PC Gamer
black_friday


Good news, everyone! Steam, Amazon, Blizzard, and more have kicked off Consumer Season by booby trapping the web with potent spending bait such as 33% off XCOM: Enemy Unknown, 50% off The Walking Dead, and 66% off StarCraft II. We spent the morning stumbling through the minefield to compile a list of some of the best seasonal discounts, but stay vigilant: more surprise server-busters are bound to go live as we approach the spendiest weekend of the year.



Steam: Like the Summer Sale, the Steam Autumn Sale rotates deals daily, with even more fleeting Flash Sales lasting only 10 to 15 hours, so serious shoppers should check in at least twice a day. As a bonus, you get to follow Steam's adorable doodle story: currently, it seems a turkey is being forced to enter a Felix Baumgartner-inspired high diving competition.

But don't just look at the front page: Steam isn't promoting most of its deals, so scan the full list now and then. Here are some of the better discounts at the time of writing:


33% off XCOM: Enemy Unknown - $33.49 / £20.09
50% off The Walking Dead - $12.49 / £10.49
25% off Borderlands 2 - $44.99 / £22.49
75% off ARMA II: Combined Operations - $17.99 / £14.99
25% off Dishonored - $44.99 / £22.49
50% off Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - $11.24 / £8.99
33% off The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - $40.19 / £23.44
75% off Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - $2.49 / £1.74
75% off Limbo - $2.49 / £1.74
25% off Torchlight II - $14.99 / £11.24
75% off Cave Story+ - $2.49 / £1.74
More Steam Deals





Amazon: (Some deals are region-specific) Amazon hasn't been quite as liberal as Steam with the big games, but it has conjured a storm of Lightning Deals on desktop PCs, components, and peripherals. The scattershot selection below should give you an idea of what to expect.

HARDWARE:

17% off iBuyPower AM699 Desktop - $579.99
18% off CyberpowerPC GUA890 Desktop - $499.99
39% off Dell S2330MX 23" Ultra-Slim VGA Monitor - $139.99
40% off Samsung Series S24B30BL 23.6-Inch Screen LCD Monitor - $119.99
33% off Corsair Vengeance C70 Mid Tower Case - $97.45
31% off Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G400 - $34.49
19% off Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse - $64.62

GAMES:

50% off The Walking Dead - $12.49 (Steam code)
80% off Dungeon Defenders - $2.99
10% off Hitman: Absolution - $44.99
75% off all Assassin's Creed games (excluding Assassin's Creed III)
More Amazon Deals




Blizzard: Blizzard has joined the party with Diablo III for $40 / £33 and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for $20 / £17.



GOG: GOG's current sale nets you five games from a list of 20 for a mere $10 (just over £6). The list is loaded with some great indie adventure and puzzle games, so if you don't already own them, now's a good time to prepare for that "it's cold outside, so I'm going to drink tea (whiskey optional) and not leave my screen for the next forever hours" feeling.



Green Man Gaming: While Green Man doesn't celebrate consumerism with a morbid-sounding Friday, it is offering its usual voucher code. Enter GMG20-1FYLZ-EDG8R when purchasing a PC download for 20% off any game, except those already on sale. At the time of writing, GMG's daily deal (North America only) is Mass Effect 3: N7 Digital Deluxe for $15.99.



Newegg: (US and Puerto Rico only) Newegg has taken this whole "Black Friday" thing awfully far. Not only has it preempted Black Friday with "Black November," it's re-preempting it with a Pre-Black Friday Frenzy sale. How about a 500 GB Western Digital WD Blue hard drive for $50? A Samsung B350 Series LED monitor for $180? Keep in mind that if you visit Newegg from now until December 1st, you should not expect to then purchase other things, like food.

If you find any great deals as the weekend progresses, we'd love it if you shared them in the comments. And if all these sales combined with a poorly-timed lack of funds has you feeling down, remember that buying stuff is only briefly thrilling, while instead you could be continuously thrilled by PlanetSide 2, MechWarrior Online, Tribes: Ascend, or many of the other new free-to-play games we're thankful for this year.
PC Gamer
Counter-Strike Global Offensive Pro Tip AWP


At least, that's probably the sort of nomenclature you'd reap from public servers after applying the skills picked up from Team Dynamic marksman Keven "AZK" Larivière for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's one-hit wonder AWP sniper rifle. As part of Valve's Pro Tip video series, Larivière spills the bullets on the best uses of a sniper's superior oversight, when each of the two zoom levels come most in handy, and how shooting the legs off a careless opponent equates to a high-caliber "tsk-tsk."

