Tag: Steam

[NM] PSA: Minion Masters Voidborne Onslaught DLC Free


Minion Masters is a game you may not have heard of; it bills itself as a 1v1 or 2v2 hybrid of a deckbuilder, MOBA, and tower defense. It currently stands with a 95% “Overwhelmingly Positive” review score on Steam, and you can play it for free.

And if you are planning on playing Minion Masters in the future, I recommend checking out and activating the Voidborne Onslaught DLC which is currently free. The DLC normally runs $14.99, but if you activate it prior to March 15, you’ll get it for the low, low price of zero [insert your currency].

“Voidborne Onslaught is the Faction Box for starting your Voidborne Army – or adding some reinforcements to your existing Voidborne collection. This is a great +300% value bundle of Voidborne Minions, including the massive Legendary Colossus as well as 2 exclusive Voidborne cosmetics.”

Check out the game’s Steam page for more details. Voidborne Onslaught contains a number of resources for your army as well as exclusive cosmetics.

PSA: Conan Exiles Free Weekend Starts Now


Just a reminder to you multiplayer survival fans: Conan Exiles is hosting a free weekend starting now. You can pick the game up on Steam and play it until Sunday March 11.

The free weekend comes in alongside a host of balance tweaks, performance optimizations, and a new VOIP voice chat system. In addition, new purges, a new world boss, and other pieces of content have been added into the game. If you enjoy Conan Exiles enough to buy it, the game is also 50% off.

Source: Steam

Daybreak Alters Planetside Arena Launch Plans, Hitting Playstation 4


Daybreak’s upcoming spinoff Planetside Arena is changing course. Somewhat.

In an announcement posted on the official website this week, Daybreak thanked its closed beta testers for their invaluable feedback, and announced that after much consideration the PC-only release will be postponed. The good news is that this delay is to make way for the Playstation 4 version which will launch alongside the PC version this summer. Unfortunately this does mean that the founders beta will be cancelled and all buyers of Planetside Arena on Steam are being refunded their purchases.

The beta program will be extended ahead of launch later this year.

Source: Planetside Arena

Deep Silver Latest To Snub Valve For the Epic Store


Another day, another publisher picked up by the lure of more money. Deep Silver is the latest publisher to become ensnared in the growing Epic Games Store, with Steam players being notified that Metro Exodus, which has been up for pre-order on Steam, will no longer be on sale as of today. Metro does not release until February 15, and Deep Silver has assured Valve that those who pre-ordered will still be able to access the game and future updates.

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

The initial reaction by the Metro community has not been positive, with the announcement being very quickly deleted following a wave of negative feedback. Negative reactions have already begun flooding the Steam forums with players assuring developer 4A Games and publisher Deep Silver that the store shift has convinced them to not purchase the game period. We will most likely know in a few months time whether the exclusivity deal was as lucrative as 4A Games hopes.

Source: Steam

Guardians of Ember Returns Under Gameforge


Guardians of Ember is a title so popular, I’d be willing to bet that every person reading this article hasn’t quite gotten over its untimely removal from Steam following publisher Insel Games being caught attempting to manipulate review scores. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the population of Guardians of Ember hasn’t been doing so well after its removal from Steam, or that Insel Games is no longer in charge of publishing it. Like a phoenix, Guardians of Ember hopes to rise from the ashes and presumably save Harry Potter’s life at the end of Chamber of Secrets.

What does this mean? First, Guardians of Ember is back in closed beta, and that the game will become free to play as opposed to its plan of being buy to play under the previous regime.

Those of you who bought Guardians of Ember under Insel Games will immediately have access to it under Gameforge. Whether Valve will allow the game back on Steam following this publisher transfer is yet to be seen.

Source: Steam

Reminder: Steam Will No Longer Function On Windows XP/Vista Tomorrow


Does anyone still use Windows XP or Vista to play Steam? Unsurprisingly, the answer is yes. According to a November 2018 Steam software/hardware survey, approximately .12% of Steam users are still on Windows XP while Windows Vista is, to put it bluntly, presently unlisted. Presumably Vista users are lumped into the .09% currently running “other” versions of the Windows operating system.

