The Steam Thread

[BYU 14]

Had high hopes for Kings Bounty 2, but it is getting savaged in reviews right now.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sabotai

From what I've read, when you sign up for it you essentially get a "virtual PC" that you can connect to Steam or whatever and install your games on. This virtual PC is presumably on a server totally loaded with high-end gear that's running the game as fast as it probably can be run. So the question comes down to is your internet connection + their server faster than your computer's hardware. If your on a PC that's kinda old and you have a really good internet connection, then the answer is probably yes.

I didn't see this discussion originally, and I think I may have ended up on the high end of hours spent with it.

You pretty much covered how it works I think. Connection quality on your end is really the deciding factor on how well it does / doesn't work. Consistency of connection quality is probably 2nd most important, if your end falters it'll lag, then blur, and then you get a couple cracks at it trying to reconnect at a high enough rate. If that fails, out you go.

One possible downside for those interested in it: you'll be playing vanilla, because while there is apparently a process that let's you use mods with at least some games, it's so unwieldy that it's pretty much unusable (involves reinstalling those mods before every session, doing so in just the right sequence of logging in, etc etc).

Also worth knowing: it has a fairly unforgiving timer for inactivity. Somewhere around 10 minutes or so, it'll end your session & log you out. Particularly problematic if you're playing something with no manual saving.

That said, it's the only reason I've been able to play HOI4, EU4, and most recently Rimworld. I'm north of 300 hours on those so, as you might gather from that, when it works it works great. And it's playable probably 80-90 percent of the time even with my mediocre at best connection. But you will have occasions where it's frustrating. (including HOI4 being "unavailable" from their end for the past week, without any real explanation, and a previous instance where Oxygen Not Required wouldn't run for me because they didn't have a non-DLC version installed on their servers, only a full-DLC version ... meaning I couldn't actually DO anything since I hadn't bought the whole nine yards. I ended up refunding that particular Steam purchase)

[Thomkal]

Ultimate Adom has made it to full release on Steam-its 30% off or $14. Lots of new stuff added including the Necromancer class.

[Thomkal]

Battlefield V and SCUM are free to play through the weekend on Steam

[Lathum]

anyone play Humankind? Looks interesting but if a game has too many moving parts or too much of a learning curve I tend to tap out.

[GrantDawg]

Lathum, if you have played Civilization, you will not find Humankind too complicated. I found it decently fun.

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[Thomkal]

Monster Train is $10 at Indie Gala for the next 3 days or so.

[Flasch186]

What Humankind did accomplish is that I'm playing Civ 6 again.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The endgame of Humankind appears to be rapidly killing off the initial hype train.

Looks like they shoved several things in without much thought about them.

[bhlloy]

To be honest, I haven't made it to the endgame to find out. More fool me for not actually reading up on the game and buying into the hype, but I'm struggling to think of a game I thought I'd love that I've been more disappointed in. I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to it, just not what I was looking for.

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

To be honest, I haven't made it to the endgame to find out. More fool me for not actually reading up on the game and buying into the hype, but I'm struggling to think of a game I thought I'd love that I've been more disappointed in. I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to it, just not what I was looking for.

Me too. I probably haven't given it a fair chance but right now, I don't have much desire to dig in except to redeem the sunk cost.

[GrantDawg]

What exactly do you two not like about it? I found it an upgrade over Endless Legend, though I do not like the culture system very much. The end game also seemed a bit of a mess.

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[bhlloy]

Again, totally more fool me on this but I didn’t particularly enjoy Endless Legend either. I thought from the early stuff I’d seen that it was supposed to be a more cerebral Civ game. Bought based on hype and not doing due diligence and it’s just not a format I enjoy. I find it boring and constricting.

[Thomkal]

The Falconeer at possibly the lowest price I've seen for it $8 at Fanatical-the Star Deal for the next day and a half.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Random thing for this playing Humankind, picked it up from a quill LP video.

Apparently the AI makes a beeline for every curiosity (or whatever they call their equivalent to goody huts), but if you use Auto-Explore then your units will do the same and at least be on equal footing.

He explains how Fog of War is frequently turned off by a lot of game AI but in the case of Humankind they use that sight to grab anything they can (UNlike a lot of games AI).

