Venting About Valve Again

MasochisticAvenger

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CriticKitten said:
MasochisticAvenger said:
Honestly, I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass amount of comments blasting the OP for speaking negatively about Valve. I mean, aside from the Original Poster himself, the comments have been rather mature.
Sorry to disappoint but I guess I'll have to be the first "immature" guy to point out that this whole thing is more on the OP's shoulders than on Steam's.

And the entire problem starts at:
bigfatcarp93 said:
So, I went on Steam and found the GOTY edition, even better. I had to set up a new Steam profile to buy it, because my old E-Mail was defunct. Fair enough.
What was "defunct" about your original profile that it literally prevented you from playing games? You can change the email attached to your existing Steam account by going through the settings, and that doesn't take long. And your email shouldn't prevent you from purchasing a game on Steam.

Your entire story hinges on the notion that you needed a brand new account to buy this game, but I'm not sure you've really explained why you needed a new account at all. And you know that in Steam's Terms of Service, they don't do account mergers, right? So now you're stuck with two separate accounts when you might not have even needed the second one.

So, that takes about twenty minutes, and I gladly shell out $10 on the game and sit through a few minutes of download. I'm quite happy: low price, quick download, and a game I'm very optimistic about as my evening's entertainment. But, lo and behold, the game is suddenly nowhere to be found on my computer.
Did you doublecheck which account you were logged into? If you were seeing options for all of your old games but not Deus Ex, then you were just on the wrong login. Remember that Steam isn't aware of multiple accounts, and will only identify games that it has in this particular account's library. So if you're logged into Account 1, you see only the games owned by Account 1, and none of the games owned by Account 2.

So, I go through the obvious checklist: check Steam Libray, check Games, check Downloads, try in vain to contact Steam for help, start thread on Escapist fuming about Valve, get tidal wave of unsolicited, yet appreciated, advice, finally get contacted by Steam, fix problem.
You started fuming at Steam/Valve this quickly? I usually wait until I've actually made sure that I've done everything correctly first. Save rage for when it's merited.

The first and most obvious course of action should have been to log out of Steam and then log back in using the new account information. Did you do this? Did you try logging in through a web browser instead and looking at your game info that way? There's a lot of things you could have tried before what you did next.

Ultimately, I had to uninstall Steam and reinstall it. This meant deleting the two Steam games already on my PC: Half-Life and TF2. I figured this was no huge deal if I could finally get to Deus Ex: a game I had never played before for two games I had played at nauseum. Fine. I mean, I could download TF2 again for free.
Why? You can copy your save-files with relative ease. Just locate where they are stored (sometimes it's in the Steam directory, and sometimes in My Documents) and copy them to another location on the computer, or to a flash drive/external HDD if you have one.

So, I did it. And now, GUESS FUCKING WHAT? Deus Ex is on my computer, but won't fucking play.
This is the first thing you've said that actually sounds like it might be a Steam problem, since this has been reported in the past. On the other hand, there's a thread on the Steam forums full of people registering this same complaint so it might not have hurt to check their forums before buying it. There's also various websites that allow you to check for your computer's compatibility with video games, so using one of those might have saved you time, too.

All the same, this part is actually Steam's fault.

And yeah, I got TF2 again, but I forgot all my items, which are now lost. Including several very rare ones.
Check your login. If you're using the new login, of course it won't remember the data from your old login. I'm fairly certain that the data is not lost or gone, you're just using the wrong login. Since you decided to make two logins instead of just fixing the problems on your old login, you'll have to switch back and forth between the accounts.

So, I am out:

-$9.99 for Deus Ex.
This much is true. The rest though?

-$9.99 for Half-Life.
No, you still own this game, it's just on your old login. If you lost access to it somehow when you created your new account, that's your fault, not Steam's.

-1 copy of half-Life plus save data.
You said this already, and as mentioned earlier, the save data could easily have been copied if you had taken the time to look up where it is stored. But you didn't.

When I moved my games to this new computer, I brought pretty much all my save files with me and had no trouble getting them working. So yeah, the lost save data is pretty much entirely on you.

-$20.00 worth of TF2 items.
Again, did you make sure you're logged into your old account when checking for your items? I'm pretty sure they're still there.

Now, I also can't contact Steam. Awesome.
Yes you can? They have an entire help service for stuff like this. Just don't expect them to be able to merge your accounts together or anything like that, because they usually don't do that sort of thing.

