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So I'm going to have to stop playing http://store.steampowered.com/... ?

The company behind that game do state that they aren't publishing plans, and you couldn't build a firearm based on their game, but it's easily got enough information on how designers went from breech loaders to fully automatic that I could translate into a functioning system.

I just don't own a lathe or CNC..

Evidently Cities: Skylines is quite good. I haven't played it yet, I just bought it during the recent steam sale...but it has overwhelmingly positive user reviews. Might be worth checking out as a spiritual successor to SC4.

I'm just wondering how the game is so badly broken for people attempting to run it on an x86 with AMD drivers and Microsoft APIs,

I'm no apologist (I didn't buy this game) take a look at the Steam hardware survey Notice the processor speeds, resolution and especially the graphics chipsets. Quite a variety there and not to mention AMD is infamous for crap drivers. I'd be curious to know what the factors are, management setting a firm deadline, the port developers etc. The game industry is known to be pretty ruthless.

This thread is epic - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3228322&highlight=batman&page=1

"Batman: Arkham Knight will be available on SteamOS, Linux and Mac in Fall 2015."
Sales of Batman: Arkham Knight have been temporarily suspended while Warner Brothers works to address performance issues.

Guaranteed to work my ass.

Remind me, which consoles let you do that?

Fuck consoles.

Valve mostly uses the Source engine and it already supports Linux, so a lot of Valve games are already Linux+SteamOS games.

The Linux port of CryEngine does not mean however that the existing CryEngine games get a Linux port overnight as it requires further work on the game developer's side (at the very minimum a recompilation but I guess there will be lots of small things and also it may be a problem if they use any third-party lib that does not support Linux)

Nice strawman, even though "shit like Angry Birds" is 1/10 the price of what you said.

Mayhaps you didn't read TFA?

You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason.

The section for DLC is merely clarifying different rules that may apply to it.

Since Blockland came out years before Minecraft (2004/2007 vs 2009/2011), why did Minecraft take off whilst Blockland did not?

It doesn't look like there are any textures in Blockland?

* http://store.steampowered.com/...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Does Blockland support custom texture packs? Mods?

It can have round objects, but the solid world is constructed from blocks. The interesting thing is that the blocks can be of varying size. Check out the screenshots in the product page.

Neither story nor the original article text include a link to the game on Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/...

(if you scroll past a bunch of ad blocks you can find it next to "source" on the original article)

Exactly, this is why GTA IV was so heavily pirated I would guess, likely GTA V will be in the same boat (if it isn't already)

If 2K just learned to accept modders they might understand why crap like Garry's Mod ( http://imgur.com/FsKngOB , http://store.steampowered.com/...) and Minecraft are still still leading sales years after they came out.

Then again, when you buy a big franchise game like this you kind of know what dumb lock-in you're going to get so...

The specs aren't completely insane, but they are very much in the "buy a new PC" category. Looking at the Steam hardware survey less then 5% of gamers have hardware matching the recommend spec.

How many games does Steam have with same screen multiplayer? Enough to justify putting it in the living room?

A lot more since the Steam launcher added Big Picture mode. Steam supports narrowing the search to "local co-op".

Then don't let Windows go tits up.
I generally assume that many programs that get installed in Microsoft Windows, including those that get installed using Steam, store info in the registry, and the easiest and most sensible approach is to simply re-install the programs after the operating system gets installed.

If I wipe my C:, I don't want a bunch of half-working programs installed on D:, which take up space but won't work properly because they haven't been installed right. D: can be used for data. C: is for programs that can go "bye bye" at a moment's notice.

(At least, that's how I did things not-so-long ago. More recently, nearly all data that is worth saving gets stored on a NAS. Other data is simply stuff that I've been too lazy to properly copy to the NAS, and is in a specific location. Someday I'll just make writing to the NAS easier. So I just back up that location, if I want to, and wipe the drive, painlessly.)

Fortunately, Steam provides a way to make the re-installation process less painful, by choosing the game, Properties, Local Files, Backup Game Files...
or, a Steam Support page has a reference to "Backing up all of your games:". I also don't want to have to re-download 100+ GB of games, so I plan to just take advantage of features that are readily available to me.

I realize your post is intended as a troll somewhat.

I don't know, for me it's about games like Ori and the Blind Forest or Grand Theft Auto V (on ultra). Good game play, good graphics, good fun.

Like Minecraft. What the hell is that?

It was a game that was promised to be a fully featured RPG and originally based on opensource code, then became a derivative which was created without a clean room implementation, which would still make the new code subject to the opensource license it fails to adhere to and genuinely it's popularity is not based on the base game at all, but the massive modding community.

but 16x16 textures on meter cubes? What the actual fuck?

