Prez wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 17:23:
This situation makes me laugh every time I see it happen.

"Uh, sorry - Our random number generating-algorithm is out of commission 'til Monday. Please check back later for your personal randomly-generated number!"

This isn't how it works, so you can stop laughing.

nullability wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 15:45:
I don't think Steam ever generates keys unless they're Valve games. My understanding is that Steam is just given a list of keys by the publisher, and when they run out, they need to get more. The same thing happened with F.E.A.R. and Prey a while ago, too. Apparently they usually have enough that running out of "stock" isn't a big enough concern to add the necessary billing logic.

This is true. Twice I've had urgent emails from valve asking for another X thousand keys for Gratuitous Space Battles. It's very hard to predict demand, and you don't want an infinite number of keys in a performance-critical key-checking database.

Same thing happend to me when they ran a promotion that included FUEL. The sticky is still up there. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1248955

Prez wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 17:23:
This situation makes me laugh every time I see it happen.

"Uh, sorry - Our random number generating-algorithm is out of commission 'til Monday. Please check back later for your personal randomly-generated number!"

Well I think its more along the lines of:
"the company that we (deep silver) are paying to control the algorithm and keys since we don't have the expertise to do it securely ourselves and don't wish to invest the time/effort/money/etc to do it ourselves, only works weekdays, and we can't get more keys until then. We didn't expect to sell so many copies in the sale, so we didn't bother to have a big stack of extra keys on hand, since we have to pay that other company a fee to get each chunk of keys. After they send it to us, we will then be able convert the new key database additions into the format required by valve and then finally forward it on to valve"

Its not the random number generator standing in the way, its that pesky human element thats added in for security reasons and for cost reasons doesn't work on week end

I think as mentioned by a previous poster, nowadays they don't just do an algorithm check, but an individual key check to see if that key is "activated" in the master key database. I imagine there are some exceptions, like MW2 which is full steamworks. So every single key they sell has to be activatible in steam. Perhaps valve manages the keys and algorithms for that, or else the company gives valve the master key list or something.

Tumbler wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 13:58:

P.S. Did I mention that Black Ops sucked!!

Heh, from watching the PC stuttering issue it appears the pc version of the game has problems.

But for 360, the MP side of the game is a blast. I wasn't too sure about their new system of CoD points and what not but the more I play the more I love the freedom you have to start using the weapons you want rather than having to jump from weapon to weapon each time one unlocks. (I always felt that in order to earn the xp needed to level you needed to keep moving to different weapons to work on those challenges) There have been times where I've felt "stuck" but the contracts you can buy helped out a ton giving me something to strive for while I got through a harder section of the journey. I'm lvl 32 now and the game has gotten a lot more fun.

Favorite weapon has to be the olympia. That shotgun is so satisfying to use. It's a fucking sledge hammer, but the reload is brutal. Slow as hell and while I was learning to use it I kept kicking myself for not getting slight of hand before now. Had to pick up marathon as well so that I could stay mobile, firing that shotgun feels like I'm firing a flare for everyone to see, HOLY SHIT THAT WAS LOUD, I GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, EVERYONE HEARD THAT!.

Personally i LOVE the Steakout, but I mainly just use the AK.

Ohh yeah and Risen was awesome, incredible deal.

ASeven wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 12:14:
Still, apart from the cry of running out of keys, this is a good indication that:

a) Steam sales work wonderfully
b) Perhaps the PC gaming market is growing

More likely they only had a few thousand keys.

This situation makes me laugh every time I see it happen.

"Uh, sorry - Our random number generating-algorithm is out of commission 'til Monday. Please check back later for your personal randomly-generated number!"

Tumbler wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 13:58:

P.S. Did I mention that Black Ops sucked!!

Heh, from watching the PC stuttering issue it appears the pc version of the game has problems.

But for 360, the MP side of the game is a blast. I wasn't too sure about their new system of CoD points and what not but the more I play the more I love the freedom you have to start using the weapons you want rather than having to jump from weapon to weapon each time one unlocks. (I always felt that in order to earn the xp needed to level you needed to keep moving to different weapons to work on those challenges) There have been times where I've felt "stuck" but the contracts you can buy helped out a ton giving me something to strive for while I got through a harder section of the journey. I'm lvl 32 now and the game has gotten a lot more fun.

Favorite weapon has to be the olympia. That shotgun is so satisfying to use. It's a fucking sledge hammer, but the reload is brutal. Slow as hell and while I was learning to use it I kept kicking myself for not getting slight of hand before now. Had to pick up marathon as well so that I could stay mobile, firing that shotgun feels like I'm firing a flare for everyone to see, HOLY SHIT THAT WAS LOUD, I GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, EVERYONE HEARD THAT!.

The stuttering issue on the PC version is 99% fixed, there's still the odd complaint about it here and there. There's still also an obvious performance issue, I've mentioned in another thread anyone getting too-low performance with their specs should try turning off shadows and see if it works, but that aside, the game seems to scale pretty well. A friend of mine in the UK runs it just fine on a laptop slightly below minimum spec and has only small hiccups joining servers I'm on where he gets 200 ping.

