Half-Life's Steamy Future [Sep 07, 2003, 1:14 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
A post on Planet Half-Life
(thanks Frans) reproduces some quotes from Valve's Erik Johnson posted to a Steam
forum thread discussing the role of Steam in the future of Half-Life. Here
are the excerpts:
There will no longer be a WonID system, it will be replaced by the SteamID system.
When we convert the userbase to Steam, a single WonID will be valid for all of the products.
If you're purchased a product from us at retail, you're going to have access to all of our products via Steam.
No, you do not have to pay for Steam.
That is correct, you'll have to have Steam installed to play the most current version of Half-Life.
I really do object to the *requirement* to be connected in order to play the single player game. I may be connected most of the time through broadband anyway, making this a moot argument in terms of real effects, but I refuse, from a standpoint of principle, to buy the game until I am not required to do this. I don't particularly care if it validates me every time I start up and am connected to the net, and I dont care if it does it when I play multiplayer, but I refuse to have the requirement to be online dictated to me by the developers for the single player game.
I also strenuously object to a system that doesn't put the control of downloading in my hands, no matter how intelligent it is. I want to ensure my ability to run steam online purely as a way of verifying the legality of my copy, as well as controlling where it downloads to, and be able to back it up in a non-proprietary format, as well as having complete control over what it downloads as well as where, when and how fast. I seriously dont want to see large cache files that dont relate to anything I know about, and I also want complete control over what feedback the program gives to Valve about me, other than (as noted before) the legality of my copy.
Steam has a crappy user interface lacking in feedback, and a shocking lack of options for the user. Even Windows update isnt this insidiously suspect.
I also strenuously object to a system that doesn't put the control of downloading in my hands, no matter how intelligent it is. I want to ensure my ability to run steam online purely as a way of verifying the legality of my copy, as well as controlling where it downloads to, and be able to back it up in a non-proprietary format, as well as having complete control over what it downloads as well as where, when and how fast. I seriously dont want to see large cache files that dont relate to anything I know about, and I also want complete control over what feedback the program gives to Valve about me, other than (as noted before) the legality of my copy.
Steam has a crappy user interface lacking in feedback, and a shocking lack of options for the user. Even Windows update isnt this insidiously suspect.
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