Steampowered shit?

[mtkafka]

So I got the new Steam and it deletes all Half Life and mods I had downloaded in the past month since getting cable modem. Now when I try to load up Half Life SINGLEPLAYER it needs to download more shit. WTF?!? DoD and CS now need to update AGAIN (full game downloads AGAIN). Whats the effin deal here? Are they expecting this Steam to go over well with customers? I can't IMAGINE how dial up users will take this. Let's hope Steam DOESN'T ruin the Half Life 2 experience.

etc

[Mark Asher]

Sounds like STEAM is making sure all your Half-Life stuff is the same version as the STEAM versions.

[mtkafka]

All I can say is

DONT DOWNLOAD THIS PIECE OF SHIT SPYWARE CALLED STEAM!

etc

[Midnight Son]

No steam for me!

[Aleck]

All I can say is

DONT DOWNLOAD THIS PIECE OF SHIT SPYWARE CALLED STEAM!

etc

I had similar frustration with the original Steam, which is part of my trepidation about the new Steam. Why do you call is spyware, though? Is there a spyware component (rather than just a crapware component?)

Aleck

[malphigian]

DONT DOWNLOAD THIS PIECE OF SHIT SPYWARE CALLED STEAM!


I had similar frustration with the original Steam, which is part of my trepidation about the new Steam. Why do you call is spyware, though? Is there a spyware component (rather than just a crapware component?)

There was a rumor flying around that is had spyware in it.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/437/437879p1.html?fromint=1

Of course, if anyone thought about, they'd realize Valve would never dump a bunch of known spyware apps in their program, since it would be major bad PR and doesn't fit their business model at all.

Also, I think it's pretty clear Steam is not intended for dial-up users.

mtkafka: maybe you could hold off on the semi-coherent CAPS FILLED rants in this forum? You've made other fine posts here, but this just sounds like the shrill ranting all over every other gaming forum on the web. Chill out first, then post your critque once you're more relaxed, it'll come out better :).

[Dave Long]

Uh...all his stuff was deleted and he has to redownload it. He's got every right to be all caps pissed at what happened.

--Dave

[malphigian]

Yeah, I know, I'd be pissed too, I'm just saying maybe hold off on the caps screaming and the wild accusations. No ill-will intended mtkafka.

[Jason Becker]

I think he has a right to be pissed too. I don't remember Valve saying people would have to re-download everything when STEAM is installed. If they need to make the versions the same make a patch to do it. DL'ing the whole thing again is ridiculous.


As to STEAM not being for dial-up users, well so are they not supposed to ever update anything HL again? Its my understanding that everything HL in the future is going through it, so they don't have much of a choice.

[mtkafka]

Well CAPS are for emphasis! Well for the most part (for now) I got Half Life and CS to work, BUT it has crashed pretty frequently compared to non Steam CS. I have to completely redownload some 300 mb DoD file and then TF/Riccochet?!?/Plain DM. I don't understand why they have to reinvent the wheel for Half Life and Mods. Maybe for HL2, but leave Half Life alone, its been doing fine and dandy without steam.

Also whats annoying is I have NO idea how far I am in this Peer to Peer download of DoD and everything else. One minute the Steam monitor says 90 kb/s... next second it says no updates being downloaded, and then 3 or 4 patches updates come up, one goes down, 2 go up... its loony. Bascailly, the Steam monitor gives you NO status of how far in and how far left you have in a download. And since the cache file in the Program File/Steam folder (where all Half Life + mods MUST NOW reside without MY consent - I put my game folders in SPECIFIC places!) is set at one cache size chunk in reserve for the file (?), there is no indication AT ALL of what is and isn't being downloaded. As well, the startup to an mp game is painfully slower than both Gamespy + ASE combined. It has to verify the files EVERY time for about 10 - 15 seconds (Checking if its wareZ or not). Though, once you're in you can freely browse game servers.

But anyway, maybe this is a sign from God that I should just let CS and DoD and everything else Half Life 1 be dead now, kaput. Bring on Half Life 2 WITHOUT Steam!

etc

[malphigian]

See, now that's a critique! :D

It does sounds seriously clunky, maybe they are using the Half-Life 1 distribution as some kind of open beta test, and will refine it for Half-Life 2. Lucky you, you're a beta tester and you didn't even know it!

I also wonder if that 10-15 second verification is also an anti-cheat measure?

Still, I think I'll got for the CD version for HL2.

[mtkafka]

See, now that's a critique! :D

It does sounds seriously clunky, maybe they are using the Half-Life 1 distribution as some kind of open beta test, and will refine it for Half-Life 2. Lucky you, you're a beta tester and you didn't even know it!

I also wonder if that 10-15 second verification is also an anti-cheat measure?

Still, I think I'll got for the CD version for HL2.

It is very clunky. I've been playing CS, so I know it works for that game... but then oddly enough it seems to want to update CS again?!? The monitor says updating for CS. Bah, I don't know... stupid. And whats even more annoying is if Steam locks up or hangs (very rare for me with other programs in XP) it virtually slows Internet Explorer to a crawl. So darn annoying. Lets hope they have a plain jane non Steam HL2 SP release. I WILL buy that one instead.

etc

[Supertanker]

Saw this link on the DoD forums, obviously inspired by a smooth customer experience:
http://www.a3on.net/iga/steamupdate.gif

Because the reported problems are not happening to every user, and they seem to be slacking off with time, it seems a lot of the problem is Steam server capacity. The report that is keeping me from in stalling it is that Steam just copies over the standard files for DoD (and HL & CS?) then dumps the rest - custom maps, server ban lists, plugins are all gone. None for me, thanks!

[Jazar]

What's the benefit of having steam right now in the first place? I'm curious.

[Midnight Son]

The benefits of Steam are to benefit the publisher. In effect, it's an anti-piracy move. Think about it.

[Kalle]

Sure, but why should *I* as a *consumer* care about Steam?

[mtkafka]

It's not only anti-piracy, but its complete control of anything to do with the game. You want to edit some skins or make some mods? Probably will have to go thru some hoops with Steam. Want to run a private modded HL2 mp server? No go, have to go thru steam. Valve bascailly wants the pie of a succesful subscription base ala an MMRPG like EQ. But they fail to realize is people will move to another game if the system doesn't work. And as of now, the patching and updating is horrendously broken. The updater, the game launcher, the server browser take at best 20 - 30 seconds to load, at each window screen (and thats if it doesn't crash). They are setting themselves up to lose MORE money in the long run. All they had to do was make a Valve only game browser with something ala Punkbuster and maybe some ingame AIM/ICQ funcionality. It doesn't need to have EVERYTHING. And the funny thing is MORE time is wasted on Steam then if they had just made patches for these games. And lets be frank, average joe gamer will NOT waste there time downloading 300 mb cache files (stupidly I will!) just so they can play solo player Half Life!

I guess we're all just betatesters for the HL2 Steam release...

etc

[Mark Asher]

The benefits of Steam are to benefit the publisher. In effect, it's an anti-piracy move. Think about it.

They also have some kind of Quixotic vision about Steam being able to bypass traditional retail channels and provide a means for indie developers to sell their wares. My cynical guess is this means we'll be asked to pay for some mods instead of just getting them for free as in the past.

[Midnight Son]

I'm not going to play any games if I can't just buy it and play it when I want without connecting to someone's server. I should be able to get patches without joining some service. That still hasn't been made clear, I believe.

[Jazar]

My question is why would anyone use it now when there are altnernatives?

[Midnight Son]

My question is why would anyone use it now when there are altnernatives?

Premium content, stuff you can't get anywhere else. Patches?? That would cause a firestorm.

[Myth]

Valve bascailly wants the pie of a succesful subscription base ala an MMRPG like EQ. But they fail to realize is people will move to another game if the system doesn't work.

From my perspective it doesn't seem to work very well at all at this point. First of all it took forever to update itself (during the setup process), and now that "I think" it is installed, every time I go to start a game it says "It must download 350 mb of stuff...".---> and hangs forever. Also just starting the main application sseems to take forever. I would assume this is because every one is trying to download the client, update it, and then play their favourite games, and their network is getting trashed. Almost like the first day or week (depending on the game) for most MMORPGs.

