f13.net

A Russian software dev that got their game Greenlit on Steam sometime ago leaked the above image to the net.  Not sure if the dates are going to change at this point, as Valve is investigating the leak, but if not, we can at least now prepare our wallets accordingly.

I think the more interesting aspect of the leak is that the deals for both sales are the same, so it seems the "don't buy anything that's not a daily/voting deal" mantra now means don't buy anything the first sale and wait for the 2nd sale.

December 19th will be a good day for me.

Why? Anything from a flash/daily across either sale should be just as good as one another...

Yeah sorry, what I should have said si "don't buy anything in the first sale unless it's flash/voting deal"

So, theoretically this should be kicking off in a few hours ...

10am pacific, most likely.

Edit: And, it's live: http://store.steampowered.com/

Though at the time of posting, the prices have not updated.

Edit: keep scrolling.

Fall sale? Why?

Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Why not?

Hey, space hulk is 66% off.  Maybe I'll try it now.   :why_so_serious:

Not cheap enough.

Oo, Walking Dead.

Gone Home is really worth the $5 it's at right now.

Yup.

Sleeping Dogs is also well, well worth $5

Walking Dead 400 days is also 50% off - just not obvious from the main page - so thats well worth $2.50.

Game length says 2 hours to complete. Is this accurate?

And once again Steam's wish list email notification fails spectacularly. All six of the games on my wish list are on sale,  and no emails.

Yes.

Ok thanks!

At the top of the Steam intro page it has its AUTUMN SALE 2013 banner, and the date. If you scroll to the very bottom you'll find it upside down, with the correct date, but SPRING SALE 2013. I think someone forgot to update all the parts of the graphic :drill:.

No, you'll find those of us who are in the correct hemisphere have SPRING SALE at the top..

Look at the entire graphic again, it's actually quite clever.

Just an FYI, its not a game, its a visual novel.  You basically just walk through a house and read/look at things that narrate a story to you.  Similar to dear Esther, if you know of that.  So if that sort of thing isn't, well, your thing, then you should probably skip it.

$5 I think is about the right price for it.

That's why I asked, it's likely not my thing. Then again, I own a bunch of shit on Steam for $5 or less that's not my thing. However, I will give this a chance someday, but I usually have a $1 per hour rule on games.

It's really not for everyone.  I was unsure at first, but it was well worth the time playing.  $5-$10 is about what I'd say the experience is worth.  

If you equate it into "going to a movie" but for less and you don't have to leave your house, then I think the value evaluation works.  $1/hour is going to miss some gems and honestly doesn't pass muster for a lot of release games.

I don't go to the movies anymore though. I didn't find the value worth it. I've moved almost all that money into sports tickets, if not more.

The $1 per hour thing isn't perfect, but I'm cheap with games these days. My Atlanta Braves and UGA Bulldogs claim a large portion of the remaining entertainment budget.

Should I get Batman Arkham City for $15?

$15 bucks seems like a lot.  I think I got it at a different sale for $5. 

The movie thing was just a measurement.  I haven't been to a movie in years. I just find time to money ratio doesn't always work with cheap indie titles.  You still end up getting a lot out of them; just all at once.

Is Game Dev Tycoon worth $5?

Green Man Gaming is doing a 4 games on sale every 4 hours promotion (http://www.greenmangaming.com/4-play/). For the next 90 minutes, they have Bioshock Infinite for $9.99 - and if you use the coupon code TAREM-4PLAY-VOUCH, you get 20% off that. I got it for $8. They also have Company of Heroes 2, Chivalry and GTA Complete Collection (everything but V obviously) on sale for that time period at varying % off.

I had fun with it and don't regret my purchase, but I don't think there's much replayability.  Probably the most fun I had was naming the games and stuff ("Congratulations, our new release, 'Bea Arthur, Werewolf Detective' has sold 5 million units!") but since the game is re-creating the history of real life video games (but with vaguely fakey names) it's the same for every playthrough, and the base gameplay doesn't change or anything.

I had fun until I got bored, though.

Should have grabbed it with the humble bundle last week. 

I broke at Dishonored GOTY for 16 at GMG.  I wish the van helsing DLC would go on sale.

Thanks, going to pass then. I was expecting something more free-form.

To be clear, you can "make" just about any game you want, the unchangeable aspect of it is the rest of the market.  You know the C64 is always going to fail, for example, and the NES is always going to be huge.  There's no way to make a really high quality N-Gage title that makes Nokia a major player in the console industry or anything.  And since the only difference (from a gameplay perspective) between making, say, a Pirate themed action/RPG and a spreadsheet accountant simulator is the position of some sliders, there's not much incentive to go back and re-try different things for that reason.

If assassin's creed 4 goes on sale I'm going to buy it and cancel my PS4 wait list order.

This... and the Space Hulk DLC ( which I might wait for on the iPad)

Lego Marvel Super Heroes is tempting.

CBF'd with Green Man Gaming now that they are gouging Aussies at EB prices (distributor has set the regional price - yet Steam can still sell it cheaper).

Grabbed the Walking Dead DLC (Would love the second series to drop a little more) and am tempted by the Baldur's Gate II EE... but I know I'll probably never play it again.

Baldur's Gate II EE is not on sale, only the first one.

Bought Dark Souls to try and see why I keep hearing people talk about it.  Didn't know it's infected with games for windows live shit.  Just deleted it, not sure why steam is even selling games requiring that since it's all shutting down soon.

Bought final fantasy seven because I thought, why not.  Turns out I need to make a God damn account online with square to play it.  Fuck you, also deleted.  Can't believe I have to carefully research whether or not a fifteen year old game has some sort of online bullshit required to play it.

Dishonored, 92% off.  Holy shit, im buying them for everyone.  Edit: was a mistake, fixed.

Crap :(

Is the Dishonoured DLC any good?

I wish I could buy the Van Helsing package to get the DLC cheap

The damage so far:

Bioshock Infinite   
Spelunky     
State of Decay 
Dark Souls 
Papers, Please 
Rogue Legacy     
Hammerwatch 

Total so far is about $43 which works out to be around $7 per game.  Think I might hold back a bit knowing the Christmas sale is coming up soon.
   

