Why Does Valve Force us to Use Steam?

[madsircool]

I bought the Orange Box on disc and expected to pop it in and play right away. Boy was I surprised when I was forced to dl the Steam client to play the game. And I was really pissed that I cant open the games outside of Steam. Besides the fact that it took almost 24 hours to dl the updates on Steam on my slow connection (why should I be forced to?); I occasionally get the 'Game unavailable..try later' message.

Its really a slap in the face by Valve.

And the only blot on an otherwise great gaming experience.

 

[lefty]

That's the way it works. Don't like it, too bad.

 

[madsircool]

That's the way it works. Don't like it, too bad.

The powers that be restrict your rights.

"That's the way it works. Don't like it, too bad."

Fail

Its better that the company voluntarily improve their service than to have its customers get upset and either not buy the product or feel somehow entitled to get it through less legal means.

 

[lefty]

They are hardly restricting anything.

 

[madsircool]

They are hardly restricting anything.

Give me some of what you are taking.

They are restricting the availability of the software we purchased and discriminating against customers with slow internet connections. Try to wrap your head around that. And its all really unnecessary.

 

[Dekstar]

Almost every new game, regardless of being steam-based or not, is discriminating against customers with slow internet connections. Many new games are almost useless out-of-the-box (Stalker, Stalker:CS), and patches are by no means small for newer games. Steam makes patch downloading easier if anything, because if your connection cuts out half-way through a download, it will be resumed automatically when your connection does.

Also when you bought your orange box, you may have wanted to take a look at the back, under 'Required Specs' where it says you need an internet connection. Blame yourself if you thought you could have played it without one.

 

[madsircool]

Almost every new game, regardless of being steam-based or not, is discriminating against customers with slow internet connections. Many new games are almost useless out-of-the-box (Stalker, Stalker:CS), and patches are by no means small for newer games. Steam makes patch downloading easier if anything, because if your connection cuts out half-way through a download, it will be resumed automatically when your connection does.

Also when you bought your orange box, you may have wanted to take a look at the back, under 'Required Specs' where it says you need an internet connection. Blame yourself if you thought you could have played it without one.

I agree with a lot of your post.

But Steam doesnt allow the option of playing the game out of the box before dling the updates. And, why must steam involved at all if the game was purchased on disc? I do like the fact that the game can be played without the disc. But I wish some of these things would be optional.

 

[Tyro]

fight the power

 

[Druckles]

Steam's by no means particularly hard to download. When you've got past the first hurdle, you'll find that it actually makes life so much easier. Open your mind.

 

[madsircool]

Steam's by no means particularly hard to download. When you've got past the first hurdle, you'll find that it actually makes life so much easier. Open your mind.

Steam does have its good points; but it also has its annoyances. Why shouldnt the customer have the option of playing the game via disc without the steam waits, the steam ads and the extra RAM space it requires. I also have a feeling that it can and might be collecting info on our computers that it shouldnt have a right to.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Yes they're watching you and may I add, frankly terrifying browser history.

Steam uses a small amount of RAM which isn't worth writing home about. It also provides automatic updates for patches on game. It also allows you to pause and resume these as you please. It allows you to purchase games online and download them. It allows demos to be delivered, it allows you to join communities and get advice and join in with other gamers, it allows you to search servers under criteria you are specifically looking for, it lets you customise your settings, it troubleshoots and provides validation for problems with games, it restricts piracy, it gives you the latest news, it allows mods to be installed very easily, it adds support to mod making tools, it allows you to log into any computer anywhere and play your games.

It seems to have become a shock to you, this online distribution malarky. It was a massive shock to us all those 5 or so years ago too. But the market has changed, I can assume you were looking the other way when this happened. The game tells you, that you'll require an internet connection. I'm surprised there are many gamers still out there without broadband, it's ridiculously cheap, you'll be hard pressed to find many others.

It's perhaps the fact Steam is new, and it's unknown territory to you that it feels like an inconvenience. To ME, an inconvenience is having 20 icons in my start menu / desktop for various games, whereas Steam puts them into 'my games' list and I open one programme to play any of them. If it was doing more harm than good Valve would have done away with Steam a long time ago, but it's the opposite, it's growing now with 20 million Steam accounts (I think was the last count) it's about time to get on board.

 

[Munro]

When Half-Life 2 was released it was a little annoying trying to get used to Steam. It was still buggy and slow and it was annoying having to download constant updates when you only wanted to play the game. Now however it's working near perfectly and I enjoy having the extra community features to allow me to play with community folk. The offline mode also appears to be working fine now meaning you don't have to be online to play your games.

I think it's time people need to realise the gaming scene is changing again. Before the current PC-DVD format we used to have games on floppy disks and CDs and people moaned every time they changed formats to hold larger amounts of content. The same is happening now but with downloadable content. Broadband is now readily accessable to everyone and dial-up and other low speed connections are being phased out.

Steam is still a little annoying having to go through the menu if you just want a quick singleplayer game. But it's still better than having securom crap installed with other games on the market.

 

[Dynasty]

I see the positives in it, but the raw stupidity shines through when you have it installed on your laptop and not near a router, or when your net at home goes down and you wanna play something to pass the time until its fixed.

Id just like the option to play without it, its simple surely?

A forced connection just pisses me off when for whatever reason I dont have one and just want to play what ive bought.

 

[Druckles]

Offline mode.

 

[Dynasty]

Just goes to show how long its been since I last used Steam...

