So has Steam matured by now?

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Smilin
The problems with steam have always been overexagerated.

fixed

Wrong. I'll grant that Steam has been great lately, and 99% of the time, I've loved it/had no issues with it. However, I also bought HL2 on release day and (along with many others) had major issues authenticating my purchase so I could actually play it. Steam was almost completely unprepared for the release of HL2.

Currently, the only complaint I have with Steam is relatively minor, and it involves original games and expansion packs. Apparently, if you own a retail version of a game (I encountered this with both Company of Heroes and Titan Quest), you can't buy the expansion pack via Steam, and vice-versa - if you bought the original games via Steam, you need to buy the expansions via Steam as well for compatibility. There's probably a good technical reason for this, and may have been fixed by now, so it's really a minor complaint. Otherwise, I think Steam is great and problem-free the vast majority of the time.

 

[Martimus]

I love the idea of steam, but it still doesn't work right for me. I really wanted to use it to pick up some new games, but they weren't very good about helping me fix it to get it working correctly. Oh well, maybe I will try it out again the next time I format my primary OS drive. I would like to be able to just download all the games whenever I need them than have to look for the CD/DVD. At least Stardock Central works for me, so I have the 5 games I bought there whenever I want to play them.

 

[Ultima200]

I think Steam is GREAT. Been using it since day one of it's release and had few complaints back then. IMO the two best features of Steam are the ability to instantly have access to a game and in the same sense, being able to play any Steam game on any computer. The only problem I see with steam is that it does not offer every single game, which is understandable.

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Smilin
The problems with steam have always been overexagerated.

fixed

Wrong. I'll grant that Steam has been great lately, and 99% of the time, I've loved it/had no issues with it. However, I also bought HL2 on release day and (along with many others) had major issues authenticating my purchase so I could actually play it. Steam was almost completely unprepared for the release of HL2.

Currently, the only complaint I have with Steam is relatively minor, and it involves original games and expansion packs. Apparently, if you own a retail version of a game (I encountered this with both Company of Heroes and Titan Quest), you can't buy the expansion pack via Steam, and vice-versa - if you bought the original games via Steam, you need to buy the expansions via Steam as well for compatibility. There's probably a good technical reason for this, and may have been fixed by now, so it's really a minor complaint. Otherwise, I think Steam is great and problem-free the vast majority of the time.

So you're saying that even though you only have a 1% disappointment rating (your figure, not mine) with Steam, you don't think all the issues are over exaggerated? Sounds a bit contradictory.

In terms of personal use for myself, I have been running Steam from almost day one. I pre-purchased and pre-downloaded Half Life 2 without an issue and was able to authenticate without issue on launch day (not at midnight, but during the day after I got home from work). Perhaps it was a little slow, but it worked. At this time I did not have a super-duper internet connection either, it was just a standard DSL line. Just about every one of my real world friends has had little to no issues utilizing steam either.

This is just personal experience mind you, and I do understand that people did have issues authenticating with the server, but I really think that the problem was more overstated than how bad it really was.

If the release of HL2 is the only real issue you can point your finger at in terms of poor service, then that, in itself, shows that the service is well made and works as intended... thus, the problems are, and have always been, "overexagerated"

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Smilin
The problems with steam have always been overexagerated.

fixed

Wrong. I'll grant that Steam has been great lately, and 99% of the time, I've loved it/had no issues with it. However, I also bought HL2 on release day and (along with many others) had major issues authenticating my purchase so I could actually play it. Steam was almost completely unprepared for the release of HL2.

Currently, the only complaint I have with Steam is relatively minor, and it involves original games and expansion packs. Apparently, if you own a retail version of a game (I encountered this with both Company of Heroes and Titan Quest), you can't buy the expansion pack via Steam, and vice-versa - if you bought the original games via Steam, you need to buy the expansions via Steam as well for compatibility. There's probably a good technical reason for this, and may have been fixed by now, so it's really a minor complaint. Otherwise, I think Steam is great and problem-free the vast majority of the time.

So you're saying that even though you only have a 1% disappointment rating (your figure, not mine) with Steam, you don't think all the issues are over exaggerated? Sounds a bit contradictory.

