FPS

Steam Keys: Quake Champions at Quakecon

Posted on by Richard Griever

It’s now official that the original franchise that put the FPS genre on the map is joining the fray of the budding FPS e-sports scene with Quake Champions. It’s invariably a revival of its arena shooter franchise with the twist of the growing popularity of being a team-based shooters like Overwatch and Team Fortress 2.

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Despite the hype of hardcore Quake fans, Quake champions had a relatively odd reaction when it was showcased in Quakecon 2016. At this point, it’s clear that the developers have to work on a few more things for its marketing before they can assume Steam keys will fly off virtual shelves upon its release in, presumably, late 2017 or early 2018.

Steam Keys E-Sports: Street Fighter Meets Quake

The first thing Tim Willits, creative director of the game, presented was that it wasn’t at all going to change from how diehards know the franchase. High-speed, technical combat with rocket jumping and all the complications that put Quake on the map were still in the game. With a showcase of the classic weaponry in a new engine and era, the audience simply lapped up everything that was thrown at them – that is, until the developers showcased the heroes usable in-game.

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Similar to Mobas like League of Legends and Dota or like other class-based shooters like Overwatch, Quake Champions has its, well, champions do unique things like blinking, acrobatics, flying, and a ton of other stuff that set them apart from other champions, giving them distinct advantages over others. While that sounds great for the common gamer, it wasn’t too well received by the truly diehard Quake fans.

The devs, id Software, hoped that this would be a bit more welcomed by their target audience as they see the champion element of the game more as a supplementary element than anything else, setting itself apart from the likes of Mobas and other team-based shooters by having more focus on individual skill rather than the rock-paper-scissors element these other games have for their class mechanics.

id Software knows exactly that there’s this spot for their classic, high-speed, arena-style game in the industry. However, their biggest fear is ending up making Quake 3 once more, but only with improved visuals. This is the sole reason as to why they want the champions element within the game. But the reaction to it is absolutely mixed at best and quite hostile at worst. There are already tons of comments on the internet that Quake Champions should either have the option to turn off the champion uniqueness and possibly be just as moddable as the previous Quake games. Granted, id Software believes that there is more depth in strategy this way, but they may be forgetting what Quake is famous for: Pure skill.
“Street Fighter Meets Quake,” is what id Software thinks of Quake Champions. It is in the sense that everybody has natural moves like heavy kicks, heavy punches, light kicks and etc., but each character has a certain tinge of uniqueness that sets them apart from one another. However, at the end of the day, no matter what sort of special moves you have, it is always the normal moves (in Quake’s case, normal shooting) is what is going to win you the match. As much as that kind of makes sense, what team-based shooter ISN’T about the shooting? It’s a pretty generic description of what they’re going for, to be completely honest.
There’s going to be a lot more kinks for them to work on if they’re going to want this to be accepted by their loyal fanbase, let alone the casual fanbase that is more likely to get the game e-sports status than any other demographic. I’m feeling quite optimistic about Quake Champions and that it can safely enter the major stage of e-sports, but id Software has a lot of work to do before those Steam keys sell.

 

TF2 Trading: Last Part

Posted on by Mei Satsuki

Last time I shared to you, TF2 players and TF2 trading people, the last part of an amazing story about LoopsCode who achieved his dream with the help of actually playing Team Fortress 2.

TF2 Trading: Some Last Words

Well, we finished reading his story but he has some parting words and actually the moral of his own story. Here it goes:

So this is my story of how TF2 helped me achieved my dream of getting a job in Silicon Valley.

The lesson I learned is – just be a good person. Be a good person even under the veil of anonymity. You don’t know when it will bite you in the butt, or when it will literally help you achieve your dreams. Just do it!

tl;dr air shots and med picks achieve dreams

EDIT: I swear I wouldn’t do these type of “front page EDITs”, but damn, I woke up to 800 upvotes and a gild. Thank you all so much for receiving this so well. Frankly, I was pretty happy when I got 10 upvotes.. I’ll try my best to respond to each and every one of your comments, but if I miss you, I apologize 🙂

TF2 Trading, TF2 items, TF2, Team Fortress 2

 

This guy is very humble indeed. You know you will get so many blessings if you stay humble and do what you do.

