jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2762 Posts

Let's Play: Steam Big Picture Mode
With all the Steam on Linux news Valve is pushing pretty hard into to break into your living room. I know most of us have heard of the new Steam Big Picture Mode but we might not have all seen it in action. Recently it showed up on my Mac Steam client so I took a few minutes to make a video showing off what it looks like.

Overall, Steam Big Picture Mode is beautifully usable. Its so well designed for a first effort it really showcases the huge difference between Valve and the traditional console makers: Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Sony just pushed a pretty large update to the Sony Online Marketplace and its better, but doesn't come close to the first version of Steam's Big Picture Mode.

What do you think of Steam Big Picture Mode? Does this seem like something you might find pretty easy to use or do you prefer the current console offerings?

Regardless, Steam's Big Picture Mode doesn't throw as many ads at your as XBox Live. Something I find pretty interesting considering you have to pay for XBox Live and have advertising thrown at you so prominently.

Even Cheaper Games
http://i.imgur.com/cRT1M.jpg
Just wanted to let yall know about a few great deals happening in video games this Thanksgiving holiday and the blackest Friday of the year. If you have anything to add, post it in the comments and ill keep this post updated with the goods as I find new ones.



Those are the most interesting bits I found. What are you guys getting?

Updated: @jaelte commented about the GoG sale.

Portal 2 PC Gets Splitscreen in Big Picture
http://i.imgur.com/URO45.jpg
Recently an update to Portal 2 included these updates:

Big Picture Support
- Added 2 controller splitscreen support for Standard Co-Op. Press X on the second controller inside the first Co-op menu to activate it.
- Fixed controller's ‘quick ping’ button causing the player’s movement to stop.
- Fixed not being able to exit Robot Enrichment or Create Test Chambers menus with the controller.

This is awesome news for people wanting to run Steam in the living room as adding the same console features to the PC version helps this. Recently Big Picture mode came to my Steam and my first thoughts of it were good. Over the next few days I plan on doing a bender of Lets Plays, showcasing the new Steam Big Picture mode is on my list!

http://store.steampowered.com/news/9423/

Developer Bits. Why Free to Play?
Recently I read a Google+ post from one of the Triple Town developers on why they didn't just make the game 99 cents on the App Store. He seems to think that buying games for a fixed price is a bad model and goes into detail on why. Ultimately because he doesn't see many indies survive in this way.

"Imagine free-to-play games as practiced by a private company that makes games with long term retention for passionate players in a tightly knit community. That fits my personal goals substantially better. So I'm experimenting. I'm learning. Spry Fox may not figure it all out this time, but at least we are driving in the right direction.

So why you don't see Triple Town being slapped with 99 cent price tag and being sold like any other disposable wannabe hit? Been there. Done that. This time around, I'd much rather work towards having a lot fewer customers that see my games as a lifetime hobby. So I can continue to make great games for them for the rest of my life."

What do you think?

https://plus.google.com/105363132599081141035/posts/Lce7wEJApEr

Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight
A new Humble Thingy was dropped today in "Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight." Clipped from the site:

"Tim Schafer is revealing Double Fine’s never-before-seen game jam process!
Contribute and vote for your favorite game ideas to be prototyped (week 1).

Then, Double Fine will create prototypes of the top four ideas and live stream the process (weeks 2-3).

Contributors get to download the finished prototypes for Windows (Steam keys too!) Plus, you get two protoypes from past jams right away."

Sounds like a cool way to contribute to the next steps of Double Fine's internal demo process. If you want to vote on any of the games they could prototype, head over donate and vote!

http://www.humblebundle.com/double-fine

Emailed A Free WoW Battle Chest
http://i.imgur.com/qOtH4.png
Recently I made it to Hell mode in Diablo 3 and a night or so later I got an email from Blizzard saying this:

"You've proven your valor in the battle for Sanctuary in Diablo® III. Now take your skills to Azeroth with a FREE digital copy of World of Warcraft® Battle Chest®, which includes 30 days of game time, The Burning Crusade® and Wrath of the Lich King® expansion packs."

World of Warcraft Battle Chest free? The email came with a key. I thought this might be some kind of phishing, but the email seemed legit and the URL's matched up to Battle Net proper. Clicked the link logged in to Battle Net and I had World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King for free. It took me through the steps to pay for a subscription, so I declined that but I can do a free 30 days of the whole deal if I want.

I signed up for the World of Warcraft Starter Edition some time ago and stopped at level 9 or so. I went back into my Starter Edition account and poked around a bit. I created a Undead Mage or some such and called him... Wait for it...

SnuggyBunny.

It makes a lot of sense that Blizzard is hanging out free copies of WoW up to Litch King. Making the barrier to play NOT require the purchase of 5 games is a good idea.

Did you get this email? If you did would that prompt you to try out WoW?

-
Not the only one talking about this either:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/534914-world-of-warcraft/64652371http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500259
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500259

I Am In Hell!
http://i.imgur.com/5TKfo.png
A few days ago I finally made it to Hell in Diablo 3 with "SnuggyBunny" my Witch Doctor. Beating Diablo in Nightmare wasn't too difficult. I sort of stopped going to the Auction House and only used the gear from game drops until I recently picked it back up. I think that made the game a bit harder than it would have been otherwise. After I started over in act one in Hell I decided to hit up the Auction House to see what kinds of things I could buy with all the gold I had. I had about 250k gold so I figured spending 50k on a weapon would get me something better than I had.

I had a two handed axe that hit for about 98. My total damage with modifiers and such was about 1200 damage. I found an two handed axe for a 50k buyout that hit for 1000. Its total strength and attribute modifiers took me from 1200 damage to over 10k. Its fun stomping the shit out of everything for sure but going from 1k -> 10k damage by dropping 50k gold seems a bit over powered. I wonder what I could get for 250k?

Snuggys recent look is above, check out all his stats and gear here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/jdodson-1332/hero/3331502

That said, it was fun to beat Diablo again and had fun doing it again. No secret Diablo 3 disappointed me a bit so its good to go back after taking a break and have a lot of fun with it. That said, coming back to grind every so often is fun and I look forward to playing the other classes as haven't really started with any of them yet save the Barbarian who is still in Normal.

After I beat Hell I got an email from Blizzard... More about that in my next post.

Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
Moar DLC to whet your Borderlands 2 palate in Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage. According to Gearbox this DLC will be released next week.

Excited? Interested? Looks pretty bad ass.

New Starcrafts Animations
Two new Starcrafts Animations. Episode 12 "She's The Bomb" above and Episode 13 "Spore Loser" you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3H7G5v75Dc&list=SP0QrZvg7QIgpoLdNFnEePRrU-YJfr9Be7&index=15&feature=plcp

For Aiur!