Phone number for Steampowered? Hotline for Valve or Steam?...

[darklinedesign]

Does anyone know of a number that I can call to speak with someone from the R & D team, or at least someone who manages Valve or Steampowered technical support. If not that high up at least a support hotline for their online games so I can ask a question and get a satisfying response. I've used steampowered.com and after 3 years of asking this question through help desk and emails have still not received a decent answer. I just found a THQ hotline at this number 818-880-0456, but I haven't tried it yet because it's too late to call, I'll try tomorrow. I don't know if they answer questions regarding online games for Half Life 2 or not but I'll find out tomorrow. If anyone know a better number I can call to ask a question regarding HL2: Deathmatch please post if for me here, thanks.:sniper::x:cheers:

 

[AtomicSpark]

Ask the question here!

 

[darklinedesign]

I want to know of a way to use old demos in HL2: Deathmatch. All Steampowered has given me everytime I ask is, "no we can't help you with that, updates make old demos unplayable". I ask specific questions about it and all I get is, "No we can't help you with that". It's ridiculous how terrible the support is. I want to speak with someone from the R & D team so that I'm talking to someone who actually knows what they're talking about and get a satisfying answer as to why they have it so that old demos won't work. Is it a technical issue they didn't forsee, or something they did on purpose, who knows they won't answer that question no matter how many different ways I ask.

 

[Operational]

Demo's work by replaying the input received in a game therefore replicating the events of the game for you.
Updates screw with demo's because updates change the way the game is played in some way so the same input creates a different result which turns the replay into garbage.

 

[darklinedesign]

Demo's work by replaying the input received in a game therefore replicating the events of the game for you.
Updates screw with demo's because updates change the way the game is played in some way so the same input creates a different result which turns the replay into garbage.

Yeah, I know. So they should offer previous install states of the game pre updated style, for people going as far back as they have versions of backed up in their Development database, I'm sure that the R&D Team have the files somewhere prior to any updating. Ones that don't actually connect to any servers but that just give people the ability to use their demos, a lot of people make Frag highlight videos to promote their website, or clan, or whatever they got going on. Then they go into their demos where they had everything ready to go, demos they worked on creating camera angles and etc., then as soon as they go to do the recording there's an update and then they lose all of their work.

Not to mention, people have been creating stand alone versions of the game that can play separately from the Steam agent for reasons like this just so they don't have to deal with Steampowered.com anymore. The people who do this learn how the games programming language works and then whenever Valve releases a game to play on Steam, it can be modified by these same people so that you don't need Steam anymore. That's a security risk for the Steam agent and I don't see why they would do that, make the client they use to make their money a target for hackers who are pissed off by their lack of customer service. It's one thing to make the demos unplayable, but then to not have a customer service that allows people who this has upset to be unable to understand why, is just plain Fk'd UP!


Basically the ticket system doesn't work, and they need a new system. I work in advertising and profit is 100% all about the name of what you are trying to sell, you think anyone would want to buy a game for this when they read the 1,000s of forums about the terrible customer support that Steam games have, hell no. I bet if I worked for em, I could help boost sales 25% on steampowered games and actually create a system for customer support that uses less resources and works 10x better.

 

[darklinedesign]

By saying why, I meant that I want to know why they can't give me an option to set my game files to a previous state just for the purpose of watching demos or anything else that the updates might screw up, there was once the ability to use rapid fire with the Gravity Gun. If people want to play with that ability their should be a version of the game they can go back to where they can play on servers that have the same version, and they wonder why CSS has a 1/60 ratio of players to HL2: Deathmatch and games like it.

 

[Dekstar]

If you know that people have upped non-steam versions that'll let you view your demo files, go ahead, but you won't get support for them here when they break.
Your ideas about keeping back versions of servers sucks. Exploits are named as such because they need to be fixed to make the games play better. If servers could decide to change to an older version, they're opening their system up to potential bugs, even crashes, and previously mentioned exploits.

Good for you and your 'work in advertising' for wanting to re-release a faulty product though.

 

[darklinedesign]

If you know that people have upped non-steam versions that'll let you view your demo files, go ahead, but you won't get support for them here when they break.
Your ideas about keeping back versions of servers sucks. Exploits are named as such because they need to be fixed to make the games play better. If servers could decide to change to an older version, they're opening their system up to potential bugs, even crashes, and previously mentioned exploits.

Good for you and your 'work in advertising' for wanting to re-release a faulty product though.

I never said anything about re-releasing a faulty product, I know you just busting my chops but what the hell are you talking about? I hope you are just trying to give me a hard time because if you actually think you made any sense at all, then you need help. Old versions of the games worked for a large number of people, if there was a bug in a certain version of the game that made the users entire computer crash then yeah don't make that version available, but it's still worth it to give people the old gameplay style back. Fast weapon switching for the gravgun, and other little shortcuts that made the game interesting and unique were removed by updates. If someone gets comfortable with an old version of a software program like adobe Premiere for example, and they don't want the newer one because they like the old one better, or how some people like classic cars better than new ones, they are given the option to stick with what they want. They're not forced to update just cause someone else thinks they've created a better version.

