Do you like steam?

[D33]

I'd like to set a poll up on this simply out of curiousity. I joined #steam on quakenet the other night and was amazed at the 400 people in it. Then I joined #anti-steam and was simply blown away at the 600 people in that, and that was just one of several big anti-steam channels.

I personally feel as though half the problems caused when setting steam up were down to people simply being impatient. When something is busy on a Microsoft OS it gives the same symptoms as a programme that's crashed.

Although I left steam installing overnight and woke up to find no problems I do find it remarkably slow and although I haven't experienced a crash yet ( i'll prob get one now - sods law ) I do seem to find half of the buttons don't actually do anything.

"Preparing to play Half-Life Deathmatch..."

Well bloody prepare already. It's been 10 minutes :/


Anyway.. on with the poll.

 

[GOoch]

No Probs with it at all

 

[Unaimed]

well, my steam crashes every 10 minutes, so i have to say i dont like it.

 

[dawdler]

I would say no... Mostly because I cant play shit. Nothing works and Steam just keeps freakin out, one way or another.

But also because I HATE the fact that I have absolutely no idea what it is doing most of the time. And without a Steam forum, no help can be gotten by those that know. I still think this is the worst possible time to have it down. Steam is a pretty neat concept, but its like throwing a Carl Gustaf AT launcher at me and say "BLOW UP THAT TANK SOLDIER!". I have no bloody idea how to use it!

 

[simmo]

I find it funny that the BETA was more stable than this

 

[DeathMark]

Yeah and the beta was pretty unstable

 

[Feath]

Mine worked alright before and now works perfectly. I've tested every main game and a few of the mods.

The key is to let it update my itself. Also if it crashes, wait ten minutes when you start it up again.

Once everything has updated it seems to work fine, so I think a lot of it is a bandwidth issue.

 

[Mackan]

i couldnt use steam beta..
version 1.0 works fine.. tho i havent played any games with it yet, couse ive uninstalled hl

 

[Nuclear_Gerber]

24 hours after I downloaded it everything woked like a charm. And I really like the "friends" window. plus my skin owns

 

[Ti133700N]

Yep, works fine for me too. First time i play HL death match!! It's sooooooo cool ;-)

 

[niddhoggr]

I don't like it at all.

 

[GraphicFoxx]

I'd say no for now. The beta I liked, and I actually like the concept of it. But the conversion mess-up, and the 'preparing' thing like D33 said, are quite annoying. Right now I can't play anything off of steam. I did wait for it to update and all that, but no go. Maybe I'll try installing again.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Field of Dreams:
"if you build it, they will come"

they built it, and sure as hell we killed their content servers, its all a matter of time till all these problems are sorted out and everyone forgets about this little stint in steams history.

*double thumbs up*
I had problems at first, and its not loading now. but its still worth it

 

[Marauder]

http://halflife2.homelan.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7090

Let me direct your attention to an answer to the current slow and freezing/idling problems.

 

[Guest]

how come i keep getting the message "Prepare to play <game name>" whenever i click on a color icon in the list of games. I install the steam with hl and cs precache, but it still give the same message, wtf can i do? it's been two days, even i used to support steam, i thought it's great project, but now i ask valve to stop using steam please.

 

[DigiQ8]

HAH !
an easy Q

 

[Sporky]

Yeah.. On the whole I still support steam but there's definitely major problems still to sort out.

Mostly I suspect down to bandwith provision. They need more servers. Badly. Like Elf needs food! Aaah well.

I have to say though if HL2 doesn't come out like 2 months in advance of the retail version over steam I think I might stick it out and buy it over the counter so to speak. And after my wholly positive beta experience I was planning on purchasing it over Steam originally.

Here's hoping the kinks (and fairly nasty snarls they seem to be) are sorted out sooner rather than later.

 

[XaTrIx]

Steam sucks.

Takes 10 minutes to start. When its finnaly started, it constantly writes/reads to disk sometimes. Sometimes when i click on games is locks up. Preparing to play message kept staring at me, i let it on and went to bed, next morning it was still there. When i exit steam, it just removes the icon, the process is still there. I have to exit it manually from Task manager. The steam messenger is the worst part. I talked to a friend on both Aim and steam messenger. On aim, the messages came almost instantly, steam took over 30 seconds sometimes, and half of the messages doesnt even get there. Sometimes he can read what i say, but his messages wont get back. It seams that everything I do, gets sent to valves server, then, if its a message, its sent to whoever i talk to. Steam is the worst software ever made. The idea is good though.
I wish Valve would scrap steam and go with a standard single retail unit.

