Valve/Steam more like a steaming pile

[cray39]

I just purchased the Orange Box for my son for his birthday last night.

He was excited to get home and play HL2 the episodes, portal and TF2, all in all sounds like a lot of fun for the the $50.

What a nightmare and oh how wrong we were to even buy this junk.

1. Get home and start installation...

2. 6 hours later HL2 and Episode one are done installing and ready to play.
Click on launch in the Steam control panel and it sits there for an eternity and then pops up saying "Game unavailable..blah blah blah"

After searching various sites, find that we can try to delete the .blob file and restart Steam. That didnt work either. We download the rest of the pack and after all night long leaving the updates going they are still not all installed.

3. Was able to get into TF2 once and play a bit. After exitiing though, can not get back in. No matter which game we launch, it sits there and hangs or says game unavailable.

It is absolutely ridiculous the Bull*&^* Valve makes a paying customer go through to play a damn single player game (HL2 and the episodes). We have now spent no less than 12 hours trying to make a stupid game work.

Well, we will be taking this Steaming pile of crap back to the store tomorrow and demanding an exchange for something else or the money back.

I have bought just about every game that comes out and is a highly rated/anticipated game and none of them have ever been such a pain in the rear to play.

I know there are numerous people that is surely works for that does not mind dealing with Steam, but I'll be damned if I am going to be stuck with a product that I paid good money for just to have to fight it tooth and nail to make it work.

To add icing to the cake, I can't even post on the Steam forums. I registered, got my email and validated. I can log in just fine, but says I do not have permission to post a thread or even reply to a thread.

What the hell is Valve smoking? I will never buy another one of their products again.

*edit Forgot to mention I know that this is not a problem with my system.

Core2Duo 6700
2Gb Ram
8800GT
10MB Cable

I can run the Crysis Demo and Bioshock and high settings without a hitch, but can't get Halflife 2 a what? 3 year old game to work....brilliant.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

Good luck getting a refund no stores will exchange or give you your money back cause that product key is useless now.

 

[joule]

I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune. Have a look at the Support Section in hopes to fix this issue you're experiencing.

• Steam Error: This game is currently unavailable
  
• Using a Firewall with Steam

I also encountered a recent error similar to yours, and I'm assuming you're using Vista, so give this command a shot in command prompt. May work, may not.

net localgroup administrators NetworkService /ADD

Also, have you tried submitting a Support Ticket?

If you're planning on returning the Orange Box, good luck. You've already installed and attached the games to your Steam account via product key. I don't know of any stores that take back opened software.

 

[giant384]

spammer?

 

[cray39]

spammer?

Spammer?

heh how the hell am I a spammer for posting 1 single post? You are a moron

I am running this game(or trying to) on Windows XP.

I disabled my firewall and have tried over and over to make this game work, nothing gives.

As for taking it back, I just borrowed a neighbors shrink wrap machine and as far as they will know, it has not been opened.

I have never pirated a game in my life, I have over 200 PC games in a big cabinet, all paid for. On the other hand I refuse to let a developer pirate my money with a game that I cannot play..

I have tried to get help by accessing the forums, but even though I am signed in and it says I am logged in, it says I do not have permission to post...

I am usually pretty patient with games, but after 12 hours unless I find a miracle fix, I am done. As far as I am concerned, I paid for a product that should work out of the box. I have given it more than enough of my time trying to fix it, I cannot get support and feel like I got screwed.

So, not even waiting for tomorrow, headed back to the store now...

 

[joule]

I hope you're denied a refund.

 

[Dekstar]

Since you're never going to use that account again, give me your username and password, and I'll sure use it.

 

[Russian Mafia]

Sounds like a problem on your end, if you bought the retail game then it shouldn't have taken you 6 hours to install.

 

[giant384]

look man people in this thread have helped you as is there steam support to help you. other then that it is something wrong with your computer that you seem to dont bother with and blame the company for it. try updating all your drivers and xp updates.

 

[cray39]

Umm, I tried every suggestion people made related to the problem I was having. The official forums were also not allowing me to even post a damn thread, telling me I did not have permission.

