Jun 11, 2013

Drop that Beat Like an Ugly Baby Update Released

1... 2... 3... KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby) - Valve

June 10th, 2013 -- Ugly Baby Update -- What Year Is It?!

This is an interesting build! So interesting, we didn’t want to hold it from you any longer. There are a *lot* of ideas cooking in here. If you’ve been following along on the blog, we spent a couple weeks crunching on some ideas. There were a bunch of ups and downs, mostly downs … because we’re falling... that’s a BASE jumping joke guys, we had a great time.

NEW LEVELS: Dave and Ichiro have been working on tying music and level design together (see levels 3-1 and 4), making sure levels change over time so as to allay boredom (see level 3), and have added tutorials (levels 1 and 2).

STORY: Azumi Pentak, 27, Boston Sky. Only daughter of Gertrude Pentak and Azumi Azahi. Punched her musical jury and went into Machine Intelligence. Blind by birth. Hacks her vision.

TWITCH.TV: HOLY MOLY! NEW FANGLED TECHNOLOGY THAT LETS YOU STREAM RIGHT FROM THE GAME! NO EXTRA SOFTWARE NEEDED! We even put a neat catchphrase on the setup screen for them: “Sign Up. Login. Broadcast.” We should probably charge them for that. Give it a whirl: sign up with them at http://twitch.tv/, and login in the game to give it a try.

As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and leave some links of your Twitch streams!

Jun 10, 2013

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Team Fortress 2 - Valve

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:

Added a new promo item
Unusual hats that are tradable can now be listed on the Steam Community Market
Updated the network interpolation and update convars so they can be changed immediately after changing class and respawning. This allows the automatically executed [classname].cfg files to update the values.
Fixed a bug that would cause some players who used an "Upgrade to Premium" item to be unable to thank another player after upgrading. Accounts that were affected by this bug have been retroactively fixed and will have the option to thank a helpful player automatically next time they log in.
The ITFItems/GetPlayerItems and ITFItems/GetSchema WebAPI interfaces are now deprecated and will eventually be removed. External tools can call IEconItems/GetPlayerItems and IEconItems/GetSchema for current data.

Jun 10, 2013

Call of Juarez - Gunslinger Updated

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger - Valve

Released May 25, 2013
Changes:
- Hit indicator is now disabled in True West difficulty mode
- New option to disable crosshair regardless of the difficulty mode
- New option to adjust mouse sensitivity on duels
- New settings available in video.scr file
- Additional checks before posting scores to the leaderboards
- Additional credits

Fixes:
- Fixed problems with audio on 7.1 output configurations
- Fixed crashes related to using 7.1 audio configurations
- Fixed potential crash when using long Steam nicknames with non-latin characters
- Fixed display issue on Leaderboards for nicks with non-latin characters
- Patched up heavy stuttering when using certain keyboard and mouse models
- Workaround for blocks when booting the game on systems that have problems with video playback
- Enhanced enemy behavior during duels in order to avoid duels with no conclusion
- Fixed HUD gadget in Arcade mode sometimes not displaying "versus" friend's name
- Fixed navigation and centering in My Score and Friends leaderboards
- Tweaks and fixes of Japanese localization

Jun 10, 2013

Guns of Icarus Online Updated

Guns of Icarus Online - Valve

Features
- New map: Paritan Rumble, 2v2 deathmatch - Advanced map with low visibility and lots of obstacles
- additional achievements for all classes
- level cap raised to 13
- new elite costumes, hats, and goggles for achievement unlocks
- “Skyrider” costume for Adventure Mode kickstarter backers

Balance
- Incendiary Rounds modifiers changed to +25% chance of fire (up from 10%) and -35% projectile speed (down from -50%)
- Dragon Tongue Light Flamethrower: increased chance to add fire charge to 20% per particle (up from 15%)
- Banshee Rocket Carousel: increased fire charge chances to 35% chance of 1 charge on direct hit, 22% chance of 2 charges in explosion area (from 12% for 2 and 30% for 1)

Fixes and Optimization
- Fixed a shader bug that could cause pixelated artifacts in rainy levels on some cards
- Maintain correct gun rotation when first getting on a gun

Server stability fixes (includes hotfixes made to 1.2):
- Changes to match list distribution to support a larger number of users and matches effectively
- Fixed several memory leaks
- Fixed a rare case where object destruction messages would not be sent
- Improved performance of networking subsystem
- Improved ability of networking and chat to use multiple cores
- Fixed a bug that could cause time in a match to run faster than intended

Jun 7, 2013

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Update Released

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Valve

Updates to The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client (in on-line mode) is restarted.

Major changes include:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing v1.1.05

Known issues:
The multiplayer game still has some issues. Please play it with a character created for the multiplayer only because data loss may occur sometimes.

Balance changes:
- Will-o-Wisps and Ornithopters are slightly nerfed.
- Monsters on the roof maps are slightly stronger.
- The Marquis of Soot is stronger and got some new friends.
- Igor’s range of the mine laying ability reduced.
- Some new chests added to the Industrial Port.
- Damage of Traps is scaled to Difficulty, the number of players and also as the story progresses.
- Losing Generator Capacity after a failed Siege may result in traps being destroyed randomly.
- Levels of Quests give appropriate Item rewards.
- "Point of no return" is removed from the game. You can go back to the first chapter after getting to Borgova.
- You can no longer farm for Ability Points through special conversation rewards like the Gluttoner Idol or Saffi's magic potion if you play in the Multiplayer game of someone else. You will receive such rewards only once.
- The inherent Magic Item Find bonus in Hardcore reduced.

