Steam Christmas Sale Dec 22 - Jan 4

chrislad

chrislad wrote: »

They sell Steam vouchers which I was going to buy.

Never knew that! Cheers.

bpb101

Deleted User wrote: »

Never knew that! Cheers.

steam say only gs sell them, but i saw harvey norman sell them as well.

They also sell the steam link and controller
But as you have already guessed , sold out

edit: back in stock online

Mister Man

Lads, I have about €20.50 to spend. I'm thinking of picking up Ark. Worth a shot @ €16.79? Anything worth getting with the left over change?

Links234

I see Ubisoft is still doing stuff, Far Cry titles have just gone up for sale, FC3 was full price, now it's gone 75% off, offer ending Jan 02.

Out of what's highlighted in today's pics, Westerado looks good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea8RJlW6txk

Patser wrote: »

Regard Links234 Hard West recommendation:

It is good, very good, altough lacking just that little bit of polish - overwatch ability missing really makes it hard - but for all those X-Com devotees waiting for X-Com 2 in February who want to try something different to pass the time, really well worth grabbing

Glad you enjoyed it

J Mysterio

bpb101 wrote: »

steam say only gs sell them, but i saw harvey norman sell them as well.

They also sell the steam link and controller
But as you have already guessed , sold out

edit: back in stock online

Cant see the controller on the HN site?

pablomakaveli

Official statement from valve about the caching incident.

Update on Christmas Issues

- Valve
11:00am

We'd like to follow up with more information regarding Steam's troubled Christmas.

What happened


On December 25th, a configuration error resulted in some users seeing Steam Store pages generated for other users. Between 11:50 PST and 13:20 PST store page requests for about 34k users, which contained sensitive personal information, may have been returned and seen by other users.

The content of these requests varied by page, but some pages included a Steam user’s billing address, the last four digits of their Steam Guard phone number, their purchase history, the last two digits of their credit card number, and/or their email address. These cached requests did not include full credit card numbers, user passwords, or enough data to allow logging in as or completing a transaction as another user.

If you did not browse a Steam Store page with your personal information (such as your account page or a checkout page) in this time frame, that information could not have been shown to another user.

Valve is currently working with our web caching partner to identify users whose information was served to other users, and will be contacting those affected once they have been identified. As no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information, no additional action is required by users.

How it happened


Early Christmas morning (Pacific Standard Time), the Steam Store was the target of a DoS attack which prevented the serving of store pages to users. Attacks against the Steam Store, and Steam in general, are a regular occurrence that Valve handles both directly and with the help of partner companies, and typically do not impact Steam users. During the Christmas attack, traffic to the Steam store increased 2000% over the average traffic during the Steam Sale.

In response to this specific attack, caching rules managed by a Steam web caching partner were deployed in order to both minimize the impact on Steam Store servers and continue to route legitimate user traffic. During the second wave of this attack, a second caching configuration was deployed that incorrectly cached web traffic for authenticated users. This configuration error resulted in some users seeing Steam Store responses which were generated for other users. Incorrect Store responses varied from users seeing the front page of the Store displayed in the wrong language, to seeing the account page of another user.

Once this error was identified, the Steam Store was shut down and a new caching configuration was deployed. The Steam Store remained down until we had reviewed all caching configurations, and we received confirmation that the latest configurations had been deployed to all partner servers and that all cached data on edge servers had been purged.

We will continue to work with our web caching partner to identify affected users and to improve the process used to set caching rules going forward. We apologize to everyone whose personal information was exposed by this error, and for interruption of Steam Store service.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/19852/

Suppose its finally something concrete and theyve given an apology of sorts. I would like to know more about informing affected users though. Im not sure if i was affected or not and it would be good if they identify and inform people.

Probably hoping against hope but i hope this is the kick up the arse that makes them get their act together in regard to customer service.

J Mysterio

Wheres the free shìt though!

gazzamc

J Mysterio wrote: »

Wheres the free shìt though!

Not everyone was affected but those who were will be contacted, i doubt they'll compensate anyone though.

