I don't see why what you describe could not be accomplished with environment variables? If you install a game on more than one computer the Steam client could just check the local environment variable for the game in question and get the same results.ShadowFlex said:
Wow Steam may very well be the dumbest application related to pc gaming ever....
- Thread starter shadow skill
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Why would you want move memory allocated to start up. Boot - run - done, Effective and fast. Steam program itself is very insignificantly small so I'm not seeing the major problem...shadow skill said:I don't see why what you describe could not be accomplished with environment variables? If you install a game on more than one computer the Steam client could just check the local environment variable for the game in question and get the same results.ShadowFlex said:Steam has a clever way of saving space. Most people who play Steam mods (Puts hand up) will notice in the mod files there is not much stored information. Steam makes all large content files accessible by all other steam applications that might need it, thus preventing repeated downloads of the same stuff. This requires you to have your steam location where ever your steam games are going to be installed, think of steam less as a server browser and more of an internal game operator. The wires have to be connected to the phone.
And be thankfull...
It could be CoD2
(Finding a server an that game for you and eight other people is near impossible)
Why would you be moving memory? All the environment variable would do is have the location of the game on the hard drive mapped to it. My point is that your reasoning is flawed because you don't gain anything if you want to install a game on more than one machine (which presumably would have differing hard drive schemes.) you would still have to install the game again etc. Even if you didn't need to copy the mod to the second machine the environment variable would still work in all cases. You don't even gain anything from the current method on just one machine since things are still tied to the steam root directory. If you used an environment variable you lose nothing from the current method and gain added flexibility on the part of Steam.
The retail box specifically mentions you need Steam and an internet connection to play. You can argue its an arbitatry requirement but what isnt these days. You need the Halo disc in to play Halo. Would be nice if it was legal to crack it but it isnt. Of all the copy protection methods I find Steam the least intrusive not because it is but because its the least annoying.shadow skill said:Thehound the problem with statistics is that you can get them to say almost anything you want. You are also assuming that everyone that uses Steam actually participates in the surveys. It's not a safe assumption, the problem becomes even worse if you start doing surveys where people have to answer questions because the nature of the question and the fact that people can and do lie. I also wonder if Steam is capable of telling what kind of drive topology people are even using which would of course affect any size metrics they tried to come up with. In the end it means that any numbers you come up with mean far less than you would like to believe.
I'm willing to bet that most people use variants of the QWERTY keyboard layout however that does not in reality mean that all of those people are using the same keymap for whatever reason. It also does not mean that the keyboard has the keys in the same place as the "standard" QWERTY layout. Hell you can't even gaurantee that everyone has the same ability with respect to using a QWERTY layout keyboard. So it would not be a very good idea to omit control configuration based on some insane idea that you could actually have some real certainty that no one would want to change the keymapping in your product.
While its true that you have to make certain assumptions when you make any product there are in fact such things as pointless and/or bad assumptions that should not be made especially when methods for avoiding such assumptions have been in use for at least a decade. I also would love to know if there is a way for me to play the game(s) legally without having to use steam at all having purchased the retail box and all that.
Im not saying Steam couldnt or shouldnt cater to your needs. But it doesnt. Doesnt mean its by any means crap. You can argue all you want about valve not knowing what people want but the steam survey had a lot of figures attached to it. 1,028,897 to be precise. 12million users total so they sampled ~ 10%, a random 10% i might add thatas far as market research goes I think a randomly sampled 10% of your entire user base is good indicator. The very fact you started your first post with how you fixed your problem as opposed to it being un solveable just shows its not really that big a problem.
From what I understand it is not in fact illegal to circumvent DRM schemes for things like back ups etc, but it is a bit of a gray area. The problem isn't fixed because what I really want isn't actually possible with Steam itself. I shouldn't have to go through that sort of song and dance just because the developer decided to assume that everyone had their drives setup in a way conducive to the way they felt like doing things. There is no reason to even make the assumption in the first place. There are various ways to address the issue that affects no one adversely.
Its not a problem that the program was made in such a moronic way that if someone ran out of space on a given drive that they would have to install steam again on the new drive if they decided to move the games to the new drive or just wanted to put any new games on the fresh drive without moving the old ones?
Its not a problem that the program was made in such a moronic way that if someone ran out of space on a given drive that they would have to install steam again on the new drive if they decided to move the games to the new drive or just wanted to put any new games on the fresh drive without moving the old ones?