Also, hats off to you for making the Olympia useful, I never looked back at that thing after I got the Stakeout, even with Sleight of Hand the reload just killed me every time. I actually like the Stakeout better than the "hidden" shotgun, the name of which escapes me.

nullability wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 15:45:
I don't think Steam ever generates keys unless they're Valve games. My understanding is that Steam is just given a list of keys by the publisher, and when they run out, they need to get more. The same thing happened with F.E.A.R. and Prey a while ago, too. Apparently they usually have enough that running out of "stock" isn't a big enough concern to add the necessary billing logic.

But I've seen it happen a number of times during a sale, and sometimes the product gets pulled from the sale when it happens. Like egosoft and their X series of games, they've pulled that from a sale when it ran out of keys before. So a number of people who WANTED to buy it at that price point (even if they had to wait for keys) actually were prevented from buying it.

I don't think Steam ever generates keys unless they're Valve games. My understanding is that Steam is just given a list of keys by the publisher, and when they run out, they need to get more. The same thing happened with F.E.A.R. and Prey a while ago, too. Apparently they usually have enough that running out of "stock" isn't a big enough concern to add the necessary billing logic.

Tumbler wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 13:58:
HOLY SHIT THAT WAS LOUD, I GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE

You heard it here first!

J wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 13:17:
I bought Risen last night. Creston got me interested... and thus shall receive any blame or credit

I haven't had time to play it yet, but it sounds like a tenner well spent.

Credit in the form of cash, please.

It's pretty sloppy on their side that this is happening. Probably a good thing I didn't actually try to play it over the weekend, or I'd have been pissed.

Creston

P.S. Did I mention that Black Ops sucked!!

Heh, from watching the PC stuttering issue it appears the pc version of the game has problems.

But for 360, the MP side of the game is a blast. I wasn't too sure about their new system of CoD points and what not but the more I play the more I love the freedom you have to start using the weapons you want rather than having to jump from weapon to weapon each time one unlocks. (I always felt that in order to earn the xp needed to level you needed to keep moving to different weapons to work on those challenges) There have been times where I've felt "stuck" but the contracts you can buy helped out a ton giving me something to strive for while I got through a harder section of the journey. I'm lvl 32 now and the game has gotten a lot more fun.

Favorite weapon has to be the olympia. That shotgun is so satisfying to use. It's a fucking sledge hammer, but the reload is brutal. Slow as hell and while I was learning to use it I kept kicking myself for not getting slight of hand before now. Had to pick up marathon as well so that I could stay mobile, firing that shotgun feels like I'm firing a flare for everyone to see, HOLY SHIT THAT WAS LOUD, I GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, EVERYONE HEARD THAT!.

I got my key on Friday, so no big deal to me. Seems odd that they didn't just rush someone in over the weekend (they knew the sale was coming and would be on call, I'd hope) to spit out a few hundred/thousand more keys. But, I don't know how their system works, so whatever. Sucks for the people who didn't get a key.

As for the game itself, is playing a mage worth it? The one gameplay video I saw for a fire mage looks like they just replaced an arrow with a yellow dot and called it a fireball. I tend to play spell casters for the particle effects, so was a bit let down with the video.

kxmode wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 11:47:
Thank you Valve employee Mechanik

Hah... I wish. IBM actually.

I bought Risen last night. Creston got me interested... and thus shall receive any blame or credit

I haven't had time to play it yet, but it sounds like a tenner well spent.

peonjohn wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 12:07:

Mechanik wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 11:13:
But, why get so worked up? Is it the end of the world if you don't get to play a video game for 24 hours? It's not like it's critical to your survival. They screwed up and they're fixing it.

It's not a 24 hour period that people are having to wait. It's going on 4 days now.

I'm a little bummed that I didnt get to play it over the weekend, but oh well, they'll have it solved shortly.

What bothers me most is that there's no system in place to warn people of when they have run out of keys. This is something we should be notified of before making the final decision to buy it. Instead, we bought the game and downloaded it and then were told we couldn't play it.

There's just a certain lack of professionalism in it.

That's certainly a valid comment but it would take a fair amount of work to create a little inventory system that also interacts with the billing side of things. I'm not sure it's worth the effort really as these cases do come up but I wouldn't say it's a widespread problem that really needs attention before other development issues with Steam.

Generally speaking I think most people are either patient enough to understand or unwilling to get upset about a $5-15 sale type thing. What you see on forums more often than not is the vocal minority and I include myself in that group at times

Risen is working fine on Steam now. They got new keys.

kxmode wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 11:47:
Thank you Valve employee Mechanik

LOL!!!

Seems odd that steam would continue to sell the game without keys...guess they will never so no to your money, even when they don't have what you want. Sure you can buy that, oh sorry, no refunds, and we don't have that product...

I'm sure they'll get enough keys today to fix everything, weekend probably made it impossible to get more keys until monday.