Major Steam Platform Update Coming

[-smash-]

Sometime next week, Valve will be releasing one of the largest Steam updates ever for their popular digital distribution service. The essential goal of this update is to bring users a more easy to use platform, with the availability of inviting friends (Guest Passes) to play your favorite games, and no longer having to update Steam at launch; It will now be done in the background whilst the program is already running. A new interface with five selectable colors will be included in this release, along with a new Favorites feature for your Steam games.

Steam, a leading PC platform for the delivery and management of games and digital content, is due for a major release next week. One of the largest in the service's history, next week's update will include Guest Passes, Background Client Updating, a completely updated user interface, and more.[br]Similar to the Free Weekends, Guest Passes and the features included in this Winter Update are further examples of the advanced services and functionality offered via Steam that define it as a pioneering service, reaching far beyond traditional downloaders.

For more information on next weeks update, click herehttp://www.halflife2.net/forums/showpost.php?p=2147163&postcount=2.[br]Update: A more detailed page complete with screenshots has been published. Click herehttp://storefront.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=coming_soon to visit that page.

 

[-smash-]

STEAM WINTER UPDATE COMING NEXT WEEK

New Features Include Guest Passes and Ease-of-Use Upgrades​

Steam, a leading PC platform for the delivery and management of games and digital content, is due for a major release next week. One of the largest in the service's history, next week's update will include Guest Passes, Background Client Updating, a completely updated user interface, and more.

Similar to the Free Weekends, Guest Passes and the features included in this Winter Update are further examples of the advanced services and functionality offered via Steam that define it as a pioneering service, reaching far beyond traditional downloaders.

Here's a look at some of the key features to be rolled out to the millions of Steam users in this Winter Update:

Guest Passes

Guest Passes allow owners of certain Steam games (purchased either via Steam or at retail) to let their friends play games for free, for a limited time trial. The first game to take advantage of this new feature will be Day of Defeat: Source.

Background Client Updates

Since the Steam client was first released, it has always kept itself up to date -- but now it'll do so without making you wait during startup. Instead, it will acquire new updates in the background and then (once they're downloaded) ask if you'd like to restart and apply them. Steam will also let you know what's new whenever a new update is ready to apply.

New User Interface

Steam's got a new coat of paint. We've stripped away all the non-essentials and created a new streamlined appearance, available in five different colors.

Favorites

Steam's catalog of games has grown quite a bit over the past year or so. The new Favorites feature in the My Games tab of Steam allows for quick access to your favorite Steam games and additional functionality for personalizing your Steam library of content.

For more information, please visit www.steamgames.com

 

[Insano]

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to that new user interface

I'll also use those guest passes to convince some friends to buy DoD: Source.

 

[Smigit]

Nice. While I dont mind it so much nowdays that Green isnt the nicest of colours.

Guest invites should be great too.

 

[The Brick]

Shit I thought they were finally gonna fix the server favorites.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Ahhh well posted D, just found Doug's email pretty damn late. I'm really glad about the favourite games thing, I think Steam is pretty crowded right now and this kind of personal list is going to be really helpful, especially with my OCD.

 

[RP.]

Sounds great.
Just one question - where did all the "news" sites got this info? by e-mail? Because no one links to a source, and there is nothing about it in STEAM site...

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Yeah there are no sources for it right now, this information has come from Doug Lombardi to our inbox. I'm sure steampowered will have it up soon, this way it's super hot news.

 

[Mutley]

Awesome, I hope background update is optional though, sometimes I don't want programs stealing my bandwidths when I'm playing another game or something.

 

[-smash-]

This will all be in tonights Steam Weekly News.

 

[MoD]

this is great, seeing as sometimes the "wait" to have steam update meant two weeks of steam not working.

 

[G-Dub]

Glad to hear about the fave list

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Smash I'm guessing the new SUI will look sorta like the SUF colors? That would be lovely if it was.

 

[Evo]

*fap fap fap*

 

[-smash-]

http://storefront.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=coming_soon

 

[theguy]

It doesn't look like they put much if any effort into the other 4 skins.

 

[Adabiviak]

It'll be nice to do the update in the background instead of right when you go to start a new game.

 

[RP.]

I like the color scheme, altough i'll prolly stay with the black
Being able to arranage my game list is great, dunno what took them so long to do it, but better late than never...

 

[Dinkleberry]

MAJOR? Most those things seem pretty superficial things to me... and as for guest passes? What knobber has friends anyway?

 

[ríomhaire]

Games updating in the background is far from superficial if you have a dial-up modem. Infact, I sent Valve an e-mail about it a few weeks ago.

 

[DigiQ8]

Anybody know when the update is coming ?
what time ?

 

[Beerdude26]

Games updating in the background is far from superficial if you have a dial-up modem. Infact, I sent Valve an e-mail about it a few weeks ago.

And it has just arrived.

Zing!