Venting About Valve Again

[bigfatcarp93]

Some of you may remember me as the guy who spent the entire weekend bitching about Valve stealing my money over Steam. Well, the situation has been resolved, though I must say that the manner in which it was resolved, i.e. Valve stealing an additional $30 from me, erasing my hard work, stealing content which I had already bought from them, and basically spitting in my face every time I try to contact them or fix the situation, was less than pleasent.

I'm not asking for help, or pity, or sympathy. I just wanted the world to know that I had been betrayed by a company I once loved and respected, and that I hope Gabe Newell chokes to death on his own sweat in this hot weather.

Fuck Valve forever.

Sincerely, Jack Carpenter.

 

[Andrewtheeviscerator]

What, wait? I have no idea what happened. Care to explain?

 

[bigfatcarp93]

What, wait? I have no idea what happened. Care to explain?

*listens to MoS' 'Little Sister' song to remain calm while explaining*

Alright, a few days ago I was suddenly inspired to play the Deus Ex series based on how good Human Revolution looked... and, indeed, how awesome "The New Black Gold" was. So, I had this quaint little idea to download the original over Steam and try to blast through it over the week. I was really looking forward to it.

So, I went on Steam and found the GOTY edition, even better. I had to set up a new Steam profile to buy it, because my old E-Mail was defunct. Fair enough. So, that takes about twenty minutes, and I gladly shell out $10 on the game and sit through a few minutes of download. I'm quite happy: low price, quick download, and a game I'm very optimistic about as my evening's entertainment. But, lo and behold, the game is suddenly nowhere to be found on my computer.

So, I go through the obvious checklist: check Steam Libray, check Games, check Downloads, try in vain to contact Steam for help, start thread on Escapist fuming about Valve, get tidal wave of unsolicited, yet appreciated, advice, finally get contacted by Steam, fix problem.

Ultimately, I had to uninstall Steam and reinstall it. This meant deleting the two Steam games already on my PC: Half-Life and TF2. I figured this was no huge deal if I could finally get to Deus Ex: a game I had never played before for two games I had played at nauseum. Fine. I mean, I could download TF2 again for free.

So, I did it. And now, GUESS FUCKING WHAT? Deus Ex is on my computer, but won't fucking play. And yeah, I got TF2 again, but I forgot all my items, which are now lost. Including several very rare ones. So, I am out:

-$9.99 for Deus Ex.
-$9.99 for Half-Life.
-1 copy of half-Life plus save data.
-$20.00 worth of TF2 items.
-An entire weekend of potential happiness.

Now, I also can't contact Steam. Awesome.

Captcha: gernonimo. Not fucking funny.

 

[Kae]

You should have gotten Deus Ex on GOG, same GOTY edition but DRM free and includes the awesome soundtrack, along with some other things I don't care about, also they have good customer service and the community tends to be really helpful when something doesn't work, really every time you want an old game try looking there first as they tend to have cool little extras.

As for steam, it tends to not work well on my PC for some bizarre reason, also I'm without Internet very often so the fact that Steam offline didn't work [small](No idea if it works now)[/small] made me automatically hate it, and since then I refuse to buy on steam, fortunately the games I bought were on an Indie Bundle so have them DRM free, but seriously hate Steam, but I do like Valve games, and I would never wish any evil on Gabe Newell, he's a cool guy.

 

[Alternative]

Technically you where responsible for the loss of your Half-Life and TF2 saves.
As for Dues ex are you sure it wasn't on your hard drive. In my Steam directory all the non-source games are in a different sub folder to the source-engine games such as Half Life and TF2.

Also you should correct the title. you're venting about Steam not valve.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Technically you where responsible for the loss of your Half-Life and TF2 saves.
As for Dues ex are you sure it wasn't on your hard drive. In my Steam directory all the non-source games are in a different sub folder to the source-engine games such as Half Life and TF2.

Also you should correct the title. you're venting about Steam not valve.

I don't think you understand: I have the game on my computer, I can find it easily. It just doesn't play. And "venting about Steam" sounds like a bad pun. Besides, Valve made Steam so this is their fault.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

I don't know about TF2 items, but you are aware games you buy on steam remain on your account even if you uninstall Steam, right? I've done it multiple times, even switching from a PC to a Mac, and all my games have still been in the download section. It sounds to me like you did something wrong there.

Edit: Just did some digging online, and people seem to be saying you keep your TF2 items even if you uninstall Steam. Unless I'm missing something here.

 

[Alternative]

Technically you where responsible for the loss of your Half-Life and TF2 saves.
As for Dues ex are you sure it wasn't on your hard drive. In my Steam directory all the non-source games are in a different sub folder to the source-engine games such as Half Life and TF2.

Also you should correct the title. you're venting about Steam not valve.

I don't think you understand: I have the game on my computer, I can find it easily. It just doesn't play. And "venting about Steam" sounds like a bad pun. Besides, Valve made Steam so this is their fault.

I meant the first time you downloaded it, also i missed the pun in "venting about steam" at first. Mostly because this being a gaming forum I associated Steam with the gaming service and not the H20 gas kind.

Just did some digging online, and people seem to be saying you keep your TF2 items even if you uninstall Steam. Unless I'm missing something here.

I think this is a mixture of Steam error and user error.
I've found steam to be a fairly buggy system but i've never had it delete games from my account.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

I don't know about TF2 items, but you are aware games you buy on steam remain on your account even if you uninstall Steam, right? I've done it multiple times, even switching from a PC to a Mac, and all my games have still been in the download section. It sounds to me like you did something wrong there.

Edit: Just did some digging online, and people seem to be saying you keep your TF2 items even if you uninstall Steam. Unless I'm missing something here.

I'm on a DIFFERENT account, though. That's the whole reason I had to uninstall Steam in the first place.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

I'm on a DIFFERENT account, though. That's the whole reason I had to uninstall Steam in the first place.

Wasn't the reason you had to create a new account your email had stopped working? In that case, what you lost really wasn't the fault of Steam at all. Depending on what caused the email to stop working, you could argue the email client is at fault.

Just did some digging online, and people seem to be saying you keep your TF2 items even if you uninstall Steam. Unless I'm missing something here.

I think this is a mixture of Steam error and user error.
I've found steam to be a fairly buggy system but i've never had it delete games from my account.

The original poster had to create a new account because his email address was no longer working. I'm not sure why he cannot simply log back into his old account.

 

[dangoball]

And that, my dear escapists, is why most internet services ask for a backup email address.
And you can set your new email as contact address for your old Steam acc. Just saying.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Finally the gamer attitude of "I'm not responsible for my own stupid mistakes" comes full circle against gaming's favorite snuggle-bunny.

I want everyone to know that I called it!

People have always bitched about Valve. You just don't see it as often, since so many people love and religiously defend them.

Honestly, I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass amount of comments blasting the OP for speaking negatively about Valve. I mean, aside from the Original Poster himself, the comments have been rather mature.

I think someone should do a test. Come up with two similar scenarios - one involving Steam/Valve and one involving EA/Origin - and see what the comments for each are like. It would be interesting, if nothing else.

 

[Spitfire]

Ultimately, I had to uninstall Steam and reinstall it. This meant deleting the two Steam games already on my PC: Half-Life and TF2.

Every Steam game that you have installed is located in a folder called Steamapps. If you have to reinstall Steam, for whatever reason, you can just move the Steamapps folder somewhere else, to avoid deletion, then bring it back in place, after installation, and you're good to go.

So, I did it. And now, GUESS FUCKING WHAT? Deus Ex is on my computer, but won't fucking play.

Why? Do you receive an error message, does it crash, what exactly is going on?

And yeah, I got TF2 again, but I forgot all my items, which are now lost. Including several very rare ones. So, I am out:

-$9.99 for Deus Ex.
-$9.99 for Half-Life.
-1 copy of half-Life plus save data.
-$20.00 worth of TF2 items.
-An entire weekend of potential happiness.

You don't lose your TF2 items when you uninstall the game (except maybe for those who are playing F2P, but don't quote me on that). They're there, maybe it's just taking Steam too long to refresh your inventory.

Now, I also can't contact Steam. Awesome.

Why can't you?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I had to set up a new Steam profile to buy it, because my old E-Mail was defunct.

There's your problem with the TF2, the items still exist just with your old account.

This meant deleting the two Steam games already on my PC: Half-Life and TF2.

I'm guessing you didn't back them up? There is an option for that in the Steam menu.

You are going to have to get Valve to combine your accounts together, good luck with that.

So, I go through the obvious checklist: check Steam Libray, check Games, check Downloads

Did you check any other folders in the main Steam folder? my copy of Deus Ex was located in this path C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common.

GUESS FUCKING WHAT? Deus Ex is on my computer, but won't fucking play.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1233407

It's amazing what you can find using google, this was one of the first links to come up. Apparently 12 year old games don't run too well on modern computers.

Hope this was of some use, good luck on combining your accounts!

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

I wouldn't bash Steam on the Escapist OP. Gaben's cock is deep in this one. People are quick to forget just how full of shit Valve is in general.

Can you tell us why valve is full of shit? I couldnt care less about gabe. I just enjoy their games and have a LOT of money saved on steam. Thats reason enough for me as a consumer to like them.

I would have copied my "steam" folder into my external hard drive before i did this. Id also keep better track of my emails, i have a single "@gmail" email that i use for all games and facebook that is utterly seperate from my personal email for this exact reason. Valve have always contacts me promptly. This is really weird.