[Thomkal]

Iratus Lord of the Dead is $7.50 on GoG.com

[Thomkal]

So a much anticipated update to No Man's Sky today-I'm sure many of you have noticed that most/all planets do not have much of a populated feel to them. Well no longer, Frontiers update brings cities and lots of other cool stuff to the game.

I watch a couple streamers for No Man's Sky content JasonPlays and SurvivalBob, and both have already posted videos. I really like JasonPlays way of going through the patch notes to see the changes. Here is the video for Frontiers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxhUockd60

[Thomkal]

Big day for gaming, first videos on the new Pathfinder game starting to pop up too on YouTube

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Big day for gaming, first videos on the new Pathfinder game starting to pop up too on YouTube

I have been playing this over the last couple of days. It is ok so far. The number of different classes you can play is actually a bit overwhelming. I originally started with a Fighter-type "sword and board" main. Once I realized that early on you get several martial type members of your party to start, I decided to restart with a wizard. Going with a low level wizard feels almost like a hard-mode, because you are very weak to begin. I am playing with custom settings, but I basically turned everything to normal rule set (no buffs either way, standard crits, etc). The only thing a didn't turn on was over-encumbered slows your movement. Encumbrance rules suck.

[bhlloy]

The crusade/army part of the game really sucks, and that’s coming from one of the few people on the planet who actually enjoyed the kingdom part of the game last time. I’m fighting turning it off right now, but it’s grindy uninteresting garbage to this point.

[Thomkal]

The digital version of the board game Surviving Mars is fee to claim thru tomorrow on Steam

[Thomkal]

Far Cry 3 is free to claim thru the 11th on the Ubisoft Connect Launcher

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

The crusade/army part of the game really sucks, and that’s coming from one of the few people on the planet who actually enjoyed the kingdom part of the game last time. I’m fighting turning it off right now, but it’s grindy uninteresting garbage to this point.

I was worried about that, because I hated the kingdom part of the original. I have turned it on my current play through though because people are saying you give up many quests if you don't. It sort of sucks you have to deal with worthless waist of time content to get to the content you want. I never finished the first game because of the stupid kingdom system, and I am sure I will probably rage quit this one as well. I love spending $50 I know I am going to end up hating.

[bhlloy]

Yeah, agreed. It also means that you can’t advance the game until your armies have cleared a path to the next set of areas, in addition to certain quests never showing up. An awful design decision even if they didn’t implement it like they tacked it on based on some code they found in a strategy sim from the mid 90s.

[Thomkal]

Blood Bowl 2 is just under $3 at Fanatical for the next 18 hours or so

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

So a new game popped up on my radar today-Dice Legacy. There are several dice board games out there right now, not sure if this is connected or not, but it looks like an interesting mix of tabletop board games, RPG, and Survival games. Due out in early Sept:

RATING / ESRB / A

So this leaves early access on Steam today. Nookrium had an early look at it, and its intriguing, combining several genres-worker placement with dice, survival, exploration, city building etc. There's some combat potential too with the exploration.

Dice Legacy - (Unique Colony Building Game) - YouTube

[Thomkal]

Another game leaving early access today is Rift Wizard, a traditional roguelike where your only character class choice is a wizard. You then can choose from about 125 spells, then as you go from level to level you collect mana which allow you to changes things like the amount of damage done by a spell or change from a basic summon to a more powerful summon

Rift Wizard - (Spellcaster Building Game) - YouTube

[Edward64]

KOTOR remake is coming. Looking forward to that also.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

KOTOR remake is coming. Looking forward to that also.

PS5 exclusive at launch, and then PC. That sucks.


edit: I am a little worried. Reading the article, I am worried that they are only interested the story and the world. KOTOR combined and great story with a fantastic game-play system. I am afraid they are going to ignore the game play and turn this into a first person kind of game. We will see I guess. I quickly went from super excited to very apprehensive.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

PS5 exclusive at launch, and then PC. That sucks.