So far:

State of Decay
Outlast
How to Survive

Probably going to pick up BioShock Infinite and Dark Souls tonight / tomorrow (slow DL speed). 

Outlast...holy shit.  I played about 30 minutes and almost had a heart attack twice.  Daily Deal for Dishonored, $7.49 right now.  If you haven't picked it up it's worth it, especially at that price in my opinion.  The DLC isn't included though unless you get the GOTY at $13.49 though.  XCOM for $9.99 also.  It was the best game I've purchased in a while, that's a great deal.  Now if the DLC pack would drop down from 30 bucks.
 

How's State of Decay? The comments in it's thread are all months old and talking about it in alpha; I'm interested but not enough to pay to test it.

All I've bought so far is Evoland, which is an amusing parody of adventure games/RPGs. I debated buying SRIV but still haven't finished The Third so there isn't much point there.

Likewise interested in any feedback of state of decay. A quick trawl around suggested the "alpha" was the port to PC, and that it's a broad scope but imperfect in the small details.

Always enjoy cursing at things like Call of Duty ghosts.. on special for 17% which still doesn't take it to par with US release prices. I guess they correctly estimate our console peasants are an easy harvest.

I think I paid 20 bucks for it originally, and I don't regret buying it at that price, considering "AAA" titles are 50-60 bucks new.  It's worth the $9.99 it's at now, to me anyway.  

Overall it's a pretty fun game.  I guess my biggest gripe would be that the graphics aren't great, considering it's a current gen game.  I'm not all about eye candy over gameplay or anything, but it is something I noticed right out of the gate.  The UI is a little clunky, but not glaringly so.  Caveat this is a game I use an XBox 360 controller for, and based on gameplay so far I'd bet KB+mouse might be a little wonky like so PC ports tend to be.    

And - the game is perma-death for your playable characters (which aren't unlimited and vary greatly in their useful skillsets), so combined with the fact that the game has no save function beyond the auto-save (which mainly occurs during pre-set quests) you can easily lose one of your better / best levelled characters to the vagaries of the game.  A random zombie that breaks through a window and the noise brings down a horde on you, or multiple feral (aka pumped up) zombies randomly encountered killing off one of your better dudes is kinda shitty.  

Overall, I'd say the game isn't dumbed down like some games are nowadays.  Perma-death, no saves, levelling of individual characters, noise attracts zombies, fatigue, long-distance travel on foot is dangerous, night travel is dangerous, etc.  I hesitate to call the game "hard", because it isn't comparatively, but it can get frustrating at times.  Looking at Steam I have 12 hours or so into it so far and as a wild guess I'm probably 40% through the core gameplay.  Not enough playtime to definitively say the DLC expansion thing is worth it or not.

Thanks for that, I might pick it up. I was going to complain that the DLC wasn't on sale but then noticed it released yesterday so I guess that's not surprising. The DLC does sound more up my alley given that it's an endless ongoing game, but if I have to beat the story mode or whatever then it's certainly not worth buying the DLC up front.

The DLC is separate from the story mode. Basically, when you launch the game you can choose between the Campaign or Breakdown.

I picked up the DLC and so far I'm enjoying it more than I did the Campaign (largely because I just prefer the more open sandbox aspect over the story stuff they tried).

As for whether or not the game is still in alpha; no, its a full release build and generally plays like it. Key-binds are fully re-mappable (finally.. that only happen about nine days ago) and the mouse issues of earlier builds are gone. Some stuff is still not explained that well (such as some of the special attacks being a number of keys you need to press at once) and almost not at all if you go straight into Breakdown. I'd suggest if you get both, to play the Campaign for a bit.. at least until after the raiding the vet clinic mission or so -- that should serve as a tutorial well enough to get by in the DLC well enough.

Hmm, good info.  Maybe I will pick up the DLC, I feel pretty much the same way regarding the gameplay.

Don't miss that Fallout Collection (1, 2 and Tactics) is on steam on sale for $5.

So far my biggest disappointment is that the Boderlands 2 dlc's haven't been deeply discounted yet.

Ohh, nice!  Thanks for the heads up on the fallout collection!

Thanks as well.  So far I've gotten:

Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics for $5
Batman Arkham City for $7.49

Rome 2 is at $30...

HNNNNNGGGGG, I don't wanna but I might.

I guess you've still got 2 hours to get state of decay.... I really enjoyed it, personally. I don't really care about endless gameplay and collect-em-all achivements; these days I just like a story and then a wrapup.

The story isn't all that, but I really enjoyed the zombie smashing and house-hoarding gameplay.

I thought I could handle it, but then Spelunky, Shadowrun and SRIV went on sale...

I'm fighting this one off as well. Just remind yourself that it'll most likely be at least this discounted during winter sale, and (hopefully) even more playable.

So far all I've bought is Bioshock Infinity at -75% but I'm leaning towards buying Metro: Last Light since it's -66% (since I really liked the first Metro game) despite my plan to buy only games at -75% price or lower.

edit: Decided to buy Far Cry 3 instead since it was -75%. Hopefully Last Light will be backn on sale when the Christmas sale hits.

Grabbed Civ V Beyond the New World; $10 is about the right price for expansion to a game I still have yet to play.

So I just noticed that Steam has every sonic game out for $15 (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/26498/).  This includes Generations and All star racing, both of which seem to be getting really good reviews (people claim the latter is better than Mario kart).

I've been eyeing that, but may just wait until the Christmas sale. I've already bought more than I meant to this time around.

I bought State of Decay.

Waiting on Rome 2, I'm not buying in yet, just too many bad reviews that it's still broken on the AI.

Thanks, haven't been watching sales close and missed that one.  A good pickup for the wife since I'm always fighting to find stuff for her to play.  What she likes and doesn't seems so random sometimes, ugh.

Looks like that sale is still going to me.

It's on until December 3rd.

Tempted by Shadow Warrior and Tomb Raider. Recomendations ? Warnings ?

