Community MetaSteam | December 2021 - All I want for Christmas is a SteamDeck.

[Aaron D.]

Slitherine

www.slitherine.com

Starsector

Starsector (formerly

fractalsoftworks.com

I’ve got two titles of great interest out there, atm.

Neither is on holiday sale. Neither is on Steam.

LOL, that’s gotta be a first.

Slitherine/Matrix published wargames typically lag a few months from initial release to landing on Steam. So I can safely wait on Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes Offensive.

But coming from solo dev “Vic” of VR Design, maker of one of my 2020/2021 faves Shadow Empire, that’s gonna be a long wait. Love the zoomed-in focus of this new Decisive Campaigns, covering only a couple weeks of WW2 at a battalion level. It will be mine.

Starsector is also back in the news as it got a pretty big 0.95 update. Coverage cast a wide enough net that it landed on my radar. This one is another solo-dev affair but this time the project has been in active development for 10 years!

Heard the game described as Mount & Blade in space or a more complex & sophisticated SPaZ. And at $15 that doesn’t sound like a heavy lift.

It’s funny how I’m one of those steadfast ‘Never EPIC’ troglodytes. And while I hold nothing personal against EA Origin or Ubisoft client launchers, their threadbare feature sets deem them pretty useless in my world, making me feel like not even bothering.

But throw some scrappy indie or niche pubs my way? Sure. Why not. They somehow just don’t feel as cynically corporate, paywalling IP behind inferior services “just ‘cause”. I think Slitherine/Matrix even pass along Steam keys to early adopters when a product makes the leap.

Perhaps I’ll start with Starsector and go from there.

Aaron D. have you checked out this game? Seems like something you’d be interested in and looks ace!

I haven’t seen this but I 100% Wishlisted it!

Looks like budget My Summer Car. Ace indeed.

 

[fspm]

Ubisoft artists carry those shitty games on their backs.

During their chill 18 hour work days.
All of ubi trash can basically be generated by AI - enter desired location: ancient Greece - hurrr durrr, please enjoy asscreed odyssey. Thanks ai.

 

[toxicitizen]

Time sinks like AC Valhalla are ruining games, not microtransactions

I spent 633 hours playing Cookie Clicker on Steam this year. Well, I probably spent single-digit hours actually 'playing' the game. The rest of the time, it ran in the background of my PC, and my mind, bringing me back for regular check-ins to see what new upgrades were available and what fresh horr

www.pcgamesn.com

Wow, what little interest I had in ever playing Valhalla if it comes to Steam is going down. I already found AC Origins to be way too much. I enjoyed it but just looking at the map with its hundreds of icons for essentially filler content made me feel exhausted. Sounds like Valhalla is even worse in that regard. I already play FFXIV on and off, I don't need this GaaS shit from single-player games.

It's a shame, too, because I still occasionally love to play an open-world game. Something fun to play with a world that's satisfying to explore and that you can wrap up in 20-30 hours. Assassin's Creed used to be exactly that.

 

[Le Pertti]

During their chill 18 hour work days.
All of ubi trash can basically be generated by AI - enter desired location: ancient Greece - hurrr durrr, please enjoy asscreed odyssey. Thanks ai.

Using AI and procedural generation is a must for the games industry to be healthy, games are just too demanding and massive to produce by hand. Just need to find a good way to use the AI so it isn't shit.

 

[NarohDethan]

Yeah I don't understand how you guys are buying so many games!

How else I'm gonna fill the hole in my heart

 

[Kyougar]

Slitherine

www.slitherine.com

Starsector

Starsector (formerly

fractalsoftworks.com

I’ve got two titles of great interest out there, atm.

Neither is on holiday sale. Neither is on Steam.

LOL, that’s gotta be a first.

Slitherine/Matrix published wargames typically lag a few months from initial release to landing on Steam. So I can safely wait on Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes Offensive.

But coming from solo dev “Vic” of VR Design, maker of one of my 2020/2021 faves Shadow Empire, that’s gonna be a long wait. Love the zoomed-in focus of this new Decisive Campaigns, covering only a couple weeks of WW2 at a battalion level. It will be mine.

