Opinion Of Steam For Half-life
Corrupt_Convergence
Join Date: 2003-11-12 Member: 22645Members
Join Date: 2003-11-12 Member: 22645Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">What do you think of steam?</div> I havn't downloaded steam yet, and it is a big file. What are your opinions about steam? Should WON be replaced by Steam or should they exist together? Steam would require those that bought Counter-Strike retail (a game designed to be played online) to get steam in order to play counter-strike if WON is removed. What if your internet connection downloads slow. What exactily are the advantages of Steam to mod makers or to regular players?
Comments
The most important thing is...you can finally alt + tab without losing sound. also the built in Friends feature lets you join your friends games and you can communicate with them without using the in-game stuff, so if your planning a massive counter-strike TK round...hehe.
It streamlines some stuff and automatically handles updates so you no longer have to worry if you have the latest version.
Now I love it!
Friends is great, same with alt tab, new menus. Its really great.
All good things have to start somewhere, unfortunately for Steam it was a little rocky for some people, but as they progress it can only get better and better.
- Deleted it's own exe file. Yep, I've woken up 3 times now and Steam.exe is just plain GONE. The rest of the Steam directory is perfectly intact.
- Lost Half Life. I try to run NS. Says HL is missing, and will now download all 430 megs of it. Woah there, I said and cancelled that. Went into the Steam directory and there was Half Life, fully installed. But Steam couldn't find it. Despite Steam having installed it.
- Just plain broken. The rest of my reinstalls have been this. Steam just refusing to work, locking up and taking most of my system with it.
Finally I've had enough. Two days ago my Steam.exe vanished (AGAIN) and I just gave up on playtesting 2.1, which was the only reason I had Steam in the first place.
Steam is a neat idea, but it's implementation so far has been horrendous. The program is buggier than the initial release of Sin plus it adds assorted flavours of crap I really don't want or need: advertisements, a friends list (and to think I was using the archaic method of playing with strangers or just joining a game with people I knew in it) and forcing my poor battered internet connection to strain itself every few days with yet another "update".
Not all of us are lucky enough to be on a cable modem in the United States. Some of us have download quotas and slower-than lightening speed connections. My heart goes out to the poor 56k people having to wade through Steam's constant "updates".
I'll use Steam when it's fixed. Until then, Steam can kiss the largest, fattest part of my arse.
I'm actually forced to wonder if Valve did it to wean people off HL1 to prepare for HL2......
wasted 5h yesterday trying to get it to start..
but at least it worked and now im ready to play..
When i first installed it it screwed up my WON install and also screwed itself up, HL was entirely unplayable. But after i got over that, it works so much better than the old system, it looks better, and the features, as much as i slated them in the past, are really great.
I think if anything Steam is a worthy improvement on WON.
Errr... I would not claim that or bet any money on such a statement.
I tried to install it during the first week. No luck. It never ran on my comp without it crashing.
Steam was a POS, and will probably continue to be one for some time, but once it's fixed it will be much much better overall. One feature I love is being able to connect from one game to another in game after browsing for one.
And for some reason, whenever I alt-tab out, the colors of HL get all screwy. So I can't alt-tab out now, even tho I could before with WON. GG STEAM!
The advantages to mods is that a they can charge money to dl it and "post" their mod to everyone else instead of a back street website.
Also I have Win me and I can make it work.
BTW Steam.exe missing lol sux to be you
Here is a quote from an interview with Gabe newell in Develop magazine (Oct. Issue)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Counter-Strike generates more global eyeball minutes per year than NBC's "Friends" TV series, where they make $455,700 per commercial, yet we arent making profit from people playing Counter-Strike and we are paying the bandwidth costs. It is this fundamental flaw in the internet business model that Steam is designed to overcome.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I found this rather amusing. What gabe fails to mention is that the only bandwidth valve supply for CS is for the master server list, which will be generating a miniscule amount of traffic, certainly under $100/month 's worth of bandwidth. Valve dont even host the half life patches! Remember that Gabe was a millionare even before he started half life, and half life will have generated an unimaginable amount of money for valve. The difference between a game and TV is that HBO have to pay the actors (and the friends actors have a ridiculous wage), that is why they have to make so much from commercials. We have already paid valve (when we bought the game) but Gabe says thats not enough, we should continue paying as long as we play the game.
Heres another howler from Gabe (same article):
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->its now quicker to install a game through steam than from a CD<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My final complaint is that if you buy thr half life 2 single player package, you wont be able to play online with it, however, you can pay a fee and upgrade it to a multiplayer working version - but you won't be able to play single player half life without being connected to the internet (and Steam) from that point onwards. LAN gamers will also not work without being connected to steam.
