By Quintin Smith on April 15th, 2011 at 4:52 pm.

Only seven minutes left on the Valve’s Potato Sack ARG clock! Join me as I pop open a Coke Zero and stare catatonically at the tumbling numbers, won’t you? I could do with the company, and I’ll be updating this post LIVE as and when anything happens.
Update: If you need something to distract you while you wait, I cannot recommend this link enough.
Update: Less than five minutes to go now!
Update: Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds! Let’s see if I can hold my breath for the remaining time.
Update: no i can’t do it
Update: ONE MINUTE TO GO
Update: HERE WE GO
Update: Haha. Holy shit. Check it out. Glados will be “booting” Portal 2 early if it gets enough “CPUs” playing each of the games in the Potato Sack bundle. So… might we be getting Portal 2 early, but only if we earn it? Man. The “Computations Completed For Launch” is probably the bar to keep your eyes on.
Update: The “Computations Completed For Launch” bar is ticking up! At this rate whatever is going on here will happen in under 24 hours.
@trymasteruk just tweeted at the RPS twitter account saying that by collecting the potatoes hidden in each indie game since the start of the ARG, you can boost your CPU power. No idea if this is true or not.
Update: Thanks to RPS readers Unaco and Hats Al Esman for sending the following in- we now have some specifics on how this works and what can be done to help.
“Remember the Potato Sack? GlaDOS is apparently drawing “power” from
computers playing games in the potato sack. For every collective 48 hours
for one particular game, that game’s “power bar” goes up by 1%. And Steam
needs to record you actually playing the game – just leaving something
idling in the background does not contribute.The potatoes we all frantically collected can still be collected – in
fact, you are a major contributor if you even collect one potato in one
game. Potatoes multiply that game’s particular power, so if, say, you
gathered 5 potatoes in Audiosurf and one in Bit.TRIP BEAT, you’d be
multiplying EVERYONE’s efforts in Audiosurf by 6x and BIT.TRIP BEAT by 2x.Some people seem to think that launching multiple games is a good idea.
This is in fact, not helping at all, because Steam only records keyboard
activity in games launched through Steam, not through external launching.”
And here‘s a guide as to how you can get those precious potatoes.


I, myself, am drinking Mountain Dew, I’m not sure if I like it.
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Yeah it’s a weird one. I drank some Monster over the weekend and really enjoyed it, which I wasn’t expecting.
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Was it one of those half juice ones? They’re confusion in a can.
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I’m about to make a pot of White Tea. I’ve done everything correct… heated the pot prior, using freshly drawn water. It’s going to be good. But it’ll probably mean I’ll miss the 0:00 countdown.
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30 seconds till the site crashes with so many people refreshing it at once.
Edit: I’m sure I didn’t click reply. Sorry for hijacking.
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Hey guys, guys, hey guys, I just had some cookies n’milk.
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If I remember correctly, Coca Cola Zero is exactly the same as Diet Coke, but re-branded so it doesn’t have the girly reputation.
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I also had cookies `n’ milk!
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@Alex Bakke You remember wrong sir!, Coke Zero tastes different to Diet Coke, closer to normal Coke, less sweet though, actually nicer than normal Coke when its cold
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I’m quite fond of Mountain Dew. It’s been my straight soda of choice ever since Coca-Cola discontinued Surge, which I was super bummed out about it. Otherwise, I tend to prefer Rockstar and Amp energy drinks (particularly the Code Red flavour). Not a big fan of Monster, but will buy it if the store I’m at has only that. I feel that Red Bull is awful value; a can half the size of any other energy drink with the same price.
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Mountain Dew seems to be designed with this in mind. A friend and I spent an entire summer with it as our primary beverage before realizing that neither of us really liked it that much. It’s so god damn drinkable, though.
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I have only intentionally ingested Mt Dew once since college, and I was left with the impression that my tastes when I was in school were very very strange. It’s not BAD, but it’s too sweet and is generally, well, not actually very good either.
I had a friend in college who always carried a 1-liter bottle of Mt Dew. He always had a bottle of Dew with him and would swig in in class and in computer labs and basically everywhere.
One day we were doing some programming homework, and I looked over right after he’d taken a drink, and noticed that there was foam on the inside of the bottle– you know, like Mt Dew never ever leaves, but EXACTLY like beer.
At this moment, I was enlightened.
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Monster is actually really tasty. It’s definitely my caffeine binge of choice.
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Old school Mountain Dew (i.e. what they sell as Throwback now) is the greatest soft drink ever made.
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Rockstar is my favourite energy drink by far, namely because it is by far the most sugary followed by a close second with Relentless only because you can get in a boots meal deal. £3.29 for a relentless, chicken triple sandwich and a yoghurt, how great are boots meal deals?
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Sugary drinks give me hiccups.
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everyone participating in this thread is fat
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Well, If we’re talking crutches here, RELENTLESS was the caffiend teet upon which I used to suckle…
I remember SPAR used to have plentiful deals on it a year or two back to save the coin in thine shaking, needy paw.
And, yes, brand names in capital *do* happen to be awesome.
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Coke Zero tastes like Coke mixed with water mixed with ground copper.
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Diet Coke actually has a separate formula from regular Coke. Coke Zero is the regular Coke formula with artificial sweeteners instead of corn syrup (or sugar if you’re lucky enough to live in a country where they make soda with actual goddamn sugar).
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Coke Zero and Diet Coke have the same ingredients but in different proportions. Zero tastes okay. Diet… does not.
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Quinns is already stuck in Valve Time. Seven minutes = 14:14!
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Crap, I have just realised I haven’t even pre-orderd this game yet.
I really don’t know why.
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What scares me is we may just be setting ourselves up to a massive disappointment
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Haha, no shit.
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I’m worried as to what will happen if we don’t get enough people playing it before the time runs out, will they do that fine Valve tradition of delaying it for another month or two? That would suck.
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Rest assured, Valve is not going to allow the Steam version to lag behind the PS3 and Xbox 360 retail street dates.
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3 Minutes.
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So, Quinns… Just what were you and Mr. Walker up to earlier this week? Hmmmm?
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Can’t wait for….whatever is happening.
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Oooh, thanks for the heads-up. I’ve had the clock running for hours, and it had slowed down – mine still said 40mins :)
Pre-ordered and pre-loaded…fingers crossed…
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Sitting all day staring nervously at the clock waiting for the best thing ever to happen (or not) is what I imagine being on hard drugs is like.
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I wonder if the suprise is just Meet the Medic and Meet The Pyro Videos.
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I may have the benefit of already knowing what has happened, but
JUST Meet the Medic?! JUST!?
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Argg! my dissertation has been telling me off for not writing any of it today!
But tumbling numbers are far too interesting to do anything else for my procrastino-brain.
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THREE… TWO… ONE… HAPPY NEW YE… oh.. wrong date.
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THE TENSION IS KILLING ME
I took time of work so I could be at home to watch it unfold. EPISODE 3 PLEASE.
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I’ll have to leave the house once the countdown is at zero and won’t return ’till Sunday. With my usual luck, Portal 2 will be released in a few minutes and my pre-load will sit idly on my hard drive, mocking me from afar.
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ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SECONDS
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One minute.
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And here I didn’t even collect any potatoes…
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Argh: Can’t work. I’m staring at a stupid clock, how bad is that?
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So curious! I don’t think it’ll be Portal 2, actually. No accompanying press releases?
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One minute to go :)
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20 seconds.
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Steam now says I have one friend who plays Portal 2….but the clock is still running…
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Clock appears to be stuck on 00:00:00 :(
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THE CAKE IS A LIE
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http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/
Oh my
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Fresh text….
09:00 – Hello again.
09:00 – I’ve been waiting a long time for this.
09:00 – I know it’s arriving later than expected.
09:00 – But I have a message for you:
09:00 – April Fools.
09:01 – I’m joking.
09:01 – Seriously, though:
09:01 – You’ve been surprisingly competent at
09:01 – generating electro-chemical energy to jumpstart the system.
09:01 – But now we need raw computational power
09:02 – to speed up the reboot process.
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Oh look. Another countdown.
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restarted steam & it’s updating
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OH MY GOD
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got redirected from the page to http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/
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now it says 56 minutes again :/
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play with your sack.
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So it’s an early release. How anticlimactic. Nice of them though.
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play the potato games and get portal 2 released. neat
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lame…
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SO what happened ????
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I hope you brought your internet outrage surfboards, because I see a wave on the horizon.
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*Insert outrage and disappointment here.*
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And on the new site: http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/
08:57 – Default boot scheduled to finish in 93:58:16
08:58 – Activating emergency distributed computing grid…
09:00 – GLaDOS@home starting…
09:01 – Recruiting cpus to force faster boot sequence…
So we’ve gotta play more potato games to get this running? Off to Super Meat Boy I guess…
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That was actually pretty much what I expected…
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the bastards. A new game. These guys are marketing geniuses.
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A countdown to a further countdown….Hmmm. It seems we need more potatoes.
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I shat a brick when it said April Fools.
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let down
sadly
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pretty disappointing
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Now I’m pre-loading Portal 2 AND re-downloading all my potato-sack games. This is why I love Valve. They’re going to give me a heart attack some day, though.
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Countdown and progression bars? Fuck yeah!
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So they need 119,076 users playing those games to launch portal 2 early?
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Everyone! Boot up your Potato Sack games!
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I think this is what happens when you ramp up the tension this much. Expectations are so high that the only possible thing that wouldn’t be a letdown would be if Episode 3 were packaged with the damn game.
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Those lucky, lucky indie devs.
