The Steam Thread

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Paranoid Android
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The Steam Thread

Post by Paranoid Android »

Anyone who's bought Half-Life 2 will no doubt have encountered that little bundle of joy that is Steam. When it finally fobbed me off with a 28-minute download over a 1.1Mbit connection for the SDK (which is basically the Valve Hammer Editor and some other bumph. The VHE standalone, I'm reliably informed, is about 8mb in size) I decided I'd do the worst thing I could think of. I'd start a thread.

The fundamental problem with Steam is that it creates more trouble than it's worth. I purchased Half-Life 2 before I was blessed with the gift of broadband, and had to go through authorisation on dial-up. I bet all you lot with broadband just set it going and made a cup of tea, and 5 minutes later it was all done. Not me. 25 minutes to download an update for Steam (why the folk did I have to do that? The Steam software has nothing to do with HL2. It didn't need to be upgraded) 25 minutes to download some package thing for HL2 (why wasn't it on the CD?) then a further 25 minutes to unpack said package (why did I have to be online for that?) I got home from school at 4:30 to find the game sitting on my desk. I got changed and had a shower and put the disk in at 4:45. At 4:55 the game files had installed. I thought 'Authorisation. This should only take a sec'. It wasn't until about 6:30 that I was greeted with the sight of the mysterious Man leering at me from my monitor.

There's so many problems with this authorisation process that I don't know where to begin.

1) It's illogical. All this brouhaha is to stop people pirating the game. Valve are going to lose the same amount of money if someone pirates the game as they are if someone doesn't buy it because they've been warned of the unspeakable evil of Steam.

2) It's alienating the gamers. Once you've registered your copy of Half-Life 2, that CD is bound to the computer you registered it on. You use one PC for games and another for the Internet? Tough. Want to lend it to a friend? Good luck. Want a refund? In any computer other than your own, the disk is about as much use as a pair of gonads on a female sheep. Fire up that gravity gun - it's the only way you'll get your money back.

It's all looking a bit like the Combine suppression in Half-Life 2 itself. Proof that life imitates computer games.

Discuss.
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Post by Villem »

HL2 works fine on 2 computers here(just have to use same steam account to play)
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Post by Colonel Sheperd »

Yeah, steam sucks :roll: , it tok me 3 or 4 hours to install, update and run hl2 :( . Oh well, the "cut zombies in 3 parts" stuff was nice (Headcrab, upper body and lower part). Highway 17 was nice too. But i hated Nova Prospect :x ...

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Post by Steve »

I can see why they don't go to Ravenholm...

If you have the right kind of connection, Steam is great. It handles all my servers for me (although the CS:S history gets confused with CS 1.6) and all the mods i need.

I can see why they've done everything, but it does need some optional bits. Eg: Would you like to upgrade Steam? This is required for online play. Would you like to download the latest updates? This will enhance your gaming experience.

Ultimately though.. when the train pulls into the station and you see how good the graphics are on a medium spec PC. Wasn't it worth it? :)
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Post by Paranoid Android »

The other irritating thing is that the only way to organise games is through the Steam friends list. Me and one of my friends thought 'That's a good idea. We can co-ordinate games of HL2 Deathmatch and spend evenings messing around with the pile of watermelons and the gravity gun on dm_overwatch for hours of fruit-based hilarity'. But his Friends list doens't work and refuses to fix itself. So that's that out the window.
r is a c***


will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
RIP THE BETA BAND 1997-2004
Transport Empire's music-er.


So now I've closed my eyes, closing seconds of our time

My music
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Post by Andrex »

Well I got the completely downloaded version and I had to Google for 1 minute to avoid the "AI disabled" issue that applied to loaded games. Just a simple CFG file did the trick, though I won't be able to play online without the Steam system.

Creating a new thread obviously proves that Steam is what your brain generates when trying to activate this game.
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Post by RPharazon »

A trick for steam users:

STOP WHINING!
GET BROADBAND!
CUPCAKES!