If this is the case, how the hell do they think it will perform the first week or months) HL 2 is released. Do they really think that hundredes of thousands of people will really be patient waiting forever download the gigs of files necessery for a complex game like HL 2??

The beta worked a lot better than this piece of feces.

[quatoria]

The benefits of Steam are to benefit the publisher. In effect, it's an anti-piracy move. Think about it.

They also have some kind of Quixotic vision about Steam being able to bypass traditional retail channels and provide a means for indie developers to sell their wares. My cynical guess is this means we'll be asked to pay for some mods instead of just getting them for free as in the past.

I'd pay a nominal, LOW fee, for quality mods that were bugchecked and polished by Valve. Without hesitation.

[Sean Tudor]

So I got the new Steam and it deletes all Half Life and mods I had downloaded in the past month since getting cable modem. Now when I try to load up Half Life SINGLEPLAYER it needs to download more shit. WTF?!? DoD and CS now need to update AGAIN (full game downloads AGAIN). Whats the effin deal here? Are they expecting this Steam to go over well with customers? I can't IMAGINE how dial up users will take this. Let's hope Steam DOESN'T ruin the Half Life 2 experience.

etc

Oh god not this sort of crap. So even if you have the latest patches for HalfLife and DoD this Steam wants to re-download everything ?!

As for HalfLife 2 as long as I can buy the full retail pack and download game patches/updates without touching Steam I will be happy.

[Supertanker]

My question is why would anyone use it now when there are altnernatives?

Very soon, there will be no alternatives. Read this thread (www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17274), posted by one of the DoD dev team. WON is going away (in two weeks from one report, but that seems crazy short right now) and Steam will replace it as the authentication method for all HL online play.

Will I lose my WON ID?
Yes. One thing that Steam is, is a new validation system. Later, WON will go away, and all Valve games will use Steam ID as the authentication.

What will this do to LAN centers with multiple copies? How about you home users with several computers running their own keys?

[oink]

No one's really made it clear yet, on whether they think steam is a good idea. Let me clarify first before you say "of course it's not".

I think steam is a good Idea, but also a poorly implemented idea.

I order all my games online already, so this is the next step for me. Too bad Valves fucking it up. They'll probably delay innovation if they make the general public leery of streaming simplified downloadable content.

Am I the only person in favor of the "Idea" ?

EDIT: I cna't spaek elgisnh.

[Dave Long]

You may be. Most consumers don't take kindly to buying something they never hold in their hand. Good game or not, I'm not buying Half-Life 2 directly through Valve and Steam and if it requires me to become a Steam user to play the game online I'll either never play online or I won't bother buying it from the store.

This is entertainment software. It shouldn't be so fricking hard to use it. It's bad enough PC games already take a lot more effort to play than console games. Things like Steam only add more aggravation to an already aggravating platform.

--Dave

[Jazar]

Reminds me too much of DIVX (the bad DVD player kind not the codec)

[playingwithknives]

Ive heard Valve are taking down the WON authentication and master servers forcing everyone who wants to play HL1 or its mods online to use steam.

So if your on a modem and you want to play your CS/DOD boxed copy you bought 6 months ago you cant ? (or even if on bb you have to download everything you bought again) Can this really be the case? Are they really allowed to do that?

[cyborg]

They can do whatever the hell they like they appears and if you want to play you suffer.

My advice? Fuck Valve and play something else. Vote with your wallet. Don't buy HL2 no matter how good it is. If you let companies shaft you they will shaft you hard and repeatedly - just like the animation.

[Aszurom]

Well, from what I've heard there's a rumor that steam will require a steam server connection and validation to even play SINGLE PLAYER. There's also that petition against steam being required for LAN games as well - so I guess that means even a LAN party needs a cable modem connection to the outside world, eh?

Utter bullshit. I'll wait until the warez kiddies rip the steam shit out and then download their crack for it.

[Dave Long]

Rather than circumvent the law, just don't buy any of the stuff at all. Keep the money out of their pocket if you don't like what they're doing.

Skipping a major game will not end anyone's life. There's plenty of other stuff coming out this fall to enjoy. Way too much for one person to really enjoy it all in fact.

--Dave

[Greg417]

Well, from what I've heard there's a rumor that steam will require a steam server connection and validation to even play SINGLE PLAYER. There's also that petition against steam being required for LAN games as well - so I guess that means even a LAN party needs a cable modem connection to the outside world, eh?
I don't have the link handy but someone purportedly sent Gabe Newell an email asking him just that, and he replied that the SP (and maybe LAN play) would be validated for the first two weeks only. Speculation was that it had to do with review copies/betas.

[Ranulf]

Well, from what I've heard there's a rumor that steam will require a steam server connection and validation to even play SINGLE PLAYER. There's also that petition against steam being required for LAN games as well - so I guess that means even a LAN party needs a cable modem connection to the outside world, eh?
I don't have the link handy but someone purportedly sent Gabe Newell an email asking him just that, and he replied that the SP (and maybe LAN play) would be validated for the first two weeks only. Speculation was that it had to do with review copies/betas.

Well thats positive news but hopefully they'll update the steam faqs and openly state this on the web.

As for CS/DOD I'm now confused, I know they are forcing the change from steam to won and making it so you can't run CS 1.5 servers but they're gonna make me redownload both mods over steam only!?!? Talk about annoying. Just when I was getting back into both games.. guess I'll just play 1.5 on a lan with bots.

[Robert Sharp]

Wait a minute...is Dave Long right here? You have to be online to play the game at all? I thought Steam would allow you to DL the whole the game effectively, which would be fine by me, as long as I didn't have to reconnect everytime I wanted to play the damned thing. My satellite connection has latency problems, so I can't play online games very effectively, but I can DL the hell out of something. If Dave is right, this causes a real problem for me.

[Sean Tudor]

So if your on a modem and you want to play your CS/DOD boxed copy you bought 6 months ago you cant ? (or even if on bb you have to download everything you bought again) Can this really be the case? Are they really allowed to do that?

The biggest impact Steam will have will be to limit Valve's own market share. Given that broadband still only represents a small percentage of Internet users I can't see the majority of modem users sitting there waiting for 2-3 days while they download Steam files.

I think the CS and DOD servers are going to become very quiet over the next couple of months as no one will be playing if they are forced off the WON service.

Also the rest of the world do not have access to unlimited downloads like the US market. Most of us have capped Internet accounts with no alternative.

[Supertanker]

The biggest impact Steam will have will be to limit Valve's own market share. Given that broadband still only represents a small percentage of Internet users I can't see the majority of modem users sitting there waiting for 2-3 days while they download Steam files.

I think the CS and DOD servers are going to become very quiet over the next couple of months as no one will be playing if they are forced off the WON service.

Combined with a massive increase in system requirements, it seems like Valve is creating a perfect storm for destroying their dominance of online gaming. By physically cutting off the mid and low-end players (either connection or machine-wise) and alienating the hardcore with huge clunky download requirements, who will be left?

This is great news for id, since I presume modders will then turn to the Doom3 engine instead.

[Creole Ned]

I'm surprised no one has quoted from the actual Steam website yet. Here's one of the things stated in the FAQ:

Do I have to be connected to the Internet when I play Steam games?

The short answer is yes.

All Steam-enabled games require you to be connected to the Internet in order to play.

Note: some Steam-enabled single-player games (such as Half-Life 2) purchased at a retail store will allow offline play until the user decides to play online or enable other Steam functionality. From that point on, an Internet connection will be required.

And another on the LAN question:

How can I have a LAN party or similar event using Steam?

Any Steam game, when played on a LAN or otherwise, requires that each individual client be able to authenticate via the Internet.

At a LAN party, this means that Internet access must be available to every machine on which Steam games are being played.

The full FAQ is here: http://www.steampowered.com/faq.htm

[Creole Ned]

Let me chime in on my own experience with Steam, too.

I installed the beta one week before the non-beta went live. It worked flawlessly.

I installed 1.0 a day after its release. I made it to the loading screen of Deathmatch Classic once. That was it. Now that I have had a simulated taste of the first week of many MMORPG's I have less desire than ever to try one. :P

[Sean Tudor]

Note: some Steam-enabled single-player games (such as Half-Life 2) purchased at a retail store will allow offline play until the user decides to play online or enable other Steam functionality. From that point on, an Internet connection will be required.

