Community MetaSteam | October 2021 - Guardians of Ashes: Maiden of Empires

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Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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Real question is will Epic release info graphics for this year like they did for previous two.
I think they will. I actually think they will have pretty good revenue growth as their 2021 exclusives have been higher profile compared to 2020 (Hitman, Kingdom Hearts and Chivalry) and they have gotten access to more day one releases for multiplatform games such as Humankind, Back 4 Blood and Battlefield 2042. My completely uneducated guesses are that their third party revenue will probably be in the 350-450 million range with MAUs being between 60 and 70 million (they were at 58 million in August).
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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And due to the lack of community features, those who do play it on PC will have difficulties finding a place to talk about it. I mean, you have a subreddit and Discord, but Discords are closed off from the public, as in, you need to do some stuff to get access to it while Steams community features are open to public view. There's a reason some people use Steam forums for help with EGSxclusives.
This. I can't help rolling me eyes when I see people shouting that Steam forums are a toxic mess and should be discontinued asap. Each and every time I asked for help on the Steam forums, I got very useful responses from helpful and friendly people.

Not saying that there aren't any trolls or toxic people on Steam's forums, but these people should be dealt with instead of removing the forums completely.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Do we have a mechanical keyboard thread ? Curious about them but pretty easily annoyed by noise. Cherry Blue or Brown look pretty low noise, are they good for gaming ?
Red sounds like a circus troupe just entered your home by the sound of the youtube video I glimpsed.
 
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Mivey

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Do we have a mechanical keyboard thread ? Curious about them but pretty easily annoyed by noise. Cherry Blue or Brown look pretty low noise, are they good for gaming ?
Red sounds like a circus troupe just entered your home by the sound of the youtube video I glimpsed.
Blues are not silent switches. Way louder than reds. There also shouldn't be a big difference in noise from reds to browns. The issue with using audio recordings from the internet is that noise level will depend massively on how sensitive the microphone is, how far it is from the keyboard, and the room it's being recorded in. That's before considering that the particular keyboards and the used keycaps also massively affect the sounds profile, and volume too.

Generally, mechanical switches are louder than membrane keyboards, with the exception of silent switches, that try to dampen the noise generated at the upstroke or downstroke. I currently type this using Gazzew Bobba Silent U4 switches, which are impressively silent, while still giving you some tactility. Silent linear switches are also not hard to find.

For gaming I prefer linear switches, as I don't want to think about the typing process. For work, I prefer tactile switches (or clicky ones, at home where the noise isn't driving co-workers insane), and those Bobba U4 are just amazing, while being impressively quiet.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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Real question is will Epic release info graphics for this year like they did for previous two.
Yes, that's for granted.

I think they will. I actually think they will have pretty good revenue growth as their 2021 exclusives have been higher profile compared to 2020 (Hitman, Kingdom Hearts and Chivalry) and they have gotten access to more day one releases for multiplatform games such as Humankind, Back 4 Blood and Battlefield 2042. My completely uneducated guesses are that their third party revenue will probably be in the 350-450 million range with MAUs being between 60 and 70 million (they were at 58 million in August).
I expect them to gain around additional 70-80 million when compared to last year, however, even with the newest additions, it's difficult to calculate the impact because as we have been discussing, it's difficult to keep track of conversation, engagement and so.
Do we have a mechanical keyboard thread ? Curious about them but pretty easily annoyed by noise. Cherry Blue or Brown look pretty low noise, are they good for gaming ?
Red sounds like a circus troupe just entered your home by the sound of the youtube video I glimpsed.
I have Cherry blue and let me tell you I chose them for not being silent or low noisy hahaha
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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Not saying that there aren't any trolls or toxic people on Steam's forums, but these people should be dealt with instead of removing the forums completely.
And most of the toxic behavior could and should be dealt with by the devs and pubs of the games. They CAN appoint moderators to their own forums. Either "Fans" or people from their own company.

everyone is in arms about attacks on specific characters or themes in a game (People of color or LGBTQ themes), but fail to recognize that the developer or the publisher could just ban those people or discussions themselves. But they don't.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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So this is shit

Noted :confounded-face:

Because I'm not mad, Cherry Blue and Brown are more silent than Cherry Red or Silent here ?
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Because I'm not mad, Cherry Blue and Brown are more silent than Cherry Red or Silent here ?
Yeah that video is bad. It compares different keyboards ( not good as it makes it hard to compare the sound characteristics), and uses even different recording setups, which completely ruins any comparability. Those reds sound louder because that audio recording just happens to be more sensitive, either the mike is closer to the board or the sensitivity has been turned up.

