Steam Gets Civilized

Plurralbles

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Jan 12, 2010
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WhiteTigerShiro said:
Plurralbles said:
Um... a game shoudl never be exclusively on steam. That's fucking retarded.
So you're saying the console gaming market is stupid, too?
... no, I'm not. A distribution service is not the same as a fucking console.
 

fenrizz

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Cody211282 said:
cyber_andyy said:
Cody211282 said:
Damn it why do i need steam, I don't play multiplayer(except local) and I hate auto-updates not to mention I despise having steam on my computer. The only reason I have it right now is because I need to for DOW2 and I hate the fact that it takes about 5 min for steam to launch, then update, then look for updates for the game, then it prepares to launch for another 3, then finally lets me play my damn game.
...

Time to launch steam as of clicking the exe: 11.28 seconds.
Time to launch L4D: 9.68 Seconds.
Total time to get in game: 20.96 Seconds.

The problem isn't steam, it's you.

What reason is there to hate auto updates? Theres no logic behind it. If anything, it allows hot fixes to be distributed quickly and easily, and makes sure everybody has the same version


Seriously, can we have a intelligent argument against steam?
It takes me an average of 5 min to get into a game that I have to have steam for, and I can run DOW2 on max setting, so I don't think it's my computer. I also see no damn point in have to use steam if I go out and buy the disc, as I stated before I have no problem if they want to sell it with steam I just have no clue why I need it if I didn't buy it from steam.

And for the auto updates, since I don't play multiplayer I friken hate it when I'm forced to update for no reason, not to mention if I have any mods it kills them.

EDIT: I should also point out that I don't buy games from steam, I hate not having the physical disk on me, it bugs me to no end and I hate waiting to download stuff.
I find that hard to believe.
My PC is getting close to 3 years old now, and does not take that long to launch.
Maybe close to a full minute, as my PC is lacking in the hardware department.

And, auto update can be turned off.
 

Yamikotai

You Lost The Game
Jul 24, 2008
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cyber_andyy said:
It takes me an average of 5 min to get into a game that I have to have steam for, and I can run DOW2 on max setting, so I don't think it's my computer. I also see no damn point in have to use steam if I go out and buy the disc, as I stated before I have no problem if they want to sell it with steam I just have no clue why I need it if I didn't buy it from steam.

And for the auto updates, since I don't play multiplayer I friken hate it when I'm forced to update for no reason, not to mention if I have any mods it kills them.

EDIT: I should also point out that I don't buy games from steam, I hate not having the physical disk on me, it bugs me to no end and I hate waiting to download stuff.
If it takes you five minutes, then I'd really suggest running a couple of defrags if you haven't already. And/Or running a disk check on the drive you keep your Steam games on. Or reinstalling Steam and your Steam games, if it's only Steam that does this.
 

Cody211282

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Apr 25, 2009
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fenrizz said:
Cody211282 said:
cyber_andyy said:
Cody211282 said:
Damn it why do i need steam, I don't play multiplayer(except local) and I hate auto-updates not to mention I despise having steam on my computer. The only reason I have it right now is because I need to for DOW2 and I hate the fact that it takes about 5 min for steam to launch, then update, then look for updates for the game, then it prepares to launch for another 3, then finally lets me play my damn game.
...

Time to launch steam as of clicking the exe: 11.28 seconds.
Time to launch L4D: 9.68 Seconds.
Total time to get in game: 20.96 Seconds.

The problem isn't steam, it's you.

What reason is there to hate auto updates? Theres no logic behind it. If anything, it allows hot fixes to be distributed quickly and easily, and makes sure everybody has the same version


Seriously, can we have a intelligent argument against steam?
It takes me an average of 5 min to get into a game that I have to have steam for, and I can run DOW2 on max setting, so I don't think it's my computer. I also see no damn point in have to use steam if I go out and buy the disc, as I stated before I have no problem if they want to sell it with steam I just have no clue why I need it if I didn't buy it from steam.

And for the auto updates, since I don't play multiplayer I friken hate it when I'm forced to update for no reason, not to mention if I have any mods it kills them.

EDIT: I should also point out that I don't buy games from steam, I hate not having the physical disk on me, it bugs me to no end and I hate waiting to download stuff.
I find that hard to believe.
My PC is getting close to 3 years old now, and does not take that long to launch.
Maybe close to a full minute, as my PC is lacking in the hardware department.

