Steam : what do you think about it? any quirks ?

[erikjanneman]

Trials downloaded in 54 seconds for me. Just awesome.

While ingame @ trials it has alot of 'server connection' errors. Result is that i need to wait some minutes before i can acces a new track after i've completen another. Do you also have this problem? It's seriously anoying...

/edit: I've looked on the steam forum and people seem to think it has to do with the fact the number of players increased dramaticly because of the steam sale. Appearantly the Redlynx server could not handle that... Not sure if that's the case, but i'm not the only one with the problem. So i'm hoping they fix it sometime. I'll play some other game i got through the steam sale till then :p.

[yogibbear]

Yes. I'm annoyed. Though not really... but i played for two hours, almost finished all the easy tracks and then exited the game. Today i loaded it up and NONE of my progress was saved. Back to tutorials 1,2,3 for me :(

[Dem Pyros]

Hmm, I never got a single one of those "Payment failed" screens (in the six times I bought games since the Xmas sale started).

[mustangdelta]

Hmm, I never got a single one of those "Payment failed" screens (in the six times I bought games since the Xmas sale started).

Same here....until I tried (and eventually bought) Mass Effect yesterday.

Just one of those things I guess.

[erikjanneman]

Hmm, I never got a single one of those "Payment failed" screens (in the six times I bought games since the Xmas sale started).

I never had it before either, but also for me it was while trying to buy mass effect.

[whismerhill]

thought I would add to this thread since I just got Steam myself

quirks : - no download throttle (say hi to my unhappy girlfriend when all bandwith is eaten away ...)
-no download size information
-no download prioritize
-no concurrent download limit (hurrah to updating all your games at once !)

for a download service it seems pretty limited to me

additional problems that may be limited to me:
-installing the orange box was a chore : First steam update dll error => so I uninstall & download/install the latest steam from the website
then the cheer number of ports to keep open just for steam seems like a bit too much but whatever ... Second installing from DVDs failed with a "steam server saturated" type of error ... then just after that it begins updating... after a while I understand that he is actually downloading full installs directly from the web => I cancel & restart from DVDs => this time it goes farther and it actually reads from the DVDs a bit more but again I end up with a "steam server saturated" error after like ... 10 minutes of Steam not responding ...

and now a crash ... => relaunched it and it seems there's less to download now, hopefully that will be the end of my problems ...

[DaFox]

-no download size information
-no download prioritize
-no concurrent download limit (hurrah to updating all your games at once !)

Eh?

Having multiple games update at once is VERY rare in any case.


I have never had to open any ports for steam ever, nor any dll errors.

"steam server saturated" would be understandable if it was within the last 20 minutes (when you posted), the servers have gone to hell because of the new L4D2 DLC being released.

[whismerhill]

is this the new beta steam ?

[DaFox]

is this the new beta steam ?

Its technically out of beta now, they removed the beta icon and it is forced upon everyone on monday.

[Tanuki]

A lot of steam games run checks on the exe files before launch. Any change and they crash out. I know of a few games that would have widescreen methods if it was not for these checks.

For me Non-Steam Game Version > Steam Game Version

[whismerhill]

[quote]is this the new beta steam ?

Its technically out of beta now, they removed the beta icon and it is forced upon everyone on monday.
lol ok I guess ... anyway it was time that a download service got those kind of basic information ...
I wouldn't have thought that a seven years old, worldwide number 1 online selling platform would include such a poor client ...

by the way this old client seems to not resume downloads stopped by non-user interactions (aka probably errors or something...)
I hope the new one is better ...

as for steam ports : https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711

edit: After struggling for 5 hours with the thing, I thought I was going to play after steam told me "ready to play" but it seems not, it's desperately trying to launch the stupid game for minutes and minutes and minutes...
I guess I'm going to try the beta... hopefully I'll be able to play one of those days ...
the beta was better only a single minute to launch the game :bowdown

[whismerhill]

other quirks :
-can't download an update & launch another steam game at the same time .....
so I'm forced to play a non-steam game .... :evil:
-changing spoken language (to check out the quality of voices) causes a redownload of something ...

[DaFox]

other quirks :
-can't download an update & launch another steam game at the same time .....
so I'm forced to play a non-steam game .... :evil:
-changing spoken language (to check out the quality of voices) causes a redownload of something ...

I have never had the first, I've always downloaded stuff and played other steam games at the same time. The update just gets paused though.

I suspect the second one is just steam being smart. Only supplying you with one language pack until you choose otherwise to save space. I like it if that is the case.

[whismerhill]

yeah lol that's exactly what I meant, paused update while playing a steam game while you can play any other non-steam game without interrupting the update and more specifically its download ... It's a bother when you have low bandwith & several hundred megabytes to download

and sure it is smart to not install unused languages... however it could warn about the download before forcing you to do it with no way to interrupt it ... (moreso when the box actually states that the needed languages are included on the DVD)

[DaFox]

owever it could warn about the download before forcing you to do it with no way to interrupt it

Fair enough :)

[ChristopherB]

I've been using Steam for many years now and I find it to be quite good. Not having to worry about CD's, boxes, or keys is great. Being able to reload my games as many times as needed is good too. The requirement to be online isn't that bad, it isn't like Ubisoft's constant connection rubbish for AC2, and there is an offline mode.

One system that has annoyed me so much is Games For Windows Live. I have had so many bad experiences with that system it isn't even funny. Being unable to play my saves when it demands to update inside my game..not registering when I updated the client...having to use their awful MS-points driven marketplace...forgetting my login info...ect. I really wish they hadn't chosen to use it for Fallout 3 and Dawn of War 2. GTA 4 was also a nightmare with GFWL. :x

Download times for Steam don't bother me that much since my campus has an amazing connection...I usually get 900 KB/s+. :mrgreen:

Now...sure I could drive to the store and attempt to purchase the retail copy, but that assumes they have it in stock, and that I wish to stomach the cost of tax and gas spent to get there. That's quite a bit of extra cost for a small piece of plastic an a printed booklet. I could see special-edition purchases might be OK at a store if you can't already find free-shipping online.

[whismerhill]

[quote]-no download size information
-no download prioritize
-no concurrent download limit (hurrah to updating all your games at once !)

well let's just say that while the update information worked Ok the first time I updated (accurate download size & time)
it is not too reliable either
10 hours @ 80kB/s = 125MB ... search the error :?

[scavvenjahh]

Is there any way to disable Steam Cloud (other than to start Steam in offline mode) ? I'm getting a lot more stupid sync'ing problems with the new Steam. The game launches but savegames are not loaded until I quit and restart the game... Annoying for a "service" I don't give a rat's ass about.

[fiskstolpe]

As far as I'm aware it's only possible to disable the Cloud sync in the Left 4 Dead games (maybe other Source games as well), not globally. I don't know, that's one thing I don't like about Steam, some really basic things like that one are just missing or not working as expected. Take the notification options for example. There are menus for setting up individual notifications, but most of them just aren't working.

[Abram]

From what I've seen, it's game-dependent. It's a shame there's no option for it, as it gives some troubles. I found a thread speaking of a line in a .txt file that Steam generated, but it no longer seems to exist.

I've never had an issue with it, and personally love it. It lets me play my saved games at others' houses. Yes, that's how social I am.