The real secret of a successful AWPer, however, probably lies with mastering quickswitch tics in a cacophony of deployment noises, as Larivière's lightspeed weapon swapping both defies and defines efficiency. Its mesmerizing effect probably lulls unaware victims into an easy kill like a rubber-armed spider.
Product Update - Valve
Release Notes for 11/16/2012

[ MISC ]

- Eliminated the vignette effect from the scoreboard.
- Scoreboard has been narrowed.
- Smoke grenade visibility on the edges of smokes has been adjusted to obscure vision less.
- Improved some cases of particle sorting between smoke and molotovs and other particle systems.
- Adjusted the loser bonus for Terrorists when time has run out. Surviving Terrorists get no income, but dead teammates receive a normal payout.
- Removed match start and round end info panel animation sfx.
Product Update - Valve
Release Notes for 11/15/2012

[ GOTV ]
- As a GOTV client spectator, the flangbang effect from first person is now reduced a bit and there is now text that says "(BLINDED)"
- Fixed overhead targetIDs not showing sometimes when spectating with XRay mode on.
- Added a convar "cl_teamid_overhead_maxdist_spec" that can set the max distance overhead TargetIDs will show up when spectating
- Changed player target selection input from hardcoded number keys to keys bound to "slotN" commands.
- Changed X-Ray toggle key from hardcoded 'X' to whatever is bound for "radio2", which defaults to 'X'.
- Fixed health/armor/ammo of the spectated target not being displayed as a GOTV client.
- Made bomb visible in GOTV clients' map overview at all times.
- Fixed money not showing up in GOTV scoreboard for either teams.
- Fixed flashbang effect flash retriggering when changing spectator target.
- Fixed missing winpanel when GOTV spectating.
- Revised GOTV autodirector behavior.

[ MISC ]
- Repacked content to reduce CS:GO disk usage from 6GB to 4.8GB.
- Implemented separate sound for distant grenade explosions to make the distance easier to gauge. Sound crossfades near and distance sound between 800 and 2800 units.
- Reduced audible distance of scope zoom.
- Fire devices have been modified ( Molotovs and incendiary grenades ):
  - Fire can now be extinguished by smoke grenades and deployed smokes now deny fire device detonation and spreading.
  - Fire now spreads a bit faster and not quite as far.
  - Fire "tagging" slowdown has been removed.
  - Adjusted fire armor penetration value.
- Fixed Terrorists getting loser bonus payout for running down the clock. Now Terrorists get no income if the round timer runs out.
- Armor Penetration is now shown for weapons in the buy menu.
- 3rd person and first person default duck speed has been slightly increased.
- Tapping the duck key frequently in short intervals will cause your duck to slow, but cools down very fast.
- Smoke grenade visibility inside a smoke has been reduced to give less advantage to players inside and more to players outside.
- Design changes for Scoreboard
  - Added team names to scoreboard.
  - Made score more prominent.
  - Win banner states are now team specific.
- Design change for win panel and alert messages.
- Server log changes:
  - Added xyz coordinates to messages.
  - Added nade messages.
  - Added team change messages.
  - Added 'assist' messages.
- Fixed a case of loss of mouse and keyboard input.
- Server browser filter settings are now saved.
- Big Picture Support
  - Fixed not being able to dismiss server browser dialog with controller.
  - Added ability to disable all controllers.

Thanks to the following for input on the balance changes:
NiP, Ubinited, Team ALTERNATE, Area51, Mousesports, Anexis, FM.TOXiC, VeryGames, RegnaM.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nathan Grayson)

Evidently, this counter-terrorist is battling against a squad of Storm Troopers.

Given that you’ve paddled your browser over to this isle of the vast Internet ocean, I feel fairly safe in assuming that you’re a PC gamer. Therefore, you have – presumably, in some form or another – played Counter-Strike at some point in your life. But maybe that was back in ye olde futureyear of 2000, or perhaps you gave Source a go around the time Half-Life 2 came out. So along comes this newfangled “Global Offensive” thingamawhatsit, and naturally, you’re suspicious. I mean, what if they replaced all the guns with bottles of Mountain Dew? Or maybe Valve turned the series into a piece of postmodernist art, with us taking the role of a deeply contemplative bomb forced to witness the futile conflicts of man. These are very legitimate concerns, but this weekend, you can find out whether or not they hold any water. For free!

