Some Steam help please :(

[Ago Iterum]

I've just spent £35.00 on the Empire: Total War game, installed it, and steam says 'This game is currently unavailable'. This is my first time using Steam, and I only did it because I was forced to when I put the disk in.

This is unacceptable Does this happen a lot? What do I do?!

All sorted, thanks for your help escapists

 

[oliveira8]

Have you registered the CD-key in Steam already?

 

[Ago Iterum]

Have you registered the CD-key in Steam already?

Yeah

 

[Abedeus]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

Never had a problem like that, sorry. Steam problems generally get fixed pretty fast though.

 

[oliveira8]

Have you registered the CD-key in Steam already?

Yeah

Hmmm...try to install it directly from Steam.

De-install Empire, the E:TW icon will probably still stay in your "My Games" tab. right click it and click update. This should start downloading the game. Might work.

 

[Ago Iterum]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

I never would've if I wasn't a Total War fan. I've heard countless tales of peoples downloads going missing and them not being refunded.

Also, it says I can download Unreal Tournament 3 as a gift, do I get this game for free?

 

[Ago Iterum]

Have you registered the CD-key in Steam already?

Yeah

Hmmm...try to install it directly from Steam.

De-install Empire, the E:TW icon will probably still stay in your "My Games" tab. right click it and click update. This should start downloading the game. Might work.

I installed it from a disk, as I hate digital distribution. Since I've already registered the key, would it let me get a digital copy do you think?

 

[oliveira8]

Have you registered the CD-key in Steam already?

Yeah

Hmmm...try to install it directly from Steam.

De-install Empire, the E:TW icon will probably still stay in your "My Games" tab. right click it and click update. This should start downloading the game. Might work.

I installed it from a disk, as I hate digital distribution. Since I've already registered the key, would it let me get a digital copy do you think?

You can download Empire:TW if you bought the hard disk version for free. Also plus I found what seems to be the solution for your problem...uuur..Example: You bought E:TW and registered the Cd-key in Steam, Steam will put the CD-key in its data-base and put the icon on your Games list if its downloaded or not. From there you can install it using your disk or download the game for free. In the future if you lose your CD and want to install E:TW in a new PC you can still install it via downloading it from Steam, for free. Basicaly once you register the CD-key no matter if you install it via Disk or Download you will have the game. Just dont lose/forget your account.

Steam's not working?

We've been testing Steam installs all night on a variety of PC's and have only been able to replicate one of the issus a few people appear to be having.
Primarily the 'This game is unavailable at the moment' problem.

This isn't a bug, it's caused by jumping ahead of the install process. When you finish the Empire install from disks Steam brings up a window saying 'Any game updates required to play this game are now downloading in the background', as there is an update for Empire it is downloading. Therefore when you click 'Launch Game' from this menu, it gives the 'unavailable' error message. This is because Empire is updating. Check your 'My Games' list under Steam and see what % you have downloaded, when it's 100% you're ready to go. Again, this is caused by trying to launch the game when an update has not been fully applied.

Steam update pauses and restarts - This usually resolves itself depending on the speed of your internet connection and the share ratio on the server you are connected to. The details tab may just say 'Downloading' or 'Updating' and hold there for a few seconds or even minutes, it will then resume at a % rate. Should this not resume, just close Steam fully (Using the system tray icon) and restart it, you should get a download counter.

We have yet to have any problem with Steam attempting to install from the internet when you have a disk install, but to be safe you can try a combination of the following:-

i. Try installing without Steam or Empire installed (Be sure to delete any local content you've already downloaded). This will install Steam, update the client and install Empire fully using the DVDs.

ii. Install the Steam client seperately beforehand, then install Empire. Again this seems to have helped other users on occasion.

I'd like to stress that we have tens of thousands of registered Steam users at this point, of which less than 1% are reporting problems. I appreciate this does not make it any easier for those experiencing issues and rest assured we'll continue to try and reproduce any problem we hear about so we can create a fix for you. As it stands the vast majority of users are having no problem at all when installing / activating.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/46422/t/Official-Empire-Total-War-Support.html

 

[Abedeus]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

Grow up. The program is fine, its not 2004 anymore.

Okay, I mean - Don't trust VALVe. They suck. Steam is pretty okay.

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

I never would've if I wasn't a Total War fan. I've heard countless tales of peoples downloads going missing and them not being refunded.

Also, it says I can download Unreal Tournament 3 as a gift, do I get this game for free?

No, you do not get it for free. If it's a gift, only the giftee gets it. If you buy it normally, you do get it.

 

[Ago Iterum]

Have you registered the CD-key in Steam already?

Yeah

Hmmm...try to install it directly from Steam.

De-install Empire, the E:TW icon will probably still stay in your "My Games" tab. right click it and click update. This should start downloading the game. Might work.

I installed it from a disk, as I hate digital distribution. Since I've already registered the key, would it let me get a digital copy do you think?

You can download Empire:TW if you bought the hard disk version for free. Also plus I found what seems to be the solution for your problem.

Steam's not working?

We've been testing Steam installs all night on a variety of PC's and have only been able to replicate one of the issus a few people appear to be having.
Primarily the 'This game is unavailable at the moment' problem.

