What game are you playing?

[Forum]

Does steam run like shit for everyone? My computer is pretty decent but it still takes about half an hour to start up properly.

Almost as bad as itunes

[Trichome]

Steam is fine for me. I think it checks for updates when it starts, try disabling that

[skell1ngton777]

Does steam run like shit for everyone? My computer is pretty decent but it still takes about half an hour to start up properly.

Almost as bad as itunes

yeah theres no way steam should take that long to start up, maybe reinstall it?

[Spamoni]

Bought Tropico 4 over the weekend on Kalypso's Steam Sale, abso-fuckin-lutely addicted after just a few days of play. Would have never guessed an economy simulation could be so awesome.

[deadly_habit]

Bought Tropico 4 over the weekend on Kalypso's Steam Sale, abso-fuckin-lutely addicted after just a few days of play. Would have never guessed an economy simulation could be so awesome.

EL PRESIDENTE!

[JimmaJamJamie]

Started playing Dota 2 about a month ago and already clocked up over 220 hours, shit is addictive!

Anyone else that plays add me on Steam: JimmaJamJamie

[wysockisauce]

Dota 2 has the worst matchmaking system of any game. There are no labeled statistics or brackets to fall back on so there is no way to gauge your own relative skill level or that of your team mates/opponents. The only way to enjoy this game is with a 5 man premade queue imo.

I have also read that it will try to keep your wins at 50% and put you on a team of incompetent apes when you win too much. Dunno if that's true though.

[Maccaveli]

replaying Rome Total War in anticipation of Rome 2!
Have to say, despite being a little bit dated in terms of some of the mechanics and options, the campaign is a lot more fun than Shogun 2 and I am really enjoying it playing as the Brutii at the moment

Each to their own but naaaaaaah. Diplomats, troop retraining, merchants, retarded AI and rebel factions are just impossibly frustrating to me after the improvements of Empire and Shogun 2. I'm currently playing an Oda campaign on hard in S2 and it's a blast.

[Spamoni]

Saw that Steam is selling the Just Cause bundle for 80% off - $5.99 for both of the original games and all DLC, just wondering if its worth it? Never played any of the Just Cause series

[Electric_Head]

It's worth it.
Massive re playability and the mp.

Hours of fun using your grappling hook to hook cars onto helicopters and watching them fly away.

[grillis]

just cause 2 for $2.99 is probably all u need.. there's another multiplayer beta test coming up at the end of the month..

[ineffable]

Dota 2 has the worst matchmaking system of any game. There are no labeled statistics or brackets to fall back on so there is no way to gauge your own relative skill level or that of your team mates/opponents. The only way to enjoy this game is with a 5 man premade queue imo.

I have also read that it will try to keep your wins at 50% and put you on a team of incompetent apes when you win too much. Dunno if that's true though.

I believe there's "hidden" matchmaking brackets involved in Dota, i'm not 100% sure it actually exists but I feel like i'm playing lower skilled games when I play with some friends(who have way less wins than I do), also happens when I lose a bunch of matches and gets better when I start winning

also all picks are flooded with retarded people so I try to avoid that too.

there's also that trick of searching for your replays ingame to see what bracket you're in, but i think I heard something about that not being accurate.

[collige]

Dota 2 has the worst matchmaking system of any game. There are no labeled statistics or brackets to fall back on so there is no way to gauge your own relative skill level or that of your team mates/opponents. The only way to enjoy this game is with a 5 man premade queue imo.

I have also read that it will try to keep your wins at 50% and put you on a team of incompetent apes when you win too much. Dunno if that's true though.

It's not true at all. The system tries to make the odds of winning any given match 50%, which is quite different from actually forcing you to lose. That's just bad players making up conspiracy theories about why they get matched with other bad players.

As far as statistics is concerned, everything is hidden so that people don't get flamed by everyone for being the worst on your team. ParasiTTe is basically right about how matchmaking works, everyone has their own personal matchmaking rating number that's used to determine who you get matched with. After the game is over, the game gets classified into normal, high, or very high bracket (which are something like 80%/12%/8% of games or something like that). Read posts by the developers on the dev forum or the Dotametrics blog MM FAQ if you want to learn more. You can use http://pubstats.me/ to find out what brackets your matches end up in.

[Spamoni]

Hours of fun using your grappling hook to hook cars onto helicopters and watching them fly away.

Sold.

[wysockisauce]

In my experience statistics being hidden does nothing to reduce flaming. If you feed or do something stupid you will be flamed 99% of the time, statistics being irrelevant. If you play well your team will keep their mouths shut.

I like being able to see where I am at relative to other players and enjoy progressing through brackets or ladders. Hiding all that information takes away an enjoyable aspect of the game for me. It is also useful for gauging the competence of your team. I wont pick a support or initiator on a team full of retards because that's a guaranteed loss.

[Liam92]

I've still to play Dota 2, had it installed since the beta for a few months now, it looks very hard though and I've heard people are not too welcoming to new players, so I'm severly put off!

