Sat, Apr 16, 2011 | 15:57 BST
Lend your CPU to GLaDOS by playing Potato Sack games
Valve has updated its Aperture Science page for Portal 2, and the countdown clock has ended. Now, the site is asking to to re-boot GLaDOS by playing games included in the Potato Sack offering.
The countdown to end all countdowns ended a little bit ago with the following message:
09:00 Hello again.
09:00 Ive been waiting a long time for this.
09:00 I know its arriving later than expected.
09:00 But I have a message for you:
09:00 April Fools.
09:01 Im joking.
09:01 Seriously, though:
09:01 Youve been surprisingly competent at
09:01 Generating electro-chemical energy to jumpstart the system.
09:01 But now we need raw computational power
09:02 to speed up the reboot process.
After this, another countdown of sorts appeared, with the timer starting at 94 hours. So far, it’s at around 93 hours as of this post.
You want Portal 2 early on Steam? Then this is what you need to do: Play any of the games included in the Potato Sack, which will in turn offer up your CPU to GLaDOS, so to speak, thus speeding up the process for one and all.
That said: stop reading this and get busy, soldiers!
Portal 2 hits retail on Tuesday.
49 comments
#1
Dralen
15/04/11, 4:31 pm
Arrrrgh my god! What’s going to happen? My brain is going to melt.
#2
DSB
15/04/11, 4:33 pm
Hehe.
This is definitely the best launch I can remember. Regardless of whether the actual launch happens in 30 minutes, this shit is awesome.
#3
Debabrata Nath
15/04/11, 4:33 pm
Ok,I am excited. :S
#4
Stephany Nunneley
15/04/11, 4:44 pm
15 minutes! *checks blood pressure*
#5
freedoms_stain
15/04/11, 4:47 pm
I’m actually getting a later train to my girlfriends so I can see what this is and possibly wrangle 30 minutes of gameplay
#6
DSB
15/04/11, 4:48 pm
I wouldn’t put it past them to add one final puzzle, just to make people go absolutely apeshit.
The final test is either playing Portal 2, or solving a puzzle that unlocks the game. Fingers crossed. 10 minutes!
#7
AHA-Lambda
15/04/11, 4:57 pm
3 minutes! *faints*
#8
Dralen
15/04/11, 4:57 pm
I’m literally counting down the seconds now xD.
#9
AHA-Lambda
15/04/11, 5:01 pm
oh what?!! D=
#10
DSB
15/04/11, 5:01 pm
Everybody get on their indie games! The more we play, the quicker it launches.
#11
Dralen
15/04/11, 5:01 pm
Oh no Oh god no
#12
Erthazus
15/04/11, 5:02 pm
Pffffffff… Nothing special =\
#13
Night Hunter
15/04/11, 5:03 pm
What the Fuck just happened? Did we get another Countdown? If so … Fuck You Valve
If not I apologize, bu a countdown to another countdown would be unforgivable
#14
DSB
15/04/11, 5:03 pm
Nothing special besides mobilizing all of Steam to play the same 13 games?
Yeah, nothing special besides that.
FYI: The more people (CPUs) that play any of the games in the Potato Pack, the more the countdown to Portal 2s release is accelerated.
#15
TaTaTow
15/04/11, 5:04 pm
Now official: The more we play the potato sack the earlier comes Portal 2!!
#16
Dralen
15/04/11, 5:05 pm
It’s basically we have to collect the potatoes on the potato sack game that valve has released to get Portal 2 released early.
#17
TaTaTow
15/04/11, 5:07 pm
Well I guess this is only for the steam version. What about the retail versions… Will they also release earlier?
#18
DSB
15/04/11, 5:08 pm
@16 The numbers correspond to Steams realtime stats of how many people are playing the games. All you have to do is start up one of the 13.
The ammount of people playing at any one time speeds up the countdown.
The idea is that Glados have infected those games, and are using our CPUs as we play them, to boot herself back up.
Rally the troops Steph. Get goin’!
#19
mojo
15/04/11, 5:10 pm
lol.
all u have to do is buy the games and play it.
Important difference.
nice way of selling shit and saing its candys.
utter bullshit.
#20
freedoms_stain
15/04/11, 5:13 pm
looks like I wasted my time then :p
FUCK YOU NEWELL!
#21
LOLshock94
15/04/11, 5:15 pm
can you nerds not wait till Tuesday or Friday
#22
Phoenixblight
15/04/11, 5:15 pm
Haha Carrot on a stick.
#23
DarkElfa
15/04/11, 5:17 pm
What an incredibly smart sales strategy.
#24
Stephany Nunneley
15/04/11, 5:23 pm
@18 Rallying to commence!
#25
someguy2
15/04/11, 5:36 pm
Do you have to buy the sack or just one game that’s in it.
#26
LOLshock94
15/04/11, 5:38 pm
retardedest thing ever and all u suckers will suck into this
#27
someguy2
15/04/11, 5:39 pm
@26 It’s not a bad thing. We give money to indie devs and we get to enjoy their game and get Portal 2 early, there’s no harm in that.
