Slashdot Mirror

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Some of the hardware reported is pretty interesting as well. Out there somewhere is a guy with a machine with 127 cpu's and another that has a 5" monitor hooked up as the primary display.

Before the writing started, we met with Erik [Wolpaw] and discussed our list of narrative constraints. Since at the time we were using some Half-Life art assets, and because we wanted to leave ourselves the option of someday using the portal gun in a Half-Life game, we decided that the story should in some way connect to the Half-Life universe.

the scrappy, unethical scientific rival of Half-Life's Black Mesa.

Valve has a survey, but I would imagine the people playing WoW are a different demographic.

I dunno, Steam is pretty unstable as it is. :)

Well, that's really easy to fix. Go download Steam and run your computer on it.

Windows XP 564,035 83.78 %
Windows Vista 82,764 12.29 %
Windows Vista 64 bit 15,749 2.34 %
Windows 2003 64 bit 5,309 0.79 %
Windows 2000 4,372 0.65 %

DirectX10 Systems (Vista with DirectX10 GPU) - 7.59% of users

In the same graph, we can see that either syringe gun tracking is bugged, or that medics have a _very_ hard time aiming with their syringe gun

I had the perception that the RL was consistently getting noticably more criticals than most other weapons, but it appears that's not really the case.

As we see from the same graph, the melee weapons all get far more criticals than other weapons. This probably accounts for some melee weapons being so high on the damage-per-hit graph. The highest melee weapons on the latter graph are the ones that inherently do more damage and also get more criticals

Offhand, I think the bonesaw swings faster than the bottle, but I don't remember the difference being too great.

For example: I want to play some UT. So I boot my box (1-2 Mins), Log in to XP and let THAT boot (depending on current config, another 1-3 Mins), then load the game, then dig up the server list, then wait for it to populate, then try to jump in a game .. maybe it timeouts, maybe it connects .. etc. etc. This is all on a decent gaming rig (4 GB Ram, Intel P4 Extreme, SATA RAID 5)

Or .. I can fire up my 360 Elite (10 Secs), Fire up Halo 3 (10 Secs to Menu), Start Matchmaking, and be sitting in a lobby with 5 other lunatics (between 5 seconds and a few minutes) .. all for $400 and an extra $50 a year.

Add in voice chat, text messaging

all with pretty much no hassles, and it's pretty damn worth the extra $5 a month.

If you enjoyed S&M ep1, install Steam. Episode 4 is also free.

Bad assumption. Source doesn't use directx 10 yet.
From the stats:
http://steamgames.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php

72.91% are dx9 sm3
12.17% are dx9 sm2 (i.e. old radeon x800's and the like)
9.36% are dx8.1!
5.38% are dx8

with 0.18% unknown. This doesn't tell us anything about vista takeup, but it does tell us a number of people playing hl2ep2 are doing so with old technology. nvidia 5900's default to 8.1 for example (their dx9 shader performance sucked), and that's a 4 year old card. Native DX 8 cards are even older!

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html
from the hardware survey, directx10 capable (vista with dx10 cards) players make up 7.38% of steam users, while 14.10% overall took the survey on vista.

I love the death map of the first level (red spot at the bottom right): all those people jumping off the cliff like lemmings

And this one (green spot at the bottom left, where Dog fights the Strider): "Oooh, robot fight! Let's watch... uhoh! *squish*"

And last (greenish blue at the top, where the rocket takes off): it seems that several people wanted to become astronauts, they even went through walls just to get on that rocket ("Wait for meeeee...!")

I love the death map of the first level (red spot at the bottom right): all those people jumping off the cliff like lemmings

And this one (green spot at the bottom left, where Dog fights the Strider): "Oooh, robot fight! Let's watch... uhoh! *squish*"

And last (greenish blue at the top, where the rocket takes off): it seems that several people wanted to become astronauts, they even went through walls just to get on that rocket ("Wait for meeeee...!")

I love the death map of the first level (red spot at the bottom right): all those people jumping off the cliff like lemmings

And this one (green spot at the bottom left, where Dog fights the Strider): "Oooh, robot fight! Let's watch... uhoh! *squish*"

And last (greenish blue at the top, where the rocket takes off): it seems that several people wanted to become astronauts, they even went through walls just to get on that rocket ("Wait for meeeee...!")

I'm assuming that the 73.1% using directx 9 means that 26.9% were using directx 10.

