Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
Updates to Left 4 Dead 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Blood Harvest Campaign:
- Item density revision.
- Several minor bugs fixed.

Blood Harvest 3:
- Fixed a potential exploit where survivors were able to jump to onto the cliff side prior to the train onslaught.
- Added tooltip to prompt players to fight to the safe room when the onslaught begins.

Blood Harvest 4:
- Changed the lights on first large train depot building to be non-solid, to prevent survivors from being able to jump into the upper windows.
- Moved a bookshelf in front of a window on the ground-floor of the last building in the level.
- Adjusted the slope of the concrete that makes up the bottom section of the last building in the map so that players slide off of it. It was previously used as part of an exploit to skip content.
- Doubled the height of the fence that leads around the last building in the map to prevent players from skipping the final building.
- Added tooltip to prompt players to fight to the safe room when the onslaught begins.
- Added new a new spawn location on the final bridge for infected.
- Removed a piece of railing along the final bridge to create an opening for infected attacks.

Blood Harvest 5:
- It should now be much harder to get stuck inside of the APC when it arrives.
SOL: Exodus - Valve
- Decreased level load times
- Various optimizations
- If locking a missile on a target, and missile lock is then lost (out of view, changed target), user may release the missile fire button without firing a missile. This is only if they release the button before a new lock is acquired.
- Docking penalty re-added
- Added a visibility cone to the radar for easier readability for the time being.
- Fixes for the afterburner sound sometimes playing constantly after use.
- Virtual Mouse Joystick mode should now respect deadzone and sensitivity settings, though more work needs done still.
- MAG cannon projectile speed increase
- HADES Missile slight speed / health increase
- Reduced chances lower difficulty enemy fighters will shoot missiles out of the air.
- Increased speed of Gunships
- Increased potency and accuracy of Gunship turrets
- Mission 3 has gotten a complete revamp. No more transports to save and, in general, is much more action-orientated than before.
- Mission 5 Gunship exit points moved further out from their spawn point allowing players enough time to kill them (this was needed due to their speed increase)

Nation Red - Valve
Updates to Nation Red have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Chinese version of Nation Red now available
- Added a new radial comms. menu (default binding: 'z'). This makes it much quicker to ask for help, indicate powerups, etc
- Your Perk mode is now saved between games. For example if you always use Auto Perk mode, you will never need to set it again.
- All achievements are now enabled in on-line and local coop.
- Mission stats (unlocked mission and earned mission stars) will now also be saved on Steam's Stats servers. This will make them browsable plus makes it unlikely your mission progress can be lost.
- On-line games where the host has selected Auto Perk and Shared Xp will now give correct level up time to other players
- Weapon balancing: M107 reload time has been reduced by 35%. Damage from M240B, Uzi/Dual Uzi has been increased by 15%. AK47, Beretta 93R and M4A1 damage increased 10%.
- Dead zombies can now drop powerups outside the map area if at least one of the players has a Powerup Hook/Snare perk.
- Some boss tweaks: Minigun and AK47 boss' armor and spawn rate has been reduced. Brawler's armor has been slightly increased. Ak47 Boss firing rate has been slightly ramped up on later levels/waves. Melee Bosses have slightly increased armor.
- Console can be activated with ~ or ` keys
- Player will no longer jump when using the controller to select a perk in coop
- Powerup Hook and Snare further fine-tuned in on-line coop
- Players with Lone Wolf in coop will no longer be able to pull or snare Sentry Gun and Ghost perks
- Fine-tuned the cursor crosshair position on screen (was slightly offset)
- You can now cancel the in-game chat box with ESC
- The game will automatically pause and unpause in Single Player or Local coop if you bring up the Steam interface
- ESC button at the bottom of the screen is now clickable
- New 500K and 750K kills achievements have been added to sit between the existing 250K and 1M achievements.
- Double Experience powerup now also doubles Auto Experience points during the powerup
- Added better menu navigation with controller. Auto Perk mode and Player classes in Single Player can be edited using a controller.
- AK47 Machine Gun boss kill Xp has been increased
- On-line Warehouse Barricade mode: zombies will be able to break down the fence faster according to the number of players
- Fixed Player Class Icon not changing on some machines
- Added achievement tracking bars for a few achievements which could not be tracked
- Sound looping (clicking) bug in on-line coop has been fixed
- Setting the music volume to 0 (zero) will completely stop streaming music which may increase performance on some slower PCs
- Fixed AK47 Boss sometimes getting stuck on Bridge Barricade
- Several other smaller bugfixes.
Day of Defeat: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)
  • Adjusted error messages on servers when players drop due to Steam authentication failure to be more clear
  • Additional important server messages now go to the server log instead of just the console

