f13.net

So, Steam started it's holiday festivities off yesterday. (http://steamcommunity.com/auction)  Gives users the chance to convert all their extra inventory junk in to "gems" and then use those gems to bid on items.  A neat idea for me, since I've got pages of useless backgrounds and emoticons (for all those steam conversations I'm always having).

Anyways, there were exploits, so now it's cancelled. (http://kotaku.com/steam-holiday-auction-shuts-down-after-gem-exploits-spr-1670279820)  At least, temporarily.

But when it comes back online, it seems like a neat idea.  Some neat games on the auction block.

I cashed in everything I had for a grand sum of 273 gems. And then browse the auction to see I could afford zero of the things.

In hindsight, unsurprised.

Was wondering what was going on when I got 20 community market notifications for selling $0.01 items.

Grinding off the unwanted cruft in their market / database will do wonders for the performance of their system (and every user's inventory).  If they can drive margin off the transactions even better for them from a business standpoint (reduce costs, make money).  It'll be back and become a regular thing I suspect. 

I wonder what the nature of the gem dupe was, and wonder if auction was a better route than vending machine (auction gets rid of things faster, but most people lose auctions).

Maybe they could just, you know, stop with all this stupid inventory garbage?

Having it so that when you buy a collection duplicate copies vanish into nothingness is certainly a *simple* solution.

The costs (in gems) for games is ridiculous. Most a single item I have redeems for is 100 gems; games are in the 10k-30k range. :uhrr:

People must have a shitton of items they're getting rid of to be driving the bidding up that high.  I don't know how anybody would even have the patience given how clunky the inventory UI is.

I assumed they were buying 100g items for $0.01 or something.

That's the part where I don't understand how anyone has the patience for that.  That's like five thousand clicks to make a bid on some game, and you might not even win the bid.  Just buy the game.

Yea, I agree but I'm neither 13 years old nor poor; I'm assuming the target market for this is the same set of people who make Steam begging threads on 4chan all the time. Whatever game you want will probably be 75% off in ~2 weeks.

They probably have scripts running, same as they did with the card trading.

A powerful moment in my gaming life was when I realized I was no longer in college, I actually made a good living, and I didn't have to put up with bullshit waiting on games to go down to $5 before I bought them.

That doesn't mean I don't put some games I honestly don't care about in the $5 bin, but if I want something I just buy it now. It's why my steam library moved to over 200 things.

Funny, when I figured out I was an adult I drove to 7-11 and ate candy til I was fat.

I did the same thing but with cookies.

For me, it was ice cream for dinner. Because who the fuck doesn't love some ice cream for dinner.

Oh, and CiCi's pizza.

If I didn't live in Richmond fucking Virginia back then, I would not be fat. What a shitty food city until recently.

I figured out I was an adult when I was kicked out of my parent's house when I was 18 and had to live in my car in upstate NY in January, you bunch of manbaby pussies.

Emancipated at 14, worked a full time plumbing job, while finishing high school, while attending union trade school at night. Did that for 2 and a half years until I graduated high school and then passed my journeyman certification, then I worked 60+ hours a week at 18 for a commission based service plumbing company for 2 more years.

So when does the real steam sale start?

When Gabe Newell has all the gemz.  :why_so_serious:

Should've played in a rock band, it was way better.  :why_so_serious:

I've heard the winter sale starts the 18th (next thursday)

FWIW, the rate seems to be stabilized around 100 gems for $0.10. Which means that a 70,000 gem game is bid up to about $70.

That makes me laugh all the harder as I scroll through the list of games and their bids.

1 mil - Steam holiday profile.
27.8k -  Spore
70k - Dungeon Defenders II
74.1k - Beyond Earth

And most egregious, 105k for CounterStrike: Global Offensive - the game given free to anyone who traded on the first day.

Great job, Valve, learning how to use the psychology of an intermediate currency to get people to spend far more than they would otherwise. You evil bastards.

As an accountant, I love this move.

Hey, it means I've sold a few things that have been on the Community Market for a while. Looking at the gem costs, fuck trying to get gems for games. Pay me for cards I'm not using. Stuff always starts to sell right before and during a sale/event that uses these things.

I got a good 50 cents selling all the useless wallpapers and emotes sitting in my inventory so that works.  It would have been barely worth 10 cents previous to that, so that's a win.

