I think Valve is trying to take over the world... of warcraft.

400 giga-what?

Wow 30Million users

Wow 30 million, that's huge!

Steam is an awesome service and I have no complaints. I tried D2D once and it was terrible.

Would be one less if I wasn't forced to use it i.e. Steamworks. Do not like this DRM.

Fun fact: due to a game I purchased on Steam a few months back (Flatout Ultimate Carnage) I had to install Windows Live, or whatever they call it, on Saturday.

No complaints, honestly. It's decent software right now. I didn't check memory usage, but it's currently pretty decently thought out. I want a way to turn off it telling me my "friends" are online (as most of my friends are people I played a round of Halo 3 or MW with that were intelligent and used some teamwork, enough that I'd friend them and seek them out, but should prune them off the list after years of not talking to them), but the achievements are well done, and I like the integration with XBL and, as I'm pretty intrigued by WP7, the integration there.

I'll never buy anything over it, as I prefer to make it easier on myself and use one service, but Windows Live, Windows for PC, Games for Windows, whatever they call it, wasn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. I wonder if, similar to Vista, had it been launched at a better time, and had it been free at launch like it is now, it would have been reviled as much. Still, if you don't use XBL and you have no interest in WP7 the thing that I find most interesting about it is utterly lost and it's simply another service in an area full of services that love sitting resident in your RAM.

Curious to know if the people that hate it have used it lately, and what they hate about it (other than it exists.) Seems to me to be better than its competitors that aren't Steam. Again, I had such incredibly low expectations (as mentioned, I bought the game a month or two ago not realizing it needed this installed, didn't play till now because I avoided the installation) and it... wasn't terrible.

Flatout also had Xbox buttons in the interface. Fortunately I discovered that when the menu says "Press B" you literally can press "b." It took me forever to figure out what the reset car button was (you can't access the control menu in-game), but it turns out it's R. Which makes sense, but it was early in my usage of the game and I thought controls were mapped 1-1, so that every feature on the console that uses button X would use whatever it was mapped to here. It wasn't that dumb. Close, but not quite.




Worst part of the experience, though? The awful soundtrack in that game. How are we not yet at a point where we can just put our own MP3s to replace terrible licensed music? The original Xbox promised this, and very loosely delivered (very.)

Nope not used it lately.
I last used it when I last played HL2, which was just after I bought that game ( in a SHOP! ) it took 2 hours to install and update it's self ( really crap as it installed from a DVD! ) I then played and completed it over the week. I've not really touched Steam since.
Nor would I want to.
Hate the T&C's hate DRM and run on Linux 98% of the time now.

A friend told me how great Portal was, running on Wine on Linux without Steam, then told me how the legit version on Windows crashed for him every time in the first chamber.

I wonder what there 'active' user count is on a weekly basis, no where 30 million I bet. I suspect they have a lot of dormant accounts like mine.

Bumpy wrote on Oct 18, 2010, 11:53:
Would be one less if I wasn't forced to use it i.e. Steamworks. Do not like this DRM.

Nobody forces you to buy Steamworks games.

DanteUK wrote on Oct 18, 2010, 12:29:
I wonder what there 'active' user count is on a weekly basis, no where 30 million I bet. I suspect they have a lot of dormant accounts like mine.

Well it says in the post "over six million unique gamers accessing Steam each day", so that doesn't leave much to the imagination.

Fun fact: due to a game I purchased on Steam a few months back (Flatout Ultimate Carnage) I had to install Windows Live, or whatever they call it, on Saturday.

No complaints, honestly. It's decent software right now. I didn't check memory usage, but it's currently pretty decently thought out. I want a way to turn off it telling me my "friends" are online (as most of my friends are people I played a round of Halo 3 or MW with that were intelligent and used some teamwork, enough that I'd friend them and seek them out, but should prune them off the list after years of not talking to them), but the achievements are well done, and I like the integration with XBL and, as I'm pretty intrigued by WP7, the integration there.

It's not kitten killing bad software but it's incredibly mediocre as far as a framework/platform. I'm not sure how you reached those conclusions having used superior products like Steam either. Your whole post feels like "Its not Satan!" but that doesn't make it good or even acceptable.

- Causes performance issues with many games, usually caused by the software itself not being installed properly. I've seen it first hand and I'm sure many other users here can verify it. Replacing Xlive.dll with a dummy file literally makes them go away.

