Community MetaSteam | January 2019 - Steaming along through Epic storms

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A new batch of games with Asian characters in their title, and on the banner:


And another one:


This one has already an English language option.

There's been quite a few interesting Asian, mostly Chinese, games on Steam recently.
Their prices are usually relatively affordable, and thankfully, a decent amount of them offer an English language option sooner or later.
 
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「Echo」

鈴鹿御前。
Nov 1, 2018
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Mt. Whatever
I just started playing the PS4, so here are some spoilers on which Sukhoi are in the game in case you want to know:

Su-33, Su-30M2, Su-34, Su-37, Su-35s, Su-47 (!), Su-30SM, Su-57

I have no idea what the unlock conditions for all those planes might be, but they're in the unlock tree.
Excellent! Pretty much all my favorite planes lol. I really do like the 47 though, front-swept wings sure are dreamy. :giggle:
 

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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Less than 2 days left.



Read the rules in the OT first and send Wok a PM to ask for a link to the Frama form.

The categories for voting:
  • Game of the Year Award
  • DLC of the Year (optional)
  • Early Access of the Year (optional)
  • Turd of the Year (optional)

Deadline: January, 20 at 12 am GMT.


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My discovery queue is not personalized. These are the reasons displayed by Steam for showing the games:

  • This product is in your discovery queue just to see if you might be interested.
  • This product is in your discovery queue because it is new on Steam.
  • This product is in your discovery queue because it is has positive user reviews.
  • This product is in your discovery queue because it is popular. (I did not save this one immediately, so it might have been worded differently)
The description of the discovery queue is wrong.

Your Steam Discovery Queue is a mix of products that are new, top-selling, and similar to what you play and use on Steam.​

It should have been:

Your Steam Discovery Queue is a mix of products that are EITHER new, OR top-selling, OR positively rated, OR JUST RANDOM.​
 
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Eferis

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And another one:


This one has already an English language option.
This one looks really interesting and it's pretty cheap. I'll be honest, my only experience with a Chinese early access title was pretty bad (Anonymous Me, whose devs disappeared) and that's holding me back a bit, but I think I'll give this one a chance and see how good it is in its current EA status.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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It's weekend!

Right now I'm building a second main in Subnautica. I have found a really cool place 900 meters deep and well, I need to go deeper than that now and having to go back to my base 50 meters deep is not exactly feasable.

Will also finish watching Kamen Rider W, only 10 eps left and it's only been 2 weeks since I started, lol. It's excellent. And then I'll move on to the next one.
 
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Wok

Wok
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As for the main page of the store, the reasons displayed are:





So, the games are recommended because they:
  • are new
  • have similar tags,
  • are positively reviewed by a friend,
  • are positively reviewed by a curator which I follow.
Sometimes, it makes no sense, and I cannot tell the reason why the two products are similar:



Edit: Maybe because they share the "Adventure" genre and tag:




There is a huge potential of improvement of this recommendation system. There is currently:
  • no collaborative filtering (despite the huge amount of data available),
  • and a very crude attempt at content-based filtering based solely on tags.
 
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suiko

saviour of worlds
Nov 12, 2018
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content based filtering is no small thing as it might seem, and not only because steam's default genre system is dated, terrible and not suited for thousands of games. It's also because that we ourselves can't often come to agreement which game is what, sadly, and we are ones with most knowledge in that. For example a word adventure lost all meaning in gaming, it's basically any game is an adventure kinda situation, and you all know how bad things are on RPG side of this, among other problems.
We need a new system that mutual exclude tags. Lemme explain, if a game let's say is a horror game, that means certain kind of adventure already, so adventure tag should be excluded. Or if a game is a fighting game, there is no reason for an action tag, that kinda thing. It would help immensely, but we know that not gonna happen. Who will do all that work?
 