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The thought of any other major publisher supporting indies to this level is, I think, pretty much inconceivable.
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Well valve is also a retailer and will be getting their cut of sales I suspect, so it’s not entirely altruistic. They can also see a good thing coming and I’m sure want to position themselves as the no. 1 retailer for indie devs.
As adverts go however, this one has been a lot more fun then most and I’d rather they line their pockets like this then by trying to sell me dlc.
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Yeah exactly. This does now explain satisfactorily why all these devs have been getting involved in this ARG promoting another game by another developer to quite such a level though and why they were so behind this countdown as well and ramping up the hype themselves. It all makes sense.
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Of course, they had to commit a chunk of their own resources and schedule to developing the special DLC, some of which I gather has been very elaborate. I don’t know whether Valve paid for that or whether the devs wrote it off as worth the exposure and extra sales, but either way I imagine it’s been good for them. And that makes me happy.
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I can honestly say that if the game won’t come out today at midnight at the latest I’m gonna be severly disappointed.
I was really hoping and even expecting an early launch, but with 4 days on the clock I can’t but feel bad that I allowed myself these hopes.
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I’m multitasking like crazy……
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ok people. looks like we have a responsibility on our hands. i know this is a new thing for most of you but don’t be afraid, we will get trough this.
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Guys, should the server be smoking like that?
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I don’t quite understand. Does it count the number of people that played the potato sack games from now on? People that are playing them at the same time? Or number of potatoes found in those games?
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I’m really unsure… because it seems the numbers are going up and down all the time, I’m not sure if it’s the server’s fault or how the system works.
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The wiki connected to the ARG is now down.
I would not be surprised if there is something else going on here.
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It’s down because it got slammed with traffic, not because of any spooky happenings.
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Running Super Meat Boy in the background while I work… I better be playing Portal 2 tonight!
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I’m guessing you didn’t see where it was said that they were watching for people doing just that, and it would supply no potato power.
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huh, 292meg patch just came out for my portal 2 pre-load…
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Just a generic source engine update.
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I don’t understand why everyone feels disappointed. This seems like a fun and clever move on Valve’s part. I’m not sure what they could have done that would have made the disappointed people happy.
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I guess people just wanted it to come out right now!!!!! which is a pretty silly thing to think was gonna happen.
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Speaking personally, I don’t own the Potato Pack but this gives me an excuse to finally boot up Amnesia and play it for more than 5 minutes. :P
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Yeah, it seems like a good way to build some excitement and get people to “work” for it (work for it by playing games). Valve had a sale and a meta-game that may result in Portal 2 launching early that’s all. Some people are acting like it’s the worst betrayal ever, like they installed an “insert coins to launch Portal 2″ slot on everyone’s Steam.
Then again, I had 10 of the potato sack games already, I bought the other 3 at 50% off while pre-ordering Portal 2, so I got 3 new games for about €12 bucks and I’ll pre-load Portal 2. Not bad I think, I might finally give The Ball a proper go.
The internet shit-storm over these things always seems worse than it is. Look at the forums and you’ll probably see the same few names popping up in all the “THIS IS EVUL!” threads. If you have one of the games then play it.
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Announce Ep3 probably.
Or at least launch Portal 2 at the end of the first goddamn countdown.
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Hilarious. :)
Dance puppets, dance!
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Yeth, mathter!
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You remind me of the baby
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What babe?
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babe with the power
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In all seriousness, I was kind of hoping for a new game announcement, but you have to appreciate the sheer genius of Valve marketing. No one else could pull something like this off, that’s for sure. Hell, I’m kind of tempted to go back to Defense Grid and try out the new levels.
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The two new levels have completely new voicework for the AI companion.
The second level is completely voice by GLaDOS as well, and it is hilarious.
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Is this a Labyrinth reference , or have I got the wrong end of the potato…Its buggin me.
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@Bunnymaz – What power?
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Power of voodoo – who do?
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You do.
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do what?
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Pretty clever in a way. GLaDOS “invades” all those other games in order to steal people’s CPU cycles and speed up her reboot process.
At least it makes sense in the context of what’s been happening over the past few days.
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Just Install the potato sack games and run them. it adds to the counters.
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HAR HAR
Thats gonna be a looooooooooong night of Amnesia for me
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Valve you have been completely redeemed for L4D2.
Welcome back to super awesome club :D
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What do you mean? Left 4 dead 2 is amazing :S
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Dont you remember the boycott ?
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I do wish they’d finish releasing the first game’s campaigns in the second game’s engine, though. Do I remember reading somewhere they were doing that, or did I hallucinate that?
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Yes, they’re absolutely doing this. I think they said it’s on their plate next, after Portal 2. One of those “by the end of the year” things.
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@michaelar
Glad to hear it, thanks.
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They do seem to have abanadoned the idea of new content for L4D.
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“Dont you remember the boycott ?”
Yes, sorry, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Carry on.
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Maybe there’s a twist at the end and after people have played enough games, we actually unlock the secretly finished Ep3/HL3 instead of Portal 2. Maybe.
We can always hope!?
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WE CAN.
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Best. Marketing. Scheme. EVER!
Seriously, this is going to rewrite textbooks. This is how it’s done folks – this is how you do marketing in the 21st century. It’s crazy, hilarious and with just a little pinch of evil. And a whole lot of cunning.
Now, off I go to figure out which game to play… Let’s make those retailers burn.
Well played, Valve. Well played.
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Yeah. Buy these other games so you can buy this other game. Completely new.
I don’t know what I pity less. If the obvious consumer greed, or the fact this complete nonsense actually get people to scream like little girls on a Justin Bieber concert. You people are pathetic.
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@Skystrider Settle down, it’s just a promotion
@Mario butthurt?
It isn’t revolutionary but we aren’t utterly pathetic for being interested and going along with it, we’re human. Don’t be a dick.
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Pathetic? Grief dude it’s just a bit of fun.
I didn’t even buy the flipping Potato pack. Personally I’ve been playing alongside this thing in Defence Grid (because they’ve had some clever and inventive stuff going on in there).
Now they’re giving the opportunity to get the game released early. By playing games. And not just any games but indie games. I don’t see what’s to be upset about, it’s all just one big joke.
I mean are you upset that you bought the pack but you didn’t actually want anything in it? Are you upset that they’re saying if you play indie games you can get Portal 2 faster?
Seriously I don’t get it. Valve didn’t get me to spend anything more than I already have or intended to, and this is just a cheesy little meta-game to get people on the internet running their hamster wheels.
I think it’s hilarious.
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The overjoy is what gets me.
I can’t help but feel everyone was had. It’s a scheme to buy, buy, buy, in which the only prize at the end is you get to buy. Again. Soon.
Now, I don’t know about you guys. But life goes well for me. I don’t have cancer, or any other terminal disease and my computer is healthy and will still be operating in due time. I’m in no rush. So all the excitement — I’m sorry if it bothers anyone — is met with contempt and a, I’ll confess, annoyed look at the obvious consumer greed that populates the gaming community, who can’t, for the life of them, just be more critical.
…Wait, they can. In a parallel universe EA is the one pulling this stunt. And this thread is populated with people whining about this evil company marketing strategies to get people to buy their games. You know, just like so many were quick to criticize EA/BioWare for offering (note I said offering, not buying) Mass Effect 2 for those purchasing DA 2.
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@Mario
EXACTLY.
It’s just marketing. And they’ve got people to _buy other games as part of the marketing for this game_
That is bloody re-defining marketing
So even if you want to be a cynical so-and-so over the fact that so many of us plebs have fell for it, it’s still genius on the part of Valve to appeal so directly to that part of the collective geek conscious and turn us in to Bieber-esque sheep or whatever.
You can’t have it both ways: either it’s a damn smart marketing campaign that’s worked, and we’re dumb for falling for it. Or it’s dumb and unoriginal and they may as well have not bothered as it hasn’t worked at all. In which case you’d have no need to mock us as no more people than normal have fell for it…
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Honestly? You just sound a little bitter.
Like I said, I haven’t bought anything that I didn’t already intend to. The only thing I bought was Portal 2 on pre-order for the discount.
I mean comparing it to the Mass Effect thing and how some idiots complained about getting a free game? And trying to draw some parallel or… what? I still don’t see it.
I mean, you’re getting upset over what you’re calling “pathetic” people and their “consumer greed”, and for me it’s a fun little meta-game. Portal 2 might get released early because you’re playing vidya games. It’s stupid. Of course it’s stupid. And it’s not like I’m going to be taping myself to my computer chair to do it. But hey, it’s an excuse for me to finally get around to playing Amnesia.
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Mario: I think it’s a really cool way to support indie devs, personally. Your counter culture contempt is contemptible.
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Someone’s got their sensi-pants on.
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I’ve got a feeling Mario doesn’t have any money.
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@Mario Figueiredo: Just ugh at everything you say. Your quite the pill.
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“You people are pathetic” really makes me wonder about your qualifications for posting comments here.
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I mean even in whatever existing games you own, the new content has often been well thought out and brilliant.
Speaking for Defense Grid, things start off with a command console, which is actually a puzzle game in itself. Eventualy you access a Zork style text adventure to play through. Throughout this whole thing your AI associate from the game is commenting along and making jokes (it was awesome hearing him again).
Playing that nets you a new DG training level. Just recently a second one was added. And aside from the all new companion dlalogue, the second mission is completely voiced by GlaDOS as well, and it is hilarious. There’s so much awesome writing in that one mission alone.