I find it awful funny people have thrashed me because I felt like I received a broken product even though I have zero problems playing a multitude of online games and some of the latest games out on the market on high settings. Yet a game which has been out for a long time will not run...

I think Half Life is a great game actually, but Steam is utter bull crap. Why the hell should I waste my time with some buggy pos web interface which requires me to play a damn single player game, whenever every other game out there I simply double click an icon and am playing in seconds.

Steam is garbage and so unnecessary it is sickening.

I just returned the junk called Orange Box btw. Imagine that, I told them the truth.. "It does not work" I am not satisfied with spending $50 on a game that neither my son or I can play.

 

[cray39]

look man people in this thread have helped you as is there steam support to help you. other then that it is something wrong with your computer that you seem to dont bother with and blame the company for it. try updating all your drivers and xp updates.

I appreciate those that tried to help. But dont F'ing tell me I don't bother to try to resolve the issues. I spent about 12 hours between yesterday and today trying to make it work, it never would.

Sorry, but no game is worth the hassles that this game presented. I have never in my life bought another game that had a problem out of the box, that I could not resolve within the first hour, ever! Not until Orange box.

Also, I am not saying there is not something that needs to be changed on my system either. It could very well be a driver or something. Altho, I updated my video card driver to the latest as recommend by the game itself, it did not resolve the problem. Short of that, my system runs 100% perfect with the 2 MMO's I play as well as Medal of Honor Airborne, BioShock, Hellgate London, Crysis(demo) and countless other games on my PC.

/shrug

 

[Mega_Lesus]

I sympathize dude, I've had the game over 7 months. Even though it's not like I've spent the entire time trying to get it to work, I've tried on several occations, and on 3 different computers to play it.

Steam was the first hurdle as my game-orinetated PC (Not ubber powerful, but I've yet to have a game I can't play at either high or med detail)was not connected to the net. I tried it on the less powerful family PC (Slightly better then the min spec on the box) which was connected to the net, but it didn't like the graphics card. I tried many things untill I decided that I wanted my PC on the net, so I got aload or wireless kit.

With my own PC finally having internet access, I thought 'yay, finally I can play HL2'... but no. It would get half way though the loading a new game and crap out on me. So I reinstalled, then again, then complete reformat sticking on latest drivers, and only HL2. It loads, get's 4 minutes into the game and craps out.

My system isn't even a year old... The game is 3 years old. I play latest games without any problems, but theres just something it doesn't like about HL2. About two weeks ago I sent an e-mail to valve, with a complete list of my specs, the error message, and when it craps out. I got a generic e-mail back 2 WEEKS after I sent it with a link to their support page I had already looked at and tried.

To call the whole experiance soul destroy is an under statement. I got so p*seed off I nearly smashed my keyboard and my GF went out and got me BioShock to try and cheer me up. That, by the way runs pretty well, but not that I'd tell her, I'm not too fussed about BioShock. The one game I've wanted to play more then anything is HL2...

We're not alone either, I've spoken to many people who have had issues with HL2 and many who haven't. The people who haven't like to moan at the people who have and kiss Valves arse... But ignore them, I know for a fact the arse kissers are people who would complain more then anyone if they had the same issues some people have had with Steam/HL2...

 

[Iron_cube]

I know this goes a bit off-topic but..

Heh, I've been looking for a graphic card driver that does not lower my framerate to 10 every three seconds. (5500FX)

Yet I'm fully able to play doom3 with bumpmaps and shadows enabled.....

Who am I supposed to blame? (No, Im not buying a better card. It used to run pretty good on my older 5200)

 

[Kadayi]

Umm, I tried every suggestion people made related to the problem I was having. The official forums were also not allowing me to even post a damn thread, telling me I did not have permission.

I find it odd that you managed to come here and register at these forums to complain, but somehow lack the smarts to realize you need to do the same to be able to post at the steam powered forums. Fact of the matter is, that's the best place to find any answers to your problems because Valve will be able to assess your system and identify the matter. Given that hundreds of thousands of people seem to use Steam without any problems at all, the probability is that the problem lies at your end, either as a software issue, hardware issue or network issue. Ranting here achieves nothing.

