The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[buzz]

He said "no" but he meant "lol who gives a shit about HL3"

 

[MicoSelva]

Steam Spy wrote a piece about #indiepocalypse:

https://medium.com/steam-spy/on-indiepocalypse-what-is-really-killing-indie-games-3da3c3a1ea76

 

[a Goat]

What will be released first, Half Life 3 or Grimoire?

 

[tuluse]

Are indie games actually being killed? I see more indies than ever.

Edit: Heh, covered in just about the first sentence. Oh well, let it burn.

 

[Excidium II]

Are indie games actually being killed? I see more indies than ever.

Isn't that the exact problem people describe? A market flood of shovelware/amateur games making proper projects difficult to stand out and creating screwed up expectations regarding pricing.

 

[Metro]

Anecdotal (and I might have said it already in this thread) but years ago I actually used to look at the 'coming soon' section on Steam. It's how I found out about Torchlight 1, tried the demo, and bought the game for $20. Since the flood of crap started several years ago I don't bother looking. I'm sure I miss more than a few decent titles.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

There's too much shit flooding the market. People are selling their games for $1 now because they think that's the only way that they can sell a game. It's pitiful.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Most of that crap would not be played even if free,not sure why we should care.Good games discounts otoh are worse than before two years.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

It appears that this publishing 'company' "Back to Basics Gaming" is a new contributor for indie decline. Selling most products under $1, and one that's under $2. Two appear to be 'good' (i.e. mostly positive reviews). One game is even discounted 85% so that it's only worth $0.15. I don't know who could make the money there...

 

[buzz]

There's no problem with the "market flood" my friend, don't blame the marketplace itself for the people buying and selling there.

The problem is that the gaming world is overall shit and filled with morons, especially on PC.

Off-topic personal example: I am a big fan of Doom metal/stoner rock/sludge metal, slow and fuzzy as fuck rock with great riffs and low atmosphere. Last month I bought/ordered two albums: Grief's Internal Flower by Windhand and The Night Creeper by Uncle Acid.

How do you think I decided to buy these albums? Did I go on the "What's new" pages of Amazon and bandcamp? Fuck no! There's hundreds and thousands of albums out there, you'll never pick something great that way.

Did I go on bullshit-peddling websites like kerrang!, pitchfork or rollingstones to find what albums should I listen to? lolno, last year they've had Foo Fighter, AC/DC or Linkin Park in their "top 50 of 2014" list.

No, if I want a new record, I look around in specialized places. An occasional thread in reddit or 4chan, looking up in the neat&tidy community of RYM, reading blogs like sleepingshaman, the Obelisk or sludgelord.

And most importantly, listening to the music myself. These bands put sample songs or even their entire albums online, for free, in places like bandcamp and spotify.

Gaming by comparison, sucks at forming communities and getting a format that even smaller companies could use effectively. Very few genres have their own RPG Codex where people can talk and see the good new shit in games that they care about.
The gaming boards on 4chan or reddit are usually filled with Smash Bros and MGS V shitposting (with occasional exceptions), the indie scene is filled with only a particular brand of artsy faggots and so on.
The websites where fans can personally rank/rate games are filled with trolls and shitposters, and both the mainstream and the niche press is corrupt as shit.


Everyone put their chips on Steam and followed whatever shitty trend was hip at the moment.

There used to be websites that acted like a Youtube for flash games, I'm talking about stuff like newsgrounds and kongregate and armorgames or miniclip. People made small and fun games and put them for free in there, got themselves a loyal fanbase and shit and grow up from there. That's how the Binding of Isaac guy started for example. Now these places are half-dead and every indie smug cunt is selling directly on Steam.

The problem is that all the venues for gaming on PC lead to milking the clueless gamers out of their money. In every other entertainment medium, stuff like bonus tracks and demo sessions come as extra, to the album/movie/book itself. In gaming, you're emotionally blackmailed into buying that shit just in the hope that the proper game is going to get made eventually.

In other places, older movies and music get licensed and aired for free on TV or the Internet. PC gaming doesn't have that kind of shit, the company just squeeze their audience of every dollar and cent possible even decades after the game out.
Bands give small samples of their content all the time, gaming stopped having demos a long time ago, in fact you actually PAY for the demos in gaming considering Early Access shit.



So no, Steam having all that shovelware is not the biggest problem by far. RPGCodex having Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 threads longer than threads about Serpent in the Staglands, Legend of Eisenwald, Underrail or Darkest Dungeon, that's the fucking problem. If the nichest of niche websites like us can't stop gargling on the corporate cock (even if we pretend it's only hate-gargling), what can you expect of everyone else?

