The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Hoaxmetal]

e.g. "cu=ck" for UK.)

Sorry, had to do it.

 

[Outlander]

lel, paid mods are back:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/280740/

 

[Berekän]

It's like they don't give a fuck anymore about any backlash, they keep making terrible decisions one after another.

 

[Infinitron]

Eh, depends. Is it part of a paid mods market where anybody can put their shitty mod up for sale, or does it have to be approved by the developer? In the latter case it's just selected mods being promoted to non-official DLC status.

 

[Berekän]

Yeah, exactly, and nobody liked that then, shitloads of users got upset about it and Valve had to back down with their plans. Of course they weren't going to let such a profitable enterprise go to waste and now they're back with it again.

I wonder what explanation are they going to give this time to try to justify this resurgence.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, exactly, and nobody liked that then, shitloads of users got upset about it and Valve had to back down with their plans. Of course they weren't going to let such a profitable enterprise go to waste and now they're back with it again.

I wonder what explanation are they going to give this time to try to justify this resurgence.

No, you misunderstood. I'm saying it might not be like what happened then.

Here's an article, though it mentions DOTA 2, not Portal: http://www.pcgamesn.com/dota-2/dota-2-brings-back-paid-mods-in-a-new-form-with-the-custom-game-pass

Dota 2 brings back paid mods in a new form with the Custom Game Pass

Valve are introducing a system into Dota 2 that allows "high-quality" custom games that have "established themselves in the community" to earn their developer money from their work.

Following Dota 2's introduction of custom games back in September's Reborn update, the Custom Game Pass is a new system for supporting and rewarding custom game developers in Dota 2, but it's specifically for those who are committed to building lasting communities around their game modes.

While custom games will remain free to download and play, the option will exist to buy a Custom Game Pass and support the mode's creators, while getting some extra in-game features as a reward for doing so. Custom game developers will receive the same revenue share as any ordinary developer who distributes their work through Steam.

If you're wondering how this differs from Valve's attempt to introduce paid mods via Skyrim, Valve had the following to say: "We learned a lot from the community's feedback on paid mods in Skyrim," said Valve to PCGamer. "While it may appear similar on the surface, the system we're providing for custom games is quite different. There are important details to how it works, and we can walk through some of the community's most important concerns so you can see how they informed our design.

"One of the first concerns the community had was that paid mods meant an end to free content. In this new system, only a small number of custom games will have passes for sale, and those games will continue to be freely downloadable and playable, with Custom Game Passes representing optional additions.

"The community was also worried about quality control and the general 'worthiness' of a mod being paid for. What stopped a mod maker from asking $10 for a minor gameplay tweak? We will be carefully selecting which custom games are able to offer a Custom Game Pass, selecting only games which have already established a sizeable community and are mature enough to offer good value to customers. The community also had concerns about the potential for stolen content in paid mods. The Dota team's curation of the process addresses this, requiring a custom game to be free of copyrighted materials to be considered for a pass."

The first Custom Game Pass will be available for co-op dungeon-crawling mode Roshpit Champions, and will set you back a miniscule $1 for 30 days. While everyone can play Roshpit Champions for free, the Custom Game Pass will enable additional stash and character slots, and offer multiple perks for the duration of the pass.

There's loads more information in a really nice Q&A over on PCGamer, and you should definitely read that.

 

[Berekän]

The article you posted talks about optional shit for free game mods. This is charging for a complete mod. In the mods page it says that creators can charge for them, though it might be a leftover from the last time, like this one game maybe? I don't know.

 

[Spectacle]

If this thing is a paid mod then "paid mods" have been around since 2000 when Valve put Counter-Strike in a retail box.

 

[Metro]

For several years now (5+) you could buy 'stamps' in TF2 that amounted to little more than a tipping service for people who created popular community maps. This arrangement doesn't strike me as being too different.

 

[DosBuster]

CS:GO does this as well, you can purchase a token which gives you access to curated community mods.

 

[sexbad?]

lel, paid mods are back:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/280740/

This has been around for a while. I have it, and it's nice, although I never bothered to finish it. It's a full, finished product, rather than a small addition or tweak like the Fallout 3 shenanigans. I've got no problem with developers going through Valve and using Portal 2 assets to make their own commercial game.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Alienman]

Wii for adults.

 

[Excidium II]

Some great games.

 

[Excidium II]

Thanks Steam greenlight.

 

[Metro]

VR HAS ARRIVED! 0 n0es I'm behind the times! I predict a lot of kids are going to grab their parents credit cards and order $500 VR rigs.

 

[mutonizer]

<looks at his watch>
Alright, I think it's about time we get an extinction event happening. Any meteorite about to arrive or maybe we still got some nuclear asshats roaming around? No? <sighs> Alright then, time to start learning bio chemistry then....