Starsector is also back in the news as it got a pretty big 0.95 update. Coverage cast a wide enough net that it landed on my radar. This one is another solo-dev affair but this time the project has been in active development for 10 years!

Heard the game described as Mount & Blade in space or a more complex & sophisticated SPaZ. And at $15 that doesn’t sound like a heavy lift.

Perhaps I’ll start with Starsector and go from there.

I will check out Decisive Campaign but 35€ is a bit steep for something unknown

I played Starsector for a few dozen hours. It is something I want to love but some of the mechanics are a downer.
Especially the supply and fuel mechanics. 90% of the time you need to handle it and it just sucks the fun out of it.
It is like Mount & Blade, but a Mount & Blade that makes you buy food every 1 to 3 villages.

 

[Aaron D.]

Aaron D. have you checked out this game? Seems like something you’d be interested in and looks ace!

Oh my goodness.

And just like that r3n4ud gifted me a copy of Mon Bazou!

Thank you!

Will report back next week with impressions as I’m on holiday atm.

 

[Le Pertti]

How else I'm gonna fill the hole in my heart

My heart keeps on being empty because I can’t afford that many games!

 

[Panda Pedinte]

The Year's Top 100 Games as Measured by Gross Revenue

Best of Steam - 2021

A look back at the year's top sellers, new releases, most-played games, and more!

store.steampowered.com

Steam :: Steam News :: The Best of 2021

A look back at the year's top sellers, best new releases, most-played games, and more!

steamcommunity.com

 

[Ascheroth]

Ace Attorney Trilogy is 11,74€ with code GG-DEALS-21 on gamersgate.com

GamersGate - Jetzt Spiele kaufen und herunterladen!

Wir verkaufen Spiele. Presiwert, schnell und zuverlässig — darauf kannst du zählen, wenn du bei uns einkaufst. Hol dir deine Spiele bei uns — jederzeit und von überall.

www.gamersgate.com

 

[Joe Spangle]

Not sure ill buy another Ubi game, what with them leaving Steam and all the shit stuff about how its run. Used to like their games a lot but i guess there is so much else out there i dont really feel like i miss them.

 

[dex3108]

I managed to make MXAO and RTGI work in Psychonauts 2 (it resets on level change but still better than nothing) and here are some of the results

Vanilla vs. MXAO

Imgsli

Imgsli

Imgsli

Vanilla vs. RTGI

Imgsli

Imgsli

Imgsli

Imgsli

I need to tweak things a bit more and even though not everyone will agree with me i think that both versions (MXAO and RTGI) ae adding more depth to the image and improve visuals.

 

[fantomena]

Today: Cozy Grove | Songbird Symphony | Sable | Mortal Shell | Haven

Might be the sale's last purchases, but I'll see.

 

[yuraya]

Horizon 4 and 5 in Gold is really amazing. 4 total in Gold. Also 2 in Silver. Xbox/MS really is eating good on Steam. Next year will be big for them too.

But Battlefield 2042 being in platinum is very unfortunate. EA got paid for releasing a bad product and most of it was with preorder hype trailers lol.They will never learn anything if people keep throwing money at them.

 

[「Echo」]

Feel like I'm gonna have to give up the Ghost in 2022 and forget trying to source a non-scalped 3080 alone. Will likely have to bite the bullet (and cost) of buying a pre-build PC.

My biggest concern would be the junkware/manufacturer stuff and OS things they tend to ship with. So maybe a pre-build And a fresh copy of Windows. Well... Guess i have a new savings goal. Sorta.

 

[STHX]

The Year's Top 100 Games as Measured by Gross Revenue

Best of Steam - 2021

A look back at the year's top sellers, new releases, most-played games, and more!

store.steampowered.com

Steam :: Steam News :: The Best of 2021

A look back at the year's top sellers, best new releases, most-played games, and more!

steamcommunity.com

 

[dummmyy]

How else I'm gonna fill the hole in my heart

with me, chulo!

 

[C-Dub]

Feel like I'm gonna have to give up the Ghost in 2022 and forget trying to source a non-scalped 3080 alone. Will likely have to bite the bullet (and cost) of buying a pre-build PC.

