Bay 12 Games Forum

Awesomenauts supports local split-screen (and you can even take a local party into online matchmaking!). It's not free, but it's only $5 right now (and might be $2.50 at some point during the sale).

Not Steam and it's with the despicable EA Origin, but you can get Battlefield 4 right now for $20.

It's on sale at 50% off at Origin right now here: https://www.origin.com/en-ca/store/buy/battlefield-4/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition-ANW.html

Then you follow these instructions to get another $10 off: http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/107426/ea-origin---battlefield-4-pc-digital-download

Just a heads-up: you won't be able to register the promo code if you're not in the US... or unless you're using a suitable proxy.
The Deluxe Edition is also 50% off, making it only an extra $5 for the first DLC pack (and some other tiny bonuses). The Premium Upgrade is another $50 (and is not on sale) - if you plan to buy it, don't bother with the Deluxe Edition, since Premium includes all 5 planned DLCs anyways.

On an unrelated issue, Origin's payment service is failing right now, so you may have to try again later if it starts throwing random errors. Guess Origin doesn't usually get this much traffic!

They were born long before EW.

That... was beautiful. Especially the ending, but really, the whole thing was beautiful.

According to that leaked email from a few weeks back, the Black Friday sales are this week. The same sales will then be repeated in mid-December for the Holiday Sale.

Of course, Valve might have changed their sale schedule to compensate for the initial leak...

Quote from: Neyvn on November 20, 2013, 03:53:16 pm

So getting tired of the damn Framework installs...
Stupid thing is taking forever to the point of NOT AT ALL DOING ANYTHING!!!

What I find aggravating is when it installs frameworks despite the fact that you already have them.

Serious answer? The way I understand it: there are a lot of different versions of each framework. If you've spent millions designing, testing, and debugging your game around version 10.0.1.15, there's no way you're going to risk a one-in-a-million crash bug being introduced with version 10.0.1.16. Better to spend a couple of minutes (re-)installing the version your QA team swears by.

At the very least, when you show up complaining about a crash nobody else has encountered, they've eliminated one of about a dozen different potential failures besides the game itself. 

There is a hidden matchmaking rating, which appears to be based off the ELO system. It's hidden from public view, though - you can't see your rating, nor obviously the ratings of others. Valve employees can see your stats, and there was even a dev post where a developer examined replays where people claimed that matchmaking had been 'unfair', revealing the rating for each player and explaining why the matchmaking system believed the teams to be balanced.

Valve's been intentionally silent on the mechanics behind matchmaking and ratings. Whether that's a good decision or not is debatable, is all I'm going to say. 

Ooh, I'd forgotten about lifesteal - free full heals every 6 seconds! I'm kind of liking Maelstrom for the awesome lightning procs, though the extra attack speed and defensive buff of Mjollnir don't really help so there's no point in upgrading it further.

I'm also seeing a lot of Rapiers in this guy's future. Sleight of Fist lets him attack from a very safe distance, and his ult gives him almost the same survivability as Replicate if you set up a remnant before engaging.

I wouldn't be too worried about a Payday 3 being released any time soon - the only reference I could find to it was very, very hypothetical, existing mostly as a developer's musings on "wouldn't this be awesome?"

The new DLC is alright. There are a lot of variations on truck heists, though they feel at least somewhat similar - you're given either 3 or 4 armoured trucks to drill into and loot. Shaped Charges are discouraged, because they destroy 2 of the 9(?) loot boxes in each truck. The missions are fairly short but highly intense, with no strong defensive spots (the trucks are open on 3 sides) and lots of high-end enemies attacking in a hurry.

Haven't tried the Train heist yet. I found the train heist plans during one mission... but we wiped shortly afterwards. The one time I found the plans was on an Overkill mission, so I'm not sure if they spawn on non-Overkill attempts. Apparently it's very different, but that's all I've heard.