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[STEAM] More like the Punic Wars than you might think.

TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEONRegistered User regular
edited May 2015 in Games and Technology
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Welcome to the Steam thread!
This is a pretty neat community of people who like to talk about video games, sales, digital distribution, hat economies, classiness and classholery. We enjoy long walks on the beach, digital hoarding, gifting, the suffering of longtime members, and raising money for charity.
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This is a big, busy thread. There are some guidelines to keep things nice and orderly:
  • Be civil.
  • This thread is for Steam-related discussion. Try to look for other, more appropriate threads before discussing games or other topics in here. Let's not drain other threads of precious content!
  • If you feel someone's acting inappropriately, then quietly report the responsible parties to forum mods.
  • Don't post links to active kickstarters without prior mod permission. Forum-wide rule.
  • Linking your Steam profile in your sig will help community members find you, see what kinds of games you like, invite you to MP games, etc.
  • Do not beg for games.
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. 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. Steam name search is poop from a butt.
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.
HiT BiT wrote: »
Occasionally we also go on quests to slay a dragon and win the heart of a princess
The Newell needs those hearts (apparently they are used as power supply for the Steam servers).
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PA G&T Friday Night Game Fever!
@CorriganX had this crazy idea of getting some folks together to play games and thus Friday Night Game night began. Each week a game is posted as the Friday selection and at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific we all get online and fire up some multiplayer action. If there is a big enough reception, a second round of the game is usually played on Saturday or Sunday at Noon Eastern/6pm Central European so our friends from across the big drink can join us without needing to pull an all nighter. The games are typically streamed by at least one or two folks for viewing as well.
Thanks to @HiT BiT for this awesome banner!
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Sometimes people gift games.
  • Don't feel that you have to gift games to be a part of this community. It's just one of many things that go on. Some people can give lots of games. Some people can give a game or two a year. Some people make amazing images. Some people find hidden indie gems and report about them. Some people relay amazing gaming moments. Some people report sales. Some people are hysterical. Etc. There are many ways to participate in this community. Gifting is just one of them and is not required.
  • If you run a contest, have entries PMed to you. The thread gets too cluttered otherwise. You can, however, post the winning entries.
  • If you receive a gift, then take a moment to thank the gifter. Use the notification system so they can see your thank you post! ( @NAME. Use quotes around names with spaces.) See below for an example.
  • If you win a Steamgifts giveaway, in addition to thanking the gifter, be sure to mark the gift as received on Steamgifts. You tie up a gift 'slot' for the gifter until you do.
  • In addition to contests, wishlist gifting, ninja gifting, revenge gifting, pile-on gifting and Steamgifts.com giveaways, we have the new [ codes ][ /codes ] tags which can fire off one or more Steam codes (or activation links). More info about [ codes ] below.
A Steam thread participant preparing for gifting...
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If you want to @ someone with spaces in their name, use quotation marks around the name so it looks like this:
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Which will then turn into this:
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Oh, and if you quote text that has an @alert in it, please take a moment to remove the @ (unless you really want that person to get another notification.) Sometimes we get to chatting and someone will get 3, 4, 5+ notifications all at once.
Rare footage of a gift fight in action...
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Steam sales are legendary. From small to honking massive:
Daily Deals: One game a day goes on sale at 10am PT for 24 hours.
Midweek Madness: Starts 10am PT Tuesday and ends Thursday afternoon.
Weekend Sale: Starts midday Thursday and ends with the sale rollover Monday. Sometimes accompanies free play weekends for MP titles.
Publisher Sale: Many of the publishers games will get a modest discount with a single title or franchise getting a featured day with a deeper discount. Follow the big sale guidelines.
