What's Steam?

LikuLiku I, am the Somberlain. Join Date: 2003-01-10 Member: 12128Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Great, I'm a n00b, sue me.</div> Ok, I'm just asking a question, I don't need anyone's ****.

Ok, I didn't really pay much attention to it before I left for Hungary[Which I'm sure no one Noticed ^_^]. I just came back after 3 weeks, and now I'm seeing alot of stuff about Steam. I asked Sinister about it and he said it's like GSA+ICQ. And everyone's talking about how WON ID's are going to leave, and you'll need Steam to find servers now so I checked it out. For all games it's 723.4 MB.... why? What else is in it. And is it worth the download?
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Comments

  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    Steam is essentially the new, updated WON. The old WON servers were heavily limited and starting to tip over and die. With the upcoming release of HL2, Valve decided to swap over to their own authentication system (aka: Steam) rather than an outsourced one (WON). In addition, this let them add to the launcher, allowing it to automatically download and install updates, quickly grab new mods/games which had been modified for Steam access, and of course the now-infamous buddy list. (I get about ten offers to play Chess or Go from other NS-ites each day, usually when I'm AFK and leaving Steam ready to gobble up any new updates while I'm out)

    Many people hate it, as due to initial bugginess which caused a SEVERE dearth of bandwidth to the content servers (what you automatically nab patches, updates, and new games from), which caused problems with login, authentication, and so on. In short, it choked. Everyone saw it as dead. Here, a week or two after initial release, Steam is working just fine with most of those mods which were 'fixed' for the new HL Patch that comes with it (which is incidentally what semi-breaks NS on Steam... NOT the Steam program). Other mods are going to be updated before long, some when the Steam SDK comes out, others (such as NS) which Valve is apparently working to help get Steamed.

    In short, it's decent now that it's running. But due to the negative PR generated by that choke on launch, most 'serious' gamers hate it. Eventually people will forget.
    As well, once the WON servers go down, you aren't going to be able to play NS unless it's over Steam. But they won't be taken down until Steam is verified working as close to bug-free as they can get it, at which point no one has any right to complain.
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  • DiablusDiablus Join Date: 2003-03-31 Member: 15080Members
    well its worth to downlaod now, aafter about a week of horror and pain (ull most ikely want to jab a pen in your eye becuase of steams bugs and such) u get used to it, but it is true all WONS are gonna be shut down, actually i found 1 good thing about steam, actually 2, one it can auto enter a server if tis full when someone leaves, and if u get imed or taken out of HL ur comp doesnt crash <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> . i suggest u download it now and get all the horro and pain over with. steam is axtually pretty cool in the end (tho i would have never said this a week ago, EVAR!) well good luck with steam theres plently of topics to help ya out <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
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  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    Actually, you don't hae to wait for the downloads if you just nab one of the installers with the caches included. The cs_steaminstall is quite worth it, unfortunately many servers grabbed this version, which for some reason requires the player to have rudimentary CS files installed.

    If you've got a decent connection (or especially if you don't) it's well worth it to download 440MB instantly rather than waiting for the content delivery servers to send it all to you. Some people have reported a full 1.5mbps connection being serviced, but I've only seen it pull about 256kbps at peak, on my own machine.
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  • MrPinkMrPink Join Date: 2002-05-28 Member: 678Members
    It's not nearly as bad as everyone's going to tell you. Just follow <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=18&t=47676' target='_blank'>these</a> instructions and you can have it installed without much of a hassle. Once you get it working some of the features are really nice, however you probably will be annoyed by the resource hog it is, and it is much slower connecting to servers. Personally I prefer WON but if steam could be a little less PC intensive it would be loads better than WON.
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  • fo_sheezy_my_neezyfo_sheezy_my_neezy Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10768Members, Constellation
    the newest installer, the full one you saw, is for sure the way to go. It comes with everything valve supprts hl-wise pre-cached, and all you have to do is install ns into that directory. Follow the many tutorials out there, and it'll tunr out fine.

    @Talesin: I got mine off of gamespy, and got 340kb/sec = 2.7mbps (1 byte = 8 bits). Hooray cable connection!
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  • V_MANV_MAN V-MAN Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6217Members, Constellation
    Bear in mind that once you install STEAM you won't be able to play on any non STEAM servers unless you have a separate install of HL and CS etc outside of your STEAM folder, just select the option to not clean up your folders when installing STEAM and it should leave your old installs of HL/CS intact (Which I forgot to do) failing that reinstall HL an CS etc then you will still be able to play on the non STEAM servers.
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  • Iced_EagleIced_Eagle Borg Engineer Join Date: 2003-03-02 Member: 14218Members
    steam is how valve is going to run games from now on... download it with all cache files <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
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  • LikuLiku I, am the Somberlain. Join Date: 2003-01-10 Member: 12128Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--V-MAN+Sep 22 2003, 09:11 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (V-MAN @ Sep 22 2003, 09:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Bear in mind that once you install STEAM you won't be able to play on any non STEAM servers unless you have a separate install of HL and CS etc outside of your STEAM folder, <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    I'll wait until it's Manditory.

    What's a Cache File?
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  • Dirty_Harry_PotterDirty_Harry_Potter Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9500Members
    a Cache is as far as i've understood the client version of the game - HL is cached and Cs is cached so you can play it via steam - why they dont just use the old installs i dont know ....
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  • MajinMajin Join Date: 2003-05-29 Member: 16829Members, Constellation
    I haven't got Steam yet, i'm waiting till they pull the plug on WON, then I'll get steam a week later!
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  • V_MANV_MAN V-MAN Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6217Members, Constellation
    I only got it now because some clan matches might require it and it's gonna become mandatory soon anyway so i may as well start figuring out how it works before then.

    Plus there's the addes bonus of seeing how stupid cs is now with the riot shields <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
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  • madfatmanmadfatman Join Date: 2003-07-29 Member: 18533Members
    I was initially a sceptic about it but after finally getting the downloads to work using a bit of trickery on my part think tis actually very good. A bit of advice if your a 56ker, just download the 24mb cache of death match classic. install that and it should automatically detect your prior install of half life and copy over all the mods you've got eliminating the need to download 700mb worth of stuff!
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  • Owen1Owen1 Join Date: 2003-04-13 Member: 15457Members
    can i get a dl link?
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  • PaqPaq Join Date: 2002-12-15 Member: 10876Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--[DRS]Lt.S.Owen+Sep 23 2003, 07:48 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> ([DRS]Lt.S.Owen @ Sep 23 2003, 07:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> can i get a dl link? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Here you go:
    <a href='http://www.peliplaneetta.net/tiedostot/modit-moninpelit/modit-moninpelit/4291/' target='_blank'>http://www.peliplaneetta.net/tiedostot/mod...oninpelit/4291/</a>

    Click "Imuroi tiedosto"
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