What are the problems with Steam?
- Thread starter Jitters Caffeine
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Yeah, it all sounds kinda shady to me to be honest. Almost like how those Businesses like Zynga and other facebook game producers sell your information to 3rd parties, even though it explicitly says they won't and Facebook says they can't. I hate how non transparent things like that are. It just makes me uncomfortableZeh Don said:
Well you're certainly welcome lol. I was just honestly curious if I was the only person who's ever had problems like this, or if I was just crazymajor_chaos said:
for some reason Steam prohibits modding SR2 (although that could also be a port problem)
offline mode requires you to go online.
other then that no problems.
offline mode requires you to go online.
other then that no problems.
And it's totally true, because despite the legal problems he or the remnants of Valve would get into, he totally would do it!ToastiestZombie said:
Seriously, don't delude yourself. A lot of companies really only release on Steam because of the DRM. Think they're going to sit by if their titles are made DRM-free? Newell's not a moron. This won't happen, because you already bought the games, he got your money, and Steam in this instance is going down. He has nothing to lose from you and everything to lose from them.
It's an empty promise to mollify you.
None so far other than a couple of fairly irritating download/update problems and 'offline mode' not actually working when I needed it.
Oh, and of course the constant steam sales meaning I now seem to own about 20 games I've never even played for a minute... (Oh, and a lack of hard drive space making me aware that the way steam stores games is moderately inconvenient if you have more than one hard drive.)
Oh, and several games where I've had to verify the game cache a dozen times due to weird bugs.
However, none of that is all that bad overall. It compares quite well to most other non-steam games I've owned except those that have no DRM whatsoever.
Oh, and of course the constant steam sales meaning I now seem to own about 20 games I've never even played for a minute... (Oh, and a lack of hard drive space making me aware that the way steam stores games is moderately inconvenient if you have more than one hard drive.)
Oh, and several games where I've had to verify the game cache a dozen times due to weird bugs.
However, none of that is all that bad overall. It compares quite well to most other non-steam games I've owned except those that have no DRM whatsoever.
Doesn't mean Gabe Newell wont do it. It would be entirely the other publishers faults if they dont want anything to happen. Anyway, Steam probably wont ever go fully bankrupt, because it is such a good service. If Steam was in any way having money problems then we wouldn't have amazing deals every other day.Zachary Amaranth said:
This.Acrisius said:I find my access to offline games is often terribly bad when I'm in offline mode. And there's always the fear that if I piss them off, they'll take away all the games I've spent a lot of money on
Steam is great and convenient, but it's not perfect.
You HAVE to set your Steam to offline before losing the internet, or else starting it up will say "Can't connect to Steam" (Two options here- Retry Connection or Start in Offline Mode), well it can't start in offline mode cause it need's to connect to Steam.
Steam is making money hadn over fist, and that profit is only growing on a monthly basis.
I've not had any issues with their service, only some annoyances. Major titles can be a PITA to get downloaded and installed right around release date (at least for MAJOR titles they've been starting to offer the ability to pre-load if you pre-purchased the game . . . you can download and install a couple of days before release, and don't have to deal with the server slam on release day).
Some MP titles I've been having piss-poor connectivity to servers recently (TF2 I'm staring at you), with horrible latency and having my connection dropped . . . but that only seems to be with official valve servers. Sometimes it seems to be from Cloud updating, sometimes exiting Steam and re-starting fixes it.
Otherwise, no problems . . . and if you do have a problem, they attempt to fix it quickly for you, too.
I've not had any issues with their service, only some annoyances. Major titles can be a PITA to get downloaded and installed right around release date (at least for MAJOR titles they've been starting to offer the ability to pre-load if you pre-purchased the game . . . you can download and install a couple of days before release, and don't have to deal with the server slam on release day).
Some MP titles I've been having piss-poor connectivity to servers recently (TF2 I'm staring at you), with horrible latency and having my connection dropped . . . but that only seems to be with official valve servers. Sometimes it seems to be from Cloud updating, sometimes exiting Steam and re-starting fixes it.
Otherwise, no problems . . . and if you do have a problem, they attempt to fix it quickly for you, too.