Here is a quote from an interview with Gabe newell in Develop magazine (Oct. Issue)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Counter-Strike generates more global eyeball minutes per year than NBC's "Friends" TV series, where they make $455,700 per commercial, yet we arent making profit from people playing Counter-Strike and we are paying the bandwidth costs. It is this fundamental flaw in the internet business model that Steam is designed to overcome.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I found this rather amusing. What gabe fails to mention is that the only bandwidth valve supply for CS is for the master server list, which will be generating a miniscule amount of traffic, certainly under $100/month 's worth of bandwidth. Valve dont even host the half life patches! Remember that Gabe was a millionare even before he started half life, and half life will have generated an unimaginable amount of money for valve. The difference between a game and TV is that HBO have to pay the actors (and the friends actors have a ridiculous wage), that is why they have to make so much from commercials. We have already paid valve (when we bought the game) but Gabe says thats not enough, we should continue paying as long as we play the game.
Heres another howler from Gabe (same article):
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->its now quicker to install a game through steam than from a CD<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My final complaint is that if you buy thr half life 2 single player package, you wont be able to play online with it, however, you can pay a fee and upgrade it to a multiplayer working version - but you won't be able to play single player half life without being connected to the internet (and Steam) from that point onwards. LAN gamers will also not work without being connected to steam. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Steam supported games becoming pay to play is ridiculous, it's paranoia at best. I'm willing to bet that VALVe just want HL to go away, it's 5 years old and barely supported. I hardly doubt that they'd force people to pay to play, especially considering the point you make later in your post, that VALVe don't actually host any of the servers or pay their bandwidth costs.
As for the single player package, you get what you pay for, single player. I wouldn't expect to get multiplayer when buying a single player only product.
As it stands, LAN players do get kinda shafted, but it's still early days for Steam, there has been a massive outrage at not being able to play Steam games offline, they'll eventually force themselves to include it, if they're not planning to already. But one thing is, if you play the non-Steam version of Half-Life, you don't need to be online for LAN play, and it doesn't need to contact the WON servers (iirc), so it's not exactly something to complain about.
2) Once you upgrade it to support LAN & Internet, you have to be connected to the net just to play a single player game (think of the implications for 56kers!)
3) Those quotes are from Develop magazine, an inside magazine for the games industry - there is a huge article about steam in the October issue including an interview with gabe - I'm quoting from this article; sadly its not me making up ridiculous, paranoia induced facts. Its happening.
When I buy a game I don't expect to pay for anything else - especially not for the right to play on online servers that valve don't own and don't pay to maintain - if anyone should be charging us for playing it should be the server operators!
On the other hand , it's a dangerous thing. We're going to have to pay to play HL mods as well as single player games. Eventually we'll have to constantly pay fees for any game we wish to play.
Here is a quote from an interview with Gabe newell in Develop magazine (Oct. Issue)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Counter-Strike generates more global eyeball minutes per year than NBC's "Friends" TV series, where they make $455,700 per commercial, yet we arent making profit from people playing Counter-Strike and we are paying the bandwidth costs. It is this fundamental flaw in the internet business model that Steam is designed to overcome.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think gabe was talking about the advertising bit in the bottom of the steam window. "contetn hosting provided by..." or something like that. Valve aren't going to charge average joe to pay to play cs or something like that.
See that ad? Your already paying to play.
Personally I think steam is pretty useless. It only offers one feature that regular HL doesn't and thats the friends list, which third party software could give you anyway. What about the alt-tabbage? In regular HL you just have to hit escape before alt-tabbing, so they only elimated 1 key press. Besides, its just a bug fix anyway. So, for your ONE extra feature, you now have to:
1) See a stupid ad.
2) Suffer some framerate loss.
3) Pray that you'll have braodband soon.
4) Deal with what very well may be the buggiest piece of software on earth.
5) Have an internet connection for every system at a lan game. (Valve claims that this won't always be nessesary).
I'm glad that the only server I play on has decided not to use steam until it is absolutely nessesary.
Ignore these raging children - going from won => steam is like going from a bike to a car. The car has far more potential, and its great when you can get it to start, but getting it to start can be an event.
All files are stock. You get 1.6 CS, 1.0 DOD, etc. Any updates must be downloaded after install. Once your down, you've downloaded approximately a gig of data.
On-topic: Steam is great. Counter-strike is nearly cheat-free now. Which is why I've taken it up again untill my replacement parts for my computer come in.
version 1.0, the cache versions are hl 1.1.2.0 cs 1.6.0.0 and i don't know about the others, but the cache contains the full versions curent as of the initial steam release, so its gonna update
when it first came out, I had the same problems as everyone else. It whould not install my games.
Then I downloaded the Full CS Pack, and it worked great.
But then when that patch came that messed up your steam and had to be recalled, I uninstalled everything HL and played other games for a while.
But then that big update was released and I came back.
And now, my steam tired to download a patch ( which I think I already have) and now I cant even start it up.
bah....
Hell, I don't know why I'm still here either. Guess I really like you guys <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
In any event, I've given up with this really wierd authentication bug that means I cannot play HL online anymore. Just completely gutting really for me, this was one of my favourite games <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
That should clear it up.