Team Fortress 2
  • Added The Conquistador
  • Added The Map Maker's Medallion
  • Added new promotional items
  • Added information about item origins to the WebAPI
  • Added "DamagedPlayer" animation event for the HUD, fired when the local player damages other players
  • Fixed The Head Warmer not displaying unusual particle effects correctly
  • Fixed paint applying incorrectly on Max's Severed Head
  • Fixed a server crash caused by Holiday Punch critical attacks on physics objects
  • Updated the Itsy Bitsy Spyer so it can also be equipped by the Sniper
  • Updated cp_foundry:
    • Clip brush collision smoothing by the forward spawn alternate exit
    • Fixed Nobuild exploits
    • Fixed the teleporter player trap on the roof of the forward spawn alternate exit
    • Fixed Nodraw and texturing errors
    • Fixed clipping of barrels on final cap points
    • Fixed fade distance on props
    • Fixed lighting bugs in spytech vistas
    • Removed props hidden in geometry
    • Removed ability for players to cap the final point by standing on the catwalk behind it
Nuclear Dawn - Valve
Client Changes
* Added teammate player names and class icons to commander view.
* Added player squad letter to name in both first-person and commander views.
* Added backstab indicator for armknives to aiming reticle.
* Added variable FOV slider to advanced video options (range 75 - 100, default 90).
* Added option to disable motion blur in advanced video options.
* Added alternate zoom method for commanders without scroll wheel (hold SHIFT + mouse up/down).
* Added ironsights toggle option in advanced keyboard settings (default on).
* Added crouch toggle option in advanced keyboard settings (default off).
* Decreased frequency of structure under attack sound
* Updated German and Russian localizations.

Fixes
* Fixed career overview showing incorrect unlock level for class gizmos.
* Fixed spawn selection on minimap
* Fixed achievements being earned in training mode.
* Fixed Golden Targets achievement counting commanders in bunker instead of commanders outside of bunker.
* Fixed Team Domination, Around the Track, and Headshot achievements being impossible to achieve.
* Fixed servers not showing in Steam server browser.
* Outdated servers no longer show on Steam server list nor in-game.
* Fixed firstperson, thirdperson, and thirdpersonshoulder commands not functioning.
* Fixed Consortium commanders not getting credit for Sonic Turret kills.
* Increased required build area for Transport Gates to stop players from getting easily stuck upon spawn.
* Fixed thermal vision in armory exploit.
* Fixed class change for health exploit.
* Fixed Steam UpToDate web api not recognizing ND.
* Ported in some engine stability fixes from Left 4 Dead 2.
* Fixed some prediction issues with the Stealth's arm knives.
* Fixed using secondary attack button on knives not cancelling sprint.
* Fixed plugin menus being hidden by loadout menu.
* Fixed plugin menus ignoring input in commander view.

Server Downloads
* Fixed custom maps not downloading.
* Fixed all custom downloads not working without sv_downloadurl set.
* Enabled sv_allowdownload, sv_allowupload, and net_maxfilesize cvars.

Other Server Changes
* Added Motd support (use motd.txt or file specified by motdfile cvar).
* Server hibernation no longer enabled by default.
* Server hibernation setting can now be altered.
* Enhanced and cleaned up server logging.
* Added requested event properties for modders.

Maps
Oilfield
* Added Oilfield Beta.

Oasis
* Redesigned Empire spawn area to make it less exposed
* Fixed able to hit assembler with m95 from Bath house roof

Feb 2, 2012
RAGE - Valve
RAGE 1.2 Patch Release Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This RAGE patch adds some new features and addresses various compatibility and performance issues.

New Functionality
------------------------
Texture Detail: Enabling Texture Detail will improve up-close texture quality by performing upsampling with adaptive sharpening. This does not update or increase the resolution of the base textures included with the game but improves the perceived resolution and crispness of textures. This is an intensive operation and is only recommended if you have a quad-core CPU or higher. Please disable this feature if you encounter poor performance, stability issues or are given a notification that the game has run out of memory after loading a map. The Texture Detail option can be found in the Settings -> Video Menu.

Transcode Benchmark: A new benchmark has been added that determines how quickly texture data can be translated from the compressed format on your hard drive to a format that can be used by your video card. The higher your score, the faster your PC is able to make higher detail texture data available. This is not a traditional benchmark that runs through a scene of the game and returns a min/max/average framerate based on hardware and video settings. Other than the GPU Transcode option, the score will not be affected by changing any video settings. The Transcode Benchmark option can be found in the Settings -> Video Menu.