Though let me point out here, that even normal Cherry reds will be pretty loud if all you are used so far are membrane keyboards. You have more mechanical moving parts, and that will always produce more of a sound than something with barely any mechanical moving parts. Even the best silent switches just approximate membrane, but are usually still a tiny bit louder.

Not that I blame that Youtuber, providing accurate audio recordings of how switches sound is literally a science onto itself.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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Do we have a mechanical keyboard thread ? Curious about them but pretty easily annoyed by noise. Cherry Blue or Brown look pretty low noise, are they good for gaming ?
My PC is in the living room, so I'm using a Corsair Gaming STRAFE RGB Silent mechanical keyboard. The Cherry MX Silent keys are very silent for a mechanical keyboard, I've never heard my wife or daughter complaining about noise (unlike my xbox controller or steering wheel :p)
I will be bold and say that Epic Store data will show another stagnation or even less revenue compared to last year XD
That's very unlikely. As Mor said, there are a lot more non-exclusive games on EGS. While 95% of the pc gamers will still buy these games on Steam, this 5% will result in a decent growth for EGS. Also, Chivalry 2 and Hitman 3 probably sold very well.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
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Context !

- I have no way of trying before buying, so there is that. I relatively hate noise. I'm constantly trying to not buy pricey shit*.

- That being said, I vaguely remember a time when keyboards where keyboards, were they mechanical I don't know. Then everybody went flat, mushy buttons. It was annoying. Then I bought a Logitech Illuminated keyboard and... got used to it ? But I'm more and more annoyed at mistyping or understrokes, maybe that's my brain being old, or is it this old keyboard ?

- On a vaguely related topic, I recently bought a cheap Logitech K120 for my mother and while I haven't used it extensively, I hate my time with it.

Hence the dilemna. Maybe mechanical would be a godsend to me, maybe a waste of money. But the Illuminated Keyboard is getting old something fierce. Not as old as the G502 with its mouse wheel on its death bed (farrrrr more recent, piece of shit), but it's getting there.


* then again a new illuminated is already near 100 euros, so not that cheap either
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Okay, don't worry about switches then or think of them last. Mechanical keyboards are pricey because they have more parts.
Think about the actual keyboard properties of ones you like using. Actually, think about WHY you dislike certain keyboards and make a list of features so you can avoid them.

Keyboard layout, key cap profile/shape, the cluster of ctrl/win/alt & shift keys have different sizes on some keyboards for example. Those physical features will make a bigger impact than just the type of switch underneath.

For testing can you go to electronic stores and try their keyboards? We have places like Staples, Currys and other stores where they have keyboards on display. There again COVID has probably made them put those away. hmmm.
 
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Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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I will be bold and say that Epic Store data will show another stagnation or even less revenue compared to last year XD
There hasn't been a decline in any year yet, they won't get as much money as a lot of people expect but a decrease is not possible with a bigger offer in terms of products, just by natural evolution that means more copies have been sold there (even if there is a low number compared to other competitors, and trust me, multistore releases are low compared to Steam/GOG)

That's very unlikely. As Mor said, there are a lot more non-exclusive games on EGS. While 95% of the pc gamers will still buy these games on Steam, this 5% will result in a decent growth for EGS. Also, Chivalry 2 and Hitman 3 probably sold very well.
Both Chivalry and Hitman 3 I'm sure did well if we keep in mind it's within this launcher, the main drivers for both I'm sure are consoles (at least for what I can see via top sellers from all systems) but yeah, those two will be main drivers of the store in 2021, same can be said about KH even tho their impact was lowkey as hell but keep in mind that we might be able to see some of this data in the next Q results from their respective companies.
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Hence the dilemna. Maybe mechanical would be a godsend to me, maybe a waste of money. But the Illuminated Keyboard is getting old something fierce. Not as old as the G502 with its mouse wheel on its death bed (farrrrr more recent, piece of shit), but it's getting there.
You can get a full sized mechanical keyboard from Keychron for about 59$ (exluding shipping) Keychron C2 Wired Mechanical Keyboard
Not too pricey, and Keychron is usually decent quality. This one also has the advantage of being hotswappable, which means you can remove the switches and use other ones without needing to resolder anything. So you can use it to try out a number of switches and see what you like. You buy a decent number of switches directly from the keychron site (and many other places too)

There's no real way of knowing what type of keyboard you may like without trying it for some time.
 

dex3108

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Dec 20, 2018
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My PC is in the living room, so I'm using a Corsair Gaming STRAFE RGB Silent mechanical keyboard. The Cherry MX Silent keys are very silent for a mechanical keyboard, I've never heard my wife or daughter complaining about noise (unlike my xbox controller or steering wheel :p)


