Slashdot Mirror
Steam Users Steamed
KrunchTime writes "The Steam network seems to be having some problems tonight. This is not good new for fans of counter-strike, day of defeat and other half-life mods. Some people seem to be able to log on fine while others, like me :(, cannot connect at all. The steam forums were filling up with invective when I was last able to get on. The forums now seem to have imploded under the strain of complaints. The question that was being asked most is why there isn't more redundancy on the log-in side of steam. They say that if one of the master servers goes down that the accounts held there become unavailable immediately. The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable. There was no sign of responses from Valve staff or forum moderators."
And on a Saturday night, no less! Mothers, lock up your daughters! Smithers in on the town!
01000110 01010000
Suckers.
I always thought that steam power was the worst type of combustion....
I can't even play HL2 offline a game i payed for a reatil box for. I smell LAWSUIT!
Since when does Slashdot post Steam's technical issues, because if they do, there is a HUGE list. Steam is heavily bugged, easily overcome, and irritating. Why is Valve keeping it? Stupidity! Hell, the owner of the company made his password gaben (His name is Gabe N.) As some would put it, Steam 1s t3h 5ux0r
It's good to know that companies protect customers from playing their games so well ...
Someone hates these cans.
Steam's never been perfect. One of my biggest peeves is how it inflates the download speeds of the caches by 8x -- it says Kb/s, fooling people into thinking it means KB/s, and that their speeds are much faster than they really are. Other complaints are with the Friends server, etc. My opinion is that Steam simply wasn't ready for widespread usage, and that they were stress-testing it on the general public in preparation for HL2.
Here is a good idea: Make the single player part of our game only usable if you can connect to the central servers.
Man, such a great game, made by a bunch of idiots
To Hell with the Queen of England!
At least all the smoking server comments will finally be on topic.
I use Steam (Day of Defeat mostly) every day and I've never had a problem. These little crap whiny stories about a small subset of users make me sigh. I assure you that you are the exception and not the rule. If something doesn't work, your machine or connection isn't fully working the way it should, fix it before you come crying foul and blame an entity that cannot defend itself on a personal level.
Are y'all talking about steampunk?
of the reasons I won't buy this game.
I hope valve's legal department is up to the class-action job that's going to come out of this.
ive been trying for the last hour and a half to get my account working and then i read this. good thing too cause i was about to reinstall everything. the forums are hard to acess too.
is worthy of a /. article?
Anyone who has played an MMORPG is more than familiar with these...especially when new titles and expansions are released.
I've just literally came out of CS this minute (on Linux, via Cedega) and it works great for me. I came off because of a different reason to do with Valve - fucking cheaters.
HEADSHOT ME THROUGH 10 WALLS WILL YA?!
I have a copy of HL2. I got it when I bought my Athlon 64, but I "paid" for it nonetheless. But, as we all been reminded, I don't "own" anything. I didn't even get a DVD. I have the license to play HL2 at the whimsey of Valve. If Valve feels like letting me play, I can play. If Valve feels like taking the weekend off when their servers go down, I can't play.
If I hadn't gotten it for free with my CPU, I wouldn't have "bought" it at all; their license is simply idiotic.
Mind you, I respect their rights to have such an idiotic license...
While your counterstrike game is down, try playing a mud instead. They are online text games, and provide a more entertaining level of interaction for those with an imagination.
My Thoughts, Kyndig
/.-ing the forum will greatly help the cause... :P
The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable.
I hope this shows more people why they need to resist DRM schemes.
To be honest I gave up on the Half-Life thing a long time ago. Their refusal to support Linux (unlike ID software) and the fact that they insist on steam. If I want to play a offline game on my LAN. I think I have the right! I say Valve can keep their product. I' staying with Unreal 2k4 and Quake/Doom3 on my Linux box.
- The D-M
Absolutely. This is the most insane thing about Steam: When I can't reach Steam - either because it's down, or because I happen to be in a location with no network access (which, in fact, is a common scenario) - I can't play the offline games I purchased. Like Half-Life 2. And Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Even Codename Gordon - a dinky freeware platformer, reminiscent of id software's classic game Abuse - is unplayable.
So I paid $80 for package including many excellent single-player games, but I can't play any of them without getting express consent from Valve every time. When that consent is unavailable, I can't play the games I bought. This is bogus. This is outrageous.
I cannot imagine how this possibly benefits Valve in any way. Surely the p1r@t3s who don't wanna pay (na na why don't you get a job?) are merrily playing their hacked-installer versions. All this mechanism accomplishes is giving the pointy-headed marketroids at Valve some academic (useless) data on who plays which games. Meanwhile, actual customers get surveilled, and sometimes denied access to their paid-for games.
In sum, this scheme presents spurious value to Valve, and no value to customers, while also pissing customers off. Valve is too smart a company not to realize this. Why they persist is a fucking mystery.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
As addicted as I am to my nightly sessions of HL2: DM, I've got the Splinter Cell beta to keep me warm this evening.
Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
"I always thought that steam power was the worst type of combustion...."
It's great for pressing wrinkles out of clothes though.
I bought HL when the internet gaming was handled by WON. There may have been an outage here and there, but it was not like Steam in that you could create your own LAN server and play with your friends.
Steam is a stupid idea. I'm not buying HL2 because of it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If so, consider them frozen solid. This entire city has become a giant block of ice.
