Who's that Gnome named after?

Question

So, in a bunch of different games by Valve, there's this Garden Gnome, and he's usually associated with an achievement, involving carrying him through an area. Over the course of my internet travels, I've picked up on the fact that his name is "Gnome Chompski". What is the significance of this name?

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Asked by GnomeSlice

Answer

The name is a play on the name of political writer "Noam Chomsky". I'm not entirely sure if Valve picked him for a reason other than that his first name sounded like "gnome".

Answered by Arda Xi

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How do you create a graffiti in Left 4 Dead 2?

Question

I was playing Left 4 Dead 2 and I saw a player paint a graffiti on a wall (I also saw it done on Team Fortress 2)

How is this done? What is it purpose?
Is it different on those two games or is it something at the engine level?

Asked by Juan Manuel

Answer

The place you configure your sprays is in the options menu, under multiplayer.

From this place you can import an image of the proper dimensions, which will show up when you use the spray command (default T) in game.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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Found the Space Core in Skyrim, what can I do with it?

Question

Valve and Bethesda have made all my dreams come true by putting the Space Core into Skyrim.

Obviously there is the usual tossing and kicking, but I've heard that it can be used as a crafting ingredient as well?

What is the Space Core good for, once I have it?

Asked by Steve V.

Answer

In addition to it saying various SPAAAACE and Skyrim-related puns, you can also apparently take it into the midden under the College of Winterhold and create a Dovacore Helmet:

Put the space core on the pedestal, and make an offering of 8 refined moonstone (moonstone ore might also be acceptable) and an iron helmet. Pull the lever, and out pops a shiny new helmet. It looks like you can pick up the Space Core again when this is finished, so it is not consumed in the process.

Answered by agent86

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Almost every server on every Source game is not responding

Question

Whenever my friends are playing servers, and I try to join, it always says "server not responding." Also, there are very few servers on the list of online servers. This happens in every source game. My firewall is disabled. Any help? Even when I try direct connection, it still fails.

Asked by CommunistPancake

Answer

I've had that problem several times and one of two fixes has always worked for me:

1. Turn off your firewall (which you've already done). I've had the Windows 7 firewall turn itself back on without my intervention, however, so it can't hurt to double-check, if you haven't already.
2. Delete the ClientRegistry.blob file in your Steam install folder. You'll need to exit Steam before doing so, and Steam will run its updater when you launch it again, but it should only take a minute.

Answered by Ben Blank

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What is Steam? DRM?

Question

What exactly is Steam? Isn't it DRM?

What can I do with it?

Answer

Steam is DRM. Steam is also DRM done right.

When you "own" a game through the service, you (normally) get to install it on all of your computers for no additional fee. No questions asked. No licenses. No CD keys. Zero click installs.

Steam does many offers and offers a number of free demos. Steam also brings an actually useful in-game overlay (which, e.g., even lets you open youtube or this site without tabbing out!). Steam finally has important social features like notifying that your friend has joined a game (and for supported games, you get a link to one-click join him). etc.

Mind you, Steam does have some points where it doesn't shine. My main pet peeve is offline gaming does not work if the Steam client thinks there is an update it should download and install; typically you only find out when it's too late. A second point where Steam is less than great is that you need to own a non-free game to enable most of the social featuers, and they are a large part of the appeal.

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