Well, I escaped this sale pretty much unscathed. I picked up a single game, for a dollar (Poker Night 2, bought on a whim). There simply wasn't anything I wanted that went on sale -- every sale had 1-2 items that I already owned and nothing else of interest. I was actually somewhat disappointed (even though I'm already staring at about 15 or so games that I haven't even started up, much less finished) but my bank account was pleased. Even though I've picked up more games at launch (all but one, EU 4, being massive piles of buggy crap, such as Rebirth and TW: Rome 2) than normal this year I'm actually on pace to spend less than I usually do on gaming this year because of not binging on Steam sales and the lack of any MMOs interesting me.

I've been pretty reserved too compared to previous years, but that's because I'm blowing my money on Warhammer minis instead of video games.

I figure anything I can buy now, I can buy at the Winter/Holiday sale.  Possibly, but not expected, at a lower price.

In the meantime, I'll be expanding my GW2 bank slots for cheaper.  :awesome_for_real:

When you gon' post them bitches all up in there?

When I actually get around to painting them. I like playing the game far more than the hobby aspect, but I'm getting more into it. I'll start taking some WIP shots of my current project once I start painting it; I'm working on a CSM Defiler.

Shadowrun, Fez, Far-cry 3 and Deus Ex 1 as a gift... I couldn't resist emptying my wishlist.

I ended up getting the Sonic pack, Dragon Age Origin UE, and Dust at a total of $26.  Much better than previous years.

I got of relatively light, I only got Shadow Warrior in addition to my previous post.

Bought some stupid shit: Legend of Dungeon, Towns, and three different Wizardry games.  I can explain away two of those.

Shadowrun and some Crusader Kings II DLC was all I bought on Steam. I bought Bioshock Infinite on Green Man Gaming and my public shame, Battlefield 4 on Origin.

I'd be curious to find out what everyone that picked up Shadowrun thinks of it.  I put a few hours into it but kind of just lost interest when I got stuck pretty bad at one point, just wasn't enjoying it enough or interested enough to slog through it and I never picked it up again.

I picked up Bioshock Infinite, which was an okay value at 75% off... and that's it. I wanted to hold out for Anachronox and the Wiz6-8 bundle (I own both already, but could use a de-disking), but miscalculated the ending of the sale. Whoops!

Well, it's a $20 game... for that, I think it's more than worth it. The tactical gameplay isn't anywhere near JA2/XCOM, and the plot is super-linear, plus it's fairly short (10-12 hrs). However, the writing is consistently good in the first half of the game (it gets kinda 'eh' in the second half after the asylum), and the combat encounters definitely ramp up in difficulty as well, with some memorable setups later on (like the one where combat takes place in cyberspace and meatspace at the same time as well as the fights against *spoilers* in the second half). The game is also very canon-friendly, which I liked as an oldschool Shadowrun pen-and-paper player.

That said, the real strength of the game is (going to be) in user-created campaigns, as the editor is really powerful. In fact, it is probably the best thing you can get if you want an isometric party-based RPG 'engine' right now, even considering its shortcomings (like the save system, which is going to be made more functional in January). According to steam, I sunk about 119 hours into SRR so far, and I'm pretty sure 105+ of that was in the editor. Plus another 40 or so hours of editor time when I fired it up outside steam :awesome_for_real:

I backed Shadowrun with crowdfunding, played maybe an hour and got bored with it.

I got off real easy with the sale, had about a dozen Rocksmith 2014 tunes in the cart and they 'fixed' the 'problem' with the DLC being marked down. So those will wait for xmas (I hope). I do kind of wish I had bought the zombie thing folks are talking about, sounds cool.

I spent more than I usually do, but I had been drinking. Little known fact, alcohol lowers inhibitions.  Works on video game sales, too!

I also snagged a $30/yr PSN+ membership from Amazon.  I have a feeling it will pay for itself.  $30 is a good pricepoint.

Lets see.

Contagion
Call of Juarez - Gunslinger
Max Payne 3
Tomb Raider
Shadow Warrior

Which was stupid, I play way to much Dota2 at the moment to have time to enjoy or even play these.  :awesome_for_real:

Shadowrun
Albion Prelude
Saints Row IV + its DLC
Terraria

Aside from buying two copies of SR4 and its DLC (one for me, the other for the lady), I got off pretty light.

Spent $5 on DLC... I'm proud of me




Besides, the Christmas sale is coming...

Just looking at my 12% completion rate on Steam, I really need to stop buying new games. :facepalm:

Shadowrun is one of the few games I have on Steam thats part of my 12% completion.  The writing and story were excellent even though it started to fall apart at the end.  I've actually been looking for some other games that are similar that aren't 10+ years old.  UnderRail looks interesting but its a Steam Early Access game so its not finished yet.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/250520

While the game itself is fine (aside from the save point stuff which will be changed) Shadowrun suffers a little from the same syndrome as the old NWN games - if the included campaign isn't interesting enough, many people don't bother to dig into the toolset (or even realize it exists).  Personally, i enjoyed it well enough for the price point, but i'm primarily waiting for expansions and user created campaigns.  I am hopeful that much like NWN1, there will be many more hours of enjoyment with the additions user created content will bring.  Setting is good, and gameplay mechanics are fine, just needs content.

I pretty much assumed that buying shadowrun was as a ticket to where it's going and that the provided campaign was mostly a demo. So I'm not really in a hurry to play it.

I thought the campaign was fine, but extremely easy when played on normal level.

I greatly enjoyed the campaign, and I'm kind of interested in playing it again on a different character and probably harder difficulty.

When the Berlin expandalone comes out in January (with a slew of editor upgrades), I might even dabble in modding it.

When exactly does the winter version of the sale begin?

Last year it was December 20th to January 4th.  So probably something very similar.

I believe they say 19th.

... It's in the very first post in this thread.

So,Winter/Xmas sale starting in a few hours; given my ever growing backlog of games, I don't think I'll purchase anything significant this time. I have a wishlist containing some early access games, but I'm willing to wait for all of them: still, if they lowered the price for Blackguards and DayZ, I might give in.

