2017 Black Friday Gaming Deals 2017

It is Black Friday once again and that means we all go about spending money we've saved up all year on the games we love to add to our queue and never get around to playing.

A few gems from the Steam sale (which technically has been going on all week):

Stardew Valley $10.04
Firewatch $7.99
Just Cause 3 $7.49
Tabletop Simulator $9.99

Board Game Deals
Note: friendly reminder to keep tabs on BGG's Hot Deals forum.

Caverna: The Cave Farmers $57.90  -- This is an exceptional price for a game that is not regularly discounted.  There is easily $90 worth of components in this game alone!  With the savings here I'd get the box organizer for this game from Broken Token.

Planes $19.99 -- Another exceptional steal and appears to be going fast.

What do you meme? $20.99 -- If you have a Internet-geeky circle of friends then this is a great party game.  This is on the daily deal via Amazon so limited time offer.

Barnes and Noble is holding a buy one/get one 50% off sale on board games and puzzles.

Black Friday Gaming Deals

Its that fateful day of the year where our wallets scream in terror: Black Friday.

The fall Steam sale is already in full swing.  Check it out here.  General Steam sale reminders:
1. Don't buy a game unless its on the daily sale.
2. On the last day of the sale buy any game you wanted that was not on the daily deal.
3. Buy early as sometimes the number of copies of a game on daily sale are limited!
4. You can use http://isthereanydeal.com/ to see if a game is on sale cheaper somewhere else with a copy that will activate on Steam.

Another great place for Black Friday game deals is Amazon, albeit not as organized as one would like.  The first place to start is on the limited-time (aka lightning) deals page here.  You can set the category at the right hand side to PC & Video Games or Toys & Games (for board games).  Note: these things sell out fast, sometimes within a matter of seconds.  Keep an eye on the sales coming up in the future so you know when to be there to try and snag a copy.  If you see "Join Waitlist" that means it was gobbled up, but if a clicker does not check out with the sales price the copy will go back in the pool.

For board/card gaming it is best to keep an eagle eye on Board Game Geek's Hot Deals forum.  Users post deals all day long to this forum.  On Black Friday it can move quick so keep an eye posted.  Keep in mind for board gaming, shipping costs will often kill any great deals.  Look for sites that have free shipping on orders of a certain size like Cool Stuff Inc that has free shipping for orders over $100.

For anyone venturing into the real world; may you go bravely and return safely.  Also don't punch any kids...


...unless its for the last one on the shelf.

Guild Wars 2: Trait Guide by Level and Zone

With the recent changes to Guild Wars 2 the process to acquire traits changed from a model of buying skill books at certain levels to gathering the traits from the world via various means.  The traits are available still from a vendor but they cost gold and skill points; both of which are sparse for the average player in Guild Wars 2.  Fortunately a reddit poster has put together an excellent guide for the traits broken down by zone and level.

The text is inserted after the jump:

Board Games: Buy one, get one 50% off

Amazon.com is running an amazing pre-Black Friday deal on dozens of popular board games: buy one and get one half off.

There are some great games on sale.  Here are a few of my picks for games worth getting.

Ticket to Ride

Blokus

The Resistance

Castle Panic

The Settlers of Catan

Munchkin

Dixit Journey

Apples to Apples


There are also some add on packs (aka DLC of the board game world) for some popular games:

Munchkin Zombies 2 Armed and Dangerous
Munchkin 7 Cheat With Both Hands
Munchkin Clerical Errors

Battles Of Westeros: Wardens Of The North

Tannhauser Single Figure Packs: Gorgei

Fix: DCUO gets stuck at "FixTimestamps.exe" on Steam install

I just did battle with and slew the dreaded "FixTimestamps.exe" error when installing the recently crowned MMO of the year, DC Universe Online (DCUO), on Steam.  The steps are as follows:

Step 1:

Cancel the screen that is open in Steam trying to run the FixTimestamps.exe

Step 2:

Navigate to your steamapps folder in the main Steam folder and then open the "dc universe online" folder.
Example path on Windows 7 x64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dc universe online

Step 3: 

Open the LaunchPad.exe file and sign into your Station account (register for a new one if you don't have one, it's FREE).

Once logged in, this will launch the DCUO launcher, download any missing updates, and get you ready to play. Once the updates are applied, simply click PLAY.  Launching from within Steam next time will work.