Seasonal Sales: Mardi Gras time here in the thread. Huge swaths of games go on discount, with daily specials, flash sales, community vote sales, and whatever else the evil geniuses at Valve cook up to separate us from our money. There are often metagames such as sale achievements or collectibles or other madness that rewards buying, playing and gifting games and participating in Steam's community. The summer sale usually starts in the last week of June and runs for two weeks, and the Winter sale usually runs for two weeks across Christmas and New Year's.
Other retailers like Amazon and Green Man Gaming get into the act now too, so there are often great values to be had during sales for Steam-activatable games from other sites.
Seasonal Sales are basically a big deal around this thread.
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Important Note: If you are waiting for a particular game, be sure to mind the countdown timer on the game's store page. Starting Winter 2013, the last day of the sale was just a recap of top sellers. Most games went back to full price.
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How do I join the Steam groups?
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's going to make you buy games. All the games.
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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. You can sync your Steam wishlist to it if you like 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 3
...
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!
Trading cards? Badges? Steam profile levels? Boosters? FOILS?! What the hell?
Some games (more every week) now have trading cards. You can earn some of these cards by playing/idling the game. Some of them you'll need to get by trading or buying them from the Steam community market. Completing a set lets you craft a badge, which gives you an emoticon, a profile wallpaper, a coupon (usually) and profile experience. Leveling up your profile increase your friend cap, earns you customization options for your Steam profile and, allegedly, increases your chances of getting a booster. Boosters are packs of three cards that show up in your inventory sometimes. You can open them or sell them on the market. Sometimes cards are foil. Each game has a regular badge with five levels and a single-level foil badge. Oh, and you must be a certain level to get your card drops.
But that's pure, diabolical evil!
Yes, that's right.
Can we trade cards in the thread?
You can but it's inefficient. Use the Steam feature that shows you which of your friends has the cards you need. Oh, and join the Steam group we created for trading cards: PA Card Sharks
Also check this handy tip:
HiT BiT wrote: »
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"
You can 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.
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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.
Classy Christmas
We raised $11,903 dollars for charity in December 2013 and another $9,248 in December 2014!
Fanda wrote: »
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.
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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?
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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! How do I get cards without playing them all?
Try out Idle Master which will farm card drops for you without even having to install the game, let alone play it! How convenient.
I have too many games! Which do I play?
Steam Roulette randomly picks a game for you to play.
I have too many games! How do I move them to my new hard drive?
Steam Mover makes transporting your massive library much easier.
But wait! I have ALL OF THE GAMES installed! I need more space on my hard drive! wat i do?
You download Tikione Steam Cleaner and clean up that shit
Steam Cleaner also available through GitHub!
Okay that helped. Now I have more room for stuff. Free stuff.
Isorn wrote: »
Someone on a steam forum made [url="http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/29711524/#Comment_29711524"a nice list of all free DLC you can add to your steam account[/url] 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?! Oh God, the darkness is closing in...
During the 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, and the new dailies will be available for 48 hours.
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?
You can head to Steam -> Settings -> Downloads + Cloud and change your download region until things improve. Since other regions are typically less populated, you will probably get somewhat better results even if the new server is in another country.
I enjoy watching video game streams. Where can I find some streamers that call the Steam Thread home?
@Houn has made a hub for finding Steam Thread Streamers.
The Steam thread has a proud tradition of marrying our love of Steam and Penny Arcade in comic edits:
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GALLERY OF EDITS:
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TychoCelchuuu on
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Posts