Saw this somewhere, it implied potentially released on same date....fingers crossed

On Sony's blog, the developer says that Knights of the Old Republic Remake will be a "console exclusive on PlayStation 5 at launch." Lucasfilm Games later confirmed that the game will come to PC. VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb later reported that KOTOR will release on PC on the same date as console.

[spleen1015]

Timberborn is a fun little colony builder, kind of like Banished, but with Beavers!

[Thomkal]

Paradox having a big sale on most of their games and Stellaris and Hearts of Iron 4 free to play through the weekend. Looks like they have bundles for some games too

[Thomkal]

Outward is just over $10 at Fanatical for the next 24 hours

[JonInMiddleGA]

Just a tiny FYI: GeForce Now _finally_ got HOI4 fixed and available after what turned about to right at a month of unavailability

[Thomkal]

A couple free to claim games I almost missed on Steam:

1) Desperados III-through the weekend

2) Jagged Alliance 1 Gold Edition: Thru the 23rd

3)Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition: Thru the 23rd

Sometimes it pays to look through a Publisher sale on Steam

[Thomkal]

Monster Train for $10 at Indie Gala

[Capital]

Roguebook is a good rougelike card game and is on sale for $19 on Steam.

[Thomkal]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is $9 at Humble store

[Thomkal]

Planet Zoo at maybe a all-time low of just under $15 at Fanatical for next 48 hours or so

[MizzouRah]

I'm pumped Rogue Lords is out today!

[Toddzilla]

Math nerds and dice geeks may like Roll!

Roll dice, buy boosts, get upgrades, what more can you ask?

Only $5

(personal high-score: 1.15Qu)

[Thomkal]

Remnant From the Ashes is the $12 Star Deal at Fanatical

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Remnant From the Ashes is the $12 Star Deal at Fanatical

I played through most of it with a couple of friends. It’s worth $12.

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

Math nerds and dice geeks may like Roll!

Roll dice, buy boosts, get upgrades, what more can you ask?

Only $5

(personal high-score: 1.15Qu)

Picked this up and have enjoyed it. Fun game to pass the time with.

I also picked up Turing Complete on Steam. It's a game of logic puzzles where the goal is to build a functional computer.

[Edward64]

Been seeing articles on Baldur's Gate 3. Early access on Steam.

I'm tempted but think I'll wait for the complete product. I wouldn't want to finish a beta and then spoil it when it gets to GA.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Been seeing articles on Baldur's Gate 3. Early access on Steam.

I'm tempted but think I'll wait for the complete product. I wouldn't want to finish a beta and then spoil it when it gets to GA.

I downloaded, played a bit to get a feel and I think it will be very good when finished, but I uninstalled as I would also prefer to wait. But loved everything I saw, though I would give Solasta: Crown of the Magister a slight edge for a true DnD experience, but BG 3's graphics blows Solasta away.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

I downloaded, played a bit to get a feel and I think it will be very good when finished, but I uninstalled as I would also prefer to wait. But loved everything I saw, though I would give Solasta: Crown of the Magister a slight edge for a true DnD experience, but BG 3's graphics blows Solasta away.

All this. In the same boat. It may still be a year before full release, sadly. I wish they had waited to start EA. Two years of EA is way too long.

[Thomkal]

A large selection of Asmodee's Digital games collection on sale through the weekend making most under $10 like Scythe, Terraforming Mars, Ticket To Ride, Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace, Blood Rage, Lord of the Rings and more. Game of Thrones is $12. Sadly this sale does not include Gloomhaven, which I suspect will be 20 or 30 percent off($25) when it leaves early access on the 20th.

I also noticed this week that a lot (all?) of the Battlefield games are $5 or less, which probably is a good deal.

[Chas in Cinti]

So I'd be interested in folks thoughts... I love the party based RPG games where your players level up, maybe you get to add NPC's to the group off and on and they level up too... thinking the old Wasteland games.

I'm not a joystick jockey, so don't like Real Time stuff, but prefer turn-based. Any modern recommendations? Any genre is ok, but I prefer the fantasy/D&D type games best.

[NobodyHere]

Well you mentioned the old Wasteland games; have you tried the newer Wasteland games?

Also not fantasy but maybe the somewhat recent ShadowRun RPGs? You could probably get a great deal on those.