Error Messaging: If you attempt to apply video settings on a system that is not capable of handling them, an error may come up stating that your system ran out of memory. You will be allowed to continue, however, it is recommended that you either reduce your video settings until this message no longer occurs or you will be asked to restart the game with lower video settings. If you ignore this error and continue playing without altering your settings you will likely encounter texture corruption and/or system instability.

Automatic Video Settings Fallbacks: When an advanced video setting fails to apply, the setting may be set back to a safe default. Anti-aliasing will fall back to NONE if the allocation of a multi-sampled FBO fails. Texture Cache will fall back to SMALL when the allocation of a large texture cache fails. Texture Detail will fall back to OFF when large page table allocations fail. On failure, these settings will automatically fall back to safe values without the need for user input.

Patch Changes / Fixes
-----------------------------
- Fixed crash from potentially having stale transcode jobs in flight when switching between texture cache sizes.
- Fixed crash from using SIMD optimized memcpy with a PBO pointer that is not 16-byte aligned.
- Fixed GPU transcode option always turning off when restarting the game.
- Fixed progression in Dead City where player could not advance through sliding door en route to the defibrillator upgrade.
- Fixed CPU feature detection.
- Fixed issues with launching MP by using double quotes around path name.
- Fixed lack of texture detail on parts of the screen at high resolutions due to limited feedback analysis buffer.
- Fixed thread stack space usage and freed up 700 MB of virtual address space.
- Re-enabled UBOs.
- Adjustments to default VDM values for balance.
Magicka - Valve
Updates to Magicka have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Updated the Hungarian localization.
King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame - Valve
Updates to King Arthur II - The Role-playing Wargame have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client (in on-line mode) is restarted.

Major changes include:

King Arthur II – The Role-playing Wargame v1.1.02

-Fixed crashing battles (Pict armies and Fomorian raiding armies)
-Adventure and diplomatic quest fixes
-Modified skills (Chain lightning, Summon skills, Power of Sacrifice)
-Fixed experience level display and reduced experience required for higher levels
-Fixed some artifact drag and drop issues in heroes’ inventory and Artifact Forge inventory
-Modified Leadership bonuses of artifacts
-Increased Leadership value (Warlord class - level up choice)
-Fixed missing unit images and artifact icons
-Beast Lairs allow two units to be recruited per Lair
-Some of the Morality Lairs allow two units to be recruited
-Lair creatures acquired in quests no longer limit maximum availability
-Fixed ruler naming
-Kingdom of Alba: army behavior fixed
-Added automatic replenishment for Morgana’s core units while questing in the Northern territories
-Fixed experience levels for Sir Galahad’s army
-Fixed hero skill trees (Philbius, Numerius Andronicus)
-Player’s units will be at full strength if battle occurs while replenishing losses
-Removed empty Ring of Gorlois recipe from the Encyclopedia (became an acquirable set item)
- Other minor bug and balancing fixes

Known issues – fixing in progress

-Improved ground units defense against flying units
-Dal’ Riata battle difficulty and enhanced ability to fight dragons
-No Will to Fight values on some units
-Missing unit skills when received at higher levels than 5th
-Issues with closing Nether gates at Tier 4
-Some unit animation bugs
SOL: Exodus - Valve
- Extended joystick support implemented. Saitek X52 and Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X are now supported
- On control settings screen, “Gamepad” renamed “Xbox/PS Gamepad” and will only show up if appropriate controller is connected.
- “Joystick” renamed “Joystick/Gamepad” as most modern gamepads register as joysticks and will only show up if appropriate controller is connected.
- Only 6 default mappings put in for joysticks, down from 12. Y-axis now inverted by default. This change will not affect previously saved settings changes.
- Fixed issue on Mission 7 where the user would not always get points for destroying the CoD Temple.
- Fixed performance issues on M7.
- Shortened M1 and M7 a bit due to pacing issues.
- Shortened Prologue a bit due to pacing issues. Heroic action requirements also reduced (25 fighters -> 15)
- Further improved Atlas turret effectiveness.
- Elite AI behaviors further improved.