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Wok

Wok
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Who will do all that work?
Valve could use all kind of data. The content could come from words used in the description provided by the devs for the store page, or if we want to push further, words used in Steam reviews, automatic description of the store screenshots, legend of the screenshots in the user hub, etc.

I am not too familiar with recommendation systems, but I imagine other features could include play patterns for each game (playtime duration, how many times per week is the game started by the owners?), average spending, number of dlc, dev activity in the news section of the hub, stats regarding user activity on the forum, etc.

Imagine that I give you three store pages and ask you to find, among these three, which two games are the most similar. You would not just look at the tags, you would look at all the data available.
 

suiko

saviour of worlds
Nov 12, 2018
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mhmmm, that sounds somewhat easier to do than what I describe Wok , only someone still has to come up with a system for that data to be of any use, How you interpret play time? or lack of it? if you fish for certain words used in descriptions and reviews, what about irony, hyperbole, sarcasm, jokes?
 
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Wok

Wok
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I agree that using all the data which I mentioned could be a difficult task, and some data might be irrelevant, like playtime patterns.

However, if we just consider the game description written by the dev for the store page, there are techniques to take into account the context. With 30,000 games on Steam, there are 30,000 documents (the texts describing the games), and one should be able to "describe" games more accurately than with tags, and compute the most "similar" games based on that.
 
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suiko

saviour of worlds
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I don't disagree, I just remember those games with extremely indescriptive writeups, but it could work, maybe better than current chaos like system works.
 
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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The current system generally works for me, but it can break very easily.

The tag system for example is a mess. If I try to exclude VR because I don't have headset, it hides everything even remotely related. I coudnl't find the game Qube to give the link because it was filtered out by it.

The weights also appear to very inconsistent. There is only so much "adult" games in my queue that playing Nights of Azure in the beginning of 2018 should generate...

You then throw a lot of "noise" in the data like idling for cards and you can see how some people get a lot of... strange results.

In theory machine learning should filter a lot of it (not I know much about it), but they will have probably to tweak a of things to give it more consistent data.
 
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suiko

saviour of worlds
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IDK, current system has to relate on RNG somewhat, because that's only explanation how I can get queues of games in one genre... that I don't play at all. :upside-down-face:
 
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
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IDK, current system has to relate on RNG somewhat, because that's only explanation how I can get queues of games in one genre... that I don't play at all. :upside-down-face:
Oh.. theres RNG no doubt. During the sale it indicated some games for me based on two that I launched for one minute for a promotional thing in the middle of the year. In fact... one time I did get a message that was more or less "we don't know if you are going to like this, but we are showing to see your reaction".

Again, it is generally decent for me, and the section "More Like this" on the store pages usually has interesting game (that I already own), but the general recommendation system really isn't making good use of the data available.
 
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Deleted member 113

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i had a que the other day with no hentai puzzle games. that was my win for the day
The adult sections on Steam need a few tweaks.
I don't mind playing a game with violence and gore, or sex and nudity, if it's a good game. For example, a few years ago I played a demo of Kara no Shojo, and now that it's on Steam I would like to buy it one of these days, despite having sexually explicit content.
So, I don't have any censorship filters on.

But, if you make the mistake of adding a game that has some nudity to your wishlist, you're forever condemned to have discovery queues full of games with barely any gameplay, that feature hentai in their names, or that feature nudity in some way.
 

Ex-User (307)

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Like I’ve said, the biggest problem with the adult tags is that there’s no way to show interest in certain types of adult content.

Just because I like The Witcher doesn’t mean I like hentai “puzzle” games.

Unsurprisingly, that applies to genre tags too. Just because I’ve played “puzzle” games doesn’t necessarily mean I specifically love all puzzle games. Maybe I don’t enjoy action puzzlers, or hentai puzzles, or coding puzzles, or whatever.

The broadness of tags is a huge issue. My favorite dumb tag is “simulation,” because people attach that stupid tag to everything.
 