Honestly, it just looks shit to me even on ultra settings and mods to provide higher resolution textures mods.

And while I'm on the subject, what is up with this non-linear emergent gameplay wank?

I have to admit, I frequently find that storylines aren't as in depth as linear story progression. On the other hand, some games have noticeably less fluff because of this.

I realize your post is intended as a troll somewhat.

I don't know, for me it's about games like Ori and the Blind Forest or Grand Theft Auto V (on ultra). Good game play, good graphics, good fun.

Like Minecraft. What the hell is that?

It was a game that was promised to be a fully featured RPG and originally based on opensource code, then became a derivative which was created without a clean room implementation, which would still make the new code subject to the opensource license it fails to adhere to and genuinely it's popularity is not based on the base game at all, but the massive modding community.

but 16x16 textures on meter cubes? What the actual fuck?

Honestly, it just looks shit to me even on ultra settings and mods to provide higher resolution textures mods.

And while I'm on the subject, what is up with this non-linear emergent gameplay wank?

I have to admit, I frequently find that storylines aren't as in depth as linear story progression. On the other hand, some games have noticeably less fluff because of this.

>XBox One controller force feedback support.

You mean the de facto standard controller for PC gaming these days?

1) People complain about poor driver support in Linux every year. It's been getting better. This is an example.

2) Adding feedback to Xbox controllers is a minor change compared to adding an entire, new IPC interface for systemd.

3) Kernel changes are not a zero-sum game. Just because some kid in college wants his controller to work and submits a patch, doesn't mean Linus cries himself to sleep instead of doing his usual work.

4) Are you against making Linux a more robust gaming machine?

The actual support article explicitly says that adding $5 to your steam wallet (which is the only way to buy stuff on the steam community marketplace) will count as $5 of purchases.
Co-incidentally, $5 is the minimum amount you can add to your steam wallet.

Adding $5 to you steam wallet (you know, the thing that you buy stuff on the community marketplace with?) counts as $5 of purchases on steam and will cause any restriction on your account to be lifted. Co-incidentally, $5 is the minimum amount you can add to your steam wallet.
The actual support article (which the article in the summary does not link because Gamespot writers are apparently lazy assholes) says as much explicitly.

In the past, Steam was full of defects that caused it to often lose the cached receipts* that allow offline mode to work. The earliest versions (in the Half-Life 2 era) wouldn't even try to download these receipts for offline use unless the user chose "Go Offline" while online. Even the current version still has bugs that appear to require the purchase of a UPS according to Valve's page about offline mode:

Stored information that is required for offline mode to function may be lost when forcing Steam to close instead of exiting Steam correctly. Always manually close Steam before shutting your computer down or running out of battery life if you wish to use offline mode for an extended period of time.

If the required offline mode data is lost, there is no way to start Steam without an internet connection.

* "Receipts" are what the OUYA IAP system calls the associations between an item that can be purchased and a user account. Google Play Licensing calls it a cached licensing status. The terminology might differ for Steam.

Logo was my first thought as well, since I realized years after the fact that it and its use of turtle graphics was how I was first introduced to programming, way back in 3rd grade (I'm now in my 30s and have been in the industry for awhile). I didn't recognize it as programming at the time, but in retrospect I can recognize that it laid the foundation for the sort of thinking that became important later in life.

In that same vein, when you're talking about introducing programming to someone at that age, it probably shouldn't be "programming" as most of us think of it on a daily basis. Instead, you might consider activities that get them thinking in the sorts of ways that they would use in programming. Asking them to move a turtle through a maze and other such things in Logo is one way to do that, certainly, and it worked for me, but it's not the only method. Another might be to play a game like SpaceChem, which is essentially a graphical means of programming algorithms that assemble chemicals to meet objectives in the game. Other visual languages might be a great start too. If you're on a Mac, download the free developer tools and check out Quartz Composer, which can produce some immediate graphical results with very little effort. Likewise, if you felt comfortable teaching Swift (it seems fairly approachable, but I've never used it), XCode provides "playgrounds" in which developers can immediately see their results played out.

But yeah...I'd focus laying the groundwork for programming-like thinking, rather than jumping straight into programming proper.

On the Playstation Network:

Doom Classic Complete for PS3:

https://store.playstation.com/...

DOOM 3 BFG edition (also includes DOOM I and II)
https://store.playstation.com/...

Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition:

https://store.playstation.com/...