Serious Sam 3: BFE - Valve
o Added support for AlienWare LightFX effects. o Fixed a number of issues (mainly related to HUD and menus) when using stereoscopic 3D rendering. The game should now look good in stereo 3D.
o Added GPU quality profiles for ATI Radeon HD 7000 series. o Voice chat now uses internal protocol with Speex compression. This lowers the bandwidth requirements for the voice traffic and makes voice transfer less bursty.
o Different screen layout configurations can now be chosen when playing in split-screen.
o Reworked a number of models by adding some more LODs for them, optimizing their geometry, fixing some errors etc. This should improve performance and used memory somewhat.
o Created some more swimming animations for player character.

o Fixed crash that occurred when kicking a Soldier enemy with multithreaded rendering enabled. o Sniper zoom now works correctly regardless of aspect ratio. o When generating crumbs, normals and tangents are not created if source model's shaders don't need them. o Fixed some crashes related to text rendering when multithreaded rendering is used.
o Added cvar 'mdl_bMorphedShadows' for controlling whether morph animations will be applied in casted dynamic shadows or not. (Default is disabled since it boost performance noticabely, while quality remains almost the same since morphs are used only for small model deformations and speaking.) o Fixed unresponsive safe area sliders in gfx options when adjusting window size. o Refactored implementation of font outline rendering to use a several times lower number of rendering calls.
o The option 'prefer 3rd person view' is now taken into consideration to set appropriate avatar view mode. Manual command for toggling 3rd person view overwrites the cvar linked to menu widget, but this is temporary (i.e., not saved in player profile). o Sniper no longer shows crosshair in versus games. o Added cvar 'ogl_iStaticBuffersType' for selecting which buffer type to use for static buffers under OpenGL. (For performance testing purposes mostly.) When changed, cfunc 'gfxRefreshGeometry()' needs to be invoked manually.
o Optimized in-game memory size of some model animations.
o Fixed a possible crash occurring if player disconnects or dies while using Mutilator to get pulled by a Werebull. o Fixed an issue causing rocket launcher to appear unloaded (missing rocket attachment) if weapon is brought up immediately (such as when starting game at chapter with rocket launcher already equipped). o Enemies without assigned foe player were scheduling moving too often. Now they use less CPU.
o Removed redundant changes of active texture unit in OpenGL.
o Fixed issues with wrong filtering of some textures in some cases.
o Reduced cases where rendering buffers get reallocated, e.g. for SSAO, haze, refraction, distance, sub-sampling and other aux buffers.
o Fixed a rare crash happening when player disconnects while some enemy is having him as foe and doing obstacle avoidance.
o Fixed an issue where picking up a weapon while already having full ammo of its type would not display a message to player to indicate ammo is full. o Tweaked HUD resolution-scale graph to fix an issue where certain HUD elements would overlap in low resolutions (800x600 and 640x480). o Fixed wrong trilinear dithering of shadows under OpenGL. ('ScreenPos' pixel shader input register doesn't have integer coordinates!) o Prevented appearing puppets from colliding with existing puppets and falling through floor upon appearing (common problem with "DigOut" spiders). o Implemented scriptable enemy despawning in case player is doing speed run. It is used on the last level for now.
o Fixed an issue allowing player to move while performing spinning attack with sledgehammer. o Relaxed cases when puppets force their physics to activate, so enemies standing still on uneven terrain can use less CPU.
o Fixed an issue causing Scrapjack's head to remain equipped on third person player model even if melee was interrupted before completion. o Optimized performance of flocking algorithms used by enemy in AI.
o Fixed missing polygons on stairs used on IbnTulun level near mosque.
o Fixed implementation of "Coin-op Co-op" achievement: player needs to finish all levels to get the achievement and is not required to be playing with other players. o Achievement completion checkboxes are now shown for all achievements which must be performed on all levels. o When storing level stats, all available level stats will be stored and all completed levels will be unlocked in profile. This is necessary as it sometimes happens that player profile doesn't get saved correctly (but stats are still stored in save game). o Statistics menu screen now shows statistics for all levels available in current game stats, not only for unlocked levels, as it happens that sometimes levels don't get unlocked even though they should be unlocked (probably a crash before profile was saved). o Optimized smart blur used with ambient occlusion.
o Setting cvar 'prf_bShowFPS' to 4 now shows frame-rate variation for given timing interval. (Just below average FPS.) o Significantly improved performance in several different aspects of AI code in presence of a large number of active entities. E.g. when player spawns a lot of enemies while doing speedruns.
o Fixed cases where too much memory was used if menu background level rendering was disabled.
o Voice encoding quality can now be changed on the fly using svm_iVoiceEncodingQuality cvar. o Voice chat streaming sound limited to buffer at most 1 second of data (otherwise it was possible for it to accumulate lots of data while application was in background).

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