You really should have taken the time to fix your original account first, you probably would have avoided most of these issues. I don't want to sound insensitive or to sound like I haven't had issues with games before (I was a victim of a Steam sale on Heroes 6, but that was an Ubisoft screw-up and not a Valve/Steam one), but a lot of the stuff you're complaining about could have been avoided or solved pretty easily if you'd put in the effort to do so. I'll join in with you in complaining about things that are actually the game dev's fault (like them selling a game that isn't working), but stuff like save data? That's on you.
I was talking about people personally attacking the OP, or swearing at him for his comments... things of the nature. Not people who make well-reasoned arguments such as yourself. Other people, myself included,chave already stated the OP is the one at fault in the situation.
 

bandman232

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I find it funny that not liking Steam or Valve on this site is a mortal sin and you should be burned at the stake. It really quite ridiculous. I absolutely despise Valve for the way they've been about HL3, trolling their fans, and Steam's customer support has to be the most unhelpful and condescending thing I've ever used.
 

lacktheknack

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So... what's the problem?

Why can't you just log in to your original account? Did you forget the password?

If so, THAT'S what you should email Valve about.

Also, you didn't back up your games using the in-Steam function, you've made a new account and can't figure out why none of your stuff is there, etc etc... the error is between the chair and the keyboard.
 

gigastar

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MasochisticAvenger said:
CriticKitten said:
MasochisticAvenger said:
Honestly, I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass amount of comments blasting the OP for speaking negatively about Valve. I mean, aside from the Original Poster himself, the comments have been rather mature.
Sorry to disappoint but I guess I'll have to be the first "immature" guy to point out that this whole thing is more on the OP's shoulders than on Steam's.

And the entire problem starts at...
I was talking about people personally attacking the OP, or swearing at him for his comments... things of the nature. Not people who make well-reasoned arguments such as yourself. Other people, myself included,chave already stated the OP is the one at fault in the situation.
Ok ill try fill out a niche lower on the maturity spectrum.

Setting up a new Steam account-
Having to set up a new Steam account due to a defunct email on an existing account is a silly thing to do. Its not a long or hard process to change the email of an existing account, just go into your settings and under the 'account' tab theres a big friendly button marked "CHANGE CONTACT EMAIL ADRESS" in actual full caps.

Deus Ex's mysterious dissapearance-
I cant say ive ever heard of an instance where a game you bought on Steam could not be accessed through the Steam browser, in your games library. And in the event this would happen i would assume the browser is just taking its ever-loving time to update, which could be fixed with either patience or better yet restarting Steam.

If the game did not appear in your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common then i simply do not know what to think of that, as ive never heard of it happening before.

Going through the emergency checklist-
Again i see you did not at any point so far actually restart Steam. Thats usually a good thing to have at the forefront of the emergency list, followed by asking a friend to check the account to see if theyve recieved an update concerning your purchase. Remember, Steam is a social platform too.

Uninstalling/Reinstalling Steam-
Arguably thats one of the dimmer things you could have done, ive never seen an instance of Steam needing to be reinstalled outside of a botched manual installation.

And your save files were perfectly accessible through your files browser and the Steam browser can and will back up your save files to a folder of your choice. Steam will also save your files to a cloud server with certain games that are marked as such. Team Fortress 2 is one such example.

Deus Ex being unplayable-
A 12 year old game unplayable on a modern PC? Surely not!

Seriously though, i can count on one hand the number of PC games from that era that will work on my laptop from last year without modification to the game or activating the backwards compatibility of Windows 7. This is keeping in mind that Deus Ex was not a very stable game when it launched.

And otherwise you should have gone to Good Old Games, i reckon a site that can get the original Fallout working on a modern PC can get Deus Ex into working order. And dont pretend youve never heard of it, its brought up almost too frequently by the anti-Steam crowd and frequently enough by everyone else.

And a suppose it never crossed your mind to take a quick trip to the Steampowered forums to see if there was a solution to the issue, the forums of which can be accessed through the library tab (under the links header on the right) and goes directly to the discussion and support forums for that game.

Your TF2 items gone missing-
I cant think of any reason why Steam can be held accountable for this, cloud saves for TF2 are on by default and cannot be turned off, so one of the following happened;

-Youre logged into the wrong Steam account. Obviously your TF2 profile is bound to your Steam profile, not by what system youre playing on.

-Hackers got into your old Steam account while you were mucking about with the new one. Not unheard of at all, a friend of mine was hacked for his TF2 items overnight, and yes this included his collection of unusual hats.

Your losses-
Im willing to bet money that you still own both Half-Life and Deus Ex, except you havent got a link to either of your Steam accounts anywhere so i cannot go and confirm that personally.

And if you lost your Half-Life save file, this is neither a great loss or Steams fault. If you did not back up the save file when you uninstalled Steam then you effectively deleted the save file yourself.

And again, check your old Steam accounts inventory, if the TF2 items dont appear then hackers may have swiped them under your radar.