Snow is manageable, but 36 hours of sleet/ice isn't. Everything in this town as been sealed in a 2 inch block of ice.
In fact, ** CRACK **
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
And now I am sitting pretty at home, enjoying many superior Open Source and Abandonware games that I downloaded without any encumbrance whatsoever.
Gnometris still keeping you entertained, eh?
I bought the game and installed it. Yep, works great. Yet I hated that it took what seemed forever to connect to Steam just to play Half Life 2.
.exe of HL2 that will let you play without ever connecting to Steam.
Enter the offline patch. A hacked
Sorry, but if I purchase a game for my personal machine and the game that I choose to play has no need for the Internet then that is the way it should be.
You are talking about a MMORPG, and these people are talking about single player games.
How many games fail on a PS2 or Xbox when you cant connect to an internet master server? You may lose a little multiplayer, but the entire game doesn't break.
This is only half-true.
Once Half-Life 2 is decrypted and fully running, it is possible to set it to be playable offline, hence not needing an internet connection to run it, and the original single player games can be played from their original applications, not through steam.
This is not good new for fans of counter-strike. There was no sign of responses from Valve staff or forum moderators.
What? Were they all dead? Boy, that IS bad new!
OK, how long have the editors been waiting to use that title?
Isn't it great fun having a DRM system built into a game? Any of you remember the good old days when you could just play a game when you wanted to?
Its been down since before noon for east coasters here in florida. GFG.
I want to test my new graphics card!
I have freaks! I did something right...
The last thing steam servers needed right now was being slashdotted !!
Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.
Been playing HL2 DM and CS:S for past 90 minutes...
If you can't play offline then you should just disconnect your modem and then run steam. I always do it this way (so I can feel safe shutting down zonealarm and other stuff to speed the game up a little). It will say it can't connect and give you the option to start in offline mode.
I hate the freakin' user who say that they hope Steam evaporates. Its only choices are condensation or deposition.
I downloaded a cracked copy. Took a day but when I installed it Halflife 2 started up immediatly. I stuck everything back in the box and hung it on my wall.
Pretty screwed up if you ask me.
But now their forums have been slashdotted =P
Screw Valve and Half-Life. I'm about to play Doom 3 with the new cooperative mode mod. I still don't see why there aren't more games that offer cooperative mode. For us non-gamers, it would be nice to make it through a game with a team of friends and actually finish it once in a while.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Seriously! If you're going to develop game with Nazi-like DRM, why not just provide an encrypted USB dongle at the cost of 2 dollars extra? I would rather pay that then have my game locked up tight to the mercy of the Internet.
Life is not for the lazy.
Which is good, because if it was new then us fans would be quite worried.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Haven't had a problem all day. Maybe I just got lucky? I bought HL2 over Steam and so far (with the exception of a couple hours the first day) I have not had any problems with the system at all.
"This is only half-true.
Once Half-Life 2 is decrypted and fully running, it is possible to set it to be playable offline, hence not needing an internet connection to run it, and the original single player games can be played from their original applications, not through steam."
SHHHHSH! People around here are just building up a full head of steam, and you're going to ruin it.
This is what we should do, play DoD. At least it is something. It works :).
I'll tell you what Roland may suck, but he doesnt suck nowhere near as bad as Cringely .. Cringely REALLY sucks .. Cringely is super ignorant yet thinks he is a wonderful technology trend analyst or something.
.. he claimed to have invented the idea of a peer to peer backup service .. yet there were more than enough existing P2P backup services out there exactly as he described. And the following week he dismissed the existence claiming he'll write about them next time .. which he never did (this was a months ago).
Typical example
Other times, well he's been plain racist.
Steam is the reason I'm not buying HL2 as well. All of my friends say I should get it, but I do NOT want to deal with the shit that they put up with. They complain about Steam all the time, but then they insist that I get the game. I'm not gonna get something that they complain about!
This is especially cute since steam randomly forgets my login information. I can not even play in "offline mode" now as a result. Such bs....
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
Go back and play Day of Defeat via Steam. You'll log in and be ready to play. Day of Defeat - it's something, pretty fun, and it works on steam.
"Any of you remember the good old days when you could just play a game when you wanted to?"
I also happen to remember when piracy wasn't so bad too.
While we're taking a trip down memory lane. Games didn't cost as much to make. So there was less to lose when someone did pirate the game.
Quoting the _summary_: "The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable." At least take the time to read the summary next time, please!
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
Hey everyone this side of the balcony has a crack in it, come look!
Hey everyone come here, the boat is leaning to this side, check it out!
Hey Slashdot, this server can't keep up, click here!
because people are used to computers crashing, and aren't usually quick-witted enough to think of why. All most players know is they can't log on, not why. There's the forums, and there's plenty of players who'll look at you funny if you mention the word. Pretty soon Valve'll have the servers back up, and the bulk of people will blame those darn 'puters that always crash all tha time.
DRM is too valuable a technology for it to be abandoned just because a few geeks and nerds are aware of how bad a thing it is.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This is why I will never buy HL2.
