35 replies to this topic

[rob86]

I've never been so frustrated installing something before in my life. I have a real purchased copy of Empire: Total War and I've been trying for days to install it. I'm forced to use the complete garbage that is STEAM to play a game I spent my money on? It takes me 60minutes to log in to steam, I have NO idea why, but it takes that long, every time, and I've done it half a dozen times, and then it keeps saying it's servers are too busy to install my game. So I have to keep logging in. Why do I even have to connect to their damn servers? I spent hours registering the game with their moronic way of doing it, let me play the stupid thing. I thought that's what the flippin' DVDs were for! Why did I pay $49.99 for this? It's taking me hours and hours just to see if this game will even run. It doesn't make any damn sense. Just let me run the executable like back in the day when thing actually worked right.

I'm not buying another game that uses that STEAM B.S. Heck, I'm put off from buying games in general now. If I had high-speed internet, I would download these games and any future games by these people without a second thought. I suggest anyone who values their time do the same, don't waste your money on any product that forces that kind of protection down your throat. It's pretty bad when you buy a game and you're more inconvenienced than if you just downloaded the game and installed a crack. Pathetic. I tried to be patient, but this is ridiculous. It shouldn't take days to install a big name game, I wouldn't even accept this much trouble with some obscure OSS.

And don't even get me started on the fact that I had to google blogs just to figure out how to install the game without re-downloading two dvd's worth.. I have to use the Windows command line install a game? Screw you, SEGA or whoever publishes the stupid thing. People pirate your stupid games anyway! Why should paying customers be inconvenienced this much? People think Linux is hard? It's a cake walk compared to installing Empire Total War.

Am I angry? You bet! I wouldn't go through this crap again if they paid ME. Of course, I need to download faster than 2.5kb/s to download games, argh!

[truefusion]

Steam is one of the reasons why i avoided buying Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2, for PC (not that i have purchased it for consoles). While there is no guarantee that i would come across the same problem as you and others have, just the possibility of not being able to play a game i purchased is enough to get me to stray away. Yeah, it stinks that legitimate customers are being burdened because of piracy and those who promote piracy. CD keys were at least a decent idea; though they don't really help concerning single-player games, if the game is centered around multiplayer, then it isn't a burden to legitimate customers.

[gisellebebegirl]

I HATE STEAM, it is so annoying
when i had it i had a pretty fast internet, and it was still slow as fffff
even though i had no games on it LOL, i tried to hack counterstrike source, and guess what i kinda failed at it hahahah
but still, i do not see why you must play the games through steam

if i were you i would email them a really nasty complaint letter LOL

[galexcd]

Steam is a great concept idea but a poor execution of this concept. I play a lot of Team Fortress 2, Left4Dead 1 and 2, as well as a few others so I deal with steam for practically all of my online gaming. I know how you feel however, my first impressions of steam were not that great, but it has moved to tolerable (most likely because I have gotten used to it). When I bought my first steam game (orange box) back in 2007, I didn't understand why I needed to download and install this other app. And on top of that why I had to create an account to be able to play these games; which by the way with the exception of Team Fortress 2 were all single player games. There are however some advantages to steam, below I have listed my oppinion of what Valve has done right and wrong with steam.

Things Valve did right with steam:

• Digital downloads of all games attached to your account. Valve has removed the need for me to leave my house or wait to get a CD for a game. I can purchase it directly from the steam store and have it permanently attached to the account so I never have to worry about keeping track of all of my games. This is the concept of steam which works very well. After purchasing orange box I haven't bought a physical copy of a game in 3 years. Normally I am against this sort of DRM, but it has certainly made my life easier, especially when formatting my drive and installing a new OS.
  
• It certainly is convenient to be able to be able to chat with other players on the steam network while in game by just pressing shift+tab. I don't have to worry about alt-tabbing out and causing the game to minimize (which always is rather annoying because it takes a while for the game to come back).
  
• It does make it much easier for game makers to prevent piracy. If they release their game solely on steam, they do not need to write any kind of cd-key generating/checking algorithms. That doesn't affect the end user too drastically (unless that end user wants to pirate the game), but it is a huge benefit to the game creators.

Places where steam goes terribly wrong:

• It is a HUGE resource hog. It very slow for just an app to help you launch your games and chat with your friends. It takes a while to start up, maybe not 60 mins (you might want to get your comp checked out there about that), but it takes about 30 seconds to launch it and connect to the steam network which is way too long for what it does. I understand they wanted to make the entire thing account based so when you open it up you instantly see what games you have attached to your account, but how about open the interface instantly and show what games were there last time your account was used and then sign onto the steam network in the background?
  
• The user interface is horrible. Not using the OS's default chrome makes it look out of place and creates problems when I attempt to run it under wine in linux.
  
• It is completely unnecessary to enforce the use of it for single player games other than DRM reasons. For multiplayer games steam allows players to have one account and friends list for all of their PC gaming. But there really is no use for this in single player games, yet because the game creators want to prevent piracy they lock it down to your steam account.