Being unable to contact Steam support-
This is the one thing im calling outright bullshit on, unless youre doing it at midnight by telephone in your region i cant even begin to Wild Mass Guess a reason to think why theyre ignoring you, unless you were offensive in your previous communication with them in which case they may decide to consider you a lower priority case.
 

Ragsnstitches

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PercyBoleyn said:
I wouldn't bash Steam on the Escapist OP. Gaben's cock is deep in this one. People are quick to forget just how full of shit Valve is in general.
bandman232 said:
I find it funny that not liking Steam or Valve on this site is a mortal sin and you should be burned at the stake. It really quite ridiculous. I absolutely despise Valve for the way they've been about HL3, trolling their fans, and Steam's customer support has to be the most unhelpful and condescending thing I've ever used.
The irony here is that you are the only 2 people thus far in this topic reacting in an irrational manner.

I find it pretty hilarious that, while most of the other folks posting here are trying to help the OP despite his anger towards steam, you are throwing around hateful generalisations and perpetuating intolerance.

I suppose you practice what you preach amirite?

@bigfatcarp93
You should really listen to what Critickitten has to say. Your problem seems to come from some confusion about how the steam accounts work. You need to go back to square one and work from there.

The only issue I see coming up once you sort the account issue now is Deus Ex being linked to a separate account. I can't see any way for you to merge it into your old account (or your old account into the new one) since Steam don't allow mergers.

Do you have any record of your contact with steam support, or was it over the phone?
 

Signa

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bandman232 said:
I find it funny that not liking Steam or Valve on this site is a mortal sin and you should be burned at the stake. It really quite ridiculous. I absolutely despise Valve for the way they've been about HL3, trolling their fans, and Steam's customer support has to be the most unhelpful and condescending thing I've ever used.
I don't throw this word around lightly, but entitled much? Valve doesn't owe you HL3, and hating them because they haven't announced it is like hating your mom for not cooking a dinner you wanted.

As far as the "mortal sin" goes, depends on who's responding to you, and what you said. Your position in this thread isn't a very strong one.
 

Signa

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gigastar said:
-Hackers got into your old Steam account while you were mucking about with the new one. Not unheard of at all, a friend of mine was hacked for his TF2 items overnight, and yes this included his collection of unusual hats.
This is actually more likely than I first thought. If he was having problems accessing his old account, it could have been hijacked.

On the other hand, the things he's complaining about are starting to sound like trolling. Deleting his own games and then screaming "my saves are gone! DAMN YOU STEEEEEAM!" isn't exactly normal troubleshooting procedures/user expectations.
 

GAunderrated

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Signa said:
gigastar said:
-Hackers got into your old Steam account while you were mucking about with the new one. Not unheard of at all, a friend of mine was hacked for his TF2 items overnight, and yes this included his collection of unusual hats.
This is actually more likely than I first thought. If he was having problems accessing his old account, it could have been hijacked.

On the other hand, the things he's complaining about are starting to sound like trolling. Deleting his own games and then screaming "my saves are gone! DAMN YOU STEEEEEAM!" isn't exactly normal troubleshooting procedures/user expectations.
Yeah when I read his response that he deleted his games without backing up his saves then blaming steam for it I know he was a technological infant and was trying to blame steam for problems on his side. I knew he was also full of crap when he couldn't get a hold of steam support. I'm willing to bet he never even attempted to contact them because he doesn't have the correct information to give them through his own incompetence.

Bravo to all the people posting helpful information to the OP but I think its a waste.
 

Snotnarok

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I don't understand, how do you lose your TF2 items by uninstalling TF2? They're not saved on your PC unless you mean you had to switch to a new account and therefore you simply don't have access to your old ones. You can't lose your items unless your account is hacked, they have a server for items in TF2 relating to peoples accounts. There's literally no data for that saved on your PC.
 

Vivi22

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bigfatcarp93 said:
I'm on a DIFFERENT account, though. That's the whole reason I had to uninstall Steam in the first place.
This makes no sense to me for two reasons though. First, even if your old email was gone, there's no reason you should have had to set up a new account. You could easily have set up a new email account on your Steam so long as you knew your password. If not then you'd be out of luck, but that would be your fault, not Valve's.

Second, you did not have to uninstall Steam to use another account. You can log into different accounts from the same computer and have access to the games purchased on those accounts.

As for your supposed losses, you're just flat out wrong. Half-Life and your TF2 items are still tied to your old account. Log into your old account and you'll still have all of them. And if you can eventually get a hold of Valve to help with the Deus Ex issue, you'll have that on this new account as well.

Sorry, but all of the supposed issues and losses you've suffered sound like they either don't exist or are the result of error on your part.