(more…)

PC Gamer
Counter-Strike Global Offensive - confused soldier in suburbia


An excitable post on the Counter-Strike blog announces that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be free to everyone from today through until Sunday to celebrate the climax of the Electronic Sports World Cup.

"This weekend? CS:GO is free. Download it. Play it. Love it. It’s free. Who knows, we might even put it on sale if you want to keep playing after this weekend," say Valve. They've recently updated their spectator tools with GOTV, an in-game service that should let you check out the pro action happening in Paris this weekend. If you're suitably inspired, you can start climbing the ranks and taking on CS regulars.

If you've never played Counter-Strike before, you won't have to worry too much about running into crack sharpshooters right away. "Ranked players will only meet Free Weekend players skilled enough to climb into their skill group." In the meantime, Valve have put out another Pro Tip video to give you a head start while the client downloads.

PC Gamer
Black Mesa Source


Nailing down the range of possibilities afforded by modding's creativity yawns past the comprehension of us mere mortals. Yet, for a platform housing exploding horses, rug-cutting Combine, and the nesting-doll appeal of Minecraft's game-in-a-game sandbox, the PC keeps its lot of closed environments precipitated by developers and publishers as a means for balanced gameplay or brand protection. In an interview with True PC Gaming, Black Mesa Project Lead Carlos Montero flatly stated such a hindrance for mod growth "doesn't make sense."

"When you think about it, modders are like the ultimate fans," Montero explained. "They love this game so much, they're doing real, difficult, skilled work that you usually pay people for. Not only that, but they can add so much value to your game for the rest of your audience. Yet you still see companies look at this as competition. They sue and shut down these projects and ignore or drop support for people to mod their games. It doesn't make any sense. In my opinion, it’s the product of businesses (or lawyers) looking at this too analytically and short-term without understanding the long-term value it can create for their games."

Although Black Mesa earned the silent blessing of Valve during its lengthy session in the testing chamber, other ambitious projects met a not-so-friendly response from license holders legally stifling efforts. Montero's thoughts—the rest of which you can read in the interview—reflect a sentiment by modder-turned-developer Tripwire Interactive expressing confusion over why companies would stop mods on their games.
Product Update - Valve
Release Notes for 10/30/2012

[ MINOR FIXES ]

- GOTV relays now support up to 255 spectators per relay.
- Fixed a crash when connecting to a GOTV relay.
- Fixed tv_relaypassword.
- Added GOTV viewer count to the scoreboard.
- Improved highlighting of selected player for spectator.
- Fixed call vote panel showing an uninitialized button in some cases.
PC Gamer
Valve offices


For Valve's employees, working at one of the most secretive development studios around constitutes a once-in-a-respawn experience. The leakage of Valve's employee handbook earlier this year colorfully outlined a flat management structure culturing a counterintuitive emphasis on peer-driven independence. Speaking to Seattle Interactive Conference attendees yesterday (as reported by GeekWire), Valve Product Designer Greg Coomer said the same free-form philosophy governing the company's work ethic also factors into firing someone.

"I wish that we had covered firing in the employee handbook," Coomer said. "It was one of the things that we left out. We tried writing it, but we didn't feel like we were capturing how Valve thinks about (firing) in a well enough way. It was almost a wording problem. We couldn't get it done in the time that we wouldn't to finish the handbook. The short answer of how we handle terminations, really, is the same as we approach all other decisions at the company: It's a peer-driven process.

"If it turns out that we made a bad hiring decision, or that somebody is just not working out, there’s a method we use to get the people who are involved in the same room and to walk through the decision about what should really happen as a result of this person not functioning very well. Some of the details are kind of boring, but the main answer is that it's peer-driven, just like we evaluate each other as peers.”

I wonder what a caricaturized "Termination and You" chapter in the handbook would look like—probably the Pyro immolating an office chair or something. Still, Coomer attributed Valve's higher rate of self-fulfillment to the significant flexibility it bestows upon its workers, saying, “There are attributes that other companies have quoted about themselves that they allow their (employees) to spend some fraction of their time actually deciding on their own what to work on, but at Valve that percentage of your time is 100 percent. Every single person is responsible for deciding what they do every day."
Product Update - Valve
Release Notes for 10/25/2012