 

[mwells_cubed]

I think it's pretty darn neat.

I haven't had any of the problem listed yet. Though I am a bit miffed that I can't play Sven Co-op, but that's an addressed issue that's going to be patched soon.

The odd thing is, I'm not on a monster rig, my ISP is notoriously mediocre(RoadRunner), I have XP Home.. There is nothing special, or remarkable about my computer that would give me an advantage for avoiding these bugs!

I guess I just get lucky, which is how it usually turns out for me when it comes to unstable programs.

Everything loads up relatively quick, considering my processor(800MHz Pentium 3).

I enjoyed a game of CS 1.6 with not a problem. Can't say that I particularly enjoyed it, but it was a bug-free game nonetheless.

I think you people should give Steam some time to mature. I'm not too happy about the loss of WON, but I think Steam will redeem itself over time. Rolling patches, more security, slick interface(could use a bit of work, I guess), I think it'll be worth it.

 

[[NST]Cifu]

This is like hell...

The Valve forced us to use this piece of crap. I have an ISDN connection, and to connect to a game i need around 20-60 minutes!!! The only thing the Valve can achieve this, to the players choose an another type of game...

Personaly, i abandon the CS 1.6, and begin to play the IL-2 Forgotten Battles....

 

[Feath]

Originally posted by [NST]Cifu
This is like hell...

The Valve forced us to use this piece of crap. I have an ISDN connection, and to connect to a game i need around 20-60 minutes!!! The only thing the Valve can achieve this, to the players choose an another type of game...

Personaly, i abandon the CS 1.6, and begin to play the IL-2 Forgotten Battles....

Actually, you haven't been "Forced". The WON servers are still up. You will be "Forced" to use Steam once the WON servers go down but Valve have said (a number of times) that they aren't going to shut down the WON servers until the Steam Issues have been sorted out.

Try again in a few days, and things may have improved, if not then don't use Steam until you have to.

 

[Login_Here]

I dont like Steam right now, but thanks to one of the guys in #halflife2 i got a Swedish link so right now i am downloading the Steam, CS 1.6 and HL 1.1.2.0 install so i will see if it works better.

 

[tacobc]

Do I like Steam?

The look of TFC has improved somewhat. I like the fact that you can still see the action around you when you're in the menu. The teleporters are ok I guess.

But the install is the computer equivalent of root-canal surgery. It must be improved.

Things that I miss in Steam: a progress bar. More transparency about what it is doing. A button to kill any downloads it is doing without your consent (last night my line was clogged because of some silly 560 kbps download of CS (which I didn't even order) and I could not stop it unless I stopped Steam.

If you hit Cancel during login, Steam exits. Either call it an "Exit" button or fix it. My Steam tickets expires once every four minutes - this is probably due to network outages, but it also
must be fixed.

I also can't paste into a Steam dialog. Fix that. Better yet, make it so that the Steam client remembers what you typed before (name, password) and puts it there once the dialog pops up again - the Mozilla browser does this for instance. Anything that improves the horrible login sequence.

I do not like the advertisements. Yes, they are benign. Yes, they are banners but I cannot click them away. I paid for Counterstrike, I paid for Halflife and now I want an ad-free environment.

The worst thing about Steam is the boilerplate license they make you sign. I've already begun dissecting the protocol because I do not want any unwanted information to go back to Valve, ATI or my mom. Yes, that is against the license but you know what: talk to the hand. I can and will choke Steam on the firewall and once I know what is necessary to play I will kill anything else.

I want a button that says 'update'. I didn't give Microsoft complete authority over my PC - what makes Valve think I'm going to give it to them?

Total score for Steam: 13%


TacoBC is donning the asbestos armor.

 

[DarkHorse]

Steam has to be by far the worst damn thing to happen to HL since ever. I have been a HL playing freak for over 5 years. and I have to say this shit right here with steam has turned this HL playing freak in to an asshole. you would think that with ALL the ppl that play and show them love by buying the games and taking the time to DL shit for this. they would come out with something that ****ing works. I can't even open steam and if it does open it says i'm not connected and or my PW is wrong. the ppl at steam need to take thier damn heads out of there asses and get this shit the way they want. if they want a ****ed up program then they already did their jobs. if the want something that runs right and well, then they need to hit the ****ing books again and fix this ****ing thing. all in all steam can suck me. if HL2 is anything like this i am going to be one pissed off MF. steam can kiss my white ass from here to across the street.................................