[rob86]

I can understand the benefits of Steam, but it doesn't work well for people on dial-up which is my main problem with it. I know dial-up is old fashioned, but it's all that is available here. I shouldn't be made to do all this just to play single player. It does take 45-60 minutes to log in, I'm not lying. I don't know why it takes so long, but the first few times I was sure Steam crashed. It also takes that long to do whatever it does when I'm installing the game. The progress bar will show 100% for 30+ minutes. I never know if Steam frozen up or is still downloading. Poorly designed software if you ask me, it's always freezing up and leaving me to figure out what it's doing behind the scenes. When it does finish, it tells me the server was too busy. When I try to install from the DVD in offline mode, it won't let me. Give me a break, Steam!

It's much too frustrating to deal with this on dial-up, every step takes an unnecessary amount of time. I can't see any reason why it would take so long to do these things, what is it downloading that takes so long? It seems to be downloading at least 8mb of data just to log in. All I want to do is activate my game and play it. I can't play multiplayer anyway.

[inverse_bloom]

I don't recall ever reading many comments praising steam at all over the years. From what i have gathered it is something that you have to play with and try to manipulate to get working properly. Then again i never got half life 2 to ever find out, which could have been a good thing...

[-Sky-]

Totally agreed. It also takes there crap Support Team like 1 WHOLE week just to reply to your support tickets..or even over a month when our accounts get hijacked. Their support sucks, and it's terrible...yet they do bugger all to improve it...They think they know best - well to be honest, they know jack sh*t! (Sorry for the bad word Mods/Admins) but it's totally necessary for these conclusions.

[rob86]

I've been getting the "Server too busy" error for two days now when i try to install the game from a DVD. What is wrong now? How can it be busy every time I try it? Am I doing something wrong, surely nothing can be this pathetic -- oh wait, it's Steam, I wouldn't be surprised. Can anybody help me? Can't I just avoid using Steam? I don't want to play online, I just want to play singleplayer. I'm googling and looking for solutions, and I see a lot of equally pissed off people who are not buying any more junk. Guess I'm far from alone on the opinion of Steam.

Edited by rob86, 31 December 2009 - 04:15 AM.

[inverse_bloom]

Mmm... regarding the "server too busy"... you are probably cued at some point during the process of registering. I'm making a guess but i think that is what the java based installer does from Adobes site when you go to download one of their products. It cues you and when its your turn to kick in you want to know that you've got a clear way connection when its your turn (thats a total guess).

However thats what seemed to happen with Adobe installer when i went to my local college, which allowed quicker bandwidth speed. I would have dreaded trying on my sometimes inconsistent wireless at a rate of 300 kbps. If you can get access to high speed net from one of your relatives for 30 minutes you'd have a better chance.

Regarding patches, there were off line patches for Half life 2, but i think even then you had to register through steam before you could apply the patches. Sorry i can only offer what i know (or what i guess).

Edited by inverse_bloom, 31 December 2009 - 04:53 AM.

[rob86]

I used to prefer PC gaming, but I can see why PC games are a dying breed. It's just too much hassle getting them to work, even if I do get past steam, who knows what else I'll have to deal with. Outdated video drivers? Buggy software? You have to be a tech-guru just to run a PC game. I should have got a Wii + Yoga mat bundle. Exercise may not be my favourite video game genre, but at least I'd be doing something other than staring at progress bars and error pop-ups

[inverse_bloom]

Steam would make you feel like that and what you said does has a lot of truth to it. To be honest if i had a choice id get a PS3 and that is after playing computer based games since 01. Though there have been alot of games which did work out of box so to speak with minimal configuration, it really helps if you have a powerful graphics card to spend less time in settings by turning them up and actually playing a game. Which you do have.

[Unknown_99]

Well recently I was offered Team Fortress 2 as a gift via email so I went to the site had to register, I understood the basic concept of that then downloaded the software. Well strangely the links in the email were old and pointing somewhere else that no longer existed so I was looking all over for this Steam download which apparently was itched up within the About US page T_T....

So installed, logged in and let my game download via their STEAM software but I had no problems with wait or anything and I'm within Jamaica currently. Besides the whole bother with finding the steam engine to install after that it was pretty much a breeze. But I'm sorry your feeling such problems with their service though.

[deadmad7]

This idea of Steam is crap. Let's be honest. What happened to the old days when you could buy your own game and it was yours? Now I have to wait for Steam to work properly in order to pay for a game that I paid for!

Does anyone know how to get rid of Steam so that we can keep the games we bought?

[rob86]

Well, I've given up trying to get Steam to work. I'll have to wait for who knows how long before I can install my game using some external hard drive and registry editing. Either that, or some day I'll actually have broadband. I might send them a support request, but I doubt they'll be of any help. And what's with the "you can only register on one account" crap? What if I forget my password for steam? I didn't even know it was important so I didn't take the registration too seriously.