And, auto update can be turned off.
Maybe it's because my internet connection is not all that great or maybe it's something else, and yes I know auto updates can be turned off, but as I said last time I did that it told me I couldn't play DOW2 because it was out of date and needed to patch. I mostly don't see the point in having steam at all, it just sit on my computer taking up space and running in the background eating memory.
 

Cody211282

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Yamikotai said:
cyber_andyy said:
It takes me an average of 5 min to get into a game that I have to have steam for, and I can run DOW2 on max setting, so I don't think it's my computer. I also see no damn point in have to use steam if I go out and buy the disc, as I stated before I have no problem if they want to sell it with steam I just have no clue why I need it if I didn't buy it from steam.

And for the auto updates, since I don't play multiplayer I friken hate it when I'm forced to update for no reason, not to mention if I have any mods it kills them.

EDIT: I should also point out that I don't buy games from steam, I hate not having the physical disk on me, it bugs me to no end and I hate waiting to download stuff.
If it takes you five minutes, then I'd really suggest running a couple of defrags if you haven't already. And/Or running a disk check on the drive you keep your Steam games on.
I have one hard drive that gets defraged and disk checked twice a week(I just have it to auto do it when I'm at class) so it's not that, and since I only have one hard drive I know it gets done.
 

Abedeus

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Sep 14, 2008
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Oh GOD, IT'S STEAM!!

I use it even with games I didn't buy on steampowered. Because being able to use in-game interface while playing Guild Wars, Ragnarok Online or Aion is awesome.
 

Cody211282

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Apr 25, 2009
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Fenixius said:
So. I love Steam. I own lots of games on Steam. And I live in Australia. So keep that in mind when reading he following:

BAH. My issue isn't with Valve or Steam, but with 2K. Those greedy bastards are pursuing heavily regionalised prices on Steam. On the INTERNET. Which is a fundamentally BORDERLESS environment. It makes me so incredibly angry when a company does this. $50USD. £30GBP. $80AUD. So I'm being charged 40-60% more, just because I live in a nation where people are dumb and buy stuff from brick-and-mortar stores which have to slug them because -they- get ripped off by publishers and/or distributers. So fuck you, 2K. Good choice going with Steam - you obviously support non-retarded DRM. But I refuse to buy this game for 60% more than someone else has to pay, just because they live somewhere else. It's discrimination, and it's cost them a sale.

Now, I'm responding to a bunch of people, so it's been covered in spoiler tags so my post isn't ridiculously long.
Cody211282 said:
Damn it why do i need steam, I don't play multiplayer(except local) and I hate auto-updates not to mention I despise having steam on my computer. The only reason I have it right now is because I need to for DOW2 and I hate the fact that it takes about 5 min for steam to launch, then update, then look for updates for the game, then it prepares to launch for another 3, then finally lets me play my damn game.
*coughs quietly* You know, if you look at Dawn of War 2's attached programs, Games For Windows Live is about a dozen times as frustrating. Especially if you like multiplayer. Just make sure Steam doesn't run at startup, if it's an issue for you :)
Game for Windows Live is a whole nother bag of worms I would rather not get into, but thank god I don't play multiplayer, and yes steam doesn't open what i start my computer.

Fenixius said:
Cody211282 said:
I tried that one and it when a patch came out it wouldn't let me play because I was out of date, I'll check to see if that has changed, but it will have to wait until steam is done patching.....again.
If you're upset at something for it being patched a lot, I have to question whether or not you realise how beneficial it is to you when things are patched. Go and read the patch notes. See how they fix crashes, bugs, and in the case of games, imbalances. Really, if you like, go and take a look at the pile of rubbish Steam was when HL2 launched with it back in 2004 or so. See the justified rage at having to use Steam, because back then it was buggy, and was a mess. I'm so glad they've patched it!
Well I wouldn't have to deal with patches, bugs, my game crashing because steam decided to patch in the middle of me playing(and making me redo Angel Gate when I was 30 seconds away from finally winning) or anything else if I wasn't forced to use steam. I mean honestly I bought the damn hard copy for a reason, if I wanted to deal with steam I would just buy from them!
 

