This is a big, busy thread. There are some guidelines to keep things nice and orderly:
We have two core Steam groups. Both of these groups have chat, and both are used sometimes to try to limit giveaways to community members:
Penny Arcade is a general Steam group for folks from the PA forums.
PA G&T Adventure Team is a group that was originally created to get multi/coop going for smaller or older titles. Because it is actively moderated, a lot of folks use it as a giveaway group (to avoid problems we've had in the past with non-forumers scooping up gifts intended for the community.) Membership is locked during major sales.
How do I join the Steam groups?
If you've just arrived, hang out here in the thread for a while and talk games with us before you ask for membership. When you do ask, include a link to your Steam profile. Membership to the two Steam groups is for reasonably active community members. If you have been on the PA forums for a while and have participated, post a link to your Steam profile here in the thread and a Steam group mod will take care of you.
If you've been on the forums for three days during a major sale and your only posts have been to casually express your strong desire for certain games, your request is unlikely to find a positive reception. Ditto if your very first post on the forum is to ask for group membership. Sadly this does happen sometimes.
The best parts of this community are available to you now just by showing up. Read some posts, make some posts, ask to be invited as a guest to chat, buy some games, play some games, etc. Group membership is modest icing on delicious cake.
Warning: This guy is going to make you buy games. All the games.How do I join the chat rooms of the PA Steam groups?
Each PA Steam group has its own chat room which you can freely join once you are a member. They are happy places with no monsters.
To enter a group chat you must follow these steps:
- On the main Steam menu, go to your username submenu and then click on the "GROUPS" option
- Then, click on the link showing the number of people present in the chat of the group that you want to join. This will launch the Steam client (in case it is not already running in your system) and open the group chat in it
- In case your web browser is not able to launch the Steam client, the following window will show giving you the option to open the group chat directly in your web browser (web chat) or to download the Steam client
- Alternatively, you can go to the main page of a Steam group and then click the "Enter chat room button"
- Want to chat and use Steam, but not at your computer? There are apps for that!
Android Steam or iOS Steam
- Don't want to install the full Steam App, but still want to chat...there are apps for that as well!
Android Chat or iOS Chat
Where are you guys getting those nifty Steam Signatures?
Check out
Alabaster Slim for his lovely signature generator.
Has Game X ever been Price Y? How can I keep track of all the sales and discounts?http://isthereanydeal.com/ is your friend. Sync your Steam wishlist and get notifications when prices drop. Double check that you are getting a Steam key from a 3rd party site before buying.
How do the new [codes ][ /codes] tags even work?
Put a series of Steam activation codes (or activation links, or movie quotes, or winning lottery numbers...) inside the tags, each on its own line like this (without the spaces inside the brackets, of course):
[codes ]code 1
code 2
...
code n[/codes]
That will create a little box with a clickable link and a number. Each forumer who clicks the link will get a popup and a PM with the next line. Each line can only be sent out once and each forumer can only click once. It was originally designed to allow developers to hand out lots of codes for a game without some goose grabbing the lot.
Just one code thingy per post!
Note: [ code ][ /code ] is a different tag. Be sure to get that "s" up in there!
Steam Game Categories
You can make a copy of of the file below to backup your category tags!
\Steam\userdata\*USERIDHERE*\7\remote \shareconfig.vdf
Trading cards? Badges? Steam profile levels? Boosters? FOILS?! What the hell?
Jrraghen put together this helpful guide:
The House of Cards!But that's pure, diabolical evil!
Yes, that's right.
Can we trade cards in the thread?
Yes, but it's inefficient. Use the Steam feature that shows which of your friends has the cards you need. Join our Steam group for trading cards:
PA Card Sharks
Check this
handy tip from HiT BiT:
A little Steam trading trick some of you may not be aware of:
- Go to your Steam Inventory
- Click on the "Trade Offers" button
- Then click on the "Who can send me Trade Offers?" link
- Below you will find a "Trade URL"
Share this URL with other Steam users to allow them to directly send you a trade offer even if they aren't on your friends list.
You can share this URL anywhere, including your forum sig.
If you have shared or posted your URL and would like to stop receiving trade offers from it use the "Create New URL" button.
A new Trade URL will be created turning the previous one inoperative.Is Steam down?!
Is it Tuesday? It's probably scheduled maintenance.