My biggest concern would be the junkware/manufacturer stuff and OS things they tend to ship with. So maybe a pre-build And a fresh copy of Windows. Well... Guess i have a new savings goal. Sorta.

You can at least get Windows for cheap. Focus on the build and think about Windows towards the end.

 

[prudis]

Yeah I don't understand how you guys are buying so many games!

its kinda how i managed to slowly start losing weight these days .... i just transformed my stresseating habbit into stress storebrowsing

also giving up on buying my own flat in the city helped with the lack of gaming funds

 

[r3n4ud]

Oh my goodness.

And just like that r3n4ud gifted me a copy of Mon Bazou!

Thank you!

Will report back next week with impressions as I’m on holiday atm.

Can’t wait to hear your impressions

 

[Ascheroth]

Tomorrow should be Choice billing day, don't forgot to pause if you haven't

 

[prudis]

this thing released from early access recently , what a weard pitch "narrative-driven police dispatch simulator with pinball-based combat and RPG elements "

 

[LEANIJA]

I also ended up buying a bunch in the Sale now even though I didnt plan to buy anything....


...yeah I dont wanna talk about it

 

[Mivey]

Just finished Impostor Factory. Talk about a sequel going for an unexpected route. Given how simple and sweet the first game, To The Moon, was, this one is something far more complex and probably fairly incomprehensible if you haven't literally played all games, plus DLC mini episodes before.

Can definitely recommend it to fans of the series, though I would recommend one plays through the older games before, or at least reads through a summary before.

 

[NarohDethan]

I also ended up buying a bunch in the Sale now even though I didnt plan to buy anything....


...yeah I dont wanna talk about it

In the words of the philosopher Gen. M. Bison. 'For me it was a Tuesday'.

 

[Kal1m3r0]

In the words of the philosopher Gen. M. Bison. 'For me it was a Tuesday'.

Rip in peace Raul Julia

 

[fearthedawn]

...
I need to tweak things a bit more and even though not everyone will agree with me i think that both versions (MXAO and RTGI) are adding more depth to the image and improve visuals.

its the reason my 3070 has been getting a workout over the last year even in older games on my 2560x1080 monitor

Outer Wilds Reshade - Imgsli

Mass Effect LE Reshade - Imgsli

 

[TioChuck]

Just finished Ori 2, whatta a great game.

A bunch of people with the game on the backlog should really give it another try.

 

[ExistentialThought]

Thought this was sort of interesting insight, but dev made their game free for 3 days and received over a million copies claimed on Steam. Feel like there was little to no promotion for this giveaway either, so seeing how many redeem it is interesting.


____

I said I was only going to pick up a few small titles this Winter sale and then I picked up:
Ender Lilies
Zero Escape Trilogy (Played the first on DS and second on Vita a long time ago)
Winter Polaris
pear potion
Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo
Sekimeiya: Spun Glass
Wasteland 3 (technically from GMG)
and random DJMAX DLC

I think this about does it since Monster Hunter Rise is January and Elden Ring is February.

___

I wish Steam would make a few minor tweaks to wishlists, (A) Allow me to add to cart without navigating to the cart (B) Specifically view yet-to-be released titles as right now you can only exclude pre-release (C) Allow custom price or a max/min price slider (D) Allow custom discount % or max/min % slider. If they made these changes, I would 100% have no complaints that are not my own doing, like having too many games wishlisted haha.

I would also like a calendar page with toggles for current on-going events (broken into sale events, game events, and custom events), upcoming events, and release dates for games yet-to-be-released from my wishlist.

 

[dex3108]

It's Valve fault that Epic can't have giftcards

 

[Le Pertti]

So 12% isn't enough?

 

[prudis]

It's Valve fault that Epic can't have giftcards

the funny part of this is that epic already has giftcards for Frotnite :-D

 

[Mor]

People, January is almost here and I need your recommendations for:

-Games to be featured in the OP (so far I got God of War, MHRise)
-Retro
-monthly challenge (a real one)
-TITLE!!!!

