Steam Discussion Thread

been getting a whole bunch of random people adding me as a 'Friend' on Steam recently...don't know what's going on but I don't think I know them
 
Not a fan of the new color scheme although I do understand they are trying to unify the design across the board. I prefer skins I use.
 
been getting a whole bunch of random people adding me as a 'Friend' on Steam recently...don't know what's going on but I don't think I know them
Chances are good you own a valuable in-game item for something or other. If, say, you played TF2 on a Mac at one point during a promotion then you almost certainly received an item that is worth ~$50 these days (maybe more I'm not quite 100% on prices anymore). Or some other valuable promotional item. So these people want to either rip you off in trade "oh hey i saw u have this cool item i'm collecting, swap u for my (shitty) item" or else they want to proper scam you "hi my friend can't add you add him at Fake_Steam_Url.com" which steals ur account.

Thats usually what random friend ads out of the blue means. Anybody with knowledge of trading could probably sift through ur inventory in about 10 seconds and figure out what people are after.
 
Valve put out a press release today announcing that the company will be at GDC showing off several hardware initiatives, including the final Steam Controller, “new living room devices” (speculation that they've dropped the "Steam Machine" naming), and the previously unannounced SteamVR. They've got a decent amount of floor space this year.
http://store.steampowered.com/universe/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9003/...amvr-hardware-steam-machines-more-at-gdc-2015

Valve has been creating advanced prototype VR HMD's since mid-2013 that are more advanced than other developers currently have access to, and this head start has allowed us to gain a ton of VR-specific rendering knowledge that we'd like to share with developers who are actively working on VR or plan to in the near future.

With the introduction of SteamVR hardware, Valve is actively seeking VR content creators. Are you a developer or publisher interested in experiencing the new SteamVR hardware? We'll be giving scheduled VR demos during the week of GDC, March 4th-6th, 2015, at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
 
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In other news, Steam has exceeded 125 million active users. Active user = own a product or have been active within last 90 days.

It passed 100 million in September 2014, so in 6 months they've added 25 million, up 50 million from a year ago. GDC 2015 will mark 13 years since they first announced Steam.
 
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been getting a whole bunch of random people adding me as a 'Friend' on Steam recently...don't know what's going on but I don't think I know them
Millions of bot accounts. The number of F2P, throwaway and bot accounts have exploded in the past year or so. It's a serious problem that Valve has no answer to.

Valve seems to be content to let it's platform to be taken over by scammers. Hell, the official SteamOS group has been abandoned by the moderators and is spammed with dozens if not hundreds of phishing links daily. The SteamOS group also features an endless barrage of broken Cyrillic requests for "rep for rep" - which means they want random people to post "+rep" on their newly created scam accounts and then they will reciprocate.

Basically, Valve has allowed it's largest official group to become a perpetual motion Russian scam machine.

Imagine a novice user buying a Steam Box, needing assistance in configuring it and in his search for help, is met with a gazillion phishing links and endless Russian spam. Then he opens a support ticket with Valve and it takes a month for someone to respond to him.

Valve's infamously poor level of customer service and cold distance from their community is a major barrier to their attempt at penetrating the living room market.
 
Valve put out a press release today announcing that the company will be at GDC showing off several hardware initiatives, including the final Steam Controller, “new living room devices” (speculation that they've dropped the "Steam Machine" naming), and the previously unannounced SteamVR. They've got a decent amount of floor space this year.
http://store.steampowered.com/universe/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9003/...amvr-hardware-steam-machines-more-at-gdc-2015

Not really a fan of VR, but will be interested to see how Valve's offer matches up with Occulus and Sony.
 
Not really a fan of VR, but will be interested to see how Valve's offer matches up with Occulus and Sony.

I think Sony's Morpheus is irrelevant since its locked to the PS4. Does us no good on PC. On top of it, PS4 is permanently underpowered to deliver anything but simple games with low poly counts at the required refresh rates. VR HMD's really need beefy hardware capable of driving 60 or 75FPS and beyond - per eye.

I get the impression that Valve doesn't actually want to be a VR hardware vendor, and their endgame is to be the defacto software distro platform for VR software, at least where x86 is concerned. Consider how they've provided a lot of assistance to Oculus VR, have given them their R&D findings, not to mention two of the Valve engineers that had been working on VR at Valve left and went to work for Oculus VR. If Valve's endgame was compete on hardware, they're being impossibly friendly with what would be their main competition. There's apparently a lot of collaboration between both companies.

