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Valve to update Steam, big-time!

Published on 20th June 2007 by Joe Martin

The Steam update, which takes effect in July, will add a wide selection of community features to the platform.

Steam has really taken off in the last few years, something mainly helped by the must-have status of games like Half-Life 2, and Valve is keen to ensure it stays on top of the pile as other companies vie to create online distribution methods.

To this end, Valve has announced that there will be a major Steam update later this summer that will hit more than 13 million users globally.

Starting this July, users will have access to a wide range of new community features which will go on top of the current Guest Pass feature which allows gamers to invite friends to some games and play for a limited time.

According to Valve, the update will include:

"Personal Steam pages and profiles, create and join groups, schedule games with friends, review who they've played with, see how well everyone played, chat with groups, chat via voice, and more. These new community services and features can be used with all Steam games, which include new releases and classic titles from leading publishers and independent developers."

The update, which is the largest to be applied to Steam since its release in 2004, will be free for all users to apply and will available through the Steam client's own tubes, as well as over one of the many Internets.

"Our community has given us great direction on the ways they want to see Steam evolve," said Gabe Newell. "Adding these new community features to make it easier to connect with other gamers is something we've wanted to see on Steam for a long time and this latest update is just the start. We've got a long list of items that we're working on to make it easier for gamers to connect and play games on Steam."

Reckon the update will encourage more users to Steam, or is it just going to cool off the whole palava as Valve bites off more than it can chew? Let us know in the forums, where you too can chat with friends, schedule games, create profiles, pages and threads. Hey, wait a minute! Newell's been copying us again...

20 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

z3rb 20th June 2007, 23:06

Seems pretty cool to me. Very xfire-ish.

chrisuk 20th June 2007, 23:34

I'm probably wrong, but I would think Live for Windows (or whatever its called) factored pretty highly in there decisions for new features. Sounds pretty cool though, even though I don't use Steam (anymore, no money and HL-2 has been played too many times).

RedBuddies 20th June 2007, 23:37

Quote:

will available through the Steam client's own tubes, as well as over one of the many Internets.

completemadness 20th June 2007, 23:51

its about time, steam seems to be increasing in popularity, but the program has barley been updated at all, and it still suffers a lot of the flaws that people complain about so bitterly

i still prefer x-fire though :p

C-Sniper 21st June 2007, 03:38

not another ****ing update. the last took forever because over half their servers were down. although it seems to me they are just adding a scheduler and TS to the base. Another reason im against updates is because one of them pretty much forced me to go get a new router just to play on servers. Dont forget to back up your friends list cause those will be "refreshed". >:(

tm36usa 21st June 2007, 03:57

So its gonna be like facebook?

Gravemind123 21st June 2007, 04:05

Seems more like Xbox Live then it does Facebook, probably a good thing in the long run even though updates can be annoying if the servers get crowded.

r0z|3o0n 21st June 2007, 05:18

Yay. More broken Steam stuff that stops us playing our games for hours while the broken servers send us broken data to install into our already mostly broken installations. This on top of leaving a lot of existing broken stuff, well, broken.

Everybody's a winner with Steam!

Havok154 21st June 2007, 09:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by r0z|3o0n
Yay. More broken Steam stuff that stops us playing our games for hours while the broken servers send us broken data to install into our already mostly broken installations. This on top of leaving a lot of existing broken stuff, well, broken.

Everybody's a winner with Steam!

Fine then, steal my whole comment before I even get to say it.

Seriously, every minor update to steam or any of it's games always ends up with 30 other features being broken, assuming the games work at all anymore. If something like a better voice chat codec and a new radar in CSS can take servers down for hours, I hate to see what happens when they add all new functionality to their system. :(

Jamie 21st June 2007, 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by tm36usa
So its gonna be like facebook?

My thoughts exactly.

specofdust 21st June 2007, 09:18

Maybe they could fix the shitty download speeds while they're at it.

CardJoe 21st June 2007, 09:43

I've personally never had any problems with Steam except for one copy of HL2 which had it's serial key been used before. Took it back to the shop the next day, no problem.

For me it's always been fast and adequate though I want more movies like Zombie Movie on there and less crappy PopCap games.

[USRF]Obiwan 21st June 2007, 11:03

I have no problems with steam except some anoying things with "server is not right version" or something like that, that would prevent me from playing for a week. Until i found some forum on the net mentioning cleaning out some stuff from the steam dir.

I was rather hoping for some mayor engine updates, like making it dx10 ready or something game enhanching like that.

But no... More useless needles stuff is added.

The voice client i have never used with my friends because ventrilo works better and i can talk with them all the time and not only when you are "alive".

The friends window is only usefull for actualy see that a friend is online. Most of the chatting is done via msn for me and most users out there.

capnPedro 21st June 2007, 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by specofdust
Maybe they could fix the shitty download speeds while they're at it.

QFT, my 3-day trial of CS:Source turned into a 2.1 day trial after waiting for it to download :(.

Anyway, I still prefer xfire as it has a nicer interface for chatting (IMO of course) and it shows the status of non-Valve games.

specofdust 21st June 2007, 14:36

2.1 days? You're lucky. It took me ages to download Red Orchestra when steam decided despite being able to use 60KB/s of my connection that it would use between 12-20 the entire time. We're paying for the servers, they really should be cable of maxxing out paltry 512kbit connections.

Fr4nk 21st June 2007, 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by specofdust
2.1 days? You're lucky. It took me ages to download Red Orchestra when steam decided despite being able to use 60KB/s of my connection that it would use between 12-20 the entire time. We're paying for the servers, they really should be cable of maxxing out paltry 512kbit connections.

Meh, my steam experiances have been fine, downloading wise, usually got about 1000kb/s (1mb/s) but thats only half of my 20mb connection so downloading games was never really an issue just stupid things like server favourites and history never working :/

Quote:

Originally Posted by r0z|3o0n
Yay. More broken Steam stuff that stops us playing our games for hours while the broken servers send us broken data to install into our already mostly broken installations. This on top of leaving a lot of existing broken stuff, well, broken.

Everybody's a winner with Steam!

Best "69" post evar :)

DXR_13KE 21st June 2007, 15:53

at least they are doing something......

CardJoe 21st June 2007, 16:49

....Something which isn't making HL Ep 2....

Paradigm Shifter 21st June 2007, 17:02

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