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    This post reserved for the trading card post I haven't added back into the Steam thread after having forgotten to grab it.

  • jclastjclast Registered User regular
    Mmmmm, new thread. @Pixelated Pixie, teach us to mod!

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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Seriously though I need 3 people to go in with me on a Risk of Rain 4 pack. The Steam user reviews are "Overwhelmingly Positive!" Doesn't that make you want to buy it?

  • Ov3rchargeOv3rcharge R.I.P. Mass Effect You were dead to me for yearsRegistered User regular
    I hope any modder that charges for their work cries themselves to sleep, they should be ashamed.

  • ZavianZavian universal peace sounds better than forever war Registered User regular
    Ov3rcharge wrote: »
    I hope any modder that charges for their work cries themselves to sleep, they should be ashamed.

    man, you know Counterstrike was a mod, right? You shouldn't be so harsh on modders, there are some really talented ones who put many hundreds of hours into their work, they should be compensated for quality

  • jclastjclast Registered User regular
    Why? I mean, if they put work into something that you can't do yourself why shouldn't they be allowed to make a little bit of money from it?

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  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    Ov3rcharge wrote: »
    I hope any modder that charges for their work cries themselves to sleep, they should be ashamed.

    http://store.steampowered.com/app/10/

    http://store.steampowered.com/app/20/

    http://store.steampowered.com/app/30/

    http://store.steampowered.com/app/40/

    http://store.steampowered.com/app/60/

    Mind as well start from the beginning, bro.

  • Talus9952Talus9952 Registered User regular
    @jclast

    I've not modded, but I've opened some fallout3/new vegas mods in an editor. It seems you can reference existing objects(NPCs, items, etc) b using the ID of the object, then applying your own values. If you wanted to create a new object, you could probably clone that object and start modifying the values associated with the object. There are also scripts, which controls spawning, events, etc. Fallout 3/New Vegas( and probably all bethesda games), load files in an order. You can change this load order. You usually want it to load the base game files first(ie, fallout3, then followed by the fallout 3 DLCs), then the mods. The load order determines who wins conflicts, the last mod overwriting everything else before it. So if you have 2 mods that modify a fallout 3 NPC, only the last mod in the load order will have any effect.

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  • KrummithKrummith DJ Logic Death can't take me until I finish my backlogRegistered User regular
    ::Repost from old thread::

    The paid mod thing is kinda making me uneasy.
    I mean, nothing is stopping you from grabbing mods from somewhere else right?

    Although, with the ability to stop auto updates removed, what's to stop Steam from just re-updating the game when you mod it? "Hey, look some files changed in the install directory! Let's fix that for you!"

    I know, I'm probably being paranoid.

  • jclastjclast Registered User regular
    Doesn't it already do that on update? I know I've had to re-edit ini files to skip movies and crap before in XCOM.

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  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    The paid modding thing seems fine honestly. I'm kinda curious how it will work out over all but it's probably not a huge deal.

    Though I do hope they both add a tip jar/pay what you want option and for games devs who don't want their workshop stuff to be for sale to be able to disable it.

    As it stands there's some mods that I've absolutely gotten moneys worth out of and would pay for if they asked for it. Though sorting the wheat from the chaff is going to be an exercise in futility.

  • ZavianZavian universal peace sounds better than forever war Registered User regular
    edited April 2015
    Though I do hope they both add a tip jar/pay what you want option and for games devs who don't want their workshop stuff to be for sale to be able to disable it.

    As it stands there's some mods that I've absolutely gotten moneys worth out of and would pay for if they asked for it. Though sorting the wheat from the chaff is going to be an exercise in futility.

    Yeah, you can still put your stuff up on the Workshop as Free, Valve leaves the choice up to the modder. It's basically just going to be up to the playerbase to sort through everything and be curators

    Zavian on
  • Talus9952Talus9952 Registered User regular
    Krummith wrote: »
    ::Repost from old thread::

    The paid mod thing is kinda making me uneasy.
    I mean, nothing is stopping you from grabbing mods from somewhere else right?

    Although, with the ability to stop auto updates removed, what's to stop Steam from just re-updating the game when you mod it? "Hey, look some files changed in the install directory! Let's fix that for you!"

    I know, I'm probably being paranoid.

    Yeah, if you have a game that you can mod, you probably should not have it set to auto update. A lot of mods are just extra files, and does not alter the base game files, and auto update should not break these. Some mods do require replacing game files, and auto updating will probably break your game.

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  • OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    I feel like "Pay what you want" would have gone over better if the lowest option was less than $0.99. In the words of Homer Simpson, "Keep sliding..."

  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Zavian wrote: »
    Though I do hope they both add a tip jar/pay what you want option and for games devs who don't want their workshop stuff to be for sale to be able to disable it.

    As it stands there's some mods that I've absolutely gotten moneys worth out of and would pay for if they asked for it. Though sorting the wheat from the chaff is going to be an exercise in futility.

