The Benefits of Cowardice

Recently, I've been playing a lot of the Gauntlet-style PC game Hammerwatch. Like The Binding of Isaac, my other recent indie game obsession, Hammerwatch came into my game collection by way of a dirt-cheap bundle whose other games I haven't touched. My digital game collection is filled with perhaps too many of those bundle B-sides — games which I only own because buying an entire set of games happened to be the cheapest way to get a single game which I actually wanted (most often thanks to Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, and similar sites). I tell myself I'll get around to enjoying these incidental purchases eventually, but life and video games don't often leave time for each other, so it rarely happens. Sometimes takes me quite a while even to try the games I bought on purpose. For instance, I didn't actually get around to playing Hammerwatch for several weeks after the bundle went on sale.

And now, according to Steam, I've spent over 50 hours playing it. There's the first problem with Steam: It permanently records my playtime, without any option to reset the count, and displays the information publicly unless my entire profile is made private. The only way to avoid the shame of my friends knowing exactly how much of my life has been wasted is to play a game in offline mode (or run the game outside of Steam entirely if possible). The other problem with Steam is that it taunts me with achievements. Oh, sure, I can ignore achievements in a bad game. I won't play garbage just to increase the number of unlocked achievements shown on my profile. But any good game with achievements is just begging for 100% completion, and as an occasionally obsessive completionist, I often can't resist. Any set of challenges or unlockables will do the trick, in fact, but achievements — being (like the playtime counter) public and permanent — are particularly good at keeping me playing a difficult game past the point where I might otherwise have given up.

It was exactly for this reason that I found myself playing Hammerwatch's unreasonably punishing survival level, completion of which is related to two achievements (one for medium difficulty and one for hard). After the first few attempts, I began to suspect it was virtually impossible to beat, at least on my own. Hammerwatch is a multiplayer game but, having no friends currently playing the game and having no desire to play with strangers, I had been flying solo up to this point. My brother owns Hammerwatch, so I could have enlisted his help, but he hadn't played in a while and had never accumulated as much playtime as I had. He would have been rusty, at best, and might have been little more than dead weight in a game of survival with shared lives. So I continued playing survival mode on my own, determined not to let two little achievements stand in the way of total victory.

The survival level in Hammerwatch works like this: Only one extra life is given to start. Waves of increasingly numerous and increasingly powerful enemies spawn to attack the player, while the eventual boss (the Crystal Lich) sits in the center of the map, invincible but able to shoot any player who comes too close. Vendors, reached by way of a portal in a hidden room, sell upgrades and extra lives, which can only be purchased with currency obtained by inflicting damage on a few large crystals placed around the map. Meanwhile, stalactites periodically fall to the floor in random places, doing serious damage to everything in a huge area; these can kill a player instantaneously. After about 45 minutes, the regular bad guys stop spawning and the Crystal Lich comes out to fight.

My first character of choice in the game's main campaign had been the paladin (equipped with a sword which deals damage in a wide arc, a shield which blocks most projectiles coming from ahead, and some other incredibly useful abilities). However, I had heard the ranger (equipped with a long-range bow and not much else of import) was the most viable choice for beating the Crystal Lich (whose homing projectiles travel almost as far as the ranger's arrows). Unfortunately, the ranger isn't as well suited to the pre-boss fight against huge waves of enemies. The paladin would have been better for that. I could only pick one, though, and I didn't want to play 45 minutes to get to the boss only then to find myself in a virtually unwinnable fight, so I was committed to using the boss-killing ranger throughout my solo attempt.

I died. A lot. I died dozens of times without ever getting a chance to fight the Crystal Lich. After all, the ranger (who deals damage at long range but in a narrow line as opposed to the paladin's wide arc) doesn't do well when surrounded, and getting surrounded in the survival level is all but inevitable. The one obvious benefit was the ability to farm crystals somewhat effectively without stopping. The ranger can shoot a crystal while approaching and then shoot some more while departing. Even so, I could never afford enough upgrades to stay on the winning side of the arms race for very long. Eventually, I'd always start dying faster than I could farm enough crystals to replace the lives I was losing.