Gimmick holiday discount events are shit anyway.
I'll wait for regular Xmas Discount to start.
The cards never really hooked me. I just sold like over 2 dozens and couldn't be arsed to bear with the tedium.

I have like a hundred of the damn things.  I used to sell them, but Steam puts a cap on sales so you can't sell more than 200 items a year without giving them your income tax information, so now I only sell stuff that costs a lot.  So at the very least, I can crunch most of my pile of useless inventory items down to a single useless inventory item.

Though I am kind of baffled as to how Steam decides on what the conversion rate in to gems is.  I don't see any correlation between market price, rarity, or game popularity and gem value.

I do kind of dig the concept behind this idea.  Just the fact that a little text box pops up on screen and says "do you want to convert this in to gems?" is so adorable.  Yes, yes I do, I always want to convert everything in to gems forever.  I want that as an option in real life.  I want to be watching TV and a box comes up that says "turn Harrison Ford in to gems? Yes/No"

So, Steam Xmas sale starts today; what are your main objectives? Mine:

- Arma 3 (hopefully at 75%)

- The Wolf Among Us
- This War of Mine
- Stanley Parable

If Arma 3 gets only a 66% I might sacrifice TWOM since it likely won't get a discount higher than 10% (maybe 20%)

Yep, same. I had been saving them, expecting the packs that give more to pop up more often.  I've gotten all of two packs in the last year, so fuck it.  Thanks obsessive Steam gamers who think your Steam level means shit.  I just made $25 off of you.


Don't have any. Nothing's grabbed my attention enough to bother for a while, or if it did it was enough I bought at release like SOM. Maybe something on my wishlist will drop to the point I snag it, but who has time for more than 2-3 games a year anymore.

My targets:

- This War of Mine
- Sunless Sea
- Life is Feudal
- Darkwood
- Chaos Reborn
- The Old City Leviathan
- Qvadriga
- Cinders
- The Forest
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
- Elegy for a Dead World
... and of course Joe Dever's Lone Wolf HD Remastered  :awesome_for_real:

That's a lot of alpha games.

Some look kinda neat though, so thanks for the list.

You know what's the tragedy? We have gotten to the point where all games you buy are in alpha stage. The only difference is that some openly admit it.

After many disappointments I am trying really hard to stay away from "Early Access" games, but it's hard cause they all are. And the AAA name for "Early Access" is: the game before buying all the DLCs.

No.

All games YOU buy are in Alpha stage. Some of us can wait for it and avoid most of the heartache you seem to go through, Falc.

I'd like to see at least 66% off Rocksmith for more DLC (RatM, Bon Jovi and Hendrix).
GTA V pre-order, would be nice to get 10% or summat.
Spintires
Risen 3
Wreckfest
Blaggards

Yes, well I was thinking of stuff I'd never get like Watchdogs, or Assassin's Creed, or Destiny. As I said, when it's not openly "Early Access/Alpha" is just a mutilated version sold to people a bit at a time, and to get the actual final version you need to wait about a year for a "remastered" version.

I don't doubt you only pick the few games that come out these days that are quite perfectly playable and enjoyable on day 1, but I think the problem is endemic to the industry and its financial circumstances right now and goes well beyond my personal and questionable taste in games, or my proverbial issues with patience.

Qvadriga is wat

I'm glad the sale this year isn't a bunch of bullshit. It's just a sale.

Too bad there's like nothing I want.

Qvadriga is Ben-Hur simulator.

I know. It was more a case of "holy shit, this got made?"

...aaaand Rocksmith 2014 goes on sale, but the DLC doesn't.  :oh_i_see:

Edit: ok, some of the older stuff is on sale, but again BE WARNED the packs are 25% off and the individual tracks are 50% off, so skip the packs. This is the second sale they did this, cheaper to snag individual tracks.

Best Racing Game of 2014. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/12/01/best-racing-game-2014-qvadriga/)

Judging by the first day of this sale, maybe christmas really is cancelled.

Our Darker Purpose 75% off is a great deal.

I've never heard of it but it looks like Rogue Legacy meets Link to the Past. Is that accurate?

For me:

• Shadows of Mordor
• Assassin's Creed 4
• MGS: Ground Zeroes
• Maybe some Final Fantasy
• X Rebirth if it goes real cheap (unlikely)
• Civilization: Beyond Earth
• Endless Legend (on the daily sale the day before the christmas sale, seriously?)