When HL2 first came out, tons of users couldn't play even single player since servers were overloaded. Then if you have to buy a new PC to handle the bloatware, you have to pay $10 to transfer your CD key. Valve is full of morons. They try to protect against piracy and there are still hacked versions out there.
wtf...i mean one server goes down and thousands of ppl can't play cs, dod, ns and whatever other mod there is out there. u'd expect from a company like valve to have some backup servers ready to be pluged in the minute something goes wrong with the regular ones....way to waste a day waiting for the shit to get fixed....no such luck...which makes you wonder about response time too....good game
Nice word. I just learned the meaning of "invective":
invective
n : abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will [syn: {vituperation}, {vitriol}]
1. click "Start in Offline Mode". it's not difficult.
2. who cares about online any more now they've released bots?
judging by all the immature comments above, you're probably all just pissed that you can't say "omfg j00 gay fag whore bitch" here without getting modded down or anonymous-post-banned. can't stand a single night without insulting someone for being better at a game than you?
Geez, its only a game! /runs for canada
if Steam go bankrupt or those servers cease to exist ? its certainly a tempting SPOF for a DOS attack, kill the dns and millions lose their games ! gonna piss off a few more people than some shitty spyware worm thats for sure
maybe they should put this software in the rental section of the shop as i havent actually "bought" anything, historians are gonna think this society was pretty perverse when a whole generations gaming culture is missing due to DRM, can you imagine where we would be today if all the books ever written where no longer avaible due to a thousand year old unbreakable encryption system
personally i hope Steam do get hacked/bankrupt just so i can laugh at the suckers who bought into it burning down the executives homes
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
But it seems to me that Steam is a pretty obnoxious company to its customers / users (at least judging by all the stories about it that end up here). Why not move on to some game company that shows a little more respect to its income source? ID Software?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Um... Sure, I can see it'd be frustrating, but dude it's a *game*. The fact that there can even be an outage is stupid, but rather unlikely to be lawsuit material.
... paid, not payed.
Also
We have to stop Steam now. Even though in the current arrangement (I believe) it's possible to have purchased half life 2 without being tied to steam, that doesn't excuse the idiocy that Valve and others are trying to promote.
I want a world where when I buy shit I own it, and where that ownership is not artificially tied to a single vendor's continued existence. It's just like the argument for open standards. When a vendor goes, so does your ability to use products which depend on closed file formats and protocols.
the /.'ing plus the downtime is deserved
the idea of not being to play offline is pathetic
i've had friends report bugs etc but the concept itself is pathetic
if they wasted half the time they spent on Steam on working on a good patch deployment system and some more anti piracy software they would find much better efficiency for sure
I diligently went through the troubleshooting steps, which are a pain in the ass and actually took a while, ending with uninstalling and reinstalling Steam. Along the way, also checked the status of the Steam servers. According to the procedure I was following, the servers seemed to be fine. Nothing helped. Fed up, I uninstalled the damn thing. It was my second time through the single player game anyway. When will they learn? Copy protection doesn't hinder pirates - all it does is annoy and frustrate legitimate customers.
I understand that English is a living language, but I object to changes arising merely from repeated errors.
The bug was caused after a new Counter Strike Source update. Because of some errors in the new patch, some servers kept their client connections open, thus resulting in major ping. There have also been a lot of complaints regarding a major decrease in fps in the latest patch: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.p hp?s=b58a63a6e734c3ed65c4b2798470af19&threadid=231 393
Blowed?
I think you mean blew...
At least now we know the forums will stay down much longer. Why post about Steam being down unless you want it to stay down even longer?
JasonBlogs
so the forums are down...and you help the matter by posting the link on slashdot?
Stay away from Steam and Valve. It was hard but I decided I didn't want to give my hard-earned dollars to scum like this. Now, maybe I'm missing a great game, but ... I'm NOT steamed tonight. Fuck them and, sorry to say, fuck their users too for subscribing to their techno-voodoo distribution scheme. Boo-freaking-hoo.
Disable your network connection. Open CS:Source. Choose the option to load steam in offline mode. After CS comes up, enable your network connection. You won't be able to refresh your server list, but you will be able to join games via the history tab. It's not perfect, but at least you can play.
Yahoo mail has been down for at least 24hrs.
Would be nice to know what's going on there too.
Proverbs 21:19
What I don't get is this:
Why do they have to do EVERYTHING in one place? I mean, I can certainly imagine, Steam goes down, some features of the network become unavailable. But why does the AUTHENTICATION server need to ever go down, at all? You'd think that would be the least difficult thing Steam does, and the thing most easily separable into its own always-available server.
But no, it appears when steam goes down, "Steam" goes down, all of it. You'd think that even if they couldn't fix their scaling problems, they'd be able to fix the availability of the authentication service.
Meanwhile, why does it have to authenticate EVERY time you try to play singleplayer? There's the cheating aspect when you're doing mutliplayer, I get that, but for singleplayer it isn't like you're going to change from a nonpirated to a pirated copy in between plays. Why not just make it automatically switch to offline mode, thus obviating the authentication checks, when you're playing offline? Maybe loosening the online-mode authentication restrictions would make the game easier to pirate-- but, hey, the game's ALREADY BEING PIRATED DESPITE THE EXISTENCE OF STEAM, so that's not such a big deal.
There's some interesting things to be said for the digital distribution concept but you'd think Valve would have realized by now that Steam is the showcase app for digital distribution. If they don't convince us they can successfully sell Half Life 2 online I don't expect many people will buy Half Life 3 online.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I can hear the Fanboy's now.........