 

[Sledgehammer]

Offline mode + Ricochet = win

 

[Steven]

Could always be using securom D:

 

[Mad Squid]

I agree with a lot of your post.

But Steam doesnt allow the option of playing the game out of the box before dling the updates. And, why must steam be involved at all if the game was purchased on disc? I do like the fact that the game can be played without the disc. But I wish some of these things would be optional.

I also have an slow internet connection, using one of them naff dongle things
and at times it is rearly frustrating using steam to download a copius amount
of patchies and updates when all you rearly want to do is what you payed
good money for, that, to play the game.

Its not restricting just controlling and a pain in the a**

I do like the steam updating system, it works and it works well, considering how
it could be like (ie. not downloading or buggy links etc) and as some one else
said - the community things cool too!
Basicly its a pain for us slowbie but its cool in general.

I was thinking, I would pay a couple of $$ extra to have all the relevant updates
bundled on a CD and posted to me (so long as the games definitely worked from then on).
A complete catch up CD kinda, would anyone else???

 

[tschumann]

You don't need to download the updates though, just run it in offline mode and the games will work fine.

 

[nurizeko]

I bought the Orange Box on disc and expected to pop it in and play right away. Boy was I surprised when I was forced to dl the Steam client to play the game. And I was really pissed that I cant open the games outside of Steam. Besides the fact that it took almost 24 hours to dl the updates on Steam on my slow connection (why should I be forced to?); I occasionally get the 'Game unavailable..try later' message.

Its really a slap in the face by Valve.

And the only blot on an otherwise great gaming experience.

If you bothered to read the game case it would have said internet connection required for play and what not.

Its better that the company voluntarily improve their service than to have its customers get upset and either not buy the product or feel somehow entitled to get it through less legal means.

Since when did you having a tantrum equal Valves customers rising up in anger at mistreatment.

Don't try and pretend, this is your gripe alone.

I like steam, regular updates, all my games avaliable where-ever I log into steam, and it beats EA's shitty 3 install limit bullshit spyware whatever bullshit copy protection.

They are restricting the availability of the software we purchased and discriminating against customers with slow internet connections.

Having a shitty computer means they are discriminating against people with their new improved graphics and system requirements, you gonna try and convince the world that is a great injustice to?.

 

[Reflex]

i have nothing against steam.

 

[nurizeko]

i have nothing against steam.

And that's why your one of the popular kids. :farmer:

 

[Dr.Freeman]

Offline mode.

Yes, if I'm having trouble with steam I'm just making in in offline mode.

 

[G(ordon)-man]

Way better than Suckurom.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Steam does have its good points; but it also has its annoyances. Why shouldnt the customer have the option of playing the game via disc without the steam waits, the steam ads and the extra RAM space it requires. I also have a feeling that it can and might be collecting info on our computers that it shouldnt have a right to.

A few things.

First, you can tell Steam not to download updates for the game (meaning, you just activate and can play). Just right click and go to Properties.

Second, the reason why it's the default to download all patches is that it's an assumption nowadays that people have broadband. If they don't, it's quite unfortunate, but you can't do anything about that. The world will change and soon almost anyone who has 56k will get broadband if they can't get it.

Third, another reason it's by default is that they have a chance to fix any bad gameplay issues or bugs that would hurt the users experience. Sure, it may be a bummer you have to wait a bit to play the game, but it's either you wait a bit and have a great experience, or you play right away, start playing, get plagued by bugs, or an area is really hard and you can't get past it. For example, in Ep1 I believe, Valve looked at the deaths per area, and noticed that a lot of people were dying at an elevator scene. Thus, Valve put out a patch to make that area easier for people. If you didn't patch, then perhaps you would keep dying, and end up quitting and never playing again. That's not good.

Steam does take a bit getting used to, but I love it and it's always on for me.

The one thing I wish they would change is that they would put Steam games in the Games Explorer for Vista (and Win7). It seems that Valve enjoyes fighting MS over their own territory, as in who should be the "master" games destination. Valve wants everyone to use Steam, and that's why they let you put other games shortcuts into it and such. MS on the other hand has put a lot of work into Games Explorer into the OS, which provides some useful information on ESRB ratings and such, and allows the parents to control the types of games kids play (which is important in this day and age as much as kids like to cry foul and say it's stupid).

Personally, even though I'm used to Steam, I'm not the biggest fan of parts of it. There are some weird glitches where it becomes unresponsive for me sometimes for like 10 seconds, and just times where it doesn't work when I go to the store or something. Valve is definitely in a position though where they can fix this, and hopefully also update its UI a bit as it does feel a bit dated.

 

[ríomhaire]

Steam is annoying as hell when you're stuck with dial-up. But believe me, it used to be a lot worse.

Edit: Steam offline mode doesn't always work. It used to work a lot less than it does not but it still doesn't always work. I've not had trouble getting Steam to start in offline mode in some time, but I still get games refusing to work offline. A couple weeks back HL2, EP2 and Portal were refusing to work offline until I updated them fully (which Valve claimed is no longer nessisary) but EP1 and TF2 were (and I know TF2 wasn't fully updated).

 

[chimpmunk]

I remember when we switched from WON to Steam... I still miss WON sometimes.

 

[Diesel_Power]

What's WON?

 

[tschumann]

World Opponent Network.

 

[B_MAN]

if you refuse to download updates on your slow connection, why don't you just disconnect it and run Steam/the game in offline mode?

 

[ríomhaire]

Because Steam games often refuse to work unless they're fully updated.