In terms of personal use for myself, I have been running Steam from almost day one. I pre-purchased and pre-downloaded Half Life 2 without an issue and was able to authenticate without issue on launch day (not at midnight, but during the day after I got home from work). Perhaps it was a little slow, but it worked. At this time I did not have a super-duper internet connection either, it was just a standard DSL line. Just about every one of my real world friends has had little to no issues utilizing steam either.

This is just personal experience mind you, and I do understand that people did have issues authenticating with the server, but I really think that the problem was more overstated than how bad it really was.

If the release of HL2 is the only real issue you can point your finger at in terms of poor service, then that, in itself, shows that the service is well made and works as intended... thus, the problems are, and have always been, "overexagerated"

since we're all working from my original quote ....

Steam on HL2 release day was broken. There is no way to overexagerate how broken it was. It was bad.

Since then it's been great!

 

[MegaVovaN]

Steam WAS bad on release day (I also used it since day one) for many people. But who cares? Nothing is perfect, and we can easily forgive it's early mishaps because now it is fantastic, but still never perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect.

 

[Daverino]

Where are all the usual suspects screaming that Steam is the spawn of Satan because you cannot resell your games and 'have to call home to the mothership' when you want to play?

I expect more out of the trolls here

Anyhow Steam has always worked very well for me. Friends never worked correctly until the recent Steam community upgrade, and now I use Friends all the time.

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: Modeps
If the release of HL2 is the only real issue you can point your finger at in terms of poor service, then that, in itself, shows that the service is well made and works as intended... thus, the problems are, and have always been, "overexagerated"

Regarding HL2, the difference between you and I is that you bought it via Steam, and I bought it retail (as did all of my local gaming friends). Yet despite buying the game legitimately, none of us could get it to authenticate for something like 24 hours (my memory's foggy on exactly how long it was). This despite the fact I had DSL, and all the rest of my friends had cable internet. I remember coming onto the AT forums and posting a rant, and there were TONS of similar complaints here, on steampowered.com, and elsewhere. To me, that's not an "exaggerated" problem, that's a very real problem. Yes, it's been corrected since then, and overall, I've been very happy with the service as it's matured, but let's not pretend it's always been like that. It's certainly NOT true that all of Steam's problems were exaggerated in the past.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Modeps
If the release of HL2 is the only real issue you can point your finger at in terms of poor service, then that, in itself, shows that the service is well made and works as intended... thus, the problems are, and have always been, "overexagerated"

Regarding HL2, the difference between you and I is that you bought it via Steam, and I bought it retail (as did all of my local gaming friends). Yet despite buying the game legitimately, none of us could get it to authenticate for something like 24 hours (my memory's foggy on exactly how long it was). This despite the fact I had DSL, and all the rest of my friends had cable internet. I remember coming onto the AT forums and posting a rant, and there were TONS of similar complaints here, on steampowered.com, and elsewhere. To me, that's not an "exaggerated" problem, that's a very real problem. Yes, it's been corrected since then, and overall, I've been very happy with the service as it's matured, but let's not pretend it's always been like that. It's certainly NOT true that all of Steam's problems were exaggerated in the past.

I preordered the retail collector's edition of HL2 and I have no problems authenticating the moment the install finished. I just don't see that HL2 bog down as a "real problem with Steam." There's only so much bandwidth and processing power for their connection/machines to handle and HL2 was immensely popular. If you didn't expect some sort of slow down with that kind of traffic then I think you had unrealistic expectations. You can't really expect a company to have the resource to deal with a surge that might occur once or twice a year and then just leave the resources idle for the remainder.

That said, I've been a longtime Steam user and lover. The only thing I would wish for would be the ability to somehow add games to my Steam account that I purchased retail before they appeared on Steam (STALKER for example). I'd love to add Deus Ex, STALKER, and a lot of other games to my Steam account and I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to do it. I do understand, though, why it's completely impractical to ever have such an ability and I'll probably just end up rebuying a lot of games over the course of time - heck, Deus Ex is like 5 bucks I think.

