Octopus Overlords

I'm not going to lie - my purchases for the near future are definitely going to be tied to being able to unlock trading cards. When I started this a few weeks ago, I figured I'd make a few dollars, but I clearly exceeded my own expectations. I could probably clear another $5 if I sold my current inventory, but I'm going to focus on unlocking those level one badges...because...well, I need help.

Yeah, I saw people in Russia, Japan and the UK were buying my stuff. Pretty impressive. I'm not 100% sure, but I think when you purchase something off the STEAM store not only does Valve take a cut for every sale, but the owner of the game makes a small percentage as well. Genius!

Yes to all of that.

Is Magicka supposed to seem buggy, perform poorly, tick me off, and generally make me feel like I have little control and don't really know what's going on? Because I have real life for that.

JetFred wrote:Is Magicka supposed to seem buggy, perform poorly, tick me off, and generally make me feel like I have little control and don't really know what's going on? Because I have real life for that.

It's supposed to be unpredictable hilarity. Imagine playing co-op and messing up a spell and blowing your companions off the map. Accidentally, of course.

I found a handful of combos that worked and stuck with them. IIRC, water, then cold, then rock when they were frozen seemed to work well for me. There were some frustrating points but if you keep trying, something weird and usually funny will happen to grant you the victory.

I wanted to love magicka but I got stuck in a hole right at the start and never got past it. I think MP is where the fun was. If anyone wants to try MP just give me a yell and Ill reinstall and try it.

Got my first booster pack while playing a different (non-card-drop) game. Worth about $1.60. I like surprise money. Considering how many games I've already finished drops for (20), I'm hoping this happens fairly often.

So I haven't actually played a game in a week. I just start up a game that drops cards and walk away until all the cards drop and then start up the next one. Only one more game to do, just in time for the new BL2 dlc

As per the latest patch update news, Endless Space was just added to the Trading Cards program - which was supposed to go live at 2pm EST, but is apparently on "Valve time".

EDIT: It's out now. And Crusader Kings II has been added, at least as far as my badge page is concerned. The launch page for the Trading Cards program suggests Skyrim is involved now too...

LOL I see they finally added a badge for games owned, so at least buying 300+ games gave me a bunch of Steam XP.

Smoove_B wrote:As per the latest patch update news, Endless Space was just added to the Trading Cards program - which was supposed to go live at 2pm EST, but is apparently on "Valve time".

EDIT: It's out now. And Crusader Kings II has been added, at least as far as my badge page is concerned. The launch page for the Trading Cards program suggests Skyrim is involved now too...

I see psychonauts as well.

I was hoping they'd publish an updated list, but even when you search the store and sort by "trading cards", they haven't included the alleged new additions:

EDIT: Now I'm seeing the official update in the Trading Cards group, with the new games added today:

Binding of Isaac
Company of Heroes 2
GRID 2
Warframe
Crusader Kings II
Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4
Psychonauts

I played Don't Starve and have: Wendy; Willow; Maxwell

Market's a bit flooded now, of course. At least I had done everything but Brutal Legend, making 4 badges for me, 2 for my son, and $21.13.

With the hit the market has taken due to yesterday's release from beta, I'm thinking of holding onto the cards I earn between now and the Steam sale so I can see what they plan to do with it.

In the meantime, let me know if you want to trade me something for my Isaac, Crusader, or Psychonauts drops.

And I'm annoyed that I still haven't see a foil drop.

IceBear wrote:So I haven't actually played a game in a week. I just start up a game that drops cards and walk away until all the cards drop and then start up the next one. Only one more game to do, just in time for the new BL2 dlc

I thought about this, but the games with cards are largely worth playing, at least for the hour or so that it takes to get all drops. It has been the perfect amount of time to make me get the feel for a game I installed and ignored, which is 90% of my collection. Since each game in my account probably averages out to 5 minutes of play each, I've enjoyed the incentive.

The only game I walked away from for the whole time was Guns of Icarus online since the practice mode is sleep-inducing (actually I slept in front of it rather than walking away), and the only game that made me want to kill myself has been Meatboy. The art style of that game and Isaac are, in my opinion, about as embarrassingly stupid as the Fruit F*cker from Penny Arcade. If that's supposed to be bold, creative, edgy, or ironic, then Beavis and Butthead was the culmination of all the art and creativity that geek culture has to offer. (Sorry, hitbyambulance, you big Isaac lover you. You can insult U2 or Poker Night or something if I deserve that.)