To use some time honored words - THAT SUCKS !

[DaveC]

Everyone is giving Valve shit for Steam. I for one applaud them. Someone has to be the first out of the gate and take the risks and if anyone thought it was going to be a bump free ride they were kidding themselves. I have no problem with a delivery system like steam as long as there is a reasonable way to make a hard backup in case my drive needs reformatting.

[Creole Ned]

And if my Internet connection goes down (as it did recently) and I want to play my single player copy of a Valve game, then tough cookies for me, right? Does that seem reasonable to you? It doesn't to me.

[GregB]

By physically cutting off the mid and low-end players (either connection or machine-wise) and alienating the hardcore with huge clunky download requirements, who will be left?

Well to be fair, the hardware requirements for Steam are not terribly high. A 1 gig processor and 256 RAM? That's lower than the low-end these days. And I believe it was always designed as a broadband delivery system.

I messed around with the beta a little while ago and was playing Half-life in under 5 minutes (that includes the time I spent downloading the Stream client). Every time I wanted to play Half-life after that it was ready to go as soon as I hit the button. I believe Steam only downloads the files you need at any given moment and then leaves them on your HD for quick and easy access. And then, as you're playing, continues to download more content so you don't have to wait when you need to load a new area.

I think it's kind of neat, but they need more developers on the bandwagon. If Steam were a kind of one-stop-shop where I could quickly and easily play most new releases and old favorites without any hassle, I'd probably do it. And I bet a lot of other people would as well. I used to love it, but lately I'm getting more and more fed up with going down to the local EB and finding that they only stocked 2 copies of a new or obscure release. I'm tired of store clerks trying to herd me into their little pre-order pen. And I'm sick of hearing about those fucking strategy guides.

I bought Final Fantasy Tactics Advance the other day and the guy behind the counter asked if I wanted the guide. I said, "No, no, no, and no" And he looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. "Are you sure? It's a pretty long game with a lot of hidden stuff." Fucker.

Nevermind. Methinks this is for another thread.

[Midnight Son]

Any Steam game, when played on a LAN or otherwise, requires that each individual client be able to authenticate via the Internet.

At a LAN party, this means that Internet access must be available to every machine on which Steam games are being played.

NO SALE. This is bullshit.

[DaveC]

Any Steam game, when played on a LAN or otherwise, requires that each individual client be able to authenticate via the Internet.

At a LAN party, this means that Internet access must be available to every machine on which Steam games are being played.

NO SALE. This is bullshit.

Why is this so hard to swallow? They are saying that if you want to play multi-player games that are Steam enabled you need to authenticate. Key authentication is far from new. People are just getting cheesed off because this makes it harder to "share" games at LAN parties.

[DennyA]

Okay, curiousity got the best of me, so I found my Half-Life CD and installed Steam.

Thoughts:

Pro:
Pretty cool that you can get Opposing Force, Day of Defeat, and the full Counter-Strike "free" if you own Half-Life. (I know some of those are downloadable as well, but these were all available as "boxed games." OpFor was never free, right?)

Cons:
I can't see playing a game until it's fully downloaded, given my experience with the client so far. I started Half-Life while it was still downloading, and ended up with it stopping at "loading" for a period of a couple of minutes at three different points during the tram ride into Black Mesa. That'd be doubly annoying if I was knee-deep in the action. I'd imagine HL2 is optimized so that you'll get a good chunk of the beginning of the game during the initial load.

It's always running, sitting in your task bar. WTF? In a product designed specifically for core gamers? Yeah, I really want that thing sitting there sucking up cycles and memory when I'm playing FS2004, RoN, Lock-On, etc. (Yeah, you can shut it down, but you shouldn't have to go into MSConfig just to stop it from loading at startup.)

[Sean Tudor]

Everyone is giving Valve shit for Steam. I for one applaud them. Someone has to be the first out of the gate and take the risks and if anyone thought it was going to be a bump free ride they were kidding themselves. I have no problem with a delivery system like steam as long as there is a reasonable way to make a hard backup in case my drive needs reformatting.

Just to clarify I have no problem with using online downloads through a portal. A good example is Drengin.Net and GalCiv. Drengin.Net works well and is great for program updates and patches.

But Drengin.Net doesn't force you onto the net when you want to play the game nor does it force you to download hundreds of megabytes worth of files - it is all optional.

[oink]

Everyone is giving Valve shit for Steam. I for one applaud them. Someone has to be the first out of the gate and take the risks and if anyone thought it was going to be a bump free ride they were kidding themselves. I have no problem with a delivery system like steam as long as there is a reasonable way to make a hard backup in case my drive needs reformatting.

Woo. I'm with you on this one DaveC. I was beggining to think I was the only who thought this was a good idea. (Just not sure if it's going to work this time).

[Albert Woo]

(Yeah, you can shut it down, but you shouldn't have to go into MSConfig just to stop it from loading at startup.)
You can also go to Settings > Interface and uncheck "Run Steam when Windows starts." But yeah, it should ask you during installation if you want to load it at start-up.

[Robert Sharp]

How could this possibly be a good idea? They are saying that once I even TRY Steam, I can no longer play the game that I bought in single-player without connecting to the Steam service. If the service is down? Can't play. If my connection is down...can't play. If I don't want someone spying on when I play...too bad. So what good is Steam for people who DON'T focus on multiplayer? It's just an extra hassle. I like to try multiplayer because sometimes it grabs me, but it usually doesn't. With Steam, I probably won't even try it because of Steam.

[Mark Asher]

Well to be fair, the hardware requirements for Steam are not terribly high. A 1 gig processor and 256 RAM? That's lower than the low-end these days. And I believe it was always designed as a broadband delivery system.

I wouldn't call a 1 gig processor lower than low-end. What if you bought a PC two years ago?

Most games don't require a 1 gig processor. I only recently (last week!) was using an AMD 750, and most games worked fine at medium settings. I bet there are a lot of CS players with systems with slower than 1 gig processors. After all, for the last couple of years it's been the video card and the ram that have been the speed bottlenecks and not the CPU.

[TheWombat]

Um, the part I think that really galls people is that bit about having to connect to the Internet and validate even to play solo--once you go online even once, every single session you play, solo or multi, from that point on will require Steam validation. That at least is how I read that FAQ. Which means that if you get the retail version and after playing around with the single player game for a bit want to see if multiplayer works well, and you fire it up online, from that point on you have to have an active 'Net connection to play solo. Which is fine for all of us with broadband and when it is working, but it is another layer of stuff that can go wrong IMO.

I have no objection to distribution methods that think outside the box (literally). I have no objection to validation systems for multiplayer games. I do have objections to systems that assume everyone has an always-on broadband connection and that make even solo games into Internet apps.

I mean, what about the dudes who have good rigs but only dialup access? Are they going to have to dialup every time they play HL2, if they ever go online even once? Are they going to have to keep the connection up during play, or only during validation? I can see phone line conflicts galore.

Of course I get the impression that those who are perfectly happy with this approach 1) have reliable broadband, 2) will be playing mostly multiplayer anyhow, and 3) live in caves.

[Aleck]

Everyone is giving Valve shit for Steam. I for one applaud them. Someone has to be the first out of the gate and take the risks and if anyone thought it was going to be a bump free ride they were kidding themselves. I have no problem with a delivery system like steam as long as there is a reasonable way to make a hard backup in case my drive needs reformatting.

Just to clarify I have no problem with using online downloads through a portal. A good example is Drengin.Net and GalCiv. Drengin.Net works well and is great for program updates and patches.

But Drengin.Net doesn't force you onto the net when you want to play the game nor does it force you to download hundreds of megabytes worth of files - it is all optional.

And thank God it doesn't. Part of the joy of single players games is playing them single player -- often on a machine that is not connected to your network (for example, while traveling -- which is what I'm doing with GalCiv).

I really, really want to like the idea behind Steam -- esp. if it means that more money goes to developers and/or prices come down (both of which are good things in my book). However, I'm more than a little disappointed at this initial implementation, particularly as it relates to single player games. Requiring a network connection seems a little bit much, and will (in my eyes) relegate Steam to the category of useless for anything but Internet multiplayer-only games.