 

[calyco]

Steam works pretty good, my only complaint is I just wish they would make it a little lighter. Take a too long to startup the app and TF2, well compared to running a normal game without a separate app. Other than that it works great, I like not having to search for patches and buying a game is really convenient.

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Mursilis
Regarding HL2, the difference between you and I is that you bought it via Steam, and I bought it retail (as did all of my local gaming friends). Yet despite buying the game legitimately, none of us could get it to authenticate for something like 24 hours (my memory's foggy on exactly how long it was). This despite the fact I had DSL, and all the rest of my friends had cable internet. I remember coming onto the AT forums and posting a rant, and there were TONS of similar complaints here, on steampowered.com, and elsewhere. To me, that's not an "exaggerated" problem, that's a very real problem. Yes, it's been corrected since then, and overall, I've been very happy with the service as it's matured, but let's not pretend it's always been like that. It's certainly NOT true that all of Steam's problems were exaggerated in the past.

I think you're missing the point.

Pretty much everyone who says "Steam Sucks!" harkens back to the HL2 launch (which was about 3.5 years ago now). Systems have issues in their early days. Valve fixed their few issues and had limited minor issues since those bandwidth and processing problems.

So, in the 4 years of its existence, there were maybe a single week's worth of up and down issues associated with one title (and I dont even think it was a week long issue). That to me is minor, no matter how major the title was.

 

[sandorski]

The best Gaming App ever!

 

[Larries]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
....

Only downside I can think of is that one cannot re-sell games. But I personally never sold a game. I keep everything, even if the game sucks.
Oh, and you cannot play offline unless you tell Steam to go to "Offline mode" when you are online. But how many gamers don't have Internet these days?
What are your thoughts on Steam? Comments?

If you never tried Steam (or tried it before but were disappointed), follow links above and try it with some free games, demos, or trailers.

1. If your game doesn't have patches for Steam version, you are stuck. (I have one such game )

2. If your Internet connection go down, you are stuck. (it happened couple years ago to a lot of people in Asia... when a earthquake broke some cables connecting TW and US...); or simply, your router broke down, etc.

But everything has a downside. If your PC broke, you cannot play games also!

Edit: Oh, forgot about the manuals too. Maybe I am the only one who likes reading the manual in the toilet...

 

[Piuc2020]

Steam is incredibly convenient but I just can't give up the nice feeling of owning the actual gameboxes (with the fancy manuals and disc art, etc) and I don't like the internet and separate application dependency, I just need a physical copy of the game.

I don't have a problem with steam, I just like boxed copies a LOT more, I really hope I don't live to see the day where entertainment content is all handled through digital downloads.

 

[mb]

You know what I REALLY have come to appreciate about Steam, especially in Valve's games?


VAC.



I freaking HATE HATE HATE punkbuster. That piece of garbage software was buggy back in 2000 and today it is no better.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'm just mad because Steam/Valve didn't allow me to upgrade to the next version of Counterstrike. Someone else had used my code to download the software. Resolution of the matter was near impossible because so many people had the issue.

I don't ever want to support Steam simply out of principle because they were involved somehow with that mess.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
I'm just mad because Steam/Valve didn't allow me to upgrade to the next version of Counterstrike. Someone else had used my code to download the software. Resolution of the matter was near impossible because so many people had the issue.

I don't ever want to support Steam simply out of principle because they were involved somehow with that mess.

From what version to which? You bought game with, say, CS 1.4, and when you wanted to get 1.6 on steam your key was already used? Damn that sucks.

But then again HL: Blue Shift was like $14 at the store and got me access to all HL1 games

 

[RandomFool]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
I'm just mad because Steam/Valve didn't allow me to upgrade to the next version of Counterstrike. Someone else had used my code to download the software. Resolution of the matter was near impossible because so many people had the issue.

I don't ever want to support Steam simply out of principle because they were involved somehow with that mess.

It's a shame you won't use support because if you still have the CD-Key page they'd restore it to your account.

 

[PuppettMaster001]

I love Steam. Hated the concept at first, but it is pretty sweet. No CDs needed, fast speeds, good community, and ease of use.