So far, not seeing much that grabs me.  The prices are juuuuust high enough that I'm not really tempted.  Also not sure what the point of the "from your wishlist" section on the front page is.  I can click on my wishlist if I was curious, half the stuff that's listed in that box isn't even on sale.

My wishlist for this sale:
South Park (should finally go cheap enough)
Shadows of Mordor (doubt this will fall low enough yet but a man can dream)
Divinity: Original Sin
Wasteland 2
Legend of Heroes: Trials in the Sky

I'll probably buy some random weeaboo crap if any of it goes on sale too, because I'm weak. Shouldn't be too expensive for me this year though, as I've got a huge backlog Hex addiction which will stop me from buying a whole lot.

I'm not even home yet. Try not to ruin the sale before it even gets started you holiday hating motherfuckers.  :why_so_serious:

I'm sure there's some garbage sim with shit AI that you've been waiting for.  Fret not, monkey.

Check your wishlists too.

There's a ton of stuff on sale 75%-80% that isn't on the front page.

From my wishlist: Deadlight is 80% off.

I'm not quite sure I like your tone, talking skull.

Was this a Total War shot? I'm thinking it was a Total War shot. Or maybe mount and blade.

I like some terrible things, be specific!  :grin:

Yes, that's exactly it. And pretty much the only reason I keep a wishlist. To be able to tell at a glance the discount on the things I care when the big sale comes.

Welp, Rome Total War 2 is 75% off, which is what I've been waiting for and I still can't pull the trigger.  I got to play it for a free weekend a while back and even this low price isn't enticing to me.  It was kind of shit.

I'm looking at Wasteland 2 and Assassin's Creed:  Black Flag. 

(http://i.imgur.com/c7NJRa2.gif)

Total War

Do either of the State of Decay DLC improve the game in a noticeable way?  

If you get Wasteland 2, get it cheap.  It's interesting at first, but, honestly, it's kind of shitty.

How shitty is shitty? I have a coworker who liked it a lot, but he only played the bit that was available way back in Early Access and we had planned to play through it simultaneously.

Moderately shitty?  Dunno. It's buggy, ugly, the combat is really simple, it's got balance issues (SO MANY.  God, the power spikes), bad pathing, and the writing/plot is pretty bad.   If you're really jonesing for retro turn based squad shit, it'll do.  I may eventually finish it (I stopped at California), but I kind of had to hold my nose to get through Arizona.  Game just kind of felt like a massive nostalgia filled cash grab with rank amateurism peppering everything.  Given a competent dev studio that actually tried something with the AI/combat, it could be a damn masterpiece.  As is, it makes me really skeptical about anything coming out of Fargo's studio.

If you got it for 10-15, it'd be worth it.  For all of my kvetching about Divinity: OS, it was a much better experience, and you'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the combat.  

It's trash. I uninstalled it and replayed FNV, Fallout 2 and finished both without getting bored.

It's vastly improved now and is well worth getting IMHO.

Got so far:

- This War of Mine
- Our Darker Purpose
- Sunless Sea
- Darkwood
- The Moon Sliver
- The Old City: Leviathan
- Ether One
- Dream

I like walking simulators.


EDIT: Not Steam, but the games are activated on Steam, I also got the newest weekly  because it has a couple of things I wanted, so I got them cheaper here. Forest of Doom and Consortium are the highlights here. (https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly[/url)

Our Darker Purpose? Not sure about the ones you mention, not too familiar with them. It's more like an extended, deeper, richer but slower and less frantic Binding of Isaac.

Yea that's what I'm asking about; I haven't played Binding of Isaac...

Edit: Wait, you've never played Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past? :ye_gods:

Heh, no. Never had a Super Nintendo. In fact, I never had a Nintendo system outside of the first Gameboy, which I sold a month later. In the 90s it was all Sega Megadrive (Genesis) and still lots of Commodore Amiga stuff, then PC, Playstation, Dreamcast. Never owned a Nintendo console, they just never seemed to have the kind of games I wanted to play (barring some exceptions of course, but funds where seriously limited back then). I considered emulating some old Zelda games a few years ago, in fact I played a bit of Ocarina of Time that way, but couldn't find enough motivation to take the task seriously.

Giving Endless Space a shot.  Didn't know about it until now. Looks very MOO2-like.

For $37 I could pick up both Rocksmiths and the import tool.  I've got the cable but I only have access to a really shitty guitar.  And being a lefty it's hard to beg/borrow/steal. Decisions, decisions.