    Yeah, you can still put your stuff up on the Workshop as Free, Valve leaves the choice up to the modder. It's basically just going to be up to the playerbase to sort through everything and curate

    Nah, what I'm saying is I hope that Valve lets the actual games developers turn the feature off.

    I can imagine that there's certain developers (Tripwire Interactive for example) might have pretty strong feelings on charging for mods being a thing attached to their game.

  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    Seriously though I need 3 people to go in with me on a Risk of Rain 4 pack. The Steam user reviews are "Overwhelmingly Positive!" Doesn't that make you want to buy it?

    It's getting to that point where "everyone" already bought RoR. Still, I have 5 people on my friends list that have it wishlisted but that is compared to the 75 who already own it.

  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    Zavian wrote: »
    Though I do hope they both add a tip jar/pay what you want option and for games devs who don't want their workshop stuff to be for sale to be able to disable it.

    As it stands there's some mods that I've absolutely gotten moneys worth out of and would pay for if they asked for it. Though sorting the wheat from the chaff is going to be an exercise in futility.

    Yeah, you can still put your stuff up on the Workshop as Free, Valve leaves the choice up to the modder. It's basically just going to be up to the playerbase to sort through everything and curate

    Nah, what I'm saying is I hope that Valve lets the actual games developers turn the feature off.

    I can imagine that there's certain developers (Tripwire Interactive for example) might have pretty strong feelings on charging for mods being a thing attached to their game.

    This is already a thing.
    Q. Can I sell the mods I’ve made for other games in the Steam Workshop?
    A. It is up to the developers or publisher of each game to decide if paid Workshop mods are appropriate for their game. You will only be able to sell mods for a game in the Steam Workshop if the developers have enabled that functionality.

  • Pixelated PixiePixelated Pixie They/Them Registered User regular
    edited April 2015
    Stolen from last thread:
    DoctorArch wrote: »
    Hmmmmm...paid mods on the Steam Workshop, first ones are for Skyrim.

    Don't quite know how I feel about that.

    As a modder (and one with a number of relatively popular/well-known mods out there) I can tell you how I feel about it:

    No wait. I can't. I don't know. On the one hand, I mod because I want to and I share because sometimes I make something I think other people might like. Charging money for it seems icky. And I am afraid it will become standard practice and the days of thriving rich mod communities will be past us. Also, I suspect it will lead to rights issues even more tangled than they are: "No you can't borrow that armor model I made and use it in your quest mod unless you pay me X% for each sale..." and then what happens when someone "steals" someone else's models/textures/whatever and re-uses them without permission? Ugh, this rabbit hole is deep.

    On the other hand... that sweet, sweet sound of incoming disposable income in return for doing something I like... :lol:

    (full disclosure: I have made money off mods when one generous soul or another chooses to paypal me a couple bucks because s/he liked XYZ mod just that much. I have never required, or even asked, for money for them, however.)
    What mods did you make? Consider me intrigued.

    Also, I feel like I learned a lot from the previous discussion about whether or not we own our games, or are just licensing them.

    I can't get any links or anything from work, but if someone were to go to the Nexus sites for Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Dragon Age and look for user "Luchaire" one would find all my mods. Warning: some are NSFW, one in particular very NSFW (for Dragon Age).
    jclast wrote: »
    I've downloaded a few (mostly for Torchlight), but @Pixelated Pixie how do you mod? Like, I should understand this. I write software for a living. Are our games not 100% compiled code? I get creating new skins because those are external files referenced by the executable. But other stuff? What are you guys doing?

    This is a ... big ... question.

    Some people are far more technically capable than I am and can do all sorts of wizardry. Barring an actual SDK for a game, most of the time what I'm doing for modding is model/texture work, or fiddling with game data that's more accessible (XML, SQL, even plain text). Sometimes I have to wait for other people to figure out how to extract game data and then I can dig into it. Really, it all depends on the game. For Dragon Age Origins, we had a toolset, but even so I was among the first to figure out how to rip into the stock cutscenes and start editing/expanding them. What started as a curiosity or "how's it work/can I do this" project led to a certain notorious Dragon Age mod that has something in the ballpark of a million downloads and became such an epic headache I abandoned it but left it available for those who wanted it (I really should disown it somehow but hey, there it is).