There is one comment that I would like to highlights and it came from Jordanis. He said:

“The lesson here, folks, is make some friends.”

That’s true. You play an online game and just make an enemy out of every person you see won’t do you any good. Be humble and friendly always. Who knows, one of those people you bump to might be the closest one you will ever be. Which Kepgnar got right:

“Indeed, “playing TF2” didn’t get you the job, “knowing someone who worked there” got you the job. “playing TF2” helped you develop and demonstrate the skills to back up your referral.

Which seems to be the best way to get in somewhere, almost always.”

So yeah, whether it be giving away TF2 Items or just being friendly, the lesson is be good to everyone you meet and stay that way.

TF2 Market: Good Story Pt. 4

Posted on by Mei Satsuki

Last time I shared with you the third part of a very nice story. Here is the fourth part for you guys to enjoy as Team Fortress 2 fans and active TF2 market patrons.

TF2 Market: Continuation

I arrived at their office a few weeks later in beautiful California. I went through the rounds of interviews starting at 9 AM. After the seven and a half hours of interviews, of testing me everything from algorithms, data structures, building simple apps, asking me questions about design/UX/UI, career motivations, culture fit questions, and more, it was over. I was emotionally/physically/mentally exhausted, but I felt good. I even got to meet Messiah in person for the first time in two years, and he gave me a TF2 shirt. Even after meeting him in person, I still can’t put a face to his voice from Mumble. It’s just too unreal.

After I flew home, I went through one more phone technical interview with them, just to get more data. Considering they are a data analytics company, that made a lot of sense.

So after around 11+ combined hours of interviews, one day, my now-boss called me to extend me an offer. It was my first offer, from a company of my dreams, and after all those rejections! I don’t think happiness described it. After literally nine months of rejections after rejections, of reviewing those excruciating data structures and algorithms questions (which takes time away from me from developing great applications), of waking up knowing I still don’t have a job while friends around me were getting offers – it was finally over. It actually took me three days to fully process the mental load that it’s over.

I achieved my dream, but I didn’t do it alone. Playing TF2 actually helped me achieve my dream. Thank you Messiah, Borat, and the rest of the team for being such good people. I honestly can say I couldn’t have done it without them!

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Wow, Team Fortress 2 isn’t just a game. TF2 can teach some lessons that can be applied in real life. Amazing story. Trade TF2 or not, it’s still a great game. Hope you enjoyed this story by LoopsCode and learned something!

Steam Keys Esports: Overwatch Banning and Crazy Whining

Posted on by Richard Griever

The latest banwave from Blizzard happened just on the 1st of July and it’s been glorious. Tons of people have been banned and the servers haven’t felt cleaner. I knew that one Soldier 76 in that one game was just too good to be playing fairly!

But I digress; Blizzard has been doing a fantastic job in maintaining the integrity of the game by quickly taking out these script kiddies before their taint spreads farther unlike Valve with their treatment of Team Fortress 2. While CS:GO has its automated VAC bans, it doesn’t take everything out and, sometimes, a lot of hacks get right through, only banning the hackers when a live moderator steps in. And, even then, they aren’t too aggressive on the matter. Hackers on Steam sure get the full worth of their Steam keys.

Unfortunately, for Blizzard’s side, script kiddies certainly get punched in the nuts way before they can start doing stupid crap. But what’s even more hilarious is the fact that these same cheaters have the nerve, gall, balls, or whatever you want to call it, to get angry AT Blizzard for an apparently “unfair” ban.