I think they see that Oculus VR is taking a long time to get their ducks in a row for the launch of the consumer Rift, and the big game developers are in wait-and-see mode, waiting for the Rift to launch before really taking it seriously. So SteamVR in terms of hardware seems like a stopgap to stimulate and accelerate game support NOW, so that a software ecosystem already exists day one when the consumer Rift is launched. Thus I think SteamVR is going to mostly be a framework and a spec and a software stack that developers can conform to, and Oculus VR is invited plug into rather than have to compete with, because a proliferation of the Rift helps Valve sell games.
 
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Looks like HTC is the manufacturer of the SteamVR HMD that Valve is unveiling at GDC next week.

Now we just need to see what Nvidia has up its sleeve with their announcement and we'll be looking at 3 HMD options on PC including the Rift, though I'm guessing Q3/Q4 consumer launches at earliest for any of them. Fortunately Valve has made statements that they want to see Rift succeed and it's critical to the success of SteamVR as a common VR framework. Because the absolute worst would be three or more different SDK's that developers had to deal with instead of just one.

Dual 1200x1080 screens that refresh at 90Hz. So it'll need some decent GPU power.
http://www.pcgamer.com/valves-vr-headset-is-named-vive-and-htc-are-making-it/

HTC%20Vive_White-970-80.jpg
 
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Looks like HTC is the manufacturer of the SteamVR HMD that Valve is unveiling at GDC next week.

Now we just need to see what Nvidia has up its sleeve with their announcement and we'll be looking at 3 HMD options on PC including the Rift, though I'm guessing Q3/Q4 consumer launches at earliest for any of them. Fortunately Valve has made statements that they want to see Rift succeed and it's critical to the success of SteamVR as a common VR framework. Because the absolute worst would be three or more different SDK's that developers had to deal with instead of just one.

Dual 1200x1080 screens that refresh at 90Hz. So it'll need some decent GPU power.
http://www.pcgamer.com/valves-vr-headset-is-named-vive-and-htc-are-making-it/

HTC%20Vive_White-970-80.jpg

Half-Life 3VR confirmed? ;)
 
Half-Life 3VR confirmed? ;)

So the rumor mill goes. :) However there was a Valve reddit AMA where someone asked Gabe if they would hold back HL3/"Ricochet 2" until VR took off, and Gabe said "6) We aren't holding any game until VR is shipping. You don't want to create that kind of dependency."

However, HL3 or Portal 3 seems like it would be the perfect killer app opportunity to really launch VR or at least bring it insane exposure. So not wanting to wait for VR to launch a new game doesn't mean they haven't been testing it. They want SteamVR to take off, so you can be damn sure it'll be built into every first party game they release going forward.
 
Source Engine 2 is official! https://steamdb.info/blog/source2-announcement/
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Will be free for content developers. Will support Vulkan and ofcourse D3D.

Also as part of supporting PC gaming, Valve announced that it will be releasing a Vulkan-compatible version of the Source 2 engine. Vulkan is a cross-platform, cross-vendor 3D graphics API that allows game developers to get the most out of the latest graphics hardware, and ensures hardware developers that there is a consistent, low overhead method of taking advantage of products. Vulkan, previously called Next Generation OpenGL, is administered by the Khronos Group, along with other standards such as OpenCL, OpenGL, and WebGL.
 
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Steam review scores won’t count games received for free

Valve is still in the process of tweaking the Steam review score system and there’s another change being made...following changes made last September, user review scores will now not be counted if the user received the game for free...this includes gifted games, games played over a free weekend, or any other kind of freebie. Reviews can still be posted, they just won’t count toward the overall score...

http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/563352991934009789
 
I wonder if we'll see any more revisions to the Steam controller. I find it to be solid for shooters (mainly because you're only using the two pads and shoulder functions), but uncomfortable for anything that uses the analog stick or face buttons.
I'd love for some type of "modular" spin on the controller that would let you swap where the various functions are physically located.
 
Is there a way for Steam Controllers to set it in a way that it emulates a controller and not a keyboard/mouse setup?

I had been trying to use Steam Controller for FF8, and want to remap the button that's used for Squall's Trigger, because the original button is in a very awkward position on the XBOX controller, and I can't remap it without breaking something else (the trigger is also tied to something else, so remapping it in game would break that).

I can remake it in a way I like it on Steam controller, problem is that it emulates KB/M, which makes squall's movement on the world map at in cities very unnatural, as in your left thumb and move in all 360 degrees angle, but Squall can only move in 8 directions.
 
I hope they do some more with it, I want one for Star Citizen but at this point have eyes on the Xbox 1 Pro controller thing.
 
