[shintoki]

Whaaaat about Monolith? I missed this. :(

What the fuck? I thought it was just some cuts between the studios.

Blood, Shogo, No One Lives Forever, AVP2, and Fear. S Tier shooter developer.

[Flunkie]

$5 on PC via GMG with referral credit and a VGA cable to play on bigger screen > $60 on console

My justification.

[MRORANGE]

Bizarre, they were rumoured to be working on the Inception game right?

right now they were working on the Batman MP game, but some rumours suggested they were also making a inception game.

[Mrbob]

What the fuck? I thought it was just some cuts between the studios. Blood, Shogo, No One Lives Forever, AVP2, and Fear. S Tier shooter developer.

Yeah sucks indeed if Monolith is gone. They were rumored to be working on a NOLF inspired spiritual successor game right now. Also an Inception game. Their games never mega bomba'd though.

Are we sure they are gone? The info I read here:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/04/wa...attle-studios/

Says the cuts were across multiple studios. Which still sucks in general.

[Gvaz]

Having a 3MB/s down connection owns. Download and install HON, Rift, and BF3 in like 2 hours? aww yeah

[Turfster]

Having a 3MB/s down connection owns. Download and install HON, Rift, and BF3 in like 2 hours? aww yeah

Nobody likes a braggart! =p

* pats his slow connection. "That'll do, pig."

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Apparently it's so Origin can find any Origin-enabled games you already have on your hard drive. I don't have anything interesting stored on my PC, so it doesn't bother me...

That certainly is the most inefficient way to do it.

[jim-jam bongs]

For clarity:

Sadly, the studios you knew as Snowblind and Monolith are dead. Now you have WB Seattle.

Let me make this clear. Monolith and Snowblind aren't shutting down. WB appears to simply be consolidating their development effort in Seattle in a single location. Sadly there is redundancy when you merge multiple teams into a single building. There are still lots of people at the studio who worked on Shogo, FEAR, NOLF, Condemned.

element is a former Monolith CM who still has a lot of mates there. It's the name that's likely dead, they haven't shuttered Gotham City Impostors or anything and there hasn't been an official announcement that the studio is closed. He did say that at least five Monolith people who worked on the classics lost their job yesterday though.

[Rapstah]

That certainly is the most inefficient way to do it.

They supposedly do it once upon install too and don't send the data anywhere except obviously if an EA game is found. I mean, sure, there could be a disclaimer saying that that happened, but it's hardly the worst aspect of Origin.

[Sober]

For clarity: element is a former Monolith CM who still has a lot of mates there. It's the name that's likely dead, they haven't shuttered Gotham City Impostors or anything and there hasn't been an official announcement that the studio is closed. He did say that at least five Monolith people who worked on the classics lost their job yesterday though.

Time to hope for an Irrational -> 2K Boston -> Irrational situation for Monolith? pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease

[wilflare]

Having a 3MB/s down connection owns. Download and install HON, Rift, and BF3 in like 2 hours? aww yeah

-envy- haha enjoy! :D
what does HON Goblin coins do?

[HP_Wuvcraft]

They supposedly do it once upon install too and don't send the data anywhere except obviously if an EA game is found. I mean, sure, there could be a disclaimer saying that that happened, but it's hardly the worst aspect of Origin.

It certainly makes you wonder how Steam does their datamining. Especially now that Steamworks is becoming uber-popular.

[shintoki]

Time to hope for an Irrational -> 2K Boston -> Irrational situation for Monolith? pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease

The two studios are just so different though with years of experience in completely different genres.

[Dog Problems]

I've hardly played anything on Steam for over a month now. I feel like I'm in a gaming rut.

[Guesong]

Turns out witchedwiz didn't use my HoN Goblin Coins code, so if anyone else wants it, let me know.

Is it still available? My friend would surely want one.

If anyone still have a spare, please do say!

[Aselith]

It certainly makes you wonder how Steam does their datamining. Especially now that Steamworks is becoming uber-popular.

Is there any evidence that Valve has ever done datamining other than "lol everyone does it!"? Paranoid ass people would have called out Valve by now if there was any evidence that Steam datamined people and the same would be likely for their Annual Hardware Survey. They do a lot of experiments and market research the old fashioned way - by actually trying it out - but I have certainly never heard anyone talk about them doing that and their business really doesn't seem to focus on getting people's info for any reason at all.

EA wants your info so they can contact you about shit and have market partners contact you to drum up business. Valve has never, ever contacted me about anything ever except with receipts. No newsletter, no special offers, nothing. EA does, GOG does, Atlus does, ect but nothing from Valve.

Not even a birthday coupon. WTF, Gabe?!?

[Doomrider]

I've hardly played anything on Steam for over a month now. I feel like I'm in a gaming rut.

That's Steam for ya: all buy and no try. [That was bad] I beat Renegade Ops the other day (which completely rocks, as long as you like having fun) and now I'm playing Broken Sword. I've only played it for an hour or so, but I'm liking it, so far. The audio quality is kinda bad whenever the male protagonist's talking and it's not exactly a graphical showcase (nor did I expect it), but other than that, it's an interesting game.

For some reason, I've suddenly become very interested in adventure games and have put a ton of them on my wishlist. If this craze of mine lasts, I've got the other two Broken Sword games, The Whispered World and Gemini Rue to play, until there's a sale on some of the stuff I want.

[BertleTheTurtle]

That's Steam for ya: all buy and no try. [That was bad]

It is true though.

Well, some of my games I would like to play but can't because of my processor (Sonic Generations, Assassins Creed 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.)

But I have 500 games according to Steam community and I've really only been playing Payday, Dungeon Defenders, and InMomentum.

[NZNova]

Promo code, let me find it. PERFE-CTPRE-ORDER there it is.

PERFE-CTPRE-ORDER :D for 15% off

Cool, thanks guys :)

[Blizzard]

I tried the Fortix 2 demo. If you have 20 minutes to spare, at least give the demo a shot. It's small, simple, pretty well done, and fun. I figured it was worth $2.50. :)

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Is there any evidence that Valve has ever done datamining other than "lol everyone does it!"?

They are hiring for a Data Mine Expert.

[benjipwns]

I tried the Fortix 2 demo. If you have 20 minutes to spare, at least give the demo a shot. It's small, simple, pretty well done, and fun. I figured it was worth $2.50. :)

It's a good little fun game to kill time with.

For $1 you can complete the set and get the less polished, shorter and not quite as good original as well: http://store.steampowered.com/app/45400/

Both have Steam Achievements.

[Derrick01]

Ugh heroes of might and magic 5 keeps crashing when I try to load the game. I've already put over 3 hours into it with no problems and now it keeps crashing. The verify cache thing didn't do anything either, anyone have this problem before?

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Anyone else getting huge system crashes when playing DCU?

[jim-jam bongs]

Scarecrow?

[graywolf323]

so we'll never get NOLF 3 now? :-(

[Sober]

so we'll never get NOLF 3 now? :-(

Now I really regret not getting that issue of PCGamer that had a NOLF2 poster in it waaay back in the day.

[Aselith]

They are hiring for a Data Mine Expert.

Actually, I take back my response to your PM. That position isn't evidence that they datamine customers. The duties that it describes seem to be more about developing systems to track trends on websites which would be more about looking at buying trends, search queries, etc. Not saying that it's not possible that they datamine customers, the hardware survey itself is somewhat of a voluntary datamining operation obviously though not what people were talking about EA doing however the positions existence isn't evidence of that. They need to be able to datamine themselves in order for their clients (publishers) to look at trending purchases and how sales effect their games movement and stuff such as that.

Sorry if I seem like an apologist, I was genuinely prepared to concede the point but at the same time this doesn't seem particularly definitive to me although I'm sure they're not going to state intentions to datamine customers in a job announcement.

I present as counterevidence that EA was caught out on this less than a year after Origin's release and that Steam has been around for years and years with no one accusing them of scraping hardrives to gather customer information and things of that nature as far as I'm aware. Am I wrong?


Here's the job announcement if anyone is curious:

Steam Data Mining Engineer

We believe that good information makes for good decisions. We need help mining the data we collect from our online systems and games to improve game design, pricing, sales, security, and operations. If you relish the idea of poring through millions of rows of data each day to find clues and trends, then you might be the engineer we're looking for.
Steam is one of the fastest growing multimedia digital distribution platforms in the industry today, and we want Software Engineers who bring a variety of experience with databases and data management. Growth and diversity of products mean that we’re looking for people with expertise in multiple disciplines, and the ability to rapidly incorporate new business insights into the Steam Platform.
We need engineers who can deal with all aspects of data management strategy:


Duties:
Collect and analyze requirements company-wide for data needs.
Develop front-end systems to allow users access to perform ad-hoc queries, manage and customize reports, and track operational data over multiple products and sites.
Develop back-end systems to facilitate ETL, collection, and replication as input to data warehouse and data marts.
Manage security, disaster recovery, and availability for business-critical systems.
Develop enterprise-wide data models, data dictionaries, and promote secure data accessibility.
Monitor performance and perform tuning and troubleshooting, plus capacity planning, purchasing, and upgrades as necessary.


Requirements:
Bachelor's degree in computer engineering or applied mathematics (or equivalent)
Five years experience with many or all of these aspects of database implementation in Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Analysis Services, MySQL, or both:
Database application development in PHP, ASP, C#, or C++
Database administration on high-availability, large-scale systems
Design and management of disk storage systems
Experience with one or more visualization packages such as Tableau, Spotfire, QlikView, PowerPivot
Significant experience with one of more business intelligence packages such as Microsoft Analysis Services, Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, SAS Business Intelligence

[NBtoaster]

I forgot that the TF2 hat for preordering Skyrim was a limited time dealy at quakecon. Am disappoint.

[amdnv]

They are hiring for a Data Mine Expert.

Good. I want to see more of this:
http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep1/

[MRORANGE]

I forgot that the TF2 hat for preordering Skyrim was a limited time dealy at quakecon. Am disappoint.

people in the uk could not even buy the game to get the item, since it was not on sale due to some Game UK store agreement.

[svegis]

Good. I want to see more of this: http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep1/

I agree, I'm quite in favour of that sort of data mining, it's interesting to see how many have gotten to which point and in what time and so forth. I don't know about anyone else, but every time I see a stats page like that I usually compare it to my own, just because.
More often than not it's the stats for Single Player I care most about, and not my collected k:d ratio in Multi over a hundred sessions, if that makes sense.

[MRORANGE]

Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures 66% off daily deal

[Blizzard]

For anyone who bought Fortix 2, if the game is too short, you can click the little circle on the world map to play (all of the?) classic maps as well.

[3chopl0x]

Any impressions? I loved Tales of Monkey Island but never checked out there other stuff.

[Buttonbasher]

Any impressions? I loved Tales of Monkey Island but never checked out there other stuff.

I liked it. They did well recreating the Wallace and Gromit world and feel. You play mostly as Gromit, and the new characters they introduce feel like natural additions. It's good stuff. Episode 3 is probably the best. 3>2>4>1. Great artstyle too.

[BobJustBob]

For anyone who bought Fortix 2, if the game is too short, you can click the little circle on the world map to play (all of the?) classic maps as well.

And if you rapidly mouseover the ... thing (I forgot what it is) on the main menu that makes noise, you'll unlock zombie mode which can be played on all the levels.

[StuBurns]

Why is Neuromancer banned? Thought I'd ask here.

[Snuggler]

Why is Neuromancer banned? Thought I'd ask here.

He got banned for a month for posting a picture of a man making love to a T-Rex.

[Anilusion]

Does anybody have a spare BF3 key or two from yesterday? My cousin and a friend of mine doesn't have the game and would love a copy each!

[3chopl0x]

To anyone that has access to that 45$ D2D Skyrim deal, is it possible to gift it at all?

[Oreoleo]

Why is Neuromancer banned? Thought I'd ask here.

StuBurns
Banned



Perhaps that wasn't the best idea? :\

[Gvaz]

If you want to know why someone's banned, PM a mod instead of posting it here. Stumpy already said that earlier in the thread. Just sayin

[jaundicejuice]

Sonic Generations is fucking amazing. I broke free from the Sonic Cycle years ago and am glad I caved on this one.

[jim-jam bongs]

Sonic Generations is lots of fun, but I must admit that I prefer the 2D sections in the 3D levels to the straight 2D or 3D bits. The straight 2D bits seem a little too limited because of the smaller move-set you get with classic Sonic, and the straight 3D bits feel like they're on-rails. I haven't tried the challenges yet, I'm assuming that's a pretty big part of the game.

[Skilletor]

Sonic Generations is lots of fun, but I must admit that I prefer the 2D sections in the 3D levels to the straight 2D or 3D bits. The straight 2D bits seem a little too limited because of the smaller move-set you get with classic Sonic, and the straight 3D bits feel like they're on-rails. I haven't tried the challenges yet, I'm assuming that's a pretty big part of the game.

This is part of the reason that I really enjoy the modern sonic bits. I agree that the 2D sections in modern sonic are much better than the classic sonic parts. They're my favorite moments in the game.

[Oreoleo]

Sonic Generations is fucking amazing. I broke free from the Sonic Cycle years ago and am glad I caved on this one.

Same. The last Sonic game I owned was Adventure 2. Don't know what exactly made me preorder but it is really good. I grew up on Mario so I don't have too much of a preference between classic and modern Sonic which lets me enjoy the game more than some of the people hung up on the Genesis games. Calling it platformer of the year seems fair; it is a lot of fun.

[jim-jam bongs]

This is part of the reason that I really enjoy the modern sonic bits. I agree that the 2D sections in modern sonic are much better than the classic sonic parts. They're my favorite moments in the game.

Yeah even just having the double-jump makes things feel a lot more "complete". It could be because it's pretty standard in platformers these days, and I play a lot more Mario than Sonic in general, but I just find not having a double-jump really disconcerting.

[crimsonheadGCN]

Steam's going to hit 4.5 million concurrent users soon. That's fast.

I'm guessing that it'll hit over 5 million by the beginning of January.

[Ceebs]

To anyone that has access to that 45$ D2D Skyrim deal, is it possible to gift it at all?

Relevant to my interests.