Not mine, but still funny: "Where do you normaly find Steam? At a Broken Valve"
XD
May I suggest Carrion Fields?
http://www.carrionfields.com/
I have resisted purchansing Half Life 2 until now, because I simply don't want to be forced to install STEAM. So I wanted to find out if it was possible yet to have a steamless install. It took a bit of looking around, but it does seem that its now possible to do. So I will finally purchase the game and play it the way I want, instead of the way Valve wants me too.
For detailed instructions see MGForumsand The Steamless Project
The Steamless Project also has interesting information about the legality of doing this and the details to go Steamless with CS.
Where are the license nazis when you need them? The "if you don't like it, why did you pay for it" trolls?
Pay $50 for the retail version (depant), plus possibly subscription fees (grab ankles) for a DRMed "you own nothing" license (relax spincter) that requires their servers to play (open wide), if and when THEY decide to update their EULAs (remember, you paid for this) to include a little sub-clause that they can terminate their part of the bargain at will (get ready for takeoff).
And you wonder why they treat you poorly?
Bran muffins and whiskey.
Post a link on the front page of slashdot ...... brilliant!
I've made plenty of LAN servers, simply press the "Create Server" button in the main menu of any game on Steam.
If the Steam Auth servers are down, or you're not connected to a LAN with internet access you can't log in to steam to create a LAN server.
When WON's auth servers went down, it didn't make any difference for LAN servers.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm at a lan party right now (400 people / www.lanpartynw.com). I was banging my head for the last 5 hours as to why I cant play counterstrike. I must have done a million firewall, system tweaks since I figured it HAD to be my computer since some people next to me have no problem logging in while I saw one person who has the same problem. The lan party is supposed to be steam enabled so they have a link up to the auth servers.
And now I see the slashdot article. (Browsing the net using my cell phone as a modem trying to find a solution to this steam problem).
Really, I'm pissed. Not only do they force this crap down our throat, but they cant keep it working right. I'm fine with authenticating for internet play, but making people authenticate for offline play is a plain old stupid idea.
Check gamefix.com and theres cracks for all portions of Steam anyways, so people ARE pirating half-life 2 & all mods.
So good job Valve. You've succeeded at pissing off your customers and failed at stopping people who are stealing your games.
They definately arent getting my money again. Ever. I'll be one of the smart consumers who pirate their games from now on.
It never mentioned a Steam account in the system requirements dickwad.
Steam seems to work just fine. Now if only the new ATi drivers were the same. Got a bit of a boost on the framerate with the 5.1 drivers... But models keep turning INVISIBLE in couterstrike. I can only see the weapon model - not the character model.
Makes for an interesting time....
*Sigh*
Time to roll back the drivers.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Let's see, in order to publish a video game today you need DRM - shut up. I can hear you bitching already "But what about X, Y, and Z! They don't use DRM!" Shut the fuck up. We're not talking about Joe's Self-Published Title, we're talking about something being sold through a major distributor. DRM is a must - so what options are there?
;)
Lock to the physical CD? Easily cracked by many different groups out there. Major hassle to the game player, has the most potential for incompatibility issues.
Serial key lock without serverside verification, or one-time verification? Again, not easily cracked, and will either have the same problem Steam will long down the road (no server to unlock) or will probably be backed up by a physical disc lock.
License terms on all these options? One machine, occasionally one machine + laptop (though that's rare for games)
And then there's Steam. Yes, Steam has flaws ranging from major to minor so let's look at those:
Major flaws:
Must authenticate to server or declare offline after authentication. Reliability of the server system is questionable. Will it be up tonight, next week, next year, a year after Steam 2 comes out? Twenty years down the road for retro-gaming?
Minor flaws:
Still can be cracked with some effort. Requires you to wait a few moments to launch the Steam.exe and load that before the game loads. However, in some cases this actually takes LESS time than some games that force you to watch six screens of technology trademark videos first.
Now what does Steam give you after all this hassle? The ability to keep your game up to date without worrying about it. The ability to log onto and play your game from any computer with Steam installed. Any computer, just one at a time. This is great for people with multiple computers, or the ability to game after-hours at work or school. You no longer need to worry about the old hassle of installing your game at your college terminal and removing your CD-key before leaving so people don't sniff it out of the registry.
(Okay, the last probably just describes my school)
Honestly, until Valve fucks it up seriously, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. They put enough time, energy and improvement into the first game that they earned a shot at changing the status quo. Publishers would NEVER let them distribute without some form of DRM, and I'd much rather have Steam and the benefits it does bring than anything like SecuROM and its ilk.
A DRM-less world would be fucking incredible, yes. But guess what? Even if every person on Slashdot never bought another DRM-enabled program again, DRM will still be here. Idealism is fine, and breaking the rules is just fine too - but when people lash out like I see here it's just annoying. If you don't like it, fine. But acting like spoiled kids and calling the people at Valve all sorts of names is just pathetic.