I'll definitely gift The Walking Dead S1 to my father; will wait summer for Europa Universalis IV, while I might purchase Bioshock:Infinite if/when it gets an 80% discount.

My watch list:

- State of Decay
- Bioshock Infinite
- Walking Dead: 400 Days/Season 2
- Spacebase DF9

I think the only thing I might jump on is The Wolf Among Us.

First flash sale...Garbage

I don't know, I'm thinking of getting The Typing of The Dead: Overkill. I need to ask schild if it's any good :awesome_for_real:

I have been eyeballin' 'Monaco' and finally pulled the trigger. I want the Civ 5 expansion, but I think it'll go better than 50% off.

As always, the rule is to NOT buy anything unless it's on a Flash or Daily Deal.

grab some friends and play monaco with 3+ people, you won't be disappointed murdoc.  especially if your friends are trolls and pick the mole.

I'm only waiting for Borderlands 2 I think.

I'd like to see the XCOM expansion drop to 50% off at least.

Edit:It's actually pretty good, although the shitty lip-sync in the cutscenes bothers me.

I finally picked up FTL. :)

So in a potentially wallet devastating move, I found a site that keeps track of steam sale prices and it shows all the hidden/non-featured sales (http://steamdb.info/sales/)

Is teh new batman terrible or something - it's already 50% off today.

It's not as good as the first two but still pretty fun so long as you just want more of the same.  It's a bit buggier too.

Newer games are routinely on sale these days. AC4 and what not were as low as $25 during some online sales over Black Friday.

wowitsfuckingnothing.gif

Yeah, first two days have been extremely underwhelming.  :oh_i_see:

They haven't put up much have they. Not even the AC3 game I wanted. I may get Farcry 3.

Picking up the Bionic commando 2d game for $2.50.  Is the 3d one worth $2.50?

They're probably playing their hand differently.  The good stuff may/may not come up in the flash sales, otherwise they'll come near the end in order to keep people baited into checking everyday to see the other stuff.

Is Project Zomboid any good? I remember looking at it a year or so ago when it was in early alpha and it looked interesting; is it worth $12?

Should I get Borderlands 1 or 2?  I heard 2 was better and it's on sale for $10.  Anyone got an opinion?

They're both good; the story in 2 will be better if you've played the original (which is only $5). If you get 2 I recommend getting Tiny Tina's DLC as well; it's hilarious if you're into nerd culture (D&D, Monty Python, etc.).

Amazon has 1 GoTY and 2 (no DLC) for $12.00 (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CPBZDQ8?pf_rd_p=1695766882&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=7266959011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1TEH0CK26CGYTDR0642Y).

That's awesome, thank you.

I opened up Steam this morning and facepalmed when I saw this:
(http://i.imgur.com/o6QmtRG.jpg)

Huh.

Nothing I want anymore it seems.

Anyone have any thoughts on Starforge? Or Craft the World?

Pretty sure people repeatedly said "do not buy starforge", followed by "you idiots" last sale.

Ahh, I see the comments now in the Summer Sale thread. Good call.

For the next 2 hours of the flash sale X-com expansion is 50% off ($15) (http://store.steampowered.com/app/225340/?snr=1_7_15__13)

It is still in alpha, they are stlll adding features I think. But it is fun for what it is, try the demo, if you like that, pull the trigger when it is cheap.

Wish I'd seen this yesterday. Erf.

What the hell?  I've been pretty good about checking in every 8-10 hours to observe the flash sales and vote.  But I'm not going to camp Steam.
 :mob:

It would work better if the email notification thing worked reliably. :heartbreak:

lol Oblivion is on sale.

Yeah, at 5 bucks I almost rebought it just to have it on Steam.

Then I remembered that I have about 1,000 hours of Skyrim still to play.

Is Max Payne 3 any good?

Yeah.  I got an email this morning telling me The Wolf Among Us was on sale even though it was one of yesterdays daily deals. :awesome_for_real:  I'm still waiting for it to go under $10.

Oblivion is dogshit compared to Skyrim, Baldrake. Don't even bother.

Honestly, I can't even finish Elder Scroll games or even be truly entertained in them anymore. They're simply not random enough. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were both infinitely more fun to me, and not just because the setting is hilariously better.

Booooo, CK2 is on sale, and all of the DLC EXCEPT the latest expansion (and associated DLC with it).  That was one of the things I was looking for this sale.   :oh_i_see:

Rogue legacy is a pretty fun side scrolling rogue like platformer, fyi.

I purchased The Witcher way back when and never played it (well like, the first 30 minutes before some other shiny distracted me).  Should I buy the sequal and also not play it?  Or is it so bad I shouldn't even do that?   :awesome_for_real:

Skyrim is indeed a much better game, but I still had fun with Oblivion (its a nice world to explore, if nothing else.  Plus the various guild quest chains are pretty cool).  Get it, install some of the many massive mods that overhaul the entire thing to balance it better, have some fun.  Though only after you've had all the fun you can in Skyrim, because it is better.

I picked up Legend of Dungeon on a flash sale this morning.  For $1.50 it was hard not to. Looks like a 3d roguelike, should be fun.

It is filled with a LOT of unskippable cut scenes (for some reason they decided to use them as loading screens). I bought it during the last sale and made it a few chapters in. Gameplay is fun, story seems to be not as good as the first two (get ready for a LOT of self loathing).
Worst part are the cutscenes for me, I know for sure I won't be able to replay it again on a higher difficulty like the others.

Yeah, I already own Oblivion, but on DVD. I liked it a lot. I agree Skyrim is better, but I'm having trouble really getting into it - probably need a break from RPG's.

Oblivion is a great game, don't listen to the hate. It has one of my favorite elder scrolls areas when you enter the realm of Sheogorrath in the xpac. Just make sure you mod the ui.

Yes, the expansions for Oblivion were quite good.

Base game blows though. Wouldn't play through it again to enjoy those.

Oh, regarding Max Paine, the multiplayer is actually pretty decent and well worth the 4 bucks steam charges at the moment.