 

[Dekstar]

Comparing Steam games to a new version of an Adobe program (Assuming you mean, say, a jump from CS3 to CS4) is redundant because the games are freely updated, while those are entirely new programs that you have to pay for. Minor updates are usually applied automatically by most new programs, and I'm sure you don't turn automatic updates off do you? Well, unless you pirated the program...

Although I will concede that images still worked with older versions of, say, photoshop, but engine changes are a lot more complicated. Yes, a little bit of hindsight planning by VALVe and older demos might have worked, but just the sheer amount of effort to keep legacy versions of games hanging around so a few people can watch their old demos, and a few more people can play with features that a large portion of the community deems exploitive is in no way cost effective, no matter which way you market it.

So like I said, you're welcome to go rooting out older versions of your games for your demos on various piracy sites, but you obviously wouldn't get support from anyone about it (not even the pirates). Also letting you know in advance that there is a policy on this forum and others that talking about piracy is not allowed. Best thing would just be to load up your game as soon as you have a 'movie-worthy' demo and convert it to AVI/whatever in future.

 

[Operational]

Basically the ticket system doesn't work, and they need a new system.

Playing old demos is not a feature Valve currently offers - your asking for something that the support system doesn't and shouldn't deal with. Feature suggestions go on the steam fourms or emailed to the dev's. The support system should deal with problems with existing features and nothing else. Although I wonder if demos are something Valve officially supports as a feature to begin with - most things outside of a GUI aren't.

By saying why, I meant that I want to know why they can't give me an option to set my game files to a previous state just for the purpose of watching demos or anything else that the updates might screw up

I agree that ideally there would be a way to play old demo's. But it would be a lot of effort and bandwidth being spent on something only a very small percentage of players will use. I do think that there should be a way to play old demos but I can't fault Valve for not thinking it's worth it. Recently the TF2 dev's wanted to hear from the competitive community where I'm sure the issue of broken demos would've been raised maybe we'll see some results of that (but I wouldn't hold my breath).

there was once the ability to use rapid fire with the Gravity Gun. If people want to play with that ability their should be a version of the game they can go back to where they can play on servers that have the same version

Valve have moved dealing with patches and version numbers outside the purview of the user. This is a customer service decision and I think you'll find it's easily supported by the majority of Steam users. It's especially useful in Valves current titles like TF2 and L4D which are constantly being updated - I'd go so far as to say that Valves post-release policy for those titles could not be done without Steam.

Also who wants to split your server population over innumerable small changes?

they wonder why CSS has a 1/60 ratio of players to HL2: Deathmatch and games like it.

Right because it has nothing to do people liking one game more than another? Not to mention that auto-updates apply to all Valve games including CSS.

 

[Dekstar]

Operational just affirmed everything I said, but he said it much better. I imagined reading it in a sexy deep voice with 80's porn music in the background.

 

[darklinedesign]

Also, who wants to split your server population over innumerable small changes?

They already do, each server comes with its own settings defined by the administrator. That's why when you play the game, you find certain people playing on certain servers almost every time they play because they like the settings better. The more options there are the more likely it is that you will find the server that agrees with your style of playing.

it's easily supported by the majority of Steam users

Yeah, majority rules right? What about everyone else, this is what I was talking about before about dropping the ball. Just because the majority thinks things should be a certain way, doesn't mean there isn't a simple solution for the rest. It just seems like to me and a lot of others that there isn't time at all being spent on it, past "I don't know how to make that work", then someone else saying, "Ok moving on". Yeah, adobe makes updates but no I've never noticed complete elements of the program to change like in these Steam games without the choice to keep things the way you have them. Steam doesn't offer users who don't agree with a system that updates without their consent anything, it just moves on and up. Old demos don't play, game element like fast weapon switching being changed, if you don't like it there should be certain servers that offer these. It wouldn't take that much time, they could hire like 2 more programmers or what have you who I'm sure are out there and would love a job, to take care of this. The cost / benefit ratio of this makes it worth it when you take into consideration how many people stop playing Valve games for reasons like this. Trust me, I'm good with sales figures. As far as bandwidth goes it would be balanced cost / benefit wise as much as it is now or better.

I'm sure the issue of broken demos would've been raised maybe we'll see some results of that (but I wouldn't hold my breath).

By the way, I finally got a semi positive response from the ticket system at Steampowered. It said...

It is recommended that you use a 3rd party program such as FRAPS to record and preserve your demos.

We realize the downfalls of the current demo system and have plans to remedy the existing system's downfalls in the future.

Yeah, ok record all my demos. HAHAHA, you know how long it would take to play back every demo you make and record it and hope there's no frame drop during recording. Not to mention you lose the GUI capabilities, but at least they know there's a problem. Until they sent me that from what it seemed like prior to this response they didn't realize it at all. That bit there at the end about plans to remedy the system, yeah like you said I wouldn't hold my breath, I'm sure some people have their fingers crossed though.

Right because it has nothing to do people liking one game more than another? Not to mention that auto-updates apply to all Valve games including CSS.