That's very unlikely. As Mor said, there are a lot more non-exclusive games on EGS. While 95% of the pc gamers will still buy these games on Steam, this 5% will result in a decent growth for EGS. Also, Chivalry 2 and Hitman 3 probably sold very well.
There hasn't been a decline in any year yet, they won't get as much money as a lot of people expect but a decrease is not possible with a bigger offer in terms of products, just by natural evolution that means more copies have been sold there (even if there is a low number compared to other competitors, and trust me, multistore releases are low compared to Steam/GOG)


Both Chivalry and Hitman 3 I'm sure did well if we keep in mind it's within this launcher, the main drivers for both I'm sure are consoles (at least for what I can see via top sellers from all systems) but yeah, those two will be main drivers of the store in 2021, same can be said about KH even tho their impact was lowkey as hell but keep in mind that we might be able to see some of this data in the next Q results from their respective companies.

Hey someone needs to bet against the house XD
 

「Echo」

鈴鹿御前。
Nov 1, 2018
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Mt. Whatever
anyone here gone through chemotherapy? Does it get any easier? puking my guts out every morning, headaches, achey as fuck, and just tired all the time. Taking a shitton of meds. Barely making it through each day, I hate this.

Colon cancer. They found it after a big surgery for my Crohns disease. I'm doing 15-days chemo, 1-week break, than back to it. 4-6 cycles depending on results the doctors say. :sick:
 

ListeningGarden

目をそらした瞬間
Nov 12, 2018
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anyone here gone through chemotherapy? Does it get any easier? puking my guts out every morning, headaches, achey as fuck, and just tired all the time. Taking a shitton of meds. Barely making it through each day, I hate this.

Colon cancer. They found it after a big surgery for my Crohns disease. I'm doing 15-days chemo, 1-week break, than back to it. 4-6 cycles depending on results the doctors say. :sick:

i was the caretaker for my mother when she had cancer, and every day was like going uphill more or less. even if at times it feels dehumanizing, just remember that pain won't be there forever! sending it into complete remission will have you feeling better in time.

i'm so sorry you're going through this, you will know better days again.
 

Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
Dec 5, 2018
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And most of the toxic behavior could and should be dealt with by the devs and pubs of the games. They CAN appoint moderators to their own forums. Either "Fans" or people from their own company.

everyone is in arms about attacks on specific characters or themes in a game (People of color or LGBTQ themes), but fail to recognize that the developer or the publisher could just ban those people or discussions themselves. But they don't.
While it is true that game devs can moderate their own games' forums, moderating a forum does take time and energy and especially reading through hate-filled comments takes a mental and emotional toll. And much like Discord et all you then end up with each forum only being as good as the individual moderators you can find to enforce things. The real problem is Steam, like all sites with social aspects, does not ban aggressively enough bad actors. If someone posts something hate-filled or dangerous in ANY Steam forum they need to not be permitted to post in ANY Steam forum, period. First for a long time (weeks) and then permanently. All sites need much more aggressive moderation against hate and extremist rhetoric and none of the big ones take it seriously, including Steam.

The lack of moderation of people on Steam as a platform for damaging speech is probably my single biggest complaint and it is 100% something Valve themselves have to take responsibility for, even if they need to hire some more people or outsource to someone somewhere. If a group of people can just hop from forum to forum for game after game reposting problematic stuff that's not on the devs to handle, nor is it possible for them all to.
 

Morten88

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Aug 8, 2021
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Real question is will Epic release info graphics for this year like they did for previous two.
They probably will, but i dont expect it to be a big growth, didnt they had alot more exclusives the other years? If third party sales wasnt that great, i fully expect them to try and spin it and merge the numbers with fortnite, rocket league and fall guys and make it look better than last year.

The biggest question for me is if steam will have had a growth this year, last year was pretty insane for them, but they have had some hits this year, but idk if it will be enough.
 
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NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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damn , that must be pretty annoying , thx god my fucked up brain can at least switch easilyly between work / entertainment / socialmedia and zone out easily no matter the device i use .... be it phone, pc laptop, conosole ,...
on other hand one thing my body strongly fight against is solo couchgaming as when i focus on the game by body is too agitated to really enjoy the comfort of the couch , but when i get supercomfortable on the couch it makes gaming too much of an effort activity and sleep, snuggl or just simple watch is easier... and so far i just havent found a midde ground to comfotably game like this
..

humans work weird ways i guess
Im the kind of person that cannot relax if I have something else to do
 
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fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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Watching SkillUps video


I can say that I sadly didn't get the chance to play the beta on my PC (was home for a vacation, didn't take my desktop with me), but I played the XboneX version of the beta and it was really bad. So I will be waiting for Steam reviews for BF2042. I've actually liked every BF game I've played so that kind of saddens me.
 
