Steam summer sale

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Two questions for the sale:
1. What game do you want to go on sale the most?
2. I have $5 steam cash, should I get FTL faster than light, or Valkyria Chronicles?

The worst part of the summer sale is I just got a new job after about a year of unemployment.
AHHHH!! !

I'm told by those that have dramatically more patience than I do that Valkyria is good; well, as JRPGs go, I dunno, I avoid the genre like the plague. I've seen enough of it though, and one thing to keep in mind is it's a very slow-moving game. So that might be something to keep in mind. Also it has sequels... but not on the PC or PS3.

FTL is good *if* you like a challenge. And I dont mean a challenge like Dark Souls, which is only a challenge in comparison to alot of the usual super-easy crap that's popular these days. I mean a *real* challenge. As in, it'll eat your face over and over and over and over, and no amount of memorization will save you. The real problem though: even among games that use alot of roguelike concepts, this one is abnormally dependent on luck. You could get to be VERY good at it.... and it'll kill you anyway, because RNG. Even something like Binding of Isaac, with it's wild item combinations, doesnt do that; in most good roguelikes, pure skill can ALWAYS win out over bad RNG if you're good enough. Not so in FTL. You cant win out over a too-powerful enemy if the RNG literally hasnt given you any new weapons or things like that (because there's literally nothing you can do about that) So that's a definite problem with the game. I havent touched it in awhile myself after getting tired of that aspect of it. Doesnt help that it's also very repetitive.


As for which games I'd like to see on sale.... er.... I cant think of any. I buy games so frequently that I think I've run out of interesting things to buy at the moment. Not sure.

I personally don't know Valkyre, but FTL is a nice roguelike, it is worth $5 for sure.

It is indeed a hard game, there are difficulty settings, but you can chose between "lose slowly", "lose quickly" and "lose instantly", especially when just starting.

i myself count myself as decently good, but there is no way to get 100% wins, not even on the lowest difficulty

Oh man, is it summer sale already??

There's nothing in particular I want to go on sale; most of the stuff in my wishlist right now is stuff that I would rather have DRM-free.

You do know that Steam doesnt work like that by default, right? Most games on it dont need it to run, the devs for any given game decide on this for themselves, Valve doesnt make the decision for them. That's not me just guessing that fact, either, that was explained to me directly by a developer I've worked with and do testing for. Chances are, there's probably a hefty additional cost for a developer to set this up. Hm, I should ask about that bit, actually, now I'm curious.

I've got, what, 300 games on Steam as of now; probably about EIGHT of them have a DRM stuck to them. The others... I could literally eradicate Steam itself from the PC, but I'd still be able to play all of the others by just running them directly (so long as I dont stupidly delete those, as well). Nor do they require that I be logged in. Hell, if I'm on my laptop, I often either have Steam offline (because connecting to wi-fi on Windows 8 when I'm somewhere other than home drives me up the wall), or I dont start Steam at all (again, Windows 8... it can get a little weird... I'm used to and very much prefer 7) and just fire up the games directly.

The idea of Steam DRM-ing *everything* is nothing but a rather crappy myth.

The obvious ones though are going to be online-only games; you CANT get those without, well, SOMETHING like DRM... if they cant connect to their own servers, nothing else will matter, naturally. I expect the AAA devs MIGHT be more likely to do it also... but not always. Some of them dont want you to associate TOO much with Valve. And often with those, there IS DRM.... but not from Valve or Steam.

The really notorious bad ones are Ubisoft, and.... er.... Ubisoft. Seriously, if you want annoying DRM, go Ubisoft! I dunno what dolt thought that "uPlay" would be a good idea.

....frankly though, I typically dont care about any of that myself. The rare "have to be online no matter what" games can be annoying, but those are almost all multiplayer-focused ANYWAY, so.... meh. I ended up preferring Steam though for launching nearly all games that I have; even Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress are now stuck onto it, because it's convenient. The only things that arent are all the emulators and stuff... I never entirely trust those loopy things.

Oh, I didn't know, I just always assumed. The only times I ever tried were with games that were made by Valve.

I might have to try it out, because I know I bought Dungeon Siege from Humble without realizing that it was only a Steam key.

I just tried it. Some games work, a lot of them don't (including pre-Steam games like Deus Ex).

Hmm? Now I have to wonder what games you grabbed.

