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[sublime085]

I guess I'm glad I didn't really take part in this whole thing, because I'm still freakin pumped to play Portal 2.

If it does come out a bit early cool. I don't really mind either way.

 

[gregor7777]

I haven't. I played Justine a few days ago because it was an expansion for a game I already had but that's it. It's too bad, because it was a really good expansion that I thought was clever. I was hyped for Portal 2 after playing it. Now I'm just kind of annoyed.

Why is that too bad? Seriously, you played an expansion you liked, that you got for free, funded by Valve, for an indie company that could use support. Again, for free.

And the game you pre-ordered is still coming out by the release date. And again, you have to do absolutely nothing.

How is that "too bad"?

 

[Jex]

This isn't any of that. This is Valve saying "like me on facebook, follow me on twitter, subscribe so I get ad revenue". They're abusing goodwill they built up by dangling carrots, and it's insulting. There's no pretense that it's anything but "give us more money because we want it and we know you will because we're Valve".

Wait wait, we can post stuff like this now without accusations of "feeling entitled" and "whining"?

The problem here is that some of us, including myself, have set ourselves up for disappointment. Through my own fault, it's killed a lot of the enthusiasm I had going into the launch of the game.

Vavle carefully crafted and deliberately made you invested in the launch. It's true they didn't 'force anyone hand' but neither do they force you to buy their amazing Steam Deals, but you will purchase them anyway because they know how to push peoples buttons. That's why a lot of people cancelled their pre-orders and bought on Steam instead when they saw the timer going up.

 

[Palette Swap]

These have been 2 crazy weeks and the buildup has been nothing short of incredible.
Compared to this, the payoff seems really small to say the least.

I don't feel entitled to play Portal 2 earlier, I'll play it when it's released and don't feel bad about it.
But you've got to admit they dropped the ball on their end game. Asking people to idle in games to gain a few measly hours is pretty anticlimactic compared to the shit that's been raging for the previous week.

In the end, I'll remember the good parts, all the hype, the updates, Glados invading everything but the game was way better than its underwhelming conclusion.

 

[cnizzle06]

Can anyone help me upgrade my memory for my craptastic Dell Dimension 4700?

 

[Ark]

I wasn't hyped for Portal 2 before, but I am now! Whoop!

 

[Gandie]

Projected release 17 hours earlier according to this.

I have no idea how accurate that is.

 

[shuyin_]

Why is that too bad? Seriously, you played an expansion you liked, that you got for free, funded by Valve, for an indie company that could use support. Again, for free.

And the game you pre-ordered is still coming out by the release date. And again, you have to do absolutely nothing.

How is that "too bad"?

The line of thinking you are adopting here, at least from my point of view, is similar to defending any company that makes an announcement of an announcement or says they will release a new DLC/Trailer if they get over <insert number here> likes on facebook.

The 'you have to do absolutely nothing' and 'they don't owe you anything' arguments are reasonable, but they can be used to defend companies in the above cases as well. Let me ask you something: what is your opinion of an announcement of an announcement?

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

The line of thinking you are adopting here, at least from my point of view, is similar to defending any company that makes an announcement of an announcement or says they will release a new DLC/Trailer if they get over <insert number here> likes on facebook.

The 'you have to do absolutely nothing' and 'they don't owe you anything' arguments are reasonable, but they can be used to defend companies in the above cases as well. Let me ask you something: what is your opinion of an announcement of an announcement?

Announcements of announcements are annoying at worst. And liking something on facebook is completely trivial in terms of time and effort. You're trying to compare that to what people perceive as a betrayal of a promise, which is quite different. (I'm not saying that's what Valve did, but that's how you'd have to construe the situation to be angry about it.)

If Valve had promised to release the game several days early and then went back on that promise, people would rightly feel betrayed. This situation was much less clear cut, and so some of the fault for the expectations and subsequent disappointment is squarely on the users swept up in the hype, speculation, and wishful thinking.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Valve certainly had a hand in it. But yeah, that's definitely the problem.

See, I'm not sure this is true. The implication from the build up arg hints and eventual finding of the timer meant that everyone assumed Portal was coming out. There was little hint of this computation sillyness, little precedence that it would take so many people to be involved either (the arg until now had a tiny amount of active participants, in comparison to what valve is asking for).

I agree with EatChildren, the ARG so far has been fantastic (for me to follow at least). It deserved a better closure.

 

[Datwheezy]

Projected release 17 hours earlier according to this.

I have no idea how accurate that is.

Seems about right. We have done 33% in about 26 hours, so should be another 52 hours or so at this rate.

 

[wormstrangler]

I think the Computational ending they went with was great, but only if the requirements were quarter of what they are so that the game could of released Friday night or sometime early Saturday.

That would have got a lot more people excited if it was just going to be idling for 12-24 hours and not like 60-72 hours.

 

[Zeliard]

I think the Computational ending they went with was great, but only if the requirements were quarter of what they are so that the game could of released Friday night or sometime early Saturday.

That would have got a lot more people excited if it was just going to be idling for 12-24 hours and not like 60-72 hours.

It's really the countdown that was the huge error in judgement and I'm really surprised that Valve didn't anticipate the reaction. You had people already wishfully thinking before the countdown appeared that it might release on friday, and then when it showed up and started counting down to Friday, it appeared to validate it for some people.

What they should have done is started this portion of the game earlier on, so that even if it did finish around Sunday or whatever, at least it wouldn't have led some people on. I never personally thought it was going to release when that countdown ended but it's easy to see why some would.

Ultimately I do think this will have ended up a big positive, given the good it undeniably did do, and when people start playing Portal 2 it'll be all but forgotten. But it would have been a much smoother landing had Valve not shit the deck at the end.

 

[Epix]

If their intention was to release the game oh say a day early or something they probably should have began this CPU countdown thing Sunday night, tripled the rate of progress and release the game a day early on Monday. It's looking like some people are getting a sour taste for the game by having to watch water drip into a pool for 3 days.

 

[Wolves Evolve]

I have to say this:

I am a very contrarian person and hugely enjoy dismissing people. But having read some people's reactions to the end of the ARG, I have actually come around on this issue and now understand that its possible to be disappointed by this. This is because of some reasonable posts in this thread.

It was really the most interesting ARG ever, and instead of tying into the game - they could have left it at that - it sort of got let down.

 

[TheExodu5]

If their intention was to release the game oh say a day early or something they probably should have began this CPU countdown thing Sunday night, tripled the rate of progress and release the game a day early on Monday. It's looking like some people are getting a sour taste for the game by having to watch water drip into a pool for 3 days.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

I was excited yesterday, but that was shot down when I checked back 10 hours later and realized in the end this would only enable me to maybe play an hour or two Monday night before going to bed.

It's really the countdown that was the huge error in judgement and I'm really surprised that Valve didn't anticipate the reaction. You had people already wishfully thinking before the countdown appeared that it might release on friday, and then when it showed up and started counting down to Friday, it appeared to validate it for some people.

What they should have done is started this portion of the game earlier on, so that even if it did finish around Sunday or whatever, at least it wouldn't have led some people on. I never personally thought it was going to release when that countdown ended but it's easy to see why some would.

Ultimately I do think this will have ended up a big positive, given the good it undeniably did do, and when people start playing Portal 2 it'll be all but forgotten. But it would have been a much smoother landing had Valve not shit the deck at the end.

Valve should have reacted by now by maybe doubling the rate at which the bars are filling. If this were to end early Sunday, people would be ecstatic.

 

[ElNarez]

To be fair, we're already a third of the way down, and with the pool of games we need to get hours on reducing as it goes, it's only going to pick up speed. Just look at the AAAAAaaaa stats once we're done with Kick It!. It's gonna be a massive increase.

 

[TheExodu5]

To be fair, we're already a third of the way down, and with the pool of games we need to get hours on reducing as it goes, it's only going to pick up speed. Just look at the AAAAAaaaa stats once we're done with Kick It!. It's gonna be a massive increase.

Actually, no. The speed will only get worse, as less and less people contribute to ARG. If someone only owned The Wonderful End Of The World, they can no longer contribute at this point. You can also combine that with the fact that people are getting discouraged and contributions go down overall. The only thing that counteracts this is the amount of time the bar completion knocks off the total time. But that being said, we're probably only going to finish maybe 2-3 more games before this thing is over, so that's probably a few hours at best.

 

[IchigoSharingan]

But but but! I'm a paying consumer and I'm therefore entitled to get anything I want at any time for no cost to me!

Seriously, this last bit has been poorly designed, but the number of people insisting that this is an insane cash grab or that Valve is the most evil company in the world for offering to release their game early is just absurd.

This is without a doubt the most obvious and poorly thought out cash grab I've seen in the DD world.

Long list of games you have to buy/play to give an early unlock to a heavily demanded game. Anyone saying Valve didn't have to unlock Portal 2 early doesn't recognize that for this ARG stunt and unlock barrier to work, they had to give the potential to unlock Portal 2 early.

 

[Zeliard]

Valve should have reacted by now by maybe doubling the rate at which the bars are filling. If this were to end early Sunday, people would be ecstatic.

I figured that's what they would do since it's hard to anticipate how many would get in on this and fill up those bars. I always assumed at some point they would start gaming it, because if it ended up releasing Tuesday anyway, that would look a bit silly. They presumably have a fail-safe for that sort of thing. The question is when it's set to trigger.