It's okay, but I think Distant Worlds is a better successor.  My main complaint is the tech tree, which they seemed to agree with in how they made Endless Legends.

Seriously considered grabbing Rocksmith 2014 on sale, since I'll be visiting my parents next week and could retrieve my crappy old guitar. Then I discovered that the cable would end up costing nearly double what they are selling the game for. Plus I'd rather get it for the console.

omg

Agree!


Disagree! $10 would be my ceiling for the amount of stuff they cut out of the game. But YMMV.

The Breakdown one basically takes the same campaign area and ramps it up to be more sandboxy - it's open-ended with no definite story to end. The Lifeline DLC has you play as the military in Pittsburgh right after the shit goes down. It is a LOT harder than the main campaign. I played through the main campaign, loved it and started Lifeline. I got dickstomped about 4-5 hours into Lifeline and haven't gone back. It wasn't bad, but I may have just been done with the game by that point. My buddy who has put like over 100 hours into GTA IV loves the Breakdown DLC.

Dark Souls 2 is at $15. Bought a copy, contemplating giving it to my son or keeping it for myself.

Bought Space Engineers at 10 bucks, couldn't resist the lure of legos in space.

Interesting, may have to try Breakdown as the main game isn't quite sandboxy enough for me. Way too many events happening too close together.

Grabbing Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and debating Spec Ops: The Line.

Never had one either.  Had to play it at my cousins house, or later eventually burn through its games via roms on my PC.  I grew up poor, which meant me and my sister worked chores and extra shit around the neighboorhood for about 9 months straight, and combined our cash together so we could get a new console system.  And we chose......Sega.   :awesome_for_real:

pfft Super Nintendo. I had a Commodore 64 from 83 to 91 and it was the greatest computer ever.

Spec Ops: The Line is the Alien Isolation of FPS CoD shooters. If you've played any FPS's in the last 5 years, Spec Ops is the antidote to your conditioning.

Picked up Arkham Origins, because I love me some Arkham.  Heard this particular one was lackluster compared to the previous ones but it's $5 so whatevs.

Spec Ops: The Line is a must play IMO.

Dead Effect
State of Decay DLC's
Ryse: Son of Rome
Sword of the Samurai
System Shock 2 - my favorite game of all time finally available all packaged up for Steam!
Spec Ops: The Line - based on comments in this thread


Want, but depends on remaining XMas funds:

Satellite Reign
Dead State
Wolfenstein: NWO
Grim Dawn
This War of Mine

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky at 12$. Should I get it? Schild? Rendakor? Anyone?

Falcom has been around forever (the developer). I either absolutely love or absolutely hate every game they've made - that I've played. I have not played this particular game.

In my limited experience with the series, they're pretty generic JRPGs.   You'd be better off just downloading a SNES emulator and playing some titles you've missed.

Any opinions on Hammerwatch?

Also, Never Ending Nightmare?   :ye_gods:

I liked all of the Legend of Heroes games on the PSP, but have been waiting for this to go on sale to buy it. It's still $14 for me; is yours cheaper because Europe or did I miss a flash sale?


Edit: Is the DLC worth buying for Orcs Must Die 2?

I just got off work and I'm about to go to bed, so bear with me if I'm a bit rambly.

I grabbed Trails in the Sky when it was on sale on GOG a few weeks back, I think for a bit less than this. It's not a bad game at all, but I haven't gotten too far into it yet. Kind of generic, but pretty fun. What limited voice-acting there is is pretty cringe-worthy (even with some moderately well-known VAs doing it), but the translation is pretty amusing.

It's got a kind of Materia-like system for learning spells and boosting stats in addition to your normal equipment, and combat is a fairly straightforward turn-based affair with SRPG-style grid movement.

Just bear in mind that it is a literally ten-year-old PC game, so don't expect great graphics, and it does what I always find to be an annoying shortcut where a character's sprite fades out and reappears elsewhere to simulate them doing an action (usually sitting down) that the devs didn't want to make an animation for.

Controls fine with a mouse, but I use my 360 pad anyway.

Is the voice acting in English or Japanese? Also can it be turned off?

Original master race.

Worth it at full price, imo.  Much deeper than it looks.  Also, it looks like it comes with a new major expansion update that I have not yet played.