So I sort of want a poe imp mask and some of the warframe skins but before I even worry about that how does all this work? Get all the snow globes. Get a badge. Then what exactly happens?

I'm not sure either; I really want the PoE skins but I'm still missing several snow globes and didn't want to bump the Cards thread again. I have 3 duplicates of Globe #4, and still need 2, 3, 6, 8 and 10. If anyone wants to trade for those (or any other card, see my list in the Cards thread) let me know or just send a trade offer.

I think they're actively trying to keep me from spending money.  This has been the most lackluster sale yet.

It was never advertised, I found out by accident.  Apparently when something is on flash sale related items are on flash sale, so if xcom goes on flash sale again look for the expansion then.

If you want a specific item, your best bet is to buy it from the steam marketplace.  Most of it's pretty cheap.  The most common POE mask is like $0.12 or so.

If you get all the snow globes and then craft them to get a badge, you get the badge plus one of the holiday items at random... a random item from a random game.  I got a coat of arms for Stronghold Kingdoms, a game which I've never played (if anyone wants it, drop me a line).  So if you're after a specific item (or even any item from a specific game), you're probably going to spend more on cards than you would buying the item from the market.

I looked at "the Bridge" on flash sale, and thought, ooh that looks interesting. I was about to click the "buy" button when it told me that I already own it.

And that, in a nutshell, is the essence of Steam sales. Buying games that I not only don't play, but don't even remember buying.

Holy crap $94 for the azure one. 

Blackguards, an early access turn-based tactical RPG, just went on a flash sale: 50% off, € 12.49.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/249650/

Preview on RPGCodex (not based on the most recent build, which introduced Chapter III):
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9232

It's based on the "Dark Eye" ruleset, that some of you might remember if you played the Realms of Arkania games. For now, you can only play with pre-made builds suggested by the developer, but soon you'll be able to fully create your characters (which was quite a complex experience in itself in the Arkania games).

EDIT: oh, one last thing. This game is basically in beta, the release should happen around the beginning of february, bar any delay. In other words,  we aren't talking about one of those one-man, early alpha access games reaching the 0.1.1 version then not moving forward for months :P

I'm sorry, did you say Turn Based?  Sold!

Also picked up Eldritch on flash sale (http://store.steampowered.com/app/252630/) for $3.  "Eldritch is a first-person action game inspired by roguelikes, immersive sims, and H. P. Lovecraft. " and this version include the Mountains of Madness.  My Steam wallet was needing a little exercise.

I was considering Eldritch already.

Just FYI: I picked up Omerta a couple of days ago, it's gangster combat system is turned based. Interesting so far, but have only done a few combat missions (and gotten my ass kicked a few times).

I don't even know who all the people were that I just gifted Steam games to.

This is what the world has come to with Steam Sales:

1. Was thinking about buying Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
2. Only $5 more for more missions and stuff, because I love Splinter Cell.
3. Add deluxe edition to cart.
4. Realize I haven't spent $30 on a game in 3 years.
5. Don't buy Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

Except for Hex.

Pulled the trigger for Borderlands for $5.  Scar was easy but Bone Head and his friends were pretty tough.  Sudden leap in difficulty there.

Still want Borderlands 2 and CK2 but the holidays about have me tapped out.

I dropped about $10 on BL2 DLC; I grabbed the 3 new Headhunter packs, the new level cap increase and a skin or two. Not sure if/when I'll fire it up again, but I'm a sucker for completion.

In no world will I treat that like a "game."

Was not planning on buying much, but someone gifted me BL2 and now I feel like I should find someway to buy DLC!

Grabbed State of Decay plus expansion, FTL, and Gnomoria. Hopefully Long Live The Queen wins the community choice; I've been itching to play that since Falc linked it on FB.

Grabbing State of Decay as well.  3 out of 4 on my list done!

I was hoping the DLC would have been on sale. :heartbreak:

Fucking Super Hexagon :(

Edit: Why would anyone vote for Super Hexagon over Weaboo Be a Princess?

This. I am disappoint.

I was going to buy KRZ if it had popped.  Ah well, money saved.  Feels like this choice was a troll pick though.

It's on sale on the game's site itself for $4.98 if you are willing to pay through some obscure 3rd party payment processor.

http://www.hanakogames.com/llq.shtml#buyit

Edit: page still says $9.95 but if you click Buy Now you can see the sale price.

Any idea if that comes with a Steam code? I'm pretty lazy about updating software and such.

Goddamnit, I bought stuff. 

Let's see if I actually play them (Shadowrun, State of Decay) sometime before 2015!

Not directly but you can get a Steam key from this page

http://nettle.spikycaterpillar.com

Edit: above link comes from this forum post by admin:

http://hanakoforum.nfshost.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=14630#p14630

Close enough. Went ahead and bought it, got a Steam key as advertised. Thanks. My only complaint now is that it's half a snow globe I just missed out on. :why_so_serious:

Got state of decay at 50% off.  Still thinking about a Borderlands game, but I have to admit I don't understand what those games are about.  You people seem to be talking about them all the time, though... So what's the deal?

FPS RPG with Diablo-style loot.

You would think that after so many holiday sales now that Valve could properly plan for the traffic loads.

Left 4 Dead 2 is free right now on the store, assuming you can actually connect.

Which is probably why I can't connect. :(

For $5 I'm enjoying Borderlands 1.  The dune buggy is particularly fun.  Already got $5 worth of entertainment from running over bad guys. 

I was wondering wtf was up with Steam.

http://www.issteamdown.com/

Motherfuckers. That's why I can't get Football Manager 2014? /sadf

Hopefully they get it sorted; I was about to spend some cash.

Managed to snag the L4D2 free, thanks Trippy.

Thanks for the heads up, Trippy. Yet another game I will probably never play in my steam library  :awesome_for_real:

Store seems to be better now.

Store is working. Finally made my first real game purchases - Football Manager 2014, Papers, Please and State of Decay. Also snagged Hearts of Iron 3 on Amazon for $2.50 (the full collection was $30 if I wanted the Steam edition and I did) and managed to get Left 4 Dead 2 free as well.