    (edit: I have not just modded FO3, Oblivion, and DA:O. My backup hard drive has mods I've done for tons of games - VTMB, Arcanum, Saints Row 3, Dead Island, Morrowind, Tera, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Venetica, etc etc. I have as much or more fun modding games than playing them sometimes. But other than the aforementioned 3 games and Arcanum, I've never publicly uploaded any of them.)

    Pixelated Pixie on
    ~~ Pixie on Steam ~~
    ironzerg wrote: »
    Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
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  • RT800RT800 Registered User regular
    I can't really argue against modders being compensated for their work.

    But at the same time this change bums me out.

    I guess it's like going to a club where the coffee has always been free.

    Now all of a sudden you have to pay for the coffee and the club is a bit less fun for it.

    Plus it sounds like it's gonna complicate things.

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    It'd be even better if they got the goddamn TF2 map workshop up and running.

    persona4celestia.jpg
    COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
  • Ed GrubermanEd Gruberman Registered User regular
    Karoz wrote: »
    Seriously though I need 3 people to go in with me on a Risk of Rain 4 pack. The Steam user reviews are "Overwhelmingly Positive!" Doesn't that make you want to buy it?

    It's getting to that point where "everyone" already bought RoR. Still, I have 5 people on my friends list that have it wishlisted but that is compared to the 75 who already own it.

    Yeah I have seen people in here trying to give RoR keys away with no takers. It's an awesome game so I highly recommend getting it.

    steam_sig.png

    SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Awesome.

    So, @destroyah87 grabbed Highlands for me yesterday and I've already put two hours into it. Here's some general impressions:

    E2C3BEDE9DB5605485F64025FBA0CAEAD0EC94AD

    The headline part of Highlands is absolutely it's presentation. The maps are all hand drawn, easy to read and the interface, character art and literally every little detail looks great.

    What I wasn't actually expecting as much was that underneath is a really compelling game. The basic premise is Risk with a whole lot of Fire Emblem in it. The job on most maps is to reach and clear out a given spot of enemies. In order to do this you'll need soldiers, who need academics to heal their wounds, who need engineers to fortify your front lines and give you breathing room and who all need leaders to rally the poplace of sectors you've liberated back to work and generating resources.

    Each of the characters, both main characters who aren't allowed to die and those recruitable in taverns, can level up and get equipment to become better at their given role. Which means them dying really sucks. So naturally they're pretty much 100% fucked. In the first round of a big, climatic battle both sides can be hitting for up to 40 damage. Which you have to decide who takes the entirety of. The only character with good odds of surviving that are main heroes or leveled soldiers, both of which suck to lose. So, Janice the level one academic gets sent to the front lines to die and you conquer more land with her sacrifice.

    The whole game seems to be based around that idea of sacrifice. Every single turn you'll carefully position your heroes about the battlefield. You're able to see whether enemies are going to attack or not and influence that by shifting fighters into the areas they would attack. Yet, you need fighters to keep pushing towards the objective, plus half of them are knackered and need some healing so maybe you could pull everyone back to a choke point you fortified for safety and give up a whole lot of ground? Or you could push on, or try and seperate the enemy groups by baiting them with empty land. Everything feels like a choice that impacts your game and the fact that enemies spawn every nine turns as a doomsday timer helps make sure there's never a moment where you just stop pushing and let the board reset. You can't, they're getting stronger, you're making sacrifices to stay afloat.

    I've heard the game has 8 campaign levels and nothing else. So far people have said that's about 15 hours worth of content on some boards. Steam says I've put two hours in to get through three missions but two of those were mostly tutorial and the first proper mission took most of those two hours.

    In general if you're a fan of turn based strategy this is a game that you'll get to grips with and immediately start pondering how to play it better. Easy to learn, hard to master is pretty over used but it describes this game pretty well.