Then I noticed that the hidden room with the portal to the vendors, although it's a cramped dead end, is actually very safe: Few enemies spawn in range to see the player, and stalactites don't fall there (except in the case of one scripted stalactite drop which destroys the portal at the start of the boss fight). Perhaps best of all, the nova-firing trap in an adjacent room is close enough that it will fire when the player stands in the hidden room, and this periodically damages a nearby crystal for free money (as does the occasional lucky stalactite drop). This free money isn't as much as what a player can get by actively mining the other crystals, so I had no intention of hiding in the hidden room throughout the entire pre-boss battle. Still, it was the best solution for the second half of the fight, during which any attempt at mining was likely to cost me more lives than I could buy with the money I had gained.

And by retreating to the hidden room when things got too hard, taking my free money like a welfare check while waiting for the boss to appear, I finally loved long enough to fight him. At that point, it was just a matter of fighting him from a distance while finishing off any nearby enemies left over from the pre-boss phase. I won.

Thus I was left with a somewhat viable solo strategy for the survival level in Hammerwatch, using the ranger:

1. Don't destroy the nova-firing trap in the east room.
2. Farm the crystals in the north (behind the green spike trap), west (behind the red spike trap), and center (near the Crystal Lich). Each should have enough time to recharge while you're farming the other two.
• Don't bother with the crystal in the east (behind the blue spike trap); the active nova-firing trap makes it difficult to escape the room safely.
• Eventually a crystal in the south will be made available, but that little room with two small openings is a death trap. Don't go there.
3. Buy upgrades for speed, bow damage, and bow penetration. Buy an extra life when needed, but keep in mind Step 4 below.
4. When things get too difficult (and you're dying more often than you can mine enough cash for the next extra life), go to the hidden room and stand just south of the portal, ready to shoot anything that comes after you. You are not totally safe here, so don't fall asleep.
5. As you get free money from the crystal in the east (which should be taking damage from the nova-firing trap), keep on buying upgrades and/or stock up on extra lives, at your own discretion.
6. When a stalactite starts to fall above the portal, get out of the hidden room. Avoid the boss until you've cleared the nearby remaining enemies.
7. Fight the boss from a distance, coming a bit closer to shoot him and backing up to a very safe distance when he fires back. It will take a while, but if you can avoid the stalactites and any leftover enemies on the map, you'll win.

This cheesy strategy allowed me to beat the survival level on medium difficulty. Unfortunately, it wasn't so reliable for hard difficulty. After fighting and farming as much as possible without repeatedly dying, I was able to hide in the hidden room until the boss emerged, but the necessary task of clearing out remaining enemies during the boss fight became much more difficult. My damage output just wasn't sufficient to avoid being overrun once a group of enemies caught my scent, especially since the area of effect of the ranger's attack is constrained to a thin line.

Ultimately, I ended up playing with strangers to beat survival on hard mode, but even finding a suitable game wasn't easy. At any given time, I only saw one hard survival game (or none at all), and the first few games I joined were full of novices who didn't really know what they were doing. Even when I managed to join a game with more experienced players, lack of easy communication made things very difficult. By some miracle, however, I was eventually able to join a game with a couple of players (a warlock and a ranger) who were unbelievably good. Even when we were joined by a fourth player (a paladin) with no survival level experience, we weren't dragged down. I ended up getting killed before the boss was dead, but the other ranger lured the boss into a narrow hallway in which his attacks were blocked and finished him off.

So I got lucky. My advice for Hammerwatch's survival mode without friends? Try my solo strategy. If that doesn't work, I'm all out of suggestions, because you can't really count on finding a game full of expert players who are able to coordinate a victory with complete strangers. In other words: Good luck!

But, whatever. I got mine.