Apparently they aren't using AWS.

They don't sell Football Manager 2014 in Germany ? Wtf ?

Woke up and people had voted on Dream over Deadly Premonition. :(

I figure the only way you can avoid being disappointed by people is to stop waking up.  I'm just about there myself.

I have no idea what to vote on, it all looks like indie crap for the most part.

Did I mention how much I hate that indie often = stupid platformer?

The flash sales and vote sale choices have almost all been indie stuff and what wasn't indie has been mostly disappointing.

Was going to buy Don't Starve for $1.19 - adding some other stuff to the cart, came back and it was $5.09. Removed it. Went back to the main page, then the store page and the 2-pack was $1.79. Added that to the cart. Went back to something else, it changed prices to $7.49. WTF?

PRICE CHECK FAIL

Is Fallen Enchantress any good? If so, should I buy just the new expansion, or is the original worth playing?

Stardock.

Debating snagging Prison Architect at $15...

I haven't played the base game, only played about 24h on the expansion (which is a standalone game) but in my opinion:

It's... okay... it's like a crappier version of Fall From Heaven without any of the diversity.  It looks nice, and there are some cool things it does (town building feels fun to me, and heroes are way more manageable than they were in FFH, and it's got Master of Magic style tactical battles).

My biggest gripe is that the engine seems really shaky... like I'm perpetually thirty seconds away from a crash.  It does crash a lot, but it also has a lot of weird bugs where the game just stops and you don't know if it's frozen or what and then a few seconds later it starts up again.  When I hit "next turn" the mouse cursor changes to an hourglass to show that the CPU's thinking, then changes back to normal to show that the CPU's done, then freezes for a second or two before the next turn starts.  I don't know if that's normal, but the whole thing just feels shaky as hell.  It's not the worst game ever or anything, but it's nowhere near the level of Master of Magic or Fall From Heaven.

Ok, gonna pass. Thanks.

I'm pissed that Anno still has Tages.

Yeah fucking Ubisoft, though UPlay isn't much better.

I hate Fallen Enchantress because it fails to do what it promised during development; bring Master of Magic to the 3d realm.  None of the unit or even race diversity. Shitty, shitty below-indy models and a beyond horrible technology tree.

It's like Wardell never played the original, just heard it was Civs with turn-based combat.

I have very few problems now with UPlay's interaction with Steam other than when it updates. That being said, I will never buy an Ubisoft game for more than $10 because of it.

I have 171 hours of play according to Steam, but I think $10 is too much to pay for it(!).  We have a thread about the original (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19466.0) and it has gotten less worse technically but still isn't a good game by any stretch.  I played the expansion (Fallen Enchantress) mainly to see how steam would handle a badly implemented game.  Good news is that it probably won't crash on your or destroy itself like the original.  Bad news is that the game is still largely interesting for its potential rather than what it actually shows you through the gameplay.  Oh, and it takes a god's age to get through a game, the game is slow even when there is nothing for you to do as the turns crawl by.

3+ years on and the expansion contains the start of what could become a good game... but at this point the graphics are woeful, occasionally the AI still forgets to play its turns, the pacing and power are uneven, it will still crash - even on Steam, often the achievements won't trigger, sometimes scripted events in the world won't trigger, etc. etc. etc.  Don't play this and definitely don't go find and play the original.

Damn, I was about to pull the trigger on Fallen Enchantress  :heartbreak:

Farcry 3 any good?

All I've bought this time around is DLC for Van Helsing.

BTW, WTF - I went to play my copy of L4D2 that I bought via the UK - it's now installed with the Aussie censorship even though it had the original content when I first played it.

So I bought the DLC for Van Helsing also, played through as a Thaumaturge.

I can't recommend that to other people. The vast majority of epic/unique items you get from sidequests and such are Hunter-Only. Which is super obnoxious. Why they didn't get replaced based on the character you've chosen is beyond me.

I am so sick of platformers. If I click on an indie title and the genre says platformer, I stop there.

Just a head's up on Brothers:  I'm pretty sure it's part of PSN+ for January, so don't buy if you want for free there.

I saw Rome 2 once in a vote, and it didn't get picked. Otherwise I haven't seen it up on the sales, or AC3, which was the other one I wanted.

Speaking of heads-ups, the description of Snow says it's early access for a f2p game...so you probably shouldn't drop $7.50 on it unless you REALLY need to play now. It does look like a cool game, but what up with that.

Money Hats require money in order to be made.

The number of early access and indie titles stealing the flash sales makes me sad.

I agree. I'm not that big of an indie fan. I like that their work and talent is getting the tools and support they need to finally get noticed and compete on a grander scale, but if all they're gonna do is cock-block the bigger-budget titles, people might start looking elsewhere.

If Steam starts turning into a bullshit version of Kickstarter on every sale I'm not going to bother with them.

AC3 is on sale (not flash sale or anything, regular sale for the full duration of the holiday event) for like 75% off, making it like eight bucks which was cheap enough for me to snag it.  An extra 5% or so isn't going to mean much to me at that price.

Sales seem weird this year, too.  Sometimes, flash sales are deeper discounts than daily deals, sometimes daily deals are better discounts than flash sales.  I don't know what to think anymore.  Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

edit: nope, I lied, the AC3 sale is because AC4 was a daily sale a day ago and the rest of the series was discounted too, and they stay discounted for a day afterwards.  Argh, my bad.

Wow, they totally didn't put that out there. I'm glad you mentioned it or I would have been super pissed off. Thanks a bunch for the heads up!

Way too many indie platformer sprites are retro-cool games on the flash sales this year. The big budget stuff all seems to be smaller discounts or daily deals only and not really great daily deals at that. Maybe I just have too much shit from the last two years of sales that there just isn't anything left.

Is Brothers worth a play?

Not sure if anybody noticed, but Far Cry 3 is $7.50 or $9.99 For Deluxe.

Do you have a controller?

Yeah, I am sorta getting tired of seeing a game and thinking "well that looks kinda cool!" only to go in and see that it is some stupid pay-for-Alpha bullshit.  And the descriptions of "hey, we're making this super cool game, but beware it will have shitloads of bugs and also we don't actually know where this shit is going to end up" don't exactly inspire confidence.  Should be illegal.

