Valve's bright idea - The Steam Community Portal

[Hectic Glenn]

Gather round, Valve has a new idea! The guys have adapted Steam to now include a 'myspace' like community portal whereby you can do all the socialising with other players in one place. It promises many exciting features.

Valve's latest big announcement, The Steam Community, will encourage you to play with friends, and make new ones.

The headline feature is one-click matchmaking, both for new games and existing ones such as Counter-Strike. You'll be able to jump straight into a game with players of your skill level, with no history of griefing, by pressing a single button. It also lets you form a party with your friends, and automatically find a game that you can all jump into and play together.

There is also the promise of creating groups where members can see other members playing games, join their game or schedule dates/time for later games. The group also gets access to a private chat channel to talk in despite playing different games.

Steam Community gives you a personal gamer page that's accessible via the web, with embarrassingly detailed stats about what you play, how much you play it, and what kind of player you are.

Team killers beware! Steam Community shows the further progression of Steam bringing together everything online gaming needs. For the entire article on this project see the CVG website.

 

[-smash-]

That's pretty awesome!

 

[DigiQ8]

Thats really great
This year = VALVE



EDIT :

in the following week. We'll bring you hands on impressions from Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and of course, Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Holy Christ is this going to be a good year.

yay

 

[-smash-]

I hope it will be as customizable as MySpace...

Add pictures, profile pictures, leave comments and messages, etc... That would be great! Though, I'm sure they want it focused primarily on Steam games, so this probably wouldn't happen - At least not right away, anyways.

 

[ZoFreX]

I hope it's NOT as customisable as myspace, which has proven successfully that 99% of the population know nothing about web design, aesthetics or good taste...

This service sounds very cool. And also exactly like the article in PC Gamer about the Windows Live service that's landing soon (XBOX Live, on the PC). Still totally cool but I'd prefer it if they worked together.

 

[605Scorpion]

I hope it's NOT as customisable as myspace, which has proven successfully that 99% of the population know nothing about web design, aesthetics or good taste...

This service sounds very cool. And also exactly like the article in PC Gamer about the Windows Live service that's landing soon (XBOX Live, on the PC). Still totally cool but I'd prefer it if they worked together.

IAWTC

Artisitic design should be limited to ASCII art.

 

[bigburpco]

Nice. Matchmaking = fun.

 

[Lucid]

Spiffy.

 

[Epsi]

They have been busy. Wonder when this is going to roll out / wonder when we'll get screenshots.

 

[nutcrackr]

what if you are a smacktard though, would you be playing griefers all the time?

 

[giant384]

so this means emos will begin using steam? crap i can just imagine the chat on the mic in game.'im not good enough KILL ME!!!!'

 

[Jintor]

Yeah, but then you can. D:

 

[<RJMC>]

so now the games will be full of emos and attention whores?

 

[Sloth]

We will have to get a HL2.net group up as soon as computerly possible...
Sounds good.

 

[Shinobi]

man if includes some sort of quantifiable value for the work ethic of various people who call themselves modders then it's gold to me :afro: :afro: :afro: :afro:

 

[Asuka]

Man Valve is really moving forward with a lot of ideas. Im not much of a myspace type of person, but just because this is from Valve for gamers im interested.

 

[Buveed]

i hope the reduces the "a/s/l" messages in the ingame chat.

 

[Dekstar]

Damn me and Brick will need to be careful around those stats:
Banned from 13 servers :O

 

[Xendance]

So this will be like Xfire?
Nice!

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Nice! We should have a HL2.net group! :thumbs:

 

[The Brick]

Damn me and Brick will need to be careful around those stats:
Banned from 13 servers :O

Us both? What the hell are you talking about. You are the one who should be watching yourself. I only managed to do it once with you being there. Also I hope they don't include stats like k/d etc, cause that is just wrong and doesn't say a damn thing. Or at least have an option to disable it. Not that I'd be afraid to embarrass myself, but I hate judging people by numbers.

 

[hool10]

The beauty of myspace is that you can customize those ugly pages. Seeing each page reflects the person. Very, very good idea Valve! :thumbs: Never expected this and even more progress on L4D stat page going up means closer to a release date! :E

 

[Cole]

I hope it's less like myspace and more like facebook.

 

[nvrmor]

I hope it will be as customizable as MySpace...