I also agree that it looks like it'll play hell with the mod community. I guess many of us will wait for Steam 4.0, when they address some of these issues, before enriching Valve any further.

But bravo to Valve for trying. I just wish they'd been a little more successful in addressing what are some pretty obvious (although possibly difficult to solve) issues.

Aleck

[Kalle]

...At a LAN party, this means that Internet access must be available to every machine on which Steam games are being played.

NO SALE. This is bullshit.

Why is this so hard to swallow? They are saying that if you want to play multi-player games that are Steam enabled you need to authenticate. Key authentication is far from new. People are just getting cheesed off because this makes it harder to "share" games at LAN parties.

Before I moved and got broadband I *never* had internet connection when I went to LAN parties, ever. At best the guy whose house I was in had a modem connection for his computer and his computer only. Even if we had gone through the hassle of setting up connection sharing on 4+ computers with different OS's and by some miraculous act of fortune not have to spend half our gaming time trying to set that up the average connection speed would have been what? 0.5 Kbps? Yes, this is bullshit, Steam as a whole is a huge steaming pile of bullshit. I will not buy HL2, ever, unless Steam is changed to an optional component.

Valve's move at a brand new sales model sure looks good from their POV but from where I'm standing I can't see a single advantage to it. Tell me again what incentive I really have to bother with Steam? I sure don't know.

[Mark Asher]

The whole having to connect to the net to play solo thing is idiotic. I can't believe Valve even wants that traffic, unless they want to use it as an opportunity to market to its playerbase.

I can't really cheer this on for another reason -- if it catches on, we might have all kinds of crap loaded onto our PCs, because to play Half-Life 2 we need Steam, but to play Doom 4 we might need id's special service, Blizzard will make us connect to battle.net, EA will make us connect to EA.com, etc. It could be a real pain in the ass.

[xahlt]

Once again, this is misinformation (quote via an email on halflife2.net):

From: Chris Deeming [mailto:chrisdeem@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 4:16 PM
To: gaben@valvesoftware.com
Subject: Will it never cease?


I'm not sure if it will ever cease or not. The constant nagging question
that people are asking - Will Steam be required to have an internet
connection active when starting up a singleplayer game or a LAN game?

It's giving me a headache

Seen the petition yet?

Chris_D

No, it won't.

There will be a brief transition (like two weeks) when it is necessary, but
then it will go away. It's a temporary issue.

I haven't seen anyone else ask about the two weeks issue; it is my speculation that it might be to force validation of review copies so that the game doesn't get out or if it does, they know who did it. But that's only speculation

[Midnight Son]

What if the two weeks never end?

[mtkafka]

People are just getting cheesed off because this makes it harder to "share" games at LAN parties.

Uhm, no. People are getting cheesed because Steam itself is a piece of shit! It crashes constantly. Not only that, it lags your desktop, your browser and can even lock up your pc! BRAVO VALVE! I had spyware that was less harsh.

etc

[Desslock]

Why is this so hard to swallow? They are saying that if you want to play multi-player games that are Steam enabled you need to authenticate.

....but they're doing much more than that -- they are prohibiting LAN parties at locations where there isn't a broadband internet connection and a router. At least according to that FAQ entry, although it sounds like that requirement may be eventually relaxed.

[TheWombat]

Here's hoping that after the initial X weeks they need for whatever reason, you can play solo without a 'Net connection even if you have at some point gone online. I suspect they actually want LAN parties to have to have everyone buy a copy of the game, which is understandable I guess, but this way of doing it seems a bit Draconian.

[Mark Asher]

One thing's for sure -- if this wasn't Half-Life 2, Steam would fall flat on its face. Valve needs to do a much better job of selling this idea to the players. They're not making much of an argument for Steam's value.

[Midnight Son]

Here's hoping that after the initial X weeks they need for whatever reason, you can play solo without a 'Net connection even if you have at some point gone online. I suspect they actually want LAN parties to have to have everyone buy a copy of the game, which is understandable I guess, but this way of doing it seems a bit Draconian.

More work for the crackers. I mean seriously, if you are going to play with a group of LAN buddies I bet you at least one of them will know where to get the crack.

[DaveC]

Why is this so hard to swallow? They are saying that if you want to play multi-player games that are Steam enabled you need to authenticate.

....but they're doing much more than that -- they are prohibiting LAN parties at locations where there isn't a broadband internet connection and a router. At least according to that FAQ entry, although it sounds like that requirement may be eventually relaxed.

I have read in a few places that this probably won't be a permanent thing. I am also sure that unless Valve is completely deaf they will accomodate their users. In the end, the need to authenticate a game that is going to be played primarily online is something that isn't going to go away.

[DaveC]

Here's hoping that after the initial X weeks they need for whatever reason, you can play solo without a 'Net connection even if you have at some point gone online. I suspect they actually want LAN parties to have to have everyone buy a copy of the game, which is understandable I guess, but this way of doing it seems a bit Draconian.

That would be the most logical thing to do.

[Sean Tudor]

From reading the FAQ Valve clearly states Steam is for broadband users only (128Kbps or greater). So I guess anyone with modem-only internet access should not be buying HalfLife2 or any future Valve games that use Steam.

[olaf]

And if my Internet connection goes down (as it did recently) and I want to play my single player copy of a Valve game, then tough cookies for me, right? Does that seem reasonable to you? It doesn't to me.
No shit. It seems like a dick in the ass to me, but its not surprising given that software publishers put stuff like safedisc on their CDs.

Once they have your money, they really could give a shit about anything else.

Good game? Optional. Bug free? HAHAHA, youre kidding right? Adequate docs? Unlikely. Chance of a refund if you decide it sucks? Slim and none with slim last seen heading out of town. Copy protection? YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS!

olaf

[Bill]

Does anyone have any idea how well Steam will work with a firewall? Where I work we basically can't connect to outside servers so we just play a lot of lan games--but if Steam requires an outside connection, I wonder if that will work?

[DaveC]

Once they have your money, they really could give a shit about anything else.


olaf

Wow, that's a pretty jaded view of the industry. Unless the people running running a publisher or dev house plan hit and run game sales how does screwing gamers over work to their advantage? Making money usually requires a few titles under your belt (unless you hae a runaway hit). So, totally alienating your customers is the last thing you want to do. Making changes that piss people off is one thing, but making your customers boycott any future products will bring you to Chapter 11 pretty fast.

This leads me to a point that I brought up in another thread. There are times that gamers have valid criticisms and complaints about games, but the majority of complaints are usually related to preference. When a company makes choices that make a vocal minority angry the result on the net can be amplified. It doesn't take much to get the ball rolling and many people are more than happy to give it a push.

[SimplyCosmic]

All the problems that Steam may or may not have, both already existing and theoretical upon HL2's release, anyone want to take a stab at just how many sales Valve could lose if they don't get on top of this growing PR disaster?

Of course, I suspect the accounting suits at Valve will be disappointed with the sales of HL2 regardless, as they're most likely salivating over the sales numbers HL has racked up over the years, mostly due to the fact that it and by extension CS run on just about any outdated gaming computer found in LANs everywhere, whereas a good number of people won't have the hardware to support HL2 and won't be buying in to it.

[Brad Grenz]

I think mostly you guys have a poor understanding of how Steam is going to work. You guys are in a complete tizzy over what seems to me is probably just a communication problem.

[DennyA]

RE: The firewall question.

Steam requires three sets of ports (UDP and TCP) to be opened to function properly. So many gamers will be learning Router Interface 101.

Does opening these ports cause any sort of security issue? My router lets me easily toggle them open/closed, so I just shut 'em down when not in use.

[Sean Tudor]

RE: The firewall question.

Steam requires three sets of ports (UDP and TCP) to be opened to function properly. So many gamers will be learning Router Interface 101.

Does opening these ports cause any sort of security issue? My router lets me easily toggle them open/closed, so I just shut 'em down when not in use.

I assume I could do the same thing in ZoneAlarm Pro ? I really have no idea as I have never used its advanced configuration options.