The failure due to the absence of mind of these people are just astonishing. From CS:GO’s VAC porn reddit page, a certain redditor presented to the public the reactions of people in a unnamed gaming forum where they accept cheating fully. I swear that you will not believe what you’ll be reading. In fact, all the reactions in the photo album of reaction screenshots simply scream “staged” in every sense of the word due to how absolutely baffling the reactions are. Then again, there are stranger things in the world.

You can click on the link above to see the full album of the reactions, but here are a couple down below as a sample of what to expect. Enjoy.

Steam Keys: A Few Samples

 

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TF2 Trading: Good Story Pt. 3

Posted on by Mei Satsuki

Last time I shared with you the second part of a very nice story. Here is the third part for you guys to enjoy as Team Fortress 2 fans and active TF2 trading players.

TF2 Trading: Continuation

This is the third part of the (true) story of LoopsCode in Reddit:

Fast forward a few more months, the team sort of disbanded because we all had real life responsibilities to attend to (although no worries, we all shoot the shit on our Slack channel on a daily basis). I was talking to Messiah how I was graduating soon in June 2016, and whether he has any tips for me for job search.

Little did I know, Messiah, who I absolutely admire because he is also the main dev of a Steam based website, works in a company in Silicon Valley. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Recall, I’ve known him for around a year and a half by now, and this is the first time I knew about this. He keeps it very low key, a hint to his character. He asked me if I was interested in his company, which is conveniently located in the center of Silicon Valley.

Am I interested? Am I?? My life long dream has been to work in Silicon Valley. I think interested was an understatement. I was more like – fuck yes I am!

I honestly tried to apply for internships in this area all five years of my college career, with no luck each time. Being able to begin my career in the Valley would actually fulfill a long-time dream of mine.

Messiah put in a good word for me to the CEO of the company knowing what I did with the UGC Roster Verifier tool (and our fun technical discussions on coding and tech in Slack/Mumble), and I scheduled my first call with them.

One call led to another technical call. Then a third culture call. Then finally, I was invited to their office in the Valley for a full day of on-site interviews. I flew over from the East coast; everything was paid for. Was I nervous? Goddamn I was. At this point, I was rejected by a few companies already, and morale was at a new low.

TF2 Trading, TF2 Items, TF2, Team Fortress 2

Whoa, what happens next? Stay put for the next part as we continue on with his story! It’s as if winning a lottery of great TF2 Items.

Top 15 Steam Codes By Player Count

Posted on by Richard Griever

Bored with your tired old games on Steam or other platforms? Or maybe you’re just looking for a ton more players that are active on specific games on Steam? Well, if you are looking to buy Steam games that are out of your regular genres, it may be wise to take a look at the top Steam games that are being played for the past 30 days. It’s always a good thing to look at the trends now and then to be able to look for those specific Steam codes you may want to buy and try out for yourself. Even if you are not a fan of the genre of a specific Steam redeem code, you may find it worthwhile to play with tons of other players that aren’t normally present in single player games or lesser popular multiplayer games.

The Top 15 Steam Codes to Watch Out For

Name Current Players Last 30 Days Peak Players Hours Played
1. Dota 2 564,942  1,084,198 447,215,567
2. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 180,250  636,056 256,314,399
3. Team Fortress 2 38,919  72,643 38,454,926
4. Grand Theft Auto V 33,589  71,778 32,700,360
5. Sid Meier’s Civilization V 32,082  73,683 31,346,320
6. Starbound 29,745  62,201 6,997,268
7. Garry’s Mod 28,395  59,522 28,036,053
8. ARK: Survival Evolved 26,606  69,764 28,161,143
9. Unturned 20,133  38,395 20,575,408
10. Warframe 19,390  61,417 20,510,907
11. Rust 19,124  64,555 22,478,100
12. Rocket League 19,038  58,676 21,526,516
13. Fallout 4 18,747  41,541 17,427,183
14. Football Manager 2016 18,620  68,505 27,594,070
15. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 16,870  49,134

 

No matter what you do, you can’t ever unseat the undisputed awesomeness that Skyrim maintains to this very day. Not only has it aged so damned well since its release in 2013, but it stays fresh due to the extremely active modding community that continuously works to improve the game in various ways. If you haven’t gotten Steam codes for Skyrim yet, then I suggest that’s the first one you go for on this list.