It's not Tuesday. Is Steam down?!http://isSteamdown.com/What are you people talking about? Why hats and what is an "Isy?"
Check out the handy Steam Thread Primer, written by Smokestacks!
Steam Thread Primer:Gaben/The Newell - Gabe Newell, Director of Valve Software. Called "Gaben" because in the commentary for older Source Engine games he would tell players to email him at "Gabe N. at valvesoftware.com" with user feedback.
Serve the Newell - To buy games on Steam, to give Gaben your money. From this comic edit.
Bad Rats - An incredibly awful 'physics' based puzzle game, available on Steam, notorious for being as awkward as it is broken. Will haunt your dreams. Popular gift to give to people.
Class - An attribute demonstrated by people who will generously purchase games and then give them to internet strangers.
Class War - When two or more forumers buy each other games back and forth until one of them gives up. I know this sounds really crazy, but it happens.
Bundle - Originally the Humble Indie Bundle, which was a "pay what you want" system for a group of games, now usually means any website selling a group of games (usually able to be registered on Steam) for a low price.
Giveaway/A Giveaway - Usually refers to a giveaway on Steamgifts.com, a website where you list a game you want to give away, people enter, and then a winner is randomly decided among all entrants after a set time period.
Hats/The Hatconomy - The purchase and sale of in-game hats or sometimes other items in TF2. Some hats are very valuable, which is funny because they are just hats for videogame characters. People who have valuable hats or other items in their inventories sometimes get messages from random people on Steam begging for those items.
Backlog - The list of games you have purchased, but have not gotten around to playing yet. Tends to grow over time, often to immense proportions. If you do not have a backlog yet, between the thread and the sales you will get one.
Spies/Russian Spies - People who lurk the thread or try to get into the various PA Steam groups not to participate in the community, but to try and get free games.
Steamsigs - Custom forum signatures that display a link to your Steam profile, as well as an image of a game you are currently playing, have played the most in the last two weeks, or have played the most over all time (if you haven't played any games on Steam in the last two weeks). Available here courtesy of forumer Suds. Having a Steam sig (or some sort of clickable link to your Steam profile in your signature) makes it considerably easier for people to add you to their friends list.
Child's Play - A charity started by the writer and artist behind PA that raises money for videogames/toys that go to children's hospitals, originally started in '03, has grown every year. Helps sick kids feel better about their time in the hospital while simultaneously refuting the idea that gamers are antisocial jerks.
Isy - Big Classy, a forumer. Formerly known as "Big Isy", he was granted the new name after donating a hefty amount of money to Child's Play during a fundraiser. Sometimes referred to as Isy, which might cause confusion to people who haven't been around very long.
Summer Dale - A phone's auto-correction of "Summer Sale", which through some sort of internet voodoo produced an actual entity, a smooth voiced funk loving man who lives in a world where the 80s reign eternal and supreme. Also sometimes used to describe the upcoming Summer Sale itself.
Rainbow and/or Slash - Two forumers by the name of Rainbowdespair and slash000 who are notable for developing the third and fourth installments of the Penny Arcade: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness series. Also developed Breath of Death VII and Cthulu Saves the World, two RPGs that, along with the Rainslick games, are available on Steam.
Also, sometimes shit gets real. Like that time we all murdered each other for bloodsport games. And there was a kabob conspiracy and a kind of Cthulhu bunny. Akajaybay took us
down that particular rabbit hole.
Why are you people obsessed with Bad Rats and Amnesia?
A moment of ill-advised swagger from Anoffday turned into a horrifying LP of Bad Rats which,
because reasons, turned into over $6000 raised for Child's Play.
CorriganX raised over $1100 for Child's Play via Amnesia.Previous Years Winter Sale Drives
2019: $2,407.09
2018: $2,190.06
2016: $5,315.84
2014: $9,248
2013: $11,903
Fanda
shared this with us:
For our Christmas fundraiser to restore TychoCelchuuu's threadmaking privileges (and help the kids), I donated to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. This week I received a nice letter from them! I figured I'd share part of it with y'all, since this applies to all of you at least as much as it does to me.
What is this Steamgifts site? I wish to create a giveaway! I cannot enter a giveaway!
