Vino
Hunter
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
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I'm starting this thread inspired by the Microsoft Crash Gallery.
I want to make a note as to why I'm starting the thread. I'm not bashing Steam, it's an excellent concept, but with less then desireble implementation. I hope to bring attention to its defects, so that they mey be fixed in the future. Without further ado:
Part I - Steam Bugs
Got this just after spawning into a TFC server running dustbowl. I still can't play dustbowl.
This seems to be a common error in Steam.
I can't decide whether to play Checkers or...Checkers.
As you can see, it's asking me if I want to close a game of Go, although I'm playing Chess. This is actually the symptom of another problem, windows which you've closed a while ago seem to pop up again later, sometimes more then once. Alas, I was indeed playing Go two or three minutes before this window appeared.
I'm pretty sure this is a steam error...
Note the strange character in Dunsel's name...this seems to occur when there is only one player on a server.
This is probably related to the content servers being down...but what the hell is a Steam Ticket?
If you have any images of the likewise, go ahead and put them on the net and PM me, or if you need a host I can do that too. Try to save them as a png.
Part II - Steam Complaints
I'm going to spare you the "omfg theres not enough content servers" part, my complaints with Steam hold more weight.
First off Valve, I think Steam was a good idea. If it was only the content servers that had needed upgrading, you guys would be in pretty good shape. However, in your shift from the beta version to the full client, you indroduced alot of bugs. Don't you guys betatest your software, forgive the pun? There's so many things that could have easily been solved by the programmer when he wrote it... Sometimes I get the impression that Valve rushed Steam to gold simply so they would be on schedule for HL2. Here's a small list of minor things that irk me:
-Copy/paste doesn't work (for me) and doesn't copy line returns (for anyone)
-Run Steam.exe while Steam is running and it will complain that Steam is running. Can't it just open the Steam window?
-Steam can never decide if it's updating a game or not.
-Steam takes almost an entire minute to boot, and doesn't seem to shut down. Half an hour after I "Exit Steam", Steam.exe is still truckin away.
-Steam is not robust, and cannot cover for it's mistakes. It leaves many stray files around the disk, and will not resume an interrupted process (i.e. converting files during installation.)
-Steam cannot account for processes it spawns. Oftentimes, an already-running version of hl.exe will cause Steam to refuse to run another copy. Win98 users, who are not able to manually kill this process, will be stuck rebooting their computer.
(PM me and I'll add to the list.)
Lastly, I must complain about the closedness of Steam. Sometimes I feel that Valve is taking lessons on business from Microsoft, and I'm not suprised looking at Gabe's former profession. Steam gives unambiguous messages that mean nothing to the end user. For example, while installing, I read a message that went something like, "Pre-loading files from disk." What on earth does pre-loading mean? What is it for? Why do I need it? What are you pre-loading? Where are you pre-loading it to? How long does it take? Why is it taking so long? I'm also informed that during this stage of the installation, Steam was contacting the Steam servers constantly, and since the Steam servers were slow, so was my installation. I would have never known this looking at my installation screen. "Pre-loading files from disk" is only a step above a useless message such as "Steam is doing...something."
End users are frustrated by vague messages, and programs that don't respond. How hard is it to throw us a bone as to what's going on with our own computer? Instead of "Preparing to play Team Fortress Classic..." why not a more informative message such as, "Checking Steam Servers for updated content" or "Starting hl.exe -console -game tfc" ? What's so hard about this, Valve? If you would simply throw us a small bone as to what's going on, I can guaruntee you that the number of complaints you will get about how stupid Steam is will be cut in dead half. Also, don't forget progress indicators while booting, shutting down, etc. In fact...put them everywhere.
And now, follows is discussion by other people at HL2.net who feel the same way I do, who want to list some problems they have about Steam. Try not to mention the content servers, Valve knows about this. Also, try not to just say "I agree", say why, say something useful.
I want to make a note as to why I'm starting the thread. I'm not bashing Steam, it's an excellent concept, but with less then desireble implementation. I hope to bring attention to its defects, so that they mey be fixed in the future. Without further ado:
Part I - Steam Bugs
Got this just after spawning into a TFC server running dustbowl. I still can't play dustbowl.
This seems to be a common error in Steam.
I can't decide whether to play Checkers or...Checkers.
As you can see, it's asking me if I want to close a game of Go, although I'm playing Chess. This is actually the symptom of another problem, windows which you've closed a while ago seem to pop up again later, sometimes more then once. Alas, I was indeed playing Go two or three minutes before this window appeared.
I'm pretty sure this is a steam error...
Note the strange character in Dunsel's name...this seems to occur when there is only one player on a server.
This is probably related to the content servers being down...but what the hell is a Steam Ticket?
If you have any images of the likewise, go ahead and put them on the net and PM me, or if you need a host I can do that too. Try to save them as a png.
Part II - Steam Complaints
I'm going to spare you the "omfg theres not enough content servers" part, my complaints with Steam hold more weight.
First off Valve, I think Steam was a good idea. If it was only the content servers that had needed upgrading, you guys would be in pretty good shape. However, in your shift from the beta version to the full client, you indroduced alot of bugs. Don't you guys betatest your software, forgive the pun? There's so many things that could have easily been solved by the programmer when he wrote it... Sometimes I get the impression that Valve rushed Steam to gold simply so they would be on schedule for HL2. Here's a small list of minor things that irk me:
-Copy/paste doesn't work (for me) and doesn't copy line returns (for anyone)
-Run Steam.exe while Steam is running and it will complain that Steam is running. Can't it just open the Steam window?
-Steam can never decide if it's updating a game or not.
-Steam takes almost an entire minute to boot, and doesn't seem to shut down. Half an hour after I "Exit Steam", Steam.exe is still truckin away.
-Steam is not robust, and cannot cover for it's mistakes. It leaves many stray files around the disk, and will not resume an interrupted process (i.e. converting files during installation.)
-Steam cannot account for processes it spawns. Oftentimes, an already-running version of hl.exe will cause Steam to refuse to run another copy. Win98 users, who are not able to manually kill this process, will be stuck rebooting their computer.
(PM me and I'll add to the list.)
Lastly, I must complain about the closedness of Steam. Sometimes I feel that Valve is taking lessons on business from Microsoft, and I'm not suprised looking at Gabe's former profession. Steam gives unambiguous messages that mean nothing to the end user. For example, while installing, I read a message that went something like, "Pre-loading files from disk." What on earth does pre-loading mean? What is it for? Why do I need it? What are you pre-loading? Where are you pre-loading it to? How long does it take? Why is it taking so long? I'm also informed that during this stage of the installation, Steam was contacting the Steam servers constantly, and since the Steam servers were slow, so was my installation. I would have never known this looking at my installation screen. "Pre-loading files from disk" is only a step above a useless message such as "Steam is doing...something."
End users are frustrated by vague messages, and programs that don't respond. How hard is it to throw us a bone as to what's going on with our own computer? Instead of "Preparing to play Team Fortress Classic..." why not a more informative message such as, "Checking Steam Servers for updated content" or "Starting hl.exe -console -game tfc" ? What's so hard about this, Valve? If you would simply throw us a small bone as to what's going on, I can guaruntee you that the number of complaints you will get about how stupid Steam is will be cut in dead half. Also, don't forget progress indicators while booting, shutting down, etc. In fact...put them everywhere.
And now, follows is discussion by other people at HL2.net who feel the same way I do, who want to list some problems they have about Steam. Try not to mention the content servers, Valve knows about this. Also, try not to just say "I agree", say why, say something useful.
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