Cards which default to DirectX 8 Path on Source (31994 of 285082 Total Users (11.22% of Total) )

Cards which default to DirectX 7 Path on Source (10073 of 285082 Total Users (3.53% of Total) )

Cards which default to DirectX 9 Shader Model 3 Path on Source (184832 of 285082 Total Users (64.83% of Total) )

Cards which default to DirectX 9 Shader Model 2 Path on Source (50875 of 285082 Total Users (17.85% of Total) )

There are some Vista gamers out there, but not that many. Looking at some of the data, about 14% of the players were still using some variant of DX8.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Windows Version
Windows XP 234,100 (84.45 %)
Windows Vista 38,760 (13.98 % )
Windows 2003 64 bit (2,544 0.92 %)
Windows 2000 1,793 (0.65 %)
Other 24 (0.01 %)

If you check out Steam's latest hardware survey, http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html, about 14% are playing on Vista.

Oh, here's the link to that survey.

I don't think its a problem you'll need to worry about anytime soon. According to this, only 0.41% of about 165000 Steam users (when I just checked) have 2 GPU's. The number is probably way smaller for 3 card users, and probably barely anyone has a 4 card setup. The performance just doesn't scale well enough in SLI/Crossfire for it to be worth it to buy two GPU's. IIRC the performance increase in framerate is only around 30% if you are using two of the same model of GPU. It's just not cost effective enough for the masses to want to spend on these.

It's an interesting thought. I spend far more time playing games than almost anything else, except maybe sleep (ah, but who needs sleep?) If you're only getting 10-20 hours of enjoyment from a game, don't waste your money on a $40 game. Heck, I usually don't spend $40 on a single game unless its a multipack like Civilization Chronicles which comes with all Civ games up to 4 (but not including 4's expansions), Morrowind GotY edition which includes Morrowind and both expansions, NeverWinter Nights Diamond which is NWN and all expansions, or The Orange Box from Valve Software which includes 5 separate games. If those games aren't your flavor, my wife has gotten well over 50 hours of enjoyment from the $10 Popcap games which I usually buy in bulk: 5 games at $45 or 9 games for $75, or whatever. I never buy those at 1 for $20.

Me: 10/30/07 This game hangs at the "Preparing to launch..." from Steam. I tried verifying it, un-installing it, re-installing it, but no success. I even looked on the forums and tried a few things from there with no luck. I would like a refund for this game and for it to be removed from my account. Thanks.

Steam: 11/08/07 Hello, Have you already gone through this FAQ?

Me: 11/08/07 Hi there. I tried reading the FAQ and the forums and spent two or three hours on it. Here's a link to the thread on your forums with the list of many people who had the same problem:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=617610

I gave up and purchased a physical copy.

I think Steam is great for Valve Games and has worked well with older games. I would love to keep using it, but will need Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces removed and refunded.

Thanks.

Steam: 11/09/07 Hello XXXXXX, I see many mentions of Vista in that Forum post. If you installed Steam when UAC was enabled, there is a reasonable likelihood that UAC prevent a few keys from being properly generated. Assuming that you have already attempted to disable UAC to fix the issue, please try re-installing Steam with UAC disabled. Please use the latest Steam installer:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow&cc=US

You may prevent all of your game files from being lost by moving the Steamapps folder out of the steam directory before uninstalling and putting it back after re-installing.

If the issue persists, please right-click on the game and go to Properties > Local Content > Verify Game Cache, and try again.

Finally, the the following suggestion is usually used for a specifie error message, but I would be very interested to know if this affects the issue you are experiencing:

Vista Home Users
Go to: Start > Run and type in: cmd
type in the following:
net localgroup Administrators /add Local service
Restart your computer.
Vista Business & Ultimate Users
Right-click on Computer and select Manage.
Go to: Groups > Administrators > Add to group > Add > Advanced > Find Now > Local Service and click OK.
Restart your computer.

Me: 11/09/07 I already tried several things before to get it to work, including messing about with UAC, finding the key, and verifying the local game files, etc... I'm sorry, but as I said I purchased a physical copy a week ago and I'm not interested in using Steam for COF:OF at this point.

Here are my choices:

1) Get a refund, continue to use Steam to purchase Valve products and other games after reading the steampowered forum to ensure other people are successful using them. Share my experience with other gamers.
2) Do a chargeback, at which point I am assuming my Steam account will be disabled from what I've read online. Share my experience with other gamers.

As I also said, I would very much like to continue using Steam. I haven't yet chosen whether to buy Orange Box. At this point Valve's response will be a deciding factor.

Thanks,

Steam: 11/13/07:Hello,

As requested, we have processed a refund to your account.

Your confirmation number is: XXXXX

Your bank or credit card issuer will return the funds to your account - please allow 3-5 business days for the funds to be posted.

Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refunda

Me: 10/30/07 This game hangs at the "Preparing to launch..." from Steam. I tried verifying it, un-installing it, re-installing it, but no success. I even looked on the forums and tried a few things from there with no luck. I would like a refund for this game and for it to be removed from my account. Thanks.

Steam: 11/08/07 Hello, Have you already gone through this FAQ?