  • jclastjclast Registered User regular
    Damn it @Drake... waitaminuteyou'renotDrake!

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  • jclastjclast Registered User regular
    Well played, Steam.

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  • vamenvamen Registered User regular
    edited April 2015
    @Albino Bunny - I didn't even have the slightest clue what sort of game Highlands is. But I decided - based on your screen shot - I want it..
    And THEN I read your blurb about it and I still want it.

    All this mod talk makes me want to try and get into modding. I'm learning to code now for work (though sadly at work we use webforms and VB so I'm not exactly on the cutting edge). Back when I first had the idea I reallllly wanted to try and mod Just Cause 2. I had an awesome mental image of making an Iron Man mod (flight, suit model, weapons). Flying around in that game with the flight mod that let you fly without planes gave me the idea and I thought it would be a blast.
    Never got around to even attempting it though =p

    vamen on
  • CorpekataCorpekata Registered User regular
    http://store.steampowered.com/app/346830/

    Final Fantasy IV The After Years hits next month.

    Wonder if this one will have battle above 15 fps....

  • KrummithKrummith DJ Logic Death can't take me until I finish my backlogRegistered User regular
    edited April 2015
    Talus9952 wrote: »
    Krummith wrote: »
    ::Repost from old thread::

    The paid mod thing is kinda making me uneasy.
    I mean, nothing is stopping you from grabbing mods from somewhere else right?

    Although, with the ability to stop auto updates removed, what's to stop Steam from just re-updating the game when you mod it? "Hey, look some files changed in the install directory! Let's fix that for you!"

    I know, I'm probably being paranoid.

    Yeah, if you have a game that you can mod, you probably should not have it set to auto update. A lot of mods are just extra files, and does not alter the base game files, and auto update should not break these. Some mods do require replacing game files, and auto updating will probably break your game.

    That is true. Like I said I'm being paranoid. However the option to turn off auto updates has been removed. You can set it so it only updates when you open it, but not turn them off completely.

    I have always enjoyed the ability to mod games, it's one of the big points of PC gaming. It just feels like a paywall is starting to be erected between me and mods.

    I'm just afraid that this is a small step towards keeping me from modding games on the Steam platform without paying for them first.

    Krummith on
  • Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    Corpekata wrote: »
    http://store.steampowered.com/app/346830/

    Final Fantasy IV The After Years hits next month.

    Wonder if this one will have battle above 15 fps....
    Oh cool. I thought you were talking about the original sprite version.

    Never played the remake. Or well...re-remake I guess. It originally started on phones I think and looked a lil lesser than the wii port.

    Pokemon GO: 7113 6338 6875/ FF14: Buckle Landrunner /Steam Profile
  • ShimshaiShimshai Flush with Success! Isle of EmeraldRegistered User regular
    So, crosspost from the Skyrim thread:
    Dr. Chaos wrote: »
    gtrmp wrote: »
    if you were wondering "what happens when a free mod starts charging money":

    11C18A138514FF629B5C2C4C3AAC816BB4E2D1A4
    $4.99 for Wet and Cold now.


    Yikes.

    They jumped on this fast.

    Steam/Origin: Shimshai

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  • Talus9952Talus9952 Registered User regular
    Shimshai wrote: »
    So, crosspost from the Skyrim thread:
    Dr. Chaos wrote: »
    gtrmp wrote: »
    if you were wondering "what happens when a free mod starts charging money":

    11C18A138514FF629B5C2C4C3AAC816BB4E2D1A4
    $4.99 for Wet and Cold now.


    Yikes.

    They jumped on this fast.

    Going to the page actually lets you pay what you want, with $4.99 as the default. The lowest seems to be $0.99.

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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    So probably when I said "let's get a 4 pack going for Risk of Rain" I should have also said something like "and don't gift it to me" because I came back to my computer after vacuuming (which I am always sort of loathe to do because it scares my roommate's cat) and not only has @Iolo gifted it to me on Steam, but @SteevL PMed me a Humble Bundle code! Thank you, both of you! I won't claim the Humble code, of course, so feel free to regift it to the apparently zero people who don't already own the game, Steev!