Each of these devs (and Valve) clearly put a tonne of effort into this thing, and it shows. That was like a nice little mini expansion to one of my favourite games, and completely for free. I have a hard time being angry about that. The first time I heard the AI chirp up again in Defense Grid there was a grin on my face a mile wide. And it only got wider when I heard GLaDOS’ constant put downs regarding my turret placement and general incompetence at defending the human race.
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What do you mean “you people”?
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I don’t have much interest in Portal myself , the only Valve game I didn’t really like. But you’ve got to hand it to them for their clever marketing. Also, a lot of people are having fun with this so let them enjoy it I say. No need to be a grumpy gordan :-)
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Yes, video games are also products. Sorry for getting excited about them. I guess, we shouldn’t bother showing interest in Indie games and/or AAA games that promote them, because that would just be “consumer greed” anyways.
Let me tell you, your view on gamer culture is highly cynical.
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I’m about halfway through reading William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and I suspect that I’m a little allergic to marketing practices the way that book’s protagonist is allergic to trademarks. Possibly Mario shares the same ailment. Further, I’m not buying Portal 2 right away, on the grounds that i will have an opening in my games backlog sometime in 2063 (and this is, largely, Valve’s fault, hee hee) so I’m not really captured by the euphoria here either, though I’m so far managing to stave off a knee-jerk annoyed reaction.
Still, the way that Valve seems to have taken it upon themselves to actively promote games that they didn’t create and have no financial stake in (other than selling them over Steam) is certainly noteworthy. Not unprecedented; companies do joint promotions all the time, though I’m having a hard time thinking of one that’s *exactly* like this.
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Overjoy can be annoying. But I tend to keep that kind of stuff on the inside. Like when I see happy children. DAMMIT WHY AREN’T THEY MISERABLE! [Joke]
Haven’t preordered Portal 2/bought any new games, but I think its all just a bit of fun. Like a treasure hunt across the internet (which would be awesome, and what I hope The Secret World might involve).
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I would understand if this were for something important such as, say, a suite of database management tools.
But this is just a game. Why are you allowing yourselves to be excited for a new computer game? There are already plenty of computer games out there, and I doubt this one is any different from the rest. Does it have more points or something?
Not only that, but the company is encouraging you to buy 13 other games. Who needs 13 computer games? And why would you then want yet another computer game when you already have 13 of them?
Truly these ad-men are marvels of the capitalist engine.
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Sadly, I actually would get really excited about the release of a new database suite in this vein.
But enough about my peculiarities.
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Bah, I’d much rather be playing Morrowind right now than any of those games.
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Write an angry letter portraying your emotions.
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Arg is right.
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The audiosurf servers are struggling under the load now. Does it know I’m connected if the audiosurf servers are overwhelmed?
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Aw, I was hoping for an EP3 announcement.
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Hm… wonder what if EA had been pulling these publicity stunts for the past months… Everyone would be overjoyed with EA overuse of marketing… for the benefit of the consumer of course.
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a) No one HAS to buy those other games, Portal 2 will come out anyway.
b) All those games are by small-scale independent developers. Very few large publishers support those kinds of games in anyway, let alone push them in this manner.
Unless you want games developing to become a not-for-profit orientated business, accept that more sales is a goal developers and publishers want.
The REASON Valve is so loved is because this kind of marketing stunt has an ethos behind it of supporting independent, small developers by using their own mass title as leverage. An ethos totally alien to EA et al.
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EA wouldn’t do this, as the shareholders would think it was mental.
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If EA did it, it’d be tied into the Bioware Social Network somehow and then they’d have a server outage or someone would say something insulting on the internet and NO ONE WOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO PLAY A VIDEO GAME EVER AGAIN.
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If some kind soul were to gift me the pack (damn my bank to hell), I’d happily run every game at once! :D Right guys? … Guys?
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All at once!? Heck, you can’t even run Toki Tori :p
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Who will provide me with the funds to reduce my computer to a shuddering pile of ashes for science?
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Teddy Leach: I got some extra copies of some of the games in the Potato Sack. Hang on, I’ll get you some gift passes in just a moment.
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For science!
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Skystrider: I think I love you.
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Okay, all done. Have fun!
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Truly, sir, you are a wonderful human being! Thank you very much indeed!
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Good job Skystrider :-)
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I can’t afford Portal 2 right now, but I have some of these indie games and I’ll lend a hand. Go Valve!
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Sooo… what’s with the vine leaves on the glados@home page? More fuel for the ARG?
Or is that just jumping at shadows?
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Vine leaves refer to the fact that a few hundred years have passed since Portal1 and Aperture Science Lab is overrun with wild weeds
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Basically the Aperture science facility’s a bit overrun by plants and trees and things since the er… ending events… of Portal 1.
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well, one segment of the “computations completed for launch” bar so far 99 to go?
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This tipped me over the edge. I’ve been considering the Potato Sack for a few days, but now I couldn’t resist.
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Yeah. I wonder how many other sales it’ll get?
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It got this one, for I am a weak, weak man.
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It certainly prompted me to get it.
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me too…
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hahahaha
oh Valve, I wuv you!
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I give a big salute to who ever thought of this magnificent piece of marketing
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Yeah, I bet the early Amnesia sales are going to spike. Only game I was interested in that I didn’t have already was Bit.Trip Beat. What’s with the poor-looking Katamari Damacy rip-off, The Wonderful End of the World?
Anyway, time to fire up Wireshark and figure out if the reporting mechanism for glados@home is calculated through steam achievements, or whether the games are reporting home. Let the lulz begin…
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No need to fire up Wireshark. Steam automatically phones home when you play a game and increments a counter for the game you’re playing. You can view the psuedo-realtime stats here: http://store.steampowered.com/stats
The “Current CPUs” on the Glados@Home page might be the total number of launches for the day or something. It’s not totally synched with the stats page so it’s hard to tell if it’s the current number of games running or if it’s the peak for the day. Could be a running total since this phase of the ARG went live.
As for TWEOW… I tried it and it felt like an homage instead of a direct ripoff. There’s no Katamari on PC so they filled a gap that was clearly in need of filling. Also it controls differently than Katamari so that leads to a bit different gameplay.
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That’s a shame, I’ve got little interest in slogging through a collection of stop-gap games just to see the release of a really good one. So I think I’ll play Dragon Age 2 instead. When’s DA 3 being released again?
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Just launch each game once and quit out after a minute. Quit being a negative nancy :)
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Yeah, scripted that with Python, launches the game for 3 minutes, kills it, waits a minute then launches again. Go team me!
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I’ve said this elsewhere, but this is one of the coolest things Valve could have done, and something that no other major publisher would ever DREAM of.
Valve are basically saying ‘You want our big AAA title early? Go out and actually *play* this broad range of indie games by small studios.’
Could you ever see Activision doing that with, say, Call of Duty 27? Or EA bumping up the next Madden release similarly?
Yeah, it isn’t the instant gratification ‘PORTAL 2 NOWOWNOWNOW’ that some people wanted, but fuck em. A lot of money and support is going to indie studios right now, and that’s great.
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This is still pretty cool and it’s a good way for people who were sitting on the sidelines to get involved.
It’s ridiculously easy to get a single potato on your account too. A shame the Wiki is down and took the instructions on the other potatos, but everyone who’s chipping in should join this group asap (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/nelipot)
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I like very much that they’re promoting Portal 2 by pushing Indie games, but that’s been going on all week with the ARG, the accompanying news, and Steam Store tie-in. People have been poring over those games.
I was just expecting something a little bit more spectacular as a finish than “play the games some more to get Portal 2 early”.
No new material for Portal 2, or any news announcement except for a flexible shipping date. Bah.
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All this crap is making me less interested in the game
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My favourite part was when the internet tied you down and made you watch.
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@Serenegoose
Isn’t that the plot of Portal 2?
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This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a marketing ploy.
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The last two weeks were a giant marketing ploy. Where you sleeping or something?
It’ll be over pretty quickly I think. The Potato Sack has been in the Top Sellers list for the last week so there’s plenty of people running around with all the games already.
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Now, this would be wonderful if I had any money at all to buy any of these.
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Playing all these games simultaneously? Really?
Oh well, release on Tuesday it is. A bit disappointed, but I’m happy for those indie-devs.
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these indies must have made a killing from this, good for them.
What I cant work out is do we need to get x potatoes or do we need to have x total playtime of the sack games to unlock portal 2?
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Honestly, while I’m slightly narked that Ep 3 is nowhere to be seen, we definitely need more things like this.
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why is there an update to hl2 and the episodes?!
ahhhh rampant speculation ahhhhh
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Probably just an engine update. They shoved out a new build yesterday (Gary Newmann blogged about it breaking GMod) and they also patched up HL2:DM, TF2, CS:S last night.
Wouldn’t be surprised if some of the changes were being applied to the other games.
Also, there’s a conspicuous lack of a L4D2 blog post yesterday.
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Dagnabbit, I was deliberately holding out on buying Portal 2 for a while just to prove to myself that I was immune to their subversive hype… but I am weak! Take my cpu cycles and be damned.
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Really struggling to give a shit about all this.
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Try prunes, or anything high-fiber.
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Then don’t. Resume your life. Portal 2 is out next week, play it then if you want, ignore this stuff.
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Dried Prunes are awesome. It irks me that people think they’re only a fibre thing.
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So, how does this works, we have to get the games open or just by playing it once it’ll do ?
I didn’t bought the potato sack but I have KF, SMB, Audiosurf and AAAaaAaAA
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damnitdamnitdamnit lost my job a month ago, no money, no potato sack for me.
