find his stuff - his cellphone with an unsent message to you, the watch you gave him - and then declare that you'll find him...but then just leave them there. Bitch, you do nothing BUT carry things around, don't you think he'll want his stuff when you find him? Anyway, if you didn't look at the screenshots, he's trapped in an underground... art deco... crumbling utopian society... with a resistance... people with odd powers... and several little girls.
Get it? It's Bioshock, the hidden object game.
I'll have to call the story a wash, cause it's a good story, only lifted almost completely from elsewhere.

The graphics: Even better than Nightmares from the Deep. The cutscenes are done in higher resolution so it doesn't feel nearly as jarring going back and forth. For a casual game, it's gorgeous. I mean, just don't expect 4K ultra settings with 16x MSAA or whatever you kids are into. (In fact, don't expect to be able to change the graphical settings at all.)

The puzzles: If you read my Nightmares from the Deep review, you'll recall that I said there were no clunkers of puzzles. Sadly, not so in this one. There were two puzzles comprised of "move the junk in this box to find the stuff you actually need" and there was no way to tell where the junk could go to move it aside. A lot of stuff ended up back in the center - frustrating. The third puzzle was one where you have to rotate lenses, but what you have to do is conveyed so badly it's basically "trial and error: the puzzle." The rest were pretty good. You do have an option to skip hidden object scenes by playing a game of dominoes or something, but I didn't skip anything so I don't know how good it is. I'll have to go back later if I want the achievements though.

The length: I played this one on expert mode to start, and it took me 4 hours including the bonus chapter. So it's shorter than Nightmares from the Deep, but still above average.

The verdict: Artifex Mundi has yet to disappoint me in terms of these kinds of games. If you need a change of pace from something hardcore, get it. If you like casual type games, or point and click adventures, get it. They appear in bundles pretty often, so if you happen to get one, you should consider registering the key yourself instead of giving it away. But you don't have to just blindly listen to me: after all, a man chooses, a slave obeys.
 
You know something's up when even people from the TF2 community are entertaining the "Valve don't make games. Their games aren't even theirs." narrative.

And begging for Robin Walker to return? Yeah, good luck with that haha.
 

Ruruja

Member
How do we craft the holiday badge?

You get a card for crafting a normal badge, you also can get them off the market.

But don't forget, once the actual sale starts you'll get one for every ~$10 spent too (and possibly one every 3 community votes, if they have those).
 

Turfster

Member
Groupees BAGB15 bundle is now live
TIER 1: 1$ minimum for 2 games
  • Super Rocket Shootout
  • Aero's Quest
  • Terra Incognita The Descendant
  • ROGUS Kingdom of the Lost Souls
  • Abyss Uncharted
  • Ethereon
  • Tenshu General
  • Copy Kitty - Turbo Edition


GOG is having a pack recap day
 
Dunno about that, TF2 community has always been insanely bitchy.

Well, it's a service game. If the service provider isn't up to snuff the customers will bitch. But never followed that scene. Only started after the competitive MM rumors surfaced. Dota and CS fandom aren't exactly pleasant either. If Valve's goal is to agitate their fans and make them bitter they're doing a good job with it. But at least these fandoms got something all these years. Unlike that other one with 7 years of silence.
 

dex3108

Member
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D
 
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D

Psychological manipulation ;)
 

Thorgal

Member
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D
UavOyMp.jpg
 

Maniac

Banned
840 EVO all the way. PROs are some overpriced snake-oil.

The two-fitty PROs have a really good price compared to size and performance. But you can't argue with 'faster than HDD, and god damn huge nonetheless' as is the case with EVO, heh.

... I need to get an EVO as my secondary SSD...
 
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D

Their games are good and the microtransactions are mostly cosmetic and fair to the users.
They run the best DD service on the market, by far.
I don't really care if they ever make a SP game again.
 

trolho

Neo Member
Damn, so many people leveling up on Steam. Fellow Gaffers, what is currently the cheapest way to level up? Need to reach 40 fast or maybe even 50.

Should I go buying cards for the cheapest sets and craft badges, or is it cheaper if I buy boosters with gems converted from cheap community items?
 

Chariot

Member
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D
At this point? I just like to have all my games at one place and there are so many sales of so many sites that sell for steam, so I get my cheap stuff.
 

Maniac

Banned
I have sustained 500 MB/s read/write performance on my 840 EVO, how is that low-perf?
840evo4of8z.png

... I meant compared to the PRO series. And it really isn't sustainable, either.
I could go and write an essay sized port of what i liked and disliked abgout the game but to keep this short :

Positive's : everything you mentioned . :p

The negative :

ill let Gopher explain it for me why the Save point method is the worst possible method they could have come up with for a player like me and him who highly value immersion .:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjegUcnqz1k

.

If not for the want to overwrite? prompt, it'd be a heck of a lot more immersive than quicksaving or any such stuff.

Really funny to hear that Gopher really hadn't been paying attention in-game though, lol.

