Recent reviews by Glue Eating Adventure

Here lies the game of a neglectful, hateful dev. Who in efforts to fix people 'playing the game wrong' lost track of why people play it in the first place.


Hades Star was a game with extremely varied play styles that allowed vastly different types of players to come together into one community. The varied game modes inside the game as well as huge amounts of freedom on how players approached each game mode catered to a wide range of different players. Fast pvp, slow teamplay based pvp, pve filled with unique strategies, all tied together with a system of long term development and currency management.


The game has of course developed problems over the years. The erosion of the matchmaker as people found and subsequently abused issues, a lack of content for end game players as they reached the top end. A lack of ways to support the game itself had players asking for cosmetic purchases on their own.


After years of nothing from the developers to fix problems and their growing impact on the social aspects of the game, we finally got a branch that things were changing, that things were getting fixed.


Unfortunately, we were the problem that the dev saw. We had been playing the game wrong all this time, and he had come to fix it.


With the start of major changes coming through the dev opened Early Access for players to test changes, along with communications in the public discord where we'd had little news for a long time. Communication that was a terrible mistake. The players involved in the EA were ignored, berated, belittled as addicts. Dev communications were erratic, swinging from nothing in months, to passive aggressive outbursts. Feedback was disregarded to such an extent that the dev made statements saying to ignore those in the discord, and in other instances blocked large sections of the active community.


And then we reached the end of EA. A product ignoring all the player freedoms that found Hades Star success has been pushed through. The game modes are more restricted, tied closer together with a manufactured scarcity mechanic that forces players into game modes that they would have otherwise avoided. The pvp elements have been pushed to the fore while the economy management and pve elements have been entangled with the pvp so you can't progress properly without it. The game systems have been reduced, and even the individual options in each game mode type have been restricted.


The freedoms that allowed players to specialise and find their own way to enjoy the game have been removed. It's now a game crafted for people to login, perform a checklist of daily tasks, and leave. While this may appeal to some, it's not the Hades Star we know, and it cannot support the system of varied players that kept the game and community thriving during the years of neglect.


Fair well, Hades Star. May you find your way to the player base that the dev actually wants.

TF2, one of valve's most well known IPs, with an active userbase (albeit with counts bloated by idle bots) that still places somewhere around the top 100 player counts, is dying.

We're a game full of bots and empty promises, cheaters and inaction. From a company more interested in updating gambling loot crates a grabbing money from the community, than they are in making any attempt at keeping the game playable.


TF2 currently relies on valve hosted servers for the majority of its content. A change that valve actively made in one of their final content updates for the game (MyM), it used to be community servers that held most of the game's population. Valve servers are unmoderated, they've never had active mods and rely solely on player majority vote kicks and an out of date anticheat. These servers have always been a hive for cheaters since well before valve saw fit to mash most of the game's population into them.

And the chickens are coming home to roost on valve's changes. Malicious bots are taking over valve's unmoderated server environments. They outnumber the players rendering votekicks useless, VAC is left by the wayside to rot (as much as the coverage was patchy anyway), and there's no mods to cover the wide wide gap in the other moderation tools.

Community servers still exist, but casual matchmaking still presents itself front and centre on the launch screen as the first thing any new player sees. We can abandon casual to play the game a little longer, but that also abandons new players to the bot meat grinder that is now casual. Every game requires new players to sustain itself, a currently top 100 game on steam will still grind itself into dust if the status quo continues.

And it's not just TF2, and it's not just recent. Valve has always had an issue with community moderation. CS2 is riddled with cheaters and bots and malicious server hosters. L4D routinely has all their official servers DDoS'd. Dota spent the better part of 5 years with malicious bots attacking custom server lobbies, holding players hostage for 5 minutes or subject themselves to a timeout. The steam discussion boards are cesspit with an award system actively encouraging trolls. Steam itself is full of scammers and scambots, preying on kids too young to know better.

To what point will valve ignore all their platforms? To what point are we meant to be excited for new projects from valve, with the knowledge that ALL their IPs will not receive due attention to major issues? To be subject to the slow behemoth that is valve's inner workings, with fixes never seen or years too late?


TF2 is still somewhat playable in the pockets of community servers that still exist. But we are staring at a cliff, a game that has legs to run forever on its own steam is looking at the end.

Do better. Do some moderation, on any of your platforms. Stop ignoring active userbases that you're still taking money from at the behest of your internal politics. The community goodwill that you've enjoyed for a long, long time that's propelled steam to the top won't last forever.


The trust thermocline will call even for you, valve, and it's built upon the corpses that you left behind.