I don't see people bitching about the DRM built into the latest MMORPG, but they still shell forty or fifty bucks up front, then twelve bucks a month to keep on playing, but everyone complains about Steam as if they're stealing your soul. Many MMORPG's haven't given you the extra content Valve pulled into Half-Life since 1998. Team Fotress Classic, HL Deathmatch, acquiring DOD and Counter-Strike, that weird Ricochet thing, patch after patch after patch. Yet when HL2 comes out with something new, everyone goes off the deep end like they cloned Hitler.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
I don't Think Anybody At Valve thought about those among us with laptops, I want To Be able To Play Half Life 2 on the plane, but noo, I can't even get an offline login. I love the game ,but the drm scheme would be so much better if I could Use a USB dongle Like They Do With ProTools, That I can Deal With, I'd Pay up to $10 For A dongle.
Sounds like these users need a reality check. Don't mod this a troll just because it's harshly critical -- but hey, let's look at this with some perspective: game servers are down for a day or two. In other news, people are dying and others are losing family members in Iraq, or dealing with them coming home either with missing limbs or scarred souls; homeless people in cities all over the country are wondering where their next meal is coming from, and hoping they can stay warm through the night; and that's not even counting the thousands with cancer and other lifethreatening injuries.
Your game network's down? Go pick up a book, and be glad you've got a hand to do it with and aren't facing sniper fire while you do it. Jeez.
"They say that if one of the master servers goes down that the accounts held there become unavailable immediately. The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable. There was no sign of responses from Valve staff or forum moderators."
You're getting what you paid for - the ability to play a game when and where Valve can (and can't) approve you doing so. You've already paid for the game, and Valve doesn't exactly have a pressing incentive to hurry up and allow you to play it, now do they?
It's probably time for them to add "complete lack of functionality" to their Full List of Features...
It's shocking just how prevalent piracy really is.
The people with pirated copies can play, so this just encourages piracy. If you actually paid for the game, then you lose. Crime does pay in this situation.
it worked. I just want to play HL2 single player. Normally I could ether a) connect to steam and let them make I'm not a no good pirate (Arrr!!), or b) in the event that I didn't have a connection to the internet simply start in offline mode. However offline mode requires that you be "logged into steam" on the machine you wish to play on. Unfortunately for me I was setting up a dedicated HL2 Deathmatch server earlier this week that, thru Valve's crappie DRM somehow "logged me out" of my main gaming machine. I miss the good old days, when if you wanted to play a game the only system you needed to be wore about being up was your own.
This is exactly why I will never play HL2, or any other Valve products until they stop this kind of business.
I live in Atlanta, so if they are, it means they're IN RANGE! MUAH HA HA HA HA!!!
Anybody got a pitchfork?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
or so the steam forums server says. That is, if "slight problem" can be translated to "half our customers are severely pissed off right now."
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Lets say 10 years down the road I decide to try that old HL2 game again, it was fun :)
Now lets say valve doesn't really care about HL2 anymore, or perhaps valve is out of business
Well HL2 is a single player game, steam doesn't matter right? Not quite, I still have to validate my game files, if the servers are no longer configured for it, or are possibly non-existant, how exactly do they expect me to play my HL2 that I bought?
*.sig
You idiots who bought this game, KNOWING it couldn't be played even OFFLINE without verifying to Valve that you weren't a fricking criminal are getting what you deserve. DRM is evil. Remember it. If you buy DRM'd things, YOU are also evil. :)
Hope you like it.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
I played HL2. It was an okay game but Steam slowed down my system and I could never find a way to disable it (even having bought the CD).
ATI just paid Vavle a huge sum of money to optimize HL2 and CT for their video cards. Here's a way to hurt Vavle straight in the pocket book which in turn might fix Steam (and then maybe they'll change steam)... afterall, wasn't it $10 or $12 million they paid?)
Simply do this: Write to ATI directly. Say that the game they sponsored is defective, and you won't buy their cards or Valve software in the future. Valve looses a potential revenue in the future, Nvidia might not touch 'em, nor other sponsors. This also goes for other comapnies who paid for HL2.
Repeat until they fix Steam. Business is business and your customer comes first.
I don't know about the rest of you, but if I disable my network connection before I launch HL2, it asks me if I want to play offline. I then click on 'Start in Offline Mode', and play and save games just fine.
But I am facing sniper fire-my Counter-Strike works.
The forums now seem to have imploded under the strain of complaints.
How is this a surprise? When Half-Life 2 was finally released, Valve employees and the moderators at the Steam Powered forums actually disabled the forum due to the onslaught of complaints. It was left up to fan forums like Planet Half-Life to take the complaints. Even though none of the fan forums can do anything to help. I believe that first time, Valve claimed their servers can't handle the load. That's kind of puzzling considering the kind of money Valve is pulling in. Now, not for the last time, Valve and the Steam forums has shrinked away from their angry customers and shoved the load onto other forums.
This kind of behavior is just a tip of the iceberg. They've done all sorts of things to piss off the community. Granted, the community at large hasn't been very kind to Valve Software (remember ANON?). But, Valve created the very community that they're fighting now. What did they expect? They got their money, now the community wants their game. Come Hell or Bill Gates, community is going to get it.
Valve software is even on record at the BBB.
Well, in fact, it does not _all_ go down. You can leave the Steam tray app running and it will remain 'logged in' for an underterminate amount of time (at-least several days I believe).
I have been exiting and closing Steam completely when I finish for the night. Requiring me to re-authenticate each day when I want to play CS:S or HL2 again. This obviously has bit me in the butt.