Yah. Wired 360.

I've heard it's extremely good (as long as you have a controller) but very short (like 2 hours).

Now that Long Live the Princess is on sale I'm having trouble convincing myself to buy it. :awesome_for_real:

Well?

Didn't bother.

Bioshock Infinite just went on Flash sales for $20. Couldn't resist - then kicked myself because I fell into their trap of buying the season pass.

I'm hoping Enemy within might come back on sale.

I realize a lot of people had issues with Dark Souls PC.  However, I didn't realize how bad it was until I tried to play it.  I never actually got into the game because GFWL is telling me my key is invalid.  It's also telling me I don't have a GFWL login, which I do.  And when I try to reset my password, it just takes me to a blank page. 

It's not worth refunding $6, but this is terrible.

What?  How can Dark Souls even be using the dumpster fire that is GFWL?  I thought that shit was shut down?

Microsoft intends to shut it down (June or something?) but so far there's no indication dark souls will be updated so it will continue to work...

Between GFWL being needed, and the game being broken when it shuts down, I've resisted buying it.

The fuck... why couldn't I have waited till christmas to buy games? Fuck now I want my 20 dollars of steam credits for dragon commander...

I didn't have any trouble running Dark Souls.

(http://i.imgur.com/NQHKSVE.gif)

I don't mean I'd quit Steam, I mean I'd stop bothering with "sales" if it's constantly indie garbage.

Bleh, Deadly Premonition is on sale.  I have already bought more than I said I would.  Anyone play the PC version yet?

Ron's comment stands. There is still enough stuff in between the trendy indie, greenlight, early access, blah, wonky 25%, etc that you'll find a gem or two.

The base Xcom is 75% in today's daily deal. I noticed that if you look closer, Enemy Within is now 50% off as well.

Anyone have any comments on Duels of the Planeswalker Magic 2014? 

Back a decade ago I used to enjoy MTG but I haven't played much since.  Not looking to get into a super hardcore magic game, just looking for something for some casual fun.

Obligatory "Hex" entry goes here.

I had to run an errand, meant to buy it, came back and it was $3 more. Was a little pissed. I wanted to play it pretty badly. CAN WAIT TIL NEXT SUMMER.

Deck building is very minimal. You are basically playing pre-made decks. The game itself plays very well so if the lack of real deck building isn't an issue it's a good game.

Sounds good to me thanks, not sure I have the patience for full fledge deck building right now anyways.


And Amazon has XCom: EW for $9.99 (http://www.amazon.com/XCOM-Enemy-Within-Online-Game/dp/B00FEOUDUE)

Anyone want to gift it to me :( steam version is $25 to me because of bs Aussie pricing.

I spent another bit this morning and finally got it running.  It was just a frustrating install, GFWL is a poor user experience.  I'll be interested to see if Dark Souls stops working when MS pulls GFWL, or if the devs will patch it out. 

People!  Your cries have been answered!

(http://i.imgur.com/Hn6NQvl.png)

 :why_so_serious:

As of this post, Bioshock won and has 5 hours 45 min left at it's $10 price.  Go go go!

VVVVVVV beating Sir You Are Being Hunted is a little sad.

I agree. I almost bought VVVVVVV for $.49 since... well, it's two quarters. Then I looked at it and knew I'd never play it.

I enjoyed VVVVV, got a good 3 hours of fun out of it for a couple bucks way back.

I voted for VVVV because I refuse to waste my vote on early access shit.

Ok, last day of sale, "encore" edition; it's also time to start confessing our sins  :grin: . I purchased:

The Walking Dead S1 (gift)
The Walking Dead: 400 days
Outlast (GOG)
F1 2013: Classic Edition

Total spent: € 32.83

Got Bioshock Infinite, TWD: 400 Days, and State of Decay.  TWD Season 2 did actually go on sale, but a day late and a dollar short for my monthly budgeting plan.  Same thing with SpaceBase.

After adding it up I spent more than I meant to spend:

XCom: Enemy Within - $10
Magic 2014 - $5
Wizardry 8 - $2
Tomb raider - $5
Castlevania - $8
Strike Suit Zero Bundle - $10
Guacamelee - $3

So $43 in total.

I got:

Rogue Legacy
Monaco
Darksiders II
Civilization V: Brave New World
Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition
Trine 2
Van Helsing DLC
DmC
Was gifted XCOM:EW and thanks to Trippy got Left 4 Dead 2 for free.

Fuck Steam ended most of the sales today. I had some games on my wishlist and was waiting to see if they would get cheaper and now they are no longer on sale. Oh well.

Edit: oh hey the holiday card progress bar is working again now that most of the sales are over :oh_i_see:

I didn't grab much, at least compared to what I was wanting to spend (a number of games I wanted either didn't get discounted enough or remain clogged by stupid DRM);

- CK 2 DLC (Sons of Abraham and the smaller related DLC.. wasn't on sale but I bought it anyway) - $24
- Spec Ops The Line (based on recommendations.. but I'll probably never play it given how rarely I touch FPS games) - $7.50
- Solar 2 (bought on a whim) - $2
- Kerbal Space Program (finally bit the bullet on this, as I've wanted it for awhile; and I'm terrible at it) - $16
- Long Live the Queen (yeah.. I know) - $5
- Wizardry 6, 7, 8 Pack (gift for my father) - $2

Total damage: $56.50

On the other hand I made close to $20 with selling the stupid Steam cards/inventory junk, as I got two foil cards that sold well.

I actually bought a lot this year, compared to previous sales.

-XCOM and expansion
-Typing of the Dead: Overkill
-Craft the World
-Farcry 3: Blood Dragon
-State of Decay
-Legend of Grimrock
-Long Live the Queen
-Dungeon Defenders DLC (all of it)
-Borderlands 2 DLC (the 3 newest packs plus a few skins)

Edit: Whoops, that's only the things I bought and installed. Also these:
-Unepic
-Agarest
-Blade Symphony
-FTL
-Gnomoria
-Poker Night 2
-Prison Architect
-Skullgirls
-Ys 1&2

I spent as little as humanly possible:
Slender: The Arrival
State of Decay

uhhh, I thought I bought something else. Guess not.

