The Steam Summer Sale is now live, lots of goodies

If you are into rogue-lites: Starward Rogue (80% off) is a much overlooked gem.

Could this be the first Steam summer sale where I don't buy anything? Few games that I had my eye on (Firewatch, Knee Deep, Cradle...) are still pricey.

Same here, the few games I might have been interested in are still too pricey, and I already have so many games I've yet to play. Plus, it's summer and I hardly play anything anyway!


Last edited by Stupendous Man on 23 June 2017 at 10:37 am UTC

I finally broke down and got The Long Dark, as well as the Zubmariner DLC for Sunless Sea which I'd honestly forgotten about. But between Finding Heaven due out later this year, pre-ordering Tacoma for the August release, and my too-big library of unfinished games, I'm just not motivated to get any more.

Age of Empires II HD is now £3.74 (75% off) and with the DLC included it's £9.96 (72% off). Great RTS with a very active competitive community. You can get it running with PlayOnLinux but with two caveats: you have to rename the launcher and you have to reinstall AoE (not Steam) on every patch (and rename the launcher after every reinstall). Full instructions below:

Install PlayOnLinux (POL). Install Age of Empires II HD from that (you may need to check the Testing checkbox when searching for the installer in the program). On the Age of Empires II HD entry in POL, hit Configure, then the Miscellaneous tab, then Open program's directory, then rename Launcher.exe to Launcher.exe.bak and rename AoK HD.exe to Launcher.exe. Then you should be able to launch AoE II HD from POL.

Every time AoE is patched, you'll need to reinstall AoE to install the patch properly and get multiplayer to work. Going back to Configure for AoE, click 'Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive', then click Steam.exe or whatever Steam's launcher is, then Next, then 'I don't want to make another shortcut', then Next. Launch Steam from that new POL entry, right-click on AoE in your library and click Uninstall. Then install it again. You'll probably need to rename the AoK HD.exe launcher as I described every time you reinstall too.

Age of Empires II HD is now £3.74 (75% off) and with the DLC included it's £9.96 (72% off). Great RTS with a very active competitive community. You can get it running with PlayOnLinux but with two caveats: you have to rename the launcher and you have to reinstall AoE (not Steam) on every patch (and rename the launcher after every reinstall). Full instructions below:

Install PlayOnLinux (POL). Install Age of Empires II HD from that (you may need to check the Testing checkbox when searching for the installer in the program). On the Age of Empires II HD entry in POL, hit Configure, then the Miscellaneous tab, then Open program's directory, then rename Launcher.exe to Launcher.exe.bak and rename AoK HD.exe to Launcher.exe. Then you should be able to launch AoE II HD from POL.

Every time AoE is patched, you'll need to reinstall AoE to install the patch properly and get multiplayer to work. Going back to Configure for AoE, click 'Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive', then click Steam.exe or whatever Steam's launcher is, then Next, then 'I don't want to make another shortcut', then Next. Launch Steam from that new POL entry, right-click on AoE in your library and click Uninstall. Then install it again. You'll probably need to rename the AoK HD.exe launcher as I described every time you reinstall too.

Works fine with Wine as is.
The Launcher is crap and I have to blindly hit Enter/click so it starts , then skip cinematics with Esc but that's it.

With "Divinity: Original Sin" and "Invisible. Inc" I got my last games I wanted for sure. The remaining games on my wishlist are titles I just want to monitor for how they develop (Early Access) e.g. or if they will get improvements (Stellaris e.g.) or to be notified when they'll come out for Linux.

Vive la France! Not a political opinion, just the last Euro Truck Simulator 2 map DLC that I did not have is now in my library, 40% off if using the Maps extension bundle :)

And I guess that's about it for this year's sales, too many games in the waiting queue already

I just indulged myself and bought the 3 games on my wishlist, even if it's a hit on my wallet.. Damn sales ;)

The store has been slow for me all day. Pathetically slow. I do understand how overloaded their servers must be, but after all the years they have been running the sales they should have a good idea on what to expect and plan accordingly.

I didn't experience slowdowns in the store or checkout, but Valves network is definitely being punished (I'm seeing sustained speeds of bytes per second, and when it's good around 100KB/s..)
It's a tough decision for Valve to plan and fix this, unless they throw tons of cash after it. Look at Amazon, holiday sales is the reason they made AWS, as the huge amount of hardware required to handle these sales are unused 95% of the year otherwise. Seeing as Valve operates very privately, I'm not sure they are interested in using a public cloud service, and also not interested in the investment and creation of a cloud service themselves. I'm not trying to make excuses for them, just saying it's not a push of a button change.

What game is better, Hollow Knight or Salt and Sanctuary?

I bought Splatter - Zombie Apocalypse for only 0.49 USD and so far it's an incredibly fun game (specially the third level which is terrific).

The store has been slow for me all day. Pathetically slow. I do understand how overloaded their servers must be, but after all the years they have been running the sales they should have a good idea on what to expect and plan accordingly.

From a technical point of view that is impossible.

Welcome in the 21st century. It is possible. It is only a matter of money and how long it is profitable. BUT technically it is no problem.

Also meanwhile we have a user baser of of at least 160m and Steam reached a peak of 14m concurrent users at march this year. How many new users Steam gets doesn't matter esp. in scalable environment. Banks & DDOS-Protection is scalable too. Last one you can also rent, and they can handle a lot. It needed an very huge Botnet to push it over its limits (Happend this year!).

As said it is only matter of money.

But it seems Valves infrastructure is not scalable and also it seems a bit outdated. For example if they have server maintenance they are not able to transfer active sessions to another location. They have servers all over the world, and can't transfer your session at maintenance in 2017?!?!!? Which is very annoying if a game relies on Steam authentication and kicks you out as soon you lose connection to Steam BECAUSE of server maintenance.

I do not buy a game this time. My library is full of unplayed titles. Because I just do not have time for playing them.

Instead I bought hardware this time. The Steam Controller and the Steam Link-Box have a discount of 55% in the bundle. Both together for under 50€ here in Germany. There I could not resist.

This usually costs the controller alone. And since I had already planned for a longer time to buy the controller, I then used this time the opportunity.


Last edited by KuJo on 25 June 2017 at 7:08 am UTC

I also bought the link&controller combo (germany as well)

Besides that i added black mesa and stanley parable even when i know that i will not be able to play them any time soon :P

Adding shipping costs it totalled at 71,66€. Should be enough this time ;-)

I also bought the link&controller combo (germany as well)

Besides that i added black mesa and stanley parable even when i know that i will not be able to play them any time soon :P

Adding shipping costs it totalled at 71,66€. Should be enough this time ;-)

I really wanted the controller but the last time I looked into it it would be far more expensive than I can afford. They really need to launch it in Brazil so I can buy it.

Just been checking out the Humble Store, and I'm seeing more discounted games on there that appeal to me than the Steam store. Wonder if it is anything to do with the way Humble format their content. I'm certainly keen on Humble's Top Discounts sorting.