 

[yuraya]

It's Valve fault that Epic can't have giftcards

Merry Christmas and thank you for my favorite game launcher

 

[Kyougar]

me every day:


just kidding, I live on microwave food and bread and sausage

 

[Cacher]

People love new year resolution so I want to share my 2022 goal in gaming: take a crack at the isometric CRPG genre. I have been a JRPG person in my entire life but have never properly played a CRPG before.

These games are inside the library. Not sure which one to start first. Any suggestions?

• The Age of Decadence
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker
• King's Bounty: The Legend
• Pillars of Eternity

 

[Le Pertti]

Cacher Pillars of Eternity!

 

[Madventure]

wtf lol

There was like tons of articles or statements forever ago about steam specifically saying they take a huge loss on putting out physical gift cards and stuff like that to get market share at a loss to themselves just because people don't have credit cards & debit cards so they can get them and still buy games

 

[thekeats1999]

It's Valve fault that Epic can't have giftcards

It’s almost like the 30% covers far more than Timmy let on about.

Rip in peace Raul Julia

Such a great actor. Absolutely loved him in the Adams Family movies.

 

[yuraya]

They already run a nonprofit store. There is not much they can do to make more money other than raising the cut.

So any idea or proposal that would lead to more losses is immediately axed.

Sweeney isn't capable of telling the truth so he just behaves like some shitty politician and blames Valve for everything.

 

[thekeats1999]

Also wanted to ask something.

with the Game of the Year votes coming to an end soon, what are people’s Games of 2021. As in no restrictions, could have released at any year, can still be early access, DLC expansion.

For example last year was Control and Terraria. One came to steam with a nice discount and the other I decided to try and beat the Moon Lord, reached him but ultimately failed.

This year has been FFXIV, as in all content from a Realm Reborn all the way to Endwalker. Never thought I would enjoy a MMO so much.

Dorfromantik, yes it’s still in early access but the game has given me hours of fun. Can be as relaxing or stressful as you want it to be. I am still struggling to break the 10,000 points mark.

Stardew Valley. Whatever year I play Stardew it tends to be game of that year.

Also, go and vote for your game of the year.

 

[Ascheroth]

-TITLE!!!!

MetaSteam | January 2022 - All I want this new year is a SteamDeck

 

[Jav]

-Games to be featured in the OP (so far I got God of War, MHRise)

 

[fantomena]

It's Valve fault that Epic can't have giftcards

As long as Epic cannot provide gift cards, they will be unable to come close to Steam. We might think "oh wow, so many people writing they are using coupons on EGS on Reddit, ERA etc.", but people forget these are a minority, as the court documents and Epics on stats show. There are whole countries and regions with millions of people that are not able to buy stuff from EGS, even if they waned to, because of the lack of gift cards.

 

[Cacher]

-Games to be featured in the OP (so far I got God of War, MHRise)

DLC

 

[kio]

People love new year resolution so I want to share my 2022 goal in gaming: take a crack at the isometric CRPG genre. I have been a JRPG person in my entire life but have never properly played a CRPG before.

These games are inside the library. Not sure which one to start first. Any suggestions?

• The Age of Decadence
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker
• King's Bounty: The Legend
• Pillars of Eternity

King's Bounty is more of a homm "clone" than a crpg so count that out.
Age of Decadence is short but very hardcore and if you're not familiar with crpg mechanics you'll fail miserably.
Of the other 2 I'd say PoE is the more accessible although the sequel is better than the original for crpg newbies (it's easier and more streamlined).

But for a complete beginner I'd suggest starting with something easier that will still kick your ass but will teach you all that you need to know:

 

[Durante]

People love new year resolution so I want to share my 2022 goal in gaming: take a crack at the isometric CRPG genre. I have been a JRPG person in my entire life but have never properly played a CRPG before.

These games are inside the library. Not sure which one to start first. Any suggestions?

• The Age of Decadence
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker
• King's Bounty: The Legend
• Pillars of Eternity

I honestly think none of these are the best entry point into the genre.

Age of Decadence is just extremely unforgiving.
I haven't played Pathfinder: Kingmaker yet, but as far as I know it is very complex, and a bit generic story-wise?
King's Bounty isn't really a CRPG.
Pillars of Eternity is one of my favourite games of the past decade, and I don't think it's that difficult systems-wise, but lots of people inexplicably (to me) have issues playing RtwP games, so that might make it harder to get into?