 

[tacobc]

I have no problem with the Valve login servers being unreachable. But I do believe that you should put "Network unreachable" on that popup instead of "Your account could not be found."

At best it is rushed coding, but I'm leaning towards laziness. This too, should be fixed.

If you would get a beautiful gift for Christmas, would you still like it so much if it came in a bag with a skunk whose soul had departed two weeks earlier to that place in the sky where skunks are Eternally Blessed?


TacoBC

 

[Pavlos]

Well it sucked when it didn't work, but now it works it's cool.

 

[schaf]

I think it's a great idea, but done not as good as it should!

 

[Nukedukem]

Yay tacobc, that would prbabaly be my sentiments too...if I could login anymore...or if any of the games would still be recognized... *sigh*

 

[RoscoPColdChain]

steam is o.k.....

Steam is pretty bad @$$, obviously because it runs all our favorite games. The only thing wrong with steam is those fuc]{ing bugs. I mean, come on. I know they keep up with the bugs, and they try to fix them, but it seems that every time they make a new version of steam, a new bug forms?!?!?! What's up with that?? Seriously, can't open de_vegas.wad?? wtf is that bull$h!t? Invalid user id cp or some $h!t?? I ALREADY LOGGED IN WTF?!?! You know what I mean.

But other than the bugs, and the laggers that still think they can get some decent CS,HL,or TFC gameplay in with their 56k running AOL on an old skool pentium 2 computer, yea steam is the shizzle for dizzle bizzle my nizzle!!

:smoking:

 

[Gunner]

Thought I'd share this, found this on PHL forums lol don't ask me what I was doin' there : )

"Hey, I just checked out the halflife2.net forums. Everyone there thinks steam is the best thing since quake2. They eat up every little bit Valve tells 'em like it's Tillamook icecream.

I think if steam turns out to be alright, it'll only be because of mass public outcry from the planethalflife community.

I guess they got a letter from Valve that we didn't about the lan authentication. Valve says lan authentication is only for the first few weeks. Funny that this directly contridicts the official steam faq. But who knows, maybe Valve's thinkin' twice about screwing us over too badly afterall.

But still, one must ask "why would Valve have Lan games authenticated for the first few weeks?" It doesn't seem to make sense."

 

[Cyber$nake]

Right now Steam for me rocks. Mainly just because of CS 1.6. Also, ever since i got a Belkin Router, i havnt been able to play CS at ALL from the normal version. But now with steam it works like a miracle. And less lag. And auto updates. And videos. And games. And friends lists.

 

[Asus]

Steam is stable for me and no error and no problems.
Only hold up was when they took Friends offline but that wasnt an error so.
Im on WinXP pro and its rock solid, seems most of the errors are coming from win9x systems...lol

um..btw for those of you complaining about it updating automaticly.
You have it set to do so, there is a setting by right clicking the game where you can make it not autoupdate...dummies. i tell ya

The whole LAN issue, i think it was mainly a piracy issue. How many times have you heard about a guy wondering if his CDkey was going to be used by someone he loaned it to? exactly, they were just trying to cover their butts.
Their logic was, if they connect to steam and choose to use it (activate steam instead of using cd) then they must be on broadband or at least choose to use it online so they should beable to connect and verify single/lan games too. which is true but a hassle especially any connection with dialup.

 

[Ares]

I agree Asus.

I have an Athlon XP 2200+ with a Soltek nForce 2 mainboard. 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM (important!) and a GF3.

Steams runs flawless for me. No bugs, no slowdowns, nothing - no problems what so ever.

I'm thinking most of these people who are getting lock ups have heavily filled or fragmented hard drives, slower rigs, very low amounts of RAM, or they have way to much crap loaded and running (TSRs) on their computer (notably in the systray).

Steam is great IMO. Valve hasn't forcefed me anything to believe it works. It just works. If you have problems with it I'm sorry for you but it's not everyone.

 

[gel]

I can't play on any servers, when I try to join with this build it freezes and sometimes if it's real kind it gives an error msg 'game not avail..' (no matter how many times I restart the bastin thing).

I voted screws my files about, their previous build was better, least I could play then :/