Steamgifts is a neat site that lets people create giveaways for games on Steam. Points for entering giveaways are accumulated over time, so just wait a bit if you need points. Entry to giveaways can be limited by Steam group membership to prevent mooches from getting games.
How do I make one of those cool Steam Gifts signature giveaway banners?What are all these bundles you people keep talking about?
In addition to Steam sales and sales of Steam keys on other sites and gifts, we live in a golden age of bundles! Bundle sites sell batches of games for modest amounts of money, often as low as a few dollars. Many, but not all, contribute to charity and many, but not all, give you Steam keys for the games. Sometimes you'll buy an indie gem that isn't even on Steam, and later when arrives on Steam you will get a key through the bundle site. Be careful if you plan to gift some of the games, as sometimes the bundled games will come in a single Steam key. We have a separate bundles thread.
I have too many games! Which do I play?Steam Roulette randomly picks a game for you.
I have too many games! How do I move them to my new hard drive?Steam Mover makes transporting your massive library easier.
But wait! I have ALL OF THE GAMES installed! I need more hard drive space! What do?You download Tikione Steam Cleaner and clean it up.Steam Cleaner also available through GitHub!That helped! I have more room for stuff. Free stuff.Isorn wrote:
Someone on a Steam forum made
a nice list of all free DLC you can add to your Steam account if you have the base-game but that thread is currently not available so I figure I post it here. Since it is pretty easy to miss some of these.
The sale prices aren't right! What's going on?!
During seasonal sales, you are one of a million monkeys hammering F5 at 10am PT to see the new sales. The system is always borked for 5-20 minutes. Take a deep breath. The Newell will deliver.
Why are some games not available in my region?
Publishers determine what countries get what games. Someone in a suit decided that it wasn't worth the money to make the game available to your region, so it isn't available on Steam. This also applies to cases of games having edited/censored versions showing up on Steam in certain countries. The good news is that you can generally get around this by having someone from another region gift or trade you the game.
Steam is downloading slowly. What gives?
Steam > Settings > Downloads + Cloud to change your download region until things improve. Sometimes other regions are less populated and you can get somewhat better results even if the new server is in another country.
VR - You know, the thing with the goggles and doo-dads.
EvmaAlsar did a great write up about various
VR game options on Steam.Want to review and download your cloud saves?
Follow this magical
Cloud Link of Saves and Wonder!!!
What was the PA Friday Night Game Fever?
CorriganX had this crazy idea of getting some folks together to play games and thus Friday Night Game Fever began. Each week a game was posted as the Friday selection and at 9pm EST/6pm PST people would get online and fire up some multiplayer action. The games were typically streamed by at least one or two folks for viewing as well. The game night and its Steam group are not actively managed any more.
Old PA G&T Friday Night Game Fever banner made by HiT BiT
, building on the work of others for the OP.
Posts
Steam | XBL
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Question
Is it new car smell, or new pc component smell?
Either way, huff that sweet sweet chemical off-gassing
The best of both worlds.
Steam | XBL
Hitman 3! Came out last year, was locked on Epic for an entire year until we finally got it on Steam early this year. It's very good! Has probably some of the best maps in the series (obviously debatable, some of those early maps have built up a history to them), looks even better than before, and of course you can play all of the previous two games in it as well (if you own them! honestly the whole thing is kinda confusing if you're starting from scratch). Anyway, if you've played Hitman 1 and 2, obviously you should get this! If you haven't, you should get all three and play them all in Hitman 3!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1659040/HITMAN_3/
Seriously, though, that Knives Out-esque mission is amazing. It's a cool setting and layout and the actual story stuff you have available is super neat. And the rest of the game isn't a slouch either, they try lots of new and surprising stuff, which is cool because this is the third one of these and you'd expect them to have run out of new stuff to try with the formula, but they went for it.
There were what, in the double digits of gifts on the threat page? We first few will be safe, surely.
Oh.
/gets out Febreze/
Surely that's for the old thread.
Steam | XBL
How the hell does the purchasing option work if you have Hitman 1 & 2 already and would like them in it too?
Hitman 3 has perhaps the most confusing store page on all of Steam.