Picked up a 4 pack of theHunter: Primal. It is really raw and unfinished still, but it could very well turn into something pretty damned fun. Seeing a T Rex wander by, shaking the ground as it goes, while you cower with a bow and arrow? Kinda scary. Devs are off for the holidays, but hopefully some updates in 2015 make this the game it could be. If you have a theHunter account already you get goodies for buying Primal too.

Thanks for all the comments on Trails in the Sky. I got Vanishing of Ethan Carter instead.


EDIT: I understand that these kind of games don't have to animate characters or manage complicated systems, but the graphics of this game could be the finest in existence at the moment for all I know. I've never seen anything this close to photorealism. I am blown away. Find a way to check it out if you have a chance and trust me when I say that no 1080p video on youtube is gonna do it any justice.

It's fun and works fine, but it's essentially just more content (maps etc.) for a game which already had a ton of content IMO.  I grabbed it, but my co-op partner bailed on me because he just felt like he'd played enough of the game at that point.  If you've beaten the game and still want more, it definitely scratches that itch.

I haven't bought it at all yet, was wondering if I should just get the base game or grab it all.

The base game is really great, I thought, for some simple fun.  It's got a good visceral feel to the gameplay, blasting stuff feels great, knocking orcs in to pits is always hilarious.  There's a good balance between thinking and action, it's not a totally cerebral math game but it's also not something you can just blast through without thinking and expect to win.  Co-op is a great addition, too, if you can find a partner.

Edit: Misread, my bad.  Might want to just start with the base game and see how far it takes you.  There's a lot of content there to get through before you run out.

Picked up Prison Architect and How to Survive (the latter because it costs virtually nothing).

Anyone tried Dead State?

HOMM VI Bundle is on sale. Worthwhile? I already have Ubi's AIDS on my machine, so I'm not fussed about that.

Also, How to Survive Storm Warning Edition is on sale for $1.99. Thoughts on this?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/250400/

I tried it for a bit and it's pretty janky. Main complaints at the moment are it's very hard to spot items you can pick up and the checkpoints are few and far between and non-obvious (it doesn't tell you if it's saved your state). It's also designed for a controller as you would expect from a console port.

English only. There's not much of it that I've heard, just little combat barks. It can be muted.

Also the not-materia you slot into your characters are called "orbments", which I constantly read as "orbmeats", and imagine it as s a really funny euphemism for tits.

Ok, combat stuff I can deal with.

Everything 505 Games touches is total jank. It's just whether or not it's so janky it's awesome. I don't think they've made that particular crossover since the PS2 era.

Anyone tried the Steam versions of Final Fantasy 3 or 4?  I'm thinking of grabbing one of them, but not sure which, if either.  Played FF4 when I was a kid, but never had any experience with 3 yet, and the crappy DS graphics aren't really selling me on them.

I have the Steam version of FF3 and I have the DS verson of FF4 (which is the same version as on Steam). They're both ports of ports, from DS to Android to PC.

FF3 is easily the hardest entry in the franchise, and can be quite frustrating, since it adheres to the old-school D&D-like spell charge system, but it started the job system, so that's a thing.

FF4 DS is pretty great, and is pretty tough too, but also includes some changes in the form of Augments you can unlock from doing certain things, and some augments can be easily missed if you don't follow a guide.

I got Space Run during one of the daily sales and it's been pretty good so far.  It's kind of a tower defence/strategy type game that can be pretty difficult, esp. if you don't upgrade your skills.

The Wolf Among Us - 75% € 5.74   :drill: :drill:

Purchased Prison Architect too.

Vampire: Bloodlines 75% off if you're one of the poor souls who hasn't played it.  I grabbed a gift copy.  My Steam inventory is a wonderful catalog of games that I think are sufficiently good to invest in gift copies of even if I don't have an immediate recipient in mind.

Saints Row 4 is crazy and annoying in places, but it's worth $5 for the fun parts. Just don't go into it thinking you have to do 100% because it will drive you up a wall on some of the more awful mini-games ever created.

I thought SR4 jumped the shark pretty hard yet it's still a really enjoyable game worth $5 all day long.

It's not a good Saints Row game. It is a fun superhero game.

That's pretty apt.

Is that the old Masquerade game or something newer? I read somewhere years ago that it was good but never bothered to check it out. Maybe I will

It is the old game. It is very good, but it's also very old :-)

I still rank it up there with Torment.  It's well worth getting, then applying a fan patch.

100% this.  The game holds up.  I still don't know why Torment and/or Masquerades hasn't gotten mobile gaming or $15 console re-release.  The games/stories at the core are fantastic.

