STEAM is friggin awesome.

[gururu]

I registered with a retail copy at home. Thought I'd try to see if I could download HL2 with my Steam account at work. WOOHAAA!! I don't even need the retail CD!!! of course I can't play it without the CD, but it saves me some time... Also got Counterstrike and Deathmatch.

 

[Looney]

Yep, i love Steam too. The people that bitch about it probably weren't planning on buying it anyways, and just wanted a pirated copy. And now that it's out, it's quieted down a bit.

 

[igowerf]

Yep. I love my Steam account now. When I went home for Thanksgiving, I just downloaded my Steam games onto my laptop to play.

 

[Appledrop]

i dont quite understand you say about needing a cd to play - the games are tied to your account? But yea, steam is very convenient for those of us who have fast connections 🙂

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Azzy64
i dont quite understand you say about needing a cd to play - the games are tied to your account? But yea, steam is very convenient for those of us who have fast connections 🙂

If you bought a retail gmae you NEED the CD's to play. It sucks but to bad I bought the Silver steam package and LOVE it!!! I put it on all my parents home computers and thanksgiving had a big LAN party with all my cousins with just one steam account. Of course you can all play on the internet or atleast on the same server but for a LAN it works great.

 

[Insomniak]

Steam has it's pros and cons. I still think it needs some perfecting, but once all the kinks get ironed out, I think Steam is going to be very, very big.

 

[imported_obsidian]

Sure would be great if I could actually play any MP game off steam. Steam is crappy because Valve doesn't give any damn support for it.

 

[drag]

I can download my Quake3 and doom stuff on to my work computer if I felt like it. I don't because my computer at work stucks, but the option is their anyways.

ftp my.ip.address
cd /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3
prompt
mget *pk3

Then I open up another terminal:
wget ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstu...apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run
chmod +x linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run
./linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run

Wait for the installer to finish, tell it to install it into ~/apps/ directory. Go back to the other terminal go:
cp -i *pk3 ~/apps/quake3/baseq3/
don't let it overwrite any existing pak files.

I can pretty much do the same thing with any game that I play on my machine. (neverwinter nights, ut2004, doom3, quake3, marble madness etc etc etc etc) The worst case is that I'd have to go and dig up a cd key or so, but most of the time it's stored in a configuration file if you know were to look.

So would you care to explain to me how Steam is so superior to this? I don't have any desire or need to pirate anything, but I can't understand how this thing is considured to be anything other then a big PITA. Could you imagine having all your games operate under a different and incompatable DRM protection sceme? Each with their own protocol and standard?

Or is it that you've been b!tch slapped around with useless piracy prevention (useless because they are easily overcome by crackers) crap that you think that something like this is a convenience over what BS you normally have to go thru in order to play a game?

Just say no to DRM. It's not worth it and there are plenty of other people that are more then willing to treat their customers like human beings.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: drag
I can download my Quake3 and doom stuff on to my work computer if I felt like it. I don't because my computer at work stucks, but the option is their anyways.

ftp my.ip.address
cd /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3
prompt
mget *pk3

Then I open up another terminal:
wget <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/linux/linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run">ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/id......nt-1.32b-3.x86.run</a>
chmod +x linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run
./linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run

Wait for the installer to finish, tell it to install it into ~/apps/ directory. Go back to the other terminal go:
cp -i *pk3 ~/apps/quake3/baseq3/
don't let it overwrite any existing pak files.

I can pretty much do the same thing with any game that I play on my machine. (neverwinter nights, ut2004, doom3, quake3, marble madness etc etc etc etc) The worst case is that I'd have to go and dig up a cd key or so, but most of the time it's stored in a configuration file if you know were to look.

So would you care to explain to me how Steam is so superior to this? I don't have any desire or need to pirate anything, but I can't understand how this thing is considured to be anything other then a big PITA. Could you imagine having all your games operate under a different and incompatable DRM protection sceme? Each with their own protocol and standard?

Or is it that you've been b!tch slapped around with useless piracy prevention (useless because they are easily overcome by crackers) crap that you think that something like this is a convenience over what BS you normally have to go thru in order to play a game?

Just say no to DRM. It's not worth it and there are plenty of other people that are more then willing to treat their customers like human beings.

tell me you're kidding right? the point is that 'someone else' is providing the space and resources from which I can access backup copies. You might also think it was wiser to take all your money out of the bank and keep it at home.
I have had ZERO problems with STEAM aside from having a dirt-slow dial-up connection at home. Maybe II'm doing something right or just have a little too much patience.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Hardcore
Yep, i love Steam too. The people that bitch about it probably weren't planning on buying it anyways, and just wanted a pirated copy. And now that it's out, it's quieted down a bit.