[Brad Grenz]

Doesn't ZoneAlarm pop up a dialog when a program tries to use a port and ask you whether to allow or block the access? In that case you just run the client, tell ZA it's cool and you're good to go.

[Ibbz]

Of course, I suspect the accounting suits at Valve will be disappointed with the sales of HL2 regardless, as they're most likely salivating over the sales numbers HL has racked up over the years, mostly due to the fact that it and by extension CS run on just about any outdated gaming computer found in LANs everywhere, whereas a good number of people won't have the hardware to support HL2 and won't be buying in to it.
If it turns out you have to buy CS2 seperately, I believe they could kiss good bye a fair chunk of their HL2 sales.

[Chris Nahr]

Well, this sucks. I'm not betting 50 dollars on the chance that all this outrage is merely a communication problem. Originally I had planned to pick up HL2 as soon as it was released but now I'm going to wait until well after release to make sure that Steam won't work as described in that FAQ. Not only would it be a pain in the rear but I have no intention of supporting such a company.

[Brad Grenz]

Well, luckily the game isn't going to be released for weeks, giving Valve the opprotunity to clarify the situation before you actually have to make a decision.

[Lokust]

Why is this so hard to swallow? They are saying that if you want to play multi-player games that are Steam enabled you need to authenticate. Key authentication is far from new. People are just getting cheesed off because this makes it harder to "share" games at LAN parties.

This is impossible to swallow because over half of the LAN's I go to are at facilities with no internet access. I will not purchase HL2 if it continues to work like this. The irony is that I'm sure there will be warez versions out that will work just fine, and everyone will migrate to those.

[Ibbz]

This is impossible to swallow because over half of the LAN's I go to are at facilities with no internet access. I will not purchase HL2 if it continues to work like this. The irony is that I'm sure there will be warez versions out that will work just fine, and everyone will migrate to those.
The LAN Cafe I frequent has no internet access either {At least to the gaming machines.}

[GuildBoss]

How could this possibly be a good idea? They are saying that once I even TRY Steam, I can no longer play the game that I bought in single-player without connecting to the Steam service. If the service is down? Can't play. If my connection is down...can't play. If I don't want someone spying on when I play...too bad. So what good is Steam for people who DON'T focus on multiplayer? It's just an extra hassle. I like to try multiplayer because sometimes it grabs me, but it usually doesn't. With Steam, I probably won't even try it because of Steam.

Same here. HL2 will be firmly entrenched in single-player mode on my PC.

For online multiplayer I'll just stick with America's Army.

[noun]

Why can't they do what Bioware did for Neverwinter Nights? Gamers can download patches, mods, and play singleplayer without any hassle. As soon as they want to play any kind of multiplayer, they need to register their CD key and create an ID. I haven't any problems with that.

What's the reasoning behind this XP-like activation scheme?

[Gordon Berg]

Sounds like LAN parties wishing to play CS will have to stick with version 1.5 or earlier.

It also seems possible to keep your old version, even with steam installed. When installing Steam for the first time, you can choose to not overwrite your existing folder(s). Steam still converts your shortcuts over to the new steam.exe, so I found my original hl.exe, recreated my CounterStrike shortcut, and was able to get back into WON autheniticated 1.5 servers after having just played a 1.6 game moments earlier. Obviously this will only work for the next two weeks or so if what Valve is saying still ends up holding true and WON is no more.

But the requiring of an internet connection, just to play a LAN game? Not going to happen, if only for cost reasons (let alone boycotting and/or cracking). There's a local LAN event I attend where I live that happens about three times a year that consistently averages 500 players and costs $30 to reserve a seat for the weekend. No internet connection is made available because it's far too cost prohibitive. It'd be more effective as an anti-piracy move if broadband was a bit more ubiquitous, but it's not. Piracty, it seems to me, has once again reached the those pre-cdrom "don't copy that floppy!" levels, but steam still appears to be a bit ahead of its time. It'll be interesting to see if they cave on this, succeed anyway, or leverage themselves right out of the market.

[XPav]

Penny Arcade has some hints on how to deal with Steam so it doesn't auto download everything. I'd hyperlink to it, but URLs are broken.

[olaf]

Once they have your money, they really could give a shit about anything else.


olaf

Wow, that's a pretty jaded view of the industry. Unless the people running running a publisher or dev house plan hit and run game sales how does screwing gamers over work to their advantage? Making money usually requires a few titles under your belt (unless you hae a runaway hit). So, totally alienating your customers is the last thing you want to do. Making changes that piss people off is one thing, but making your customers boycott any future products will bring you to Chapter 11 pretty fast.

This leads me to a point that I brought up in another thread. There are times that gamers have valid criticisms and complaints about games, but the majority of complaints are usually related to preference. When a company makes choices that make a vocal minority angry the result on the net can be amplified. It doesn't take much to get the ball rolling and many people are more than happy to give it a push.
My point was that game software publishers dont care if you get a working product, or if you enjoy that product. They just want your money, everything else is a distant second. I dont think they are out to screw anyone personally, and of course they'd rather you be happy than pissed off, but if you cant return a dog of game to your retailer, they dont care. If safedisc prevents you from running a game, they dont care. Etc. Some of the publishers have even less scruples, knowingly shipping products with show stopping bugs, essentially charging customers for a broken game.

This steam thing, even if its just for two weeks, goes along with the trend. Fuck you customer.

olaf

[MikeSofaer]

Speaking of returns, I bought Savage online from igames and they say you can return your CD-key and get a refund if you don't like the game. That made me happy. But Savage is multiplayer only, so you really have to stop playing to return it.

[DaveC]

Not being able to return software is more a retailer issue than a publisher. It's getting a bit dangerous for PC titles because of the fact that so many now come with keys. For console games it's less of an issue. The days of being able to return products just because you don't like them are dwindling because so many consumers use the policy as a free rental with no plans of purchasing and becasue they expect retailers to compensate for their own impulse purchases. At least with games there are usually demos to try before you buy.

[DennyA]

So I installed Steam yesterday, played a little Half-Life and Opposing Force, just to see how it all worked.

Today, Steam doesn't seem to think it had downloaded ANY files yesterday, despite having grabbed about 400MB.

And it expired my "ticket" a couple of times, refused to let me in with my proper password a few times, and crashed once with a memory access violation. This software is "out of beta?" I don't think so.

[olaf]

Not being able to return software is more a retailer issue than a publisher. It's getting a bit dangerous for PC titles because of the fact that so many now come with keys. For console games it's less of an issue. The days of being able to return products just because you don't like them are dwindling because so many consumers use the policy as a free rental with no plans of purchasing and becasue they expect retailers to compensate for their own impulse purchases. At least with games there are usually demos to try before you buy.
I dont know whose issue it is, I just know the customer is getting screwed. I mean, I understand that the retailer is the one refusing the return, but maybe its due in part because of the publisher not wanting to take opened games back or something. I am not familiar with the end to end returns process in retail. But, what other industry can sell broken products so consistently and not accept returns on them?

olaf

[Mike Hussey]

Well there's a slight difference between returning something that's broken and returning something you don't like, with the former being a legal right in a lot of places. My local bookstore probably wouldn't accept me returning the latest Jeffrey Archer novel on the grounds that it's unmitigated, badly written shite, but would if half the pages are missing. I do consider a game so buggy that it's unplayable to be 'broken' though.

[Sean Tudor]

Not being able to return software is more a retailer issue than a publisher. It's getting a bit dangerous for PC titles because of the fact that so many now come with keys. For console games it's less of an issue. The days of being able to return products just because you don't like them are dwindling because so many consumers use the policy as a free rental with no plans of purchasing and becasue they expect retailers to compensate for their own impulse purchases. At least with games there are usually demos to try before you buy.

I think the non-return policy is good. We have never had the ability to return software here in Australia after it has been opened and it doesn't seem to have damaged the market for games.

I believe EB here in Aussie did have a return policy for a couple of years but that has now stopped.

All major sellers here allow returns as long as the shrinkwrap isn't broken. So it does tend to make us more cautious when purchasing software. I certainly don't impulse buy games like I did 15 years ago.

As for Valve and Steam - well these guys have a lot of work to do. There should be no requirement to have to go online if you want to play a single player game.