[hugh]

replaying Rome Total War in anticipation of Rome 2!
Have to say, despite being a little bit dated in terms of some of the mechanics and options, the campaign is a lot more fun than Shogun 2 and I am really enjoying it playing as the Brutii at the moment

Each to their own but naaaaaaah. Diplomats, troop retraining, merchants, retarded AI and rebel factions are just impossibly frustrating to me after the improvements of Empire and Shogun 2. I'm currently playing an Oda campaign on hard in S2 and it's a blast.

I'll break it down as to why I think it is more fun, and more importantly I will highlight my main issues with Shogun 2.
Firstly, Shogun 2 uses a small, fairly linear map (japan is long and thin, it doesn't make for a diverse campaign) whereas other Total War games have a much bigger scape. The whole game feels more epic. This is true for Medieval, Rome and Empire. This results in my biggest problem with Shogun;

Playing the game properly will almost never result in open pitched battles but rather siege after siege after siege

This is simply because the map is quite small, the timescale is too long for the size of the map, which in turn means armies can cross huge areas in little time. Almost any offensive battle, unless you actually go out of your way to find yourself a proper challenge, will result in you sieging your enemy. It's repetitive basically. This compounds with other really poor issues - the first is religion and the resulting rebellions. It is far too easy to make a an enemy/neutral settlement revolt by the use of religious agents. The Fall of the Samurai has the exact same problem in that you can use the Shogun/Imperial agents to inspire revolts. It just means that if you are playing the game properly and as well as possible, you will just send an army of agents into coveted territory and replace all the standing factions there with Rebels. No wars are needed, no fuss is caused, you just silently become extremely powerful without any provocation.

A lot of the other issues I have are indeed just personal, but I would also say that the skirmishing in Shogun 2 is not as good. Archers are poor in that they need to fire within their arc in order to be able to shoot. Otherwise they have to turn. Rome Archers don't have this problem. They can fire on the spot, the units themselves just turn rather than the whole formation. In Shogun 2 you never have to deal with archers as long as you are intelligent in your approach to your enemy and have a couple of cavalry units. On the flipside, the damage archers themselves do in Shogun 2 is too much for me, I much prefer skirmishing in Rome. I also prefer the units diversity. In Rome we have javelin throwers, slingers, archers, phalanx, heavy and light infantry...Infantry with different stat spreads that can actually specialise a lot more in their roles. Babarians, chariots, elephants, cataphracts, and who could forget flaming pigs ?

I will agree that Rome has many problems, the diplomats are annoying but it's kind of a moot issue for me because diplomacy has always been a weak point of CA games and never REALLY been worth engaging in all that much. The lack of expandable recruitment slots is also a problem. Troop retraining has not been such an issue for me, I don't mind it. I think it's perfectly acceptable that you should only be able to retrain troops when they are actually in the settlement and in a province that actually has the required buildings. AI is just as retarded in Shogun 2 to be honest, full stacks of Samurai Bowmen says it all. I will grant you that Shogun 2's pathfinding in seige is a LOT better (though I believe they could never fix this issue which is why we went from proper cities in Rome/Medieval 2, where we had units running around weirdly and bugging out loads in both games inside cities to boring repetitive forts) but I will take the diversity in Romes cool cities, where each faction has a different style, over Shoguns samey forts any day.

Pathfinding in Rome is definitely buggy and annoying, however it's the only bug right now that's really annoying me. I like the way generals gain traits in a free-mannered way. I hate Shogun's refined and uninteresting upgrade path for Generals, I hate the way all Generals basically end up the same just with more or less battle stars, I hate the way every city has the same 4 buildings that looks the same. I really don't like the almost RPGish route they are trying to take a portion of the game down because it preaches choice but in reality offers a lot less.

[wysockisauce]

I've still to play Dota 2, had it installed since the beta for a few months now, it looks very hard though and I've heard people are not too welcoming to new players, so I'm severly put off!

Just mute everyone, turn off chat and play. It's the only way to learn the game. Once you get it though it will be a lot of fun. It's pretty much the only thing I play. I don't get much enjoyment from other games.

Start off with support heros. Pick one and play him until you are comfortable. Do the same for any hero u wish to play.

[collige]

I like being able to see where I am at relative to other players and enjoy progressing through brackets or ladders..

That's what team matchmaking is for.

I wont pick a support or initiator on a team full of retards because that's a guaranteed loss.

And that's the exact attitude Valve is trying to avoid. Let's say you have the lowest ranking on your team after you queue, but you're a dedicated mid player who excels at the lane. Everyone else on your team will bitch at you saying "don't let the noob go mid" etc etc even though you would perform even worse if you're forced into supporting.

In fact, Dotabuff briefly implemented a public rating system at the beginning of this year and people were getting shit for being "bronze scum" within 24 hours before Valve implemented the privacy shit.

[deadly_habit]

While I haven't played it seems DOTA 2 is a game best played with a group of friends or a set team rather than relying on pub matchmaking. Hell that's the case for most games.

Anyone get Sir, You Are Being Hunted?