So personally I'd go with Pillars out of those choices, but for getting into CRPGs in general I'd suggest e.g. Shadowrun: Dragonfall. It's a fantastic game, not too complex, easy to control, and it's cheap AF right now. The only thing that would go against it is if you don't like the Shadowrun setting, but then what's wrong with you?

 

[mastemas]

I'm doing that right now for my phone, but its through the carrier so zero interest. I have used similar servies in the past, as long as you pay on time it should be fine but you are essentially going into consumer debt and that is something I advice against.

As long as you don't need to pay interest and can pay out of schedule (faster, I mean), go for it.

That's how a lot of people buy their phones -I've never done it with a phone but I've done it a couple of times through paypal & eddie bauer for clothing because 100+ for a shirt is like "jesus christ" but I sort of do like 15 for a shirt and I still have stuff from them thats holding up years down the line

yeah i was considering getting a gaming laptop with that sort of deal, we're talking 32 dollars a month for a MSI Katana 17''3, but then i looked more into it, and i started to really really question if it was a good deal
the deal gives you two options:

1. after 2 years of paying, you get the choice to change the product into another product; in exchange for not paying the full price of a product, you have to send that product back to the company and then get the choice of changing your deal to fit another product, in which you're then offered this same deal between change and keep

2. after 2 years of paying, you also get the choice of keeping the product, but you have to keep paying the monthly amount until you have, in total, paid 120% ish of the price of the laptop, so in my case, if i wanted to keep it, instead of paying a total of 1132 dollars up front (for buying it full price in the first place), i'd pay monthly a collective sum of 1291 dollars, where i'd pay 32 dollars every month for a total of 40 months, or 3.3 years

HOWEVER! the PC is now on sale from the original price of 1303 dollars (now it's on sale for 1132 dollars), so if i were to get the second choice, i'd still pay less / not the expensive price, but rather the original price, which isn't THAT bad now

HOLD IT! the sale also lasts until the 9th of January, but i get 2267 dollars on the 5th from student tuition (after paying for rent and new semester's books), so i'd also have the option of waiting till the 5th to pay the full price for it

OBJECTION! but also, i have the choice of simply moving my original big PC back to my home (right now it's 300 kilometres away in my campus city), where i'd more likely spend time looking at how most classes, even the obligatory ones, are digital

i've started to question it myself ngl, wdy guys think between these options:

1. buy the gaming laptop with the deal and choose to keep it, in which i'd pay the actual original price over the course of 3 years
2. buy the gaming laptop without that deal, and rather wait till the 5th where i can buy it up front with money
3. not buy the gaming laptop, and instead move my big desktop back home where i'd likely use it more

 

[beep boop]

PoE is a pretty tough pill as a first foray into CRPGs. It seems like a game that's made for people who already really like CRPGs rather than an entry point. Despite putting in around 40 hours, I never managed to quite settle into it.

I started with a bunch of others in the genre, but Planescape: Torment was the first one I managed to finish, in large part due to its combat being dead easy and it holding up as an interactive novel alone.

Shadorun: Dragonfall is a good shout. Fun combat (!), great setting, solid writing, doesn't overstay its welcome. Disco Elysium was also comparatively easy to wrap my head around. I think I played that not too long after PS:T.

 

[thekeats1999]

Cacher

From what I understand of Pathfinder: Kingmaker is it helps to understand the core rules of Pathfinder. I believe they made a fairly faithful adaptation of the ruleset.

It was a bit like how it helped to understand things like THAC0 rules in Baldurs Gate. It made life a lot easier.

actual_norwegian_guy

Sounds an awful lot like the lease/hire deals you get with cars. I know a few people who would do this and change their cars every 3 years and never actually own it.

Something else you will need to look into is the return conditions. At least with the cars you couldn't damage them and had to return them "As Is".

In the case of say, a laptop, you would maybe have to return it with the base RAM so if you where to swap it out, you would need to return it with the RAM it came with.