nice article. I've never had any problems with steam, its definitely the way to go. I don't care paying a little more for games, in my opinion the games you get over steam are a far more permanent solution than a CD/DVD which just break.
But as was said in the article, it's nice to pay for something and receive a physical, tangible item/service in return.
I'm not old-fashioned, it's just common sense.
I f my hard drive became corrupted, I *think* I have sufficient right to reinstall HL2/whatever off the disc.
Anyway, great article, it read smoothly and didn't have any obvious spelling mistakes.
It's even nice enough yo make either CDs or DVDs, so you can backup Counter-Strike: Source to DVD (like I did) or onto 6 CDs if you really wanted...
The thing that gets me is the lack of a printed manual. I love to jump straight into the game, but there's nothing like reading the manual in bed later so the next day I can really play properly cos I... ya know... actually know about stuff. Hate reading PDFs though...
Originally Posted by WilHarris Can someone change the FP image? That is seriously fugly :o
Sorry for the delay (it didn't look too bad on my ThinkPad this morning), I was having fun with Orange down in Camberley... Now I'm actually using a monitor with a decent res, I agree that it looks ugly. I've changed it ;)
I have no problems with steam and I buy most of my games through whenever possible. However, a gripe and a warning of what may be in the future arose with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. TR:A was available to download through Steam in the US, but was unavailable in the UK or, as I believe, any European country.
Is this what is going to happen? A splitting of contents between the US an Europe with some titles being available of there but unavailable of here? Hope not.
Is this what is going to happen? A splitting of contents between the US an Europe with some titles being available of there but unavailable of here? Hope not.
Hey BadHead,
Unfortunately, that's not really Steam's decision. Publishers control those launch dates with an iron fist as part of a DRM tactic to promote sales. Personally, I think it promotes more piracy than anything, but that's just me. Most things that come out in one part of the world eventually find their way to the other, though.
P2P ... eww.
The WoW updater that uses bittorrent has very little options, and so uses 100% of your upload bandwidth making your PC a rather large paper wight when it comes to 'doing something else whilst this downloads'.
I've long been a fan of steam, even in the early days when every was raging against it.
However, now (which it's been accepted generallY) I'm finding that some of the gloss has worn off.
Two main issues spring to mind:
- Firstly, we do a roaring trade in second hand games on here (as do many other forums and ebay). I also lend games or give games to my nephew. Unfortunately we can't do this with Steam games - the games are tied to your account, and AFAIK it is not possible to trade a game on. There are a number of games on my steam account that I would like to sell on/give away but I can't. The only alternative I can think of is to create a Steam account for each game you buy, but this largely defeats the object.
- Secondly, Steam games are often cheaper outside steam. For example, I got X3: Reunion for around £8 which was much less than the price on Steam, but they won't allow me to use my serial to download the game through Steam (and thus easily keep it patched etc). This stance appears purely to be an 'encouragement' for you to buy through steam rather than get the best price.
I'll be getting TF2 and Portal through Steam I'm almost certain, since I'll probably play TF2 for quite a while. But I'm not sure I want to gamble on another game if I'm going to be stuck with it.
I hate how Blizzard has resorted to P2P just to save money : when I downloaded a trailer (SC2 of course) Blizzard uploaded NOTHING to me! No upload, only the .exe client => huge savings, as if they didn't have enough already.
As far as Steam is concerned, I love it !! It works ver well, I can't wait for the new features to see what they made for us.
steam is good, i have bought several games through there that I otherwise wouldn't have known about, or are no longer distributed (HL1 and series etc), I also like how if you buy a game through the store and activate in steam, you can then download it from steam at a later time. No lost discs problem :)
Originally Posted by g3n3tiX I hate how Blizzard has resorted to P2P just to save money : when I downloaded a trailer (SC2 of course) Blizzard uploaded NOTHING to me! No upload, only the .exe client => huge savings, as if they didn't have enough already.
As far as Steam is concerned, I love it !! It works ver well, I can't wait for the new features to see what they made for us.
I much prefer the idea of P2P patch downloads instead of server download queues, bytes/sec download speeds and so on.
WoW got so much better since they moved to P2P patching, before that the servers used to crash without fail every single patch day due to the load and leave you with several days of server crashes/lag spikes and high ping responses untill most people got the patch downloaded...
Agreed the blizzard downloader is a little basic, just needs an upload limiter setting on it. you can extract the torrent file from the downloader and use your own client if you prefer though :)
it is cool, but, i would like to see it improved, i would like that you could play them offline even without activating the offline mode, that you could send a game that is in your account to another account (with some security features in case they hack your acount), in this way a person can sell or exchange games with other people or even give them away.
the P2P thing is a nice idea... if the end user has some kind of control over the upload quota, for example, if you chose that only 25% of your upload is for steam, it will respect that but it will also lower the amount of p2p traffic you get, meaning that, for example, 20% of your download is from p2p and the rest is from steam servers limiting his way your download speed, when ep2 hits there will be tons of people downloading it and i think steam would be better with p2p or else people will only be able to play it next year.