- is both a client and a wrapper which leads to some of the above problems

- Updating process is slow and often fails with bizarre error codes

- Bubble Gum UI that isn't intelligently laid out and is generally inefficient. For example, inviting a friend to a game is a 3 page/click process when it code simply be done through a context menu or with better navigation. The recipient has to bring up the menu, click his messages then find the accept invite button. The entire thing is literally a college student UI project, it's not a professional product.

- Encrypted saves to "protect the achievement system" which is retarded as it was compromised and wide open years ago anyways. These present a major problem if you don't port your profile between installs. It has also lead to corrupted saves which cannot be recovered.

- Microsoft can't decide if it wants to be Steam or not. The wrapper isn't terribly useful as its in-game only.

There is no real reason to ever use Games for Windows Live except XBL integration and most PC gamers don't give two shits about that. Competing products are better in every way. Microsoft hasn't really done anything major to improve it over the past three years and seemingly doesn't care to ever start for that matter.

I've always preferred Steam over anything else, and never really had trouble with it. The DRM is significantly better than a lot of other titles, but definitely kinda sucks when your internet connection isn't behaving. If they improved the ability to play offline I would say it's just about flawless, especially with the ability to share save games over Steam Cloud, and how useful the overlay can be for chatting and using the web.

I'm not sure how you reached those conclusions having used superior products like Steam either. Your whole post feels like "Its not Satan!" but that doesn't make it good or even acceptable.

Like I said, I expected the worst but didn't get it. I got something I'd put second to Steam, but a distant second (I essentially think everything else out there is trash.) And, like I said, the main function that appeals to me is one I get won't appeal to most here.

What it is is decent. Not good. Decent.

I didn't have many of your issues because it wasn't anything I bothered with. For me it was solely DRM and achievements, both of which worked quite fine, achievements better than Steam (as it should be, they've been doing it far longer than Valve.) Being able to hit the home button to bring everything up was really nice, too. Unless your game uses the home key, I suppose...

Like I said, I expected the most horrific, intrusive software possible. It wasn't. It was decent. Marginally better than everything not-Steam, but still better.

Beamer wrote on Oct 18, 2010, 12:15:
Fun fact: due to a game I purchased on Steam a few months back (Flatout Ultimate Carnage) I had to install Windows Live, or whatever they call it, on Saturday.

I learned that fact after buying it and I never installed it. I think it was like 2.99$ when I bought it and not sure I will ever install it. I hate such requirements.

If a PC game is not on Steam, I do not grab it. Steam rocks.

Total number of accounts is a fairly useless statistic, but 30 million is still pretty damn impressive.

Creston

I learned that fact after buying it and I never installed it. I think it was like 2.99$ when I bought it and not sure I will ever install it. I hate such requirements.

I was pretty peeved. Not sure if I missed the requirement on the Steam page or it wasn't there, probably the former. If I didn't have XBL I would have done what you did.

The game is pretty fun. It's apparently almost exactly Flatout 2, which I never played. It's a huge step up over Flatout 1, though, and avoids most of what I hated about that game (which I dug a ton, but had some serious flaws.) I read some reviews that complain about it being hard, but honestly I'm finding it very easy to get the gold on every single racing event (and I'm playing with a keyboard.) Still satisfying.

One of the better $2.99 Steam sale purchases I've made. Stupid fun, but a lot of it. Most of the other $2.99 purchases I've made have either been rebuying games I have on CD or, like this, taking a risk on an older game which I often never even install. Speaking of, time to finally give Mount & Blade a go.

If it's a fun game I wish to play and support the developer, I am indeed forced to buy Steamworks with my game.

MrBone wrote on Oct 18, 2010, 13:00:
If a PC game is not on Steam, I do not grab it. Steam rocks.

So you let Valve decide what is and what is not good game?

This comment was edited on Oct 18, 2010, 13:22.

Beamer wrote on Oct 18, 2010, 12:56:
Like I said, I expected the most horrific, intrusive software possible. It wasn't. It was decent. Marginally better than everything not-Steam, but still better.

I guess my problem with your post is that you judge it based on very limited criteria but claim it's otherwise fine. The reality only becomes more and more apparent with actual usage scenarios, not "oh the achievements". But whatever, everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion.

Total number of accounts is a fairly useless statistic, but 30 million is still pretty damn impressive.

Creston

Didn't they say this was actually an active accounts figure awhile ago? I seem to recall that coming up at some point but can't remember the details.