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STEAM | July 2014-3 – Let Off Some STEAM Bennett

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ModBot

ModBot

Not a mod, just a bot.
This is a scheduled automated repost on behalf of phoenix296, who is running this raffle.

ModBot said:
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t1cxE6r.gif
Divinity: Original Sin -- MB-3B737D1FA5FF73C7 - Taken by Volimar. 100 entrants total.


t1406591634z1.png
Click to expand...
 
P

pahamrick

Member
header.jpg


Okay, so here's some early impressions on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z before I have to leave for the next couple hours. Keep in mind that I'm no reviewer, and commenting on games pros and cons are not my strong suit at all and I'm only up through the first couple of stages.

Frost compared Yaiba to a Musou game + the humor of Borderlands. I'd say that's fairly accurate, actually. Yaiba is a game that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and that's a good thing. I, like many others here, saw how Yaiba was reviewed and many folks online cautioned to avoid this game. The types of comments and reviews I've seen are things I'd save for a game that is broken, that is such an unpleasant mess to play that it's not worth the time or effort.

And let me tell you folks, that is some grade A bullshit. The controls for this game are so fluid that I would put it right up there with Metal Gear Rising in terms of responsiveness. Things just flow so smoothly together that it's a joy to play, it really is. It also comes across as brutally unforgiving. The bit about comparing it to Musou? That ain't a joke. At any given time you could be fighting 10-15+ enemies at once, with a combat system that any Ninja Gaiden Black fan would appreciate. Not to mention, even up through the second stage you'll be fighting those regular hordes of enemies with multiples of enemies that could be classified as mini-bosses. That block button will be your best friend.

I can understand of the humor and style of the game isn't for everyone and thats okay. Don't completely write it off for that though, give it a chance and you just might find that it really is a solid action game.

I'll post some more detailed impressions at a later date, possibly once I've cleared the campaign.

Oh, and to quote Frost: You might want to start on normal. Just sayin`.
 
E

electroflame

Member
jshackles said:
While this current script is running, I'm working on a python variant that grabs this information from the web. It'll grab the first game on this page that has card drops remaining, then look at the badge page itself (example) every 2 minutes to see if there are any card drops remaining. When there are no card drops left, it'll kill the SAM process then start over. Should be a lot more time-efficient.
Click to expand...

Sweet, that sounds awesome. I'd lend a hand, but I'm not very good with Python so I wouldn't be much help here.

I was going to make something like this, but you're probably way more suited to this than I am.
 
lashman

lashman

Steam-GAF's Official Ambassador to Gaming-GAF
pahamrick said:
Okay, so here's some early impressions on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z before I have to leave for the next couple hours. Keep in mind that I'm no reviewer, and commenting on games pros and cons are not my strong suit at all and I'm only up through the first couple of stages.

Frost compared Yaiba to a Musou game + the humor of Borderlands. I'd say that's fairly accurate, actually. Yaiba is a game that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and that's a good thing. I, like many others here, saw how Yaiba was reviewed and many folks online cautioned to avoid this game. The types of comments and reviews I've seen are things I'd save for a game that is broken, that is such an unpleasant mess to play that it's not worth the time or effort.

And let me tell you folks, that is some grade A bullshit. The controls for this game are so fluid that I would put it right up there with Metal Gear Rising in terms of responsiveness. Things just flow so smoothly together that it's a joy to play, it really is. It also comes across as brutally unforgiving. The bit about comparing it to Musou? That ain't a joke. At any given time you could be fighting 10-15+ enemies at once, with a combat system that any Ninja Gaiden Black fan would appreciate. Not to mention, even up through the second stage you'll be fighting those regular hordes of enemies with multiples of enemies that could be classified as mini-bosses. That block button will be your best friend.

I can understand of the humor and style of the game isn't for everyone and thats okay. Don't completely write it off for that though, give it a chance and you just might find that it really is a solid action game.

I'll post some more detailed impressions at a later date, possibly once I've cleared the campaign.

Oh, and to quote Frost: You might want to start on normal. Just sayin`.
Click to expand...

YESSS!!! THANK YOU!!!! :D
 
U

udiie

Member
if anyone wants to lobby up for CSGO message me on steam (udiie) and me and a partner will join up. i'm gold nova 1 and they are unranked.
we're pacific coast btw
 
jshackles

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.
electroflame said:
Sweet, that sounds awesome. I'd lend a hand, but I'm not very good with Python so I wouldn't be much help here.

I was going to make something like this, but you're probably way more suited to this than I am.
Click to expand...

Well I'll certainly try my hand at it, anyway. Though I'm tempted to write the application in node.js using the wonderful node-steam wrapper which would bypass the need to use SAM. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something that I can freely distribute to users like me who are looking at maximizing their game idling for weeks at a time.
 
X

Xclash

can't grow facial hair
PrematureQuiche said:
morningbus usually doesn't start til like 2/3 hours from now!
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure but we might accelerate the schedule to finish both Serious Sam 2 and 3 due to obligations outside of the serious stream. I know we will be playing tonight. Just not sure what time we will start.
 
M

MarcoZombieCannon

Member
My group's gonna do casual CSGO anyway, but we can't even start at the moment since Steam went down again.

Right now it's looking like:
InvisibleStride
FromTheFuture
animlboogy
Beelzebubs
Sharkiller
Roy G. Biv

are all with me. Add me if I'm not already on your friend list so I can invite you, guys.

Edit: and if your name is different on Steam (why.jpg) then lemme know who you are on GAF, please.
 
C

Caerith

Member
jshackles said:
While this current script is running, I'm working on a python variant that grabs this information from the web. It'll grab the first game on this page that has card drops remaining, then look at the badge page itself (example) every 2 minutes to see if there are any card drops remaining. When there are no card drops left, it'll kill the SAM process then start over. Should be a lot more time-efficient.
Click to expand...

I was working on the same in python, but I'm still a code novice so you'll probably have it figured out before I do. Still, I don't think you'd need to reference the individual pages, since the main badge page says "X card drops remaining" for everything, and you just need to kill the process if X == "No".

Oh, and doesn't 2 minutes seem like it could get spammy if multiple people start using it? Cards drop at least 20 minutes apart, so you could probably set a delay of 15 minutes (or X * Y, where X is average time-to-drop and Y is cards remaining) to keep it low profile.
 
corrosivefrost

corrosivefrost

Member
pahamrick said:
header.jpg


Okay, so here's some early impressions on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z before I have to leave for the next couple hours. Keep in mind that I'm no reviewer, and commenting on games pros and cons are not my strong suit at all and I'm only up through the first couple of stages.

Frost compared Yaiba to a Musou game + the humor of Borderlands. I'd say that's fairly accurate, actually. Yaiba is a game that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and that's a good thing. I, like many others here, saw how Yaiba was reviewed and many folks online cautioned to avoid this game. The types of comments and reviews I've seen are things I'd save for a game that is broken, that is such an unpleasant mess to play that it's not worth the time or effort.

And let me tell you folks, that is some grade A bullshit. The controls for this game are so fluid that I would put it right up there with Metal Gear Rising in terms of responsiveness. Things just flow so smoothly together that it's a joy to play, it really is. It also comes across as brutally unforgiving. The bit about comparing it to Musou? That ain't a joke. At any given time you could be fighting 10-15+ enemies at once, with a combat system that any Ninja Gaiden Black fan would appreciate. Not to mention, even up through the second stage you'll be fighting those regular hordes of enemies with multiples of enemies that could be classified as mini-bosses. That block button will be your best friend.

I can understand of the humor and style of the game isn't for everyone and thats okay. Don't completely write it off for that though, give it a chance and you just might find that it really is a solid action game.

I'll post some more detailed impressions at a later date, possibly once I've cleared the campaign.

Oh, and to quote Frost: You might want to start on normal. Just sayin`.
Click to expand...

Glad you're digging it so far.
I really do think it's like a dynasty warriors game but with more of a combat system that was lifted out of a character action game. It runs smoothly at 60fps, I believe, and once you get some upgrades and unlock some combos, there's a good variety to be had between the 3 inputs. It also has a dash/evade button, whcih is something I've found myself wanting in DW8XL.

Add into that my love of the Yaiba attitude... he's written in a way that just clicks with me... and I love it. He's no hero, he's just an asshole who's pissed off about being cut down and wants revenge.

The reason I caution about normal is because chapter 5 is a huge bossfight and the second half of it will WRECK you if you're not ready for it. I had immense trouble with it (started on hard) and ended up going back and playing the first four chapters again to get the upgrade shards I missed and level up a bit for new abilities before I had it to the point where I could manage it on hard.

lashman said:
YESSS!!! THANK YOU!!!! :D
Click to expand...

This is part of the reason I gave the copies out, but with stringent gates to make sure that anyone entering would be more likely to actually be someone who would give the game a fair shake and hopefully not get caught up on the reviews or the general "internet" opinion of the game.

If I get the chance later tonight and manage to finish that chapter 5 boss fight on Hell... I'll go take some footage of the Ninja Gaiden Z mode and put it up here too. That part is a gem that a lot of people don't really know about, I think.
 
S

Shadownet

Banned
1st Group CSGO is starting! MarcoZombieCannon is doing the 2nd group which will be casual! talk to him if you wanna join!

Later guys! enjoy your game night!
 
E

electroflame

Member
MarcoZombieCannon said:
My group's gonna do casual CSGO anyway, but we can't even start at the moment since Steam went down again.

Right now it's looking like:
InvisibleStride
FromTheFuture
animlboogy
Beelzebubs
Sharkiller
Roy G. Biv

are all with me. Add me if I'm not already on your friend list so I can invite you, guys.
Click to expand...
I'm in for that, too. I didn't have you on my list, so I added you.
 
M

MMBosstones86

Member
would it be beneficial to break these Game Night organizations to a separate thread? Something we can just sub to and monitor is someone is setting something up?
 
H

Hugstable

Banned
pahamrick said:
header.jpg


Okay, so here's some early impressions on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z before I have to leave for the next couple hours. Keep in mind that I'm no reviewer, and commenting on games pros and cons are not my strong suit at all and I'm only up through the first couple of stages.

Frost compared Yaiba to a Musou game + the humor of Borderlands. I'd say that's fairly accurate, actually. Yaiba is a game that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and that's a good thing. I, like many others here, saw how Yaiba was reviewed and many folks online cautioned to avoid this game. The types of comments and reviews I've seen are things I'd save for a game that is broken, that is such an unpleasant mess to play that it's not worth the time or effort.

And let me tell you folks, that is some grade A bullshit. The controls for this game are so fluid that I would put it right up there with Metal Gear Rising in terms of responsiveness. Things just flow so smoothly together that it's a joy to play, it really is. It also comes across as brutally unforgiving. The bit about comparing it to Musou? That ain't a joke. At any given time you could be fighting 10-15+ enemies at once, with a combat system that any Ninja Gaiden Black fan would appreciate. Not to mention, even up through the second stage you'll be fighting those regular hordes of enemies with multiples of enemies that could be classified as mini-bosses. That block button will be your best friend.

I can understand of the humor and style of the game isn't for everyone and thats okay. Don't completely write it off for that though, give it a chance and you just might find that it really is a solid action game.

I'll post some more detailed impressions at a later date, possibly once I've cleared the campaign.

Oh, and to quote Frost: You might want to start on normal. Just sayin`.
Click to expand...

Heh this kinda makes me want the game now. Most of the time all you hear about a game is negative stuff, so it's pretty cool to see some positive impressions that actually describe game mechanics. Definitely gonna keep my eye out for this game next time it goes on sale, I love Musou games!
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
jshackles said:
Well I'll certainly try my hand at it, anyway. Though I'm tempted to write the application in node.js using the wonderful steam-node wrapper which would bypass the need to use SAM. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something that I can freely distribute to users like me who are looking at maximizing their game idling for weeks at a time.
Click to expand...

If you keep on using Python / SAM to do it, python compiles cleanly into distributable EXE files with py2exe on Windows, so there's the distribution side of things. Include fewer external libraries for smaller dist size.

