Valve dates Steam Cloud launch

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 4th November 2008
Comments (16) Stumble
Valve dates Steam Cloud launch

Valve has announced that Cloud, the new Steam app, will launch alongside Left4Dead this month.

Valve has announced that the new Steam Cloud service which was first announced back in May this year will start launching later this week, in time for the early Left4Dead demo available to those who pre-ordered the game.

The early demo of Left4Dead becomes available on Thursday, November 6th and the public demo will go live on November 11th, with the full game getting released on November 18th.

Cloud is a new system that'll constantly run in the background on Steam and collect data on user configurations, such as mouse sensitivity and key bindings. The idea is that when you recover your Steam account on another PC (such as your work PC) your system will automatically set itself up in line with all your previous configs.

Support for Steam Cloud is new though, so don't expect it to instantly work with all your games on Steam. Left4Dead will be the first game from Valve to have full Steam Cloud compatibility.

Interestingly though, as well as patching older games to work with Steam Cloud, Valve is also going to be sharing the code for the system with all publishers and developers who currently have games on Steam at no added cost. Hopefully then we'll see the system spreading soon enough.

If you want to know more about Left4Dead then you can check out our hands-on Left4Dead preview, our interview with game writer Chet Faliszek, or you can just share your excitement in the forums.
Quote yakyb 4th November 2008, 11:19
Quote:
Cloud is a new system that'll constantly run in the background on Steam

is this optional?
Quote Denis_iii 4th November 2008, 11:27
sweeet! though don't think will be buying anymore games off steam as premium to high with current excahnge rate
Quote proxess 4th November 2008, 11:40
Will this be available to modders with their mods hosted on Steam?
Quote adamc 4th November 2008, 11:50
Sounds like this will be monitoring your settings for every steam app... and I wouldn't think you can disable it yakyb, it'll probably run like the stats-collecting features built-in, but not detrimental to performance.
Quote johnnyboy700 4th November 2008, 12:29
I trust Valve to do this right, maybe not at the first attempt but it will be fine. Loads of people had issues with Steam at first (although mine was fine) and I think its turned out just fine so I have every confidence.
Quote ozstrike 4th November 2008, 12:32
Quote:
Originally Posted by Denis_iii
sweeet! though don't think will be buying anymore games off steam as premium to high with current excahnge rate

I thought if you bought stuff like Left4Dead at retail, then it would basically just be adding it to your steam account anyway?
Quote CardJoe 4th November 2008, 13:06
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozstrike
I thought if you bought stuff like Left4Dead at retail, then it would basically just be adding it to your steam account anyway?

It is, but you can find better deals through retail often.
Quote steveo_mcg 4th November 2008, 13:40
Not to mention the saving on bandwidth.
Quote Omnituens 4th November 2008, 14:17
Wonder if it will remember resolutions too per PC - annoying when new source games default to stupid res. suprised they dont just check what HL2 is running at and default to that instead.
Quote DarkLord7854 4th November 2008, 14:48
Ooh this should be nice :D
Quote Carpet3 4th November 2008, 15:22
sounds like a great idea :)
Quote TreeDude 4th November 2008, 15:34
Does this cloud colleact your game saves as well? That would be the only thing I would care about.
Quote impar 4th November 2008, 22:33
Greetings!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TreeDude
Does this cloud colleact your game saves as well? That would be the only thing I would care about.
Planned to be added later on.
Quote Amon 5th November 2008, 03:59
This is primarily for LAN cafes.
Quote r4tch3t 5th November 2008, 05:44
Great idea in my opinion, if only for the save game saving to be added. Would be really useful if you constantly use more than one computer. You can just continue were you left off.
Quote Mentai 5th November 2008, 05:54
Quote:
Originally Posted by CardJoe
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozstrike
I thought if you bought stuff like Left4Dead at retail, then it would basically just be adding it to your steam account anyway?

It is, but you can find better deals through retail often.

Wow, really? I guess it depends on your country. All steam games are about 30% off on release due to exchange rate and a week or so early in NZ, except for when certain publishers decide to charge differently per country to continue ripping us off. I'm looking at you Activision!
I would've bought fallout 3 off steam by now if they weren't charging more than the standard rate (though their price is not as insane as CoD4's), it pisses me off.
Admitedly that discount is being reduced quite quickly thanks to the world ending, so lets pretend I was complaining 6 months ago :P

On topic, I pre ordered Left4Dead so I'm excited about getting the demo. Although I thought it was supposed to be out Halloween? I guess it is on Valve time haha. I always forget to backup my saves etc when I reformat, so steam cloud will be good for me :D
I hope they implement it in all their other games within a reasonable time frame.
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