  • DrovekDrovek Registered User regular
    Shimshai wrote: »
    So, crosspost from the Skyrim thread:
    Dr. Chaos wrote: »
    gtrmp wrote: »
    if you were wondering "what happens when a free mod starts charging money":

    11C18A138514FF629B5C2C4C3AAC816BB4E2D1A4
    $4.99 for Wet and Cold now.


    Yikes.

    They jumped on this fast.

    Well, let's see how this works out.

    The great thing about it is that some people could start seeing some nice money coming their way, which would entice them to create even more content, and that's awesome.

    steam_sig.png( < . . .
  • vamenvamen Registered User regular
    I'll get RIGHT on that.
    ...to be fair I don't have nor have any idea what Wet and Cold is. The name makes me assume it's one of the Skyrim nudie mods= p

  • ShimshaiShimshai Flush with Success! Isle of EmeraldRegistered User regular
    Drovek wrote: »
    Shimshai wrote: »
    So, crosspost from the Skyrim thread:
    Dr. Chaos wrote: »
    gtrmp wrote: »
    if you were wondering "what happens when a free mod starts charging money":

    11C18A138514FF629B5C2C4C3AAC816BB4E2D1A4
    $4.99 for Wet and Cold now.


    Yikes.

    They jumped on this fast.

    Well, let's see how this works out.

    The great thing about it is that some people could start seeing some nice money coming their way, which would entice them to create even more content, and that's awesome.

    Ok, that's not nearly as bad. Crisis averted, temporarily. :)

    Steam/Origin: Shimshai

    steam_sig.png
  • Big ClassyBig Classy Registered User regular
    MAD MAX. Fucking BAD-ASS, RUTHLESS MAX BROUGHT TO YOU BY AVALANCHE FREAKING STUDIOS. GET HYPE PEOPLE!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRGvSi5xXk


    September release!!!!!!!! HYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    I thought about it some, read more posts, and think I hit upon a reason, a big one, why I don't like the idea of paid mods. A mod changes the game in some way, making it different from what the developer coded in. Some mods are less egregious in their changes, like a quest mod will use available resources whereas something like SkyUI overhauls a fundamental element. Because these mods change critical things, they sometimes cause errors or even complete save file corruption in the game. And, y'know, we kind of accepted that and learned to save backups before putting a whole mess of mods on.

    When I pay for something, anything, I'm paying for QA as part of the cost. I expect what I buy to not screw me over and to function in a way that is convenient for me. For me to buy a mod I'd need a complete guarantee that it will work with every other paid mod and is properly installed with no messing around with load orders on my part. I don't think these paid mods can offer that. I've looked around Nexus often enough to find mods with "dirty" files, even in the big ones, which all but guarantee conflict at some point and some even say that you can't run two particular mods at the same time.

  • Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    edited April 2015
    vamen wrote: »
    I'll get RIGHT on that.
    ...to be fair I don't have nor have any idea what Wet and Cold is. The name makes me assume it's one of the Skyrim nudie mods= p
    Nah, you're thinking of "Immersive nordic nips".

    Wet and Cold just enhances how NPCs react to the cold weather.

    Dr. Chaos on
    Pokemon GO: 7113 6338 6875/ FF14: Buckle Landrunner /Steam Profile
  • Pixelated PixiePixelated Pixie They/Them Registered User regular
    Pixie suddenly considers what her Proper Skyrim Wood Elf Diet (read: cannibalism) mod might be worth to the community via Steam Workshop

    <.<

    ~~ Pixie on Steam ~~
    ironzerg wrote: »
    Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
  • OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited April 2015
    Krummith wrote: »
    Like I said I'm being paranoid. However the option to turn off auto updates has been removed. You can set it so it only updates when you open it, but not turn them off completely.

    Is this correct? That used to be the old behavior; I thought that they changed it to optional specifically because of the dragons-flying-backwards Skyrim patch. But my impression is that it was always on a case-by-case basis, presumably decided by the developers.

    Orogogus on
This discussion has been closed.