I pulled the trigger on Walking Dead Season 2 since it was 75% off and I enjoyed the first one so much.

Then I added Endless Legends based on the recommendations here and Sunless Sea since it was interesting looking, even though neither was at a max discount.

Who have I become that I don't wait for 75% off for games?!  Brownsville is so boring I'm shopping on Steam on my phone for games I can't even play.

Looks like I missed Vampire. It's back to 25% off now. Was it a flash sale? (odd, since it's on my wishlist and I usually get wishlist spam from steam).

Yes it was one of the 12 hour sales.

Hmm, Mark of the Ninja and Ziggurat (looks like a worthy successor of Heretic) on the 12-hours sale. Tempted.

Mark of the Ninja for $3 is awesome. Great sneak around platformer.

Blackguards for $8 is a great price too.

Yeah, I just grabbed Ziggurat for 7.00ish bucks.

Grabbed only Mark of the Ninja, for now.

STEAM, why u no discount Arma 3??? Damn it.

Yeah I'm waiting for Satellite Reign to drop more since it's still early access and it won't come around.

I... didn't like blackguards. I can't recommend it. The game starts out OK but there's no combat fast-forward / speedup and by the end you're hit with retarded amounts of status effects and knockdowns out of nowhere and unless you built your characters a specific way you can't really progress. There's a huge difficulty cliff around the 5th act which just made me uninstall. I guess since I played 15 hours or whatever I got my $5, but it's disappointing that I'll never finish it.

You must have gotten stuck in the cave - which is the part I'm on now.  :why_so_serious:

Sleeping Dogs is on sale for 7 more hours at 66% off the Definitive Edition (think I saw someone was waiting for that one).

ARMA 3 is 35% off.

I'm tempted to buy The Secret World.  WoW has gotten me the MMO itch, but it isn't satisfying it for me and from some gameplay videos I think I'd enjoy the quest structure in TSW much more than Wow's.

Yep, that's the standard discount that will run throughout the whole sale; waiting for the "meatier" one that, unfortunately, won't likely go higher than 66%

Any feedback on Life is Feudal?

I really wanted to grab Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 1&2 but they refuse to go on sale.

Bastards!

I was really enjoying myself but also got stuck a handful of hours in and lost interest. Again though at 5 bucks.

That's the lowest I've seen Stick of Truth. I wanted to check the price from Sony so I could play it on my tv. Think ill by it here and run he 50 foot HDMI cable from my PC instead.

I'm still waiting for Stick of Truth to go below $10.

Ya, that would be ideal. But it's been a while and I've been wanting to play it.

Also, again, super bored visiting my wife's family, so I'm cheering myself up with spending fantasy football earnings.

Right now you can get Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Ultimate Edition (http://www.amazon.com/Castlevania-Lords-Shadow-Ultimate-Online/dp/B00EHZRW14) from Amazon - if you are in the US - for $7.50, which gets you the Steam code (Online Game Code | DRM: Steam). And #2 is $15.00.

No bueno for Canadians :(

Really digging Ziggurat.  Lots of unlockables and enough variety to keep it fresh.

Waiting on Mordor or Divinity to drop lower than they have thus far but those may be a summer sale pick-ups.

Hmmm maybe Ziggurat will get more than 20% off (again).

TSW is a pretty damn awesome adventure game, with a thick (but fairly unique) RPG layering that may or may not be acceptable, combined randomly with MMO elements that may or may not suck horribly.

If quests that require you to think, or alt-tab and learn shit, sound interesting (in the context of your standard MMO), pick it up.  I love it as a single player game...I just wish it was actually a single player game.  

Semi-endorsement:  I still remember plenty of characters and zones in TSW to this day years later...I remember two characters and zero zones from SWTOR, a supposedly story-based MMO released around the same time frame, and one which I actually spent more time with.

I plan to buy that, but not just yet. A bigger discount would have gotten me over the line, but I've spent enough for the moment on de-discing and random interesting stuff that I may never play.

Yeah that sounds pretty interesting.  I flinched and picked it up right before the sale ended (got the massive edition for $20) cause I have a feeling I'm going to get bored with WoW prior to the next time it'll go on sale (charts showed it didn't go on sale that much very often).