But I AM able to at least run audiosurf in the background to help a teensy bit. Although I’ve failed to get even the audiosurf spuds – just my one lonely nelipt one :(
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Here’s the requirements for the potatoes:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1vPutCkoZKA9XL5ZjSuNXfX8NfoeHW3xcrv7DgalKUfE
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Yeah I know, I just really, really suck at pointman :D
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Same boat here. Trying to get the ‘Device has been modified’ potato has just caused me to rage quit Audiosurf.
Now my favorite chill out game makes me angry :(
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I read on the official Portal 2 blog “There’s also still time to collect all 36 potatoes. Anyone accomplishing this feat by the time Portal 2 launches will receive a very special, non-hat-based reward.”
Just thought I mention that.
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Portal 2 co-op skins are the new hats.
Or it could be a lie.
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“if you own all 13 of the games in this pack (or purchase this pack), get a special Team Fortress 2 potato hat (Hat available after April 5th) and a special skin in Portal 2 co-op..”
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I think someone said there’s an achievement with a tater-based name, I’m betting it’s that.
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Some quick math:
The progress bar is roughly 500px wide.
So far, we’ve achieved 8px.
This took roughly an hour.
500/8=62.5 hours
At this speed, we’ll get Portal 2 30 hours early. I’d bet it’ll speed up even more in the coming hours, though.
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So far I’m working it to be ~90 hours assuming it keeps at the current rate. Not looking good for an early release :(
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Whoa! I just got a pop up in game that is asking for a password to aperture science!
What is going on, WHATS THE PASSWORD!?
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wiki is down but someone upthread kindly posted the potato requirements – pretty sure that list has the passwords too, in bold, along the right side
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Here’s a guide for you:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1vPutCkoZKA9XL5ZjSuNXfX8NfoeHW3xcrv7DgalKUfE&pli=1
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Blog says that you only have to be playing a Sack game for it to count. The potato bit is done with, although if you get them all you get some non-specific reward.
I suppose they just want several thousand people playing indie games!
To reiterate: The grind for potatoes is over unless you want a reward for having all of them. Just play the games from the sack tonight and enjoy yourself. :)
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I don’t think you even need to play them for a long period of time. I’m looking at the Stats page and it’s saying Aaaa has 532 people playing currently with 572 max. Glados@Home is reporting 570 CPUs for Aaaa.
EDIT: Scratch that theory. Aaaa is down to 545 currently. Bah.
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If anyone is feeling masochistic and fancies a potato snack I recommend the AaaaAaa secret level accessed by entering “Killing you and giving you good advice aren’t mutually exclusive.” on the new screen accessed via the portal button on the menu. Makes veni vedi vici look like mass effect 2.
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The AAAA level is MUCH easier than VVV. The difficulty is on-par with the normal midgame levels. I beat it on maybe the 15th try.
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Well it took me all evening yesterday, and that vvvvvv level only took me about half an hour, so I guess mileage can vary. I’m pretty new to AaAaaa! however so maybe that explains it. Or maybe I’ve got some sort of exotic disease that’s eroding my ability to play frustratingly addictive games.
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Well props to you for being able to finish VVV; I probably put three hours into it to no avail. I’ve played AAAA a fair amount before but not in the last year. People: they different.
Potato-wise I think there’s a lot harder challenges out there; a lot of people are cheating and replacing map data :)
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I love that there are no hugs or kisses in GlaDOS’s secret level.
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Great, Audiosurf crashes. Oh maaaaaaaaaaaaan.
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From a quick look at the progress screen I would guestimate that each red bar is a roughly real time count of the number of people playing each game, once one game is maxed out to red it’s locked. Once all bars are maxed out to red the game will be released?
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Might just be a hard cap on which games count toward the CPU total. Wonderful end of the world seems to have a higher weight than the other games. An easter egg perhaps?
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Could be. I only own two games in the bundle (Amnesia and Defense Grid) so I’m playing Amnesia as I only just got it.
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It’s weighted by each game’s popularity, I think.
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@theory – yep, I think that makes the most sense.
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Hats off to Valve, again. Now to lauch Audiosurf in the background so I can participate while watching a movie.
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Play potatoes, spread the word!
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Valve never cease to surprise me.
Brilliant marketing and great news for those indie devs :)
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yes its a labyrinth reference
I’m tempted to watch it again, but dont want to ruin the rosy tinted view I have in my memory box
argh, reply fail
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Watch The Dark Crystal instead!
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Don’t worry I still got it, failed replies can not escape me!
Thanks btw, I did think it was Labyrinth. I haven’t see the film for, ohh, 18 years or something. I remember watching it when I was a kid around a friend of the families house. When it came to the bit with the bog of eternal stench, their dad would make farting noises..Ahh memories.
p.s Yes, Dark Crystal is good too.
p.p.s great, now I’m late for work :-(
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I watched it about 5 months ago and still enjoyed it a lot. The only thing I noticed was that Bowie’s character seemed way more creepy than I remembered.
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It was ruined for me by my female housemate pointing out he wears really tight trousers throughout the film…now I spend an hour and a half staring at Bowies crotch instead of at the amazing Jim Henson creations…
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You don’t think Bowie’s crotch is also a Jim Henson creation?
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@PoLLeNSKi
Would that female housemate who ruined Labyrinth for you happen to be an Acolyte of Areaology?
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Update: As much as the bar has filled, the countdown clock hasn’t changed any. It’s still set to finish at 3pm Tuesday afternoon (8am in Seattle), which is where it was when the countdown began. Wotsupwivdat?
That is listed as the DEFAULT boot time…
Cheers
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Someone in the Steam user’s forum had a very good point (and this should answer the latest update in the post):
1) The countdown is a “projected” release time. This is not going to change and is counting down to the regular release time.
2) The progress bar is what we’re affecting. Presumably this is moving at a rate proportional to the number of people playing the 13 games.
3) Game releases when either the countdown reaches 0, or when the bar fills. Whichever comes first.
They also point out that the individual game bars are probably proportional to the number of copies of a game being played vs. the total number of copies owned. This would explain why the relatively obscure TWEOW has a much bigger bar than say Killing Floor or Audiosurf which have been in numerous sales promotions.
So… I think it really doesn’t matter which game you play (and the Portal 2 blog post reinforces this) just as long as you’re playing one of the 13 games.
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I thought maybe the “projected” release time might change if one of the game progress bars were filled. It looks like TWEOW will probably be the first to get there, so we’ll see if anything changes once that happens in a few hours.
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Disappointed at the lack of ANYTHING in this ARG. No big news, no nothing. I was hoping, after they went through all this fucking trouble, that they’d at least introduce some new IP, something REALLY cool, or even (yeah right) episode 3. Releasing the game early is nice, but even without this mini challenge, it’s hardly something special. Definitely not worth going through all this trouble for.
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Journey not the destination etc. I’m sure a lot of people have had fun with it.
(I myself could not be bothered with the ARG at all, just happy to play Portal 2 when(ever) it comes out)
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The ARG was a blast, and it released a bunch of hints that pointed at the general plotline of Portal 2, and thus a number of people already have a good idea of how parts of the plot are going to play out. And those parts are going to be very, very creepy. D:
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perhaps did you not play the fun new levels in game such as: The Ball, Amnesia, Defense Grid, Bit.Trip.Beat
(other potatoes have levels too but they are less fun)
they are fun. and part of ARG.
I am sorry if life continues to disappoint you.
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Yeah, it sure does suck to go to all the trouble of playing some games so that I can play another game! Instead of the arduous task of playing all these games, which is quite boring, I could be doing something exciting and fun instead, like my taxes. Or scrubbing the floor. I can’t believe Valve would make me waste my time having fun.
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I have to say, it kind of cracks me up that some people were thinking that Valve would announce something new, or announce Episode 3… Did they forget that Portal 2 was coming out on Tuesday? Why would Valve announce a new product when they were obviously in a big promotional push for a yet to be released game?
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Why is it that whenever someone claims he’s disappointed, a flock of people come in and say OMG YOU DONT LIKE FUN
I like fun, I bought half that potato sack stuff WAY earlier than this, I played them, I’ve had fun with them.
I also didn’t realize there are new levels for those games, which is good to know.
All I’m saying is that the ARG, while being fun to follow, was anticlimactic in that the final BIG REVEAL was a let down. Going through all this huge effort, with all these developers, hidden messages, etc, only to have it be a marketing ploy for portal 2 is significantly less cool than if it were, say, a marketing ploy for SPACE SHEEP: APOCALYPSE (new IP). Though I will take my hat off for valve, for supporting the indie developers so dearly. That was one helluva bro move to do, and it just goes to show that the company still loves games as much as it loves money.
And for god’s sake, if you have any sympathy, don’t make a statement along the lines of “You’re a crybaby because you’re complaining that you need to play games to get games” or “you’re expecting too much” or whatever. If I didn’t like games, indie games in particular, I wouldn’t be going to RPS. Just look at my games list in steam, does that look like a games list for a person that doesn’t enjoy playing games? Honestly, people. Just think before you post those generic responses, please!
Also,
@lokimotive
Very good point. I guess from a business perspective it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have it be about anything else.
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I don’t think any ARG has ever been about a spectacular big reveal, though. If you expect some sort of pot of gold at the end, you’re missing out on the thrilling rainbow ride.
It’s like reading a novel start to finish then scratching your head when the last page isn’t an advertisement for a new book (Wheel of Time notwithstanding).
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@JuJuCam
Yeah, you’re probably right, I’ve just got the wrong outlook on this, so I’m bound to be disappointed.