At least, Windows XP users will making up .12% of the population until tomorrow, as January 1 not only marks the beginning of a new year but the official end of life support for Steam on both systems. Valve announced the end of support back in June of this year, and as of tomorrow the client will no longer function for owners of either operating system.

As far as the internet goes, Valve is one of the few remaining companies to have continued support for Windows XP through 2018 along with League of Legends. Blizzard ended support for DirectX9 and 32-bit operating systems in 2017, as did Neverwinter, while Heroes & Generals left the OS behind in 2015.

ATLAS Hits Steam To Mostly Negative Reviews


ATLAS is “the ultimate survival MMO of unprecedented scale with 40,000+ simultaneous players in the same world.” At least, that’s how it was advertised by Grapeshot Games. Following multiple last minute delays, ATLAS hit Steam Early Access on December 22 and early access is exactly where it will stay for a good long time.

But Steam users aren’t impressed. The game currently sits at a mostly negative 22% positive despite approximately thirty seven thousand people logged in and playing at 10am on Christmas Eve. People are citing ATLAS as effectively being a DLC item that was spun off into its own game, compounding issues revolving around latency, connection, and various other bugs.

One player stumbled upon a hidden menu in ATLAS that is directly from ARK, as others in the same Reddit thread have been notating similarities between the two titles.

If you picked up ATLAS at launch, we’d like to know your experience.

Editorial: Wild West Online Doesn’t Care, Can’t Even Be Bothered Cleaning Its Forums


Wild West Online, the latest racket supported by the industry’s lead fraudster Sergey Titov, has landed itself in a shallow grave along with all of Titov’s other half-baked products. Given Titov’s modus operandi when it comes to releasing games, Wild West Online has been abandoned not even half-finished and plans are already underway to launch a spin off! Yes, everyone’s favorite Wild West shooter will be made free to play and fired back onto the internet in the form of Frontiers, the base game, and Magnificent 5, the battle royale title.

As of this writing, Wild West Online has one player online on Steam. As for WWO Partners Ltd, or whatever new shell company Titov has set up to continue this game’s existence, they’ve stopped keeping up a facade of caring. The forums have descended into a mess of spam and scam links, and of the six staff members listed on the forums, nobody has bothered posting in nearly two months while most haven’t even logged in since May or earlier.

Which is all par for the course for Wild West Online and its predecessors.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Maplestory 2 Receives Biggest Update Yet


Maplestory 2 has revealed the first phase of the Skybound Expansion, introducing a new class, new events, and special rewards.

The update promises to be the game’s biggest yet, bringing with it the new Soul Binder class. The Soul Binder is a hybrid magic damage dealer and healer. Players will continue their Epic Quests with new missions assigned by each faction leader and travel to the Sky Fortress, a new staging ground warship that flies high above the world. Additionally, Skybound sees the release of the Maple Arena, a 1-on-1, best of three matchup where players can show off their skills and obtain new PvP gear. New chaos raids are being added with hard adventure dungeons adjusted to help players gear up for them.

For the first month of the update, players over level 10 will receive a care package including 30 elixers, 30 master potions, and a level up booster ticket. Once players hit level 60, they can claim additional items including a level-up potion to instantly boost an alt to level 50.

For more information, check out the official website.

Epic Games Offers 88% Revenue Cut To Developers


Epic Games this week has announced the unveiling of the Epic Games store, a new digital distribution platform that aims to court third party developers and publishers with lucrative rates. The digital platform will launch with a library of hand-curated titles on PC and Mac and will eventually expand to Android and other open platforms throughout 2019.

What Epic is offering is a platform where developers take a cool 88% cut of revenue. This puts the platform in stark contrast to Steam where the developer takes home 70% (65% if using the Unreal engine). For developers using the Unreal engine, Epic is willing to eat the usual 5% royalty fee. Epic also promises that developers will have control of their news feed with no store-placed ads or cross-marketing of competing games visible.

More information on Epic’s store will be available on December 6 at the Game Awards.

(Source: Epic Games)