the dealer

Notably Dangerous Demo-Knight
It has all the same old problems of idling for item drops and it even has some new problems. You can just sit at the main menu and you will get one card each hour. You can't ever collect a full set, so you are going to have to trade to get item sets. Now obviously no one is just going to give you it for free, so it forces you to put in resources from elsewhere in order to collect a full set, be it money, keys, or items.

Now aside from that, the leveling and XP system is also extremely flawed. You have to get to level 10 to showcase stuff. Yet currently there are only 6 games that have Trading Cards, each giving you 100 XP (which gives you 1 level each). That means you need to have 4 other badges that are around 100 XP each to get to level 10. And that is considering you have all 6 games. For most people that is virtually impossible, and I have only seen several people who have showcases.

In addition, owning games on Steam doesn't give you any XP. Only the first game you own will give you 100 XP. You can have 1000 games on Steam and be level 1. Which doesn't make sense at all. The most avid supporters of Steam should get some recognition. Granted, each additional game you own should give you less XP or else there will be people who have levels in the hundreds, but there should be something.
 

Wrath

Positively Inhumane Poster
It's in beta.
Hahaha, I was about to post the same thing.

It's still being worked on, but I only took one, 5 second look and NOPE. I think I participated in the inner community by getting those leetle badges on the site, now Steam wants to turn into something of Facebook meets 1991's Zero Wing.

I'm deleting any crap that I get from this 'new' event.
 

KinCryos

TF2 Admin
Contributor
Mapper
currently there are only 6 games that have Trading Cards, each giving you 100 XP (which gives you 1 level each)
you can craft multiple badges of the same game to level up the badge, getting another 100 XP each badge level.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/xsun000/badges/
here's someone with a Steam level of 20 with Don't Starve, TF2, Portal 2, and HL2 each at level 5, for 500 XP each

additionally, doing all Community tasks is worth a whopping 200 XP
 

Raccoon99

Epic Skial Regular
It's in beta. I'm sure that they will add monthly drops or anything [Damn you JoJo, HAVING A FULLSET AND A LEVEL 5 WHEATLEY BADGE RIGHT FROM THE GETGO!] and i am SURE that they will add more games after it's in Final.
 

Tomatketchup

Banned
Contributor
It's still being worked on, but I only took one, 5 second look and NOPE. I think I participated in the inner community by getting those leetle badges on the site, now Steam wants to turn into something of Facebook meets 1991's Zero Wing.
Because Facebook has... profile levels and collectible cards? Because... wait, Zero Wing? What does a Gradius-clone with bad English have to do with anything? What the flying fuck are you on about?
 

lolsama

Somewhat Threatening Sniper
first of if you own 1 game your automaticly lvl 2 due to the 100 exp , secondly joining events as that summer sale also gives you exp , thirdly you also get 50 exp for each your of service

conclusion : leveling isnt that hard it just takes time
 
Wait, what is the purpose to all this?

It depends on who you are talking about.

Valve and Steam: These cards will encourage users to spend more money on the store. Both to buy games where you can collect these cards and also on games when you have gotten coupons.

Players: Further customisation of your profile, extra tools on Steam (smileys in chat is one example of this), bragging rights and cheaper games with coupons.