This isn't a bug, it's caused by jumping ahead of the install process. When you finish the Empire install from disks Steam brings up a window saying 'Any game updates required to play this game are now downloading in the background', as there is an update for Empire it is downloading. Therefore when you click 'Launch Game' from this menu, it gives the 'unavailable' error message. This is because Empire is updating. Check your 'My Games' list under Steam and see what % you have downloaded, when it's 100% you're ready to go. Again, this is caused by trying to launch the game when an update has not been fully applied.

Steam update pauses and restarts - This usually resolves itself depending on the speed of your internet connection and the share ratio on the server you are connected to. The details tab may just say 'Downloading' or 'Updating' and hold there for a few seconds or even minutes, it will then resume at a % rate. Should this not resume, just close Steam fully (Using the system tray icon) and restart it, you should get a download counter.

We have yet to have any problem with Steam attempting to install from the internet when you have a disk install, but to be safe you can try a combination of the following:-

i. Try installing without Steam or Empire installed (Be sure to delete any local content you've already downloaded). This will install Steam, update the client and install Empire fully using the DVDs.

ii. Install the Steam client seperately beforehand, then install Empire. Again this seems to have helped other users on occasion.

I'd like to stress that we have tens of thousands of registered Steam users at this point, of which less than 1% are reporting problems. I appreciate this does not make it any easier for those experiencing issues and rest assured we'll continue to try and reproduce any problem we hear about so we can create a fix for you. As it stands the vast majority of users are having no problem at all when installing / activating.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/46422/t/Official-Empire-Total-War-Support.html

Thanks a lot for your help, and everyone else.

I'll have a play about with some of the solutions you've given, and get back to you in a little while.

 

[oliveira8]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

Grow up. The program is fine, its not 2004 anymore.

Okay, I mean - Don't trust VALVe. They suck. Steam is pretty okay.

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

I never would've if I wasn't a Total War fan. I've heard countless tales of peoples downloads going missing and them not being refunded.

Also, it says I can download Unreal Tournament 3 as a gift, do I get this game for free?

No, you do not get it for free. If it's a gift, only the giftee gets it. If you buy it normally, you do get it.

WHy shouldnt I trust Valve...They keep my games working and updated, put discounts over games every weekend and from time to time they sell a new awesome game!

UT3 is free for this weekend only. You can see next to the icon thingie a counter should say 22.4 hours left. Thats how many hours are left of free playing. When that time is up you can only play UT3 if you buy it.

Also I never heard of downloads missing...I heard its a ***** to get your account back if you get hacked...but thats it.

 

[new_age_reject]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

Calm down man, I live in the UK and I haven't had any problems.

 

[Abedeus]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

Calm down man, I live in the UK and I haven't had any problems.

I said "even", because you still have games a bit more expensive than US.

EU games at Steam are about 30% more expensive, you have to pay in EUR even if your country doesn't use it and so on, blah blah, read forums, 18k people agree.

Also, some games are 3 times more expensive at Steam than in Poland.

 

[Ago Iterum]

I don't want to have to download it off steam though, the estimated download time is 16 hours! I bought the disk for convenience.

Why can't Steam and CA work together a little bit better.

 

[new_age_reject]

Do not trust Steam if you are European.

Ever. Never, even if you are from the UK.

Calm down man, I live in the UK and I haven't had any problems.

I said "even", because you still have games a bit more expensive than US.

EU games at Steam are about 30% more expensive, you have to pay in EUR even if your country doesn't use it and so on, blah blah, read forums, 18k people agree.

Also, some games are 3 times more expensive at Steam than in Poland.

The price differences are ridiculous I will give you that

 

[oliveira8]

I don't want to have to download it off steam though, the estimated download time is 16 hours! I bought the disk for convenience.

Why can't Steam and CA work together a little bit better.

Only 16 hours? Lucky you, on release day it was prolly around 24H-72H...^^

Anyway if you really that desperate try to re-install it from the disk and let the game fully update.

 

[Ago Iterum]

I don't want to have to download it off steam though, the estimated download time is 16 hours! I bought the disk for convenience.

Why can't Steam and CA work together a little bit better.

Only 16 hours? Lucky you, on release day it was prolly around 24H-72H...^^

Anyway if you really that desperate try to re-install it from the disk and let the game fully update.

Ouch. Surely walking up to Tesco's and buying it is quicker

Yeah, I really don't get the appeal of digital distribution. I'm a fan of having a physical copy of something.

 

[oliveira8]

I don't want to have to download it off steam though, the estimated download time is 16 hours! I bought the disk for convenience.

Why can't Steam and CA work together a little bit better.

Only 16 hours? Lucky you, on release day it was prolly around 24H-72H...^^

Anyway if you really that desperate try to re-install it from the disk and let the game fully update.

Ouch. Surely walking up to Tesco's and buying it is quicker

Yeah, I really don't get the appeal of digital distribution. I'm a fan of having a physical copy of something.

Well depends on the person..and the deal. I bought the Total War Mega Pack and it came with Rome plus Barbarian Invasion and Alexander expansion pakcs, Medieval 2 and Kingdoms and Empire Total War for 60 euros.

Considering that I only have Rome:TW with BI and my Medieval 2 disk is completly wrecked.

Also its the fact that you wont have to bother with more boxings pilling up or losing cd keys/the disks themselfs.

 

[thehoff]

I have purchased the retail version and have had the exact same message pop up when trying to start the game. All I did to solve it was restart the steam client and then the game downloaded a small update and then played correctly. I think they have updated the steam client to solve this problem but obviously it hasn't solved it in your case.