I got:

State of Decay
Shadowrun
Brothers

So, semi-indie trend?  Dunno, there's not a whole lot I want, and there's a lot I'm willing to wait for it to go even cheaper.  Plus, getting old, I'm not going to throw $5 at something I know I'll never play.  My backlog of shit-I-bought-but-will-never-touch taunts me continually.

2013 was as shitty as 2013 for PC games. Happens.

Ended up with:

Assassin's Creed 3 Deluxe Edition  $14.99
Age of Empires 2 HD $4.99
Awesomenauts - Starstorm Expansion $4.49
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons $4.49
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition $10.19
Deadpool $9.99
Delver $2.39
Electronic Super Joy $1.50
Hard Reset $3.74
Long Live The Queen $4.99
Nihilumbra $2.99
Rise of the Triad $2.99
Risk of Rain $6.69
Shadowrun Returns Deluxe $15.74
Starbound - Soundtrack $4.99
Steam Marines $2.49
Unepic $3.99
Valdis Story: Abyssal City $3.74

Total damages: $102.39
Was aiming for less than a hundred dollars, and that includes the $20 gift certificate I got for Christmas, so not too bad.

From what I've played so far:
Age of Empires is still fun, but makes me pine for Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. 
Awesomenauts expansion is unfinished, right now it's just the ability to make custom matches and adds one new character (which is a bit of an alarming precedent since the previous characters were all added for free).  The planned features sound nice, though, even if I'm not sure about charging for them.
Risk of Rain seems okay, I'm not really in love with it, it seems like one of those games you have to play for a while to "get" it and I'm not there yet.
Shadowrun is really great, but short.  Hopefully the mods keep it fresh, but I thought the default campaign was really fun up until the last mission, and it'll be hard to wade through the sea of shit that I'm sure the payer created content sits in.
Unepic is pretty bleh so far (I guess the title fits), maybe it gets interesting later but right now it just seems tedious.

I have no idea why I bought some of the stuff I did...

Ys I & 2, Agarest - Cheap, not great, but supporting more J-stuff coming across.
Breath of Death / Cthulu saves the world - No idea why.
Rogue Legacy, spelunky - Peer pressure
Fallen Enchantress, Gnomoria - strategy / building stuff itch ...
Far Cry 3 - cheap enough
Rise of the Triad - momentary insanity as far as I can tell
Brutal Legend - Gifted to me... as a joke hopefully.

The wishlist gained Bioshock infinite (a discount off an inflated AU price still annoys), Xcom (later) and Craft the World (too many good games for Early access).

I'm actually playing Farcry 1 though... holy crap but it takes me back to have a game where have to sneak and protect your flimsy and non-regenerating health.

I picked up:

Shogun 2, Alan Wake, Braid, Borderlands 2, Dust, FTL, Gal Civ II Ultimate, Jade Empire, LA Noire, L4D2 (free), Orcs Must Die 2,Spiral Knights, Torchlight 2,World of Goo..

Think that's it. All for about 90 bucks, all told.

Agarest is designed by a company named Idea Factory.

All they make is total shit. Don't buy their stuff, ever.

What else can you do to encourage the good games to consider the PC? The incompetent are the most eager for new markets.

I wasn't supposed to buy anything this year, really serious about it. No, really. I don't need anything and I have such a backlog, pfff, and no time to play them all. No this time I won't spend silly money, I really don't need any new game FOR REAL no. Ok? No.

Ended up with:

- Long Live the Queen
- Magical Diary
- Postmortem: One must die
- DLC Quest
- Analogue: A Hate story
- Hate Plus
- Day Z
- Dinner Date
- The Stanley Parable
- Metro Last Light + DLC
- Mighty Quest for Epic Loot
- Zafehouse: Diaries

 :uhrr:

Borderlands
Fallout
Fallout 2

Now wishing I'd bought Assassin's Creed 3.  Oh well.

Assassins Creed 3
Rome 2  :oh_i_see:
Farcry 3
Eador
M&B Napoleon

x-com:ew (steam)
CK2 save converter (steam)
EU4 (humble)
Shadowrun (humble)

Since I'm making a serious effort to chip away at my backlog I didn't grab much, only 1 steam purchase for myself. Though for me Xbox Live and Amazon had some better deals.

Poker Night 2 - 99 cents (Steam)
State of Decay - $9.99 (Steam) (Gift)
Tomb Raider - $.499 (Amazon) (Gift)
Dragon Age 2 - $4.99 (Amazon) (Gift)
Rocksmith 2014 - $49.99 (Amazon)
Bully - $3.74 (XBL)
Brothers - $4.94 (XBL)
Wolf Among Us Ep01 - Free (XBL)

Fake edit - Ok I thought I was making progress on my backlog over my 2 week vacation but after looking at that list apparently it's a wash.

CK2, moment of weakness. If only the text weren't so tiny it would get some play time simply due to the music and setting because the old lady would dig it.
Outlast, I love creepy insane asylums.
Fallen Enchantress DLC that adds a new faction.
Trine 2, not my favorite kind of game but playing the demo I see $2 in it easily.

Fuck Rocksmith for not putting DLC on sale.

Between the Humble Bundle, Amazon, Green Man Gaming and Steam, I bought less than I expected but probably more than I need.

X-Com: EW
Football Manager 2014
Hearts of Iron III
EU IV
Papers, Please
Gone Home
Dawn of War Expansions (de-disking them bascially)

Some various and sundry CK2 DLC's.

I've been told to stop buying things.

Same.  I only spent $50, but it occurred over 14 transactions.  Dang DLC.

The budget committee was not impressed.

Ditto, think I ended up well over $50 over a great many small purchases.  Damn you steam!!!!!

Wait, I saved a lot of money on a great deal of games!

Which I'll probably never get around to playing.

 :oh_i_see: