I've just started using Steam and so far I like it. Not sure if it is the greatest thing ever yet, but time will tell.
Poll: Steam: God's Gift or Piece of S**t
- Thread starter Ledan
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I live in Australia, so even the most expensive Steam games (looking at you MW2 and Battlefield) are cheaper than store-bought ones. Then you have weekend sales! Bioshock for $5 on Steam or $50 at EB Games? I know which one I'd choose.
Plus, I doubt your internet pales in shittiness compared to mine, yet I think Steam works fantastically, given that updates are required to play. It's great that I can select the servers which I download from, so that any Steam downloads I have don't go towards my cap.
Plus, I doubt your internet pales in shittiness compared to mine, yet I think Steam works fantastically, given that updates are required to play. It's great that I can select the servers which I download from, so that any Steam downloads I have don't go towards my cap.
I rather love Steam, especially now as they've opened it up to be available for Macs. But I only buy games that I can't get a physical copy of. I rather enjoy a good disk...
It's extremely pleasantly normal.
That's it.
What made me vote "really good" was the pant-on-head ridiculous deals they have (Free Portal? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for two bucks? I'm in!).
That's it.
What made me vote "really good" was the pant-on-head ridiculous deals they have (Free Portal? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for two bucks? I'm in!).
Play while downloading? :/ You do realize this is an impossibility, right? Steam or no Steam, that's not possible.
OT: I really like it. It's a good client for downloading some great games legally, and their sales are INSANE.
EDIT: Oh, you mean playing one game while downloading another? That makes more sense. But you can, so... yeah.
OT: I really like it. It's a good client for downloading some great games legally, and their sales are INSANE.
EDIT: Oh, you mean playing one game while downloading another? That makes more sense. But you can, so... yeah.
I dont know what your talkin about bro. our internet is absolutely run of the mill and downloads never take over a few seconds.
The app is not too bad, I've got a 3 year old HP laptop; I never have problems running steam with huge programs like photoshop and 3ds maxx, even when running massive files with millions of polys... you get the idea. I have no problem with steam being open while I'm doing other work, it dose not use very much ram or processor.
Having a friends list, online store, clan community page, and auto updater system is a definate plus. Everything is condensed and streamlined, I don't need to have chrome open with eleven tabs to keep an eye on these things. Let me ask though, do you want to hunt for updates for each game independantly or just have it update as soon as the update is available?
The app is not too bad, I've got a 3 year old HP laptop; I never have problems running steam with huge programs like photoshop and 3ds maxx, even when running massive files with millions of polys... you get the idea. I have no problem with steam being open while I'm doing other work, it dose not use very much ram or processor.
Having a friends list, online store, clan community page, and auto updater system is a definate plus. Everything is condensed and streamlined, I don't need to have chrome open with eleven tabs to keep an eye on these things. Let me ask though, do you want to hunt for updates for each game independantly or just have it update as soon as the update is available?
I'm glad offline mode has never broken for you, it's insanely frustrating when you don't have access to an internet connection and you want to game (as is regularly the case with me). I imagine you'd have more trouble with it if you used two computers, my troubles are usually from when I've used it online, then tried to switch later after having used it on the other computer....and you actually need to set to offline mode when online, which is stupid. If I had internet access, I wouldn't need to be using it in offline mode.Chrissyluky said:
With the free updates and content, I'd honestly rather them not do it at all if they aren't going to do it in a way that suits me. Portal works, I don't need some random update to fix a glitch that doesn't affect starting to install when I'm not looking, thus rendering the game unplayable until I next have internet access and leftover bandwidth to update it. There has been a bug (for god only knows how long) wherein with every steam platform update, the "don't update my games" box is re ticked.....this needs to be fixed, as does the stupid system of installing the game in increments...it's a good idea to download it incrementally, but not to install it befpre it's fully downloaded.