A couple of things:

If you're grabbing "major" games, yes, they're likely locked down. Most AAA games are, and not just on Steam. Publishers are working more and more to keep these locked down tight wherever they can, however they can. In many cases, Steam is where the lockdown is the lightest. For example, playing the Sims 3 on Steam VS playing it on Origin. Let's just say... you dont wanna touch Origin. Unless you want to see *real* DRM. Which is also broken.

If you're grabbing something put out by certain publishers, that's another one. I looked at Deus Ex. It's published by Square (really? Was it ALWAYS under them? Ugh, so long ago...). ....yeah. I doubt I have to explain any more than that, as that game goes. If that is indeed DRM, that is...

Also, the DRM... in most cases, is not entirely there. The biggest thing I often hear from people is "well what happens if Steam (or whatever) is shut down and I cant play these?", and, well... that typically doesnt happen. Try it for yourself: take Steam offline.... take the entire computer offline even... heck, restart the entire thing offline... and then start the game, while Steam is still running in it's offline state with no conceivable way to connect (and without it having connected for even a second upon loading). I tried this with Deus Ex just now, and it loads fine. I suspect that what's happening here in some cases might be Steam's driver management firing up; some games do that, particularly when you've got many of them requiring all these different versions of DirectX to run well, or to run at all in some cases.

For a game like that one, just let Steam itself start and then just ignore it or knock it offline if you wish (the option to go offline is up in the left-most tab at the top); the Steam client itself is harmless and wont do a damn thing unless told otherwise (or unless you have it set to auto-patch games), particularly when not connected (because there literally isnt anything for it to do). Unlike most Windows programs. It can be fired up and entirely ignored and will merely sit there. What most people think of as DRM, and the idea that offends them, is HAVING to be actually online to run an offline game; that's not the case here. It doesnt work like that.

But again, that game is also put out by Square. I suspect that ALL of their games probably will do this (but again, will likely run OFFLINE just fine), if it's not the driver thing. If it's a major publisher, they're going to bloody well do what they can to "secure" *cough* their games when possible. Even when using the not-quite-real-DRM that Steam uses for offline-only games. Despite that making no sense whatsoever. That they've done this even with the ancient Deus Ex is.... er... frankly, it's par for the course with Square. They're NOT a pleasant group. They're no EA, but they can still be pretty nasty.

Games with a focus on the Workshop are also likely to do this. ...and of course, again, every now and then you'll get a dev that just decides to go with it for whatever reason (typically out of paranoia over piracy). Though I dont see that very often. And again, with the bit where it doesnt ACTUALLY need to connect to anything at all, I cant imagine what they think they're getting out of it. I've a feeling I dont WANT to understand the logic that goes into that decision.

What games exactly are you trying to get here?

I actually found a list of DRM-free games: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Cool that Dungeon Siege is on there, but I don't see any other games I was hoping to find.



It was published by Eidos, and SquareEnix owns them now. Not sure if the game was added to Steam before or after that happened.



My desktop doesn't have internet currently, so that's no problem. I didn't try putting Steam into offline mode, but I closed it entirely, and Deus Ex gives some error message about having to be run through the Steam client.

There are a couple games that load with no problem, a couple games that load fine, but some of the Steam UI stuff still pops up (like the "press tab..." popup). Some games give an error, but then load anyway. Other games won't load, some give an error, some don't do anything at all. Some games automatically load up Steam (and then either run or they don't).



I was hoping the La-Mulana remake would work, but it doesn't. There's a few older games (2000ish) that are on my wishlist that I don't see on the DRM-free list (like Daikatana and Arx Fatalis).

Was kind of interested in SanctuaryRPG Black Edition, but it's not on the list =/ Humble Bundle version is Steam key only. The regular edition is supposed to be free, but I looked a couple months ago and couldn't figure out where they're hiding it.

Firstly, it's worth noting that that list is incomplete, which is what I'd figured; multiple games I have that not only work without Steam online, but work without it entirely are not on there. When you've got like, what, 7000+ games on a service like that, well.... yeah. Listing something like THAT, reliably, it aint happening.

Secondly, like I said, with Deus Ex and the others, you will have to start Steam. It doesnt need to connect and can in fact be told to just BEGIN in offline mode. It doesnt need to connect at all; it merely needs to sit there to provide whatever bit of loading the game in question requires. Deus Ex works fine so long as the thing's been started. You could even have Windows block Steam's access to the Net if you want (when you're not intending to buy stuff that is).