This message brought to you by Angry Folk of HL2 Lovers Association
Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos.
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Post by fantux »

CeleronXL wrote:A trick for steam users:
STOP WHINING!
GET BROADBAND!
This message brought to you by Angry Folk of HL2 Lovers Association
Alright. Stopping Whining. Getting Braodband. Waaah! My ISP doesn't offer Broadbandd in my area! Start Whining!

Fortunately I'm neither on Dial-Up anymore (though I had to wait for 4 years to get a DSL connection here in the countryside) nor did I buy HL2. But I have to agree - Steam is a pain in the butt (CS1.6 only here).
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Post by Steve »

Steam Friends worked fine when steam was first compulsory for CS, but now it doesn't work for some reason. I suggest getting XFire. Works for lots of games.. and it actually works!
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Post by Observer »

Im fundamentally against this sort of crap...

I would be prepared to pay more money for an illegal version which does not need activation than for a legal version which does need activation..
This also goes for all my software and especially WINDOWS XP...

I buy software sure, as long as its not copy protected, because only then its usable.

I stopped buying software when they invented copy protection, from that moment on, I started downloading illegal games, because they dont make your life hard, they just work.

A friend of mine bought this CD once.. dont remember which game it was, but because of the protection, his CDROM-station wouldnt even read the damn disc... so after all sorts of trouble I copied it on an illegal disk for him and downloaded a crack.. only now he can play the game for which he paid like 40 € !..

I think its just SICK... and as long as they keep inventing stupid copy protecting systems THAT WILL OBVIOUSLY NEVER WORK !... I will keep downloading my games.

That had to be said, I hope some game developers from those annoying companies read this :lol: probably not.

At least I could unleash my anger against this abuse on this board, thanks for starting the topic.
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Post by Steve »

That's some of the stupidest logic i've ever heard. All my disks and their relevant copy protection work.
A friend of mine is a tad jealous that 3 of us are playing CS:S together and was wanting us to "lend" him our HL2 disk. Of course, because of Steam we can't. Perhaps he'll go out and buy his own.

You can always download Steam before you buy a Valve game to check it works anyway.
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Post by Paranoid Android »

Steve - It's not that Steam doesn't work, it's just the way it works that's stupid.
r is a c***


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RIP THE BETA BAND 1997-2004
Transport Empire's music-er.


So now I've closed my eyes, closing seconds of our time

My music
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Post by ChrisCF »

Steve wrote:That's some of the stupidest logic i've ever heard. All my disks and their relevant copy protection work.
You're right. They do succeed in their goal of getting people to not bother playing them, because they have to fiddle with manuals, boxes, disks and numbers every time they want to play.

I bet you even believe the crap that these companies put out claiming that piracy is costing them money too :lol:
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Post by Steve »

Everytime i want to play?

I need no disk for any steam games. The fact that it runs on steam means they know i'm not a pirate (yarrr) so they let me play without trouble.


I remember talking to you before about no-cd patchs not making the companies lose any money. But i know from 1st hand (i've done it) that it's just a free game for friends once another has bought it.
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Post by Observer »

Well I wont buy HL2, because I can download it and play it just fine without 20minutes of downloading and signing up.

I would maybe have bought it if it did not have that stupid protection of it... so yeah now its losing money on me because of this protection.

Its not like they notice, same goes for the saving of money when they add or not add the protection.. games get copied anyway, its not like its a copy protection, its more an annoying insurity...
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Post by Tyyppi »

I've never really liked Steam but it's here to stay so I had to get used to it. I myself had no problems with Half-Life 2 and it took only few minutes to set eveything right. but not everyone were as lucky. The authorization thingy itself sucks as people who don't have an access to the internet can't play, which is why these people will probably get the pirated version from somewhere, which is ironic considering that the system was invented to stop piracy.

As for not being able to lend HL2 to friends I certainly have no problem with that. I've never liked lending games with CD-keys and now with HL2 I don't even have to consider about lending it, because I've already used the CD-key.
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