Another "I hate steam" thread

Blitzkrieger

Christf**k I hate steam. I build myself a lovely new PC last Thursday and said I'd re-install the orange box to see what it looks like. Now I know the difficulties I had were down to me forgetting my account name, password, secret question answer and which email address I used, but why in god's name can't I just install the ****ing game without having to login to steam? My internet connection is crap - I don't want to play online. The first time I play it I'll be setting offline mode. I wish I had a pirate copy. At least then I could play the ****ing thing without being caught out by the security features.

Their customer support haven't exactly been speedy either. They just re-set all my account details (not what I asked them to do), but I'm busy tonight so I won't be able to play until tomorrow. That'll be a full week between trying to install the game and actually playing. Thank christ it was only a passing fancy and I'm not in a hurry.

I was thinking of buying Left 4 Dead but this **** has put me off. I think I'll get GTA4 instead....

PirateShampoo

Correct me if im wrong, but doesnt steam give you the option to back up ur games on dvd so you dont have to re-download them.

humanji

Even then you still have to log into steam to play them. It's a pain in the tits, especially when a new game is released and Steam insists on patching it whether you want to or not.

kaimera

you want to install the game via a download from steam without logging into an account?

please tell how exactly that would work?

tba

Blitzkrieger wrote: »

I was thinking of buying Left 4 Dead but this **** has put me off. I think I'll get GTA4 instead....

GTA IV is available on steam too right?

Blitzkrieger

You're ****ting me? Do you have to log in to play that too?

kaimera wrote: »

you want to install the game via a download from steam without logging into an account?

please tell how exactly that would work?

There's me thinking it was obvious I had a disk, but I never did say....


....Thanks for assuming I'm a total ****wit though....

tman

On the flipside to this, I effing steam
Love the way that you can now enter the cd key of some normal retail games and download them via steam (my UT3 disc is in storage at the moment, but it's happily downloading now thanks to my steam account)

I felt the same at HL2's launch, but have had nothing but good experiences with it since then (apart from being too stupid to figure out how to unlock a preloaded game, but that was my bad...)

Genghiz Cohen

Blitzkrieger wrote: »

....Thanks for assuming I'm a total ****wit though....

People who moan about Steam in this day and age usually are.

L31mr0d

*checks thread start date* huh, so this thread wasn't started in 2004.

I'm pretty sure everyone on the planet understands how Steam works by this point. It's like buying a can of Ronseal then posting on a forum "why in god's name can't I just woodstain my fence without it drying so fast?"

nix

The reason you have to connect to steam is to validate your install so they know your not using a pirate copy, its to counter piracy which is very understandable for a platform that make their profit from selling games.

Forgetting all of your own personnel info preventing you from logging in is your own fault, you would have to go through the same process for any online entity that requires login information.

I happen to love steam, cant see why some hate it

koHd

Steam is good.

ronkmonster

nix wrote: »

I happen to love steam, cant see why some hate it

Well for one, it requires you to be online for single player games (initially).

And what about people with no internet or dialup.
Until recently that's all we could get. I just leave games on the shelf that use steam. It's easier to pirate such games than have to deal with steam - may be waiting hours to update a game before playing rather than offering choice to install update.

Blitzkrieger

I do understand your points and do know the benefits of steam, but wouldn't it be nice if I could just install and play the game that I bought? It's a "security is a double edged sword" argument. I'd acknowledge that in this case the problems were my own fault - I didn't use my account in two years and forgot all the details, but it highlights how long it takes to resolve a problem that you have. Can you imagine how pissed off you'd be if you couldn't play a spanking new game you just bought for a week?

Genghiz Cohen

ronkmonster wrote: »

Well for one, it requires you to be online for single player games (initially).

And what about people with no internet or dialup.
Until recently that's all we could get. I just leave games on the shelf that use steam. It's easier to pirate such games than have to deal with steam - may be waiting hours to update a game before playing rather than offering choice to install update.

Do you torrent your pirated games?
(Irony incoming, be warned)

Stephen

You don't want to play online but were thinking of getting left 4 dead? Those two things don't add up.

Overheal

You also did a really bad job selecting a secret question. Can you not just remember your Mother's Maiden Name and be done with it?

Steam's great. And like you said, offline mode. Which is a cinch.

