Why People Hate Steam

[blahblahblah]

ok blahblahblah, if u couldnt figure out how to preload hl2 u are just a nub with computers.. anyways steam is great, people just complain about it because they had to change to it... i was totally glad to change to it and i did it when it was in beta stages and have loved it ever since.. it is extremely sweet to have a friends list and stuff and i dont really have any complaints about steam at all... oh ya and it totally owns gamespy... i had gamespy for like 1 month before i realized it was a freakin spyware installer and i deleted it casue it was just so slow and laggy...

-merc

*Knock, Knock*

Can you take off the fanboy helmet for a second?

I'm not a "nub" with computers. I promise you I know way more about computers than you will ever know, so will you cut the crap?

Go ahead and tell me that Steam is inuitive to use. You can't, because steam isn't intuitive to use. I don't think its fair that there is no competition to improve steam. With Gamespy, nobody is forcing you to use it. With Steam, it is all or nothing.

Rather pathetic I must say.

 

[Stigmata]

*Knock, Knock*

Can you take off the fanboy helmet for a second?

I'm not a "nub" with computers. I promise you I know way more about computers than you will ever know, so will you cut the crap?

Go ahead and tell me that Steam is inuitive to use. You can't, because steam isn't intuitive to use. I don't think its fair that there is no competition to improve steam. With Gamespy, nobody is forcing you to use it. With Steam, it is all or nothing.

Rather pathetic I must say.

I agree that Steam isn't the most intuitive app ever created, but I'll be damned if it isn't streamlined and easy to use. I only have a few gripes with it: Some of the interfaces are a little... convoluted, shall we say, and the Friends list is under maintenance an awful lot, but other than that, I really like Steam, and I can't wait to see other developers use it, and possibly have all Steam-powered games running under one interface, with an inter-game Friends list among other things, but I disgress.

I also agree there should be app competition for Steam, just as long as Valve wins.

 

[Cybernoid]

Reset? Sounds like your using windows 98. You can easily kill a misbehaving steam (or any app) in windows 2000 or XP. My advice, upgrade your OS, win98 is a P.O.S.

I've had XP for some time now. Thing is: programmers are too inept to take advantage of XP. If explorer.exe crashes, it is of no consequence because it simply restarts. If Steam crashes, the entire system crashes. And so on.

 

[merc]

*Knock, Knock*

Can you take off the fanboy helmet for a second?

I'm not a "nub" with computers. I promise you I know way more about computers than you will ever know, so will you cut the crap?

Go ahead and tell me that Steam is inuitive to use. You can't, because steam isn't intuitive to use. I don't think its fair that there is no competition to improve steam. With Gamespy, nobody is forcing you to use it. With Steam, it is all or nothing.

Rather pathetic I must say.

too bad steam is intuitive to me... just acuse it isnt intuitive to you doesnt mean it isnt to others... it works fine and i dont see what problems peopleh ave with it.. i mean you go in your game and you play whats the big deal.. anyways i know more about computer than you sorry

-merc

 

[Cybernoid]

anyways i know more about computer than you sorry

Unlikely, since you can't even type properly.

 

[Kadayi]

I've had XP for some time now. Thing is: programmers are too inept to take advantage of XP. If explorer.exe crashes, it is of no consequence because it simply restarts. If Steam crashes, the entire system crashes. And so on.

Sounds like your version of XP is faulty. I've had steam die on me occasionally, but never crash my entire system. Did you warez it or something? Or are you unaware of windows update?

 

[oldagerocker]

Are you perhaps retarded, or just wearing a fanboy helmet?

dont turn this thread into a flame war Cybernoid, did someone get you a big wooden spoon for Christmas?

Steam is ugly... thats the huge problem it is, it works, but it's minging.

 

[Kadayi]

Are you perhaps retarded, or just wearing a fanboy helmet?

I don't think Steam is all singing and all dancing if that is what you are implying (like many here I think the GUI needs an update), but I find the credulity of your remarks regarding steams performance across a range of operating systems hard to swallow. Neither I or any my friends seem to remotely suffer the level of misfortune you purport to be an everyday occurance when using the steam network. Perhaps, to paraphrase shakespeare, 'the fault dear brutus lies not within steam, but within yourself? :dozey:

 

[HybridM]

Steam is intrusive, and assumes a high level of ignorance on the part of the user. This is why I dislike it.