Even when you go online they shouldn't force you to download 400MB's worth of files without at least giving you more download options. 400MB's is a quarter of my monthly download allowance. And it certainly isn't a valid option for modem users who make up the majority of the marketplace.

[Jason McCullough]

Download allowance? What sort of commie ISP do you have?

[XPav]

Download allowance? What sort of commie ISP do you have?

Australian broadband ISPs have limits on the amount of stuff you can download before they start charging you. Its really fucking sad. I think some companies in the US are trying it, but because there are at least 2 choices (DSL or cable), that its not really taking off.

[Sean Tudor]

Download allowance? What sort of commie ISP do you have?

Like most ISP's in Australia we are plagued by monthly download caps. The ISP I am with allows 2 Gigabytes per month. After that I get charged 18 cents per megabyte.

Optus Cable allows 3 Gig's per month and then they force your speed down to 28.8Kbps.

Telstra Cable allows 3 Gig per month and then they also charge you a per megabyte fee.

Most other ISP's have caps of 1, 2, 4 Gig's per month. A large number of small ISP's have 500 and 650 MB caps per month.

The reasons ?

Telstra is the dominant telco in this country and the entire infrastructure belongs to them so they charge other ISP's bandwidth usage fees.

Telstra is trying to privatise but before doing so they are also trying to increase their share price by charging as many fees as they can to increase their gross profits.

The United States - where the majority of bandwidth is used from here in Australia continues to charge Telstra bandwidth fees resulting in the above.

So we have to live with bandwidth limits and ISP usage meters. You guys in the U.S. don't realise how lucky you are.

I can blow my entire monthly download bandwidth within six days simply by playing BF1942 every day. So most online games I play in short 1-2 hour sessions. Playing IL2 is not so much of a problem as the speed is forced down to 14.4Kbps by using HyperLobby.

So therefore a game service like Steam which uses large amounts of bandwidth is bad news for me and many other Australians. We simply cannot afford to download massive game files.

This is also the reason I stopped using Gamespy Arcade and Gamespy 3D. Both programs seem to continuously download files even when they are just sitting idle. I switched to All Seeing Eye which is very bandwidth friendly.

I have to be careful with everything I do on the net because of these draconian limits. But my current ISP is better than my last one which only allowed 650MB's of downloads.

[Mike Hussey]

I believe EB here in Aussie did have a return policy for a couple of years but that has now stopped.



They still do in the UK, but restrict it to 'within 10 days' and of course 'this does not effect your statutory rights', which always seems a rather redundant disclaimer IMO. I've only ever returned games and asked for a refund though, if something like copy protection prevented me from playing, which I, and more importantly the Trading Standards Office, consider part of my 'statutory rights'.

[xahlt]

Being an American, I had no idea about Telstra, other than I see the Telstradome a lot on AFL coverage.

There's no doubt cable/dsl providers want to do the same thing here. Some providers do have caps, especially because according to their stats, like 90% of their bandwidth is taken up by 20% of the customers who run P2P and servers and such. But the competition has so far stopped a lot of the major providers from limits, other than speed capping.

[Kalle]

Download allowance? What sort of commie ISP do you have?

Felling a sudden need to switch ISP? :)

[Stroker Ace]

Download allowance? What sort of commie ISP do you have?

have you NEVER talked to an aussie gamer before? i hear most of them have this problem.

[krayzkrok]

have you NEVER talked to an aussie gamer before? i hear most of them have this problem.

Some of us have it worse. Despite living 10 mins from the CBD of Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, we won't get any kind of broadband for the next 5 years because Telstra doesn't think our area would be profitable enough.

Even my 56k dialup rarely gets me a connection better than 46k.

Fortunately I'm moving out to the bush where, frankly, I won't give a shit. ;)

[Chris Nahr]

It's not just Australia either. My DSL connection has a time limit, 100 hours per month. Beyond that I'm paying. I could get an unlimited account but that would double my monthly fee, and I'm nearly always staying under the cap. I believe they also have some (generous) transfer caps on all accounts. And that's definitely one reason why I would never buy a game that forced me to stay online in single player mode.

[Mark Asher]

All this talk about limited online time brings me back to the old GEnie and Compuserve days. I remember those offline readers that would download all the messages and allow me to read and write replies offline. That was the cat's meow back then.

[Chris Nahr]

Actually I'm doing the same thing right now, using NetCaptor to download all Q23 threads in one browser tab each so that I can read them offline! :)

[Aleck]

For what it's worth, a number of American DSL and Cable Modem providers were talking about instituting limits on downloading as recently as a year or two ago (anyone else remember the cable industry talk about "bandwidth hogs" who, by using their connections near capacity, were ruining it for everyone else in their neighborhood?)

That's changed, largely because Americans (unlike their European and Australian brethren) really, really dislike the idea of metered service.* Part of why metered service for DSL is unpopular, of course, is that the lower end metered packages would be priced at right about the same place as standard packages today -- $40 - $50 -- which means that consumers will, by definition, pay either as much or more than they do under the current system. Americans also aren't used to metered service on "local" type services, unlike folks virtually everywhere else in the world.

So I guess the moral of the story is that it's not that American companies are less greedy, it's that the duopoly of cable and DSL haven't figured out how to pull this one over on American consumers while still making off like bandits (if they were willing to start selling limited access DSL at $25/mo., with a 1 GB download limit, people would buy it in droves, I think).

* The fact that bandwidth is so damn cheap in this county post dot-com boom helps, too.

[DennyA]

This morning's "Joy of Steam..."

I load the game up and discover all the games that were showing as not downloaded yesterday are showing up properly today.

So I go to launch Half-Life. "This game is currently unavailable. Please try again another time." I get this for all the games, even though some are 100% downloaded already.

Methinks Valve has some work to do. Can you imagine going to play your newly purchased copy of Half-Life 2 and getting "This game is currently unavailable?"

[Desslock]

For what it's worth, a number of American DSL and Cable Modem providers were talking about instituting limits on downloading as recently as a year or two ago (anyone else remember the cable industry talk about "bandwidth hogs" who, by using their connections near capacity, were ruining it for everyone else in their neighborhood?)
...* The fact that bandwidth is so damn cheap in this county post dot-com boom helps, too.

Canada's dominant ISP, Sympatico, which is run by Bell, has bandwidth limitations on its DSL plans. I think it's 5 gig a month of either downloads/uploads, after which you pay something crazy for each meg.

At least the speed is good - 3 meg download speed, 1 meg upload.

[Robert Sharp]

Download allowance? What sort of commie ISP do you have?

Felling a sudden need to switch ISP? :)


LOL!!! Hah!

[Rob_Merritt]

Comcast has been disconnecting high bandwidth users since July. It seems that comcast's unoffical limit is 30 gigs

[Lokust]

I must admit there are certain advantages you get when your wife is the person who programs the routers at your ISP. :D

[Aleck]

Comcast has been disconnecting high bandwidth users since July. It seems that comcast's unoffical limit is 30 gigs

Wow! Is that documented anywhere?

Aleck

[snowmyr]

Canada's dominant ISP, Sympatico, which is run by Bell, has bandwidth limitations on its DSL plans. I think it's 5 gig a month of either downloads/uploads, after which you pay something crazy for each meg.

At least the speed is good - 3 meg download speed, 1 meg upload.

Bell sympatico might, but sasktel sympatico has no limits.

[DaveC]

Canada's dominant ISP, Sympatico, which is run by Bell, has bandwidth limitations on its DSL plans. I think it's 5 gig a month of either downloads/uploads, after which you pay something crazy for each meg.

At least the speed is good - 3 meg download speed, 1 meg upload.

Bell sympatico might, but sasktel sympatico has no limits.

Telus has limits, but I have only heard them enforced in extreme cases.

[Sean Tudor]

That's changed, largely because Americans (unlike their European and Australian brethren) really, really dislike the idea of metered service.

Well I can tell you that most Australians really really dislike the idea of metered services too - but since our telco is protected by the government and they only pander to shareholders there isn't a single thing we can do.

It's left up to the small to medium sized ISP's here in Australia to provide better value than Telstra but even they are limited in what they can do since most of them are using Telstra's DSL and ISDN infrastructure.