#28
onlineatron
15/04/11, 5:40 pm
@LOLshock
The only thing ‘retardedest’ about this is your phrasing.
Play awesome games, get awesome game early.
I see NO downside!
#29
DSB
15/04/11, 5:43 pm
@25 Just one game. Then you log in and stay logged in
However potatoes seem to act like a multiplier, so the more challenges you complete, and the more games you have to get them from, the faster it unlocks.
The beauty of it is that anyone on Steam should own at least one of these. Super Meat Boy, Defense Grid and Amnesia are definitely value for money at the current prices.
@28 Play awesome games for very cheap. A lot of these are easily a steal at the original price, now they’re just a steal.
#30
LOLshock94
15/04/11, 5:44 pm
havnt you realized that these indie games are the most selling indie games on steam? why would they want more money
#31
TaTaTow
15/04/11, 5:44 pm
The release date for Germany is now April 19th. (according to amazon Germany)
http://www.amazon.de/Electronic-Arts-Portal-2/dp/B004JRLPTA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302885881&sr=8-1
#32
DSB
15/04/11, 5:45 pm
@30 So, if people have already bought these games, then it isn’t very hard to log in, is it?
Nobody’s forcing anyone to buy the pack, or to give a shit. That’s purely on you.
#33
freedoms_stain
15/04/11, 6:39 pm
I played 10 mins of Super Meat Boy before I left for the train. My gf’s shitty laptop can run Defense Grid albeit quite poorly. Might try audiosurf on it.
#34
DSB
15/04/11, 7:40 pm
I’m just keeping Defense Grid running in a minimized window with the sound off. You don’t have to play it, you just have to make Steam count it as running.
Grabbed a few potatoes for good measure. There’s no confirmation that they act as multipliers, but since they bothered to put up the counter, it doesn’t hurt.
#35
Edo
15/04/11, 8:35 pm
Wow..so…….much……hype……..brain…can’t…take….it..any……more……….. …… … .
#36
Phoenixblight
15/04/11, 9:00 pm
Sorry not gonna support this when it does nothing for those getting the retail version or physical version.
#37
DSB
15/04/11, 9:24 pm
According to the Steam grapevine, simply keeping the game running isn’t enough, you have to actually be playing it over a certain period of time.
There’s a counter that picks up each collective 48 hours (ie 48 people playing 1 hour = 1 unit) but that’s multiplied by the potatoes gathered for each game.
So if you have 3 Defense Grid potatoes, that means each hour you play counts for 3.
#38
Psychotext
15/04/11, 9:52 pm
I’ve not been following this, how do you grab potatoes?
#39
szu
15/04/11, 10:26 pm
who wants portal on steam for free? I have one to spare.
#40
DSB
15/04/11, 10:29 pm
Potato walkthrough here:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1vPutCkoZKA9XL5ZjSuNXfX8NfoeHW3xcrv7DgalKUfE&pli=1&ndplr=1
The wiki is pretty messy.
As far as I know, the only way to keep track of individual potatoes is by checking your Steam community profile and counting as you go along. It does say which game it’s for.
#41
Psychotext
15/04/11, 10:51 pm
Thanks.
#42
Old MacDonald
15/04/11, 11:09 pm
I’m so impressed that Valve can pull this off. It’s insane. Awesome stuff.
But I’m going to play Flashback this weekend, so count me out…
#43
Phoenixblight
16/04/11, 1:14 am
I am not sure but it seems to be removing a tenth of a hour of the time every 5 hours at least thats how it has been from when they started to now.
#44
DSB
16/04/11, 1:29 am
Yeah, it’s kinda hard to gauge.
It looks to me like all the bars have to fill up for the ball to drop. People on Steam have been organizing to max out “The Wonderful End of the World” as the first one.
It looks like the number of people grinding is only going up, so I’m hoping for a 48 hour head start. Far from over though.
#45
Phoenixblight
16/04/11, 4:35 am
@44
From 9am to 9pm it has gone from 3.75 days to 3.41. Which is .34 of hour in 12 hours. And the game unlocks at 10am PST for the states so at this rate it won’t be anywhere near midnight. Would be lucky if you get 6am at this rate.
#46
Phoenixblight
16/04/11, 7:45 am
Sorry my bad. The status page is hard codes for the real release date not the updated version. Valve will have to update it them self to show the updated release date.
#47
DSB
16/04/11, 1:50 pm
I think the date to aim for is the 19th.
The idea is that everybody should be grabbing potatoes, so every bar will fill up exponentially, but judging from the progress so far I kinda doubt that it will accelerate enough to hit the 17th.
#48
someguy2
16/04/11, 2:45 pm
@47 there’s no point in aiming for that date considering it’s the date that the PC version will be released worldwide, I’m thinking Monday hopefully.
#49
DSB
16/04/11, 2:47 pm
@48 I meant aim to beat
I was hoping for the 17th personally, but it’s gonna take a lot of potatoes.