I will not use another piece of software that wants to live on my Systray like AOL or MSN. Feels like they are trying to OWN us by shoving what they deem best up our AZZeZ. Seems to me the only thing STEAM is accomplishing is killing the CS comunity a little bit faster so they can dig a little bit deeper for that money they CARE so much about. They call this MiniMicroCrap syndrom coupled with a secret desire to take over the world and a complete disregard for there customer base.

Exactly, and now they just released a new version of Counter-Strike
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"Again, as I said in my previous post, the delay could very well be entirely Steam's fault, but without evidence or any direct knowledge of the "goings on" at Valve, I'd prefer not to jump to conclusions."

It may be a jump but you don't have to jump too far. Maybe there is something hanging up HL but for company that held it so tightly under wraps for so long, give a rock solid release date and then to come out and say, "uhmmm, it ain't ready!" is surprising to say the least.

Look at the state of Steam presently. Valve wants Steam at full... uhmm... steam or else they won't have the control and "middleman" free delivery of HL2 that they so badly desire. Can you imagine an attempt to release HL2 through Steam as it is presently running. Do you think all those CS people are making a display? Just think what would happen if they tried it with HL2.

I don't know anything about coding or programming but whatever they are attempting to do is either too big and complex for the technology at hand or they hae a bunch of absolute incompotent people running it.

Maybe the secret is I waited until after the initial rush to set it up.

Now with HL2, they said that they playtested it, they sent us movie after movie of actual gameplay, they said that they were done & just bug-checking. Then right after Steam takes a huge public shit, they suddenly have a whole lot of time to fix Steam & make sure its fixed, but can't get HL2 out on time????????

I agree that may be what it looks like without considering anything but what you can see as a gamer, but again, I would say we can hardly see the whole picture. I'd rather not jump to conclusions.

I would like to point out that a professional (and MS certified) programmer friend of mine once told me that, when you look at the coding, 1/10th of the time is writing the code, 9/10ths of the time is debugging. Why do so many games have their release dates pushed back and back? Why do so many games come out noticibly buggy? Its because bugs can take a long time to squash. A developer may assume that because a game is in a playable state, it will be good to go gold in a month, only to find a month is passed, their publisher is knocking on their door and there are still bugs.

Again, as I said in my previous post, the delay could very well be entirely Steam's fault, but without evidence or any direct knowledge of the "goings on" at Valve, I'd prefer not to jump to conclusions.

"I downloaded Steam w/ the CS cache, installed it, let it update, and started playing. I don't understand the big deal everyone has with Steam, it's better than the silly browsers that come with the mods anyways."

I know you didn't have problems Ralphus but check this board and you'd probably be in the minority. It's not like somebody's whining about a glitch free game because he, alone, is having problems. They'll always be people who have trouble running stuff because they don't know DirectX from a hole in the ground but you're looking at a ton of seasoned gamers who can't get this pig to squeal. It worked for me too AFTER I downloaded it with the CS cache but that wasn't the original 1.0 release. Even after that it will let you execute a game even though you haven't downloaded enough of the file and it just freezes on the Intro. That's another bug. I also thought it took way to long to actually join a game. I agree with you on in-game browsers though and that's why I use ASE.

JUST FUCKIN' HIRE SOME CCIE PEOPLE AND SOME USEFUL PROGRAMMERS & FUCKING FIX IT!!!

Wrong answer. The Mongolian Hordes Technique is a Bad Thing, m'kay?

Hiring additional coders in the late stages of a project slows completion.

The solution is to delay Steam, not HL2. Steam is all cruft and chrome, anyway.


This comment was edited on Sep 26, 09:44.

If single player installations have to connect using Steam for the first couple of weeks, this should give them some protection from piracy during the initial peak of sales.

So I think it's a distinct posibility that the game is basically ready to go out the door but they're waiting on Steam. If they release the game before Steam can handle it then they'll both piss off all their legit. customers and waste all the time and effort they've put into copy-protection.

Whilst it's annoying for everyone who just wants to buy the game and play it I think we're going to see more and more of this kind of thing. Microsoft already have some grand plans for "simpliying" gaming on the PC and I'd be surprised if these plans didn't include some of their "Trusted Computing" (aka Palladium) technology.

The only way we wouldn't end up with this technology is if people stopped pirating games... but as that's never going to happen I think Steam and it's ilk are here to stay.

-DM

Ok, I downloaded the steam client with the CS cache. It updated itself and I told it to play CS... after about five minutes of "Preparing to play Counter-Strike" it gives me this error:

---------------------------------------------------
Name: No children still registered
Program: C:\Program Files\Steam.exe
File: \p4clients\rel_beta\Projects\Common\Misc\MultiFieldBlob.cpp

m_uNumRegisteredChildren == 0

(Press Retry to debug application - JIT debugging must be enabled)
---------------------------------------------------


I used to defend Valve Software.. now I just want to kick someone in the nuts. =(

<I>I downloaded Steam w/ the CS cache, installed it, let it update, and started playing. I don't understand the big deal everyone has with Steam, it's better than the silly browsers that come with the mods anyways.</I>

Good for you, I did the same thing and it crashes constantly mid-game. Just because you're not having problems doesn't mean that nobody is. The majority of people who are posting here are having trouble, and that doesn't make them idiots, man.