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Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
Dec 5, 2018
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That is where AI is welcome. One could do an in-house classification of comments... or use built-in sentiment analysis or summarizing features these days.



Whenever someone posts a wall of text, I read the summary provided by AI. Sorry, guys. :toucan:
I'm going to take it as a compliment that my writing is so coherent that an AI can relatively accurately summarize my post like that. AI can help BUT, and this is a big but, you still need a lot of people to validate stuff, because AI is always going to miss things and it's always going to ban people erroneously. This is actually the big problem with automatic ban processes in games, they rely too heavily on AI and tune it to be too careful because they don't have people to actually validate any of it.
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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That is where AI is welcome. One could do an in-house classification of comments... or use built-in sentiment analysis or summarizing features these days.



Whenever someone posts a wall of text, I read the summary provided by AI. Sorry, guys. :toucan:
Honestly, once AI has reached the point where this works reliably enough, I imagine that it will be the first thing Valve will do with it. Going for automated schemes like this has been their approach for anything.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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EA was trying to buy Steam way back in 2011/2012 from what I remember for $1 billion USD and that didn't happen.

MS was able to buy Zenimax for $7.5 billion USD and that was at the time the biggest video game acquisition to date. Is it safe to assume Valve would sell for over $10 billion USD?
GabeN Valve? Sure.
GabeN's inheritor's Valve? I'd just sell the whole thing for a $1 billion and live off the money for the rest of my life.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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So we have AI used to make summary of long texts and to automatically ban "people", and the other side probably also using AI to generate the same long texts while trying to avoid triggering the bans.

So this is how it all begins.... AI trolls vs AI moderators. We are going to end with terminators because people wanted to be racist/sexist/etc.
 

fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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I guess when platform you decided to release your products on doesn't have one you need to make your own (this includes consoles).
Lol, most people playing the game and especially people not playing the game will never know about that site. I mean, I have the game on EGS, big fan of Alan Wake (as some of you alreayd know), yet your post is the only reason I know about that site and I can't bother posting anything. Steams community features are far easier and more convenient to use than this.
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Don't see Valve selling anytime soon, even after Gabe Newell steps down or passes away. They literally have a never ending money source with Steam, and being at Valve lets them do whatever the fuck they wish to do with that money. I assume most long term employees there are already multi-millionaires, and so what's the point in getting more money if you are a creative person who wants to continue being creative?
 

dex3108

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Dec 20, 2018
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Lol, most people playing the game and especially people not playing the game will never know about that site. I mean, I have the game on EGS, big fan of Alan Wake (as some of you alreayd know), yet your post is the only reason I know about that site and I can't bother posting anything. Steams community features are far easier and more convenient to use than this.
These day and age i really wonder why developers/publishers really think that making official community sites for each of their franchises is smart. Sure you have more control but same as streaming services, if every single companies does this then people will just get divided and tired of visiting separate sites.

Don't see Valve selling anytime soon, even after Gabe Newell steps down or passes away. They literally have a never ending money source with Steam, and being at Valve lets them do whatever the fuck they wish to do with that money. I assume most long term employees there are already multi-millionaires, and so what's the point in getting more money if you are a creative person who wants to continue being creative?
I mean from all of those interviews Gabe is already kinda less involved in day to day operations at Valve. He has his areas of interest like brain interfaces and he is focusing on that.
 

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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France
I enjoy playing prudis's favourite game: Ring of Pain. It takes time getting used to it, but once it clicks, it is great.

You explore a dungeon level in the shape of a circle of cards (enemies, treasures, health potions, doors, shuffle cards, etc.). You always face at most two cards. You can:
  • either interact with one of the two cards,
  • or move to the left or to the right, at the risk of getting attacked by an enemy.
So the game is very simple in appearance. However, you have lots of meaningful choices, in terms of item builds, interactions with enemies, etc.


 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Don't see Valve selling anytime soon, even after Gabe Newell steps down or passes away. They literally have a never ending money source with Steam, and being at Valve lets them do whatever the fuck they wish to do with that money. I assume most long term employees there are already multi-millionaires, and so what's the point in getting more money if you are a creative person who wants to continue being creative?
Valve being self-funded and private owned is the only reason Valve can still be Valve, so I don't think Gabe will sell or Valve going public.
 
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