Steam group

[capnpop]

Hey, I made a steam group for us to use if you play steam games so we can chat and whatnot.  Feel free to drop me a PM via the forums with your steam name and I'll track you down and invite you. 

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/twonalex/

hopefully that link works...

[Raif]

What is this steam you speak of?

[capnpop]

Steam is an online distribution platform for games.  The account and client are free but come with no games and to add them you need to buy them.  They also have some demos available to try without needing any CC/Debit info (I recently installed the Dirt 2 demo to see if it was a fun racing game, it wasn't).

They have a pile of games available through various publishers and regularly have deals on both old and new games.  They have PopCap games, RPGs, First person shooters, and everything else that you can imagine.  They even have stuff like the original wolfenstein 3d, Commander Keen, and original Doom (along with the sequels of doom, although I didn't see Doom 2 for windows 95).

Another thing I'm a fan of about steam is that rather than connecting an account or CD key with a computer, it saves all that stuff on the "Steam Cloud" so you don't need to save your CD case or whatever, just install steam, login and tell it to download your games.  If there is a key required it is connected to your account for easy retrieval.

Now, as much as I just spouted off as an advertiser for steam, please don't take everything I'm saying as some "Truth."  In its infancy steam was fairly terrible and laggy and some people still have issues with it.  I like it because it allows me to impulse-buy, typically at a discount since they regularly have sales, I don't need to keep track of disks/keys/whatever else, and I can still chat and play with guildies outside of WoW.  

Also, this is by no means a "guild requirement."  If you have steam and want time away from guildies, i understand entirely...i simply created the group so that, if wanted, people can join and chat/see what others are up to/play other games with friends.

OH! forgot the linkie: www.steampowered.com

tadaa!

[capnpop]

Oh, and for those of you curious and not wanting to spend money: Alien Swarm is now available for free (!!!) and some of us are playing it.  It's squad-based and you kill bugs (big ones...).  Did I mention it's free?

Yeah...it's free.

[Air]

Just a heads up. Wow can be setup to be launched from Steam.  Which allows steam to function while playing wow.  One nice feature, there's a built in web browser.  So you can be browsing the net while playing wow.  I believe it uses chrome, or a similiar browser agent.

[Air]

http://kotaku.com/5620259/steam-sale-saves-developer