Cause of error:

I am not 100% sure on the cause of the error, but I suspect it has something to do with the recent updates not being applied to the Steam version.  Bypassing the Steam launch let's the client get the updates and finish the install.

Cyber Monday Gaming Deals

Amazon.com

Rotating hourly lightning deals in gaming (varies based on time, check in often)

Steam

Last day to cash in on the Steam sale!

TIP: How to move Steam games to another drive in Windows 7/Vista/XP

One of the quirks with Steam is that it only allows users to install games to the same drive that Steam resides on.  For many, that is their main C: drive, which often fills up quickly.  This tool, the SteamTool Library Management will automate the process.

Or for those wishing to do it the old manual way, I will detail the process used to move 3rd party games to another drive.  This will be for Windows 7 and Vista (Windows XP users click here).

Black Friday Gaming Deals #blackfriday

Amazon.com

At Least 50% Off Over 150 Great Games
Rotating hourly/daily deals in gaming (varies based on time, check in often)
PC game specific deals


Steam

Check each day for new sales.  Recommended that you only buy games on the daily deal and then on the last day if they never come up on the daily deal.

Reddit post detailing hidden Steam deals that are overshadowed by the daily deals.


League of Legends

Sign up to play for free
League of Legends boxed bundle
Champion skins that will be on sale

Sasquatch Nunu
Nottingham Ezreal
Blacksmith Poppy
Masquerade Evelynn
Scuba Gragas
Spectacular Sivir
Mr. Mundoverse
Toxic Dr. Mundo
Swamp Master Kennen
Hextech Sion
Yellow Jacket Shen
Red Riding Annie
Leopard Nidalee
Dragon Knight Mordekaiser
Sonoran Kog'Maw
Kingpin Twitch
Professor Ryze
Shamrock Malphite
Highland Tryndamere
Pharaoh Amumu
Badger Teemo

Fixed: Just Cause 2 crashes on Steam

Like many gamers, I bought a copy of Just Cause 2 during the Steam Summer Sale and if the forums are any indications, I was not alone with Just Cause 2 crashing repeatedly.  Specifically it would crash on fullscreen settings.

The immediate fix was to open Steam's game library and right click on Just Cause 2 and then select Set Launch Options and enter /failsafe.  This forces the game to launch in windowed mode.  The game ran just fine for me in windowed mode.

However, I was not satisfied that I couldn't play this game in fullscreen so I did the normal checks to see what may be causing the issue.  First I verified the game files on Steam and the check completed without error. Next, I made sure it wasn't Steam community causing the issue and with the community overlay disabled, it still crashed.

The final step I took was to upgrade my nVidia drivers.  I opted to not only upgrade my drivers, but also to do a clean install of the driver in the process (which is available with the nVidia installer now).  This cleared out all old profiles and other settings.

After the upgrade and a couple PC reboots, Just Cause 2 started and ran just fine in fullscreen.  I hope this post helps anyone else having this issue.

Minecraft: Simple, two-way cart switching station (1.5)

Per a request elsewhere, I've drawn up what I use as my two-way cart switching station in Minecraft. I use this switching station at almost every stop on our SMP server's minecart system. This allows the rider to either stay at the current destination or continue on.

The following screenshots are of the basic design and principles for creating this. The RSNOR latch and track layouts can be easily adjusted to save space or add functionality. I also do not include an arrival track onto the switching point, but a track can be run to a couple blocks above and drop a cart (and rider) onto the powered track piece (or any other number of ways to put a cart into place).

And the screenshots with explanations (click for larger versions):

EDIT:

Also I don't want to claim to have invented this completely. I was inspired and this is sort of just a reworking of the following video:

Fixed: Bioshock error "This game is currently unavailable" w/ Steam on Alienware m11x

I love my new Alienware m11x laptop, but I was about to lose my cool this morning because I could not get Bioshock to run via Steam.  I was getting the dreaded "This game is currently unavailable" error message when launching the game.

Steam support has a great guide for this problem.  Unfortunately, the step I needed to take was towards the bottom and it took me a long time to get to it.  I first did the Windows 7 troubleshooting, then driver updates (which are not easy on the m11x thanks to Dell's m11x vs. m11xR2 branding), and then I ran every option on the list; except for one that I didn't think was needed: Verifying Game Cache Files (GCF)

It took a few minutes to verify Bioshock's files and in the end it found 5 missing files.  A few seconds later Steam downloaded the missing files and Bioshock now works.  So, lesson learned. Do the simple steps first and then worry about going ape shit with deleting/reinstalling/etc.