Which, seriously, there's no reason NOT to just let it sit there. All the time I see this reaction from many people as if the thing is some sort of invading threat, where they'll go to really amazing lengths to try to get it to NOT run whatsoever yet still work, or stuff like that. When I say the program just sits there and does nothing, I mean it: it just sits there and DOES NOTHING unless told otherwise. It literally has no function besides loading and patching and browsing it's own stores/forums if it's online (which means that when offline it only loads games you click on to start and cant do anything else). Utterly harmless, more harmless than the browser you're using to access this page (no, seriously: browsers can be a GENUINE threat because of what they can allow both into your machine as a whole and into themselves, yet people are NEVER actually careful with them but are bothered instead by other things that are not a threat... Ah, the stories I could tell). Unlike, say, Origin... Just let the thing sit there though and you'll save yourself alot of trouble.

There was also something I was going to explain to make all this a little easier, but I get this far in the typing and I cannot remember what the heck it was. Feh.


And you know, all these years, and I'd forgotten about Eidos' entire existence. It's listed as Square on Deus Ex's page I think is where I saw it, and of course since Eidos got eaten by them you dont hear about that old group anymore... sigh.

The new Deux Ex I've not played but something tells me it doesnt live up to the old one.

La-Mulana's remake is really good, also. They did dumb some stuff down, though... well, if you've played the original, there were a few things that almost NEEDED to be dumbed down in some ways. They at least werent dumbed down very far. There's a "hard" mode that you can access too, by, er, "solving" a certain puzzle, I put that in quotes because it's much more likely that you'll do it entirely on accident... if you play that at some point I advise saving FREQUENTLY.

Oh you glorious Steam Sale, the one time my household authorises use of the holy credit card for non-emergancy use.

FTL is an amazing but very unforgiving game. On my last play-through things were going very well, I had picked up a full crew compliment, had level 3 shields by sector 3 and managed to pick up a flak cannon to compliment my ion blast and hull beam. Then I jump into an ion storm and all of a sudden things go bad. My power is out, I have been boarded, my ship is on fire and I couldn't keep my engines online long enough to escape. I eventually made it to the next nav-point with all but two of my crew dead, my ship was on fire with two hit points left, my Life Support was offline so I was rapidly losing O2 and between my crew and the life support generator was a massive fire. We never made it to the next nav-point.

Well so far I've bought:

Paranautical Activity (which turned out to not be very good...)
Danmaku Unlimited 2
Star Ruler 2
RefleX

and then I got distracted while typing this and bought Enemy Mind and.... something. I dont even know anymore.

Curse these sales, my already bad impulse buying goes out of control during these. I go into them thinking "I'm not going to buy much this time" and then I buy alot.

Well, the thing is, I prefer DRM-free (heck, I actually prefer real physical copies, but I digress) because I can download my games, back them up to a CD-R, or throw them on a USB drive, easily install them on any computer in the house without having to wait to re-download the entire thing, or have them "portable" on a USB stick, etc. I'm mostly fine with Steam on my main gaming desktop, but I don't want to have to install it on my laptops.

Also, this doesn't apply to me, but I know some people like DRM-free because they can play outdated versions of games without having to worry about Steam autopatching them.

The auto-patching bit and old versions of stuff can be dealt with actually; I just dont remember the exact method since I only do this with games I'm in major testing for, which are never in the store list and also tend to have me doing strange things with their files anyway, which need to be done directly with other programs. But there is a way to do what you speak of.

Now, with the consoles, I can say: I do fondly remember the days of physical copies. Cartridges!! ! That's still the way to go as far as I'm concerned. But with PCs... ugh. I miss disks, yes. Them old disks that held like, what, 2 megabytes? They're so much simpler to deal with and are not easily damaged. Though I miss EVERYTHING about computers from those days, but that's another topic...

The reason why I tend to love digital distribution though: CDs. I hate them. Always have, always will. They break if you look at them too hard. And if the game in question that's on the CD is a rarity? Yeah... good luck with that. Have fun finding and paying for another copy. I had that happen recently actually. A CD for a particular game got damaged. Damage that would have had zero effect on a cartridge or even an old computer disk, but INSTANTLY wrecked the CD. And that game? $120 *at least* to replace. Probably more by now. And then very expensive shipping, because that one is import only (from Japan). That's why I always push for digital. Physical copies are fine right up until the point where, suddenly, they arent. Unlike with the consoles I do not for a second miss having to buy physical copies of PC games from stores. Not one bit. Well, I mean, it was fine with the ancient disks and DOS and all, but the moment it became CDs, it all went stupid. Really hate the things.