Add pictures, profile pictures, leave comments and messages, etc... That would be great! Though, I'm sure they want it focused primarily on Steam games, so this probably wouldn't happen - At least not right away, anyways.

maybe you know something we dont, but where are you getting customizable from? the article doesnt say anything about that. your analogy to myspace is very misleading. unless you do know something we dont, i would suggest you stop misleading people. you even spread it to the valve forums. now people are going to be disapointed when all they get is a static page of stats.
sure a steamspace would be nice, but dont get peoples hopes up for something which probably wont be done for a few years.

 

[Vegeta897]

Yes, please don't compare this to Myspace, I have no idea where that comparison came from. This is more like Xfire, if anything.

 

[Planetary]

What is this "Human Interaction" you all speak of?

 

[Polaris]

Sounds great, can't wait for Halflife2.net group.

There are no managers at Valve, and no one has a fixed position. Co-founder Gabe Newell describes himself as a playtester, and Old Man Murray co-founder Chet Faliszek's job title is 'Mr Awesome'.

I love Valve.

 

[-smash-]

maybe you know something we dont, but where are you getting customizable from? the article doesnt say anything about that. your analogy to myspace is very misleading. unless you do know something we dont, i would suggest you stop misleading people. you even spread it to the valve forums. now people are going to be disapointed when all they get is a static page of stats.
sure a steamspace would be nice, but dont get peoples hopes up for something which probably wont be done for a few years.

The words "I hope..." weren't good enough for you?

In general, it's a social networking site... LIKE MYSPACE HUZZAH.


You can get off of that high horse there, bud. Your legs are too far off from the ground.

 

[nvrmor]

The words "I hope..." weren't good enough for you?

nope. because you made it seem it was going to be customizable in the first place, while nowhere in the article does it say anything remotely like that.

In general, it's a social networking site... LIKE MYSPACE HUZZAH.

first its customizable, now its a full blown social networking site? sorry, but what article are you getting this info from? it certainly isnt from the one posted.

The 'Community' part comes in when you form or join groups, like the PC Gamer UK Group we'll be setting up. Members can see when others are playing a game, join them, or schedule a match for a specific date and time. They'll also have a dedicated chat channel to talk to each other on regardless of what game they're playing, even between rounds.

doesnt sound like a "site" to me, but an extension of the friends list. something that will be accesable from within steam, and games themselves.

Lastly, but perhaps most visibly, Steam Community gives you a personal gamer page that's accessible via the web, with embarrassingly detailed stats about what you play, how much you play it, and what kind of player you are. It even highlights noteworthy trends - the example we saw told the user "You like playing as a Boomer. Sometimes you (accidentally?) shoot your fellow Survivors.

again, where is customization mentioned? it's not. sounds like a static stats page like they have for dods right now, but with your own stats.
would some customization be nice? sure. do we know for a fact there will be? no.

You can get off of that high horse there, bud. Your legs are too far off from the ground.

no high horse here mate, just dont like people spreading misleading crap. especially when it comes from someone who should know better.
being a mod here and at valve, people get the mistaken idea you know what you are talking about, and next thing you know when this is released and its not myspace like in the least, half the message boards will be wtf valve! you promised us myspace! omgwtfbbq steam sux!!11!

 

[ZoFreX]

The beauty of myspace is that you can customize those ugly pages. Seeing each page reflects the person.

Beauty? Are we looking at the same myspace?

I hope it's less like myspace and more like facebook.

^ This.

Overall, this service will mean jack if it doesn't work with non-Valve games too (for which reason the friends list is pretty useless to me). Live won't only work with Microsoft games, they're trying to get everyone on board so I'm a lot more excited about that. This will be tricky for both MS and Valve however, it's much easier to force developers to support something on a console and that's why Live is so great on xbox. However, if they do pull it off, I will be a very happy ZoFreX

 

[2c-b]

Overall, this service will mean jack if it doesn't work with non-Valve games too (for which reason the friends list is pretty useless to me). Live won't only work with Microsoft games, they're trying to get everyone on board so I'm a lot more excited about that.

I think its highly doubtful that you'll ever be able to see people in the friends list playing halo or any other non valve related product. Why would Valve waste their time and money supporting the competition? It's far different for Microsoft - you're a customer of theirs already because you have to pay for windows or you have to pay for an xbox (and the LIVE service can cost money too I believe). Steam is free. If it really did support non-valve products then there would be an influx of people registering for steam, not to buy any games, but simply to use "friends" to coordinate their online gaming.

At best, I can only see the "friends" list supporting non valve games that have been released over steam.

 

[ríomhaire]

I think he means non-Valve games that are available on Steam, not all non-Valve games.