Me: 11/08/07 Hi there. I tried reading the FAQ and the forums and spent two or three hours on it. Here's a link to the thread on your forums with the list of many people who had the same problem:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=617610

I gave up and purchased a physical copy.

I think Steam is great for Valve Games and has worked well with older games. I would love to keep using it, but will need Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces removed and refunded.

Thanks.

Steam: 11/09/07 Hello XXXXXX, I see many mentions of Vista in that Forum post. If you installed Steam when UAC was enabled, there is a reasonable likelihood that UAC prevent a few keys from being properly generated. Assuming that you have already attempted to disable UAC to fix the issue, please try re-installing Steam with UAC disabled. Please use the latest Steam installer:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow&cc=US

You may prevent all of your game files from being lost by moving the Steamapps folder out of the steam directory before uninstalling and putting it back after re-installing.

If the issue persists, please right-click on the game and go to Properties > Local Content > Verify Game Cache, and try again.

Finally, the the following suggestion is usually used for a specifie error message, but I would be very interested to know if this affects the issue you are experiencing:

Vista Home Users
Go to: Start > Run and type in: cmd
type in the following:
net localgroup Administrators /add Local service
Restart your computer.
Vista Business & Ultimate Users
Right-click on Computer and select Manage.
Go to: Groups > Administrators > Add to group > Add > Advanced > Find Now > Local Service and click OK.
Restart your computer.

Me: 11/09/07 I already tried several things before to get it to work, including messing about with UAC, finding the key, and verifying the local game files, etc... I'm sorry, but as I said I purchased a physical copy a week ago and I'm not interested in using Steam for COF:OF at this point.

Here are my choices:

1) Get a refund, continue to use Steam to purchase Valve products and other games after reading the steampowered forum to ensure other people are successful using them. Share my experience with other gamers.
2) Do a chargeback, at which point I am assuming my Steam account will be disabled from what I've read online. Share my experience with other gamers.

As I also said, I would very much like to continue using Steam. I haven't yet chosen whether to buy Orange Box. At this point Valve's response will be a deciding factor.

Thanks,

Steam: 11/13/07:Hello,

As requested, we have processed a refund to your account.

Your confirmation number is: XXXXX

Your bank or credit card issuer will return the funds to your account - please allow 3-5 business days for the funds to be posted.

Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refunda

Look at their hardware survey

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Its not completely accurate because only a % (unknown) actually respond, but look at the ratio of XP to Vista: 11/1

Now take a guess why they didn't do a Vista only release...

Actually, I'm pretty sure you can.

SLI can and does provide some serious performance increases in today's cards, at least on the nVidia side. ATI has yet to really prove themselves capable. Now, SLI on the same card has also been done - the 7950GX2 from nVidia a generation ago being the best example. It's going to be really, really tough to pull off something like multi-core in the GPU realm with the transistor counts being as high as they are, and the heat issue being as prominent as it is. My dual-core CPU doesn't need the cooling power my single-core NV90 GPU does, because the transistor count needed by NV90 is (I believe) higher. Games won't require SLI by default, simply because most games are designed to run on average-level hardware. And for a good example of what this might be among gamers in general, take a look at the Valve hardware survey which offers some real insight as to what your typical gamer has in his or her machine. The percentage of computers equipped on par with mine, for example, with a single 8800GTS running in DX10 mode is miniscule, and hardware far, far lower is more the norm. But then, you have to look at games like Crysis that just turn my machine into a whining bitch trying to get above 20fps in high detail modes on 1680x1050. Some people just don't like detail settings less than "Maximum". Personally, this is the first time I've ever owned a rig this high end. I'm happy to have it, and can deal with not being able to run Crysis at maximum detail - but I'll also try and move up when the boost in performance is worth paying for.

You mean the agreement that you can't read until you're actually installing the product because it's not printed on the box?

Though my (American) Orange Box says `Please see http://www.steampowered.com/agreement to view the SSA prior to purchase'. (SSA = Steam Subscriber Agreement). Excuse me while I go home and look this URL up, then come back to the store to buy it if the EULA meets with my agreement ...

Reading through that, I see nothing that lets them cut you off just because you bought your game from the `wrong' country. But then again, it is 5165 words (titled `Welcome to Steam' no less!) so maybe I missed something. The average reader's speed is 200-250 words per minute. Assuming 250 wpm, that's 21 minutes just reading their Steam agreement -- and this is complicated reading that people generally aren't familiar with, so they probably have to slow down (and maybe look some legal terms up) if they really want to understand it.

I guess the EULA would have to be on the web -- there's not enough room for the EULA, even if we use the entire outside of the box and every piece of paper inside. (Granted, there's only one piece of paper inside ...)

Of course, if you download your game from the Internet and use a Steam crack, they can't turn it off ...

It seems to me that Valve is trying to punish their paying customers because they didn't pay *enough*. And that sounds like a mistake on their part. If they want everybody to pay the same price, don't sell the game for less in other countries ...

This is ridiculous, in germany the Orange Box is censored (no blood and hamburgers, unicycles, ballons and springs instead of your vitals) and we have to import the game from elsewhere to play it uncensored. This is the recommended way from the steam support to play the Orange Box uncensored as an adult in germany. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=601594

Does Play-Asia count as overseas because it's located in Hong Kong? I did a quick search and it doesn't seem to be on the site (maybe it was before), but assuming it is the same price as the Xbox 360 version (59$) while the US version of the game from the official site has it listed at 49$, were people really trying to save money? Or were they just buying it from non-US based sites for the convenience of it? For example, you're buying 3 other games from the same site, why get a 4th game from the official site when I can save on SHIPPING, and not necessarily the game itself? On the other hand, shipping costs are typically more expensive from overseas than it would be for regular ground shipping + currency conversion fees (2.5% for my credit card :/). So, maybe people were getting this game for a DRASTICALLY lower price (sites? anyone?) or else why would they go through the trouble?

While against the Steam agreement, you could workaround this by using the gift functionality http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=750

Get a Russian to purchase loads of copies and gift the international buyers.

Valve have shot themselves in the foot.

• If valve goes out of business, they will unlock all content control for all games. See this official forum post.
• If valve cuts off your access to data and you're stuck without a CD, you can just back it up. Steam includes a handy feature that lets you burn a DVD or set of CDs (or just keep the archive files on a hard drive) from any steam game. If you lose your data then just pop in the DVD and it automatically copies the game data. Since it's steam, and games are downloaded as big archives requiring no 'installation' (all settings and cache and things are mapped to the filesystem, and game files have their own virtual filesystem within the archives), it just instantly works after copying. You still need to decrypt it with a key from the server but again see the above post, they can just disable the authentication.
• You can install any purchased game on an unlimited number of machines. A lot of people give out their steam information to their friends, because everyone can play! You're limited to 1 multiplayer game at a time, but you could all be playing a single player game offline and steam doesn't even care.

You can also get one or both of the "The Longest Journey" games onSteam. I know, some people don't like Steam too much because of the DRM, but some find it convenient.

The game requires Steam, which is intrusive DRM. It requires that you have an active Internet connection every time you want to play (so it can phone home and verify that you bought the game). Even though this is an offline game, if your Internet connection goes down (or you want to play it on your laptop sometime when you don't have wireless or whatever) you can't play.

Wrong. File-Go Offline. You're welcome. You need to connect to Steam the very first time you install a game. After that, never again if you so desire. Support link.

Furthermore, Steam robs you of your right of first sale.

You lost that with software a long time ago. Sometime in the early 90's when publishers shut down software rental businesses by claiming software was licensed, not sold.

It also forces you to wait for updates to the game if there are any...you can't just play with what you've got.

Wrong. Start playing. Updates will be streamed in the background.

Game performance reviews that just target the latest cards annoy me now. A quick look at http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html shows that the latest ATI and NVidia card represent about 6-7% of users. While doing a wider range of cards obviously takes longer, looking at performance on the most popular cards of the last gen would sure be informative.

Nope, it's down to $10 now. http://steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=380

And I 'think that it's going to drop in price' because all games do, eventually. If not a straight price drop, then they get packaged in with other stuff until the value is good enough to keep selling copies of it.

Eventually it -does- go away, of course, but most decent titles see some time in the ole bargain bin. And if it isn't decent, why do you want it anyhow?

No, historically VALVe has allowed its customers to buy individual games within a package. Episode 2 alone will cost $29.95, check http://steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=search&cc=US&term=Episode+2&developer=Valve&category=2&price=

May I Buy, Sell or Trade gift subscriptions?
No. This violates the Steam Subscriber Agreement and may result in having your account disabled.

Got a copy of Episode One, and want some more single-player Half-Life 2 before going all orangey with the Orange Box on Wednesday?

I prescribe my own MINERVA, complete with needlessly cryptic website.

Random games journalist types are quite keen on it. No bribery was involved whatsoever, honest. Other links? Wikipedia! My blog-thing! ... Um ... Valve Developer Community! Even Steam!

Described by random inhabitants of the internet as having: "extremely bad writing", with "some of the most dreadfully boring environments you'll ever see" - the "puzzles and triggers in the game are horrific", and "combat is done exactly the wrong way" - what are you waiting for?

That's not what I heard.

The developers have said they aren't coming back. The official forums verify this: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=600765.

You can get just the new stuff.

Not being able to play a game because I don't have internet that is Single Player is evil.

Apparently they have this offline mode which allows you to do just that...

In the immortal words of Heavy Weapons Guy, Cry Some More.