 

[Drax]

Or just, you know, relax.

 

[LESS T_T]

Heh, the Steam Spy guy got hired by Epic Games: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...lishing_operations_with_new_Berlin_office.php

Epic Games is looking to bolster its publishing operations in Europe and Russia with the opening of a new office in Germany.

As reported by Develop, the new office will be based in Berlin and led by Paw Larsen and Steam Spy founder Sergey Galyonkin, who will serve as Epic’s publishing directors for Western and Eastern Europe respectively.

Epic president Paul Meegan believes the best way for the company to serve its players in Europe is to have a larger local presence.

“Our European and Russian community is important to us,” said Meegan “and establishing our Berlin office is the first step to ensuring they’ll have a great day one experience with our games.”

Following the announcement, Galyonkin took to NeoGAF to ease the concerns of Steam Spy users, explaining there’s a clause in his contract that allows him to continue working on the analytics platform.

 

[Jigawatt]

explaining there’s a clause in his contract that forces him to continue working on the analytics platform.

Fixed for accuracy

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Steam is fucked right now,randomly updates games.

 

[Coyote]

At first I thought they might be consolidating stuff like DirectX, XNA, etc. somewhere so you don't have to install them anew for every game that uses them. Downloaded ~30 of those 0-byte updates only to end up with a hard drive 3 gigs lighter, and it was all coming out of _CommonRedist folders.

The second wave of updates appears to be putting it all back, though.

 

[Alienman]

Probably installing NSA things on all games

 

[vonAchdorf]

Steam is fucked right now,randomly updates games.

Well, with Steam you gotta be happy, if they don't show you the library of a random user and download several 50GB popamole games.

 

[Disgruntled]

Felt like shilling discussing my impressions on the Vive and all I found was an Oculus thread. Ill save you repeating the usual hype, but yes I did find it lived up to it.

Coming in from the RPG perspective playing Abbots demo has me sold on a VR dungeon crawler. There is something wonderful about walking through a dark and murky stone building lit up by the light of your own torch and being able to peek up down and around in freeform. When everything is claustrophobic the resolution shortcomings dont come into play. Going through so many rpgs as any codexer, all the settings are tired. And yet here I am inside this creepy dark grassland, making my way down a cliffside staircase, opening the gates of an old keep with the intended sense of awe.

Bows, swords, shields and magic are as natural as shown in demoes, its immediately apparent from the little ive played that a VR combat system is going to make 2d versions a joke once everyone implements it correctly.
The stick waggle syndrome is nothing but a failure to properly translate speed, bounderies and impact by a developer. eg The minigolf game perfectly judges how hard you swing at a ball and the physics pass on naturally. Get that into swords swings and you can properly reflect if you should show a player cutting through or whiffing air cause the strike lacked the momentum to cause real damage. This is an area where id encourage devs to go against the grain and disconnect real position and virtual position. The virtual position of a failed strike should remain at the point of failure till the player learns he cant fuck around.

Locomotion with teleports is not as lame as I thought itd be. Its more about adjusting the chaperone boundary and eeking out more space so once you do transition to somewhere of interest you can interact without distractions.

My major headaches (in some cases literal) are the
Setup time: Maybe its cause I have to leave the PC to play , but going back and forth with steamVR, adjusting the headset for optimal sight and fiddling with wires is a chore unless you have a dedicated room where you can leave everething lying around
SteamVR reliability: SteamVR crashes or pops up some issue occasionally which requires taking off the headset and screwing around on the PC. Valve/HTC should fix it eventually but its obvious they didnt do it in time for launch.
Tracking: tracking can be finicky and sometimes shaky cause of of some problem. Gradually migraine inducing. This one is probably my fault cause I havent mounted everything in optimal fashion being impatient since its my first day, when all is steady the experience is perfect

Minor gripes
You need a big fucking playspace. Its deceptive walking around the house thinking in terms of your body stood up straight with arms by the sides, but with arms out, a comfortable zone is actually tiny. Im probably going to buy extension cables just to reach a place where i can get 3m x 2.5m.
Content, as everyone knows, its mostly short games and tech demoes right now although i have not come close to trying everything. Cockpit sims are always there in reserve but I really want a good meaty roomscale experience. We should get a few in the next month or two.
Resolution, gets blurry in the distance and with text. Until this catches up, developers need to be smarter in how they show things.


I think the overwhelming positivity I have for this thing is that im excited to try almost every game. Its like the slate has been wiped clean back to when I was a kid. Thankfully there are enough demoes to stop me burning my wallet buying the whole catalogue.
Havent even started with the porn yet.