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Here is the skinny, the score, the dealio if you will…
Taken from http://pastebin.com/fv89YmgA
Valve is giving us a chance to launch Portal 2 early!
http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/
Remember the Potato Sack? GlaDOS is apparently drawing “power” from computers playing games in the potato sack. For every collective 48 hours for one particular game, that game’s “power bar” goes up by 1%. And Steam needs to record you actually playing the game – just leaving something idling in the background does not contribute.
The potatoes we all frantically collected can still be collected – in fact, you are a major contributor if you even collect one potato in one game. Potatoes multiply that game’s particular power, so if, say, you gathered 5 potatoes in Audiosurf and one in Bit.TRIP BEAT, you’d be multiplying EVERYONE’s efforts in Audiosurf by 6x and BIT.TRIP BEAT by 2x.
Some people seem to think that launching multiple games is a good idea. This is in fact, not helping at all, because Steam only records keyboard activity in games launched through Steam, not through external launching.
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That’s a lot of man-hours required. But surely the Steam community can get this done before end of Saturday right?
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Steam does not magically know you’re just idling with the game in the background. Whether you’re actively playing the game or not, Steam records time played regardless.
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Thanks for the info, especially around the potatoes multiplying effect, assuming your correct :)
Well I’ve been playing a crap load of Killing Floor lately after a long hiatus so I’ll continue with that game. Haven’t played meat boy in a bit so maybe some of that too. I also still have to pre-order Portal 2… sheesh work is killing my gaming habit (but also supporting it). Hopefully we can get it released by this weekend since I won’t be able to play it during the week thanks to work sucking the life out of me during the week.
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So is there a reliable source, or did someone just make this all up? In particular, I don’t know how Steam is gonna know if I’m playing a game or just leaving it open.
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This is what the leader/admin of the ARG IRC chat room, and the rest of the room, are going on. The admin claims it’s ‘official’, and they’ve worked it out and confirmed some parts of it. Of course, it could all be made up. But the admins in the IRC (and the wiki) have been reliable so far.
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Well, I think the leader of that IRC chat is working on conjecture. Steam isn’t recording keyboard presses, which would be extremely unfair since some of those games like Super Meat Boy are ideal with a joypad. Secondly, the reason The Wonderful End Of The World is so high is because sites like SomethingAwful and NeoGAF are making concerted efforts to max out that game, and I guarantee you it is running idle on a huge portion of those computers. Other than recording specific play info in Valve games for stat purposes, Steam also can’t tell if you’re playing the game or merely idling. They merely record the amount of time the game was opened on your computer after you close it.
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Steam does actually have keylogging ability. Wouldn’t take a huge amount of effort to simply check whether someone is doing something or not.
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“Steam does actually have keylogging ability”
Ooooookay then. Now I am honestly bit creeped and seriously thinking about uninstalling. But first – source for this?
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I am really impressed with Valve. Not only with their marketing strategies, but also their contribution to the gaming world. These are really some great indie games, and by doing this promotion, they hit 2 birds with one stone by helping themselves and these indie developers. More power to Valve, and of course RPS for giving us PC gamers these wonderful news everyday! :D
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Just remembered that The National have a new song in Portal 2. Come on internet, hurry up with the unlocking so I can hear it!
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And you thought windows booted slowly
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Dammit, I knew we should’ve installed her on a solid state drive!
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3 bars 2.5 hours in. By my estimates, unless this starts picking up a lot, we’ve got another 80 hours to go.
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It’ll pick up. It’s only 2:30 PM EST. Expect things to pick up a little in a couple hours as people get home from school and work in the Americas.
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And unfortunately the total number of users on Steam is at its peak now and is going to start dropping. (Anyone know why it seems to peak at around 11am-12pm Pacific time every day? I realize that’s getting around to evening time in Europe, but is Steam’s install base really that much more overwhelming in Europe than in the U.S.?)
Hopefully the hype to contribute to the “distributed computing” grid will offset this. I’ve already got a game running while I’m off at work.
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I think it might pick up when people in the US get back from work. Or when it becomes Saturday, in general.
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“Anyone know why it seems to peak at around 11am-12pm Pacific time every day? ?”
7 – 8 PM GMT, 6 – 7 AM Sydney. Or in other words, it’s the middle of the four hour block where the official bed time line is in the centre of an ocean.
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http://www.formspring.me/gladosreal Shameless pimping. Seems as good a place as any.
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I’m excited for Portal 2. I bought the Potato pack a while back because I thought it was a good way to support the developers of it, and there were several games on there I didn’t have. But I did have some already, which means I now have a couple of spares to give away.
So, if you are poor and penniless, but would like to play a neat indie game and help make Portal 2 available sooner, then reply here with the game of your choice (so others know it’s claimed) and PM me your email address on the forums (so I can send you the gift code).
It’s first come, first served, but please leave them for others if you have the game already or have the disposable income to buy them. Also, only one game per person, please.
1. Super Meat Boy.
2. Defense Grid: The Awakening.
3. Audiosurf.
4. 1…2…3… Kick It!
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I can has Kick It!?
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Super Meat Boy would be superb, sir.
Steam ID: Almeister. I’m not sure which forums you mean – the Steam ones?
Edit: RPS has forums. Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it? That is a normal thing for a site to have. Everything is fine.
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still one left ? i’m anxious to aid the effort :p
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If it isn’t too much of a problem, I’d like Defense Grid please.
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All gone now! Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science Reboot Program. It is for the good of humanity, as is the neurotoxin.
timmyvos, don’t forget to PM me your email address on the RPS forums.
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Thanks mate :) It’s downloading now so i’ll start boosting that boot sequence in a couple of minutes !
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Do you see, Microsoft? See, Sony? This is how you earn the respect of your customer: Make them feel important!
Also, make ‘em pay even more to play a game a few hours earlier.
Mr. Nevell, I take my hat off to you.
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@Sir Quintin: the countdown clock probably accounts for the official launch only.
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This post is worth only for the map of metal link alone. :D
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I’m definitely gunna help, I running the 2 potato games I have right now in the background! I may try to leave my pc on overnight if I’m allowed! A little advice, don’t check GlaDOS@Home all the time, it makes it seem slower… The last hour felt like about 3…
Edit: I believe the projected launch thing isn’t meant to change, I think it counts down to when the game was meant to release, if the Computations bar fills first, that’s when we get the game (I think)
Edit (again): I worked it out (read: did some stuff with a calculator), if we keep on at this speed, we can do roughly 40% in a day, meaning it should unlock on Monday
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You know, the joke’ll be on all you fanbois when it turns out that Valve has actually developed a real AI named GlaDOS, and running the Potato Sack games is actually giving her access to your computer’s CPU cycles, which she’ll then use to enslave the world.
You dirty bastards, you’ve killed us all.
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RE: the fixed countdown clock, it’s fixed in the source code for the page. It’ll never change, it’s not relative to anything. When the white bar’s full, you get Portal 2. Simple as. :P
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Does Running All 13 games from the potato sack at once make me a fanboi? :(
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It’s a waste of CPU power since Steam only reports you as running the first game you started.
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But my 12 cores are bored :(.
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The timer on the site is only a countdown for the official launch, the real business is the loading bar. The bar finishes, the game is released, or it defaults to the countdown if the goal isn’t reached.
So get playing!
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Arrhh!!! I wish I had access to Steam now! =( Damn you dastardly university internet connection; DAMN YOU!
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It seems a a bit silly to spend even more money just so I can spend the same amount of money a little earlier.
I wonder how many millions of dollars Valve just managed to bilk out of their faithful fanbase?
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Money that will be going to small independent developers.
Really evil.
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What is valve’s cut? 15% 30%?
Don’t think valve is anything other than a corporation out to separate you from your money. They don’t care about you, except inasmuch as you are a walking talking wallet. Sure, they provide games of better quality than some other developers, but so what. If any other game publisher or developer had tried to run this promotion, the hivemind would be screaming about how money grubbing and profiteering it is.
Since it’s valve, it’s considered ‘Brilliant Marketing’. I guess, reading these comments, it’s true.
How many people would never have purchased the potato sack without this carrot? How many people preordered Portal 2, and purchased the potato sack to do their infinitesimal part to get access to that obviously complete game a little sooner?
I think it’s simply valve’s way of cashing in on the goodwill of their fanbase.
Simply my opinion, of course. I will admit, they do purchase producers of fine games.
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That would still be 70 to 85% going to the indie devs. How terribly evil of Valve.
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I remember reading somewhere that their cut is about 15%, so that’s not a huge deal, and that’s still a lot of money going to small independent developers. Yes, Valve, the huge, faceless, greedy corporation that involves and siphons money off to independent developers because… uh… wait, that doesn’t sound all that greedy, does it? They could’ve just used their own games for this.
I’ll repeat that again: They could have just used their own games for this.
So stop being so silly. Valve are awesome. I know haters have to hate and all that, but it’s entirely illogical to do so here and it flies in the face of reason. I mean, you might as well hate the world for being a cube, because that’d be about as relevant as hating Valve for this would be.
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Is it so implausible that every now and again a company emerges which started because they loved what they were doing and then took off because that translated into a high quality product? Blind pessimism makes the world seem very depressing. Unless you have some strong evidence that Valve only cares about making money? They aren’t on the stock exchange after all…
Can you seriously believe that all this was dreamed up as a calculated attempt to make more money off customers? Someone had a lot of fun and dedicated a lot of thought to putting the ARG together.