 

[stewie]

long rant

on one hand, i agree - steam is a bit over the top when people just want to click install, then click play. everything else can be very annoying.

on the other hand, almost everyone else on the planet has been able to figure it all out pretty easily - except you. how does that feel?

I know this goes a bit off-topic but..

Heh, I've been looking for a graphic card driver that does not lower my framerate to 10 every three seconds. (5500FX)

No, Im not buying a better card. It used to run pretty good on my older 5200)

youre an idiot, and the very reason that game devs have to dumb down games, ruining it for everyone else. that card is fuking antique now, yet god forbid the latest games dont work on it for you. stop fighting progress, get a fuking new card, and stop crying that it doesnt run games very well. you are holding everyone back by your stubborn refusal to join the rest of us in the 21st century. if you just cant afford a new one, then dont complain the new games dont run well. thats as stupid as complaining your video cassette player wont play dvds.

 

[Iron_cube]

youre an idiot, and the very reason that game devs have to dumb down games, ruining it for everyone else. that card is fuking antique now, yet god forbid the latest games dont work on it for you. stop fighting progress, get a fuking new card, and stop crying that it doesnt run games very well. you are holding everyone back by your stubborn refusal to join the rest of us in the 21st century. if you just cant afford a new one, then dont complain the new games dont run well. thats as stupid as complaining your video cassette player wont play dvds.

:{

How rude.

Valve's good reputation is mainly about being low-end friendly, even allowing dx7 users to enjoy Half-Life 2. So your internet offensive skills aren't too justified. I don't suppose you actually paid for the hardware you're currently using, right? I sure did, and you'll soon find out that you can't simply focus on gaming when you're on your own in RL.

/blog

 

[stewie]

:{

How rude.

Valve's good reputation is mainly about being low-end friendly, even allowing dx7 users to enjoy Half-Life 2.

yes, it was - almost four years ago. get with the times and stop wondering why your VERY outdated card doesnt run things too well these days.

I don't suppose you actually paid for the hardware you're currently using, right? I sure did, and you'll soon find out that you can't simply focus on gaming when you're on your own in RL.

/blog

oh boy. are you trying to show us all just how clueless you are? i have a wife and two kids, yet i still manage to keep things up to date. im probably twice your age, too. you are really showing how young you are, by thinking that you are the only one that supports themselves in life, and that living "on your own" is some sort of achievement. wait until you have other people dependant on you, kid. you are far too up your own ass to see that youre the naive little kiddy here.

 

[Tuskin]

Cray, did you try un-installing steam then deleting the steam folder, then reinstalling steam? The same thing happened to me. Doing that worked.

Also, thousands of people use Steam everyday without a problem.

And the problem with your SteamPowered forum account, wait about a day for admin to activate it.

 

[Operational]

As for taking it back, I just borrowed a neighbors shrink wrap machine and as far as they will know, it has not been opened.

Well done you just screwed over the next person who buys it.

1. Get home and start installation...

2. 6 hours later HL2 and Episode one are done installing and ready to play.

I find it hard to believe that installing from DVD took that long, unless it was damaged in some way. Hell, for six hours you should be able to copy the entire contents of the DVD many times over.

 

[Nitre]

I find it hard to believe that installing from DVD took that long, unless it was damaged in some way. Hell, for six hours you should be able to copy the entire contents of the DVD many times over.

Aye. Took me less than an hour to install the whole of the orange box.

 

[Jintor]

youre an idiot, and the very reason that game devs have to dumb down games, ruining it for everyone else. that card is fuking antique now, yet god forbid the latest games dont work on it for you. stop fighting progress, get a fuking new card, and stop crying that it doesnt run games very well. you are holding everyone back by your stubborn refusal to join the rest of us in the 21st century. if you just cant afford a new one, then dont complain the new games dont run well. thats as stupid as complaining your video cassette player wont play dvds.