As for xfire, I've not used it as a platform for delivering/buying games, however it's incredibly new to the party and that's not it's primary function so I wouldn't expect a whole lot from it. What I will say is that xfire doesn't begin installing updates before they are downloaded, and xfire downloading updates doesn't stop me from playing the game, so in that regard the newcomer is far superior to steam...Even though steam has a near unlimited budget compared to xfires meagre takings from advertisements.
Let me introduce you to impulse,xfire,direct2drive etc. These programs allow you to download a patch for a game in the background, while playing the game. You can also play the game when a download is paused at 50%. THIS IS NOT SPECIAL AND THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR STEAM TO NOT WORK THIS WAY.Thaius said:
You see, they do this particularly interesting thing, wherein the patch is first downloaded, and then installed. By doing this, one is able to play a single player game (not multi, as that presumably uses the bandwidth, though you can set it to download anyway) as it downloads, or if you get cut off the internet, you can play while it's not completely downloaded. It's a pretty fucking simple system, and accepting steams stupid system is something I won't stand for.
It is only impossible on steam, every other platform manages patches with a more reasonably system. This whole issue is the thing many people (especially people with poor connections) hate most about steam.
I like Steam because of the in-game interface and the new user UI, which helps because I'm a visual person and I like having thumbnails instead of text. Plus, it has frequent game deals which means I can buy a lot of games for cheap instead of buying one game once in a blue moon for my xbox 360.
Love it. Steam's never given me any problems and I love the way everything is so integrated.
And Valve is an excellent company. I have a ton of games that I only bought because they were on sale for silly-cheap and I doubt much anyone else would have pulled such crazy sales. Or so often.
And Valve is an excellent company. I have a ton of games that I only bought because they were on sale for silly-cheap and I doubt much anyone else would have pulled such crazy sales. Or so often.
I voted "Ok". I've had nothing but positive experiences with Steam so far, but I simply can't ignore the criticisms other people have brought up. I'd agree with the general consensus that it's a trade-off, and should not be the only option available to people.
Oh, Steam is great. If you have a non-shitty high speed internet connection and a really good computer to run the games. I'm missing one of the two. The really good computer. So far, all I can play on my computer is Quake 3. But I'm not one to complain.
I use it all the time. Most of my games are on there, most of my friends use the chat system, and I FUCKING HATE THE NEW UI. I know it's a generic 'the old one was better' gamer response, but in this case it's actually dead true. Now everything's been moved around and I can't use that epic light blue-white skin.
Another flaw.
Actually, you can't. If you're downloading something and start a different game, it pauses the download until you leaveThaius said:
Another flaw.
If you like its online gameplay, its maybe the best. If you play singleplayer, its forced upon you and takes away much of the freedom you once had.
Actually, i was downloading portal while playing TF2.PoisonUnagi said:Actually, you can't. If you're downloading something and start a different game, it pauses the download until you leave
Another flaw.
I just had to resume the download when i started tf2.
Steam is neither good nor bad. It is a form of chinese torture. It gives you what you want by letting you play the games then it fucks up and stops working and takes it away from you.
Its in part to do with the fact that steam updates as it goes along, installing can make you take a big performance hit, especially if using patchers other than steam. (plus there are ways to persuade steam to d/l while you're playing games other than the one its downloading).Dys said:
Even with the number of games i own this is an issue so rarely, the fact it keeps everything autoupdated is far more useful to me.
Well, it's an issue that irritates me no end and frequently gets between me and the game I want to play. Installing patches is not a performance hit on any computer capable of playing any game with regular updates on steam, so I don't buy that for a second (the game had to be installed initially at some point, nobody cried about it being a performance whore then). It's poor design, plain and simple, if they must insist on deliberately including such a stupid system, it should be easily disables, much like the windows update, with an option of "download but don't install without first asking" or somesuch.Petromir said:
It's also infuriating when that backups need updating (I know this is a separate topic to that we're arguing, but it's still annoying). I got a new laptop about 3 weeks ago, and to install my fully up to date steam games from my PC using the backup tool, I was required to download 18gb of patches....despite those patches being installed already on the computer where the updates were sourced...stupid system.