Originally Posted by Fod hugo, you can burn backup discs of the games you downloaded. steam generates ISOs for you, so you don't have to download it all again.
Originally Posted by cjmUK Why? I've just told you that if you buy it on Steam it is more expensive and your can re-sell it....
To compensate for me not-so-legally having it already. Plus, none of the local retailers sell the DVD anymore. Besides, I won't resell it since it takes a really long time to learn and understand the game, making for some great replay value.
i like steam for automatic updates for your games, but when it comes to buying them I'm afraid I'm just to old fashioned and like to go to the shop and buy the disc
I picked up X3:Reunion GOTY edition for £6 a month or so ago, I forget the store now, it wasn't one I usually go in (Might have been whsmiths but I'm not sure, was a similar type of general store)
Also wether you can register a game you've bought elsewhere on steam seems to be a publisher decision : steam had no problem with me registering Prey through it for example (I haven't tried X3)
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Neat article though.
AGREED!
Nice article. Steam is a very good, well worked bit of kit and is really a pleasure to use!
I'm not old-fashioned, it's just common sense.
I f my hard drive became corrupted, I *think* I have sufficient right to reinstall HL2/whatever off the disc.
Anyway, great article, it read smoothly and didn't have any obvious spelling mistakes.
H.B.
The thing that gets me is the lack of a printed manual. I love to jump straight into the game, but there's nothing like reading the manual in bed later so the next day I can really play properly cos I... ya know... actually know about stuff. Hate reading PDFs though...
I have no problems with steam and I buy most of my games through whenever possible. However, a gripe and a warning of what may be in the future arose with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. TR:A was available to download through Steam in the US, but was unavailable in the UK or, as I believe, any European country.
Is this what is going to happen? A splitting of contents between the US an Europe with some titles being available of there but unavailable of here? Hope not.
Unfortunately, that's not really Steam's decision. Publishers control those launch dates with an iron fist as part of a DRM tactic to promote sales. Personally, I think it promotes more piracy than anything, but that's just me. Most things that come out in one part of the world eventually find their way to the other, though.
The WoW updater that uses bittorrent has very little options, and so uses 100% of your upload bandwidth making your PC a rather large paper wight when it comes to 'doing something else whilst this downloads'.
I hope valve/steam pull it off better.
However, now (which it's been accepted generallY) I'm finding that some of the gloss has worn off.
Two main issues spring to mind:
- Firstly, we do a roaring trade in second hand games on here (as do many other forums and ebay). I also lend games or give games to my nephew. Unfortunately we can't do this with Steam games - the games are tied to your account, and AFAIK it is not possible to trade a game on. There are a number of games on my steam account that I would like to sell on/give away but I can't. The only alternative I can think of is to create a Steam account for each game you buy, but this largely defeats the object.
- Secondly, Steam games are often cheaper outside steam. For example, I got X3: Reunion for around £8 which was much less than the price on Steam, but they won't allow me to use my serial to download the game through Steam (and thus easily keep it patched etc). This stance appears purely to be an 'encouragement' for you to buy through steam rather than get the best price.
I'll be getting TF2 and Portal through Steam I'm almost certain, since I'll probably play TF2 for quite a while. But I'm not sure I want to gamble on another game if I'm going to be stuck with it.
As far as Steam is concerned, I love it !! It works ver well, I can't wait for the new features to see what they made for us.
WoW got so much better since they moved to P2P patching, before that the servers used to crash without fail every single patch day due to the load and leave you with several days of server crashes/lag spikes and high ping responses untill most people got the patch downloaded...
Agreed the blizzard downloader is a little basic, just needs an upload limiter setting on it. you can extract the torrent file from the downloader and use your own client if you prefer though :)
the P2P thing is a nice idea... if the end user has some kind of control over the upload quota, for example, if you chose that only 25% of your upload is for steam, it will respect that but it will also lower the amount of p2p traffic you get, meaning that, for example, 20% of your download is from p2p and the rest is from steam servers limiting his way your download speed, when ep2 hits there will be tons of people downloading it and i think steam would be better with p2p or else people will only be able to play it next year.
H.B.
Side note: I will buy X3: Reunion via Steam.
Why? I've just told you that if you buy it on Steam it is more expensive and your can re-sell it....
Also wether you can register a game you've bought elsewhere on steam seems to be a publisher decision : steam had no problem with me registering Prey through it for example (I haven't tried X3)