You should have well known by this stage what was required of you when you bought the Orange Box though. Expect to download quite a bit of data in updates before it lets you play.

If you had no internet well then buddy, ya shoulda got in on Xbox 360.

Blitzkrieger

Stephen wrote: »

You don't want to play online but were thinking of getting left 4 dead? Those two things don't add up.

Meh - I think the single player mode will keep me going for a while. I'm planning on getting a better broadband connection soon.

Stephen

Left4Dead's single player is not up to much. Its just the multiplayer game with bots. Multiplayer versus mode though, now that's fun

Mantel

You should try Games for Windows Live! I hear it's much better.

It's not like you can install a game, have it register itself, let you play away fine. Then one day GFWL servers goes away for a rest for awhile and GFWL won't let you play because you have to make an offline account but you can only do that online...

ATM steam is up there with that music DRM stuff and Yahoo. What happens if steam ever goes away like Yahoo did? Your games (like the Yahoo music) are gone, when your hard driver fails or whatever you installed steam on. That will never happen because Valve is immortal or I mean valve make loads of money from it so why would they shut it down.

I've liked the slow (I wish it was faster) march of gog.com, sure they have no DRM and you can pirate it but if you loose it you have to find it to pirate it again! and the games are pretty cheap that it's just faster to buy them. Now that's a digital distrubtion system I like.

Yes steam sucks sometimes but it's here to stay for awhile.

5uspect

I hated Steam way back yonder when I was stuck behind a university firewall and had to tunnel updates at 5 kb/s. I love it now tho. Their servers are fast and their prices are generally good (ignoring exchange rate shenanigans and nodding to the sales).

I recently build a new machine and left it updating at night and had everything downloaded over the weekend.

Not having good broadband is a pain, not Steam.

thebman

Mantel wrote: »

You should try Games for Windows Live! I hear it's much better.

It's not like you can install a game, have it register itself, let you play away fine. Then one day GFWL servers goes away for a rest for awhile and GFWL won't let you play because you have to make an offline account but you can only do that online...

ATM steam is up there with that music DRM stuff and Yahoo. What happens if steam ever goes away like Yahoo did? Your games (like the Yahoo music) are gone, when your hard driver fails or whatever you installed steam on. That will never happen because Valve is immortal or I mean valve make loads of money from it so why would they shut it down.

I've liked the slow (I wish it was faster) march of gog.com, sure they have no DRM and you can pirate it but if you loose it you have to find it to pirate it again! and the games are pretty cheap that it's just faster to buy them. Now that's a digital distrubtion system I like.

Yes steam sucks sometimes but it's here to stay for awhile.

Didn't Valve say they would release something if that happened so people could still play?

I doubt Steam is going anywhere, if Valve went under someone would buy it with that large a user base.

Stephen

When there was only Valve's own stuff on Steam in the beginning they said that if Steam ever shut down they'd release patches that make all their games work without Steam. I don't know how that would apply to third party stuff that they're selling now though.

Overheal

Likely 3rd party software would come in for those. Like EAs SecuROM, would step-in for any copies of Spore purchased through Steam, etc.

dreamers75

I hate steam prices and the fact the program does a white screen of death every now and then.


Other than that its a good idea implemented badly.


re the point of logging in, why should i have to log in to play a game i "authenticated" previously. I had to get a crack to play Hl2 offline as i wasnt connected to internet.

Kinetic^

This is something I've just picked up on. I was browsing the store and I clicked on the ID Software catalogue. Under each name it has release date which shows when it was added to the steam store rather then the actual release date of the title. Granted a lot of people will know what is what but if you're a complete n00b and got stung by that you'd be seriously pissed off. Particularly paying €20 for Q3 when you can just go play QuakeLive for free. :P

I dislike the regional pricing system, it's a joke.

Overheal

dreamers75 wrote: »

I hate steam prices and the fact the program does a white screen of death every now and then.

Other than that its a good idea implemented badly.

re the point of logging in, why should i have to log in to play a game i "authenticated" previously. I had to get a crack to play Hl2 offline as i wasnt connected to internet.

White Screen? News to me. Maybe your computer is b0rked.

As for the latter, Offline Mode

Kiith

I love Steam.