I like the new concept, but hope developers will actually support it. It's always annoying when a company unveils a new UI and no legacy items support it.
For me, just keep the tools to add non-Steam games to my library and let me create my own custom art for them.
 
Steam is currently running a Spring Cleaning event where it encourages you to play some of your games in your Library...the 4th category is called 'Time Machine' and shows the first 3 games installed on Steam...I thought it was a nice blast from the past...I think a lot of people will have the same set of games

CBuQ2iJh.jpg
 
I think a lot of people will have the same set of games

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Those who installed steam for HL2 first. I have CS, Team Fortress, and Day of Defeat. Because my ATI 9800PRO came with a coupon for HL2, that also contained all old HL games. But then HL2 got pushed back a year so there.

This is actually just a very basic script, it suggests me to play "Skyrim script extender" and "RE3 Demo" So not very helpful.
 
Neat, but was not too surprising. I was momentarily confused as to where Counter Strike was in the list but then recalled my original purchase of that after beta was the stand alone copy. Ah the memories.

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I created a new account when HL2 came out, and I've been on it ever since. My original one was for CS and DoD. I don't even remember what the account name was anymore.
 
Valve and I had a spat after they closed WON.net - their publisher printed duplicate codes for HalfLife, and someone else claimed my code before me.

So I abandoned my Steam account until HalfLife2 was released. I wasn't repaying for an old mod I was getting bored with.

My first three games would likely be Halflife 2, CS Source, and TF2.
 
I had moved on from TFC due to the latest patches being blah as they prepared for TF2 stuff so I was playing CS when the servers went offline, was a day day. Good thing the communities I was playing in had servers up quick so at least we could continue on.
 
Valve and I had a spat after they closed WON.net - their publisher printed duplicate codes for HalfLife, and someone else claimed my code before me.

Are you sure about this? Way back in the day games were simpler, your CD key was stored in the registry. In the WON days if you got banned from a server it was most likely a CD key ban. This made it really popular for people to acquire new keys and change theirs out so they could get back into servers.

There were viruses back in the day that would scan your registry for keys and send them off to whoever made them. I remember after WON was shutdown someone who had written one such virus linked to the site that had all of the Half-Life keys he had stolen. They were all claimed in Steam already but there were thousands. I think its a bit more likely your key was stolen at some point and some asshat was using it. Unless of course that there was an issue with the publisher and I either don't remember it or never heard about it.

This is actually the reason I have two Steam accounts. I bought Half-Life 2 on my original account that had my original Half-Life key. When The Orange Box was released I would have lost a copy of Half-Life 2 (since I already owned it I think at the time they either let you gift the key to someone else or you just lost it altogether) so I made a new account just for The Orange Box. Unfortunately for me I used that account for a long time before Steam profiles / years on Steam / short Steam IDs were a thing. So I ended up switching back to my original account and re-buying a bunch of games (only on sale of course) to prove I had a big e-penis.

But back on topic, mine matches Ripskin. CS, TFC, and DoD.
 
Epic doesn't have support until then won't purchase one.

There's an easy trick to making that work with any launcher. Use the "add-non Steam Game to My Library..." function. That'll make the extra Steam controller stuff work with anything you launch with it. I use the Steam mappings for the PS3 pad with emulators and even Win 10 games that way.
 
There's an easy trick to making that work with any launcher. Use the "add-non Steam Game to My Library..." function. That'll make the extra Steam controller stuff work with anything you launch with it. I use the Steam mappings for the PS3 pad with emulators and even Win 10 games that way.
There’s an even easier fix. Don’t use that dogshit Epic Launcher (y)
 
Shadow of the Tomb Raider seems to have partial haptic feedback support, it is broken when it comes to running and jumping (just constantly micro vibrates), but firing a bow does feel more satisfying. I hope Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers become a thing on PC since everything else is working now. Before steam supported the DualSense I was using the
PSRemotePlay app (just leaving it running) and was able to get audio based haptic feedback in every game, but you lose your sound source obviously and give it to the controller.
 
I'm not really into the audio from the controller thing. Maybe for very isolated random things, but not for much. It's basically a clock-radio quality speaker.
Haptic feedback, the new and improved vibration, and the touchpad are all pretty helpful, though. Plus, IMO, it's simply more comfortable than the PS4 controller. The wells for the analog triggers are still oddly sharp, but less so. I don't use the PS4 pad much, but it's straight-up necessary for any game with frantic movement and lots of rapid d-pad tapping. Tekken 7 being the ultimate example. I figure I'm not going to rush out and buy another PS5 pad for my PC yet, but when this PS4 pad wears out I'll replace it with one.
 
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