EDIT: And your assuming that everyone dislikes it for aesthetic reasons is an insult.

 

[Kadayi]

Try arguing rather than simply stating.

 

[PvtRyan]

Steam is intrusive, and assumes a high level of ignorance on the part of the user. This is why I dislike it.

EDIT: And your assuming that everyone dislikes it for aesthetic reasons is an insult.

I'm puzzled. Intrusive?

in·tru·sive Audio pronunciation of "intrusive" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-trsv, -zv)
adj.

1. Intruding or tending to intrude.
2. Geology. Of or relating to igneous rock that is forced while molten into cracks or between other layers of rock.
3. Linguistics. Epenthetic.

How does Steam intrude? You install it voluntarily, and then it sits there on your pc. It messes with none of your drivers or settings, it installs nothing but the absolute necessary, it doesn't monitor your pc habits (don't worry, your porn surfing habit is safe). Spyware is intrusive, Steam is not.

And 'assuming ignorance of the user'? What do you mean by that?

 

[Kadayi]

I'm puzzled. Intrusive?



How does Steam intrude? You install it voluntarily, and then it sits there on your pc. It messes with none of your drivers or settings, it installs nothing but the absolute necessary, it doesn't monitor your pc habits (don't worry, your porn surfing habit is safe). Spyware is intrusive, Steam is not.

And 'assuming ignorance of the user'? What do you mean by that?

Yeah I'd love to know what exactly he means. I'm not finding steam stealing my sandwiches or helping itself to my secret cookie stash, or infact buying self help books on amazon.com when my back is turned. Neither am I finding it scanning my hard drive for naughty naughty knicky knacky knoo knaahs (not that I have such things..your honour 'cough'). So I'm just as curious as you as to what the hell he is on about.

 

[MjM]

Tabbed browsing is the greatest thing since sliced bread, steam should use this method, or addapt it. It would be nice if it could stay in the one window, and not open a new window on each click, there should be the option however.

I think a 'close all steam windows' would be nice as well wen u launch a game and the ability to sign out or post an away message in msn or icq ... would be nice ( cos my gfx go funky wen a msn notification comes up ). But these are details. O and you should be able to have a clock ingame, cos i dont know the cmd.

I love the default steam skins, and i think it is very stylish . It is great ingame as well. I dont think steam is counter intuitive, it pretty much follows all the same rules as windows does or IE, with regard to windows, options, and 'flow'. And besides since there are only a few options, you only need to navigate a section once or twice to fully understand whats inside.

Apart from having to reinstall a few times wen i first got it, steam is running fine on my win98 comp (wen it went non beta). In fact i honestly cant remember a steam related crash in recent history, the only one i get is the hl.exe one, but that only occurs like once every 5 months or something like that, and this error has been around since the dawn of WON.

 

[MjM]

... and assumes a high level of ignorance on the part of the user.

Im not really sure what you mean by this.

This is what i think you mean:

valve thinks you cant successfully patch your copy of their product or some third party mod with out it being drip fed to you via steam, and this is an insult to your intelligence, thus you despise it.

I guess if i look at it that way i kinda sympathise. And i think i know what he means when he says intrusive. He means that its kinda an ugly way of launching a game if you want to use ASE (for example), you have to have steam open, that is intrusive because steam gets in the way.

But i still like the idea of steam, i just see where hes comming from.

 

[blahblahblah]

too bad steam is intuitive to me... just acuse it isnt intuitive to you doesnt mean it isnt to others... it works fine and i dont see what problems peopleh ave with it.. i mean you go in your game and you play whats the big deal.. anyways i know more about computer than you sorry

-merc

Do you know what intuitive means? I don't think so. Steam is functional, but not intuitive. Don't get the two mixed up.

PS - Thats why you don't know what AA and AF do, because you know more about computers than me.