How To: Steam Sales

Note: It seems that daily deals and flash sales are no longer a regular part of major Steam events. Unless things go back to the way they were before, this guide is obsolete. It is being kept online for historical purposes only.

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Steam has been going a bit crazy with sales lately. They haven't all been mind-blowing but it seems like there's a new one every time I check the store. There was that three-day Halloween Sale, then a week-long Autumn Sale for Thanksgiving and Black Friday... and I guess this is pretty normal, so far, but there was also the recent week-long sale of controller-compatible games to celebrate the Big Picture feature coming out of beta, and that particular event ended only a week ago.

Now, with only a week before Christmas Eve, it's just about time for the highly anticipated 2012 Winter Sale, which will run through the holidays. I'm not exactly sure when it will start, but it should be sometime in the next few days. (Last year, it began on Monday, December 19; the year before that, it began on Monday, December 20; and the year before that, it began on Monday, December 21. Since today is a Monday with no sale, and the event is unlikely to start as late as December 24, we can be pretty sure that the Monday pattern won't hold; instead, I'm betting on a start date of Thursday, December 20, give or take a day.)

The Winter Sale is typically the best sale of the year on Steam, rivaled only by the Summer Sale. In other words, it's kind of a big deal. The holiday season, of course, is the best time to buy video games anywhere — GOG, for example, is having a sale right now — but Steam is so well known for its discounts that other distributors get mad and pretend that sales are a bad thing even though developers completely disagree. And yes, this particular sale is a biggie.

So if you're planning to do some video game shopping on Steam in the coming days, it helps to be prepared. Unfortunately, some people don't really understand how Steam sales work, either because they've never seen one or because they don't pay attention. They buy a game on the first day of the sale when it's 50% off, and then they get mad when the game's price is bumped to 75% off just a couple of days later. This is great for the people who made the game, I guess — so go ahead and pay more than necessary in order to support the industry if you want to — but as long as developers are willing to apply deep discounts to their games during daily deals and flash sales, you might as well take advantage of it.

With that goal in mind, I've created a helpful flow chart, seen below.

The same rules certainly might apply to other online stores whose holiday sales have a similar format of long-lasting (mediocre) discounts punctuated by short-lived (much better) deals. In any case, you really shouldn't buy a game from any online store, especially Steam, if it's not on sale and there's likely to be a sale just around the corner... that is, I mean, unless you like paying four times as much as everyone else. There's no reason to be in such a rush that you buy something too early. Since digitally distributed goods are delivered instantaneously, you'd be a fool not to wait until the last minute.

I just wish I could buy video games for everyone I know. Picking out gifts for younger people is so easy. The older people in my family, on the other hand... well, if they don't start giving me hints really soon, it's gift cards for all of them.

Happy Holidays!

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Update (December 20, 2012):

My estimate for the start of the Steam sale was dead-on. I feel so special.

How To: Steam Offline Mode

Digital distribution and digital rights management are touchy subjects among consumers of video games. The idea that we don't really "own" the software that we buy has been the source of much debate. Many refuse to buy games protected by DRM of any kind, while many more try to avoid downloadable games entirely. Others, meanwhile, have accepted that the way things are going now is the way of the future. And it's okay, mostly. Digital distribution is just too darn convenient and most DRM is only a minor annoyance. (I have to log in? Okay. Wow, that was easy.) Steam, in particular, is often considered an example of digital distribution done right (if there is such a thing), but it still gets a lot of harsh criticism — sometimes for good reasons, and other times because it's cool to hate popular things.

Steam obviously has its perks; the interface is well designed, the features are useful, and the sales aren't bad. The major drawback, though, is that you typically need to be running Steam in order to play a game. (Yes, some games can be launched manually outside of Steam, but others cannot.) Since the Steam client is meant to be used online, it might appear at first glance that you also need to be online in order to play your Steam games. Fortunately, Steam has an "offline mode" to get around that. The problem is that misconceptions about offline mode are widespread and a lot of people don't seem to understand how it works. So let's try it out and see what happens.