Let's look at the facts.

Valve tested steam with volunteer testers more than a year ago. It was a beta-test of 1.6 which went on & on for months.

Valve opened the beta to the public in January. 1.6 changes were announced on sites like this one. But valve's servers couldn't handle the demand. It was an exercise in the realm of sheer stupidity. The public test stopped the next day.

Steam's latest release, what a month ago or two, went just as bad. People couldn't get the program to update, couldn't join a game, had other troubles.

You would think that after 2 open beta tests that they would have gotten this right by now.

Now with HL2, they said that they playtested it, they sent us movie after movie of actual gameplay, they said that they were done & just bug-checking. Then right after Steam takes a huge public shit, they suddenly have a whole lot of time to fix Steam & make sure its fixed, but can't get HL2 out on time????????

*THIS* is why HL2 was delayed

Until I see some evidence, I'll assume that the internal affairs at Valve are a little more complicated than what we can deduce without a hint of what is going on behind closed doors.

In other words, there is no real evidence behind your assumption. Though it is easy to draw conclusions from what gamers see to be the state of affairs, I have found that most often, the situation is more complicated than what we can deduce from the outside looking in. Who knows? Maybe it is steam, but I certainly wouldn't put any money on it.

Too many people were having problems with Steam & it had to be patched & if it has to be patched again, then they'll delay HL2 again to do it. Why?, because they don't want to wait another year or two before they release CS2 or TF2 or even HL3. They want to test out the reason that steam was made, to distribute media.

So we are forced to wait for Steam to be ready even though the HL2 game is ready right now to go gold.

Valve needs to get some help with this RIGHT NOW. How can they beta-test this thing for months & release it twice to the public & fuck it up both times???????
"ok, we're ready now"
"you sure?"
"wtf bitch, why you questioning me. It's ready."
"yeah but last time we flooded our servers"
"oh STFU, we have mirrors now. it's not just our servers"
"but we changed how it executes a game since then"
"I'm gonna beat you with a crowbar. I know we changed it. I changed it"
"yeah but you also didn't test that change"
"We beta-tested enough man"
"yeah but we didn't beta test the new executables"
"are you stupid? It's gonna work. trust me."


JUST FUCKIN' HIRE SOME CCIE PEOPLE AND SOME USEFUL PROGRAMMERS & FUCKING FIX IT!!!

JUST THINK, NEXT TUESDAY WILL BE NORMAL INSTEAD OF STELLAR. ALL BECAUSE OF STEAM. FUCK STEAM!

"LOL. Yes, double clicking on an executable requires people capable of higher thinking. People just like you Ralphus. Isn't there a CS server you should be running around on right about now, accusing everyone of being "GHEY"!"

I downloaded Steam w/ the CS cache, installed it, let it update, and started playing. I don't understand the big deal everyone has with Steam, it's better than the silly browsers that come with the mods anyways.

I agree completely, Steam provides a minor feature or two that have been implemented in games before. And then there's the part where they replace FTP and web hosting which makes it harder on the user because there are no mirrors and may provide the publisher more control. The whole thing is marketing bullshit. They made everyone think they were providing a new and exciting service when really everyone is just doing them a favor by using Steam.

"I've had no problems with Steam, I think maybe they just didn't dumb it down enough for idiots."

LOL. Yes, double clicking on an executable requires people capable of higher thinking. People just like you Ralphus. Isn't there a CS server you should be running around on right about now, accusing everyone of being "GHEY"!

"Very nice. It also allows you to see if the person you are chatting to is in a game, view the game's info, and join that game from the IM if you wish."

Yeah Unreal Tournament had that feature in 1999 and I didn't need some bloatware app to use it.

I just don't see the need for a secondary app to play a game. It's that simple. In my mind the idiots are the ones that are willing to use this POS just becuase it comes with HL2. If it came with an EA Sports game you'd all be freaking out.

I've had no problems with Steam, I think maybe they just didn't dumb it down enough for idiots.

The thread referenced in "Here's a post everyone should read..." has the quote:

Chris Deeming: Will Steam be required to have an internet connection active when starting up a singleplayer game or a LAN game?

Gabe Newell: No, it won't.

There will be a brief transition (like two weeks) when it is necessary, but then it will go away. It's a temporary issue.

Fantastic! The guy didn't quote the e-mail headers like many who quote Valve e-mails, but I'm happy to believe it's true.

Maybe the 2 week delay is to help them with their Steam work. That's cool. Anything to help mush out the bugs.

This comment was edited on Sep 25, 19:49.

it's going to secretly sell your ip to the RIAA for all those mp3's. its a list building system.