For PC:

DOOM Classic Complete on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/...

or

sudo yum install prboom

or

sudo apt-get install prboom

Then all you need are the wad files, which are included on the DOOM Collectors Edition disc, which also includes the DOOM95 binaries. Or you can just use the WADs from your original discs.

Secret Of Monkey Island Special Edition for PC on GOG:

http://www.gog.com/game/the_se...

Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition for PC on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/...

On the Playstation Network:

Doom Classic Complete for PS3:

https://store.playstation.com/...

DOOM 3 BFG edition (also includes DOOM I and II)
https://store.playstation.com/...

Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition:

https://store.playstation.com/...

For PC:

DOOM Classic Complete on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/...

or

sudo yum install prboom

or

sudo apt-get install prboom

Then all you need are the wad files, which are included on the DOOM Collectors Edition disc, which also includes the DOOM95 binaries. Or you can just use the WADs from your original discs.

Secret Of Monkey Island Special Edition for PC on GOG:

http://www.gog.com/game/the_se...

Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition for PC on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/...

http://store.steampowered.com/...

Deathtrap is a Tower Defense game with strong action-RPG elements, a game of vicious tricks, killing machines, rotating blades and splattering blood.

meh, no thanks, but thanks for the public offering gentlesir

8GB is just not a lot of RAM any more. Any gamer who can afford to buy games can be expected to have that much.

Actually, take a look at the Steam Hardware Survey.

Last month, 47% of steam users had 4GB or less.

That's not a survey of general PC owners. Those are people on steam last month.

It may be true that people with more ram buy more games... but what developer is going to ignore half the potential audience?

"and haven't bought a Valve game since Portal2"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Which just means you didn't buy DOTA 2 (which is Free-to-Play) or CS:GO. They don't pump out a lot of games.

BTW: Those are their current two "Top games by current player count"

http://store.steampowered.com/...

by an order of magnitude over third-place TF2.

Not insulting you, but I don't think they care much about your boycott. And I bet if they do release HL3 and it's anywhere near decent, you'll end up buying it.

I agree they should continue the franchise, even it's just a Source-engine HL2:Episode 3 that is quite short while we wait for a proper HL3 (but I don't see that happening). But I'd much rather nothing than cocking up HL3 entirely.

As typical, here's their "we'll sell your shit to whoever we want" tacit admission: "Please note that this policy may be amended from time to time to reflect changes and additions to the privacy policy. Please check back for the most current version before relying on any of the provisions in this privacy policy."

http://store.steampowered.com/...

PS. It hasn't been called Ethereal in almost a decade, dude.

Yes, 1,000 games is a good thing. Sadly, 985 of them suck ass, which makes this a meaningless statistic.

99% of everything is crap, so your 'statistic' falls right in line with that. Besides taking a cursory glance at the game list shows that there are a lot more than just indie darlings and ancient properties are becoming available. Stuff like Civilization V, Borderlands 2, and the Portal games are on the service and Linux compatible. Heck, Cities: Skylines and Hotline Miami 2 were released just yesterday.

So, yeah, there's a lot of crap on the service, but there's a decent number of reasonably good games coming to Linux, too. You might have to work a little harder to find the good stuff, but so what? The fact that companies are starting to see Steam on Linux as a viable platform to even attempt to bring games to is definitely a good thing.

Valve likely wants to release SteamOS hardware and is pushing for ports/originals that target that platform.

Yeah, they announced a bunch of pieces of hardware in the past week or two, and it looks like they're pushing out Steam Boxes in the fall. This means you'll be able to buy a game console that's basically commodity hardware, running Linux and Steam.

It would only make sense that Steam will try to expand their library of Linux-supported games before the launch.

it's not just likely, they already have a bunch of companies releasing stuff in November.

There is also a Steam community group where they post announcements, with a DIY section. It's also meant as a console/htpc replacement not as a desktop replacement.

If and when it's stable/good enough I might eventually actually be able to run Linux as my primary desktop with some SteamOS packages on the side (Windows 7 Ultimate at home, because I'm a gamer). I'm glad they chose Debian instead of Ubuntu in the end because that's not what they said they were going to do early on.

However the assholes spamming every game thread with "When will there be a Linux version" then often being very snarky, rude and arrogant about it aren't helping the cause much.

Linux desktop/gaming/etc. They don't just have linux games. They're going to be shipping linux hardware! Nice hardware. I'm excited to see titles like Dying Light treating Linux as first class citizens.

epilepsy-inducing

What? Did someone say Beat hazard ultra? http://store.steampowered.com/...
http://youtu.be/kd-61CRXd_w?t=...
http://youtu.be/teA1OfGdgPw?t=...