Regardless, authentication is so lightweight and featureless that as a software engineer I find the fact the service isn't working unimaginable. I know we've all (those who've played MMOG) have experiecned this in the past, but come on. Surely by now the fault tolerent designs of corporate banking/trading software has finally seeped into game server authentication. Multiple masters, distributed, clustered, geographically dispersed, big-ip'd or hell even round-robin with 1s TTLs. Anything to provide some redundancy.
This smells more like a data glitch then a software/hardware glitch. I heard they were going to be doing some account maint to disable some accounts that were being sold on e-bay and passed around pirate IRC channels.
I'd bet heavily that this is the result of a very poorly formulated UPDATE sql statement. And piss-poor backup/recovery strategy.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I've not purchased HL2 and won't as long as they require you to connect to a server.
Instead of complaining, DO something about it. DON'T buy the game if it has some type of copy protection you don't like. Buying it because you want to play it and complaining later only supports the game companies' actions.
If you complain with your buying power, this will speak much louder and change the game companies' behaviour much faster than if you buy their products and whine about it in their forums. They just laugh at you when you do that. They only care about making money.
Seems to me all the folks that laughed at the WoW (World of Warcraft) folks for getting hammered servers, can see that Outages happen. It's a matter of playing the odd's, and sometimes ya roll craps. This also one of the disadvantages of Interactive Online Play. The games that are Interactive, should offer some kind of stand alone, that way the folks that shell out $50 can get some pleasure from thier investment. I mean $50, is a lot of money to shell out, to have a paper weight when the servers are fushmanged...
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
I think Steam system is pretty cool. You can download the game and play it on whatever computer you want, whenver you want. No need to worry about having the cd around. That said, it's only sweet if they can pull it off, which they seem to be having trouble doing.
How many of the folks complaining bought Steam-powered games *knowing* about the server-connection requirement and bought anyway because they "just have to play it, it's soooo cool"?
I am guessing "plenty".
To all the people complaining that knew about the connection restriction before purchasing: The connection requirement is part of the product. There will be no lawsuit; you are getting exactly what you paid for. If you don't like it...don't...buy...their...products.
SP LiveWire - Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Responding to 10,000 gamers complaining of non-access to game servers, the Maricopa County Sheriff Department investigated a break-in at the Valve DataCentre near Phoenix, AZ. The grisly finding by the deputies prompted them to call in the FBI Anti-terrorist Strike Force.
FBI ATSF raided the remaining part of SteamPowered computer control room and its server room. All the big fat system administrators were found passed out and lying about with excessive amount of twinkie wrappers strewed about.
FBI ASF spokesman, J. Edgar Hoover, III, reported that 5 kiddie terrorists, claded in black bulletproof body armor, were videotaped as storming the Valve lobby. FBI Counter-Strike Computer Task Force (CSCT) sergeant reported that the DRM were disabled so that only hacked CS can play.
It is not known how the SAs were force-fed the trademarked sugar snack or how they passed out in a "Half-Life" state without incurring any mortal injuries.
No groups has step forward to claim responsibility.
sorry.. just testing my new moniker!
Hello, just thought I would pass along some friendly advice:
My wireless router is flaky at home and a couple of times my internet connection died when I wanted to play Half-Life 1 through Steam. But Steam went into offline mode and let me play the game.
Now I wonder, is it possible to simply unplug ethernet jacks if someone wanted to continue with their single-player game? If anyone is desperate, it's worth a shot.
Just download the pirated version...
It's cracked you don't need no stinking steam crap.
Granted you can't play online but shit at least you can play the damn thing.
Am I the only one who doesn't have problems playing Steam games offline? According to my experience, when my network cable is unplugged I have no problems playing.
Damn, I *just* had mod points yesterday -- wish I had them now!
I can get in, but the friends I want to play online with can't. I gave Valve the benefit of the doubt and tried Steam, but if all it's good for is keeping legitimate customers from using what they paid for, this will be the last game I buy from them.
I'm sure the pirates are all having a ball playing with their steam-free pirate copies while a large portion of their paying customers twiddle their thumbs.
Nice work, Valve.
And those of you that actually paid for this privledge, you're getting what you deserved. Didn't you learn anything from the way Valve has treated it's customers in the past?
I for one, will NEVER buy another Valve product. Anyone that's stupid enough to do so, they get what they deserve. Lost source code due to a VIRUS no less, which means hacks and cheats before the game even hits shelves, constantly changing the code and playability, bad implimentation of....bad ideas (code for the benefit of the modem player to name one. Nothing quite like being around a corner for more than a second and dying because someone has a 1000 ping), the list goes on and on.
Buy something like this and expect it not to be problematic, but then turn around and whine about it when something's broke. That's just @#$%@#%^ stupid. You go into something like this, you better just expect to have problems, it's Valve's way, shutup and adjust.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Ok, I've been a long time reader of /. but give me a break, this is *NOT* news. If you play a Steam authored game, then you are already aware of this. If you aren't a player of Steam authored games (like me), then this article is a waste.
With all the great advances in technology... 10Gb, wireless (not just Linksys and building apartment wireless networks for you neighbors), storage advances (iSCSI, Virtualization, disk based backups via serialATA).
It's a shame that we have to revert to 'status of video game servers'
Cry me a river, fucker!
"Protecting [their] intellectual property", MY ASS! You've got to actually provide the product to legitimate users before you have anything to protect!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...you had to know this was going to happen.