Fixed bugs:
Multiplayer:
- Fixed a bug with the bossfight when the master died and respawned in town.
- Fixed some bugs with the game list window.
- Fixed bugs with the effects
- Made some improvements with the scripts.
- Made some optimizations in the network code.
- The amount of the XP received by killing a monster is individually calculated for each player. (I.e. killing a lower level monster with a higher level character can give XP for a lower level character on the same map.)
- The XP range has been removed. You receive the XP from the monster even if you are far away as long as you are on the same map.
- Made some countermeasures against the "file too old" bug. Backup creating checks if the previous save was correct and if it wasn't, it does not overwrite the proper game save with a broken one.
- Fixed a bug with the "Werewolf on the run" quest.
- When synchronizing with the Steam Cloud, if no appropriate save has found on the Cloud, the local version is moved to the Backup\Cloud folder.
- Synchronizing with the Steam Cloud is much safer.
- Fixed a random bug with the Multiplayer game list not showing any games even though there are available games.

General:
- Fixed a bug where the "Find the Engineer" quest got stuck.
- Fixed an issue with the experimental gate in the Abandoned Research Station.
- Spells reapply correctly when changing maps.
- Fixed a bug with the "Kill Fulmigati's General" quest.
- Fixed the spiders in the Worm's cave in the Orichalcum Mines scenario.
- Fixed a display inconsistency with Skill resets.
- Fixed an issue that caused monsters to attack during a cutscene.
- Fixed another issue where items could be dropped inside terrain objects.
- Fixed a recent bug with the one liners of the final boss.
- Fixed an issue with the Merchant in Croakwood.
- Fixed some localization issues with the Scenario mode.
- Fixed the Obsessed Alchemist hidden achievement.
- Fixed an issue with the Forge: you can no longer forge Trophies with more than 5 enchants.
- Fixed some consistency issues with the different Scenarios.
- Improved the AI of the Dreadknechts and the rats with rifles.
- Behemoths can no longer be knocked down.
- The chests give loot based on their own level.
- Fixed the 3% Life Steal for the 50 Mastery bonuses on the Occult Hunter tree.
- Fixed a missing localization string for the poodle of goo in the Rookery.
- Fixed an issue with the calculation of Mana Steal on the Character Sheet.
- Fixed a crash in the Forge window.
- Fixed the missing icon in the Achievement window for the Treasure Hunter DLC bonus.
- Fixed an issue with skill respec.
- Fixed an issue with the Ray of Destruction and switching skill sets.
- Fixed the additional levels of the Elemental Damage Skill.
- Fixed the progress window when you are invited to a bossfight in different resolutions.
- Fixed an item duplication bug with the Laboratory.
- Fixed an issue with the activation of the Mentor Perk.
- The Explosive Rounds powerup of Shoot no longer causes friendly fire.
- Some skill descriptions have been changed for better reflecting their actual effects.
- Rats in the Lair for the Clear the Tunnels quest fixed.
- The lag when changing to the Excalibur fixed.
- Fixed certain minor bonuses you could receive through conversations.
- When you leave the Secret Laboratory with the help of the Inventor the nighttime version of the Industrial Port becomes unavailable. At this point you will automatically fail "The orichalcum shipment" quest, if you haven't finished it yet.
- Fixed some issues with equipment models.

New features:
- Some new resolutions supported: 2048x1152, 2880x1620, 3200x1800 and 3840x2160.

Jun 7, 2013

Gunpoint Update Released

Gunpoint - Valve

Gunpoint update released

New features:

Added a more visible and obvious way to abort a mission and change your screen settings if they turn out to look weird.
The first time you play after this patch, you'll be asked to choose your resolution. This is a one-time thing for the benefit of anyone who's stuck in one that doesn't work.
Added a 'Safe mode' resolution that should work for everyone, and which you can get to using only the keyboard if necessary (in case the current setting is so bad you can't even click on the right buttons).
Added a 'Native mode' resolution option that'll detect and match your screen's native res. Be aware, though, that anything over 1920x1200 is always going to look odd, because Gunpoint's levels don't actually *have* that many pixels. Something around 1280x720 usually looks better and runs smoother.

Bug fixes:

Fixed a thing the resolution menu was doing when switching between two non-native resolutions that I thought was clever but then turned out not to be clever and, in fact, confusing and annoying for all.
Tweaked the way manual savegames work to prevent a) loading savegames from older versions and causing a crash (my fault), and b) accidentally loading a savegame from several missions ago and regretting it (your fault, but I wasn't helping).
An achievement misconfiguration caused the game to believe all players had found all laptops and defeated the final enemy in all possible ways. Understandably impressed, the game unlocked these achievements for almost everyone. Since it no longer knows your real laptop/takedown counts, I think we'll just call this part of Conway's backstory and remove those achievements. Each way of dealing with the final enemy still has its own achievement.