The feedback is: wait! While there's definitely a lot of cool ideas and implementations, it's just another Early Early Access with a myriad of bugs, half-developed systems and things that need ironing out. This is not to say that you can't have fun, with many of these projects the jankiness that affect all players is often part of the fun, but in general you will most likely just goof around for a couple of days and then set it aside for 12 to 18 months waiting for major patches and updates. One thing that is SUPER IMPORTANT is the server you choose. They have all sorts of internal rules and there aren't many ways to find out what those are yet. Some things are code-enforced and some are just policies that you have to go to the server website to check. LiF is very community centered and this is and will be its strenght. But at the same time it is what makes the server selection very tricky and can totally make your first experience miserable or glorious.

I got it with some friends and we had a real blast. We started working on our village and that took a few days of working together in a way that we haven't experienced for a while. Then we almost went to war with a neighbouring village until the knights of the servers (older people who actually built a castle and have better weaponry) came in to settle the dispute in what turned out to be very RPG-y whether it was anyone's intention or not. Then, a few days later, people started leaving the server for no known reason, so our interested faded. Great stuff though.

New Wolfenstein is up for sale but is cheaper on Greenmangaming for $30 + voucher code WINTER-SALE20-GROGRE = $24

So, for me it's already a wrap: I decided to postpone the purchase of both Arma 3 (I'll wait 'til I purchase my new rig next spring) and This War of Mine (which I gifted to my father together with another copy of Paper Sorcerer).

So, Xmas sale alone, I bought:

- Prison Architect
- The Wolf Among Us
- Mark of the Ninja
- 2 Talisman Xpacs: Reaper and Frostmarch
- Instant Dungeon (http://store.steampowered.com/app/326720/ hell yeah!!!  :grin: :drill:)
- Cities in Motion 1 (free through Paradox latest newsletter; DLCs not included)

Grand total (gifts not included) of € 16,39

Quite satisfied about my december purchases, if I also include the autumn sale ones (Papers, Please; Paper Sorcer; Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons)
--------

Considering my backlog, Pillars of Eternity on the horizon, Elite Dangerous and Football Manager as " continous side games" while fooling around with Star Citizen modules (hoping to get something better out of them once I assemble my new PC, as stated above), I'm pretty much all set 'til Xmas '15  :why_so_serious:

Sale today is pretty bad.

Sale in general has been very meh. This is what happens when I own everything I wanted from last year for the most part and 2014 was blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

All I got was Metal Gear: Revengeance, Spelunky and Garry's Mod.

Very lacklustre sale, but I suspect I'm also just running out of games I want to buy.

So far I've bought Max Payne, Stick of Truth, and Banner Saga.

There have been more things this year that I've wanted to buy but were at a less-than-optimal discount off a $60 price tag.

Yeah that's true enough. Stick of Truth, Shadows of Mordor, couple of other things I'd have got if they'd been at 75% off or less.

Nice sale today.

Hatoful Boyfriend is on the daily vote, time to rock the vote for 50% off on it to gift to my boss.

Otherwise nothing compelling I don't already have.

Hah, nice.  Was going to vote for that, but then I saw the Gettysburg game.  Does anybody know anything about that?  From the screenshots and description, it basically sounds like they created an updated version of Sid Meier's Gettysburg!  If so, waaaaaaant!

Someone here got it awhile ago and said it was really good.  I can't remember who it was or what thread it was in but I remember because I went to look at the Steam page afterwards. 

Kinda pissed Neo Scavenger didn't go back on sale.

Yeah, I was looking to get that one, too.  Don't worry, it'll be on sale for under $10 in the spring sale.

I bought nothing, absolutely nothing. 

I bought Hatoful Boyfriend, and that's it. Some stuff I wanted didn't get a deep enough discount, others didn't go on sale at all (BL:TPS DLC, I'm looking at you). Mostly it's a huge backlog and a couple long term games (Hex and POE) eating up most of my gaming time.

I ended up buying nothing. Like others, I just didn't see anything interesting that I either didn't already have, or wanted to play ahead of the many games in my backlog.

I bought Shadows of Mordor, it's fun but unless I want to do timed runs non-stop then it does lack some re-playability without handicapping myself heavily. Overall it's been more than worth it though.

Also grabbed FF3 and 4. Could have done without those, but it gives me a reason to bust out the controller.

Kind of want to get the early access to Don't Starve Together, but being granted access when it is out of early access means I'll wait for a spare key or for release.

I actually bought fairly little this year.  Part of that is thanks to my credit card getting a bit heavier than it usually is.

