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STEAM | March 2017 - IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!!!

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Zeknurn

Member
Second time, they had a similar stream a week ago and there's an archive right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yerdh3TfZds

I hope they don't mind me saying this but I loved the closed beta. Exactly what I wanted after Wargame series, a similar game but with WW2 and couple of new important features including dynamic front line: http://www.eugensystems.com/steel-division-normandy-44-gameplay-dynamic-front-line/

Such a simple idea (and probably used in some RTS game in the past) but it almost feels like a game changer. This game almost assuredly has a spot in my top 10 of the year and we don't even have a release date yet.

Oh hey I completely missed the stream last week. Thank you for pointing it out.

And I'm glad you enjoyed the beta since this is probably my most anticipated game of this year. Eugene Systems can do no wrong.
 

Vuze

Member
Ready for some Witcher (what are essential mods? Is there DS4 support with playstation button prompts? Or better with KB/M?)

qZ6OjfP.jpg
Gwent Combat mod fixes the major problem of the game 😏
 

Vibranium

Banned
Jim Sterling is visiting Valve this week to "discuss some topics". Lol. TotalBiscuit is also going to Seattle. May or not be related.

Hopefully Jim can have some constructive criticism for Steam Direct (without closing the store up either). Valve have obviously been watching his Greenlight videos.
 

Anno

Member
Yeah, i heard that original combat in W3 is shitty 😀

Eh I think that's pretty overblown. It's not great but it's at least good. To me it's at its best when you're fighting 4-7 or so human enemies or parryable monsters and it turns into much more of a dance through them, crowd controlling a few for a moment, counterattacking when you can.
 

Vibranium

Banned
Yeah, i heard that original combat in W3 is shitty 😀

I really like the combat, though I also like Witcher 2's as well. I should give the first game a go someday, let's see the people who hate it in W3 play that!

Really, it mainly suffers from not being fast enough, enemy damage feedback can be bad, and sword attacks/stances could be more varied.
 

Battlechili

Banned
I hope Valve ignores every single thing Jim says about curation and greenlight.
This. Tremendously this.
I don't want Steam to become as closed as GoG is. I'd worry that games I like or would have interest in might not be made available to me. I know a lot of crap games get put on Steam but the nice thing about it is that no one has to buy those games.

I've been pushing for Valve to outright allow games containing pornographic content to be sold on Steam. An open Steam is a good Steam to me. I'd rather not see Valve start content curating, as I fear that would be pushing Valve to be less open rather than more open about the kinds of games they allow on their platform.
 

Teeth

Member
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more of a "conversation" between Valve and Jim/Biscuit.

Something like:

"Jim, what are your major criticisms of the games we allow on our platform?"

"You're allowing broken games to be sold!"

"We have a full refund policy in place, basically no-questions asked."

"Well, there's just too much garbage being put on the store, it's impossible to wade through!"

"We only post a fraction of the games released on the 'Popular New Games' list, we have curated lists for users based on their playing habits, we have a top 10 best sellers list, what their friends are playing, and what is promoted by companies who advertise with us. Additionally, we have curator lists. We don't believe it's our job to tell customers what they should buy. That is your job."

"Some of these games are just asset flips though!"

"Asset packs are specifically made to be sold for the purpose of integrating into games. If you believe that that leads to low quality games, surely you can find a way to make pointing that out a profitable business venture for yourself."
 
Nah, not really. Jim's approach is completely and utterly terrible. I hope Steam direct results in the store being even more open, not less.

I agree with this. While it's true that Greenlight let a ton of crap inside, it also helped many devs who may have never found their audience on Steam otherwise.
Also, if a game is bad/broken you can just refund it now (and bad games quickly disappear from the new releases list so it's not like they steal space from better ones)
 

Corpekata

Banned
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more of a "conversation" between Valve and Jim/Biscuit.

Something like:

"Jim, what are your major criticisms of the games we allow on our platform?"

"You're allowing broken games to be sold!"

"We have a full refund policy in place, basically no-questions asked."

"Well, there's just too much garbage being put on the store, it's impossible to wade through!"

"We only post a fraction of the games released on the 'Popular New Games' list, we have curated lists for users based on their playing habits, we have a top 10 best sellers list, what their friends are playing, and what is promoted by companies who advertise with us. Additionally, we have curator lists. We don't believe it's our job to tell customers what they should buy. That is your job."

"Some of these games are just asset flips though!"

"Asset packs are specifically made to be sold for the purpose of integrating into games. If you believe that that leads to low quality games, surely you can find a way to make pointing that out a profitable business venture for yourself."

I mean, this sounds like something that could be said without them going there lol.
 
I don't mind Steam potentially cutting good games off if it helps other stores like GOG, Humble (direct) and Itch to thrive. I don't view it as a beneficial decision though.

Sterling's approach, in particular, I find particularly inconsistent since we have hundreds of games licensing out game engine code - and not just things that have no direct effect on how the game plays, but also premade game rules such as for instance physics engine, often having noticeable effect on the gameplay - and not touching their insides at all which is fine but as soon as someone takes the same approach to models this is somehow a sin against art that models are. Personally I would prefer to see one hundred games that do something different with physics and such but reusing same graphical assets over one hundred games that all have original graphical assets but play pretty much the same.
 

MUnited83

For you.
I don't mind Steam potentially cutting good games off if it helps other stores like GOG, Humble (direct) and Itch to thrive. I don't view it as a beneficial decision though.

Sterling's approach, in particular, I find particularly inconsistent since we have hundreds of games licensing out game engine code - and not just things that have no direct effect on how the game plays, but also premade game rules such as for instance physics engine, often having noticeable effect on the gameplay - and not touching their insides at all which is fine but as soon as someone takes the same approach to models this is somehow a sin against art that models are. Personally I would prefer to see one hundred games that do something different with physics and such but reusing same graphical assets over one hundred games that all have original graphical assets but play pretty much the same.
It wouldn't make GOG thrive because even if Valve came back to strict curation, it would never be as batshit crazy as GOG's policy is now.
 

Teeth

Member
I mean, this sounds like something that could be said without them going there lol.

Of course. But for the facade to continue, Jim has to continually take the stance that I HAVE BEEN CRITICIZING ALL OF THIS AND VALVE HAS REMAINED SILENT. PREFERRING TO ALLOW THEIR HORDES OF SYCOPHANTIC FANS DO THE LEGWORK FOR THEM LIKE THEY DO WITH EVERYTHING ELSE.
 

Grief.exe

Member
I've always loved the survival genre gameplay loop, and Battlegrounds distills that into a consolidated form that hits all the right notes. Addictive.

I haven't ran into any crashes or huge bugs during my first 5 hours with the game, though it lacks polish and performance optimizations, which is typical.
 

Volimar

Member
It's so funny when your birthday comes around and you get emails from old sites and games you played ages ago. The weirdest for me is that like ten years ago a friend signed me up on some weird gay necrophilia forum as a prank and every year I get a happy birthday message from them. I tried to unsubscribe from them but I don't know the login info so I mark it as spam every year but for some reason it always gets past the filter.
 

Vuze

Member
Holy shit, Snake Pass is pretty frustrating. The bird just threw me down into the abyss while trying to "help" me... :(
Otherwise, pretty intresting controls. I'm surprised they work out as well as they do.
 

Tall4Life

Member
It's so funny when your birthday comes around and you get emails from old sites and games you played ages ago. The weirdest for me is that like ten years ago a friend signed me up on some weird gay necrophilia forum as a prank and every year I get a happy birthday message from them. I tried to unsubscribe from them but I don't know the login info so I mark it as spam every year but for some reason it always gets past the filter.

Nice cover, bud, but we know your game here.
 

Nzyme32

Member
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more of a "conversation" between Valve and Jim/Biscuit.

Something like:

"Jim, what are your major criticisms of the games we allow on our platform?"

"You're allowing broken games to be sold!"

"We have a full refund policy in place, basically no-questions asked."

"Well, there's just too much garbage being put on the store, it's impossible to wade through!"

"We only post a fraction of the games released on the 'Popular New Games' list, we have curated lists for users based on their playing habits, we have a top 10 best sellers list, what their friends are playing, and what is promoted by companies who advertise with us. Additionally, we have curator lists. We don't believe it's our job to tell customers what they should buy. That is your job."

"Some of these games are just asset flips though!"

"Asset packs are specifically made to be sold for the purpose of integrating into games. If you believe that that leads to low quality games, surely you can find a way to make pointing that out a profitable business venture for yourself."

I mean, this sounds like something that could be said without them going there lol.

The simple solution to the Jim Sterling issue - and everyone that wants to see old fashioned Steam curation, is to give them it in the form of an optional Valve curator store. If Valve actually properly fleshed out the curator system so that it was both useful for customers and importantly a valuable tool for the curators themselves - eg the ability for them to integrate their own content into the store, more control of layout etc etc - and following through with the old promise back in 2013 of supporting those curators with a portion of the profits - that would be an awesome idea so people can have more ways to sift through the "full" store catalogue.

For example, I would also like to see devs and publishers have much larger control over a specific area for their own games, updates etc that is far beyond the individual game hubs etc etc. There are lots of things that could be explored as part of a future client and store, but Valve are the sloth for all these things.
 

Teeth

Member
The simple solution to the Jim Sterling issue - and everyone that wants to see old fashioned Steam curation, is to give them it in the form of an optional Valve curator store. If Valve actually properly fleshed out the curator system so that it was both useful for customers and importantly a valuable tool for the curators themselves - eg the ability for them to integrate their own content into the store, more control of layout etc etc - and following through with the old promise back in 2013 of supporting those curators with a portion of the profits - that would be an awesome idea so people can have more ways to sift through the "full" store catalogue.

For example, I would also like to see devs and publishers have much larger control over a specific area for their own games, updates etc that is far beyond the individual game hubs etc etc. There are lots of things that could be explored as part of a future client and store, but Valve are the sloth for all these things.

The "Valve Curator Store" already exists. It's the front page. It's what you see on the "Popular New Releases" tab that is the default. It is what you see when you scroll below the top 10 lists. It's what you see when you load up your queue.

I have never ever ever seen any of the garbage games that Jim throws on his videos. Not once. The only inkling I get of anything even nearing that is because I have installed a 3rd party app (Enhanced Steam) that places an additional tab "all new releases" on the front page. Whenever I click on that tab is the only time I ever see what people whine about with the "too many games" argument.

Yeah, there are more games on the Popular New Releases tab than there was in the New Releases tab in 2012, but there a also a shit ton more games in general being released.

And what would be the point of a hand-picked curator store by faceless Valve employees? How is that any better than the dozens and dozens of curators already on Steam? The only difference would be that it would be a faceless, opaque set of opinions versus the fully explained curation in place by public figures.

So are people demanding that we have an official Valve curation just so that we can have an arbitrary, reason-less, unexplained set of standards for curation instead of the dozens of personalized, explained set of standards by third parties?
 

Axass

Member
The idea that Steam has plenty broken games and shovelware is true. Dunno what percentage that would be though.

On the other hand, the idea that Steam constantly throws crappy games in your face is some big bald-faced lie.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Speaking of NWN, why isn't it or it's sequel on steam?

Atari uploaded a bunch of D&D games back when it had publishing rights but only ever made NWN2 available, and Hasbro doesn't publish games on Steam.

Depends on who is delivering that punch imo. For example, JaseC might find a free punch to the face by Saoirse to be quite the bargain just because it is Saoirse, though maybe not.

I suppose that depends on how much of her martial arts training she remembers from the Hanna pre-production days. :p

I have never ever ever seen any of the garbage games that Jim throws on his videos. Not once.

And therein lies the irony of it all: his Greenlight warning videos thrust a spotlight on games that would otherwise just fly under the radar. I'd go so far as to say that they don't really serve any other purpose now that there's a safety net in the form of refunds and Valve takes copyright infringement and distribution agreement violations very seriously. In other words, people don't need to be overly wary of duds as they can get their money back should they choose poorly and the game will be removed/developer's distribution agreement terminated if there's legitimate cause.
 

Coreda

Member
I just fired up W3 for the first time last night, thanks to the GOTY edition sale.

The only mod I want at this point is one that removes the "Talk to:" icon bubble that shows up over NPC's heads. It's hella-distracting for a game that's so gorgeous otherwise.

From what I've read Friendly HUD has an option to hide that text. Has a bunch of other worthwhile features as well such as contextual HUD toggling options, quest markers that can be displayed in-game, and live meditation.
 

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
I see some questionable or super low-budget stuff whenever I sift through queues for holiday sale badges, but they are few and far between and almost never show up otherwise. The system should be doing better to cater towards individual taste, and I think that will be the end goal for Valve, but right now it does a mostly okay job. Adding a human layer of curation to determine what goes for sale to begin with? I'm not okay with that. Gatekeeping based on arbitrary decisions isn't going to be healthy in the long run. Valve themselves admitted that there are a lot of successful indie titles that would have never gotten past their previous, human-ran system and made it to the storefront. That alone swats down any arguments I see for manual curation.
 

Nzyme32

Member
The "Valve Curator Store" already exists. It's the front page. It's what you see on the "Popular New Releases" tab that is the default. It is what you see when you scroll below the top 10 lists. It's what you see when you load up your queue.

I have never ever ever seen any of the garbage games that Jim throws on his videos. Not once. The only inkling I get of anything even nearing that is because I have installed a 3rd party app (Enhanced Steam) that places an additional tab "all new releases" on the front page. Whenever I click on that tab is the only time I ever see what people whine about with the "too many games" argument.

Yeah, there are more games on the Popular New Releases tab than there was in the New Releases tab in 2012, but there a also a shit ton more games in general being released.

And what would be the point of a hand-picked curator store by faceless Valve employees? How is that any better than the dozens and dozens of curators already on Steam? The only difference would be that it would be a faceless, opaque set of opinions versus the fully explained curation in place by public figures.

So are people demanding that we have an official Valve curation just so that we can have an arbitrary, reason-less, unexplained set of standards for curation instead of the dozens of personalized, explained set of standards by third parties?

It isn't at all. The current store front is an algorithm that then adapts to what you are playing. It's pool is the whole store and it filters out junk to an extent but will push unknown titles / new stuff etc. I'm talking about Valve humans curating their own store front page akin to way back when. It would be much more in line with what those people want rather than what they get now from the "customised" store front.

My stance is the opposite. However as another option for those same old folk that refuse to accept any value from an open system - my above idea is a valid one in line with the 2013 vision of profit sharing curated stores - that still haven't appeared and Twitch seems to have beat them to the punch to some degree

And yes - those people are using almost entirely arbitrary reasons. TB and Jim see shit because they actively use their accounts in such a way that surfaces them and thus recommends them too. The others are the same old folk that never appear in any PC thread and proclaim Steam sells only shovelware, and when challenged never provide any screencaps or evidence and seemingly have no idea of the current filters. I'm sure there are also a subset that just really want the old fashioned system back because all they play is "AAA" and the most popular "indie games" exclusively
 

Arthea

Member
yeah, Valiant Knights typing battle does not work well for me. I can't access options at all. Hopefully devs will fix this. Oh well, that will teach me buy games on release.
 
FTFY
Fair question - what's coming sooner on Steam. Final Fantasy XII HD or Persona 5?
FF XII HD for certain. That will come out 6-12 months after the PS4 version while Persona 5 will be lucky to come out before 2020 and that is if someone at Atlus even starts caring about Steam.
 
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