Steam | XBL
Fun fact I was about to purchase it, but then I got to the Steam page and had no fucking clue what to buy to get 1, 2, and 3 in the same game.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
If you don't have 1 and 2, you want either the HITMAN Trilogy option, which includes 1 and 2. There's also a HITMAN Trilogy Premium Add-Ons Bundle if you want the DLC stuff for 1-3, which is a separate purchase from the HITMAN Trilogy thing (so if you want to buy trilogy + the addons, you have to add both to your cart). There's also a Seven Deadly Sins set of DLC for 3, but it's 100% skippable.
So basically:
Just want Hitman 3 (already have 1 and 2 or just don't want 1 and 2): Buy HITMAN 3 Standard.
Want Hitman 1, 2, and 3: Buy HITMAN Trilogy.
Want the DLC missions for Hitman 2 (plus some other stuff) within HITMAN 3: Buy HITMAN Trilogy Premium Add-Ons bundle in addition to whichever other thing you buy (or by itself if you already have Hitman 3). I don't know if you can play the Hitman 2 DLC missions without Hitman 2, tho, but that's probably an edge case nobody's actually gonna run into.
Thanks @MNC Dover for TMNT Shredder's Revenge! Although the "Hang on April" in this game is more stopping her from going postal on the entire Foot Clan by herself
Thanks so much my dude!
Steam | XBL
I'll second this recommendation. While I enjoyed Hitman 2, I spent noticeably more time in Hitman 3 exploring the levels and challenges. It's good!
Although I will never forgive IO to alter a Sapienza voice line (since H2, mind). Starting that level without hearing "Rocco...? Rocco!!" is just not the same.
So now it's safe then!
Was just here to say that too haha
World is a game that feels more immersive and the environments feel a little more realized. It is weightier and more ponderous, and I mean that in a good and bad way. It is the game I point to that best sells the scope and size of the monsters, to me.
Rise has better environment traversal and faster paced gameplay. The environments feel a little more gamified is the tradeoff.
I prefer World but either is great. Rise is probably the more approachable game? It certainly felt snappier the few quests I played of it on Switch.
Thanks, the first one was one of my favorite VR games ever
Thanks @cardboard delusions !
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
@Spoit decided to use me as a guinea pig for this conversation - by throwing me a code for Monster Hunter World! Thanks so much!
Steam | XBL
The purpose of the games is different. World is the whole Monhun experience with all of the trimmings, the full immersion. You may do a World mission and never pull out your weapon, you're meant to be taking in everything and living in the world itself. It's why I loved it. The 30 minute hunts felt great.
Rise is pared down, lean, and 100% focused on maintaining you fighting vs monster for as long as possible because it's portable gameplay. A lot of the fluff, the extra stuff that really fleshed out the world, all of it has been scaled back. You can even see it in the soundtrack: The famous World Chase Music bits (like the driving DUH NUH DUH NUH DUH NUH DUH NUH in the ancient forest) have been nixed. The result of this focus is the combat with the monsters is incredibly satisfying, deep, and addictive. I hope the next Monster Hunter takes a lot of lessons from Rise for the actual monster hunting, but I am also looking forward to a high fidelity, RE Engine powered, whole-ass Monster Hunter 6.
World Chase theme in the Ancient Forest, tell me you don't have flashes of chasing Anjanath down listening to this:
https://youtu.be/GrLUP43H3SA
No one. None of us.
...
Everyone
Sorry, I tripped over a bucket of low res Switch ports on the way in. I was going to say something...
It wasn't overnight, but just before the start of the sale there was some discussion of Monster Hunter v Dark Souls and soulslikes. Then about a day of the sale got us to page 99.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
I think of this is the thing driving me to prefer World over anything else in the series. I remember trying one or two demos out for previous (handheld) entries in the series and it just didn't have enough "there" there for me to grip onto. With all the focus on only fighting large monsters and none of the extra stuff, the demos felt empty to me.
The combat in Rise is so good it's difficult for me to go back. Especially with how Lance feels in Sunbreak.
Not having wirebugs makes World feel kinda bad, ngl
That's only what it is on paper. I find it hard to communicate, but there's often a zen thing in those games (gathering mats, preparing for the hunt etc) until the fight starts - and even then, it's nothing like a, say, Dark Souls bossfight
I hope that answered @jungleroomx 's question, because for my question I'm none the wiser
Steam | XBL
Well trying to convince your boss that he is an idiot without flat out saying he is an idiot is always exhausting.
Steam: betsuni7