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“Sure, they provide games of better quality than some other developers, but so what.” So what? Is there something else we demand from game developers than making good quality games? I guess being good citizens of the ‘gaming community’, such as it is — and IMO promoting other indie companies in creative ways, letting gamers play along and feel some sense of ‘ownership’ and goodwill, is sure as hell being a good gaming community citizen. In short, lighten up, Francis.
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Of course they are cashing in, to an extent. The relevant point is they way they have gone about it. They’ve chosen to do it in such a way that they support a whole bunch of indie developers. Compared to Portal 2 sales, the money from the extra indie sales that come out of this probably won’t mean all that much to Valve, but the cut the indie developers receive will mean a hell of a lot to them. I wouldn’t have bought the Potato Sack if it were a bunch of games from bigger developers.
Yeah it’s marketing, yeah there’s profit involved, yeah the result of this will be to boost the amount of money they get in the end. But it’s been fun, in my case has expanded my games library a fair bit, and it all goes to support indie games development.
If you don’t like it don’t pay. But don’t pretend you’re the only one with the straight dope on what Valve are up to.
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I find that I am unable to muster any emotion other than cynicism about this. However, you guys, especially Andrew, make reasonable points. I guess if you guys feel like your purchase is worthwhile, and are having fun with the whole thing, cool.
Clearly it’s not for me. Have fun with it!
Edit: now with proper wording!
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@camdenbuzard
Thaaat reads more like ‘I don’t like indie games’ than anything else.
Just saying.
Personally, I think that it’s a really worthwhile purchase. It might not be for you, but I’ve had a number of “Holy crap this game is good!” moments that I’d never have had if not for this deal. There were little gems in there that surprised the hell out of me. There were other little gems that I gave away to other people, and they surprised them. A friend whom I gave Audiosurf to has been playing it non-stop.
It’s definitely a worthwhile purchase. Solely in my opinion, of course, but it is. There are a number of truly great games in there for a decent price, games which I and others (whom I’ve given games to) have been enjoying. And, again, in my personal opinion what’s in this deal is a lot more enjoyable, unique, and huhwhat? (a good thing) than most of the mainstream tripe that gets released these days. That stuff tends to bore me more and more all the time.
So it does come down to different strokes for different folks, but I can’t help but feel that you’d be less cynical if you could accept that these games just might be good, or if the sack had contained mainstream games (in which case I’d likely have been the more cynical one, especially since mainstream types don’t need this kind of exposure).
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The money going to the indie community is the only worthwhile event on this otherwise disturbing marketing campaign.
Needs to be said too that for a lot of the today’s purchasers of the potatoe sack, the games and the indie developers that produced these games are just a means to an end, and not actual talents worth of seeing their work put in a more favorable light. But who cares, right? Money is flowing in, whether people actually play their games or simply leave the computer on overnight.
In the end however, I don’t feel any empathy towards any indie developer leaving off to the bank with a 200,000 USD check in addition to the sales they did previously. I like indie, I just don’t like them that much to keep barking in their defense when they seem well enough already.
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“The money going to the indie community is the only worthwhile event on this otherwise disturbing marketing campaign.”
Also getting free content that’s better than what most developers would charge several £ for nowadays, and getting a game at least a little earlier when the developers could have just stuck to the given date.
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I have a potato. I did my part.
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I have a starchy, bulbous, brown comestible edible too!
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I have many, but they are in a bag, not a sack :(
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Wulf & Chips!
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Yes, if only there were something you could get in exchange for dropping $38 on the Potato Sack. Steam is a game distribution service — you’d think they’d give you a game, or something.
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for that price, it better have like, a whole bunch of games.
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Totally. It’s a complete ripoff for anything less than ten games.
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Hi!
I’ve got a couple of spare Potato Sack games to give away!
-All of these are now claimed, sorry!-
Rush. – Claimed
Super Meat Boy. – Claimed
The Ball. – Claimed
The Wonderful End Of The World. – Claimed
Toki Tori. – Claimed
1.. 2.. 3.. Kick it! – Claimed
AaaaaAaa Gravity. – Claimed
Amnesia. – Claimed
Cogs. – Claimed
Defense grid. – Claimed
Killing Floor. – Claimed
I’d like to request that people who cannot normally afford these games request them, as if you can.. Well, that’d be mean to those who cannot! And one game per person! PM me via the forum with a request. It’s only fair we all get to try these games as they are all fantastic little indie titles. That, and Portal 2 earlier benefits everyone!
Oh, and would you reply to this mentioning which game you picked so others may know what is left?
Thank you!
If it says Claimed, then it is no longer available! :)
This has now all been claimed! You guys are awesomely polite!
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I’d LOVE to give a couple of the lower-spec ones like Toki Tori & Super Meat Boy to my GF. Her laptop is ancient, and we’re both completely broke. I’ll likely be getting Portal 2 in a couple of months at this rate.
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Just sent a PM asking for Amnesia.
If anyone wants HL2, I still have a few copies left over from the Christmas sale :P
Edit: game received. Can’t thank you enough.
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I would love either Killing Floor, Cogs or Aaaaa, if you still have any of them. — thoroughly didn’t read your entire post, have PMed. Apols!
Killing Floor received- very generous of you, many thanks!
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I have PM’d asking for killing floor
*edit*
Now that I have stopped panicking about messaging you in time, I would like to thank you on your generosity :)
When people bitch about PC gamers I shall hold you as a shining example of how awesome we can be
*Edit2*
I have taken the code for Defense Grid. A thousand thank yous come from a poor working woman with a student for a husband
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I’d quite like SuperMeatBoy please. As im a noob, how do I pm you?
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@PiggyDiggy; I’m afraid it has been claimed!
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Would like 1…2…3… Kick It! PMing you, thanks :D
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this comment was intentionally left mysterious
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Would be nice to get Toki Tori. / PM is out!
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Only two games left!
If you are interested, -Please- PM me!
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Poor Rush :(
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Indeed, it would seem Rush is all alone!
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I’ll claim Rush … it was actually one of the games I thought looked most fun on the list!
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Rush is really quite an enjoyable and brain-teasy puzzle game for me – probably the one I’ve played most in recent months. Definitely worth trying out.
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I got Rush months ago on a daily sale, mostly because I liked the look of the art style. (See also Nimbus.) Haven’t installed it yet, and seeing as how my “sequester self away all weekend in worship of our demented AI mistress” plans are apparently going to fall through, maybe now would be a good time. And for a good cause, too!
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This is the best Capitalism I ever saw
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I don’t know if anyone noticed this, but The Wonderful End of the World is going up way faster than everything else. That’s because the folks in the Valve ARG IRC channel are isolating games and attacking them at once. Go do it!
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Ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter. Once TWEOW is finished we probably won’t get any more credit by running that game. Spreading out should accomplish the same thing.
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So supposedly getting potatos helps this go faster, but I’ve completed both conditions for the Super Meat Boy ones and nothing whatsoever has happened. Am I supposed to get a login box somewhere, or something?
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Go to your Steam community profile page. If you’ve gotten any potatoes, they’ll show up next to your avatar image.
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I actually found the problem. Had to turn the Steam Community Overlay thing back on. The things I do for starch…
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Guys, this is far from over:
Updates to Killing Floor have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
* Addressed an issue where client would hang on connecting to servers
* Various map bug and exploit updates
* Her chamber has been opened… Help Us
http://store.steampowered.com/news/5311/
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The Wonderful End of the World was actually really fun. A Katamary Damacy clone, all you do is roll over items to grow bigger. Finished it, got 8 achievements out of 10. I’ve done my bit for the night.
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you don’t have to actually PLAY the games, that’s a rumour that got out. steam does not “record keystrokes”.
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I’m looking for somewhere where I can find out how to obtain potatoes, now that the main wiki has gone down – would anyone be able to help me out? I’m specificaly looking for help on Super Meat Boy, Amnesia, Bit Trip and The Ball.
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Supposedly, Mister Horse, this document has the instructions.
I’ve been struggling getting them to work, though.
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I’m going to sound so selfish right now, but if anyone wants go gift me a steam game, I’ll accept it :) I really have such little money… :(
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In an unselfish way I would like to progress the Portal 2 early launch time by also selfishly asking for a free game to play.
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I have a couple from the PS to gift. What game were you hoping for?
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@ohrus
If you have any of the following available, and if MOARGAN does not want ‘em, then I would be terribly appreciative, and would do my potato-collecting part: The Wonderful End of the World, Kick It, Killing Floor, BIT.TRIP.
Either way, as other have said, the generosity here is wonderful, so thanks!
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Amnesia>audiosurf>rush but ill play any of them to help the unlock :) wow people on this site are amazingly kindhearted.
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Playing enough Amnesia: Dark Decent to unlock Portal 2 early is too terrifying to contemplate.
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Heh, easiest way to get your multiplier potato, still last in the race for now.
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Doing my ‘duty’ by trying my hand at the Wonderful End Of The World potato-levels, but they’re very hard. Why do I always enjoy games I’m horrible at?
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I’ve also got some spare Steam games to give away. PM me if you’re interested.
- AaaaaAAaaaAAAaa – GONE
- Amnesia – GONE
- Audiosurf – GONE
- Defence Grid – GONE
- Half-Life 2
- Half-Life 2: Episode 1 – GONE
- Killing Floor – GONE
- Portal
- Super Meat Boy – GONE
- The Ball – GONE
First come, first served I’m afraid. Also one per person. I’ll only be around for another hour or so, so be quick!
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Super MEat boy please :)
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Send me a PM on the forum with your e-mail MadJax. :)
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Pm out! / Would be awesome to get The Ball :>
We need to support the Valve Community!