Contents
Preliminary Stuff
Enabling Offline Mode
Making Sure Your Games Are Ready to Play
Switching to Offline Mode While Online
Switching to Online Mode While Offline
Exiting Steam Properly
Launching Steam With No Internet Connection
Lost Connection
The Verdict

Note: This post was last updated in November 2013. Screenshots were taken in July 2012 and might be outdated.

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Preliminary Stuff

Before we start, please note that Steam has its own Offline Mode How-To, which warns that offline mode might stop working if the Steam client is closed improperly (e.g., by shutting down the computer without exiting the program) or if the Steam client is outdated and fails to update (e.g., due to incorrect firewall settings). The rest of Steam's support page consists of step-by-step instructions on how to "configure" offline mode.

In my opinion, however, these instructions are somewhat misleading. The first step, for example, is to check the "Remember my password" box on the log-in window. As far as I can tell, this step is merely a recommendation and is by no means necessary. If you prefer not to let Steam remember your password at the log-in screen, go ahead and leave this box unchecked as shown below.

For the record, I didn't allow Steam to remember my password while I was testing offline mode for the purpose of writing this post, and everything still worked. (Do note that, while Steam does save account credentials to the computer as a necessary step in configuring offline mode, this is entirely separate from the "Remember my password" feature, which is only meant to save you the trouble of typing your password every time you use Steam online.)

Also somewhat misleading is the way the official guide ends with instructions to restart Steam in offline mode while you're online and signed in. This might be the reason for the widespread misconception that offline mode can only be used if you're already online. Of course, this is not the case. Once configured, Steam will be able to start in offline mode when there's no internet connection without the need to log in immediately beforehand.

Enabling Offline Mode

Before attempting to use offline mode, you should make sure you haven't explicitly disabled it. You probably haven't — because that would be stupid — but if you have, you'll obviously need to go online to access your account so that you can fix the problem. (If you disabled offline mode and now you have no internet access, you're out of luck. Sorry.)

Here's how it works: The use of offline mode requires that Steam be permitted to save account credentials on your computer. If you disallow this and then try to start Steam without any internet connection, the following error message will appear:

To avoid this, we need to make sure that Steam is allowed to save your account credentials. Go online, start up the program and log in, then click on "Steam" in the upper-left corner of the window, and then click on "Settings."

Go to the "Account" tab, and near the bottom of the window, you'll see a check box labeled "Don't save account credentials on this computer."

Having this box checked prevents offline mode from working, so you need to make sure it's unchecked. You probably don't need to worry too much about this feature, since it seems to be unchecked by default, but it's important to know where these options can be found. (Note once again that saving account credentials for offline mode by leaving this box unchecked is not the same as telling Steam to remember your password at the log-in window.)

Making Sure Your Games Are Ready To Play

Obviously, enabling offline mode won't help us if we don't allow our games to finish downloading or updating before we attempt to launch them. Download progress is shown in your Library tab if you're using the "Detail View" or "List View" options (shown below).

There's a total progress bar on the bottom of the Steam window as well.

Clicking the words above that progress bar will show more details for all of your downloads. Before proceeding, you should make sure that all downloads are complete. Otherwise, when you attempt to play a game in offline mode, you might run into this:

At that point, you would have to go back online to finish the installation.

Switching To Offline Mode While Online

The easiest way to verify that offline mode is enabled — and, in fact, the most foolproof way to use the feature — is to switch to it manually while you're online. Apparently, doing this at least once is also a necessary step in configuring your account for offline play.

Contrary to popular myth, however, this is not the only way to use offline mode. Once everything is set up, you should be able to go straight into offline mode upon launching Steam if your internet connection is down, but I'll get into that later.

To restart in offline mode manually, click "Steam" at the top of the window and then click "Go Offline..."

Then click "Restart in Offline Mode" when the option appears.