For the user config side of things, Python actually makes loading config files trivially easy. From ModBot's localization code:

strings.txt
Code: 
receiptTitle="Your giveaway receipt"
thanksReceiptText="Thanks again for being generous. "
anonymousPassAlong="Pass along the generosity and give away your own extra keys some day. "
winPMTitle="You win %s!"
winPMBody="The key for %s is %s -- %s"

giveaway.py
Code: 
# Load text strings from localization file
LOC={}
execfile("locale/en/strings.txt",LOC)

Then the strings are addressable just from the dict you loaded them into.
LOC["receiptTitle"]
LOC["thanksReceiptText"]

And you can do substitutions with % syntax:
LOC["winPMTitle"] % [gameTitleString]
LOC["winPMBody"] % ["Bad Rats", "lol nope", "crap game"]

Execfile is cool because it places the results into a dict as key, value pairs.

So that way you could distribute with an account.txt or whatever that stores the user's login details to be able to do the spoofing (incidentally, if you don't use either, Mechanize is great for spoofing a browser session, and requests is great for just spoofing basic HTTP requests, much better than urllib2)
 
D

Deitus

Member
Xclash said:
I'm not 100% sure but we might accelerate the schedule to finish both Serious Sam 2 and 3 due to obligations outside of the serious stream. I know we will be playing tonight. Just not sure what time we will start.
Click to expand...

Wait, he hasn't beaten 2 yet? Well I only have 3, so I can't join if you end up playing 2.
 
jshackles

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.
Caerith said:
I was working on the same in python, but I'm still a code novice so you'll probably have it figured out before I do. Still, I don't think you'd need to reference the individual pages, since the main badge page says "X card drops remaining" for everything, and you just need to kill the process if X == "No".

Oh, and doesn't 2 minutes seem like it could get spammy if multiple people start using it? Cards drop at least 20 minutes apart, so you could probably set a delay of 15 minutes (or X * Y, where X is average time-to-drop and Y is cards remaining) to keep it low profile.
Click to expand...

Good point. I guess I just figure checking every two minutes would be the best way to completely maximize the time spent. But yeah, I'll probably set the timer to every 10 or 15 minutes just so things don't get crazy.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
jshackles said:
Good point. I guess I just figure checking every two minutes would be the best way to completely maximize the time spent. But yeah, I'll probably set the timer to every 10 or 15 minutes just so things don't get crazy.
Click to expand...

If the number of cards to drop remaining is >1, set the timer to a longer number. If the number of cards to drop exactly equals 1, make the timer shorter. Best of both worlds, optimal time usage + optimal minimizing request spam.
 
D

Dr Dogg

Member
jshackles said:
Alright so I wrote an idling script and took a lot of shortcuts, but it should work.

Basically, I created a text file of all the appids I need to idle for (one appid per line) and put it in the same folder as SAM.Game.exe

Then I run this batch file:

Code: 
for /F "tokens=*" %%A in (apps.txt) do call :process %%A
goto :EOF
:process
@echo Starting SAM for appid %1
start "" "SAM.Game.exe" %1
TIMEOUT 7200
@echo Terminating SAM process for appid %1
taskkill -im SAM.Game.exe
TIMEOUT 30
:EOF

Which basically goes through each appid in the text file, idles that game for 2 hours, kills the SAM process, waits 30 seconds, then starts the next one on the list.

If I keep this running for 19 days, I'll have idled each of my games with card drops for 2 hours each.

The obvious downside is that a) it only idles the game for a flat 2 hours (some games take more time than this) and b) it essentially locks me out of playing games on Steam while it's running, since launching another game might decrease my drop count to 0. It needs some improvement, but it'll be a good start.
Click to expand...

Actually that's pretty smart as using SAM to launch each process means you don't have to nailed down the exact executable name to close it. Just wondering how viable a simple python script would be that went through your badges page and scrape the data as to which games have drops left and how many, launch the process until it shows now more left the kill it and more on to the next one by one. The App IDs are all there in the page right?

Edit: Hahaha and of course as soon as I post this is see this has been discussed already. I'll keep a look out for any updates ;)
 
C

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Anteater said:
I was kind of glad I missed out on it on consoles, I remember the jaggies were kind of terrible on the ps3 when I played the demo, the increased resolution and framerate really makes it into a super gorgeous game, so playing it for the first time on pc is like some next gen shit. I didn't like anything related to the gun dudes but man I really love the platforming and just running around the city.
Click to expand...