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Poop meatboys gone :(
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if defence grid is still available I’d be more than grateful :0
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Sorry Beloid, Defence Grid has gone. Just 3 left.
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Half Life 2 please :)
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is amnesia or aaahhhahhh taken?
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kristofferson27 – Send me a PM in the forums with your e-mail address then :)
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Sorry, both have gone Grechzoo.
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just my luck, going for the ones already gone :) Thanks anyway Cyberhead, you’re doing a great thing.
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Right, I’m off. Send me a PM in the forum if anyone’s interested in the remaining 3 games, and I’ll get back to you when I can.
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I’m giving away Portal 1!
First come, first served! PM me!
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May I have it? I don’t know how to PM :<
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If anyone has a spare copy of The Wonderful End of the World, it would be greatly appreciated (Spent the last of my student loan pre-ordering P2 :p)
Generosity such as what has been shown here alone is what makes the PC community one of the best imo
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No problem Cyberhead,
who want Portal 1? was gonna save it for my bro, but he isn’t getting a pc anytime soon. ( he has a macbook ) :)
please pm me :D
the only PS game i have is SMB, cant afford to buy the whole sack, but may just nab a few of the cheapies before they go back to full price.
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Although I’m not sure how well Portal will run on a Macbook, Portal is definitely Mac compatible.
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oh yeah, i know its mac compatible, just not a good enough macbook to run it i think.
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Wait wait wait.. wasn’t PC gaming dying?
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Ark, can’t believe I missed out on free Amnesia and Super Meat Boy
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“For every collective 48 hours for one particular game, that game’s “power bar” goes up by 1%.”
This cannot possibly be true.
Killing Floor for example currently has 5554 people playing.
100*48 hours = 4800 hours.
4800 hours/5554 = 0.86 hours
Meaning if “For every collective 48 hours for one particular game, that game’s “power bar” goes up by 1%.” was true, Killing Floor, as well as several other games, would have been done several hours ago.
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Yeah, it’s clearly complete crap. I think RPS needs an official math guy, since something that would take your average 6th grader about 30 seconds to work out has apparently gone completely unnoticed.
If each potato collected increased the multiplier by 1 for every single person playing, and over 180 thousand potatoes have been collected, and each game required a total of 4800 hours of cumulative play divided by the number of potatoes collected in each game, then it’s pretty clear that a single person could play each game for significantly less than one hour and fill the bars.
On the other hand, an “IRC Admin” apparently confirmed it as being true. I can’t argue with those credentials.
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although it’s a pretty fun way to earn the early launch it’s still just trying to get more money out of people.
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Yep … but then, it’s earning more money for good indie developers too. So everybody wins.
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And providing new content for all those indie games! Free content to those who already owned them!! I don’t know why that aspect of this is always forgotten.
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I bought Amnesia with it being 50% off. And I’m not even taking part in this collective CPU thing (cant download the game till morning as my broadband sucks at night)
£6.50 isn’t much, but i feel good giving it to a truly great developer who who obviously needs it. So i dont feel hypnotized by a greedy corporation for what i just did. I feel fulfilled and relieved that i finally bit the bullet, even though i know ill get twenty minutes into the game and realize i am actually a woman and will be too scared the play the game again.
Still im just trying to illustrate this “stunt”, whatever Valves motives, is helping too many great developers, and adding lots of awareness to the indie market, for it to ever be looked on negatively.
Whether portal 2 comes early or not is now not a consideration for me. i just applaud the planning and execution of this marketing move. because at the end of the day, portal 2 is being featured on every gaming blog and website right now, and anyone who wasn’t initially bought into the hype, will at least be interested to see how all this turns out.
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http://i.imgur.com/xKgaY.png
Solved.
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Oh God. I hope I get to say I called it.
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Yes, Valve dangling the carrot of Portal 2 in front of us behind some herculean task is kind of cruel. What’s that you say? They’re acting like this is cool and for us when really it serves their own self-interest (in terms of marketing and selling indie games).
OMG SUBTEXT
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Even cruelier still, they are almost making us play these cheap games we buy on a whim!
Tbh, about 1/4 of my steam list i don’t think I’ve ever installed let alone played :S
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B-bu-but… I’m enjoying it. They put awesome new content in all of the games in the sack, so even games that one might have already played before have fresh, interesting content added to them. The test chambers added to The Ball are nothing short of genius, and the C.H.A.S. map in Defence Grid is truly evil, but a fun sort of evil. I love the banter back and forth between the Defence Grid AI and GLaDOS.
Free content for games I already owned, even, then! I… can’t argue with that or see the evil in it. I’m having fun, but maybe it’s because I actually really like these games. I say give them a chance, try out The Ball and the new Portal content in it, for example, which is immediately accessible.
Another thing I like about The Ball’s content (yes, The Ball again) is that it’s a vignette into The Ball’s reality, the two have been mixed up. You bust through a wall in a temple to find a half-wrecked lab, and the two sort of melt into one another. You have Ball bits and Portal bits, and the way they’ve done it is a damn convincing portrayal of GLaDOS having pulled off some sort of time travel to setup a hidden test lab before things went Very Wrong™.
One more thing? The Audiosurf addition is hilarious and has to be seen to be believed. It features Chell on a hoverboard, with a portal gun, and the grabby part actually works! And the music to this track is none other than the ‘Device Has Been Modified’ remix, for those who’re familiar with that. Great stuff.
I haven’t had a chance to get to it yet, but apparently the new content for Amnesia tells a really nicely written story which provides loose links between the Amnesia and Portal realities. It’s a tale well told from what I’ve heard, and one of the more interesting instances of this, almost on par with what was added to The Ball. And then there are all those other games which had content added to them!
But like I said prior, I think how much you’re going to enjoy this comes down to how much you like indie games.
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http://www.coughlandesign.com/portal/ Potential indicator of estimated time for anyone interested :)
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Interesting find :)
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If anyone is curious why TWEOTW is so far ahead, 4chan is apparently ‘on the job’, as most of the forum has been playing it all day.
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It might also be, as others have postulated, that the bars are X people playing out of Y total owners. So games less often included in sales or packs, or less popular titles, or newer ones, might have less total owners – and hence, an easier to fill overall bar.
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Certainly not true. If it was, the optimal strategy would be for noone else to buy the sack, and for people to DDOS Steam Store to ensure this.
Think about it – any metric based on percentage of total game owners means the less people own the game, the easier it is to complete. Fail marketing 101 anyone with that brilliant idea.
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viverravid, that’s not true. It’s more efficient to get existing game owners to play than to get a new person to buy a game and play, but buying a game and playing is still better than not. 6/11ths is bigger than 5/10ths.
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The real genius of Portal 2′s multi-tiered marketing push isn’t in convincing on-the-fence customers as much as it is in creating such a social and cultural fuss that inevitable customers will snap it up at the current, full price, rather than wait for the price-drop months down the road.
Like I just did.
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I think this is it. I was also going to wait for the price-drop, but am seriously considering getting it now. Damn you Valve.
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Wrong Reply
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I haven’t pre-ordered, but I suppose I can play some Audiosurf as a favour to y’all.
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So.
How about those games, eh?
I played a game just this morning, actually.
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The mere fact that Valve considered this, let alone that they’re actually doing it, is amazing.
But now that it’s even in the realm of possibility, I wish they had made it easier to unlock. So many people are playing and so little progress has been made.
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More progress is gained by gathering potatoes than playing, but too few people realise this, unfortunately, and too few realise how easy some of the potatoes are to get, especially since some games have repeat potatoes. There are a number of very easily gained potatoes in Defence Grid, for example.
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Are the potatoes working? Just this evening I beat the shifting letters game in Defense Grid and I got 5 stars on the secret level in AaAaAA! but neither gave me a potato. : (
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Urthman – you need to have the steam overlay thing turned on or it doesn’t register them
Also sometimes it just doesn’t work, first time I completed the AaAaAA! level I got the logon screen but no potato for some reason, restarted AaAaAA! and did it again and it worked. Really annoying as it took me forever to complete that level (although did it again very quickly for some reason. weird brain)
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One game is complete. People sould follow the guides to get at least a few potatoes.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrr metagames!
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Yeah I have to agree that whilst it’s a nice idea, Valve definitely made this too hard to go after. At this rate the game’s going to be unlocked like, 1 day early.
If there was a good chance it would be unlocked during the weekend then that would’ve meant at least something.
EDIT: Also, are Potatoes relevant even if you’re not in-game, or do you have to be playing for them to “count”? And do you have to be playing that specific game, or any of them?
They could have stood to clarify those bits as well to be honest.
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As TWEOTW has finished now, surely it would be better if everyone just briefly played one game, got it “complete” then moved to the next?
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Yeah – I think TWEOTW being completed gives concrete information that it should be possible to game the system by focussing on one game at a time. It’ll be interesting to see if this happens.
But basically, yeah, part of the problem is that the rules of the game are obscure. I am still confused as to the meaning of potatoes (that’s not a phrase I expected ever to type), and how to get them with the steam overlay thing and login screens and whatnot…
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Just wanted to post a link with much better data than the official site (found via neogaf):
http://www.gamingmasters.co.uk/portal/
Real release time estimate, estimate of completion percentage, estimate of completion percentage increase per hour and so on.
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Unfortunately that is inaccurate because time is only removed when a bar is completed, as we saw with WOETW.. and even then, it was only 50 minutes.
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An alternative with a decidedly catchier URL.
http://hasportal2launchedyet.com/
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Well, it looks like the Valve ARG site has been nuked into the ground by what scientists are calling “a hodojillion dudes” trying to get at it.
