Valheim Valheim Valheim, it's all we've been hearing lately. We're guilty of it, other websites and content creators have covered it a lot and so expectedly it's hit new highs again.
Less than one month since entering Early Access, Iron Gate AB and Coffee Stain Publishing have announced they've managed to sell 4 million copies. Not only that, Valheim managed to hit over 500,000 players online at the same time on February 21, which means more people were in game than there were actual Vikings in human history. A more modern detail is that it makes Valheim now on the top 5 of most played games on Steam — ever.
Other fun details include the game being played for "a combined total of 10,000 years" and it continues to climb the Steam Top 250 leaderboard for the best reviewed games of all time and they've hit over 92,000 reviews on Steam.
This is absolute madness. Amazing though, and completely deserved. Fantastic to have such a popular game developed on and for Linux with full support. Iron Gate CEO Richard Svensson has previously made it pretty clear in the official Discord for the game, that they're a "pretty dedicated linux supporter".
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A fresh update for Valheim just recently went out too, here's what's new:
- Crafting item-dupe bug fix
- Harpooned player & ship bug fix
- Fixed player ragdoll
- Bonemass,Moder,Yagluth difficulty tweaks
- Moder music updated
- Tombstone bugfix (probably wont fix disappearing tombstones though)
- Fixed world corruption caused by pressing ALT+F4 while logging out.
- Deathsquitos have slightly longer audio range
- Tweaked audio on blast-furnace & spinning wheel
- Shared map position setting is saved per world
- Updated network stats (F2)
- Building destruction drop-fix
- Vulkan support in windows builds (Linux is Vulkan by default)
- Network disconnection bugfix
- Updated socket-backend
In our previous article we talked about how it caused the popularity of the command-line game hosting tool LinuxGSM to explode too. It's since risen from around 750 servers being hosted to well over 1,400 so it also continues being a very popular way to host games.
With full Linux support you can buy Valheim on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I wonder if the harpoon fixes are to stop the "space race", e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/ln2fhh/yeeting_vikings/
6 Likes, Who?
I love this game so much that I've started writing a syslog parser/server watchdog/Discord notifier for the server that I run so I can track player's playtime as well as maintain a list of known players (Game uses SteamID64 internally). The "random events" in the game are logged too but without any sort of discernible location information I'm not sure how much use that is yet.
The watchdog is able to detect a version mismatch and trigger a restart of the systemd unit I wrote which updates the server. I really wish I could "talk" in game from the server side (like Minecraft can) to alert any online players of pending maintenance but for now Discord will have to do.
I'll post it on github once complete if anyone is interested.
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I posted this yesterday in a comment but adding the following to boot.config within valheim_Data nearly doubled my FPS in some spots. Youtube Video demonstration.
Last edited by drlamb on 25 February 2021 at 4:21 pm UTC
The watchdog is able to detect a version mismatch and trigger a restart of the systemd unit I wrote which updates the server. I really wish I could "talk" in game from the server side (like Minecraft can) to alert any online players of pending maintenance but for now Discord will have to do.
I'll post it on github once complete if anyone is interested.
----
I posted this yesterday in a comment but adding the following to boot.config within valheim_Data nearly doubled my FPS in some spots. Youtube Video demonstration.
gfx-enable-gfx-jobs=1
gfx-enable-native-gfx-jobs=1Last edited by drlamb on 25 February 2021 at 4:21 pm UTC
8 Likes, Who?
I bought this game on last monday.It feels great although I haven't played it much.According to steam page system requirements for the game are very "friendly" - that's my opinion!And there's no monthly subscription - you only pay once and that's it! It's no wonder that this is so huge success.Great work! 
0 Likes
hardpenguin Feb 25, 2021
In our previous article we talked about how it caused the popularity of the command-line game hosting tool LinuxGSM to explode too. It's since risen from around 750 servers being hosted to well over 1,400 so it also continues being a very popular way to host games.I somehow missed that before! Looks like a very useful project.
1 Likes, Who?
Looking forward to GOG release. They should have enough money to pull it off now.
0 Likes
slaapliedje Feb 25, 2021
I have to ask... is this popularity solely based on the game only being 20 bucks? Conan Exiles is pretty similar in scope, yet I'm pretty sure it never got anywhere close to 4 million sales. Especially not so quickly. Granted I think this does some random generation like Minecraft, whereas Conan does not.
I'd wish the developers luck, but clearly they already have it!
Hopefully the fame doesn't go to their head, and they get this into an awesome / epic state for years to come.
I'd wish the developers luck, but clearly they already have it!
Hopefully the fame doesn't go to their head, and they get this into an awesome / epic state for years to come.
0 Likes
I have to ask... is this popularity solely based on the game only being 20 bucks?
I've played the prototype when it was on itch.io before it was pulled. It's a fun game. I'd say it's a combination of factors. Fun game mechanics, interesting setting and increased interest in gaming in general due to the pandemic. So the game hit the stride.
0 Likes
I wonder if the harpoon fixes are to stop the "space race", e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/ln2fhh/yeeting_vikings/
Reminds me of something you would see in Goat Simulator, which Coffee Stain also published :-)
2 Likes, Who?
Reminds me of something you would see in Goat Simulator, which Coffee Stain also published :-)
Not to be pedantic but Coffee Stain developed Goat Simulator.