And of course, where the bloody hell is Half Life 3? Or the steambox? Or a stable release ready version of steamOS?

No news on HL3 (and that's actually kinda a fact a lot of people miss: no news. They've never announced they've been working on it at all, all the expectation is fan hype, not DNF-style vaporware... which, as a Half-Life fan, is annoying, true). As far as the Steambox goes, well, they've got a release data. SteamOS they've been working on with fairly regular patches, apparently, and I'd assume the November date holds for that too. As far as the internal drama goes: that was almost two years ago, by a fired employee: not exactly an objective source, generally speaking. They've shown few signs of being internally fractured otherwise.

The thing about Valve is: they do a lot of experimentation. Some of it doesn't work out. Some of it works out fantastically. But they're actually experimenting, and in the world of video gaming, that's not all that common from AAA game developers.

You mean Half-life 2 deathmatch (which nobody played and Valve practically abandoned day 1)? No, we're talking about Half-life the single player experience. If Valve refuses to do a single player release then they should license the IP to a trusted dev do do it for them.

As for supported valve games, you have:
  - DOTA 2 ~ 1.1m people playing it right now
  - Counter-strike:Global Offensive ~ 300k people playing it right now
  - TF2 ~68k
  - Garry's Mod ~42k
  - Counter-strike:Source ~11k

So yeah, they have a lot of games that people still play regularly.
http://store.steampowered.com/...

How's there less of an excuse? UE4 isn't going to force anyone to produce high quality output, if its dev tools are easy enough to use then it'll just add to the ever increasing heap of shit that is poorly made commercial early access games on steam, often Unity3D's domain in the past. No bars will be raised, only floodgates further opened, a port of the slaughtering grounds to UE4 isn't going to stop it being a massive steaming pile of shit.
Meanwhile, people make quite interesting and thoughtful stuff with gamemaker, RPGmaker, twine and such.

How's there less of an excuse? UE4 isn't going to force anyone to produce high quality output, if its dev tools are easy enough to use then it'll just add to the ever increasing heap of shit that is poorly made commercial early access games on steam, often Unity3D's domain in the past. No bars will be raised, only floodgates further opened, a port of the slaughtering grounds to UE4 isn't going to stop it being a massive steaming pile of shit.
Meanwhile, people make quite interesting and thoughtful stuff with gamemaker, RPGmaker, twine and such.

Here's the list. Seventy-three pages worth.
http://store.steampowered.com/...

Linux games on Steam?
http://store.steampowered.com/...

I hate to break the news to ya Sparky but yes you can and ALL of which will do 1080P across the board, which NEITHER console can do! Note that this is just showing the DIY route, I could also wallpaper this page with quad core PCs from places like Tiger in the $250-$300 range already built and ready to go, just slap an HD260X for $100 and YOU WILL CURBSTOMP both the XBone and PS4 when it comes to graphics AND frame per second.

And games cost the same? Okay now I KNOW you are nothing but a fanboy or you've been living under a rock as you've apparently never heard of these little things known as Steam sales not to mention that anybody not sticking their head in the sand while waving their little console flag was fast as their little arms will go KNOWS that PC prices drop MUCH faster than on the consoles, whose prices are practically glacial. Care for an example? Theif 4 is currently $20 on consoles, not bad eh? Well yeah if you don't want the entire series which I paid $6 less for WITH all the DLC. Oh and there is this little thing you may have heard of called Humble Bundles? If you were to buy all the games currently on the bundle? Well first of all you are gonna need TWO consoles as not all the games are on XBone and PS4 and of course the OEMs give you a big fat greasy finger when it comes to backwards compatibility, which just FYI but thanks to DOSBox we PC gamers can play games going back to the early 80s, can even buy them preset for DOSBox so no muss, but just to buy the games currently on the list? Over $120, cost to PC gamers? $20 if you wanna be nice and throw them a couple bucks over minimum.

So wave your little flag all you want, won't make black into white, and it won't make the BS you are trying sooo hard to convince yourself is real into reality. Reality is you can grab a quad core PC made within the past 5 years for $300, slap a $100 GPU in, and be kicking with some serious gaming with better FPS and higher res than the netbook based consoles can deliver. Don't mind a little DIY? Then you can spend $80 less than a PS4 and still get an impressive gameplay experience with again higher framerate. Don't mind spending a little more? Then grab yourself a fire breathing monster and pair it with a 250x or 260x and enjoy a PC that will run maybe $20 more than XBone with Kinect that will DEVASTATE both the PS4 and XBone on gaming! Those last 2? Yeah they both hit turbo speeds over 4GHz so it will be quite the long while before you see a game not be able to run on either system.