J Mysterio

J Mysterio wrote: »

Wheres the free shìt though!

That lad in Mexico is nailed on to get something.

dreamers75

gazzamc wrote: »

Not everyone was affected but those who were will be contacted, i doubt they'll compensate anyone though.

They will make an offer tho as they will be sued anyway by some of the 34,000

Fakman87

Lads was there any reports of people's card details being used after the crash?

Monotype

34,000 seems small, given the number of users. Maybe that's just people who viewed personal pages. Hopefully there's free stuff. HL3 maybe and a free Vive. :pac:

dreamers75

Fakman87 wrote: »

Lads was there any reports of people's card details being used after the crash?

No you only seen the confirmation page, I saw one as I was buying something so someone else saw mine with the wifes full name and address (her CC).

The Randy Riverbeast

J Mysterio wrote: »

Cant see the controller on the HN site?

Might have meant the steam vouchers,

Only thing I ever buy in GameStop

Links234

**Updated**

So the past couple of days I've been dabbling in Satellite Reign, and thought I'd give you guys some feedback on it.

As someone who was a huge fan of Syndicate on the Amiga way, way back in the day, I was going to be all over a 'Spiritual successor' and had been eyeballing Satellite Reign since it was in Early Access (though I didn't even hear about the kickstarter). It was one of the top of the list games for me to grab this sale, and I'm just over 3 hours into it now. So far, it's not quite Syndicate, but that's not exactly a bad thing. I think anyone expecting a simple remake of the 1993 classic in a shiny new engine would be a bit disappointed, because Satellite Reign is a whole different beast, it is in many ways a complete evolution of the gameplay and adds in stealth mechanics, sneaky assassinations, hacking and rewiring electronic devices. It also differs in that there's a big open map, where you have loads of different objectives spread across it, many missions being basically "get inside this secured area and so XYZ" and leaving it up to you as to how to do it, you can even bribe guards. There's probably loads more things that you can do that I haven't even come across yet, it feels a little daunting at the moment.

In Syndicate, you had your 4 agents but they were essentially identikit soldiers and combat was usually the only way to complete a mission. You click on your agents, select whatever weapons you want them to use, and click on whoever you wanted them to kill. Satellite Reign gives your agents distinct classes and roles, you have the Soldier, Support, Hacker and Infiltrator, who each do different things, and it opens up a whole host of different methods of completing missions. This is both a great thing, and a kind of not so great thing, because while it definitely opens a lot of new doors, one sort of appears to have slammed shut in the draft... The combat. Now, I say this with the caveat that this is only my first impressions, this is only my experience so far and I could be completely off in the long run. But when I attempted to deal with a situation guns blazing, holy crap did I get destroyed! The game also really needs a tactical pause, it's just something that feels missing, when bullets start flying it's way too hectic. I'm going to wait and see what the combat is like once I've got my agents decked out in better gear and upgrades, but it's just something that I feel should be equally as valid from the get-go as other tactics, and it's a bit of a shame you can't really "go loud" so to speak in the beginning.

That said, I am really liking it, it's an impressive game and the likes of which I rarely see. The visual style of the game is spot on, the neon, cyberpunk metropolis is perfect, and I love guiding my agents around, setting up money siphons on ATMs with my hacker, it's really cool. There's lots of little details I like, like the Infiltrator agent appears to be wearing tabi boots which I think is a neat touch, there's holographic trees, all these great little things that make the game world just really cool. Mechanically there's a lot that I love too, like the research mechanic like in the orginal Syndicate where you have to research your next weapons, but there's also the evolution of that mechanic in that you need to steal blueprints for them first. I really like this game so far, I'm sure there's way more for me to discover, it does seem flawed in some ways, but on the whole it is scratching an itch for me that few games ever do and I am loving it, it's a type of game that has just about become extinct in recent years and can't help but celebrate it for that.

Edit: I'm very glad I added lots of caveats to the above, because as I'm just shy of 5 hours into it, I'm finding there's a lot more to it and some of my criticisms no longer hold up. I felt that the game lacked a tactical pause, and rather than it being a missing mechanic, there is in fact a mechanic baked into the Support agent's skills that allow you to slow down time; Stims. This works very similar to the "Tactical Mode" in The Red Solstice, where time slows down and lets you issue orders but the game keeps the pressure on as it isn't paused completely. It wasn't something that was missing, I just didn't have it yet, and not only that, but it was well accounted for by the designers because a tactical pause is something that is incredibly powerful in these types of games, and is a limited resource here.

Combat isn't quite the issue I first felt it was either. I found myself sneaking into another compound and running into a patrol of guards and I actually managed to kill them, but to my surprise I wasn't overwhelmed with backup and more guards swooping down. It seems because I killed them away from any security cameras and drones, there was no alert, and reinforcements weren't deployed. I'm still a little iffy about the combat, the agents don't seem to return fire automatically, you have to click on each target, and that's still taking a bit of getting used to. But right now, it's not that combat isn't as viable as it was in Syndicate, it's just different again. Evolved. You have to be just as careful with combat as you do in stealth, you have to pick your targets and wait for an opportunity. There's probably loads more nuance I'm missing, because this is definitely a game with a lot of depth to the gameplay, and even though I've been at it for hours there's a load more to discover, I feel like I've only just dipped my toes in yet.

I also forgot to mention, my girlfriend was really impressed with it and wanted to buy it too, I got it for her instead.

chrislad

I picked up the Talos Principle, mainly as I had a 50% off voucher that was expiring tomorrow. Only 4.99 so not too shabby. It's gotten great reviews too.

pablomakaveli

Its a great puzzle game. The Road to Gehanna dlc may be worth picking up too if you enjoy the main game.

bpb101

To above , yes I ment just the vouchers

In references to the dos attack, word on the street is we are all getting. L4d2 ... Again

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

I'm finding the queue to be awful for recommending games I would like. Could do with a bit more "you played this game for 200 hours, you might be interested in the sequel"

I think they expect you to know about a sequel if you played 200 hours in the original game, you know? I find my recommendations decent enough. Not really directly related to any games I have played before, but similar styles.

My finger is on the button for FC3, but looking at uplay reviews, it might put me off.

Also thinking of getting FC4. Not sure if it's any good though.

Darkglasses

bpb101 wrote: »

To above , yes I ment just the vouchers

In references to the dos attack, word on the street is we are all getting. L4d2 ... Again

Would be happy with that, was thinking of buying it.

Mister Man

I eventually bought something. Decided I didn't have the time to invest in Ark, so I went for Insurgence (is that what it's called?) And Portal 1 & 2. Total was just over €10. I've played the Portal games years ago, but never had them on PC. Insurgence was one I was looking at for a month or two. Very enjoyable gameplay. Good change from the norm in most FPS games.

Still have another €10 to spend too!

Links234

Guys, I've updated my first impressions of Satellite Reign, give it another read!

Mister Man wrote: »

Still have another €10 to spend too!

Looking for any recommendations?

jaxdasher

I played around an hour or 2 of Hard West.

Its promising. All these neat mechanics like hands, luck and mining. Right now I feel overpowered with my abilities but I assume it ramps up. The UI is exactly like XCOM. My big gripe is, unlike Xcom, the UI is really cluttered with all the western accents that it just looks very busy. It could use a lil bit of tidying up. So far I am enjoying it that I only want to play an hour a day because I dont want to finish it too soon.

Shame about the lack of overwatch but its something I can overlook.

.G.

My debit card has had to be cancelled due to unauthorised activity on it that originated in the states. Could be a coincidence or could be linked to Steam showing random people my details!

MarkAnthony

OMFG - Syndicate remake (sorta!!) THANK YOU LINKS downloaded and playing!

Please tell me someone has something like DK2 on the go? I'm still playing that 17 years on!

Falthyron

superg wrote: »

My debit card has had to be cancelled due to unauthorised activity on it that originated in the states. Could be a coincidence or could be linked to Steam showing random people my details!

