WTF? I don't want this useless program, just install the damn thing I payed for and be done with it

[Asehujiko]

Doesn't it say on the box that you need to have an internet connection to play it? And why are you complainting about steam while dow2 comes with GFWL too?

Steam functions exactly the same like an ingame pathing module, exept that you can run it seperately and patch up/buy/try demos other games. Or is the second desktop shortcut of about 16kb bothering you so much?

 

[Theo Samaritan]

It's pretty stupid how it makes you update before you can play singleplayer. I don't think patches even affect singleplayer.

If it fixed a game breaker, then damn right they effect single player. Unless you misphrased, that's actually a pretty thick comment.

I just don't want it. my laptop is up to spec to play Dawn of War II, the game I am now starting regretting buying because of Steam, but Steam is saying it isn't. I know my main gaming system is more than able to run it, but it has no net connection available to it so I can't install DOW II on it because Steam needs access to the net to install anything, such a great piece of crap.

YLook at it the other way: Steam provides a good, often cheap, DRM and digital shop. If you feel this way about what is a relatively unintrusive DRM that gives a bunch of community features, then how the hell would you feel if it had SecuROM on it? Would you prefer that?

Give steam an honest chance, its actually pretty solid.

 

[Markness]

It's pretty stupid how it makes you update before you can play singleplayer. I don't think patches even affect singleplayer.

If it fixed a game breaker, then damn right they effect single player. Unless you misphrased, that's actually a pretty thick comment.

Well, the finer aspects of patches definitely do not. The single player has already been play tested enough to be fun. No amount of play testing on multiplayer can stand up to thousands of people thinking up new strategies to abuse. I can't think of any game breakers in single player, let alone any that have been fixed.

 

[Theo Samaritan]

It's pretty stupid how it makes you update before you can play singleplayer. I don't think patches even affect singleplayer.

If it fixed a game breaker, then damn right they effect single player. Unless you misphrased, that's actually a pretty thick comment.

Well, the finer aspects of patches definitely do not. The single player has already been play tested enough to be fun. No amount of play testing on multiplayer can stand up to thousands of people thinking up new strategies to abuse. I can't think of any game breakers in single player, let alone any that have been fixed.

Are we just talking dawn of war here or in general? Because in general I can think of countless patches for both single and multiplayer games that rebalance, improve and up the performance of the title in single player. Granted this is more often in RTS, but there are exceptions.

 

[Zer_]

I don't really see how Steam is rubbish, I mean, even if it's a pain to some people (I myself have never had a problem once I got off dial-up) doesn't its fantastic deals (like Left4Dead free for 24 hours) make up for it?

Excuse me, but $1 = 1 EUR is not a fantastic deal. I mean, they are still selling Fallout 3 or Mass Effect for 45 EUR, for Christ's sake! Even if 1 EUR = 1.25 PLN it would be actually MORE than at a retail shop.

And I'm sure it's always patched, because I've heard Steam doesn't patch some games.

Valve can't update Steam games if the 3rd party doesn't send them the patch content to have it distributed onto Steam. At least that is pretty much not Valve's problem. As for the Euros issue I heard it had to do with some of the banks charging exchange fees or something, not sure though.

Also, I work in the Videogame QA business and I can tell you that there are always bugs on a first release. No amount of internal testing can crunch all the bugs. The main idea behind QA is to pinpoint the game breakers such as crashes and broken game mechanics.

Sometimes, no matter how hard testers look they can miss some of the more obscure crash bugs. One of the more unfortunate parts about our industry today is that many and most developers are prepared to release a game with crash bugs to meet a deadline.

 

[Markness]

It's pretty stupid how it makes you update before you can play singleplayer. I don't think patches even affect singleplayer.

If it fixed a game breaker, then damn right they effect single player. Unless you misphrased, that's actually a pretty thick comment.

Well, the finer aspects of patches definitely do not. The single player has already been play tested enough to be fun. No amount of play testing on multiplayer can stand up to thousands of people thinking up new strategies to abuse. I can't think of any game breakers in single player, let alone any that have been fixed.

Are we just talking dawn of war here or in general? Because in general I can think of countless patches for both single and multiplayer games that rebalance, improve and up the performance of the title in single player. Granted this is more often in RTS, but there are exceptions.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I do know RTS games that are not effected by the multiplayer patches, eg Red Alert 3

 

[Theo Samaritan]

Perhaps I am wrong, but I do know RTS games that are not effected by the multiplayer patches, eg Red Alert 3

You said "patches" not "multiplayer patches". I get you now.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

I am not a gamer, so can't say anything to this case, but if i buy a programm, i want the program, i payed for and the actual updates, nothing more.

Same. If I buy something for a computer, I expect it to work on one. The problem with that though is that whilst stuff like XBoxes all have the same hardware, it varies with computers. It's like trying to play a 360 game on the Wii.

 

[Abedeus]

I don't really see how Steam is rubbish, I mean, even if it's a pain to some people (I myself have never had a problem once I got off dial-up) doesn't its fantastic deals (like Left4Dead free for 24 hours) make up for it?

Excuse me, but $1 = 1 EUR is not a fantastic deal. I mean, they are still selling Fallout 3 or Mass Effect for 45 EUR, for Christ's sake! Even if 1 EUR = 1.25 PLN it would be actually MORE than at a retail shop.

And I'm sure it's always patched, because I've heard Steam doesn't patch some games.

Valve can't update Steam games if the 3rd party doesn't send them the patch content to have it distributed onto Steam. At least that is pretty much not Valve's problem. As for the Euros issue I heard it had to do with some of the banks charging exchange fees or something, not sure though.

Still, it means that few games can't be patched.

About the fees - bullshit. Banks don't set the price on Steam at 15 EUR. Example:

Mass Effect is about what, $10-20? At Steam it's 45 EUR. Other example, fair one:

Guild Wars costs about $20. NCSoft has set prices to 15 EUR, because that's more or less the same. That's because you can already buy for the same amount from NCSoft's shop, so it would be stupid to add a game and charge more at Steam. Especially since you can't merge existing accounts.

 

[TheTygerfire]

As you can probablly guess, this is a bit of a rant at companies adding extra rubbish that you don't want to things such as games. One example of this is Steam. I recently bought a copy of Dawn of War II and lo and behold, I have to install this POS before it will let me install the game, then I have to wait an hour to "update" it before I can play. I mean WTF? If we wanted this crap surely we would look it up ourselves instead of having the developers put it in for us when most people don't want it in the first place. Any views on this anyone?

"Dude consoles suck so much and their so unreliable"

Yeah, but it plays games when I tell it to.

 

[Zer_]

It's pretty stupid how it makes you update before you can play singleplayer. I don't think patches even affect singleplayer.

If it fixed a game breaker, then damn right they effect single player. Unless you misphrased, that's actually a pretty thick comment.

Well, the finer aspects of patches definitely do not. The single player has already been play tested enough to be fun. No amount of play testing on multiplayer can stand up to thousands of people thinking up new strategies to abuse. I can't think of any game breakers in single player, let alone any that have been fixed.

Are we just talking dawn of war here or in general? Because in general I can think of countless patches for both single and multiplayer games that rebalance, improve and up the performance of the title in single player. Granted this is more often in RTS, but there are exceptions.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I do know RTS games that are not effected by the multiplayer patches, eg Red Alert 3

You also seemed to be talking aboug RTS in general which no you'd be incorrect in that case. If I'm not mistaken RA3 has a separate executable for the multiplayer, which means yes there could be patches that only affect the multiplayer component of the game. If I'm not mistaken DoW 2 was a rather buggy release on launch. I honestly don't know why anyone would be so determined not to update their game before playing.

Patches are meant to improve the user's experience, and when you purchase a game that has been patched it is probably in your best interest to update the game before playing so you can actually enjoy the game. Imagine if DoW 2 had a game breaking crash bug that would crash the game whenever it tried to save one of the later levels. In the process of crashing the save file becomes corrupted as well. For a bug like this you'll often have to restart the game completely after the patch since your save files will be incompatible. What this means that you'll reach that point in the game, it'll crash and to move on you'll be forced to patch and start over.

It just seems completely illogical to not want to patch the game.

 

[Theo Samaritan]

About the fees - bullshit. Banks don't set the price on Steam at 15 EUR. Example:

Mass Effect is about what, $10-20? At Steam it's 45 EUR. Other example, fair one:

Guild Wars costs about $20. NCSoft has set prices to 15 EUR, because that's more or less the same. That's because you can already buy for the same amount from NCSoft's shop, so it would be stupid to add a game and charge more at Steam. Especially since you can't merge existing accounts.

Valve don't set the steam fees. Well ok, they do, but its the companies involved with the game itself that order it about. Yes it sucks for the Europeans, but if a company wants its games sold at full price in Europe, Valve has to abide.

 

[Zer_]

About the fees - bullshit. Banks don't set the price on Steam at 15 EUR. Example:

Mass Effect is about what, $10-20? At Steam it's 45 EUR. Other example, fair one:

Guild Wars costs about $20. NCSoft has set prices to 15 EUR, because that's more or less the same. That's because you can already buy for the same amount from NCSoft's shop, so it would be stupid to add a game and charge more at Steam. Especially since you can't merge existing accounts.