Note that this requires account credentials to be saved locally, so you'll have to enable offline mode by giving Steam this permission. If you don't, you'll receive the error message below.

Fortunately, it's a helpful error message; you can just click "Enable Saving Account Credentials" and it will change the setting for you.

Switching to offline mode while online isn't just foolproof. It's arguably more useful, as well, mostly because Steam will remember your preference. If you switch to offline mode manually and then close Steam, you'll be given the option to start in offline mode again next time you launch the application, regardless of whether an internet connection is present.

Under any other circumstances, Steam only offers to start in offline mode if it can't connect to Steam servers. If you prefer offline mode (e.g., because you don't want Steam to track how many hours you play), and you don't want to unplug your computer from the internet completely, then switching manually to offline mode is the way to go.

Switching To Online Mode While Offline

If we want to get out of offline mode, we can click "Steam" and then "Go Online..."

Then click "Restart and Go Online" when the option appears.

Once Steam restarts, you should be able to log in normally.

Exiting Steam Properly

After you've checked your settings and downloaded your games — and, in fact, every time you finish using Steam online — you should fully exit the program before shutting down your computer. Failing to do so might cause problems with offline mode.

Note: Valve claimed to have fixed this issue in an August 2012 update. However, as of November 2013, the official Offline Mode How-To still warns that Steam should be closed manually. Failing to follow this step might still cause issues, so I'm leaving this section intact.

To properly close the Steam client, click on "Steam" in the upper-left corner of the window, and then click on "Exit." It's that easy.

Do not simply press the little "X" in the upper-right corner of the window. This only closes the window, while the program itself continues to run in the background.

I always close Steam before shutting my computer down, but I recently tried doing it the wrong way, just to see what would happen. After disabling my internet connection and launching Steam, I tried to get into offline mode, and instead I got these two nonsensical error messages:

Fortunately, this is very easily avoided unless your computer is the victim of a power outage. If you're receiving the error messages above, you should close Steam properly next time you're done using it.

Launching Steam With No Internet Connection

Offline mode is enabled, your games are downloaded, you've switched to offline mode at least once, and you've shut down the Steam client. Now, if no internet connection is available next time you try to launch the program, you should be given the option of using offline mode.

When the "Connection Error" dialog box appears, just click "Start in Offline Mode" and Steam will open normally, except that online features like the store and the friends list will (obviously) not work.

Once you're in offline mode, you should be able to run any of your games, provided these games are fully downloaded, installed and updated. (For this example, I've used Portal, which is already installed and ready to play.)

Multiplayer games will run too, but good luck finding any servers.

Lost Connection

So what happens if you suddenly lose your internet connection while you're playing? Do you need to enable offline mode in order to prepare for this? Well, not really. Losing your internet connection will not interrupt a single-player game even if offline mode isn't being used. If your connection is okay when you log in, then it doesn't really matter what happens after that.

To demonstrate, I started up Portal while using Steam online, and then disabled my wireless connection. Note the words "No Connection" on the bottom of the Steam window. Steam's online features stopped working but I didn't get kicked out of the game.

There is, therefore, no need to switch to offline mode just because you expect connection interruptions.

The Verdict

So how well does offline mode work? It's not perfect — there are some bugs — but, as far as I can tell at this point, it performs well enough when used correctly.

I've heard plenty of stories of offline mode failing to work for various reasons, most of which are probably related to a firewall-induced failure to update the Steam client, or some other kind of weird scenario which I've been unable to test here.

Specifically, though, I've been told that the locally saved account credentials can expire — in other words, if you haven't logged into Steam in a long time, offline mode might not work anymore — but I won't be able to test for that unless I go some undetermined amount of time without playing any of my multiplayer Steam games, and I don't really feel like doing that. Since most people who play video games have constant internet connections, or at least the ability to log into Steam occasionally, the expiration of saved account credentials should not be a major problem.

I hope this helps.