Funkytown, because I'm using that card and I'm running Ep2, TF2, and Portal just fine. :/

 

[stewie]

Funkytown, because I'm using that card and I'm running Ep2, TF2, and Portal just fine. :/

what a surprise. jintor adding his two cents to yet another one of my posts. and missing the point again. i never said that card wouldn't run those games. on the contrary, my point was that valve seem to feel obligated to accommodate people that refuse to move with the times and get current hardware, and that means that the quality is lowered slightly, affecting everyone else. im not saying everyone should buy the latest, most expensive cards etc, but for gods sake, the 5200/5500 cards were not even top-of-the-line 4 years ago, let alone now. move up the ladder people, or get off it.

 

[Jintor]

So... the poorer people should suffer... so the richer people can have slightly fancier eye-candy.

Yeah. Definately.

 

[99.vikram]

I spent about 12 hours between yesterday and today trying to make it work, it never would.

Wow...irredeemably stupid, then?

Sorry, but no game is worth the hassles that this game presented.

Enjoy Killzone then. Ta.

 

[stewie]

So... the poorer people should suffer... so the richer people can have slightly fancier eye-candy.

Yeah. Definately.

should we not have moved forward to DVD, so the people with VCR tapes can still feel good? my god, youre too stupid to take seriously any more. theres a limit to how much "poor" people can expect to hold everyone else up. if you cant even afford to update your computer hardware every few years, dont complain when youre left behind. most people manage to keep up. its an expensive hobby. deal with it.

 

[99.vikram]

...youre too stupid to take seriously any more...

Indeed.

 

[Laivasse]

should we not have moved forward to DVD, so the people with VCR tapes can still feel good? my god, youre too stupid to take seriously any more. theres a limit to how much "poor" people can expect to hold everyone else up. if you cant even afford to update your computer hardware every few years, dont complain when youre left behind. most people manage to keep up. its an expensive hobby. deal with it.

Most people don't manage to keep up at all. Check out Valve's hardware survey and you'll see that 'most people' using Steam have middling to lower-end graphics cards. If anything is killing PC gaming it's the lack of user-friendliness (as evidenced in the OP's post) and useless emphasis upon top-of-the-line hardware that most people can't afford and don't bother to buy. Valve are fully aware of this and accommodate it because they are, by and large, a sensible company that knows their market, not because they feel 'obligated' It's not surprising that the popularity of PC gaming is dying if the only way to keep up with it is to buy soon-obsolete hardware and put up with flak from obnoxious little shits on support forums while you're waiting for your game to work.

 

[Druckles]

I hope you're denied a refund.

Lmao! Loled at that

Totally agree with you.

Mate, you sound like a moron, no offence (heh...), but you just come on here not to ask a question of how to fix your problem or what mistakes you've made, but to flame at it, and troll our forums. I mean, I wouldn't mind so much if you didn't swear at Valve or ask how you might make it work, but instantly you assume a position where they're wrong, you haven't done anything, and there aren't millions of people out there who have played this game like a thousand times.

If you're going to post something offensive then please at least spell it right, and try to win us to your cause without all the swearing at random companies.

Steam was a good idea, prevents millions of fraud copies of the Half-Life series being distributed, and, while there are occasionally drawbacks, it makes alot of things you now take for granted, so much simpler.

The world doesn't revolve around you. :hmph:

Go HL2, foreva!!
:thumbs:

Edit: And your post makes you sound like a teenager, not someone with a kid.
Edit Edit: And don't double post, it makes you look like a moron .
Edit Edit Edit: And post a complaint on the Steam support section, they're pretty good at replying

 

[cray39]

I find it odd that you managed to come here and register at these forums to complain, but somehow lack the smarts to realize you need to do the same to be able to post at the steam powered forums. Fact of the matter is, that's the best place to find any answers to your problems because Valve will be able to assess your system and identify the matter. Given that hundreds of thousands of people seem to use Steam without any problems at all, the probability is that the problem lies at your end, either as a software issue, hardware issue or network issue. Ranting here achieves nothing.

I find it odd that you fail at reading comprehension. I stated that I registered at the steam powered forums and even got my email validation and can log in just fine, but when I try to post, it tells me I do not have permission and will not allow me to post or to even reply to an existing thread.

 

[Naurgul]

That's because your account must be reviewed by an administrator first. What you need to do is submit a ticket to Steam Support with your problem, you don't need an activated forum account to do that.