Lastly, only a small percentage of the techno savvy population can get access to ADSL. Most are lumped with substandard modem connections (max 28.8Kbps due to analog-digital conversions) and ISDN. The cable rollout stopped years ago and only services small portions of the major cities in Australia.

[Desslock]

Canada's dominant ISP, Sympatico, which is run by Bell, has bandwidth limitations on its DSL plans. I think it's 5 gig a month of either downloads/uploads, after which you pay something crazy for each meg.

At least the speed is good - 3 meg download speed, 1 meg upload.

Bell sympatico might, but sasktel sympatico has no limits.

Your download/upload speed is only a third as fast though.

[Moore]

Aleck, DSLreports.com has a decent article and some hate filled discussion on it. It seems comcast refuses to actually tell people what the limit is, they just let you go over it, and then cancel your account - because they want to purge those users entirely. It's like the top 2% of heavy users that they do not want, at all.

[xahlt]

Although according to the guy that wrote the Comcast thread, he'd been given a warning letter earlier, and he stated his download use was about 7 gigs per day.

[XPav]

Although according to the guy that wrote the Comcast thread, he'd been given a warning letter earlier, and he stated his download use was about 7 gigs per day.

Holy shit that's a lot of data.

[DaveC]

Although according to the guy that wrote the Comcast thread, he'd been given a warning letter earlier, and he stated his download use was about 7 gigs per day.

Seriously, with my PC, Live, 2 users and downloading big patches and demos I rarely hit 7GBs per month.

[Moore]

Well, yeah I can't imagine most people having any legitimate use for that much downloading either. I can't say I blame comcast, but they SHOULD let people know where the invisible barrier is.

I'm not sure this would ever effect me, even if my DSL co decided to do it, I only really need the bandwidth/speed for browsing and low pings.

I'm pretty lazy about even downloading demos, if I sit down at the pc in a gaming mood, I want to play, not wait 5 mintues for 10% of a game to try. 'Course I've been playing 'tounge of the fatman' recently, so I may be insane.

[Brad Grenz]

Comcast has been disconnecting high bandwidth users since July. It seems that comcast's unoffical limit is 30 gigs

Yeah, but they're also planning on doublin downstream bandwidth by the end of the year, so I'll let that slide.

[Mike Cathcart]

Well I've been reading up on this stuff, and based on the three seperate web forums I've checked you guys are lucky enough to be in the company of the only person on Earth with a working installation of Steam on his computer.

Since so many people were having problems with the migration stuff, I decided to wipe all of my HL mods and the single player game from my second PC and install Steam there. I used the big version that includes Counter-Strike. Pretty slick of Valve to list all of the available games in the menu and then grey out the games you don't have installed. Years of catching 'em all and hunting down every last special weapon had me installing games like TFC and Deathmatch Classic--games which I have no intention of playing--just so I could get all of the entries to come up white on the list. Verner says this makes me a Nazi, but I think he's just jealous because I haven't been banned yet. Imagine what will happen when they start adding games you have to pay for. I'm doomed.

But forget content migration and automatic updates and buying games online. Screw all of that. The real reason Steam is my favorite piece of non-game software this year is that they finally replaced that god-awful Half-Life interface. It's beautiful! No more leaving 3D world to get to a menu and going back into the game only to find I've lost sound, no more jumping back and forth through three layers of menus to turn down the sound and then go to a different server, no more hitting escaape and realizing that I'm in OGL mode and every time I hit escape while I'm in OGL mode the whole computer locks up. Everything is right there, easy to use, and it's there instantly. I joined a CS server just so I could hit escape and play with the menus for a few minutes. I love it!

I also gave Half-Life single-player a try. The game installed and was up and running within five minutes. I played it until after the accident and got back to the lobby where you first enter from. Not once did it stop the game to connect to Steam (this is around 8 PM EST), although it did do the usual Half-Life loading screen during the train ride in the beginning. Denny, if this is what you were talking about (where it just says "Loading..." in the middle of the screen for a sec), that happens even if you install from a disc. If you actually got a Steam dialog box, um, well, call your ISP and get the non-crappy connection :P

Anyway, I'm not trying to defend Valve here. It's pretty lame that so many people are having problems, and it's also too bad that unless you've got a good connection you're screwed. All I'm saying is that when they finally do fix this thing up and it works for everyone as well as it works for me, you're in for a treat. Steam kicks ass.

[DennyA]

Not once did it stop the game to connect to Steam (this is around 8 PM EST), although it did do the usual Half-Life loading screen during the train ride in the beginning. Denny, if this is what you were talking about (where it just says "Loading..." in the middle of the screen for a sec), that happens even if you install from a disc.
Yeah, I know that. I DID play Half-Life, y'know. I have my "I survived Xen" tee-shirt.

I started playing when the game wasn't fully downloaded, but it had reached the "playable" percentage. It would get to the "Loading" screen and then sit there for five minutes downloading more code from the Steam servers.

Part of the problem has been that I've tried Steam in the mornings. I think they're doing wacky server maintenance then... Like when it didn't show my games yesterday, and told me the games "weren't available" this morning. Tonight, with no new stuff downloaded, 6 of the 7 games showed up as "available" on my list and launched just fine.

Half-Life is really, really fast on a 3.06GHz P4 with a GeForce FX5900 Ultra card. :-)

[xahlt]

Not to defend Steam either, because I think there are plenty of problems with it, but it was interesting to read the update on the Steam page which admitted the load problems and to hear the statistic that 500,000 accounts had been created! 500,000!? Hell, that's far bigger than launch day for a MMOG.

[Ibbz]

Well I can tell you that most Australians really really dislike the idea of metered services too - but since our telco is protected by the government and they only pander to shareholders there isn't a single thing we can do.

It's left up to the small to medium sized ISP's here in Australia to provide better value than Telstra but even they are limited in what they can do since most of them are using Telstra's DSL and ISDN infrastructure.

Lastly, only a small percentage of the techno savvy population can get access to ADSL. Most are lumped with substandard modem connections (max 28.8Kbps due to analog-digital conversions) and ISDN. The cable rollout stopped years ago and only services small portions of the major cities in Australia.
I think they've "finished" their rollout of ADSL now too. The Exchanges without DSL have to have a certain number of applications before they'll put it on because they think its unfeasible to do most exchanges. I can understand in not wanting to put ADSL capabilities on an exchange where the closest person is 10km's away, but there's still large amounts of rural exhanges in towns/country area that have people close by that lack ADSL.No one knows actually how many applications are required before they'd put ADSL capabilites on it, but knowing Telstra its probably at least 300+.

The thing is, they're making a 2 billion dollar profit, and they think that its unfeasible or too expensive to do a proper ADSL rollout. Whats more, because our Communications Minister Senator Alston thinks that broadband is only used for online gambling and porn its unlikely hes gonna push telstra.

www.whirlpool.com.au is a good information site about Australia's current internet situation. A small amount of ISP's are offering DSL unlimited, such as TPG with a plan of 256/64 for $70 a month if you live in Melbourne/Sydney{Probably Adelaide and Brisbane aswell i'm not sure}.

[mtkafka]

Valve did the smart thing, straight from
http://www.steampowered.com/getsteamnow.htm

--------------------
GET STEAM NOW
IN MINUTES, YOU'LL BE PLAYING YOUR FAVORITE GAMES

We've split the Steam installers into seperate versions based on the game cache they include. Links marked with (BT) require that you have Bit Torrent installed.

Full Steam Installer: (723.4 MB)
Counter-Strike Steam Installer: (379.4 MB)
Half-Life Steam Installer: (211.6 MB)
Opposing Force Steam Installer: (289.8 MB)
Day of Defeat Steam Installer: (396.2 MB)
Team Fortress Classic Steam Installer: (272.3 MB)
Deathmatch Classic Steam Installer: (23.7 MB)
Ricochet Steam Installer: (15.5 MB)

----------------

HAHAH AND ITS ALL LINKED TO FILEPLANET AND FILESHACK! MINUTES MEANS DAYS! -unless you pay the fuckers-

etc

[Sean Tudor]

Full Steam Installer: (723.4 MB)
Counter-Strike Steam Installer: (379.4 MB)
Half-Life Steam Installer: (211.6 MB)
Opposing Force Steam Installer: (289.8 MB)
Day of Defeat Steam Installer: (396.2 MB)
Team Fortress Classic Steam Installer: (272.3 MB)
Deathmatch Classic Steam Installer: (23.7 MB)
Ricochet Steam Installer: (15.5 MB)

/me looks at my 2 Gig allowance.