Creative Assembly, or Sega, or whoever uses Steam for their games can safely assume I won't be buying anything from them anymore. I looked at torrent sites to see if there was any way to crack Steam but it's not looking that good. There are some cracks, but people complain about it crashing and I don't know if it's because the game is just buggy or the cracks are no good. I had to buy a game that's hard to crack --- damn my luck! I didn't even know what Steam was, or I would have avoided it! I never even considered that you could buy a game and not be able to play it because of the stupid protection.

[inverse_bloom]

Most games have some sort of copy protection, though steam is the worst. Most protection programs such as Securom, Safedisk, etc does a cd check to ensure the game is on the correct cd. However you can download a no cd patch for many games which will prevent you having to keep a disk in the rom drive. This is usually a good idea because it prolongs rom drives life span longer, some protection programs run amok with your drive damaging it quickly.

Sorry to hear about that, however many cheaper games that cost $ 15-20 have easier protection to crack (search no cd megagames.com) and i doubt any of them have steam in them. Games like Colin Mcrae Rally dirt which i have been itching to play but dont have the hardware to support it. I suggest searching for a game that you might like in the shops, come home have a look online and do a search to see if it has a no cd patch. That used to be a ritual for me because i dislike waiting for games to load up (both cd check and introductory videos).

Once you play a good couple of games on your PC you may feel differently.

Edited by inverse_bloom, 03 January 2010 - 11:49 PM.

[rayzoredge]

DRM and Steam are among the contributing factors as to why people pirate games. I agree with galexcd as to how it's a good thing, but it seems that everyone is trying to do a good thing and it's screwing legitimate customers. Just look at how people that bought Spore reacted to the DRM.

I find it ironic that it's easier to torrent a game, wait a week or so, install it, apply a crack, and play it than it is to go out to the store, buy it, install it, register it with a server, and play it. No one wants to go out and pay $20-$60 for a game that they can't play or have issues before they even start.

[Spudd]

Steam is a cool program, but there are a few things I don't like about it. The biggest of which is that you must actually purchase a game to be able to use 90% of the features. I think that's really lame, as I have a couple free games I play using steam, but can't add any friends on there to play with. For the most part, though, it's a handy little program for buying and playing commercial games. I don't think any game you buy a hard copy of at the store should require that you use steam to play it, though.

[Atomic0]

I actually like using the Steam platform, especially when playing multiplayer games. Reason is that the Steam server browser and connection protocols are more streamlined and efficient when compared to games that have implemented their own multiplayer platforms, which are often buggy and glitched, and require significant effort and testing in order to get the multiplayer working. With Counte Strike Source and Team Fortress 2, the two games I have bought with Steam, I have never encountered any problems with its multiplayer game workings, unlike other games like Rainbow Six Vegas 2 which have some issues with multiplayer that prevent certain computers from hosting while others can successfullly host games. I suppose the only negative of buying a game using the Steam platform is having to download the entire game through the Steam network, instead of just installing the game from a DVD in the case of buying the game retail from the local game shop.

[Profaris]

The steam is great [ yes i know is has some bugs , but all programs have one] . Whe live a modern world , and all whe need is on the internet [online radio , tv , newspaper , games] . Its better to buy the game via steam becouse you dont have to pay shipment taxes , you dont have to wait the game to be shiped to you local gaming shop and you dont have to worrie that in 5-6 years the cd/dvd/blue-ray will not work anymore. And btw on steam you get nice deals like bioshock 1 + bioshock 2 at 45$ if you ask me its a very good deal [there where a loot more good offers in the past [pack of games or very expensive games at 1-10 $ ] and the best thing at steam you can accept a payment mode that you pay [i think you pay monthy 10%] and you play all the steam games new/old. If you have probles whit the downloading the games from steam then game a better internet or change your provider [some providers have better speed in the contry and other have better speed from other contry's].

[Zagubadu·]

I guarantee a lot of those steps have to do with people pirating games. I bet you have to do that while you install or whatever so they can make sure your game is genuine or something along those lines. Well anyways its still completely ridiculous. I've never used steam but after hearing what you had to say about it I don't plan too. I think PC gaming is overated anyways. I mean your PC gets outdated fast when new games come out, compatibility issues, just all around lots of issues you will probably encounter. I'm happy paying 50$ a year for Xbox Live and wrapping it in towels every now and then.

[Profaris]

Overrated ) that funny , yes Pc gets outdated reafy fast becouse new technologi comes out and imvreves the grafic the gameplay and so on . And belive me a hardcore gamer from a pc its more smarter at games then a console hardcore gamer for exemple atr a consol how many scree's you have until you go to the game ? like 2 maxim 3 [press start and new game] at pc there is hole other story [you must pas like 5-6 screen's] and at on rpg console you have quick time events [that are retarded] and you must be in a exact spot to go advance in the game , at the pc its a litle bit harder