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Apart from its contemporary in Fallout 4, all other games on the list are the more popular multiplayer Steam games that have either strong e-sports roots or those that are still attempting to be legit e-sports like Rocket League and Ark. These multiplayer Steam games are a mix of things that will certainly interest different kinds of people, but it is clear that Dota 2 still reigns supreme and is in no way going to be unseated from its throne any time soon. If Mobas aren’t your thing and you seem to have an allergy for CS:GO, a multiplayer Steam codes game you could possibly try is Rust, Ark, and Warframe. These are all great games on their own and you shouldn’t miss out on them.

TF2 Trading: Good Story Pt. 2

Posted on by Mei Satsuki

Last time I shared with you the first part of a very nice story. Here is the second part for you guys to enjoy as Team Fortress 2 fans and active TF2 trading players.

TF2 Trading: Continuation

This is the second part of the (true) story of LoopsCode in Reddit

As you all know, some teams would bring in unregistered ringers (often times higher skill divisions than what the current team is), imposters with the same name and display picture (played by a higher level player), or sometimes, the team leader just doesn’t know it’s against the rules. Prior to a match, there isn’t much time to actually check one-by-one whether the player on the team is really who they say they are, or whether they’re in the official roster. My team leader, let’s call him Messiah, knew that I was a software developer. He is also one. He expressed to me his frustration, and it clicked to me that maybe I should try to take a stab at solving this problem.

A few weeks later, the UGC Roster Verification tool (now offline) was born. Initially, only the players in the team used it. After awhile, I started sharing it on /r/tf2, /r/truetf2, the UGC forums, TF2Center forums, and more, and it kinda blew up. I recall over 1000 unique players used it, and for a kid like me, that was pretty insane. Hearing people’s thoughts on the tool prompted me to learn to gather user feedback, test for bugs, and ultimately implement new features to it. This was a great feeling, and it really trained me to become a better software and product developer.

 TF2 Trading, TF2 Items, TF2, Team Fortres 2

Wow, this is really getting pretty interesting, right? Were you guys able to use this UGC Roster Verification tool? Did this program also helped in terms of TF2 Items? Let us know if you did!

TF2 Market: Change of Scenery

Posted on by Mei Satsuki

It’s all bad news about Team Fortress 2 recently and these days have been no better either. No, let us not blame Blizzard with Overwatch. If there’s one we can point a finger to is to Valve and how they mishandled Team Fortress 2 in many different ways. With the overflowing news of all things bad for TF2, let us divert our attention to a good story that might never have happened if not for Team Fortress 2. Surely, this cannot be seen in the TF2 Market, so read on.

TF2 Market: Good Story

This is a post by LoopsCode in TF2 Reddit. I am merely sharing it to you guys!

This is a story on how TF2 got me a job in Silicon Valley, the place of my dreams to begin my career as a fresh new computer engineering grad.

This story started two years ago, when I was invited to sub as a Soldier in a UGC Silver Highlander team from a friend, his name Borat, I met in TF2Center. We played a few games while we chatted in Mumble, and in the first few games, we clicked pretty well. A few days later, this friend asked if I was interested in joining their team full-time as their main soldier for the upcoming season. I first hesitated, but eventually agreed because I thought the dudes were all very swell.

Fast forward a few months, we were deep into the weekly games. Our team didn’t have the best DM, or the best players, or even the best strats, but gosh darn, we had team work and good vibes. The group of guys were just great people that encouraged each other when things went south, and in general, made the sometimes-toxic UGC environment tolerable, and even fun!

Speaking of toxicity, this is how the story really started.

 TF2 Market, Trade TF2, TF2, Team Fortress 2

To be continued…

LOL. Look forward for the continuation everyone! Don’t trade TF2 yet!