I mean, this company comes up with a digital restrictions management scheme that if Microsoft tried you'd all be screaming bloody murder, but just because it's from a game company, and you really want to play, you are willing to overlook the truly draconian measures they came up with to control distribution of their software.
The way I see it, you all gave up your freedom to live in a fascist state because the government promised you something you valued more than freedom. Now you have to live with it. Good luck.
Just remember, if we reward the companies who do this sort of thing by buying their games, they have no reason to stop. Just stop buying the game. It's a freedom thing. If we keep mindlessly buying stuff, sooner or later everything will be like this. I know you want to play, but sometimes standing up for your freedoms is hard.
Peace, or Not?
From what I've heard, I believe Steam promotes piracy. What would you wrather do? Spend $50 on a game you can only play when Valve says you can play it? Or spend $0 and play it whenever the hell you want?
There will never be copy protection that cannot be defeated. If you take copy protection too far, like Valve did, all you will do is alienate your customers.
I've heard quite a few people say that HL2 was the first modern game they've pirated. Not because they don't want to pay for it, but because they want to be able to play it.
... to demand your money back and return Steam activated games? That would definitely make them thing twice about such inane security/DRM scemes. Remember, you vote with your money.
While some forms of "authentication" systems have been in place for years - like dongles on the printer port and newer USB keys - Microsoft started this trend of online authentication with Windows XP.
Before XP hit the shelves, I can't think of one software package that required online activation before allowing you to use it. Maybe it would have happened eventually anyways, maybe not. But Microsoft sure did accelerate the process.
Some game publishers have taken this to an extreme; requiring repeat authentication for each time you run the software.
Copy protection has never stopped pirate software, and it likely never will. While some software doesn't make any sense to pirate, such as an MMORPG, all other software is available in cracked form. So, all this copy protection ever does is make "legal" use of the software a pain in the ass.
While the people that have actually purchased this software now have to run through all this registration crap, the Windows XP activation whenever you change out your motherboard, not even being able to play a single player game when some internet server goes down, etc.. the people that downloaded a cracked version are running just fine. So is the way it always has been and always will be.
Stop copy protection bullshit! It never works! It didn't work for old floppy disk protection, it didn't work for CD protection, it doesn't work for online authentications, and it didn't work for DVD's either. It doesn't even work for Apple with their critically acclaimed iTunes music files.
And all this DRM buzz is just a fancy name for good old useless copy protection that only prevents legal users from accessing their paid-for stuff the way they want to.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
REVOLUTION NOW.
Wait 5 years and we will be eligible to receive $7.10 as a settlement of a class action against Valve.
Their server status still says STEAM IS ONLINE.
At least *acknowledge* you fucked up, Valve.
People with both 0:0 and 0:1 id's are having issues, or not having issues.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
And actually, because of the number of people in the class, you will get only a $1.50 voucher, good toward the purchase of any current Valve product. By the way, the lawyers "representing" you made off with $7.10 million from the settlement, have a nice day!
No, blame the Microsoft users who cheerfully sucked it down.
The time to stop this horse shit was when MS first proposed Windows Product Activation. Instead, everybody went, "Oooo! Shiny new Windows version!", falling all over themselves to give Microsoft money for Windows XP.
WPA was the prototype, and it worked. Now the application vendors, from Adobe to Intuit to Valve, are racing to put the DRM screws to their customers. As usual, nobody really wins but the pirates.
I am at a LAN and half the people here can connect and the other half can't. I have a few accounts with HL1/CS 1.6 and one of those work, while my account with HL2 doesn't. It feels real nice to pay to go to a LAN and then not even be able to play a game. Here's a big "fuck you" to Valve.
...if you want to play CS or TFC!
Individual game servers are up, you know -- how screwed up is it that you can't get to them solely because the game forces you to go through a central authentication server first?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not only is buying it a bad idea, but at this point I'm in favor of "righteous piracy", so to speak, since they crippied HL1, TFC, CS, etc. after the fact as well!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's not about "freedom", it's about a video game. The point to a video game is to be fun, if you feel as though your fun would be intruded on by something like Steam - that's fine. But crusading against Steam without any valid alternative proposal is simply childish.
And... Fascist state? What the fuck? A server crashed. It's not like Gabe Newell walked in and drunkenly pissed on the 0:1* SteamID auth server. (Well, maybe he did. But we don't know for sure.) Everything's going to have DRM whether you or I like it or not. Spend some time trying to mold the future by encouraging things like Steam that at least offer something in return, rather than fighting the inevitable. Crusading for a cause is a great thing, but you need to pick your battles.
This isn't one that the consumer can win. DRM will always be with us - so shape it. Encourage systems that offer something new, like Steam does, rather than fight it and push us back into the hands of the SecuROM type people.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
if you bought the game in a retail store you do own a copy of the copyrighted work.
No, you own a copy of an encrypted datafile, which is worthless without the decryption key, which is available only under contract with Valve through Steam.
Here is a re-run post from the LAST time we went through this. This was orginally posted Nov 31. Nice to see nothing has changed:
My problem with steam is, once you pay for the game and bring it home...
* It REQUIRES YOU to create a steam account just to install. They were honest and revealed in the EULA that they required an email and that they would share "some information" with third parties. So... You just gave them over $50 and they are now trying to hustle you for an email so they can sell it for a nickel?