/me looks at the above downloads.

/me mutters "Nothing to see here ... move on ..."

:roll:

[Gordon Berg]

/me looks at my 2 Gig allowance.

/me looks at the above downloads.

/me mutters "Nothing to see here ... move on ..."

Hey Sean, want me to burn these on to a few CDs for ya and send them Book Rate to the glorious Down Under? Why, you'll have them in no time, in as little as a month perhaps!!!
:shock:

Seriously though, that sucks...

[mtkafka]

Lets not be too hard on steam.

http://steam.youaremyfriend.com/

:lol:

etc

[Alan Dunkin]

The full install is also now available via Bittorrent:

http://zodiac.mobilefrenzy.com/torrents/307/steaminstall_full-exe.torrent

--- Alan

[Sean Tudor]

The full install is also now available via Bittorrent:

http://zodiac.mobilefrenzy.com/torrents/307/steaminstall_full-exe.torrent

--- Alan

If I download the 700MB Steam file does that include all the CS and DOD mods ?

Maybe I can try downloading it at work.

Oh what is Bit Torrent ? Some sort of spyware ?

[XPav]

Bittorrent is not spyware.

Its like a P2P version of FTP, if that makes any sense.

[Aleck]

The full install is also now available via Bittorrent:

http://zodiac.mobilefrenzy.com/torrents/307/steaminstall_full-exe.torrent

--- Alan

If I download the 700MB Steam file does that include all the CS and DOD mods ?

Maybe I can try downloading it at work.

Oh what is Bit Torrent ? Some sort of spyware ?

Well, you definitely don't want to use bit torrent if your ISP has limits on your uploads as well as your downloads -- I typically end up uploading at least as much as I download via bit torrent (which is, after all, how it's supposed to work).

Aleck

[Talisker]

If I download the 700MB Steam file does that include all the CS and DOD mods ?

"This single file contains all of the Steam cache updates needed for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Opposing Force, DMC, TFC, and Ricochet."

Size: 723.4MB.

[Alan Dunkin]

The torrent file is the whole 720 meg deal.

You can look up bittorrent on Google - you can also find bittorrent clients that limit your bandwidth usage.

Bittorrent is a file-swarming P2P application. You have X number of seeds and people download from them, but then they can also download from you. And you can download from those that are downloading. When you finish or close it down, you no longer share it - so all bittorrent files have a definite beginng, they balloon to a big middle, and a whimpering end (as far as lifespan and bandwidth usage goes). It's a little odd to describe it - the creator's description is much better.

It's a pretty good way for popular file distribution.

--- Alan

[Sean Tudor]

duplicate

[Sean Tudor]

and another duplicate post - doh

[Sean Tudor]

damned duplicate post

[Sean Tudor]

http://users.on.net/mlyons/steamupdate.gif

http://www.sprynetwork.net/humor/deadsteam.jpg

http://mikesmarauders.com/misc/steam2.gif

[mtkafka]

It's a pretty good way for popular file distribution.

--- Alan

Oh you mean WareZ. Seriously I know a ton of people who otherwise would have NEVER downloaded warez but now do so because of Bittorrent. It's so damn easy! I actually feel very sorry for software developers. Imo its the new Napster at least for software, movies and games (PC AND Console!).

You know, its kind of ironic that most people probably got Steam working through Bittorrent than through Steam!!!!

etc

[Anders Hallin]

Oh you mean WareZ. Seriously I know a ton of people who otherwise would have NEVER downloaded warez but now do so because of Bittorrent. It's so damn easy! I actually feel very sorry for software developers. Imo its the new Napster at least for software, movies and games (PC AND Console!).
It's the same thing for anime fansubs (and I suppose other tv shows as well, though I wouldn't know). It's phenomenon that has really taken off due to bittorrent and may now actually have turned a corner and started harming the industry instead of helping it, since it's so darn easy.

[Kalle]

3dgamers use Bittorrent to distribute new patches. They don't have to dedicate as much server capacity to hosting, us gamers get *faster* downloads if thousands of people want the file at the same time. Everyone wins.

[Gordon Berg]

For three days in a row now, Steam declares I don't have any games installed and have to redownload them.

And since the games then won't download at that point, I have no choice but to re-install the steam/cs package. Again.

[Sean Tudor]

For three days in a row now, Steam declares I don't have any games installed and have to redownload them.

And since the games then won't download at that point, I have no choice but to re-install the steam/cs package. Again.

Is this happening even after installing the full 750MB Steam package ? If yes then Steam is truly broken.

I have downloaded the entire 750MB package and was thinking of trying it tonight. But I don't want this hassle of forgetful installs.

Maybe your Steam user ID is broken ? How do they track what you have downloaded ?

[Gordon Berg]

For three days in a row now, Steam declares I don't have any games installed and have to redownload them.

And since the games then won't download at that point, I have no choice but to re-install the steam/cs package. Again.

Is this happening even after installing the full 750MB Steam package ? If yes then Steam is truly broken.

I have downloaded the entire 750MB package and was thinking of trying it tonight. But I don't want this hassle of forgetful installs.

Maybe your Steam user ID is broken ? How do they track what you have downloaded ?

Fuck if I know. My Steam ID is merely an email account that you set up and is fairly painless. I've never been able to log into the "Friends" network, so I have no idea if I'm missing something or not. And I've have all the appropriate ports open on my firewall, eagerly waiting to get hacked.

[Mike Cathcart]

I think the "you don't have these games downloaded" is happening because you got logged out of Steam and haven't logged back in so it doesn't know who you are. Apparently the servers that handle...well, everything, are hosed (duh). I had this problem once and fixed it by completely exiting Steam and logging back in. You may have to do this a few times until you get through.

[Sean Tudor]

Well I installed the 750MB Steam full install tonight and registered. I played some DoD and surprisingly everything worked first time.

What can I say ? I must be lucky.

[Gordon Berg]

Well I installed the 750MB Steam full install tonight and registered. I played some DoD and surprisingly everything worked first time.

What can I say ? I must be lucky.

Right, same thing with me. The problems occured the next day and the day after, etc. Cathcart's probaby right, that the automatic login process once the software is on there perhaps doesn't function as well as an initial install.

For example, I'm testing his theory right now and it won't let me log in.

[Sean Tudor]

Right, same thing with me. The problems occured the next day and the day after, etc. Cathcart's probaby right, that the automatic login process once the software is on there perhaps doesn't function as well as an initial install.

For example, I'm testing his theory right now and it won't let me log in.

Hmmm well I just restarted Steam again. 1.15am now so it is the next day. It started ok and allowed me to get straight back in to DoD.

I wonder if it is a server load issue at Valve's end that is stopping the validation ?

[Mike Cathcart]

I wonder if it is a server load issue at Valve's end that is stopping the validation ?
Yeah, basically it's the load that's causing validation to fail. I don't think it pops up and tells you, though, it just shows the game list and everything is greyed out. You just have to close Steam and start it up again to log in until you get through. I've had to do this a couple of times, but it hasn't taken more than two attempts at logging in for it to work.

[Sean Tudor]

I noticed today I had a 1 or 2 MB download of an updated Steam client.

I think Valve needs to build a better status display into Steam that actually lets people know what is happening and how big any downloads will be so that people don't think their Steam client has locked up.

[Mike Cathcart]

:?:
I think Valve needs to build a better status display into Steam that actually lets people know what is happening and how big any downloads will be so that people don't think their Steam client has locked up.
Every download Steam has made on my computer is accompanied by a big-ass progress bar and a text box that lists the updates and stuff that it's grabbing.

[Sean Tudor]

Every download Steam has made on my computer is accompanied by a big-ass progress bar and a text box that lists the updates and stuff that it's grabbing.

Ah my mistake. I guess since I had downloaded everything as one huge ass file I haven't noticed that yet.