/thread

MooseJam

I like steam, I like how you don't need disks to play games, I like how your games get updated automatically, I like the sales they do at the weekend, I like sitting on my arse browsing through the catalogue seeing something cheap that looks good and be playing it 5 minutes later.

As someone else mentioned it sux that you don't have a good bb, steam is grand

dreamers75

Overheal wrote: »

White Screen? News to me. Maybe your computer is b0rked.

As for the latter, Offline Mode

"This game cannot be started in Offline Mode" when attempting to play offline, the Steam client application's files need to be updated.

To play offline i have to go online :P Find it troublesome with Valve games mostly , Ubi games are fine.

Still tho biggest gripe is the prices, HAWX is still 50 quid on it, i got it in game for 15,99 and its 23,49 on play.

Sabre0001

dreamers75 wrote: »

Still tho biggest gripe is the prices, HAWX is still 50 quid on it, i got it in game for 15,99 and its 23,49 on play.

ALWAYS worth shopping around...and that's not even a gripe at Steam's prices; just a general 'let the buyer beware'.

Overheal

dreamers75 wrote: »

To play offline i have to go online :P Find it troublesome with Valve games mostly , Ubi games are fine.

Still tho biggest gripe is the prices, HAWX is still 50 quid on it, i got it in game for 15,99 and its 23,49 on play.

Steam has no bearing on what its 3rd party's charge via the service.

You only need to run the game once, then exit the program, and tell Steam to go in Offline mode. Then that game will no longer check for updates, unless of course, you go back online at some point.

Gone Drinking

I tried to login to steam for the first time in a few years this morning. Was told my account was suspended, and the reason behind it was emailed to my account email address. That address as since stopped working, so i've emailed them telling them this.

Id think they're going to ask for my CDKey, which i don't have anymore. What aload of ghey.

Genghiz Cohen

Gone Drinking wrote: »

I tried to login to steam for the first time in a few years this morning. Was told my account was suspended, and the reason behind it was emailed to my account email address. That address as since stopped working, so i've emailed them telling them this.

Id think they're going to ask for my CDKey, which i don't have anymore. What aload of ghey.

How is any of that Valves fault?

ronkmonster

Stardock have their own distribution system like steam now.
It's not required to logon to it to play single player part of game ( i bought demigod)

For online have to have an impulse account and register cd key. then it offers updates so you are up to date for online games.

Steam shouldn't be forced on people that don't want the online part of games and updates should only be compulsory for online.

Overheal

stardock games incidentally are also incredibly easy to crack. but tbh thats not really very good money sense.

ronkmonster

crack? there is no copy protection on stardock games.

games are cracked anyway. and some people will always pirate games regardless.

drm just inconveniences those of us that buy games.

Kinetic^

ronkmonster wrote: »

crack? there is no copy protection on stardock games.

games are cracked anyway. and some people will always pirate games regardless.

drm just inconveniences those of us that buy games.

Yes games can be cracked but Steam does not want to contribute to the illegal copies out there by just giving you a copy of the game with seeking further validation that it's yours. If you don't like how they operate, send them a strongly worded letter or buy the games in the shop.

ronkmonster

but steam games can be cracked too. i have my legal copy of half-life 2 working with a steam emulator.

i do buy my games in shop but they do sell games there that require steam too.

so if i really want them, only way I can get is to buy and then get a pirate copy. if i am buying in shop at least give me the choice of not using steam until I want to play online (which I don't do).

Mantel

Lets face it, Steam is least invasive and least broken of all the DRM stuff out there for games. At least now, it's had to evolve quite a bit from where it started but

It's not starforce breaking your system,
It's not sony drm installing root kits
It's not SecureROM that Bioshock had where they just patched it out anyway and people that cracked the game where better off anyway. A nice waste of money for them!

If you forget your username and password it's hardly steam or valves fault, that's like throwing away your codebook from game in the 80's/90's and then trying to find a friend with the game so you can photocopy (or more likely write down) all the pages only to discover that black shiney letters on black paper doesn't photocopy very well or your hand cramps up on page 15 of the manual. Sure what happens if you lose the case/manual with a serial key printed on it from a game? Damn them and their serial keys!