Loot:

• A Bird Story + Soundtrack (from the makers of "To The Moon," comes a game I have no idea something something bird or something)
  
• Assassin's Creed Black Flag Digital Gold Edition (NCSA)  (heard this was supposed to be good, looking forward to it, should probably finish my run of Freedom Cry first, though)
  
• Astebreed (I keep forgetting what this even is, bullet hell shooter looks like)
  
• Dark Souls II  (haven't beaten DS 1 yet, not sure if I'll ever get around to this)
  
• Endless Legend - Emperor Pack (this one is really fun, so far)
  
• METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES (THE LATEST TEN MINUTE LONG MASTERPIECE FROM HIDEO "CAPS LOCK" KOJIMA)
  
• Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition (I heard it was coded in Ada so it will never crash)
  

Total damages: $84.21
Was aiming for less than a hundred dollars, so mission successful for once.  Almost grabbed Final Fantasy 3, 4, and 13 when they hit the sale, but ended up passing on them when I checked my credit balance.  Pretty much everything else wasn't really discounted that deep, I guess that's a side effect of having all the decent games landing in the autumn.  I voted every day for the sale, I don't think the game I wanted won a single time.  Made about $6 from the card maker, but not much else going on this year.

So far, only played Endless Legend, which I'm really liking so far.

From the gem auction the week before, I got:
Crimzon Clover WORLD IGNITION Deluxe Edition - 2k (heard good things about this)
Dusty Revenge:Co-Op Edition - 2k (I like the art and the setting, heard some complaints about the gameplay tho)
RaySupreme 3D - 3k (not sure if it will replace Blender for me, but getting an actual commercial $50 3D program for less than a buck seems like it would be worth the risk to check it out)

I waited until the last day of the sale and bought Divinity:OS, Wasteland 2 and Legend of Heroes all of which I had managed to skip when they were released. They should net me a hundred hours of decent playing  :awesome_for_real:

I broke down and got Wasteland 2 as well.  50% was more or less where I wanted it to go.

Also got Prison Architect, Dragonfall and Rogue Legacy (which is goddamn great).

Real light sale for me as well. Got the new Football Manager 2015 (because it's worth the yearly upgrade price), Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops: The Line. Could have gotten more, just didn't find anything that spoke to my fancy at a deep enough discount considering all the other games I have to play.

I only snagged a couple real cheap little games; I did splurge a bit on Rocksmith DLC since nothing else was sounding good (hah).

And it was a great splurge, got me right back into playing it. I like having a good mix of songs when I do nonstop mode, and my library is getting pretty extensive at this point.

 :wink: :heart:



I had a similary restrained shopping spree:

• Dreamfall Chapters - Successor to 'The Longest Journey', one of the hidden gaming gems in my opinion. It's been made by the same team (Tørnquist et al)
• Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut - Had an eye on the series. Friend who played both the basic Shadowrun Returns and this said skip the first and go straight for Dragonfall. So that's what I am doing.
• Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition - Written in ADA, 'nuff said. Seriously: It was either this or X-Plane 10 as entry into the world of simulation. MSFX seems a little less hardcore/more forgiving to begin with.
  
• Transistor - Impulse buy. Someone told me 'i was quite fond of transistor, so its a buy if you enjoyed bastion'. No idea what Bastion is, but bought it anyway. It does look interesting.
• South Park: The Stick of Truth - Played a bit so far, and like it as South Park fan. I wouldn't recommend it on it's merits as RPG alone though.

I bought a million things. I'm Pretty sure it was my biggest spend so far.

Age of wonders 3
Asscreed black flag
Dark souls 2
Eldrich
Endless legend
Wolfenstein
Valkyria Chronicles
Transformers, fall of cybertron
splinter cell blacklist
This war of mine
Shadowgate
Defense grid 2

I think those were all the ones over $5-10. I probably bought double that in smaller games that I wanted to try or ones that I enjoyed but never had on steam (fallout new vegas)

ALMOST bought Divinity: Original Sin but the discount wasn't deep enough. Maybe July. Almost bought banner saga. Same.

I got these as well although no idea why I bought MSFX. I haven't played a flight sim since my 64-bit days. Was hesitant about Shadowrun too because I'm not keen on the whole mashup with fantasy tropes but really quite enjoying it so far, even though I haven't got a scooby what I'm meant to be doing.

Also picked up Saints Row IV because it makes me laugh.  :grin: