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[TheRedSnifit]

I didn't directly reference other events (I think this is the most egregious/disappointing one so far), but here's your precious TL;DR:

1. $6.99 Entry Fee, 2. Cases take the place of Contract item rewards, instead of supplementing them, 3. Cases are not clearly advertised as requiring keys on the Gun Mettle page, 4. Cases require unique keys costing $2.49, instead of allowing use of normal keys, 5. More unique-looking items, like the ones advertised on the top of the Gun Mettle page, are restricted only to the Cases, 6. Cases, in my experience, seem to have dropped at an extremely high rate compared to actual guns, 7. Despite costing additional money, Cases have a fairly large change of containing something that drops as a standard Contract reward, 8. Although minor, Campaign Cosmetic Cases take up weekly drop slots, and require unique keys even from the Gun Cases.

Whenever you complete a contract, you'll earn a campaign-exclusive weapon or unlockable weapon case.

Crate keys will not open weapon cases. Only campaign-specific case keys will open weapon cases.

Weapons from the Powerhouse and Concealed Killer collections are only available in weapon cases.

It's clearly stated that you receive guns or crates. It's clearly stated that crates are unlocked using keys, that those keys aren't the standard keys, and that certain weapons are only available in those crates. I have no idea what you were expecting. Hell, the cases in your link are worth more than a large chunk of weapons, which are frequently worth the bare minimum of $.04.

If you need me to literally write out how the above is different from Mann Up and standard crates (and don't think I'm defending crates here), then I direct you to do some reading on your own, because it should be obvious if you have.

This reads suspiciously like "I can't actually explain the difference so I'm going to claim you don't know what you're talking about". It is significantly easier to profit off of a Campaign Coin than it is to off of a crate or Mann Up, which revolve entirely around the <1% chance of getting an unusual or Australium.

 

[Blizzard]

Yes.

It's very distracting in CS to see people running around with bling guns. It's meant to be a serious terrorists vs counter terrorists game.

I'm new to CSGO (only 226 hours), but I personally disagree with this. The guns don't bother me at all, but the bizarre voice overlays do. If anything is immersion-breaking, it's lines that range from silly to disturbing like, "shall we do this sneaky-beeky like", or "good kill!", or "THAT IS PRISTINE".

And that's not even mentioning classic Office and its literal fashion terrorists with skinny jeans.

 

[paperspace]

Yes.

It's very distracting in CS to see people running around with bling guns. It's meant to be a serious terrorists vs counter terrorists game.

... what the hell am I reading.

Out of curiosity, for how long have you played CSGO?

 

[sammyCYBORG]

... what the hell am I reading.

Out of curiosity, for how long have you played CSGO?

Since 1.5

 

[Azure Dream]

so sell the cases, who cares. You don't have to open it. Just play the game.

I didn't say I have to open the cases. I paid the campaign fee so I could play Contracts and earn unique gun designs. Not earn the right to potentially pay more money.

Why do I even bother trying to articulate my point when someone's going to ignore what I write in favor of some short, punchy attack?

It's clearly stated that you receive guns or crates. It's clearly stated that crates are unlocked using keys, that those keys aren't the standard keys, and that certain weapons are only available in those crates.

Clearly stated = Mentioned for the first time halfway down the separate text FAQ page linked one time on the main page.

I knew it was guns or cases, as you keep droning on. I didn't know signing up that there would be so many cases in comparison to guns. No one could know this for sure until the campaign was well under way. Sure was foolish of me to give Valve the benefit of the doubt! Hey, what is this topic about again...? Oh, right.

I have no idea what you were expecting. Hell, the cases in your link are worth more than a large chunk of weapons, which are frequently worth the bare minimum of $.04.

Dat $0.05. (Which I'm using to describe rarity with. If there were less of them, they'd be more highly valued.) Also, you're pretty much restating what I already said. But pretending you're making a point with it. So...

This reads suspiciously like "I can't actually explain the difference so I'm going to claim you don't know what you're talking about". It is significantly easier to profit off of a Campaign Coin than it is to off of a crate or Mann Up, which revolve entirely around the <1% chance of getting an unusual or Australium.

Profiting? Is that what this is about?

Crates are supposed to be supplementary drops to your existing weekly weapon drops, and require no entrance fee. (I think you even get them as a F2P.) They do not serve as rewards for accomplishing tasks of varying difficulty, that you paid $5.99 (not $6.99 as I said once above, minor error) to be able to take on in the first place. Also requiring unique keys acknowledges that there are already a lot of regular keys floating around the TF2 economy, for cheaper than store prices, and the lower number of key purchases during this event wouldn't good enough for Valve. (It does make it easier to separate revenues to content makers, but also means you can't use prior stockpiled Keys.)

Mann Up is kind of its own thing, where you pay an entry fee to play Mann vs. Machine on special Valve servers with your friends. You directly receive items for completing different waves of robot attacks. I don't believe Crates drop as part of your rewards, but if they do, that sucks too!


I'm done with this.

 

[Hylian7]

Just wanted to butt in and say that Reborn is not bad at all - in many ways it's better than source 1. The community outcries against it have died down as more bugs have been fixed. As far as I know there are only a few major bugs left to iron out. I myself haven't had a single problem and I started playing Reborn both in the beta and when it was released.

If the Dota community is good at anything, it's finding things to complain about. Reborn has come a long way since it was in beta (Remember the Naga illusion item duping bug anyone?). It's very stable and was close to being ready for release. I honestly think that maybe it should have been given a week or two more before coming out of beta, but I guess Valve decided to YOLO it. Regardless, it's been a fairly smooth experience so far. Bugs get introduced with updates fairly often, but people are acting like this is something exclusive to Reborn. This happened in Source 1 all the damn time. Remember Chen controlling Roshan? Vengeful Spirit dying to creeps with the new negative Vengance Aura causing the server to crash? Some of the black/gold effigies were bugged where if you clicked on them, your game crashed? The Aghs Centaur bug with Undying Tombstone zombies?

There were a ton of wonky bugs like that in Source 1, but people continue to forget about those and say that Reborn was a mistake. Source 2 performs much better than Source 1 ever did. They still have kinks to iron out, but they are addressing them. I'm glad to see the hitbox thing being addressed right now, even though they fixed some of them and made others worse. Probably the single biggest problem I have heard about with Reborn is some people getting extremely bizarre 90-99% packet loss any time teamfights kick up. This was with no connection or PC issues, and Dota was the only game to have anything like this. For the people I know that had this problem, it seems to have been resolved now.

Regarding this thread overall, these kinds of threads irk me as if they try to imply that Valve has become some kind of scam artist or something like that. Do they have room for improvement? Hell yes they do. Do they need to make Half-Life 3? Of fucking course they do. Am I happy with their output right now? Absolutely.

I have been in the Dota 2 Beta ever since November 2011, close to when it first started giving keys to the little people. I have played it for almost 5500 hours of my life over the last four years and enjoyed every minute of it. To say that I'm happy with Dota would be an understatement. I also really enjoyed TF2, but I haven't really touched that as much in a long time as I've been more into Dota. CS:GO is also great, and I need to play more of it.

 

[Bleeether]

I didn't say I have to open the cases. I paid the campaign fee so I could play Contracts and earn unique gun designs. Not earn the right to potentially pay more money.

Whenever you complete a contract, you'll earn a campaign-exclusive weapon or unlockable weapon case. That was clearly stated in the expansion info, and the game delivered exactly that.. Don't like it, then don't support the game. End of story.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Yes.

It's very distracting in CS to see people running around with bling guns. It's meant to be a serious terrorists vs counter terrorists game.

It would be even worse in L4D where it's meant to have a serious horror atmosphere. A bit of silly is okay (carnival level etc) but hats would be too far.

I appreciate that cosmetic stuff keeps the games balanced but it still negatively impacts their games and I wish I could turn it off.

This is basically like complaining about TF2 because it is F2P.

CS and L4D were never, ever meant to be hardcore genre games.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Whenever you complete a contract, you'll earn a campaign-exclusive weapon or unlockable weapon case. That was clearly stated in the expansion info, and the game delivered exactly that.. Don't like it, then don't support the game. End of story.

Yeah, it's exactly the same with CS:GO. Don't want to open your cases? Sell them and buy the skins/keys/whatever you like. Or just save the money and get the campaign for free.

It's literally a win-win-win situation for all the parties, except those who want everything for free.

 

[sammyCYBORG]

This is basically like complaining about TF2 because it is F2P.

CS and L4D were never, ever meant to be hardcore genre games.

Every CS before GO says otherwise sorry.

 

[Bleeether]

Yeah, it's exactly the same with CS:GO. Don't want to open your cases? Sell them and buy the keys you like. Or just save the money and get the campaign for free.

It's literally a win-win-win situation for all the parties, except those who want everything for free.

Yeah, and he is trying to make the argument that he didn't pay to "earn the right to potentially pay more money" when in fact that is exactly what he paid for when he bought it. sheesh.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

This.

That their showdog for Source 2 is not Half-Life 3, but DOTA 2, a MOBA, should tell you everything.

Tell what? That they have built an engine that can transform from MOBAs to FPSs to whatever you want to built? Because they are doing a pretty good job on that front then.

Oh wait I get it now Valve is shit because you aren't supposed to like child games like MOBAs

 

[Blizzard]

Tell what? That they have built an engine that can transform from MOBAs to FPSs to whatever you want to built? Because they are doing a pretty good job on that front then.

How have they shown it rendering both MOBA's and FPS's? Aside from the Portal VR demo I didn't know there had been public FPS Source 2 demos yet.

 

[impact]

CS and L4D were never, ever meant to be hardcore genre games.

What are you saying? You don't know anything about CS obviously lol

 

[Ikuu]

Funny to see someone lose their shit over cases dropping, I sold mine and made enough to cover the cost of the campaign made a little extra.

 

[LincolnSixVacano]

You know OP, I know what you're trying to say, and you definitely have a valid point.

However, concluding that Valve is going the shitty route is a step too far for me.

In the last 10 years, I have bought and played dozens of games, and I never needed to update anything. No problems with getting games to run, no problems with any payments, downloads, or anything really. We now take this for granted, but this still is completely unique in the industry. We have some "competition" now, but all of these competitors have had me looking through support forums at least once.

In 10 years, the only time I have had an issue was with the removal of GFWL in Dark Souls, which isn't even Steam's problem. And that was fixed really quick.

Also, their continuous support of the modding community (I mean, there are enthusiasts who remade HL1 and are allowed to sell it on steam) and the numerous great games that have originated from it would never have existed without them.

Yes, they are a big company now, and I hate them for not releasing HL3, I hate them for releasing L4D 2 a year after part 1 (which was perfect on its own). We are allowed (and we should) criticize them, but also never forget what they did for PC gaming. They were (and still are) the reason PC gaming is thriving right now.

Indies have praised Steam for years, and now (purely because of the size it has grown to) they start complaining that it is hard to get notified on steam. Is that really their fault? They save PC gaming, only for it to become big again, creating a whole new set of problems.

An what about their push to the living room? The controller gets tons of praise, so does big picture mode. Biggest support of Linux in the industry, the Steam Link seems perfect.

In short, yes, we can and should criticize them. But criticizing alone is not gonna help anyone get forward. Offer constructive criticism, offer solutions instead of pointing out flaws, and always be respectful to the company we owe PC gaming to.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

The economist they have probably predicted there was more money in becoming a gaming company rather than a games company, but I think that it will only hurt them in the long run. I don't anticipate Valve games anymore, I can't get excited for Portal 3 despite loving the first two because I just don't think it's ever going to happen. Maybe that's a good thing, eliminating hype, but it certainly doesn't make me feel good about Valve.

If the Steam Controller doesn't take off, I think Steam Machines and SteamOS are DOA, and Valve seriously has to reroute themselves.

This is how it feels to me too, and I think for me Valve's software output doesn't appeal to me anymore.

The move away from single experiences that might be forgotten or lose their value in a few years' time to long-run maintained multiplayer experiences is an obvious one, though you could argue it's a natural one given it fits series like Team Fortress, Counter Strike and DOTA well.

The ethical concerns behind that path has been outlined before, but it's also why I think your distinction between being a "gaming" company and a "videogames" company is a good one.

I personally see Valve as a platform holder first and foremost but at their most cynical a lot of their new mechanics in their games and in the platform (trading cards, forging badges) can be interpreted as addiction mechanics to retain players and keep them engaged.

Again, away from the ethical debate, the main point is that I don't want Valve to go the way of Blizzard, I want a better balance. There's a good blog post here about how Blizzard now only makes addictions, not games, and I see bits of this in Valve's software output.

their staff economist has calculated roughly how much goodwill the half life 3 announcement will generate, so they are currently seeing how much money they can mine from f2p before the goodwill no longer redeems them.

 

[patapuf]

One day somebody will explain to me the "ethical concern" of selling skins.

Valve has zilch microtransaction s that influence gameplay. 60$ AAA single player games have more skinnerbox design than CS and DOTA.

applying "creating addictions" of your average F2P games to valves MP games has zero basis and more often than not seems to be the result of being salty that they don't make SP games anymore.

 

[Bluth54]

Which is great (for the most part, Snowplow feels like a very half-baked map to me, and Suijin had some immediate fixes required). Borneo is great, and Powerhouse feels almost like a classic map.

The thing is, I don't think you need to even pay for the contract to get all that. And again, while I'm sure they do a lot of work on the elements submitted, these are at heart community creations, with the exception of Powerhouse.



They already make ludicrous amounts of money off this game, they've said. One of the common ways to do it is to directly sell new items (no chance involved). For example, a new taunt for the Spy that lets him run around in a box costs $7.99.

Yes 3 of the 4 maps are community creations, but Valve also did a ton of work rebalancing weapons (and some of the classes). I was extremely impressed by the balance work done on Gun Mettle, it's a lot better then some of the re-balance work they have done in the past few years.

And I was so happy that Valve is supporting community map makers. I'm an active member of TF2maps.net and do sometimes test new maps on their server (and I got to do some late alpha private testing of Snowplow as well as the public beta testing), Valve hadn't really been adding community maps to the game for a long time, so getting 3 community maps plus a Valve map, along with all the great balance changes made this update feel like some of the bigger updates we used to get, even though there were no new weapons.

I didn't directly reference other events (I think this is the most egregious/disappointing one so far), but here's your precious TL;DR:

1. $6.99 Entry Fee, 2. Cases take the place of Contract item rewards, instead of supplementing them, 3. Cases are not clearly advertised as requiring keys on the Gun Mettle page, 4. Cases require unique keys costing $2.49, instead of allowing use of normal keys, 5. More unique-looking items, like the ones advertised on the top of the Gun Mettle page, are restricted only to the Cases, 6. Cases, in my experience, seem to have dropped at an extremely high rate compared to actual guns, 7. Despite costing additional money, Cases have a fairly large change of containing something that drops as a standard Contract reward, 8. Although minor, Campaign Cosmetic Cases take up weekly drop slots, and require unique keys even from the Gun Cases.

I also find it concerning how easily you write off "TF2 Gambling Events." Like that's something that should be openly accepted.

The Gun Mettle update page actually does say the creates are unlockable, which anyone who plays TF2 knows means it requires a key.
"Whenever you complete a contract, you'll earn a campaign-exclusive weapon or unlockable weapon case".

Also I don't see what the problem is with the Gun Mettle crate requiring a unique key is, nearly all event crates require a unique key. The only type of crates you can be sure will require a normal key is normal crates. One of the main reasons for this is so that they can easily pay out key money to contributors for items in that crate. Of course this crate didn't have any community created skins but I wouldn't be surprised if future campaigns do.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I didn't say I have to open the cases. I paid the campaign fee so I could play Contracts and earn unique gun designs. Not earn the right to potentially pay more money.

"I bought Half Life so I could play a sidescrolling platformer."

The update page - not the FAQ - clearly states that you get either a weapon or a crate, and that the crates are locked. I can only assume that you didn't read the update page and are now whining because what was promised wasn't what you wanted.

Crates are supposed to be supplementary drops to your existing weekly weapon drops, and require no entrance fee. (I think you even get them as a F2P.) They do not serve as rewards for accomplishing tasks of varying difficulty, that you paid $5.99 (not $6.99 as I said once above, minor error) to be able to take on in the first place. Also requiring unique keys acknowledges that there are already a lot of regular keys floating around the TF2 economy, for cheaper than store prices, and the lower number of key purchases during this event wouldn't good enough for Valve. (It does make it easier to separate revenues to content makers, but also means you can't use prior stockpiled Keys.)

Crates are responsible for 99% of Tool drops, which otherwise consists of fairly coveted items such as paints. And since they only drop for limited times, all but about 3 do have "entrance fees", with some crates going for over $50.

And special crates have been using special keys for years now. I don't really see the complaint there.

 

[nilbog21]

it's so funny to see how many people shit on valve

meanwhile, they have single handily revived PC gaming with Steam which completely shits on Console gaming in every aspect - They have 2 of the most popular and highest quality competitive games on the market and provide UNPRECEDENTED support to these games - AND they are actively developing TRUE next generation gaming instead of pumping out the same shit over and over again like other developers. The people that cry about HL3 are so short sighted and ignorant it's frankly quite insulting considering what Valve has done for us

Not to mention i've spent $0 on CSGO and Dota2 and dumped +5000 hrs into these games. The microtransactions does not affect the gameplay AT ALL and they are the most profitable games on the market. What valve is doing is absolutely genius

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Valve has zilch microtransaction s that influence gameplay. 60$ AAA single player games have more skinnerbox design than CS and DOTA.

I agree with this. However, like Nintendo's Amiibo (Which again have nothing to do with the actual games themselves or their core mechanics) it's pretty clear that they are targeting the "whales" or the super engaged players.

So I think it's still worthy of concern, especially when you are going to be getting minority cases of people who are addicted on opening random crate unlocks or buying loads of random Amiibo card packs for Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (though you could argue that the cards offer a compelling second collection game, but that's not how everyone views them)

The difference is that the existence of such mechanics that target whales aren't messing with the experience for the ~99% of players who don't drop loads of money into a game, which is laudable, but what it's doing to that 1% of players is still an ethical concern. Some players are fine with dropping the money into the games, for others with addictive personalities it can come across as manipulative.

 

[eot]

it's so funny to see how many people shit on valve

meanwhile, they have single handily revived PC gaming with Steam which completely shits on Console gaming in every aspect - They have 2 of the most popular and highest quality competitive games on the market and provide UNPRECEDENTED support to these games - AND they are actively developing TRUE next generation gaming instead of pumping out the same shit over and over again like other developers. The people that cry about HL3 are so short sighted and ignorant it's frankly quite insulting considering what Valve has done for us

Their support for CS:GO is unprecedented? What?

 

[DeaviL]

Their support for CS:GO is unprecedented? What?

I don't think he stuttered.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Tell what? That they have built an engine that can transform from MOBAs to FPSs to whatever you want to built? Because they are doing a pretty good job on that front then.

Oh wait I get it now Valve is shit because you aren't supposed to like child games like MOBAs

Um..... no. Cool your jets, don't be so defensive, ValveGAF.

It tells you that they are not longer SP-focused.

What are you saying? You don't know anything about CS obviously lol

My bad. I forgot that in a Valve thread you needed to follow the herd. I forgot that on NeoGAF, you can like things wrong.

 

[paperspace]

Their support for CS:GO is unprecedented? What?

Would you say otherwise? Please, elaborate!

 

[Abilidebob]

Between this and the "dota 2 is dying guys" thread it sure is a hip time to hate on Valve.

 

[misses bull]

My bad. I forgot that in a Valve thread you needed to follow the herd. I forgot that on NeoGAF, you can like things wrong.

Saying cs was never supposed to be a "hardcore genre game" is like saying the same thing for starcraft. It's just plain wrong

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Um..... no. Cool your jets, don't be so defensive, ValveGAF.

It tells you that they are not longer SP-focused.

They haven't been SP-focused since like 1999.

My bad. I forgot that in a Valve thread you needed to follow the herd. I forgot that on NeoGAF, you can like things wrong.

Heh.

 

[fresquito]

7 million users down and still people defend Valve. No wonder things don't change and go like crap. Continue defending this shit, continue...

 

[Nzyme32]

7 million users down and still people defend Valve. No wonder things don't change and go like crap. Continue defending this shit, continue...

7 million users? Of what?

Edit: LOL I see what you mean - for some reason UK is fine. However I'm not seeing the bigger issue. Steam itself hasn't had that many outages from recent memory. And in fairness, that is the highest peak it has ever had

 

[Uiki]

Would you say otherwise? Please, elaborate!

There's still stuff broken since BETA, 3 years ago.

But hey, have some music kits!

 

[fresquito]

7 million users? Of what?

Edit: LOL I see what you mean - for some reason UK is fine. However I'm not seeing the bigger issue. Steam itself hasn't had that many outages from recent memory. And in fairness, that is the highest peak it has ever had

Every online game that is dependant on Steam client lost connection. So, yeah, a hell lot of people got disconnected from their games, online leagues and all that stuff too.

It's a shame to say the least. This has been happening for long and it's gotten worse in the latest month, with multiple disconnections on a daily basis on weekend and sometimes during the week too.