Guide: Farming cards without installing the base game OR using IdleMaster!

" IdleMaster is much, much easier to use but I go about this method because I don't have to install or input my credentials into a 3rd party program"
Don't use a web browser then either with that logic. The part where you are "input my credentials into a 3rd party program" is just Chrome web browser. Idle Master works off a browser cookie. You can use an old version and copy/paste the info from whatever other browser cookie you already have on your PC from Firefox, Chrome or w/e if you prefer.

Just using SAM is a lot faster and more convenient than editing the APP ID in a text file too, and also doesn't require logging in at all although you still need to change games manually.

What happens if you put in an app ID for a game you don't own?

Although it is a good method, for card farming it is slow and tedious I assume. Also, very few games use the TXT file to identify themselves so some people may actually not have even one in a thousand purchases that can qualify.
And on top, some games were later modified to identify themselves with their DLL file, despite the TXT. I had to dig up an old Blackwell game to make this method work and use it since then.

What this method is good for is to put in hours to items that have no Steam store page or associated play time like to get in some game time to review a DLC.

You should probably note that it takes a minimum of 2 hours before the first card drops now to prevent abuse with the steam refund policy.

If you want a less resource heavy game for this, get Super Hexagon. You can also get the game ID from either the store or badge page.

-J

Its cool to see you got it working this way, but I'll stick with IdleMaster. Less work. Especially if you need to idle 10+ games

Here is a combo I try for now cos of 2 hours cap.

Get SAM. Run all the games using SAM (usage of resources is next to nothing) you have with cards. Play your game or whatever. Our goal is to hit the 2 hours play. When time is up close all of it and run IdleMaster.

I've been using this method for a while, so it's nothing really new to me, but I appreciate the tutorial.
What people who prefer IdleMaster seem to forget, that this method is very nice if have a game that
you like to play right at the moment and that has an appid.txt file, you can disguise that game for any
game that you would like to have card drops for. Also with this method you don't have to install
anything, everything you need is already in your steam library.

I started using IdleMaster today, but for some reason, after it finishes one game and moves on to the next, cards won't drop for that game. I have to quit and restart, which takes a lot of the idling out of it. Seems to work fine for one game though.

Looks like this could be a great way to make IdleMaster work more efficiently, saving the need to download any game. It will work only if you have at least one game with this text file, but that could be automatically checked.

tl;dr: this could be automated, possibly as an upgrade of IdleMaster.

Looks interesting, but too much work, if you don't wan't to use 3rd party programs just make this.

1. Install the game.
2. Open the game.

What sometimes works is replacing the original game executable by for example calc.exe. Steam will run the windows calculator as if it were to be the game.

SAM is bannable...
I'm tinfoil on Idlemaster too!
If using AppID method choose a surrogate that doesnt use much resources
Any(?) method will void your chances for a refund if required later !!

I've idled my entire 1600+ collection with IdleMaster, no problems whatsoever - even let it run for nearly a solid month straight. I used the card sales to buy a bunch of games, and even preordered a Steam Controller.