Deleted member 113

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This one looks nice:


To quote the developer's website:

«C Prompt Games is an independent studio founded by Robert Fermier and Ian M. Fischer, experienced developers who have led the creation of some of your favorite games, including System Shock 2, Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings, Age of Mythology, and Orcs Must Die. »
 

Frecklestein

Tender, Violent and Queer.
Oct 23, 2018
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Why? Nobody but you can see that you were a jerk. It's a good reminder, sometimes. :grinning-face-with-smiling-eyes:
Maybe one day, I wont have to hold the awful secret that Frecklestein is actually, in fact, PottyParty4326

:jj_potato:
Post automatically merged:

If the let it die one wasn't dead, I might consider jumping back into the game to wrap it up.
 

OSatan

OFather OSun
This one looks nice:


To quote the developer's website:

«C Prompt Games is an independent studio founded by Robert Fermier and Ian M. Fischer, experienced developers who have led the creation of some of your favorite games, including System Shock 2, Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings, Age of Mythology, and Orcs Must Die. »
"A unique narrative strategy-RPG inspired by classic boardgames like Arkham Horror and Pandemic."

This right here makes me all hot inside. I mean they have nothing in common but the narrative possibilities. :chefkiss

If they had said Mage Knight...
 

Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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Oman
ko-fi.com
So I've decided to save up on Gems and now I have over 1,000, what's a booster pack I can make that I can then sell and rake in some good moola?
 
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「Echo」

鈴鹿御前。
Nov 1, 2018
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Mt. Whatever
So I've decided to save up on Gems and now I have over 1,000, what's a booster pack I can make that I can then sell and rake in some good moola?
Uh, a couple days ago I woulda said Catherine. After 160 Steam levels, I've learned that anime games just after release tend to trade for the most money. I once sold some niche shump ("Gun Wings "I think?) profile BG, for like $27 lol.

But once more and more people start crafting the prices plummet REALLY quick. So you gotta be on top of new releases if you wanna make big money.

Well that said, I'm more of a crafter than trader. I try to keep one of everything I end up crafting, and gem or sell the dupes only.
 
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Xclash

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Dec 13, 2018
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So I've decided to save up on Gems and now I have over 1,000, what's a booster pack I can make that I can then sell and rake in some good moola?
Catherine Classic is one off the top of my head. Anywhere from .55 to .71 cents.. Regular cards going from .20 to .31
 
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AHA-Lambda

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Well here's an interesting one, The Sinking City (the other upcoming Cthulhu game after the one that just came out at the end of last year), has changed it's date on the store page from March 21st to just 2019.


I'd anticipate a delay for this, as they seem to be slightly cagey on social media about confirming or denying a delay either way actually - which is just odd.
Besides the day before Sekiro is a piss poor slot for it anyway.

EDIT: As a second point, just for me, what exactly is the connection between Chaos;Child and Stein's;Gate? Is it sequels, spin-offs, a Final Fantasy-like vague connection a la similar themes?
I heard it's a sequel to Chaos;Head do I need to play that (although it's not on Steam)?
Knurek?
 
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Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
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Well here's an interesting one, The Sinking City (the other upcoming Cthulhu game after the one that just came out at the end of last year), has changed it's date on the store page from March 21st to just 2019.


I'd anticipate a delay for this, as they seem to be slightly cagey on social media about confirming or denying a delay either way actually - which is just odd.
Besides the day before Sekiro is a piss poor slot for it anyway.

EDIT: As a second point, just for me, what exactly is the connection between Chaos;Child and Stein's;Gate? Is it sequels, spin-offs, a Final Fantasy-like vague connection a la similar themes?
I heard it's a sequel to Chaos;Head do I need to play that (although it's not on Steam)?
Knurek?
Don't want to be that guy but, maybe EPIC timed exclusive too? this just happened with Ashen and Outer Wilds plus some more so, it's a possibility but also could be what you said, day of Sekiro? not that good idea.
 
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