To that end, I'll add that I agree with everything Gigastar said.
 

lwm3398

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Signa said:
I don't throw this word around lightly, but entitled much? Valve doesn't owe you HL3, and hating them because they haven't announced it is like hating your mom for not cooking a dinner you wanted.

As far as the "mortal sin" goes, depends on who's responding to you, and what you said. Your position in this thread isn't a very strong one.
I don't think he meant his HL3 comment to be taken that way. He isn't annoyed that Valve hasn't announced it; he's annoyed that Valve has been basically teasing its fans for years. They occasionally feed into rumors and speculation when there's no intention of actually announcing the game. I don't see that as a reason to hate Valve since they're probably not doing it for the sole purpose of annoying fans, but I can see why he might.
 

Bloodstain

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I... I don't think Steam works like you think it does.

You've basically been very, very foolish and over-reacted instead of showing patience and consulting the forums or Google.
I have nothing else to say -- everything you should have done was already explained in full by others in this thread.
Good luck with your issues, but I wouldn't expect an account merger.
 

Signa

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lwm3398 said:
Signa said:
I don't throw this word around lightly, but entitled much? Valve doesn't owe you HL3, and hating them because they haven't announced it is like hating your mom for not cooking a dinner you wanted.

As far as the "mortal sin" goes, depends on who's responding to you, and what you said. Your position in this thread isn't a very strong one.
I don't think he meant his HL3 comment to be taken that way. He isn't annoyed that Valve hasn't announced it; he's annoyed that Valve has been basically teasing its fans for years. They occasionally feed into rumors and speculation when there's no intention of actually announcing the game. I don't see that as a reason to hate Valve since they're probably not doing it for the sole purpose of annoying fans, but I can see why he might.
Most of that teasing is just fans looking too deep into things that Valve has said or released.
 

BiscuitTrouser

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PercyBoleyn said:
BiscuitTrouser said:
Can you tell us why valve is full of shit? I couldnt care less about gabe. I just enjoy their games and have a LOT of money saved on steam. Thats reason enough for me as a consumer to like them.
The problems with Steam should be obvious. For example, why is it that you're unable to play games you purchased using Steam without being connected to the internet and having the Steam app installed? Incidentally, no other DD service aside from Origin does this. Let me repeat that, no other DD service aside from Origin, powered by the fucking satan of video games, does this.
Living in a first world country in a fairly well off family this isnt an issue for me. My internet connection is good and you actually CAN play games offline if the internet goes down. Steam does have an offline mode if a game has been previously confirmed as being real. Ive played halflife in offline mode several times. The steam app is a benefit, i can easily talk to all friends playing at the same time, view achievements and get good deals at the store all at once. I actually really like the app.
 

lwm3398

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Signa said:
lwm3398 said:
Signa said:
I don't throw this word around lightly, but entitled much? Valve doesn't owe you HL3, and hating them because they haven't announced it is like hating your mom for not cooking a dinner you wanted.

As far as the "mortal sin" goes, depends on who's responding to you, and what you said. Your position in this thread isn't a very strong one.
I don't think he meant his HL3 comment to be taken that way. He isn't annoyed that Valve hasn't announced it; he's annoyed that Valve has been basically teasing its fans for years. They occasionally feed into rumors and speculation when there's no intention of actually announcing the game. I don't see that as a reason to hate Valve since they're probably not doing it for the sole purpose of annoying fans, but I can see why he might.
Most of that teasing is just fans looking too deep into things that Valve has said or released.
Which is why I said his being annoyed might not be justified.
 

Signa

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lwm3398 said:
Signa said:
lwm3398 said:
Signa said:
I don't throw this word around lightly, but entitled much? Valve doesn't owe you HL3, and hating them because they haven't announced it is like hating your mom for not cooking a dinner you wanted.

As far as the "mortal sin" goes, depends on who's responding to you, and what you said. Your position in this thread isn't a very strong one.
I don't think he meant his HL3 comment to be taken that way. He isn't annoyed that Valve hasn't announced it; he's annoyed that Valve has been basically teasing its fans for years. They occasionally feed into rumors and speculation when there's no intention of actually announcing the game. I don't see that as a reason to hate Valve since they're probably not doing it for the sole purpose of annoying fans, but I can see why he might.
Most of that teasing is just fans looking too deep into things that Valve has said or released.
Which is why I said his being annoyed might not be justified.
Nuh-UH! I said it first! (kinda)

If he said TOS blackmail, I'd agree with him, but my mind boggles at the sheer number of companies I could be pissed at for not making another sequel to a game I liked. Some people just like to hate popular things I guess. I do to, but I try to substantiate it first, so I can explain why I think something is bad.