Oh yeah, of course people in general like CSS better than Deathmatch no doubt, but obviously people who play Deathmatch like it more than CSS, because it suites what they need from a game to keep them interested more than the other. I had a friend that use to play CSS, and as far as I know the game configuration didn't leave a lot of room for dramatic changes the way the Physics of weaponry did in Deathmatch. The amount of things you could do in Deathmatch were so vast any little change would effect your entire style of playing the game. Anyway, that's besides the point. The point is that people who like Deathmatch more, and those who stopped playing it because they couldn't keep up with the updates and changes, would still be playing and promoting the game which died off very quickly from what I remember and that ratio wouldn't be so bad.

 

[darklinedesign]

By the way, look at this thread for a minute. See how long it is, do you know how many threads there are like it out there in the forums. If the support system was better, and I have suggested a much better system on another forum here...

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=860945

then that wouldn't be the case. Basically over all, it seems like Valve isn't spending the money they're making on the kind of resources that would boost sales and the company name like they should be. It seems like it's going to more secondary things first.

 

[Dekstar]

Steam doesn't offer users who don't agree with a system that updates without their consent anything, it just moves on and up.

You can turn off auto-updating for your Steam games. If you don't agree with an update, you can turn it off.
Also, since you're obviously not averse to downloading old game files, why don't you start backing up all the GCF's from your Steamapps folder. That way, when an update comes, you have all the game files from before the update. Close steam, unplug your ethernet and swap out the GCFs, then go back into steam, offline mode, and try loading the old files. You might get lucky.

 

[darklinedesign]

From what I know if I try to load Deathmatch and an update is ready for it, I don't get an option to play unless I do the update. If I'm wrong about that, it's been awhile since I've played the game by the way, then there still isn't an option to set the game back the way it was before updating so it wouldn't really help. Also, the GCF being the same doesn't really matter does it? If that's all that needs to be swapped out I guess I could look online for old GCFs because I didn't back up the one I needed to back in the day because I didn't know an update would make my demos unplayable. Actually I remember once, I did do something that made it possible to play an old demo after an update made it unplayable but I don't remember what I did. I do think though that I tried just using an old GCF but that wasn't enough, I believe I needed another backed up file but not sure what it was, or maybe more than one actually.

Now that I think about it, one solution for this would be a file updating system where there would be a drag and drop option on the Steam app that would allow you to drop old demos in and the information attached to the demo would be updated by Steam so it would match the new version of the game and you could play the demo. I'm not a really good programmer of course but that might be possible.

 

[Operational]

*bump*

This is relevant:

It's getting close to being releasable in a beta form. The idea is that after you die or finish a round, and it was a round you were particularly happy with (maybe you scored an awesome kill, or saved the entire team with an ubercharge), you can ask the server to send you a demo of it. The server then sends you a demo that it recorded, which has the complete game state instead of just what your client saw, and it's in a format that's robust and won't break as easily when we update the game. In addition, the format has a some side benefits, like supporting full backwards & forwards time scrubbing.

http://www.tfportal.de/?site=article_details&id=61&lang=en

 

[Dekstar]

That sounds excellent! *fingers crossed* it comes to CSS too.

 

[timmy]

Hello. I have recently purchased FSW (Full Spectrum Warrior) pack for $14.99. I installed the regular one (Not ten hammers) and played the game for about an hour but then the graphics glitched out and froze my computer for about five minute before resulting in the game closing. I then started the game again and brought me to the first screen then froze again. The sound worked and i could move my cursor but i still couldn't do anything.I have to restart the pc if want to play it again but starts the whole process again. I meet all the graphics specs and then some, yet it continues to crash. please help

 

[timmy]

Hello. I have recently purchased FSW (Full Spectrum Warrior) pack for $14.99. I installed the regular one (Not ten hammers) and played the game for about an hour but then the graphics glitched out and froze my computer for about five minute before resulting in the game closing. I then started the game again and brought me to the first screen then froze again. The sound worked and i could move my cursor but i still couldn't do anything.I have to restart the pc if want to play it again but starts the whole process again. I meet all the graphics specs and then some, yet it continues to crash. please help

Sorry its not about hl2 but im desperate please help!!!

 

[Vegeta897]

Try posting here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=269

HL2.net isn't very reliable for steam game support that isn't Valve related.

 

[ríomhaire]

Hello. I have recently purchased FSW (Full Spectrum Warrior) pack for $14.99. I installed the regular one (Not ten hammers) and played the game for about an hour but then the graphics glitched out and froze my computer for about five minute before resulting in the game closing. I then started the game again and brought me to the first screen then froze again. The sound worked and i could move my cursor but i still couldn't do anything.I have to restart the pc if want to play it again but starts the whole process again. I meet all the graphics specs and then some, yet it continues to crash. please help

This is a Valve fan site. We have nothing to do with Steam or the games that are sold via it.

Anyway, I just had a glance at the Full Spectrum Warrior forums on Steampowered and they said to tell Windows Firewall to block Full Spectrum Warrior from connecting to the internet fixes crashing issues. For some reason the game crashes when it tries to connect to the internet.

Here is another possible solution.

If the above fails try THQ's support. There are links here.