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I've seen so many people praising Coffee Stain for Valheim and I'm happy to see there's usually someone in the comments correcting them. Iron Gate deserves to be known for their work.
4 Likes, Who?
Fantastic to have such a popular game developed on and for Linux with full support
So this game was developed on linux then? If so, is there anywhere I can get more details on that?
0 Likes
Reminds me of something you would see in Goat Simulator, which Coffee Stain also published :-)
Not to be pedantic but Coffee Stain developed Goat Simulator.
Not to be pedantic but Coffee Stain Studios developed Goat Simulator, and Coffee Stain Publishing published Goat Simulator ;-)
4 Likes, Who?
Not to be pedantic but Coffee Stain Studios developed Goat Simulator, and Coffee Stain Publishing published Goat Simulator ;-)
Touché, but Coffee Stain Publishing didn't exist until three years AFTER goat simulators release.
So Coffee Stain both developed AND published Goat Simulator. Better? Better.
0 Likes
Not to be pedantic but Coffee Stain Studios developed Goat Simulator, and Coffee Stain Publishing published Goat Simulator ;-)
Touché, but Coffee Stain Publishing didn't exist until three years AFTER goat simulators release.
So Coffee Stain both developed AND published Goat Simulator. Better? Better.
So Coffee Stain Studios developed Coffee Stain Publishing.
Only have about 10 hours in the game so far, but to me it is an impressive game. They took a lot of elements from the survival genre and put them in game with a nice streamlined progression. It kind of resembles the way that Subnautica progresses. On top of that, everything just works. Although my hours are limited, I haven't encountered a single serious issue. Which is impressive in itself.
One of the highlights is my first raft trip. Being on the water the first time is quite the experience.
I do have one technical issue though. Every time that I restart the game, it gets stuck on the logos. Deleting the Steam shader cache directory for the game fixes that and opengl doesn't have problems at all. So it seems that the Vulkan shader processing is causing issues for me, which is probably not a game issue.
I'd also like to apologise to those big blue guys. I really need my troll skin armour, so I'm coming to get you.
0 Likes
Awesome, great to hear that these guys are having a ton of success with this project. I like the art style a lot. It kind of reminds me of a pixelated version of Vanilla WoW.
0 Likes
Have spent a tonne of hours playing this with my family.
Patch a couple of days ago has taken out my dedicated server though :/
Try to connect in, get a password prompt, then get a black screen with some ocean sounds in the background for 20 seconds and then a disconnect message.
Have updated the server but no go.
Can still spin up a local server which other people can connect to so just copied the world over.
Problem is that the person running the server gets world save pauses which are a pain, especially when they happen mid fight. Have died twice because I missed a block
Patch a couple of days ago has taken out my dedicated server though :/
Try to connect in, get a password prompt, then get a black screen with some ocean sounds in the background for 20 seconds and then a disconnect message.
Have updated the server but no go.
Can still spin up a local server which other people can connect to so just copied the world over.
Problem is that the person running the server gets world save pauses which are a pain, especially when they happen mid fight. Have died twice because I missed a block
0 Likes
Vote for developers to release the game on GOG:
* https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/suggestions/163354/pelase-release-the-game-on-gog
* https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/valheim
* https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/suggestions/163354/pelase-release-the-game-on-gog
* https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/valheim
0 Likes
Not sure what version you're running but 0.146.11 was released today with a fix for a similar sounding issue.
Quick fix patch for some network issues. Have a nice weekend everybody!
* Fixed connected player counter (Correctly ending auth sessions)
* Fixes instant disconnection issue that some players have experienced.Last edited by drlamb on 26 February 2021 at 10:47 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Feb 27, 2021
Ha, yeah. My point was more 'but 4 million, holy shit!' than it was 'It's a pretty fun game.' 4 million sales this fast is pretty insane for anything outside of what most call a triple A game. I think the last time such a thing happened like this would be Minecraft, right?I have to ask... is this popularity solely based on the game only being 20 bucks?
I've played the prototype when it was on itch.io before it was pulled. It's a fun game. I'd say it's a combination of factors. Fun game mechanics, interesting setting and increased interest in gaming in general due to the pandemic. So the game hit the stride.
0 Likes
As noted by Phoronix, Mesa was just patched enabling OpenGL threading for Valheim.
Forcing it with the mesa_glthread=true launch argument further improved performance. I've yet to see a dip below 70 FPS in the swamp (dips below 60 previously) while performance elsewhere hovers between 90-130 fps. It's completely resolved the occasional hitching I'd experience.
My steam launch options are now:
Last edited by drlamb on 27 February 2021 at 5:35 pm UTC
Forcing it with the mesa_glthread=true launch argument further improved performance. I've yet to see a dip below 70 FPS in the swamp (dips below 60 previously) while performance elsewhere hovers between 90-130 fps. It's completely resolved the occasional hitching I'd experience.
My steam launch options are now:
gamemoderun mesa_glthread=true %command%Last edited by drlamb on 27 February 2021 at 5:35 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Whoops, five million now: https://steamcommunity.com/games/892970/announcements/detail/3055101388621224472
Took them a bit longer to reach this milestone -- a week rather than five days for the last million -- maybe they're losing their touch.
Took them a bit longer to reach this milestone -- a week rather than five days for the last million -- maybe they're losing their touch.
1 Likes, Who?
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