Yeah it looks incredibly good

iDvDmQd4yX4bU.png
Click to expand...

It's not that it looked bad on consoles, but the pc version is something else. I've now played this on every platform it was released on. I always forget how much I love this game, it's something special. Visually this is one of all time favorites because of the art style. The clean aesthetic is perfect for the game and always manages to impress me.

Yeah I try to avoid combat too, and in most cases it's easier and more fun to just keep running.
 
jshackles

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.
Stumpokapow said:
If the number of cards to drop remaining is >1, set the timer to a longer number. If the number of cards to drop exactly equals 1, make the timer shorter. Best of both worlds, optimal time usage + optimal minimizing request spam.
Click to expand...

Perfect. Hopefully I can get something together soon for those interested.
 
C

Caerith

Member
Dr Dogg said:
Actually that's pretty smart as using SAM to launch each process means you don't have to nailed down the exact executable name to close it. Just wondering how viable a simple python script would be that went through your badges page and scrape the data as to which games have drops left and how many, launch the process until it shows now more left the kill it and more on to the next one by one. The App IDs are all there in the page right?
Click to expand...

The app IDs and the steam://run for games with drops remaining, yeah. Simplest way would actually be just to scrape the page for steam://run info, pull the app ID from it, then repeat after some time so games with no drops remaining won't be listed anymore because the steam://run disappears. Not the most elegant, but the simplest.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
donny2112 said:
Game organizing technically goes into the Community forum, which users in the Steam thread were already concerned about having the Steam thread be pushed to, anyways. No reason to give more weight to moving the Steam thread into Community.
Plus it may help keep the monthly Steam thread stay a monthly thread! :p
Click to expand...
MRORANGE said:
But we do move things over when it gets too big for this thread:

Steam Thread
Steam Trading |OT|
GAF Steam ID List
Steam Greenlight
Custom Steam icons for Grid View
Enhanced Steam Discussion Thread - Ideas, Suggestions, and Feedback
Steam Trading Cards
SteamOS
Steam Family Sharing Thread
GAF Steamgifts Group Invite Thread
Steam In-home Streaming Beta
Steam Universe (beta) videos, impressions

I love the fact that people are playing games, it's just that it makes more sense to have a dedicated thread at this point.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. It could work I guess.
 
M

MTE

Member
So, Vector.



I grabbed Vector yesterday from the generous Fuzzification.

I'd seen the trailers for this game on Steam, and wasn't too sure what to expect. But like Fuzz, because it was reminiscent of Mirror's Edge, so it got my attention.

What I wasn't expecting was its simplicity. And I don't mean that in a bad way.
It''s somewhat similar to an "Endless Runner" in that you're always moving forward; You can't stop yourself. The levels do end, however.
The conceit seems to be (I just jumped straight in) that you're some sort of Mirror's Edge like rebel, running from an ever-persistent pursuer (Who looks strangely like a Mirror's Edge armoured guard).

The game's all about timing. As you run forward across the rooftops, you need to plan and time your jumps well so that you maximise efficiency, to prevent being caught and stunned by the guard.
The controls (I was playing on a X360 controller) are very simple. You only use the thumb stick. Up for jump, down for slide, right for speed up, and left for slow down to normal pace.

Along the way there are coins, points, and trick markers.
The coins you collect enable you to buy items for your runner's outfit (Which are still just shown in silhouette.) and tricks, which are needed to 3-star levels.

And that's where the meat of the game is. Perfecting runs. To get 3 stars on a level, you have to beat a certain time, collect the points, and pull off all of the specific tricks in the level. This can include making sure to go the correct way at a branch, even if it's slightly slower.

With the game's super-quick restarts, it had me staying up past bed time trying to get that one more level, and hit every trick. When you fail, it's always your fault, and you always know why. It reminded me of the days of Tony Hawk, or Trials, retrying a level over and over just KNOWING you're about to ace it.

I'll be playing more, and I recommend the game to anyone that's intrigued by the trailer.
 
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