Not exactly...I'd say that HL2 (Retail Collector's Edition) taking several hours to unlock/authenticate/decrypt the game files through Steam is a valid complaint. (I bought the game for a friend and Steam seems to be just making things more complicated than they need to be.)

And that's not even counting the problems with the installer, and Steam refusing to update itself so it just spit out an error message...so we had to kill the old Steam process at the exact moment that the new one showed up... The point is, some people are obviously having real problems with Steam, and while it could be a decent idea (though I prefer the "old" way of releasing games), Valve obviously needed to put a bit more work into it before releasing the biggest game of the year through such a system.

 

[datalink7]

Steam is great IMO. I've never had a problem with it... even from day 1.

 

[drag]

tell me you're kidding right? the point is that 'someone else' is providing the space and resources from which I can access backup copies. You might also think it was wiser to take all your money out of the bank and keep it at home.

How much does your harddrive cost? How much does 2-3gigs of whatever space going to cost you?
How much does it cost you to use your internet connection from your home?

So how much time, effort, and money is Steam going to save you by using their "resources"?

 

[spunkz]

it really is a much more convenient way to distribute games and patches. plus developers get the chance to fix problems for everyone instantly, rather than having to wait for a bunch of fixes before releasing a big 1.1 patch like many other games.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Steam has it's pros and cons. I still think it needs some perfecting, but once all the kinks get ironed out, I think Steam is going to be very, very big.

Very, very big. Especially when you consider that Valve gets all the profits from games sold on Steam. Once the bugs get ironed out, I'd love to see other developers using their own versions of Steam to release their titles. IMO, this would get rid of the lousy publishers forcing releases before the Devs are finished, etc. Would allow for a more vibrant gaming market. Its not hard to get internet bandwidth or a domain name these days either.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: drag

tell me you're kidding right? the point is that 'someone else' is providing the space and resources from which I can access backup copies. You might also think it was wiser to take all your money out of the bank and keep it at home.

How much does your harddrive cost? How much does 2-3gigs of whatever space going to cost you?
How much does it cost you to use your internet connection from your home?

So how much time, effort, and money is Steam going to save you by using their "resources"?

Well as far as the hard drive is concerned, I wouldn't want to have the whole installation package sitting on it for months to come 'just' in case I need to install it from some distant location. I really don't have 5gb for dusty software. And well the clincher is that I don't have broadband at home, so remote uploading/downloading is out of the question. If I were to get broadband just for this purpose, it'd be about 30/month. so Steam saves me that much at least.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Steam has it's pros and cons. I still think it needs some perfecting, but once all the kinks get ironed out, I think Steam is going to be very, very big.

Very, very big. Especially when you consider that Valve gets all the profits from games sold on Steam. Once the bugs get ironed out, I'd love to see other developers using their own versions of Steam to release their titles. IMO, this would get rid of the lousy publishers forcing releases before the Devs are finished, etc. Would allow for a more vibrant gaming market. Its not hard to get internet bandwidth or a domain name these days either.

the one thing I don't understand is why they didn't lower the price on online sales, since they don't have to give anyone else a cut.

 

[CubicZirconia]

Originally posted by: gururu

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Steam has it's pros and cons. I still think it needs some perfecting, but once all the kinks get ironed out, I think Steam is going to be very, very big.

Very, very big. Especially when you consider that Valve gets all the profits from games sold on Steam. Once the bugs get ironed out, I'd love to see other developers using their own versions of Steam to release their titles. IMO, this would get rid of the lousy publishers forcing releases before the Devs are finished, etc. Would allow for a more vibrant gaming market. Its not hard to get internet bandwidth or a domain name these days either.

the one thing I don't understand is why they didn't lower the price on online sales, since they don't have to give anyone else a cut.

People are used to paying 50 dollars a game. Why lower it if you don't have to? They're in this to make money for themselves, not to save it for you.

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: drag
So would you care to explain to me how Steam is so superior to this? I don't have any desire or need to pirate anything, but I can't understand how this thing is considured to be anything other then a big PITA. Could you imagine having all your games operate under a different and incompatable DRM protection sceme? Each with their own protocol and standard?

I just double click on the game name to download it, so there.

 

[Slogun]

Call me old fashioned.

I prefer the old fashioned methods to steam.

Steam is just too much "Big Brother" for my taste (like Microsoft and their product activation).