Delusibeta

Reachin' out...
Mar 7, 2010
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Saverio said:
I really cannot wait for Valve to get put under investigation for their anti-competitive practices. They are simply bullies who make everyone else happy.
Your use of an oxymoron has been detected.

On topic, while I don't play Civ and do use Steam for quite a bit (although only when retail is not cheaper), I do feel that the main issue should be the "Steam Exclusive Limited Edition" which includes day 1 DLC. I can't help feeling that Firaxis is pulling a Creative Assembly here[footnote]If you've seen the masses of DLC for Empire: Total War, you'll know what I mean.[/footnote].
 

The_Graff

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I don't understand the hate here. Steam is actually a pretty decent piece of kit. If nothing else it allows me to buy and install games at 2am in my bedroom in my underpants, I have yet to find a high street store that is OK with me wandering in dressed like that in the wee hours of the morning - what more do you want?
 

ALPHATT

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Aug 15, 2009
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Cody211282 said:
Damn it why do i need steam, I don't play multiplayer(except local) and I hate auto-updates not to mention I despise having steam on my computer. The only reason I have it right now is because I need to for DOW2 and I hate the fact that it takes about 5 min for steam to launch, then update, then look for updates for the game, then it prepares to launch for another 3, then finally lets me play my damn game.
I'm really surprised your comp can handle Dow2. Steam doesn't look for updates, it gets an update if there's any. Also, who the fuck hates auto-patching, are you in love with fileplanet or something?

Also, somone else was complaining about R* social club which was shit as far as the client goes but they removed it and the R* social club itself is great, let's you compare progress with your friends, check your own stats and upload videos.
 

Keava

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Some of you obivously miss a point here. Its not about loving or hating Steam. Personally i got used to it, its convinient for me but...

The issue is with the fact it is -ENFORCED- on a gamer with certain products. It is borderline monopolist tactic. You dont get to choose if you want a steam or no-steam version.Once you install it and start it up, each time you will, like it or not, be exposed to advertisements of single company.
For not that much idfferent tactics with web browsers Microsoft was already fined in the old days(the case was about IE being shipped with Windows to popularize their own web browser as well as API being more firendly towards their product, and it was in times where much more people used dial-up so downloading anything was pain). If more non-valve products will be Steam exclusives it may soon come to simillar situation. Not giving customer a choice in what third-party apps they install is bad practice.
 

Cody211282

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ALPHATT said:
Cody211282 said:
Damn it why do i need steam, I don't play multiplayer(except local) and I hate auto-updates not to mention I despise having steam on my computer. The only reason I have it right now is because I need to for DOW2 and I hate the fact that it takes about 5 min for steam to launch, then update, then look for updates for the game, then it prepares to launch for another 3, then finally lets me play my damn game.
I'm really surprised your comp can handle Dow2. Steam doesn't look for updates, it gets an update if there's any. Also, who the fuck hates auto-patching, are you in love with fileplanet or something?
No I just don't like patching, as I said before I don't play multiplayer as a general rule(unless a friend wants to and I only have one that has the game), so the only time I update is if something is so damn broken about the game that i literally can't beat it without the patch. And my comp can run DOW2 on max because its a friken beast.

Keava said:
Some of you obivously miss a point here. Its not about loving or hating Steam. Personally i got used to it, its convinient for me but...

The issue is with the fact it is -ENFORCED- on a gamer with certain products. It is borderline monopolist tactic. You dont get to choose if you want a steam or no-steam version.Once you install it and start it up, each time you will, like it or not, be exposed to advertisements of single company.
Holy crap this is exactly what I have been trying to say and people have taken it like I just putted a puppy into napalm. I hate the fact that something I don't want is force upon me for no reason, I didn't go out and by a Valve game, I didn't download it, I went out and bought the damn disk!
 

aaaaaDisregard

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Feb 16, 2010
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What's the point of the artice? I don't get all the outrage of Steamworks in Civilization V. I don't get it why author thinks all Civ fans are uber-hardcore geeks who don't care of all the other games and genres.

I play shooters, I play RTS, arcade racers, role-playing games, turn-based strategies. I play on PC and Xbox 360. As PC gamer I have Steam installed (with lots of purchased games) and think that it's the best thing that happened to PC gaming since DirectX.