Oh, I play them when I can. But between working and watching my 2 yo son, my playtime is limited. This was a great way for me to maximize my time - I work and let the games run in the background and collect money (I mean cards) When I do have playtime, I play the games I feel like - if they drop cards too then that's bonus

Just crafted a badge for FTL and unlocked a coupon for Strike Suit Infinity (50% off). So now do I try to trade that coupon away or buy the game for $3.50 and possibly make back ~$2.00 with random card drops??

This is what the new STEAM is all about.

Smoove_B wrote:Just crafted a badge for FTL and unlocked a coupon for Strike Suit Infinity (50% off). So now do I try to trade that coupon away or buy the game for $3.50 and possibly make back ~$2.00 with random card drops??

This is what the new STEAM is all about.

I did the TF2 badge. I got a 90% off coupon for a $10 game. I doubt the game will get cards but I bought it anyway. I mean $1?

Worst case it goes on sale for $4.99 and I could have bought it for $0.50 with the coupon (expires July 8).

Freezer-TPF- wrote:Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel.

Considering what I've sunk into the market in the past month, this Trading Card stuff is like a nice relaxing way to unwind.

Edit: I put all my doubles and stuff I don't want up on the marketplace for now. I figure I'll buy the ones I do want with the spoils.

So uh, how do we do this? I have a spare FTL Kestrel Cruiser to trade. Also be willing to part with Binding's The Magician.

I'd like, I guess, the FTL ships I don't have already. (I already have the Stealth Cruiser and Federation Cruiser, in addition.)

Rumor mill has Terraria joining the trading card program soon. Been waiting for an excuse to get back into that one.

It's not in the STEAM directory yet for trading cards, but the upcoming Rise of the Triad remake is...

Smoove_B wrote:It's not in the STEAM directory yet for trading cards...

What directory are you talking about?

If you go to the main page for STEAM and just click on the little magnifying glass to "search" for games by title without typing anything in, it will bring you to a deeper menu. Now, in the advanced search options, far right column, top, look for the "category" drop menu -- towards the bottom you'll see "Steam Trading Cards" as an option.

Click on that now and you'll get a list of every game that supports the Trading Card feature.

Well dang. It's not liked I've never searched that way. I hadn't seen the filter yet. I was just complaining there was no real list. Thanks.

I think it's only been up for a day or two - I just happened to stumble across it myself earlier today. I'm guessing there will be some more "official" announcements to match up with what some folks have already uncovered (Endless Space, Terraria), but until I hear otherwise the search thingy seems to work.

Well, I decided to trade around for Brutal Legends cards and craft the badge even though it took 15 cards. I'm loving the game for the most part. I actually went back to the trading chat room and traded up to make a few dollars more than I would have otherwise, and went ahead and sold what I didn't need. So I unloaded my inventory and now broke $25 net after badges. Thanks to Icebear's contribution, crafting the Brutal Legends badge was worth it.

Terraria would be a fun one to have cards added.

Adding a bunch of OOers to my friends list for possible card trading. Feel free to ignore.

So do badges always award a bonus? Discount coupon or such?

Yes. Crafting a badge always seems to unlock:

Badge Game-related emoticon
Badge Game-related profile wallpaper
Random coupon

The coupons can be traded, but the wallpaper and emoticons can be sold (or traded). From what I've seen they're pretty much worthless ($0.01 to $0.15 if you're lucky) but a lot of that will probably depend on the game and how rare the item is. Everything is crazytown now that the market is open to everyone, so it's really hard to say where things will settle. But during the beta, those prices were more or less accurate.

I wasn't going to purchase any more games since I'm finally making headway with my backlog, but I figured since I made a profit during the beta, what better way to spend it than to re-invest it games that drop cards. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

EDIT: Plus, 10 more games and I get a new badge!

Lord help me -- Euro Truck Simulator 2 will be getting trading cards:

We are featuring 7 trading cards, 5 profile backgrounds, and 10 emoticons. All of course under six levels of badges - all for your Gamer's collection.

Note that any genuine ETS2 Product Key can be used to activate the game on Steam, too.

I wonder if game time is going to start being a meaningless stat on steam as people start leaving games open to try and get booster packs.