Nothing new though... :p Anyway, I personally felt they added a lot of immersion once I ripped the prompt the hell out. And added to the tension, big-time.

And lol. "Saving her existence"... Wat.
 
Their games are good and the microtransactions are mostly cosmetic and fair to the users.
They run the best DD service on the market, by far.
I don't really care if they ever make a SP game again.

They have been introducing very troubling microtransactions in their games recently and their Steam stuff is for exploiting whales. Hell, the Compendium was a huge whale magnet. Not exactly praise worthy.
 
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D

Well, their games are filled with microtransactions that even the most staunch haters of the practice have to admit are completely cosmetic and optional. They monetize everything except game content that matters. Their communication is minimal but that doesn't mean they're not listening to the community. Case in point is the turnaround of CSGO. It was a disaster when it released 2 years ago. Now it's back on track to become one of the biggest competitive games ever, and it's all because Valve listened to the community. Not sure why no SP game is a problem. And Sale meta games seem fine to me but maybe that's because I'm up about $15 with this gem event and I'm hoping to get a few free games from the auctions.
 
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D
I don't, I used to, but now I'm held hostage by my library.
 

Lomax

Member
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D

There are plenty of us here that question Valve's practices and why they continue to make mistakes like the gem launch. Just because we are heavy Steam users doesn't mean we are mindless fans.
 
Damn, so many people leveling up on Steam. Fellow Gaffers, what is currently the cheapest way to level up? Need to reach 40 fast or maybe even 50.

Should I go buying cards for the cheapest sets and craft badges, or is it cheaper if I buy boosters with gems converted from cheap community items?
I dunno what everyone else is doing, but since some cards have gotten cheaper over the last 48 hours, I've been trying to find the cards that have devalued the most, buy those and craft badges.

Other people might have a more efficient method though.
 
They have been introducing very troubling microtransactions in their games recently and their Steam stuff is for exploiting whales. Hell, the Compendium was a huge whale magnet. Not exactly praise worthy.
I haven't followed it recently to be honest and I don't even play their games very much, but to be completely subjective, nothing they do there affects me negatively in any way.

I also don't see a problem with "exploiting" whales. No one is forced to spend money. If people decide to drop hundreds of dollars on F2P titles, that's really their problem. And I'm pretty sure most people do it because they get some enjoyment out of it. If those people finance F2P titles for the rest of us, why not.
 

Maniac

Banned
I was thinking today about Valve and Steam and i have one question for SteamGAF.

Why we love Valve (beside sales)?

Their games are filled with microtransactions, last few years they are looking to monetize everything they can, their communication with users is minimal, they are rarely listening community, no SP game since Portal 2 ( if i remember correctly), Sale Meta Games are worse...

:D

Really can't tell whether or not you're serious. But I'll bite. They do listen to their communities, and they do a hundred times more than any other developer around does for any of their communities.

Microtransactions benefit the creative part of their customer-base via UGC-monetisation. And said microtransactions are the only reason it's financially sustainable for them to be able to continue working on the game post-release for years on end without making you pay a dime for the content they're adding.

And not everyone cares about singleplayer games, heck the majority nowadays don't. Ofcourse, that's no excuse really, but I don't see why anyone would dislike them for not releasing more SP stuff. Anyway, we do know that they're working on some SP-oriented titles.

Also Marc Laidlaw is a really lovely bloke, so that's another reason to love them, heh.

You know something's up when even people from the TF2 community are entertaining the "Valve don't make games. Their games aren't even theirs." narrative.

And begging for Robin Walker to return? Yeah, good luck with that haha.

Wait... Say wcchhhrrraaaaat? What happened to Robin? :eek: Did he abandon his baby for another project... Did he die? Or worse yet, did he... gulp Quit?!
They have been introducing very troubling microtransactions in their games recently and their Steam stuff is for exploiting whales. Hell, the Compendium was a huge whale magnet. Not exactly praise worthy.

... And the whales are subsequently paying for all the free content that everyone else is getting without having to pay for DLC, or a subscription.

I don't really see the problem with targetting the users that're willing to fork over cash for hats so everyone else can have new maps, gamemodes and all that jazz.

Ofcourse, I can't really say I'm a huge fan of microtransactions, especially since we'll likely see them in the next L4D, but I can hardly blame them for wanting to make a good profit off of continuously supporting their games.
 
No, come on, we want Portal 3.

I loved the first Portal, but the second one felt mostly like more of the same. I enjoy fresh gameplay ideas and settings.

If they decided to create a new and fresh SP IP I'd probably be interested. I doubt HL3 would even come close to what people expect of it either.
 
Wait... Say wcchhhrrraaaaat? What happened to Robin? :eek: Did he abandon his baby for another project... Did he die? Or worse yet, did he... gulp Quit?!

He's one of the main Dota guys and of the trio (Erik Johnson, Adrian Finol) who basically got the Dota2 ball rolling.
 
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