Shit, the very fact that we have a thread talking about how Steam is condoning their business while plenty of other distribution websites (gamersgate, desura, humble store) didn't even get enough attention and now they just resell Steam keys most of the time, that alone is proof how shit and toxic our industry is.

/rant

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.teamfortress.com/invasion

 

[pakoito]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

http://www.teamfortress.com/invasion

"Event" that needs a purchase to be truly part of - Check.
"New" weapons that are all reskins of old weapons - Check.
"New" maps of which at least one is a reskin of an old map - Check.
Medic gets jackshit from this update - Check!
It's just another cash grab. The only difference now is that this one will probably replace the yearly Halloween cash grabs. At least those were fun.

 

[bozia2012]

Anecdotal (and I might have said it already in this thread) but years ago I actually used to look at the 'coming soon' section on Steam. It's how I found out about Torchlight 1, tried the demo, and bought the game for $20.

Wow, you were really stupid "years ago".

 

[Metro]

Wow, you were really stupid "years ago".

Says the guy who gave money to Codex? Looks like you were really stupid two years in a row.

 

[Excidium II]

OoOoOooOOOOOOoooooh

 

[Metro]

 

[Astral Rag]

So on the day GOG started charging for classy vintage porn games Valve decided to transform Steam into a creepy nagware popamole, the program keeps asking me for my fucking phone number, what is this world coming to

 

[Unkillable Cat]

So on the day GOG started charging for classy vintage porn games Valve decided to transform Steam into a creepy nagware popamole, the program keeps asking me for my fucking phone number, what is this world coming to

My first such nag came earlier this week. Just put in a fake one, or the number at Valve's reception desk.

 

[Infinitron]

That's for Two Step Authentication. Makes you immune to phishing, I enable it wherever I can

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I gave them my number in hoping that Gaben will call me one night :3

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[LESS T_T]

Valve accidentally pushed some files regarding Half-Life 3 and other things to Dota 2 update: http://www.valvetime.net/threads/what-are-the-leaked-hl3-txt-and-rpg-txt-files-all-about.246431/

Surprise! Seven years and 364 days after Half-Life 2: Episode Two was released as part of The Orange Box (a total coincidence), SteamDB has brought to light some leaked Half-Life 3 content that was released through today’s Dota 2 update.

The leak doesn’t contain any game assets, but instead it has some text files that define some game assets - similar to what Valve’s FGD does.

Of note are three files that have new information, named hl3.txt, rpg.txt, and lights.txt. We’ve gone ahead and compiled what we think are the more relevant pieces of information from these files, and that’s detailed below...

hl3.txt - View Source File

Most of the definitions in this file are old and can be found within Source 1, suggesting that they’re being ported over to Source 2 with some slight changes.

For starters, the base AI definitions inside hl3.txt, such as for companions, squad following, attack/cover, scripted sequences, and more, are from Half-Life 2. And, there are procedurally generated spawn points for items and enemies that could be a child of Left 4 Dead’s system. Finally, spawns are controllable, which could stem from Left 4 Dead 2’s AI Director.

But, there’s obviously some completely new things that are defined.

There’s some type of “quest” system which we don’t think was in Valve’s dictionary in Half-Life 2/Source 1. Quest dialogue, quest goals, and quest NPCs, such as hunters, citizens, and ceiling turrets, are all found in hl3.txt. Quest citizen is a quest member that’s “neutral to Combine, and don’t take damage from their weapons.” “Quest” and “Combine” in the same attribute - is this suggesting that Half-Life 3 is or at one point was a shooter with role playing elements? There’s also some definitions for VR involving the Chaperone system (only patented March 2015) and a movement system. Ziplines, too!

rpg.txt - View Source File

This is a base for defining some RPG elements in Source 2, so it’s all new to us. There’s actually a lot of engine, as well as gameplay-related, definitions, but nothing specific to any actual game title.

Most everything in here is typical to your classic RPG game. Item stats, item pickups/drops.

lights.txt - View Source File

Here there are definitions that describe some of the lighting characteristics. There’s your typical definitions for angles, offsets, targets, colors, light types… But then there’s new “Realistic Day/Night Cycle” attributes that can be adjusted by time, date, timezone, and length of the day.

--------------

So, it’s important to realize that there’s absolutely no information as to exactly when or where these definitions come from. Meaning some or all definitions could be years old, used in some early iterations of projects that may or may not have died internally at Valve. Or, these are precisely what Valve is using, today, in some future title. Stay tuned as always...

Quests, NPCs, items, and day & night cycle? Yeah, sounds like an RPG.

 

[Melcar]

I gave them my number in hoping that Gaben will call me one night :3

 

[SCO]

I guess this is going to get the bloodlines peasants excited for a remake again.