Lifehacker has impeccable timing

Lifehacker is one of my favorite websites.  Not because of the great writers, but because of their timing.  Everytime I need something, Lifehacker finds out and posts something useful.  I swear they are spying on me.  First it was a detailed Thunderbird tweak guide, then Dropbox hacks, both published within days of my installs of both.  The list goes on.

The newest example is a post today about GameSave Manager, a tool that backs up saved game files for over 400+ games. It was not a month ago that I gave up playing Bioshock after losing my save files during a reformat of Windows 7.  This was after already restarting the game one time because of poor planning.  Oh, and I was making backups the old fashioned way, but the one day the backup failed is the day I decided to reformat!

Also, recently I lost several hours of progress in my save game for Mass Effect.  After that incident, I implemented my backup scheme for saved games by syncing the folders to Dropbox.  That way I have saved files on all the computers I connect to Dropbox with.  It works wonders for Civilization 4 games since I am usually manually saving them. 

However, it is annoying to have to add other games by hand to my backup scheme.  Even more so when it takes five minutes on Bing to find out where the actual saved game is stored in Windows 7.  GameSave Manager takes care of all the prep work and then makes it easy to restore from the backups it makes.

Lifehacker, again, saves the day.  <3

Speed up Battlefield: Bad Company 2's Server Browser

EA has posted some tips for speeding up Battlefield: Bad Company 2's (BFBC2) server browser.

To help speed up your server browsing these tips can help you get results quicker.

• Use Favourites/History when possible

If you use the server browser then

Use the server browser
When it starts to search click CANCEL

Select the options:

• Ranked
• Not Full
• Not Empty
• No Password
• Leave Punkbuster checked
• Hit Refresh

You can use your friends list in game to connect on them without accessing the server browser.

Hope this helps!

How To Fix Punkbuster kicks for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (BFBC2) on Steam

If you are playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 on PC through Steam, you may be getting kicked by Punkbuster after a few seconds anytime you join an online game. This is most likely due to a conflict with Punkbuster and the BFBC2 Beta installation on your PC.

To fix this:

1. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common
2. Delete the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Beta folder, which includes Punkbuster
3. Go to Punkbuster's website and get www.punkbuster.com/index.php?page=pbsetup.php
4. Launch the program
5. Once launched, click add game
6. Select BFBC2
7. Browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\battlefield
8. Click OK and then click Check for Updates.

Punkbuster will now initiate a download for the BC2 Punkbuster client.

UPDATE: You may also need to remove the BFBC2 Beta folder from "My Documents" as well before this will work properly.

NOTE: Do not let Punkbuster run in it's default destination. It is set up to go to the BFBC2 Beta folder instead of the correct BFBC2 release version folder.

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Tips & Tricks: How Not to be a Noob at Battlefield Bad Company 2 (Video)

Best. Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Video. So. Far.

Allods Online Characters and Upcoming Guide

I wanted to post about my two characters from Allods Online, which just launched open beta (patch 1.0.05.41) today.

Server: Tensess
Faction: League

Heartless the Priest

Favre the Ranger

Also, I am begining work on an Allods Online Guide blog.

LCD vs Plasma: HDTV buying guide and other stuff I learned in the process of buying my first HDTV

What HDTV should I buy?  Its a question heard around the Internet every two seconds.  Quickly followed by LCD or Plasma?  Followed by more questions: screen size, refresh rate, resolution, etc.  Normally, a quick search on Google or Bing will quiet my concerns about any tech purchase.  In the case of buying an HDTV, Google was worthless, sending me repeatedly to adver-spam sites that do nothing more than duplicate Amazon.com's review listings.  Bing proved a little bit more fruitful, directing me to the helpful CNET Reviews.

What I learned was that I could not rely on a review or single source to direct me to the HDTV that was right for me.  The only way I was going to get a quality television was if I made the effort to research the options and understand from top to bottom everything there was to know before I walked into a store (and know that once I left that store, I was going home to order my HDTV online to save money).

Borderlands Configuration Editor

I found the Borderlands Configuration Editor, which is a great tool that easily allows PC players to do everything from disabling the opening movies to adjusting the field of view (FOV). 

One of the "TO DO" additions to the tool is a "Check my ports" feature, which is dearly needed for the port forwarding mess that is multiplayer on the PC version of Borderlands.  So, if you have a moment drop into the forum and place a vote to get this feature added ASAP!