 

[Trinityxero]

steam is all out crap!!!! your forced to use it , soon your guna have to pay to use it , valve screwed over won for "control and monney" , the interface looks like @!!@!@!!!!! , its constantly downloading updates unless you pull your internet plug out , 2 years ago it ate my email and CS key calling it invaldid... this year i had registration problems... after that the Stupid confirmation email wouldnt send!!!!!!!!!! , i can go on and on and on with bugs / rants and errors but the bottom line is... steams a great idea but its seriously !@#$$$ed up... like the outher guy said... if someone released a virus on steam... poof evreyones computers fryed and thats around say... mabey a ... i dont know a lot of computers!! evrey time you log on steam you risk looseing your computer games harddrive... some CZ servers might have viruses in them... VAC is useless so CZ is loaded with cheaters unless a servers got HLguard and a solid admin team :bounce:


~~~~

anyways good idea... but sucky ass program.... it will never gain the love of the world

 

[Bijan]

Alright, I've been using steam for a good while...and I agree...preloading is a gift from above, I love it, its a great idea and Steam is a great thing

But for some reason, I just have this utter annoyance with the way it runs. It takes to long for it to actually connect and load up (could be a personal issue,) the friends system is down way too often and a lot of times when its up does NOT work properly...

I'm not the most educated individual with computers and well , you're going to have to face it that most people in the world are NOT as adept as others are at computers. The world is slowly gaining more computer experience but a lot of peopel are not on the top level of computing.

I just feel, that if X-fire can be made...why cant steam make a working version of the friends list...i mean these are the CREATORS OF HALF LIFE!! these guys should be able to do it! If AIM and MSN can do it so can they. eh.

But id like to reiterate my first paragraph. Steam rocks and is very useful in most cases. It just has a few minor annoyances. but NOT enough to merrit it a bad app

 

[^Ben]

steam is all out crap!!!! your forced to use it , soon your guna have to pay to use it , valve screwed over won for "control and monney" , the interface looks like @!!@!@!!!!! , its constantly downloading updates unless you pull your internet plug out , 2 years ago it ate my email and CS key calling it invaldid... this year i had registration problems... after that the Stupid confirmation email wouldnt send!!!!!!!!!! , i can go on and on and on with bugs / rants and errors but the bottom line is... steams a great idea but its seriously !@#$$$ed up... like the outher guy said... if someone released a virus on steam... poof evreyones computers fryed and thats around say... mabey a ... i dont know a lot of computers!! evrey time you log on steam you risk looseing your computer games harddrive... some CZ servers might have viruses in them... VAC is useless so CZ is loaded with cheaters unless a servers got HLguard and a solid admin team :bounce:




~~~~

anyways good idea... but sucky ass program.... it will never gain the love of the world

Yar so do you actually have any evidence to back up you're claims or are you just frothing BS?

 

[KagePrototype]

soon your guna have to pay to use it

Nope. You only have to pay for games. you may be mixing this up with a subscription package Valve will offer, in which you can pay a certain amount of money a month for all of their games. But you don't have to do this, and you can still buy games seperately without any subscriptions.

its constantly downloading updates unless you pull your internet plug out

Well, that IS the point....but an update is released only like once a week...it's not "constantly downloading" as you put it.

if someone released a virus on steam... poof evreyones computers fryed and thats around say... mabey a ... i dont know a lot of computers!! evrey time you log on steam you risk looseing your computer games harddrive... some CZ servers might have viruses in them...

That's a worst possible scenario. Has it happened yet? No. Dont judge Steam based on things that haven't even happened yet (it's like saying lego is completely stupid because someone might choke on a piece), because it's unfair. And if a CZ server had a virus in it, you'd know because Steam tells you what you download from a server. And if you're STILL bothered by it, simply don't go on a server that forces you to download files.

VAC is useless so CZ is loaded with cheaters unless a servers got HLguard and a solid admin team :bounce:

And WON was better? Go use Cheating Death if you're so bothered by it, it still works.

 

[Dreglor]

your forced to use it

no it not, you have to install it and you can still use the old steamless hl but you have to use direct ip to play muiltplayer you proably only play single player

soon your guna have to pay to use it

no you'll never have to becasue they have to change way too much like every one thats not 18 cannot use it becasue the rating and the fact that you have to have a credit card or some form of payment and valve doesn't have any kind of info to do any of that

valve screwed over won for "control and monney"

hmm was it me or did sierra own won so technicly that would be a decsion of vendie so valve did condribue to that

the interface looks like @!!@!@!!!!!

theres things call "skins" use them..

