The Nerd's Agenda

Howdy folks. Haven't had too much to write about, so haven't written!

My comic book backlog is fairly long right now. I've only bothered to keep current with Saga and Hawkeye, everything else is in a "to read" pile. I've been focusing more on my gaming than comics, however.

I have been reading The Erevis Cale Trilogy, which is a very decent Forgotten Realms set of novels about an interesting group of characters (the title character is interesting for the number of changes he goes through, which is reflective of how often players change their characters over the course of a campaign, by either adding templates or changing classes, etc..). I also picked up Guards! Guards!, by Terry Pratchett, and a collection of short stories known as Wild Cards, edited by George R. R. Martin. I'm pretty excited to start reading those, especially the Pratchett novel -- my experience with Discworld has been focused on Going Postal and Making Money, the former being on of my all-time favorite novels.

On the gaming front, I've still been trying to beat Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, but have gotten side tracked with Dragon Age: Origins, which I've played before but never on PC and never with all the DLC. I picked it up during the Steam Summer Sale, along with Mount and Blade: Warband (never played but am very excited to), Endless Space (a decent 4x, but I've not played enough to know how I'd rate it), and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (because I'm almost done with the first).

Just taking over the universe, don't mind me...

Beyond that, I've been working on a new project that will hopefully be unveiled soon. You can actually watch us streaming it Mondays at 8:00pm here, but I'm hoping to also eventually turn it into an edited podcast... More on that soon.

For movies and TV, I've been watching Bones with the wife and really enjoying it, and I'm rewatching Season 1 of Arrow, hoping season 2 will magically be on there when I'm done (it won't be, I've only got two episodes left). I'm eagerly anticipating Guardians of the Galaxy, but may have to put that on hold because I'm expected a daughter two days before it comes out! Gah!

Keep busy without getting much done, that's my motto!

Steam Summer Sale: Tips and Tricks

Pretty accurate.

The Steam Summer Sale is, in this humble (bundle? Wait, no, stop that) gamer's opinion, the best holiday for gamers.

Sure, there are events and whatnot (the recent occurrence of E3 comes to mind), but they're not accessible to gamers everywhere. Steam, however, is.

We're in day two of the sale. Sorry if any of these tips I'm about to give would have been helpful yesterday. The way it works is that there are two time sensitive sets of deals:

Daily Deals

This is pretty self explanatory, but a selection of games are on sale for one day only. The sale prices range fairly wildly -- currently, there are games from 33% to 75% off.

6/20/14 Daily Deals

Flash Sales

These are titles that go on sale for only 8 hours, before giving way to the new set. Sale prices range again -- currently features sales from 50% to 80% off. These sales are generally better than if the same titles were to be offered as a Daily Deal. It also features games that don't always go on sale that often. The titles are unknown until released, so you need to check back every eight hours if your anticipating a specific game.

Beyond these two, there are two others kinds:

Community's Choice

These are selections of games that, similar to Flash Sales, change every eight hours. The difference here is that you can help determine what these games will be by voting before each selection becomes available. Usually there are two options to choose from, and each has a selection of games with a related theme or genre.

Summer Sale

Many titles on the Steam store go on sale, even when not featured on the three sales above. For example, Baldur's Gate 2: Extended Edition is 50% for the entirety of the Summer Sale (which will last until 6/30).

C'mon, Flash Sale!!

Alright, now for some tips:
1. Always wait for the Flash Sale. It is NOT guaranteed that the game you want will come on sale, so this is a gamble. If you see it on the Daily or Community, it's not a bad choice to grab it then, but Flash will have the best price.

2. Daily and Community are very good prices and no one will think less of you if you grab an item then. If you see an item on the Daily that already seems very heavily discounted, it's entirely possible this is the best deal you'll get.

My most valuable card... at 50 cents.

3. DON'T buy anything NOT on a Daily, Flash, or Community sale, even if it is on "Summer Sale." You have until the 30th to take advantage of standard sales, so wait until then! If, on the 30th, the game you want hasn't made its way a better sale, then go ahead and grab it (this is what I'll be doing with Baldur's Gate 2: Extended Edition).

4. If you want to be notified of a particular game going on sale, at it to your Wishlist and make sure your Steam account is set up to e-mail you notifications! Also, consider having your game-addict/Steam-addict friend watch the sales for you. Alas, I could avail myself of no minions, but you may have better luck!

5. Do you have trading cards but not use them, care about them, or appropriately understand them? Same here! Sell them now, and mark up the price! Steam will tell you what the current average is, but the hardcore Steam folks are trying to get as many cards as they can to make badges and whatnot. If you want to get in on that, go for it, or you could make a little (probably tiny) profit from it.

This sale is the absolute BEST chance to find the game you want at the cheapest it has ever been. Unless you are a pirate. Then you probably don't care that much. Don't be a pirate. Pirates are dicks.

That about sums it up! Hopefully you got what you wanted yesterday and will keep an eye out going forward.