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Steam Keys: Quake Champions at Quakecon

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.

 

Steam Keys Esports: Overwatch Banning and Crazy Whining

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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The Rimworld Steam Keys Debacle

Rimworld is this neat little gem that only Steam account users will have the hotness for. It’s a pretty awesome Dwarf Fortress esque game with some hints of the unnatural sci-fi that one may know from the Firefly series. The developers of said game even have this great deal for Early Access Steam keys. Then douchebags had to muck it up.

The whole story here is that the devs of Rimworld, Ludeon Studios, decided to put out a promo so that they could earn more money. God knows these indie developers need all the help that they could get. They offered that, instead of buying Steam keys from Steam itself, that takes a 30-40% pay cut from the developers with every unit sold, people interested in Rimworld should opt to purchase from their site instead. Naturally, Steam sells them cheaper than Ludeon does so, to sweeten the pot, Ludeon would send free Steam keys to put into any Steam account for those that bought the non-Steam version of the game. Simply typing in their purchase email was enough to merit this free Steam key of Rimworld. It’s essentially getting two copies for the price of a slightly higher one.

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So basically, more money for Ludeon Studios and shiny Steam keys for longtime supporters. Everybody wins. RimWorld is a massive undertaking, too. Ludeon deserves every penny they get.

Unfortunately, the Steam keys black market can be pretty brutal for the uninitiated. These fraudulent rapscallions descended upon the hapless developer in full force. In a blog post, Sylvester of Ludeon explained:

“If you bought before today, you can still get a key. However, I’ve been forced to stop offering Steam keys for those who buy today and in the future. We’ve been getting hammered by fraudsters who are obviously more experienced at this than I. Shutting it down for now is the only way to avoid thousands of dollars in chargeback fees and lost sales. It’s time to take a breather, because I can’t fight this ‘live.’”

With tons of chargebacks done with those free Steam CD keys, Ludeon lost more money than what would normally be normally sound for a developer of their level. Not to mention the Steam keys used in nefariously fraudulent actions are now being banned.

The plight facing RimWorld and Ludeon Studios’ shines a light on one of the biggest issues in PC game publishing right now: that developers may face crushing chargeback fees from stolen credit cards used to buy Steam keys. Fraudsters make money by selling these keys on via eBay-style PC game websites.

This is a tough one for Ludeon and I do hope it’s something they can recover from.

TF2 Market: Uh Oh

Bad news for Team Fortress 2 as their strongest competitor, Overwatch, has released trailers and news on a new character in the game and balances / fixes as well. As Team Fortress 2 just released their competitive mode and new quick match mode, Overwatch coincidentally (I would like to think) has new content. This will for sure affect the TF2 Market again.

TF2 Market in Danger Again

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PATCH FEATURES

New Hero: Ana (Support)
After being out of the fight for several years, one of Overwatch’s founding members is returning. Introducing Ana—a battle-scarred veteran who supports her teammates from a distance using a unique and highly specialized collection of weapons.

Ana’s primary weapon is her Biotic Rifle, which fires long-range darts that can restore the health of her allies or deal ongoing damage to her enemies. Meanwhile, her Biotic Grenade is perfect for a close-quarters clash, simultaneously healing teammates and injuring foes caught in its small area of effect. (Affected allies will also receive a temporary increase to all incoming healing, while affected enemies can’t be healed for a few moments.) And if the battle starts to get out of hand, Ana’s sidearm can fire a Sleep Dart, knocking her adversaries unconscious.

Plus, Ana’s ultimate ability, Nano Boost, empowers one of her teammates, granting faster movement, increased damage, and resistance to enemy attacks.

To learn more about Ana, click here.

GENERAL UPDATES

Gameplay

  • If a match goes into Overtime for more than 20 seconds, the fuse will now start to “burn down” more quickly
  • Players now respawn more slowly during Overtime (increased spawn time by 2 seconds)

 

Competitive Play

  • Competitive Play matches can now only have one of each hero per team. For more info, click here.

 

Miscellaneous

  • Added Ana as an AI-controlled hero in Practice vs. AI, Play vs. AI, and Custom Game modes
  • Timing on Zenyatta’s Rapid Discord achievement is more lenient
  • Targeted teammates now respond by saying “I’m with you,” when players use the “Group Up” communication
  • Renamed five sprays to avoid duplicate titles

You might say that this doesn’t concern Team Fortress 2. Absolutely the opposite. This greatly affects Team Fortress 2 because it fuels again the hype train in Overwatch. People will trade TF2 again for Overwatch because of this new character and changes. Hopefully this wouldn’t though because I have love for both games.

 

TF2 Trading: Updates

Overwatch is owning the first person shooter market now. Actually, Overwatch is owning the gaming market. So what does old man Team Fortress 2 doing about it? Will the dying game still try to retaliate? TF2 trading blows versus Overwatch? Well, these new updates, in my opinion, is an attempt to do so. Hey correct me if I’m wrong but I think they are trying to but this is just a “at least we tried” stuff going on.

TF2 Trading: News

I heard that there will be updates this month in Team Fortress 2 and here are the said updates (from their official website):

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

June 25, 2016 – TF2 Team

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

  • Internal system changes in preparation for a future update.
  • Fixed erroneously being warned that leaving a bootcamp match will result in an abandon penalty.
  • Fixed servers running tf_mm_strict 2 mis-handling bootcamp matches.
  • Fixed servers running arena mode constantly entering and exiting the pre-round state while empty.
  • Fixed servers failing to recover properly from crashing while running a bootcamp match.

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

June 22, 2016 – TF2 Team

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

  • Fixed Mannpower and PASS Time game modes showing up in the wrong quickplay UI categories.

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

June 22, 2016 – TF2 Team

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

  • Internal system changes in preparation for a future update
  • Updated the localization files
TF2 Trading

sad

Yeah, these are just fixes. I don’t have news on the other updates but it seems people are telling everyone to not be hyped about it which I agree on. I really think TF2 should be put down. More TF2 Items won’t cut it as well. Pessimism from me for days. Can’t help it since I’m just stating the truth.