its constantly downloading updates unless you pull your internet plug out

hmm it doesn't download anything when your playing, and plus which is better waiting for a month or 2 for an update to arrive in a huge file or a few weeks and a small one?
and if it taking that long to update you should proably get a faster connection

2 years ago it ate my email and CS key calling it invaldid...his year i had registration problems... after that the Stupid confirmation email wouldnt send!!!!!!!!!!

you can email valve about it (search the surport fourms at steampowered.com) and maybe you didn't enter your email right..

i can go on and on and on with bugs / rants and errors but the bottom line is... steams a great idea but its seriously !@#$$$ed up...

well it works perfectly for most of us try reinstalling it

like the outher guy said... if someone released a virus on steam... poof evreyones computers fryed and thats around say... mabey a ... i dont know a lot of computers!! evrey time you log on steam you risk looseing your computer games harddrive...

hmm you don't know a single thing about computers...
a virus could get on but the point is virus code could be on anything but it has to be executed to do anything your email is so much more easy than steam becasue alot of things get executed becasue you think it somthing from your freind that "funny" and in fact your friend computer is infected and it sent it and you execute it and poof all virus take human action to work. so steam hasn't have any virus and it been almost a year in most cases it only takes a few weeks or months before some sort of virus weaves it way into some internet accessable program
and even if your harddrive bytes the big in most cases it fixable (but unless you have your trusty computer guy on call your going to have to have that hardrive replaced) and all your games are locked into the account you have so reinstalling steam and logging in on your new harddrive all the games will start downloading again (if you wish them to be)

some CZ servers might have viruses in them... VAC is useless so CZ is loaded with cheaters unless a servers got HLguard and a solid admin team

hmm i don't have cz but all my games i play (ns cs hl sc) they all seam to have a few hackers every week and i play on alot of servers

anyways good idea... but sucky ass program.... it will never gain the love of the world

yeah only if you are the world...
i love it i been using it since it frist came out it works prefectly hic ups some times but it gets fixed pretty soon after
so don't say steam sucks becasue it doesn't and it has tons of bugs becasue it i doesn't
stop ranting and get over it valve doesn't work for you

 

[panzooka]

steam is bad bad thing
i own a legit copy of halflife in 1999, with full case and manual etc.
played many mods with my very own cdkey. one day, i thought halflife isnt fun anymore so i quit and played some other games. now this half life 2 thing makes me want to play again, i dowloaded that steam thing, entered my cdkey, and bang, it said its already registered by someone else. how suck is that? i dont have game case or recipe to proof that i bought it because i bought the game secretly without my parents knowing, but its 100% legit, that i payed $90 australian for it. and i cant play anymore. 2 of my friends also have the same thing that they quit halflife and want to get back only to found that their cdkey is registered by someone else.

 

[Cybernoid]

steam is bad bad thing
i own a legit copy of halflife in 1999, with full case and manual etc.
played many mods with my very own cdkey. one day, i thought halflife isnt fun anymore so i quit and played some other games. now this half life 2 thing makes me want to play again, i dowloaded that steam thing, entered my cdkey, and bang, it said its already registered by someone else. how suck is that? i dont have game case or recipe to proof that i bought it because i bought the game secretly without my parents knowing, but its 100% legit, that i payed $90 australian for it. and i cant play anymore. 2 of my friends also have the same thing that they quit halflife and want to get back only to found that their cdkey is registered by someone else.

My original CD-key got fu-cked too, thanks to Steam.

 

[Rupertvdb]

I only went on steam for the first time before i left for Europe in July, my CD key which was a legit one worked fine and everything went smoothly. The only issue i have is the fact it was made for boradbanders so when it can't find the connection when i turn my comp on it has a little fit and shuts itself, this doesn't bother me as i can simply restart it whenever i want.

I have no reason whatsoever to bitch, except when they took away the update monitoring thing, i liked seeing how slow my connection is.

 

[Dreglor]

CD key already in use? click this

don't blame steam it's hackers or serria just read it and don't be a fag about it

Unfortunately, Sierra (not Valve) double printed some CDKeys. Only Sierra knows which CDKeys were duplicated.

 

[Wesisapie]

1 hour scheduled downtime today or tomorrow sometime..... remember when WON had downtime? oh, me neither.
basically you get raped by the downtime, you cant play any steam games you own, even single player.
and to whoever said "you can play all the best games" newsflash, there are great games that AREN'T made by valve, believe it or not!
if every developer was so greedy we'd have 100 processes running just to play some damn games. people are only accepting this because valve is the first to try it. when other developers catch on its not going to be pretty.