[ SPECTATING ]
- Resurrected SourceTV as 'GOTV.'
- Added a map overview that displays players, events, grenade detonations, etc. Can be drawn on in a select-able colored pen when spectating or if the "sv_competitive_official_5v5" convar is set to 1 on the server or if the client convar "mapoverview_allow_client_draw" is set on the client (drawings are not currently networked to other players).
- Added free camera to spectator modes cycle.
clamped hud_scaling to 0.95.
- Added convar 'cl_spec_show_bindings' that toggles the visibility of the spectator key bindings.
- Added spectator ability to toggle competitive scoreboard player data using the 'drop' command.
- Extended team clan name support to the Team Select Screen. To use team clan name, all humans should match their Team name in Games->Settings, or the server admin can use the 'mp_teamname_1' and 'mp_teamname_2 convars.'
- After halftime, teams no longer switch sides visually on the spectator screen, they now stay where they are and the team colors switch instead.
- Created a server convar that lets you swap the default player side position manually (CTs on right and T's on left) called mp_spec_swapplayersides.
- Made the hotkey that's assigned to jump to a player not change after half-time.
- You can now display a country flag next to your custom team name on the spectator scoreboard by setting "mp_teamflag_1/2" to ISO Alpha-2 country code of the country you want to display.

[ CLASSIC COMPETITIVE ]
- Introduced "Skill Groups", the new Skill Group emblems are now visible in the main menu and at the end of a competitive match. A players' Skill Group will be displayed after they achieve at least 10 competitive match wins.
- Reworked conditions of valid match leaving: A vote to concede becomes available to the team that lost a player. Otherwise the match continues.
- Number of players searching for a competitive match will display number of players compatible with the game type selected by player, for example players searching for "Dust II" will see a number of players searching for "Dust II" + "Defuse Mission", players searching for "Defuse Mission" will see sum of all players searching for "Defuse Mission" or any specific defuse map, and so on.
- Estimated wait time for a competitive match now more accurately displays wait time based on the game type selected by player.

[ SERVER ADMINISTRATION ]
- Added Save/Restore of match state.
   - Added convar 'mp_backup_round_file [fileprefix]' -- If set then server will save all played rounds information to files with this prefix. Backup file contains players information like KDA, MVPs, cash, kevlar, helmet, defuse kit, weapons and grenades and match score for first and second halves. In a case of a tournament server crash backup file can be loaded using ' mp_backup_restore_load_file'. The default is 'backup'
   - Added convar 'mp_backup_round_file_last' -- Every time a backup file is written the value of this convar gets updated to hold the name of the backup file.
    -Added concommand 'mp_backup_restore_list_files [number]' -- Lists recent backup round files matching the prefix, most recent files first, accepts a numeric parameter to limit the number of files displayed (default 5).
   - Added concommand 'mp_backup_restore_load_file [filename]' -- Loads the specified backup file and applies players information like KDA, MVPs, cash, kevlar, helmet, defuse kit, weapons and grenades; sets the match score for first and second half and starts next round.
   - Added convar 'mp_backup_round_file_pattern,' that defines the pattern for naming backup files using tokens. Example: %prefix%_%date%_%time%_%team1%_%team2%_%map%_round%round%_score_%score1%_%score2%.txt. The default pattern results in 'backup_roundNN.txt'
- Whitelisted 'mp_logdetail' convar.
- Added convar 'sv_damage_print_enable', that determines whether damage given and received is visible in the console after a player is killed.
- Added 'cl_bobcycle' to 'sv_competitive_minspec'. It's now restricted to the defauklt 0.98 on servers that have 'sv_competitive_minspec' enabled.
- Made all server cash_ convars notify players when they are changed.
- Servers running with sv_pausable 1 will now correctly display 'server paused' UI element on clients when server is paused using 'pause' command.
- Added mp_spectators_max convar to control how many spectators are allowed in a match.
- Added convar mp_halftime_pausetimer that will indefinitely pause the halftime timer.
- Added convar mp_warmup_pausetimer that will pause the warmup period indefinitely. *Warmup periods shorter than 6 seconds cannot be paused.

[ PERFORMANCE ]
- Performance improvements for users running on AMD systems.
- Fixed a major performance problem for users running Bitdefender antivirus software.

[ BUG FIXES ]
- Fixed two crashes that could happen if you were on a team and went to spectator team.
- Fixed the timer display on the hud still showing even when the bomb was planted.
- Fixed avatar scaling issues on the spectator hud as well as the issues that would place the player slot avatars offset some distance from where they should be.
- Made some adjustments to the specttor UI and regular hud to account for hud_scaling set really high.
Fixed a really bad bug where going from the lobby to a game could prevent players from having input. This would result in not being able to select a team or move around.
- Changed flashbang visual effect in Spectator mode so that it is updated when the target changes.
...