I should know as I play all the latest and greatest on a Phenom II X6, a chip that is now 6 years old, along with any game I want from the early 80s on up, every console from the Atari 2600- PS2,and I get to enjoy multiple vendors, insanely cheap prices and sales, free MP, streaming from any site in any format without needing a subscription, and oh yeah, literally thousands of 100% FTP games in every genre. Wanna play on a TV? Then DO IT as all the PCs come with HDMI now and you can choose from Steam or Kodi or Mediaportal for your 10 foot UI. Wanna play with a controller? Then DO IT as you can trivially hook up your choice of wireless controllers with nearly every game coming with X360 wireless support but if that don't float your boat and you don't mind wires? You can run anything from a 2600 or NES through PS3 and everything in between. Nothing like playing a classic fighter on

Maybe they should fix Steam Chat so people actually use it first? The only way that chat channels will stay populated and thus see any use is if there's a simple autojoin mechanism. It is silly that users have to manually join each individual chat room every time they start up Steam (they end result of course being that ... they don't). Right now you have groups with tens of thousands of members but no one joins the chat channel.

People have been asking for this since fucking 2008 ( http://forums.steampowered.com... ). And yes there are workarounds to make autojoin work but they don't apply here since the point is to give the average user a chance to join.

Until they get autojoin to work, Steam Chat will be practically useless, so the idea that considering its use for pirating games is quite silly.

Which Windows version on what hardware? If it was XP, you can go fuck yourself. As for Windows 8, I'm a die-hard MS fan and I have no problem with it. Seems gamers don't have a problem with it either. Currently at 32% and climbing. But how can that be? Could it be that trolls on the Internet don't actually perceive what's actually happening in reality? No, that can't be it. That never happens....... *dies laughing*

Valve has changed their terms of service for Steam with the following question: do you accept these changes? If you answer yes, you have new rules governing the use of your games. If you answer no, you lose every purchase you have ever made with them. That's in the realm of zero trustworthiness in my book.

The relevant part of the TOS, bolding mine:

Valve may amend this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use) at any time in its sole discretion. If Valve amends the Agreement, such amendment shall be effective thirty (30) days after Valve provides you with notice of the amended Agreement, either via e-mail or as a notification within the Software. You can view the Agreement at any time at http://www.steampowered.com/. Your failure to cancel your Account, or cease use of the Subscription(s) affected by the amendment, within thirty (30) days after receiving notification of the amendment, will constitute your acceptance of the amended terms. If you don’t agree to the amendments or to any of the terms in this Agreement, your only remedy is to cancel your Account or to cease use of the affected Subscription(s). Valve shall not have any obligation to refund any fees that may have accrued to your Account before cancellation of your Account or cessation of use of any Subscription, nor shall Valve have any obligation to prorate any fees in such circumstances.

The Steam Hardware Survey shows Linux usage at 1.16%. Clearly, few people actually play games on Linux. Windows 8 on the other hand, the OS that trolls claim no one wants to use, is at 31.29% and climbing.

The Windows installer has a similar issue and apparently it is not even considered as a problem (red box):

https://support.steampowered.c...

This reeks of serious incompetence or negligence, in my opinion - writing installers that blindly mass-erase files instead of tracking which files did the software actually install and erase only those on uninstall/move is not acceptable in my book. Whether or not it is documented in some disclaimer that nobody reads or not is irrelevant. This really is asking for a lawsuit if someone gets seriously bitten by it.

I really wonder what the devs at Valve were smoking when they consider this as acceptable.

I'm one of the approximately 57% of steam users who still use it. Also it's still going to have security updates coming out until 2020 (according to the article). I'm not planning to move off it until either I have to or there's a good reason to (haven't found one yet, all my apps still work and metro and windows 8 aren't that compelling).

Does anyone think the numbers are there to get any big gaming studio to do games for Linux?

Valve does. Hell, they've created their own Debian spin-off, SteamOS to try and woo developers away from Windows. And so far, I'd say they're doing a decent job as the number of games available on Linux has jumped since the announcement (let alone since the beta). Well reviewed titles like "Battleblock Theater," "XCOM: Enemy Unknown," "Super Meat Boy," "Borderlands 2," and "Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel" are all available on Linux through Steam.

Perhaps an army of them, a nazi zombie army if you will.

Steam does this. http://store.steampowered.com/...

There's also steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/...