Looking at the windows task manager, Steam is using significantly less ressources than iTunes, Firefox, Bittorrent, Skype, Rainmeter, or even Explorer.exe. I seriously doubt that steam's processor usage is having any sort of effect on your roommate's computer's performance.Thistlehart said:
How I don't know what my PC can and can't run. Of course, there are cases where it just can't measure up (Amnesia) and I'm fine with that. Then there are times where it's too good to run something (Fallout 3) and that just doesn't make sense. I know that it's the fault of the devs, but I'd appreciate a patch/warning somewhere.
My only issue with it is once when download Team Fortress 2 the download abruptly stopped and when I tried to redownload it it said the server was maxed. That wasn't the case, it has something to do with my files being corrupted. So I had to delete my half downloaded TF2 and reredownload it. It was a pain in the ass, but other than that I love steam. I have major issues with losing discs or serials. Steam keeps track of all of it for me and lets me play on any computer with internet.
If only they had some legal recourse I'd already mentioned that could prevent that....ToastiestZombie said:
Look, I understand you love Steam, but you've moved into blind faith and apologetics, and that's a whole 'nother animal.
Steam may not be as bad as some of Ubisoft's DRM, but boy is it invasive. You absolutely have to be connected to the internet if you want to play any game, and it insists on updating every other day. Plus it takes about five minutes to start up and then launch a game.
Besides it being a monopoly, I don't see a problem. I do take issue with people bitching about every other company being pure evil and then praising Valve and Steam while seemingly blissfully unaware that if Valve decide not be nice it could bring the ax down and kill everything tomorrow but that's just me.
My only two beefs with it in my extremely limited experience is the frequent, unannounced sales (one becomes tempted never to buy a game for full price because they're afraid the bastards are going to discount it twelve seconds afterward - and they often do) and the fact that some games require you to be connected to it in order to play them, which is a considerable pain in the ass when, say, your internet is out.
Don't get me wrong about the first one; sales are good. I just wish they weren't out of nowhere all the time, with no warning about the games that are to be going to be discounted; an email about games on a watch list or something going on sale would be nice, assuming they don't actually do that. The way they handle it right now regardless makes it easy to adopt a "Eh, I can wait to see if it goes on sale later" mentality about a game, at least if you're not the kind of person who picks their games up at launch. I'm admittedly difficult to get excited.
Don't get me wrong about the first one; sales are good. I just wish they weren't out of nowhere all the time, with no warning about the games that are to be going to be discounted; an email about games on a watch list or something going on sale would be nice, assuming they don't actually do that. The way they handle it right now regardless makes it easy to adopt a "Eh, I can wait to see if it goes on sale later" mentality about a game, at least if you're not the kind of person who picks their games up at launch. I'm admittedly difficult to get excited.
The only horror story I can add, is that you have to be online on steam to go offline. Which means if you are suddenly without internet you can't play your steam games. Other than that the real problem as you mentioned is that you're held responsible for cheating, if steam find so-called suspicious programs on your computer they'll lock your account.
Here's the interesting thing about Offline mode, it's always been my main peeve about Steam because the idea of being locked out of my games because of a blip in the internet pisses me right off. I replaced my computer this month and never tested Offline mode until now, and it works! I can kill my connection with or without Steam running, then choose the "Start in Offline mode" option and play anything. Even Source games. On my old computer I get the typical must-be-online-to-go-offline bullshit.
Apparently Offline mode is some kind of a lottery, and I won this time.
I tried to avoid Steam but needed it for the Orange Box a year ago. My library just got big enough to need a scroll bar yesterday. I passionately hate DRM but I'm willing to meet Steam halfway for the convenience, not to mention the sales. I don't even care if you can get the same games cheaper elsewhere, this is absolute pocket change.
Still have to complain about the store UI, and how the client doesn't have tabbed browsing, so if I want to buy multiple things off the list of specials I have to scroll back through the whole list after adding each one.
Apparently Offline mode is some kind of a lottery, and I won this time.
I tried to avoid Steam but needed it for the Orange Box a year ago. My library just got big enough to need a scroll bar yesterday. I passionately hate DRM but I'm willing to meet Steam halfway for the convenience, not to mention the sales. I don't even care if you can get the same games cheaper elsewhere, this is absolute pocket change.
Still have to complain about the store UI, and how the client doesn't have tabbed browsing, so if I want to buy multiple things off the list of specials I have to scroll back through the whole list after adding each one.