Nody

superg wrote: »

My debit card has had to be cancelled due to unauthorised activity on it that originated in the states. Could be a coincidence or could be linked to Steam showing random people my details!

They would show like 3 last numbers of your card; so unless they were really REALLY good at guessing it's unlikely to be steam related.

Nody

Links234 wrote: »

But when I attempted to deal with a situation guns blazing, holy crap did I get destroyed! The game also really needs a tactical pause, it's just something that feels missing, when bullets start flying it's way too hectic. I'm going to wait and see what the combat is like once I've got my agents decked out in better gear and upgrades, but it's just something that I feel should be equally as valid from the get-go as other tactics, and it's a bit of a shame you can't really "go loud" so to speak in the beginning.

...

Combat isn't quite the issue I first felt it was either. I found myself sneaking into another compound and running into a patrol of guards and I actually managed to kill them, but to my surprise I wasn't overwhelmed with backup and more guards swooping down. It seems because I killed them away from any security cameras and drones, there was no alert, and reinforcements weren't deployed. I'm still a little iffy about the combat, the agents don't seem to return fire automatically, you have to click on each target, and that's still taking a bit of getting used to. But right now, it's not that combat isn't as viable as it was in Syndicate, it's just different again.

Basically there's a few things you need to be aware about:

1) Having weapons up outside compounds = you will be flagged and police will come (if it happens simply let the police capture the guy and he's usually let go with a kick or a fine)

2) Alert levels goes 1) Suspicion (first circle filling up) followed by alarm (second time the circle goes off). You can see if you're current status as the red bars to the right of the character and the alerts goes up to level 4 (basically once you get flagged you get set to alert status 1, this slowly decays, spotted again while at alert 1 and alert goes of you go to alert level 2 etc.). The higher the alert the beefier guys are coming after you and you want to let the alert decay down completely before leaving a compound (or the local police may come after you). The alerts are triggered by either cameras or by you being spotted; if you're spotted they will run to where they spotted you if you disappear to check it out before returning back to their normal routine.

3) Killing a camera will ALWAYS trigger a new patrol to the camera to check out why it was destroyed but may be preferable to trigger an alert in general.

4) You will get to a point when you can walk around with miniguns equivalents out, blow up the front door of a compound and come out ahead. How ever even at that stage you can get overwhelmed if they get a flank on you so always need to be careful on how much you're taking on.

5) Engy ammo pack restores grenades, unlimited grenade spam is a great way to raise the alert levels (or destroy certain areas, not going to spoiler more than that) if you feel like having a bit of a challenge and for the lolz :P

Skerries

here's how to get the Red Herring badge from the Steam holiday sale ARG

Open up Ikaruga in your internet browser http://store.steampowered.com/app/253750[2]

type SEARCH

press enter

type 1v7531

100 xp

bpb101

Also to weigh in here, There would be regional servers for the catching. Europe , Asia , NA,SA ect.
We would have only seen Europe.( I mainly saw Irish and other European details ) not America. Due to the fact i and others here saw Irish profiles, its is lightly that our details were on servers that were mainly for Ireland and overflow for Europe. If you take the chances of a random profile from steam being irish , its very low . So its highly un-lightly that given your account was compromised , that it was a yank. It would lightly be western/middle Europe

bpb101

Skerries wrote: »

here's how to get the Red Herring badge from the Steam holiday sale ARG

Open up Ikaruga in your internet browser http://store.steampowered.com/app/253750[2]

type SEARCH

press enter

type 1v7531

100 xp

I did this and got a prompt. I typed in the code, but then it just did a search for search

Edit, im stupid. Type search onto anywhere on the page .....except the search bar

Worked for me! Forwarded me to a page with a bag and a fish in it.

challengemaster

Skerries wrote: »

here's how to get the Red Herring badge from the Steam holiday sale ARG

Open up Ikaruga in your internet browser http://store.steampowered.com/app/253750[2]

type SEARCH

press enter

type 1v7531

100 xp

And if you want to see how all this was figured out, it's a pretty fascinating read - https://www.reddit.com/r/steamsaledetectives/comments/3z0ivs/what_we_have_so_far_2/

Links234

MarkAnthony wrote: »

OMFG - Syndicate remake (sorta!!) THANK YOU LINKS downloaded and playing!

Please tell me someone has something like DK2 on the go? I'm still playing that 17 years on!

War for the Overworld?

MarkAnthony

Links234 wrote: »

War for the Overworld?

WT... OMG... OMG...!!!!

Thank you!!!!!!

MarkAnthony

Thoughts vs Dungeons II?

Links234

MarkAnthony wrote: »

WT... OMG... OMG...!!!!

Thank you!!!!!!

Not a problem

Pro-tip: Keep an eye on what's being funder through Kickstarter, there are games being made thanks to crowdfunding that we haven't seen the likes of in years. Nearly extinct genres and subgenres are being brought back to life thanks to the efforts of these sorts of projects. The era of crowdfunding is a pretty exciting time tbh.

MarkAnthony

Had a bit of a google and went for WftO. Thanks again Links!

Given I've spend my budget for the month is HW/HW2 remastered worth 11 quid or shall I hang on? Loves Sins of a Solar empire. I see HW:R is getting mixed reviews.

Links234

What's HW? I'm not great with abbreviations.

MarkAnthony

Links234 wrote: »

What's HW? I'm not great with abbreviations.

Sorry HomeWorld - I briefly played one of them, jesus must have been in my early twenties and didn't really give it a chance.

Links234

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Sorry HomeWorld - I briefly played one of them, jesus must have been in my early twenties and didn't really give it a chance.

You could hold on for Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.

MarkAnthony

Links234 wrote: »

You could hold on for Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.

I will

Sitting here with a huge grin on my face playing this DK clone - it's AWESOME. Thank you!

OMG ST:Armada III mod. !!!!

chrislad

Hah! Typical. The only game I buy is in the Humble Monthly. Good thing refunds are in.

Links234

chrislad wrote: »

Hah! Typical. The only game I buy is in the Humble Monthly. Good thing refunds are in.

What game? Also, what's in the Monthly bundle?

chrislad

Links234 wrote: »

What game? Also, what's in the Monthly bundle?

Talos Principle. Think Grim Fandango in there too and some other games I can't recall. Nothing major.

Links234

The Talos Principle
The Masterplan
Mushroom 11
Grim Fandango Remastered
Spelunky
A Fistful of Gun

Guess it's not a bad bundle.

chrislad

Links234 wrote: »

The Talos Principle
The Masterplan
Mushroom 11
Grim Fandango Remastered
Spelunky
A Fistful of Gun

Guess it's not a bad bundle.

It's not terrible. I had Grim Fandango already, and I was able to get a refund on Talos, so I didn't lose out. If you pay for next months bundle too, you'll get a copy of Alien Isolation.

Links234

Out of what's on the front page today, I can recommend Wolfenstein: The New Order, Metro Redux Bundle, and Borderlands 2 GOTY. Very shooter heavy frontpage today.

cruizer101

Have put few hours into Satellite Reign, really enjoying it. Syndicate was one of the first games I played on PC back on a 486, before that we had a spectrum zx 48k so massive step up. So when heard spiritual successor to syndicate had to get it, has enough similarities and enough differences to make me very happy. Havn't had too much combat yet also need to go over the cloning bit confused by that but liking it a lot.

Still a few more games tempted to pull the trigger on, Hard West sound very good, War for the Overworld, hadn't realised was on sale so might go for, also thinking about Ark as few mates play it but not sure I have the time to commit, Invisible Inc is another one interested in, there is also a Mad Max for 10 on cdkeys that is tempting me. Can't really get them all

chrislad

I got vouchers so I picked up a few games

Minecraft Story Mode for the little fella.
Price of Persia Warrior Within, and Two Thrones to round off the trilogy
Fable Anniversary as I meant to get it last time around.
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, as I never really got into the first one, and I really hate myself, so I'll give it a go on the best version!
Broforce, fun shoot 'em up. It's getting a bit hard too, but it's fun and I've only played Single Player.