Valve don't set the steam fees. Well ok, they do, but its the companies involved with the game itself that order it about. Yes it sucks for the Europeans, but if a company wants its games sold at full price in Europe, Valve has to abide.

Makes sense. The whole bank thing was a rumor that I've heard from a few Europeans, but you are right, it is the publisher that determines the final price.

When a publisher releases a game on Steam, Valve will get a cut of the profits, so publishers may choose to mark the price up to make up for the difference. I highly doubt that Valve would intentionally charge more for their European releases to make money.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Steam is a pretty bad example, since it is one of the best download services in existence. Of useless things like a Yahoo! (really, who uses that search engine anymore?) toolbar and such you can simply say you don't want to install it and that's it.

 

[whyarecarrots]

Just wait until you get to use GFWL for the multiplayer: it makes steam look like the offpsring of Jesus and sliced bread*, and unless theyve improved it from the demo, the server browser and matchmaking system is truly appalling, worse even than the Gamespy system used for the original (and that thing is poor)

*Just for the record, I like Steam, i just realise it's far from perfect

 

[DM.]

As you can probablly guess, this is a bit of a rant at companies adding extra rubbish that you don't want to things such as games. One example of this is Steam. I recently bought a copy of Dawn of War II and lo and behold, I have to install this POS before it will let me install the game, then I have to wait an hour to "update" it before I can play. I mean WTF? If we wanted this crap surely we would look it up ourselves instead of having the developers put it in for us when most people don't want it in the first place. Any views on this anyone?

You know there is an option to force updates to happen manually right?

 

[ILPPendant]

Like what must be millions of others, I've never had any problems with Steam.

GFWL has however, crashed multiple times which simultaneously causes me to fail missions. It's a very irritating program.

The thing which surprising some folks is that as a DRM Steam works surprisingly well. If I want to play a Steam game I haven't... ah... bought then I need to shut down Steam, block its network permissions - in fact really block all network traffic - and be sure not to run the wrong executable. Since I have rather a large number of games on my account I really don't want to get banned.

P.S. There's no y in "paid".

 

[squeekenator]

I can't think of any game breakers in single player, let alone any that have been fixed.

If you're still talking about strategies that autowin here, then clearly you've never heard of God Mode + No Clip. Give Thaddeus his trait that makes him invulnerable for a few seconds after completing a jump or teleport, put him in Terminator armour and then get the trait that removes the energy cost and recharge time on all abilities for a short time after getting a kill. He then teleports around the map, invulnerable, freely killing everything except the boss, while the other guys sit around having a nice chat and a tea party.

Just wait until you get to use GFWL for the multiplayer: it makes steam look like the offpsring of Jesus and sliced bread*, and unless theyve improved it from the demo, the server browser and matchmaking system is truly appalling, worse even than the Gamespy system used for the original (and that thing is poor)

The matchmaking has improved immensely since the beta (not a demo!). I usually get a game within 10 seconds of clicking Start Searching, and that's playing at the Australian peak time. If I was to play when all the, say, Americans were online, it would probably be even faster.

And what exactly does GFWL do that's so bad? All that it's done for me is let me chat with people I've automatched, which was pretty handy. I do, however, agree completely that Gamespy was terrible, and I'm quite glad that I no longer have to put up with that mess of lame and blergh.

 

[Abedeus]

About the fees - bullshit. Banks don't set the price on Steam at 15 EUR. Example:

Mass Effect is about what, $10-20? At Steam it's 45 EUR. Other example, fair one:

Guild Wars costs about $20. NCSoft has set prices to 15 EUR, because that's more or less the same. That's because you can already buy for the same amount from NCSoft's shop, so it would be stupid to add a game and charge more at Steam. Especially since you can't merge existing accounts.

Valve don't set the steam fees. Well ok, they do, but its the companies involved with the game itself that order it about. Yes it sucks for the Europeans, but if a company wants its games sold at full price in Europe, Valve has to abide.

Makes sense. The whole bank thing was a rumor that I've heard from a few Europeans, but you are right, it is the publisher that determines the final price.

When a publisher releases a game on Steam, Valve will get a cut of the profits, so publishers may choose to mark the price up to make up for the difference. I highly doubt that Valve would intentionally charge more for their European releases to make money.

http://www.steamunpowered.eu/forums.php?m=posts&q=120

See this. And tell me Valve is not full of money-grabbing assholes. Look at games like Mass Effect, Far Cry 2, Quantum of Solance or Space Siege.