 

[syllogism]

Are those projections (they aren't obviously) taking into account that once certain games/bars get completed, progress will be slower as not all players will move over to the next game? Further, at this rate it doesn't appear some games will be completed at all before the release, and it currently appears only completed bars have impact

 

[TheExodu5]

Are those projections (they aren't obviously) taking into account that once certain games/bars get completed, progress will be slower as not all players will move over to the next game? Further, at this rate it doesn't appear some games will be completed at all before the release, and it currently appears only completed bars have impact

There's no way to predict that, sadly. There's also no way to know how much each game will knock off the timer once completed. We'll have a better idea once the next game finishes.

 

[Weenerz]

Can someone post the @glados link for me?

 

[Campster]

Can someone post the @glados link for me?

http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/

It's also linked to on the Steam frontpage.

 

[Ryu]

03:01pm, Monday April 18, in L.A.

That's a decent time for the unlock. I, like many of you, would have preferred it sooner, but I'll take what I can get. I certainly appreciate the efforts of all those who are trying to get it as soon as possible.

 

[morningbus]

What's funny about it is that it may not even be a cash grab. More people owning these games may actually only increase the amount of time needed to fill their respective bars.

So they may not even be encouraging you to buy them.

Or maybe they are. This might as well be a simulation with how slowly we get any kind of feedback.

 

[ElNarez]

Actually, no. The speed will only get worse, as less and less people contribute to ARG. If someone only owned The Wonderful End Of The World, they can no longer contribute at this point. You can also combine that with the fact that people are getting discouraged and contributions go down overall. The only thing that counteracts this is the amount of time the bar completion knocks off the total time. But that being said, we're probably only going to finish maybe 2-3 more games before this thing is over, so that's probably a few hours at best.

That's a good point, but we know for a fact what games have the largest user bases, and we have taken that into account when designing the priority list. So if you really think that not having the support of the AMAZINGLY HUGE tWEotE user base is what's gonna drag us down, boy oh boy do you have another thing coming. And then, there's also the potato factor. To give you an example, Defense Grid has at least 4 potatoes that can be obtained without too much effort, which we assume should speed up the process some. (I say "we", but it's more of "the ARG people")

So yeah, I think we're picking up speed.

Also, tWEotW is shit, and we've helped the world by ensuring no one has to play it ever again.

 

[Trouble]

I used to be hyped for Portal 2's launch, I still am, but I used to be too.

 

[sykoex]

Is it confirmed that the only reward is Portal 2 coming out early? I find it surprising they'd make the reward something so time sensitive. I'm hoping the "computations" will continue even if it isn't finished by Tuesday and we'll still get some cool reward when it's finally complete.

 

[Campster]

Is it confirmed that the only reward is Portal 2 coming out early? I find it surprising they'd make the reward something so time sensitive. I'm hoping the "computations" will continue even if it isn't finished by Tuesday and we'll still get some cool reward when it's finally complete.

Well if you get all the potatos you supposedly get an extra special super secret non-hat-based prize.

 

[DatBreh]

Game will still release on Tuesday and everyone will have a great time with it. So a FREE game didnt end how you liked it to, big whoop.

Oh, you have to work so you cant play the game early? Stop whining. Play the game on Tuesday and life will go on.

 

[TheExodu5]

Next game finished. 40 minutes knocked off the timer.

Enough of this shit.

 

[Freyjadour]

This entire shebang is really nothing like the BF3 Facebook deal. The only reason that any of you make that jump of logic is that it happened recently and it pissed people off (for no particular reason, it is a goddamn trailer).

You can ignore this, and likely see the game drop a day early, or you can play some amazing Indie games in the meantime. I personally have stopped playing SMB to replay Portal, but who cares? Monday, Portal 2 will drop whether I idle 72 hours or not.

 

[epmode]

This entire shebang is really nothing like the BF3 Facebook deal.

Right. It's worse.

I'm been playing Realms of the Haunting instead and it's been a good time!

 

[IchigoSharingan]

This entire shebang is really nothing like the BF3 Facebook deal. The only reason that any of you make that jump of logic is that it happened recently and it pissed people off (for no particular reason, it is a goddamn trailer).

You can ignore this, and likely see the game drop a day early, or you can play some amazing Indie games in the meantime. I personally have stopped playing SMB to replay Portal, but who cares? Monday, Portal 2 will drop whether I idle 72 hours or not.

• Both make you jump through hoops
• Both require days' worth of community effort
• Both are terribly thought out
• Both promote more marketing out of the community
• Both have eventual unlocks with the potential for early release
• Both are pissing gamers off on principle/logic
• Both give rewards that are optional, but overall not worth the effort required.

Speaking of logic, stating we can either ignore it or play indie games is a logical fallacy: false dilemma. It is one that is constantly repeated in this thread, in many flavors.

 

[Campster]

This is without a doubt the most obvious and poorly thought out cash grab I've seen in the DD world.

Long list of games you have to buy/play to give an early unlock to a heavily demanded game. Anyone saying Valve didn't have to unlock Portal 2 early doesn't recognize that for this ARG stunt and unlock barrier to work, they had to give the potential to unlock Portal 2 early.

I really insist the "cash grab" argument is sort of empty.

I get that this has been a fiasco and is terribly designed and the payoff isn't worth it. Twenty-four hours in everyone's sort of sick of idling in the same games they've had to play for two weeks with no new puzzles to solve and nothing to show for it, so everyone's upset. I get that.

But this has absolutely not been a cash grab. I don't get how offering new content for some really awesome indie games combined with a sale for optional participation in an ARG is a some crass commercial ploy. These indies get a sales boost and even more recognition by people who might not have otherwise played the games, we get cheap indie games and free bonus content, and Valve gets to promote their next big release. It's win/win/win all the way down. The *least* offensive part of this has been the indie game sale. It's the whole "Idle for three days and maybe we'll throw you a bone and release the game a few hours early" bit that's got people upset.

 

[TheExodu5]

I don't have an issue with the idea itself. I don't really see it as a cash grab either. I just think it's been extremely poorly handled by Valve.

 

[Draft]

Poor Valve :rollin

They probably should have realized gamers aren't really about having fun with something like this if there's a reward involved. They want the reward.

Honestly, I'm shocked this was even a thing. Is Valve really at the point where they can play around with release dates? Indie level devs, sure, but Valve probably spent millions coordinating the launch of Portal 2. Was it ever possible that time/date could be altered by an ARG? Seems unlikely.

 

[mrklaw]

it'll be unlocking at the same time globally right? So in that case its a little better in the UK as the official release isn't until Friday.

 

[qazqaNii]

CLICKING ON THIS VIDEO SHOWS THE ENDING OF THE GAME SO DON"T CLICK IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE ENDING OF THE GAME

The ending cinematics:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxZ3CUDHZkI

CLICKING ON THIS VIDEO SHOWS THE ENDING OF THE GAME SO DON"T CLICK IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE ENDING OF THE GAME

 

[samoset]

Why the hell are you posting ending cinematics here of all places?

 

[TheExodu5]

Me and my stupid need to highlight things without thinking. ;_;

 

[corn_fest]

Argh! The YouTube previews for videos come up on the mobile GAF app. I really would rather not see even still frames from the cinematics.

 

[Zeliard]

Me and my stupid need to highlight things without thinking. ;_;

lol I scrolled down immediately and read this post first, and I'm glad I did, because I very well may have highlighted

 

[darkpaladinmfc]

Me and my stupid need to highlight things without thinking. ;_;

I normally do this, but luckily I stopped in time. I feel sorry for you .

 

[Drkirby]

I am just having fun with the Challenges of the games, and having all 13 games is much easier then getting all the Treasure Hunt games.

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

• Both make you jump through hoops
  [*]Both require days' worth of community effort
• Both are terribly thought out
• Both promote more marketing out of the community
• Both have eventual unlocks with the potential for early release
• Both are pissing gamers off on principle/logic
• Both give rewards that are optional, but overall not worth the effort required.

Speaking of logic, stating we can either ignore it or play indie games is a logical fallacy: false dilemma. It is one that is constantly repeated in this thread, in many flavors.

Clicking "like" one time is not days worth of effort. It's one second of effort for each individual. The Valve thing, however, is potentially days worth of effort *for each person involved*. It's an important difference, but one you ignore in order to make a point. I agree with you that the final stage of this ARG is rubbing people the wrong way and Valve should learn something from this. I'm also going to assume the commercial gain for their supported indies is pretty significant, and possibly worth the vocal minority's pain.

 

[EatChildren]

Me and my stupid need to highlight things without thinking. ;_;

I haven't seen the ending, but have spoke to those who have, and what he put in that box sounds like a fair bit of bullshit to me, as people I've heard the complete opposite. At least in regard to the ending cinematic (not necessarily the game).

 

[corn_fest]

Leaving a game minimized for a few hours is effort in only the loosest sense of the word.

 

[TheExodu5]

I haven't seen the ending, but have spoke to those who have, and what he put in that box sounds like a fair bit of bullshit to me, as people I've heard the complete opposite. At least in regard to the ending cinematic (not necessarily the game).

That's even worse!

Leaving a game minimized for a few hours is effort in only the loosest sense of the word.

A few kilowatts of effort at most...