 

[Iron_cube]

Most people don't manage to keep up at all. Check out Valve's hardware survey and you'll see that 'most people' using Steam have middling to lower-end graphics cards. If anything is killing PC gaming it's the lack of user-friendliness (as evidenced in the OP's post) and useless emphasis upon top-of-the-line hardware that most people can't afford and don't bother to buy. Valve are fully aware of this and accommodate it because they are, by and large, a sensible company that knows their market, not because they feel 'obligated' It's not surprising that the popularity of PC gaming is dying if the only way to keep up with it is to buy soon-obsolete hardware and put up with flak from obnoxious little shits on support forums while you're waiting for your game to work.

Laivasse for president.

Don't get me wrong, I was simply stating that I expected a 5500 to actually do a little better than a 5200 (not the opposite), until grandpa' yelled at me for not wasting valuable money on hardware

 

[Link]

I know there are numerous people that is surely works for...

Forgot to mention I know that this is not a problem with my system.

Yeah, think about that for a minute there chief. Just because one bit of software runs on your PC, dosen't mean another will. You system may have a problem that affects one but not the other. So, reinstall windows and try again. If it dosen't work, then you can come back and complain that it dosen't work. If it does work, well then, it was your computer all along wasn't it

Incidentally, why come to a forum dedicated to valve games to tell us you'll never play a valve game again? mmmm, trollicious

 

[Kadayi]

I find it odd that you fail at reading comprehension. I stated that I registered at the steam powered forums and even got my email validation and can log in just fine, but when I try to post, it tells me I do not have permission and will not allow me to post or to even reply to an existing thread.

As Naurgul said you don't need to post on the forums, you can submit a ticket to steam support. Clearly the only one failing at reading comprehension is you, when it came to reading your steam forum activation details. Still feel free to troll away some more. Laughing at bitter little men who are too blind to see their own faults always amuses me.:dozey:

In all seriousness you've been given good advice and all you've done is get snappy.

 

[giant384]

Laivasse for president.

Don't get me wrong, I was simply stating that I expected a 5500 to actually do a little better than a 5200 (not the opposite), until grandpa' yelled at me for not wasting valuable money on hardware

a 5500 is basically an overclocked 5200 and thats it. if you bought a 5700 then you would have see a difference.

 

[Iron_cube]

Its fine, didn't expect that much from a 15 bucks card

Tbh its a placeholder, for now.

 

[Jintor]

I should note that whether you submit an ticket to the system or try to get your account registered, it's still going to take ages. It's probably one of my major issues with Steam. :/

Stewie, so a student whose parents won't buy him the latest, shiniest, most powerful graphics card wants to play Half-Life 2. Why should he suffer?

 

[giant384]

Stewie, so a student whose parents won't buy him the latest, shiniest, most powerful graphics card wants to play Half-Life 2. Why should he suffer?

*sigh* thats just the way technology moves.....if you dont have the latest then you will need to suffer and play old games

 

[Jintor]

So I'm incredibly thankful to Valve for still being able to play TF2 with my friends on a 4-year-old card at high details (but no light options). Optimization with old hardware to a point is awesome, but nobody said that my 1998 card should be able to run HL2 like a breeze. :/

 

[stewie]

nobody said that my 1998 card should be able to run HL2 like a breeze. :/

thats right, nobody said that - but nobody was talking to you though. it was iron cube who said:

Who am I supposed to blame? (No, Im not buying a better card. It used to run pretty good on my older 5200)

anyone who thinks there is no need to keep their pc RELATIVELY up to date has no business complaining or even expecting their pc to perform well, or to run the latest games. look at the quote just above. iron cube here is looking for someone to blame for his pc's poor performance, yet refuses to upgrade from a card that was OLD FOUR YEARS AGO. even a brick could work out what the problem is.

 

[CyberPitz]

Wow, did Shasta just re-register under Stewies name?

First off, congratulations begin a complete dick **** there, stew. Sure, having an old rig shouldn't be able to play with the bells and whistles, but you gotta flame them? I guess so, gotta be an elitist. A simple "Nope, if you don't have good enough cards for these games, they are going to look shit." Gotta insult them! Hurray for E-thugs!