True, Stardock don't use DRM for their games but you have to connect to their servers for updates and online-play. Sins of a solar empire is a great game and got more press coverage because of it's lack of DRM, same with Galciv. They where a fresh and new concept in a sea of lots of different DRM systems. Demigod is the same but the press isn't as positive for it atm and I have the feeling the DRM-free wave is starting to loose steam for them, we'll get a better picture with their next release,.... if only they had more great games on their system!

5uspect

Steam has become more than just a DRM app. To a certain extent it's becoming a gaming itunes. This is what I think makes it popular. The anti-piracy aspect of it is in the background now and looking at the broadband stats in the Steam hardware survey the mass availability of fast internet is quite widespread:

Network Speed|%
Unspecified|(-1.43%) 25.48%
33.6 Kbps|(-0.02%) 0.52%
56.0 Kbps|(+0.08%) 2.27%
112.0 Kbps|(-0.09%) 1.06%
256.0 Kbps|(-0.05%) 9.32%
768.0 Kbps|(+0.07%) 11.75%
1,024.0 Kbps|(-0.06%) 5.05%
2,048.0 Kbps|(+1.77%) 31.12%
10,000.0 Kbps|(-0.29%) 13.42%

ronkmonster

in this country broadband is nowhere near widespread though.

all i want is the choice of installing from a disc for games that I don't intend to play online.

Jazzy

kaimera wrote: »

you want to install the game via a download from steam without logging into an account?

please tell how exactly that would work?

amazingly some ppl actually bought an orange coloured dvd box

steam is one of those distribution services which will be rammed down our throat whether we like it or not. i stay away from the thing altogether unless i wanna play through Half-Life 2 again

thebman

ronkmonster wrote: »

in this country broadband is nowhere near widespread though.

all i want is the choice of installing from a disc for games that I don't intend to play online.

But you can play from the hard drive without validating with Steam by just starting steam in off line mode and launching the game.

ronkmonster

steam is multi megabyte download to get installed in first place. then it insists on updating the game. over dialup...
the verifying later isn't a problem with the offline mode i agree but dialup updates without a choice is just stupid.



and there are many games on the shelves that require steam to be used. there isn't a non-steam version in many cases. all go back on shelf for me.

Jazzy

after reading this thread a bit more it seems that steam actually has fanboys. i thought fanboys died the moment mothers started buying wiis for themselves. ah well, we'll always have our sega saturns

thebman

Jazzy wrote: »

after reading this thread a bit more it seems that steam actually has fanboys. i thought fanboys died the moment mothers started buying wiis for themselves. ah well, we'll always have our sega saturns

Its not faboyism to state that an accusation is false.

Steam is more of a pain to use if you have dial up but it isn't designed for those users.

The reality is most people do have high speed broadband in most developed nations.

If people have issue with their lack of broadband they would be better served by emailing their local representatives about their frustrations and elect people who have broadband expansion and high speed upgrades for networks high on their list of agendas as it is important for business and local residents throughout the country and the current government don't take it seriously as evidenced by their awarding of the National Broadband Scheme contract to a mobile provider with a terrible customer service record.

What can Valve do about that?

dreamers75

Overheal wrote: »

Steam has no bearing on what its 3rd party's charge via the service.

You only need to run the game once, then exit the program, and tell Steam to go in Offline mode. Then that game will no longer check for updates, unless of course, you go back online at some point.

Its same for their own games, orange box was 20 quid in shops yet 50 on steam for well over a year.

It removes "costs" to the developer but yet those costs are not passed onto the consumer, almost all my steam games are either valve via the cheapest way or cheap ass weekend specials.

Tbh there is no way anyone can defend the pricing system on steam even after you take away the currency rate they use.

5uspect

I paid €30 for the Orange Box on Steam when it came out. Where are you getting 50 from?

ronkmonster

steam has its place. for ensuring that games are up to date for online gaming.
not for everything to do with running a game.

dreamers75

5uspect wrote: »

I paid €30 for the Orange Box on Steam when it came out. Where are you getting 50 from?

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34289/98/


it was $50 when it came out as it didnt do euros at the time.

google it etc:

ronkmonster

thebman wrote: »

The reality is most people do have high speed broadband in most developed nations.

this is ireland. where i was living we were told the exchange was never being turned on. not economic enough. and there was at least one other exchange in the county told the same.

if its not designed for people for no internet/slow internet then where is the alternative. piracy....