 

[^Ben]

Erm yes WON had alot of downtime. I remember when it was down for like 2 days.

 

[KagePrototype]

basically you get raped by the downtime, you cant play any steam games you own, even single player.

Yes you can, there's an offline mode in case you can't connect to the Steam network. You can play SP games then.

 

[dæmon]

1 hour scheduled downtime today or tomorrow sometime..... remember when WON had downtime? oh, me neither.
basically you get raped by the downtime, you cant play any steam games you own, even single player.

I agree Steam goes down more often than WON did (although WON didn't have nutters DDOS attacking it), but there was a time when WON went down several times in a few weeks (for over a day at a time.) What were people saying then? That WON was antiquated and should be destroyed. People will always complain (or threaten legal action) when the interface goes down, but to be fair to Valve they aren't exactly taking it down at peak hours.

 

[JackKerouac]

I like both won and steam.

 

[Wesisapie]

whoever is saying that the problem with steam is the GUI, far from it. i care absolutely zero about the GUI. do you want it even more bloaty or something???

 

[Cybernoid]

GUIs, hmph.

Back in the day when I played Quake, I only used the console. No frontends or server browsers. Sissies cry; real men use the console.

 

[Kadayi]

GUIs, hmph.

Back in the day when I played Quake, I only used the console. No frontends or server browsers. Sissies cry; real men use the console.

When you go for a meal at a restaurant do you peel the vegetables beforehand? Move into the 21st Century. The majority of people have little desire to fiddle around with console commands or waste their lives editing their system configs in notepad.

 

[Kadayi]

1 hour scheduled downtime today or tomorrow sometime..... remember when WON had downtime? oh, me neither.
basically you get raped by the downtime, you cant play any steam games you own, even single player.

1 hour is hardly killing you, and as someone so rightly pointed out, you have single player mode. As regards the frequency of downtime, consider it the small price you pay for quicker more regular game updates.

 

[Varsity]

Do you know what intuitive means? I don't think so. Steam is functional, but not intuitive. Don't get the two mixed up.

You have to be kidding. Click on any game and do what it says to buy, download and play. That's it.

 

[Cybernoid]

Move into the 21st Century. The majority of people have little desire to fiddle around with console commands or waste their lives editing their system configs in notepad.

You're a sissy... aren't you?

 

[Chris D]

You're a sissy... aren't you?

Cybernoid, there seems to be an ever rising number of complaints about your posts. To be honest, some of them it seems like you're joking, but others can (and are) be taken the wrong way.

Thanks

 

[Cybernoid]

Real men use Notepad.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Only reason I hate steam is it makes it very difficult to play the game on a machine that hasn't got, never will have net access.

And all that steam stops piracy nonsense is just that, HL2 will be playable as warez in no time after its released, with regular updates. The more Valve claim its not possible, the more they'll force the warezmonkey's to try crack it, just to prove them wrong.

Sure, wont be able to play HL2 MP, but is there even gonna be a HL2 MP anyway.

 

[Kadayi]

Only reason I hate steam is it makes it very difficult to play the game on a machine that hasn't got, never will have net access.

And all that steam stops piracy nonsense is just that, HL2 will be playable as warez in no time after its released, with regular updates. The more Valve claim its not possible, the more they'll force the warezmonkey's to try crack it, just to prove them wrong.

Sure, wont be able to play HL2 MP, but is there even gonna be a HL2 MP anyway.

I don't think that Valve seriously believe that Steam will combat pirating (at least of the SP game), however it does allow them to effectively become their own distributor, and act as a universal medium for showcasing mods and other products for E-sale. I think that Valve have sat on HL MP because they want it to remain a surprise, especially since so much else has leaked out about the game.

Cybernoid,

you've been weighed and measured and found wanting in your arguments, if the best you can do is promote the notion that geekiness is somehow a macho luddite pursuit then you've come to the wrong shop. It's nice to have the option to tweak things, but there shouldn't be the necessity to tweak.

 

[ukfluke]

i dont like steam beacuse when i play CS it feels like im playing on a WC3 server all the time :/