This is outrageous. I too picked up Risen on Steam this weekend and if it wasn't for my desire to finish that piece of shit game Call of Duty:Black Ops I would have been playing (or trying to play) Risen this weekend as well.

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

I find it funny that they can even run out of virtual keys.

As someone once wrote on this site: Hell hath no fury like a nerd's scorn.

Frijoles wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 10:03:
I find it funny that they can even run out of virtual keys.

I always wondered this as well. Though the system just generated them on the fly.

Frijoles wrote on Nov 15, 2010, 10:03:
I find it funny that they can even run out of virtual keys.

It's probably the case that they have a model where out of many possibly valid keys, only a certain portion of them are flagged in a database as activated and will actually allow the game to function. This helps combat people pirating the game using a key generation tool, as the key generator has to hit upon a key that is both valid and active for the game to work, rather than just reverse engineering the validity algorithm.

So, I'm guessing they only had a certain number of activated keys, which is good sense because if you activate too many, you run the risk of the key generators hitting valid keys. Given that demand far exceeded their expectations, they ran out of the ones already activated.

Now, one can easily say that they ought to have activated more keys than they thought they'd ever need for the sale, just in case. I don't know what the sales numbers were, so I can't comment on how realistic that expectation is. Maybe they did that already, and demand even exceeded that number. 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.

Thank you Valve employee Mechanik

I dont think they expected that level of success, as Risen had a mild reception at best when it was first released. Turns out it's a really good game, and worthy successor to Gothic series (instead of the craptastic Gothic 4). The word of mouth has done some good to it i guess, as most people who completed found it very enjoyable (as i did, although it was just a bit too short).
As in Gothic 2, you have to play very finely in order to become a mage, and as in Gothic 2, it's not a matter of basic "good vs evil", and the scenario is rather good i'd say. Only downside is the characters are mostly forgettable apart for the Inquisitor who's a bit more multi faceted. The levelling and skill system are very good and very well done for immersion (same kind as earlier Gothic games).

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.

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

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.

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

LOL!!!

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

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

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.

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

Hah... I wish. IBM actually.

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.

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!.

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

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!

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.