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The problem with the “specifics” posted are that they are quickly and easily dispelled.. and yet have been up all day.
“For every collective 48 hours for one particular game, that game’s “power bar” goes up by 1%”
If this were the case then Killing floor, which had on 5000 players when the countdown launched would have completed in a single hour.
“And Steam needs to record you actually playing the game – just leaving something idling in the background does not contribute.” Wrong again, WEOTW was completed from 10 hours of ARG players idling, because there is really only two hours of gameplay to it, at best.
“Potatoes multiply that game’s particular power” And for a third time, wrong. Defense Grid has the most potatoes of any game, which are also the EASIEST potatoes to obtain of any game. It would have a significant lead on the other games.
The way it ACTUALLY works is simple. “CPUs” are tracked via steam stats (found here: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/). Steam Stats determines how many people are playing solely based on steam friends status. If you’re ‘in game’ for one of the potato sack games, you count. You don’t need to do anything else. Progress awarded every couple of minutes based on the amount of steam users with the game running. However, progress for each game is not handled in terms of percentages. Instead each bar has its own specific value that was put down based on the existing player base when the counters went live. (It is theorized that the time removed when completed is based on the total value needed to complete, but without another completion we can not verify this)
This is how WEOTW finished first, the ARG players acknowledged it had the smallest install base and swarmed it, knowing that even with a relatively small number they would complete it much faster than if they focused elsewhere.
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I’m sorry but that’s just wrong ANeM, what kind of marketing ploy would base itself on the advantage being in a low player-base? i agree the 1% thing seems to be a bit squiffy too, but I reckon the numbers that need to be achieved are not based solely on player-base, and From what I know WEOTW was finished so fast because 4chans /v/ blitzed it for the lulz..
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If potatoes don’t count, why do they have what appears to be a potato counter at the bottom?
Not claiming one thing or another, just that the problem here is that they should have made the rules of the metagame clear so that people who want to play the meta-game as well as the single games can do.
As it is, it is just a bit frustrating. I want to get involved, but how do I know if I am making any difference? How do I know how to make my contribution count as much as it can?
It wouldn’t have been hard for GLaDOS to announce the rules to the humans that want to set her free…
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@Hesperus:
WEOTW has AFAIK by far the lowest user-base of the 13 games. Yet it was completed first even though several games had more concurrent players. Therefore it’d make sense that it’s weighted by user-base, which makes sense as one game lagging behind just because almost no one has it would be a bit sily.
@TheApologist:
Potatoes probably do something. What, no one except VALVe know for sure.
The mystery of it all is part of the fun IMO. It fits with the ARG.
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@Meneth
Totally agree that the mystery is a crucial and very cool part of the ARG, but this phase of the meta-game has, IMO, shifted the audience of that ARG significantly. This is now opened up to a much more general audience, and is asking them not to solve a mystery, but to play a (meta)game. It then withholds the rules of that game. I think the tolerance of the wider audience for that will be far lower than the more engaged ARG bunch. I just think that’s a misjudgement.
Put another way, they have shifted the site of the mystery to a far less interesting/satisfying place – from the fiction and thus from the outcome of a puzzle to the mechanics of a game we all know the outcome of already. They are just asking us to grind, but not telling us how to do that efficiently.
So, yeah, not a killer thing. I mean, I love it, it’s an amazing achievement. The Portal 2 launch has been brilliant entertainment, marketing, online community development and capacity building a whole sector of an entertainment industry – all at once!
It is mind blowing stuff. I just think at this point, they have mis-stepped a little bit.
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Or, the potato multiplier could be scaled by the total potatoes available for that game. In which case, Defence Grid will the the hardest to complete, as not everyone will bother to get all the potatoes, so their playtime will count for less.
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It would be entirely in character for GlaDOS to say, “You’re never going to fill this progress bar, you know. You might as well give up.”
And then an hour later release Portal 2 saying something like, “You didn’t think I needed that entire progress bar filled just for this, did you?”
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I had this kinda daydream this afternoon.
It was about how, in a little while from now, another breadcrumb trail shows up in a Portal 2 update. This trail suggests an ARG on quite a large scale. The trail twists and turns, requiring image analysis, short-wave radio, Riemann zeta functions and fluency in Russian to unravel. Along the way it gathers up everything since 2007: Portal, What’s In The Box, Babel Research, the whole shebang. Speculation snows under a number of popular websites; the Steam forums break entirely.
Wildly disparate arms of the complex game throw up three details: the first, a time; the second, a grid reference – Times Square, perhaps, or maybe it’s in London. Forumites realise that the location contains large screens for advertising.
The final detail is a date.
Crowds gather on the appointed day. From across the country, maybe even from across the ocean they have come, driven by curiosity and a need to be involved in these remarkable events. None dare speak what they all secretly hope for.
The hour draws close. The crowd falls silent. The advertising on the screen fades to black. Thousands of breaths are held.
And the screen fades in on the face of the G-Man.
And then I woke up.
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I got chills reading this. :)
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I keep telling myself “It’s all just a marketing strategy, it’s all an elaborate advertising campaign” but that’s a great idea.. I would probably cross the sea to witness :) Or maybe it would be in multiple locations… “Rise and shine Mr. Freeman”
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Someone probably mentioned this further up in the comments somewhere, but I really can’t be bothered reading through 400 comments.
When The Wonderful End of the World finished computations, this came up in the GLaDOS output:
“19:55 – Calculations complete for The Wonderful End of the World. Recalculating a new launch projection…”
The “default boot scheduled”: 08:57 – Default boot scheduled to finish in 76:02:49
Now differs by ~50 minutes from the “Projected Launch”: 75:11:52
It seems that only finishing computations for a game speeds up launch.
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The problem Valve is facing at this point is that the “reward” for participating in the ARG which seemed moderately interesting to start with is now starting to seem useless. It also gets more useless with time. If the game is released on monday as some (maybe wrongly) have projected, there is simply no reward to speak of. And if the earlier release is all we are getting I guess that means our time has been wasted.
The PR person who is handling this is thinking very short-term. Yes the continued sell-through on the potato sack games will be nice, but if this ARG bullshit comes with no meaningful reward whatsoever, then why should we bother with it? People are stupid if they do not reject future Valve ARG games after this.
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What reward do you usually get from a marketing ARG?
Also, do you play the ARG games whilst putting your PIN number into the ATM machine?
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I’d have thought if any group of people understood that sometimes it’s just the playing of the game that is its own reward, would be the group of people that play games.
But no wonder achievements took off in a big way, I guess.
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What’s worse is that’s true of every single Valve game.
I played Portal, Half-Life 2, and got no meaningful reward whatsoever beyond the enjoyment of playing the games themselves.
So not only are they trying to trick people into playing their free ARG just for the fun of it, they’re actually charging people money for games that give you nothing beyond the fun of playing them. How long does Valve think they can get away with that scam?
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there wont be any “future ARG games”
valve are clever enough to think up a whole new marketing campaign for there next major release. and im sure it will be as massive and clever as this one, but definitely different enough.
no matter how universally praised this stunt might have been, repeating the same stunt even in a years time would bore their consumers. so valve would be stupid to simply repeat this ARG for their next release.
I also agree with d00d above. the reward for this stunt is gast becoming irrelevant.
the reddit and irc groups are doing their best, but if the carrot is not significantly closer by the end of the weekend, i think the hype will fade away as people realise they are only going to get this game a few hours early.
Personally my hype is already gone. as i realise the best we can hope for is monday afternoon. that is not a great reward, and one i wont even be able to take advantage of.
a friday launch would really have made sense, allow the players to have it for the weekend maybe after a few good hours of potato sack playing. but right now its too drawn out..
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I completely agree.
But I’ve had fun playing bits of the games in the pack. And we’re getting Portal 2 in a few days anyway, so although this is looking like a damp squib, I’d be silly if I had anything more than mild disappointment that early == few hours early instead of several days early.
But yeah, since progress has been so slow and it seems so futile, I’m not going to waste any more of my weekend on it. I might leave something running in the background, but I’ve got other things to get on with now.
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9 AM East Coast time. Don’t worry, guys. America’s on it.
Just like World War 2.
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Surely The russians won the war?
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Keep talking like that and we will give you back to Germany. We’ll do it.
The ARG clock is clearly counting down time left until France surrenders to Steam.
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Surely The Australians won the- oh nevermind…
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Someone needs to get his historical facts straight I see.
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Is there anyone who wanna give a copy of audiosurf away? Would be nice to get it :>
(Im sitting on a netbook that could handle it. Need sth to play until Im back home to play portal2)
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I’m a bit bemused at all the hubbub surrounding this. Sure, it’s a fun little thing Valve’s doing here, but surely this isn’t that exciting? I mean, it’s just a rather novel way to announce a game’s (impending) launch.
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Sure, it’s a cool marketing thing and that’s all. I’ve only been sort of half paying attention to it myself.
At the rate things are moving it doesn’t look like the game’s gonna get released early. Not that it matters since the official release is tomorrow and I won’t be home when the game unlocks.
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Is not “another portal”, is portal 2. and suposedly is a different format… this one will be long, and with complements like coop. In a way portal 2 seems to be half life 3, withouth the half-life part.
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The first long-form single-player game from Valve since 2004? Yeah, I think it’s a big deal.
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You’re kidding right? So much hype for Portal??? Come on…
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Yeah, it’s not even a real game. It’s rated E10+, for crying out loud! When did people get so wrapped up in this kiddie Mario shit?
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Teehee!
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