Could be. Not sure if they're going to figure out a way to deal with "idle" time earning game cards, though I suppose by limiting drops it doesn't really matter if you play the game for 2 hours or let it sit for 12 -- you're still only getting 4 drops.

That's why I think the upcoming Summer sale is going to include giving out card drops to people that own the game and/or bonus drops to people that purchase it during a promotional sale. In addition to all the sales, you're also then going to have people earning badges and unlocking special coupons. Furthermore, publishers are going to make money on games sold plus every time a card is sold on the marketplace - including cards being generated by existing owners that were just given additional drops.

Smoove_B wrote:Could be. Not sure if they're going to figure out a way to deal with "idle" time earning game cards, though I suppose by limiting drops it doesn't really matter if you play the game for 2 hours or let it sit for 12 -- you're still only getting 4 drops.

You might have missed this news:

Booster packs: Booster packs are additional cards for games that will drop periodically. Anyone who has collected all the trading card drops they can for a game and have used Steam in the last week may receive one of these booster packs. These packs contain three additional cards for the game, and may contain foils. If you receive a booster, you will get a "1 new item in your inventory" alert.

Maybe I am misunderstanding, actually - the way it is described in that quote you just have to use Steam, not the particular game. So maybe there is no benefit to leaving the game running.

When you first purchase a game you are given a number of drops as part of your purchase. Could be 3 or 4 depending on game. If you then fire up the game and let it sit idle at the menu, you will get cards every 30-60 minutes (that's a guess based on observations, not a fact) until all of your "drops" are used up. If you play the game for 30-60 minutes you get drops -- it doesn't really matter to STEAM. Game running + drops available = trading cards.

Once you're out of drops (which can happen in under two hours of play time), then yes you are eligible for a booster pack - which is the only way you're going to get free cards for the game ever again. So essentially each game has 5-8 cards to collect (or apparently 37 for Brutal Legend) but they only give you 3 or 4 cards for purchasing the game -- some of which might be dupes. Now it's on you to either straight up trade for the cards you need to craft a badge or buy them in the Marketplace.

That's why I think the summer sale will give out more "drops" for playing (or letting the game run idle). It's easy for them to do and everybody wins.

TF2 and DOTA are different as your drops are connected to in-game purchases, so I'm really just focused on the regular games.

At the moment, all of the games that I have wot drop cards are now listed in my badges page, whereas before the ones I had gotten all drops from were unlisted unless I played them.

Just posted:

Alan Wake
Gun Monkeys
Gratuitous Space Battles
War of the Roses: Kingmaker
Skulls of the Shogun
Endless Space

...no Terraria?

I'm close to grabbing Skulls of the Shogun.. and it's still on sale. This might push me over the edge.

Okay, add Gratuitous Space Battles to the short list of games that I kind of played but mostly let sit idle. It isn't really made for single player of course, and the 5 cards drop pretty slowly.

I finished episode 1 of Alan Wake, and I must be doing something wrong. Instead of feeling terror from the story and atmosphere, I'm feeling terror from the mouse controls. If I turn the sensitivity all the way down, it barely moves, and one click up leaves me swinging and spinning like a crazy person. I'm sure the fights are supposed to be panicked affairs, but I'm just banging at Q and R and running into branches and rocks and shooting all over the place. Goodness knows how I managed to beat Stucky. So am I supposed to square off with every group of dang cheating enemies, or am I supposed to mostly sprint for it and miss the collectibles (pages, coffee, ammo, little light graffiti and radio/TV messages)?

I hate checkpoints. I wish this beautifully atmospheric game were an adventure rather than one hiding behind a Max Payne shooter minus quicksave and bullet time.

JetFred wrote:So am I supposed to square off with every group of dang cheating enemies, or am I supposed to mostly sprint for it and miss the collectibles (pages, coffee, ammo, little light graffiti and radio/TV messages)?

There might have been a few parts where running was the plan, but the game is really a one-trick pony (at least that's how I remember it). The trick, of course, is your flashlight. In checking, the game has full controller support, and that's probably the route I'd recommend. Once you figure out how the gimmick works, it is a bit more adventure-y, but it's definitely adventure couched in action.

Not sure why I'm not getting any cards. I played BL2 for two hours and didn't get anything.

Ale