-And it's my preference, my opinion, so don't b*tch to me about it.

 

[BFG10K]

I don't even need the retail CD!!! of course I can't play it without the CD, but it saves me some time...

How does it save you time? You still need the CD and there's no way broadband will install faster than a local CD/DVD ROM drive so tell me, what are you saving?

All you're doing is wasting bandwidth, nothing else.

Steam is just too much "Big Brother" for my taste (like Microsoft and their product activation).

Steam is nothing like product activation. I can still get standalone patches and non-activation versions of Windows from Microsoft plus they can't remove my license anytime they feel like it, unlike Valve/Vivendi. If you read the HL2 EULA you don't actually own anything nor are you entitled to anything.

 

[fwtong]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I don't even need the retail CD!!! of course I can't play it without the CD, but it saves me some time...

How does it save you time? You still need the CD and there's no way broadband will install faster than a local CD/DVD ROM drive so tell me, what are you saving?

All you're doing is wasting bandwidth, nothing else.

Steam is just too much "Big Brother" for my taste (like Microsoft and their product activation).

Steam is nothing like product activation. I can still get standalone patches and non-activation versions of Windows from Microsoft plus they can't remove my license anytime they feel like it, unlike Valve/Vivendi. If you read the HL2 EULA you don't actually own anything nor are you entitled to anything.

Uh, that really shouldn't surprise you. It's called an End User LICENSE Agreement for a reason. It's a license to use and doesn't confer ownership rights.

Have you read the Microsoft EULA? The Windows XP REQUIRES Activation.

Mandatory Activation. The license rights granted under this
EULA are limited to the first thirty (30) days after
you first install the Product unless you supply
information required to activate your licensed copy in
the manner described during the setup sequence of the
Product. You can activate the Product through the use
of the Internet or telephone; toll charges may apply.
You may also need to reactivate the Product if you modify
your computer hardware or alter the Product. There are
technological measures in this Product that are designed
to prevent unlicensed or illegal use of the Product.
You agree that we may use those measures.

According to the Microsoft EULA, the only thing that users are entitled to do is use Windows XP, subject to Microsoft's restrictions. They don't grant any other rights.

The Microsoft EULA is just about as draconian as any other, because they disclaim all warranties and liabilites. I haven't read Valve's EULA, but I'm sure it's pretty much an industry standard EULA.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I don't even need the retail CD!!! of course I can't play it without the CD, but it saves me some time...

How does it save you time? You still need the CD and there's no way broadband will install faster than a local CD/DVD ROM drive so tell me, what are you saving?
All you're doing is wasting bandwidth, nothing else.

it took me an hour to install HL2 from STEAM. Otherwise, I'd have had to drive home, get the cd, drive back, then install the game. Would've taken 2 hours. Steam saved me an hour. 😛

 

[BFG10K]

It's a license to use and doesn't confer ownership rights.

But you don't have a license to use HL2. Well you do until Valve decides you don't. Nobody, not even Microsoft can force you stop using Windows unlike Valve who can enforce it through Steam.

The Windows XP REQUIRES Activation.

Uh no, the corporate edition does not. Besides after you activate Windows it can run indefinitely unlike HL2 which Valve can shut down at any time they like.

I haven't read Valve's EULA

That much is clear. You'd do youself a service to do so at the earliest opportunity.

 

[BFG10K]

it took me an hour to install HL2 from STEAM.

And 5-10 minutes off CD/DVD. Where are you saving time?

Otherwise, I'd have had to drive home, get the cd, drive back, then install the game

You have to do that anyway as the game doesn't run without it. So again I ask, where is this time saving you claim to have made?

(BTW I'm not trying to slam anyone here, I just don't like the concept of Steam).

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

it took me an hour to install HL2 from STEAM.

And 5-10 minutes off CD/DVD. Where are you saving time?

Otherwise, I'd have had to drive home, get the cd, drive back, then install the game

You have to do that anyway as the game doesn't run without it. So again I ask, where is this time saving you claim to have made?

(BTW I'm not trying to slam anyone here, I just don't like the concept of Steam).

actually the game installation (all 4-5 discs) took me around 15 minutes. I won't be able to play the game until tomorrow. Now, I don't have to worry about finding time during the day to install it. It's there. Complements of Steam. Not just that, but I don't have to carry all the discs with me. I'll have the cd tomorrow ready to crank up some HL2 love.
Believe me, if you were in my situation, bored out of my mind sitting there waiting for experiments to happen on a saturday afternoon, you'd have used Steam too. 🙂