Civ 4's gamespy multiplayer tech is awful - there's no friends system, there's a broken registration (somehow many gamespy games require dedicated gamespy profile, so I have to keep several of them), no game-independent chat and voice-comm. Gamespy is ancient dinosaur who just have no right to be in modern games.
To evade it I even gave to use Hamachi for multiplayer with my friends! That's just not right.

Everyone who've ever played on console (be that X360 or PS3) knows how great it is to have game-independent fiends list and ability to invite them to any MP game or just chat with them anytime. I don't even mention integrated storefront, achievments, game videos, ratings and automatic patching.
Steam is just the same thing for PC, and I think PC gaming would be long dead without Valve.
They may become a monopoly someday, but for me they have already became one - I just don't consider buying from some other DD system a viable choice anymore, because I want to install any game to fresh computer without the need to remember several DD systems' passwords or even installing several software clients. I just install Steam and have all my games, friends list immediately - with voice-chat, patches, community, forums and storefront.

Just the recent example of lame friends system in Battlefield - Bad Company 2 for PC: there's a friend list, but I can't send friend a message, I can't voice-chat with him while not on the same server, I can't invite him to my game, even the process of adding required several attempts! I know of course that console versions use Live/PSN functionality, but creating some kind of surrogate Xbox Live for PC is just stupid, while there's Steam available!

Anyway, all this text can be summarised in one sentence: I like Steam and very glad to have it in Civ 5.
____

Some of you may tell that forcing Steam on gamers is violation of their rights, but think of the other aspect of it - there's NO way to give good unified community/patching functionality without forcing every gamer to install some kind of client. It's either poor functionality (like in BF:BC2 for PC and most steam-less games) and lots of unneeded work for developers (they have to make this functionality for every damn PC game, while same thing is already available on consoles and is working great with no extra cost) or fast Steamworks implementation (compared to doing it all by yourself) and great functionality.
If not Steam, we'd have every publisher (or, worse, developer) using their own community systems, and that'll be a disaster - remember Rockstar's horrible unneeded Social Club or latest Ubisoft's attempts.
And we can't allow Microsoft to have a monopoly with their inderior Windows Live, because Mac users will be left out of the gaming for a very-very long time then.
 

Nerdygamer89

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Dec 21, 2009
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Why is Steam even a problem for people? I have had nothing but great experiences with Steam, and Valve in general. Best service/company on the gaming scene by far. This is coming from someone with 70-some-odd games on Steam.

I've never experienced resource-hogging, authentication problems, or any of the crap the anti-steam folk seem to complain about, and this is on multiple hardware configurations. Seems to be just a bunch of whining.

P.S. I swear I'm not a Valve rep.
 

Doug

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Apr 23, 2008
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Shamus Young said:
2) "Steam is a stable lightweight client" vs. "Steam is a crash-prone resource-hungry virus."
Honestly, I had no idea anyone had problems running Steam - its always worked fine and dandy for me.
 

Doug

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Cody211282 said:
ALPHATT said:
Cody211282 said:
Damn it why do i need steam, I don't play multiplayer(except local) and I hate auto-updates not to mention I despise having steam on my computer. The only reason I have it right now is because I need to for DOW2 and I hate the fact that it takes about 5 min for steam to launch, then update, then look for updates for the game, then it prepares to launch for another 3, then finally lets me play my damn game.
I'm really surprised your comp can handle Dow2. Steam doesn't look for updates, it gets an update if there's any. Also, who the fuck hates auto-patching, are you in love with fileplanet or something?
No I just don't like patching, as I said before I don't play multiplayer as a general rule(unless a friend wants to and I only have one that has the game), so the only time I update is if something is so damn broken about the game that i literally can't beat it without the patch. And my comp can run DOW2 on max because its a friken beast.
A beast...that can't run Steam? This is where the other guy's confusion was, I think - if your comp runs DoW 2 fine, it should have zero problem with Steam...

As for auto-update, if you really, really, REALLY don't want it, you can turn it off for individual games.
 

V8 Ninja

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May 15, 2010
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Okay, I don't see the problem. When the people who don't wanna use Steam complain enough to murder someone, 2K Games will just release the thing as a retail game, therefor gaining them more money. 2K Games aren't stupid enough to NOT do that.