* Once the game is "installed", you must "unlock" it in order to play. On my system, this took bloody ages. This is in addition to the usual business of typing in CD keys the size of nuclear launch codes just to prove to the software you own the game.
* You must be online to play the game so steam can log in and "verify" blah blah. Note that this is for a SINGLE PLAYER game you must be on line, just to make sure you're legit. If Steam goes down, you can't play. (Okay, there is an "offline" mode, but its more of a hack than a feature, as it involves copying files around just to trick Steam into acting like you're signed on)
* Steam runs in the background, updating stuff, ALL THE TIME (unless you disable it). Imagine if everyone did this. Your system tray would cover half of your desktop, and a large portion of your system memory and bandwidth would be consumed by all these busybody apps running in the background, updating, and bringing "special offers" to your attention.
* Despite all this security, the game STILL REQUIRES that you have the CD in the drive.
* Just for fun, go to Steam's website and try to figure out how to submit a bug. Last night (Nov 30) Steam stopped working while the patch came out. I couldn't play my game. I went to the website to find out why, and there was no way to let them know I was having a problem. No email links, no bug report form, and the forums were down.
* All of this hassle, and Steam really doesn't offer ANYTHING for the end user. If you download the game, they don't even give you a break on the price. In fact, if you download the game, you can't get a refund for any reason. All of this, and what's in it for us?
So yeah, I do hope the hackers are able to crack the game. Then I can download the crack and play the game without needing to use Steam. The LAST THING I want to see is other game companies following Valve's example.
Wal-Mart could nearly eliminate shoplifting (which I'm sure costs them millions) if they just frisked everyone as they came out of the store. Yet they don't. Steam is the software equivalent of giving you a pat-down when you leave the store with your paid-for merchandise. They need to knock it off.
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
And the hell of it is that even if you started with WON, you're still forced to use Steam anyway because they forced everyone to "upgrade"! They stole functionality from my copy of Half-life multiplayer, TFC, and Counterstrike after I bought it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Neither me nor, I suspect, you are lawyers, so probably we shouldn't debate the merits of a lawsuit here. One obvious fact is, though, that Valve can be sued regardless, and they would be insane to go to trial over such a thing.
Maybe they could be sued over this (although I'd expect something in the EULA none of us read would take the wind out of any lawsuit) but I'll bet you a solid $10 that no law suit comes out of this.
Valves gamers are mostly, what? 15-25? Even if the kids and young-adults banded together in a class action setup
a) how many of the minor's parents are going to give them permission to participate in the lawsuit
b) how many of the 18-25 players are going to bother, what with being
+generally busy--with gaming and college.
+lazy--this age bracket hardly even votes
+broke--college is expensive. So are all of those games
c) I have a feeling you'd have trouble finding a lawfirm willing to accept your case. Class action lawsuits often have trouble finding paper mills that poisened the water supply, killing infants and disabling the elderly. Fat chance sueing a gaming company because the held up their end of an EULA that you don't agree with, but obviously accepted since you're playing the game...
I just don't see it happening.
Class action lawsuits often have trouble finding paper mills that poisened the water supply, killing infants and disabling the elderly
ah, sh!t.. I meant they have trouble finding paper mills liable, or that they have trouble sueing paper mills, or fining them or something. I didn't mean to imply lawers are having difficulty in their search for paper mills.
If their license is what you say it is, then I don't. I can't speak for the USA, but in New Zealand we cetain laws (specifically the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act) that provide consumers with certain rights (consumer guarantees and fair trading) to expect that what they're getting when they hand over money is what they'd been led to believe that they were buying.
If such a game hadn't been clearly marked at the point of sale that it might frequently break and become unplayable, the seller would most likely have to provide a full refund if the buyer requested it. I doubt that fine print in a license on its own would be enough, since people don't traditionally expect to have to read a detailed license agreement before purchasing a game off a shelf.
I've actually taken to the habit of saying right up front when checking out at Best Buy. Right after they start:
''I don't want to buy anything else. I know you have to say it, but stop.''
I swear I must have had a little bit too much asshole in my tone of voice the first time I did it, because the poor girl just blanched like I'd told her to go to hell or something. But now, I just say that with a mostly-sincere smile and go on with my life. So far, none of them have insisted on continuing. If one does, I'll simply leave my purchases on the counter and walk out the door.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Carefull.. you're getting pretty close with the Auschwitz reference.
Look kid. It's great you can use your Steam account and play games. But a lot of others can not, and some of them like me use steam on only one computer.
And by logoff, I simply mean close down steam. I didn't do anything fancy lastnight. I quit CS:S, exited steam, and shutdown my machine.
The fact we have to experience this at all is a failure on Valve part of our agreement. The fact they make no offical mention of it, no status, no 'we are busy looking into the matter' is another strike against Valve. It shows how much they care about their customers on a Saturday.
There's no way I'm going to let you turn this into it's the fans and customers who are at fault here.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I LOVED hl1 and would LOVE hl2 but I WON'T buy it.Why?BECAUSE IT IS A TRICK.The software companies want to go from SELLING you software to RENTING you software.If the get enough sheeple to buy in to this it will spread.DON'T BUY HL2!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, a couple of friends of mine have had all kinds of issues with their legally purchased copy of Halflife 2. Personally, I played a friend's copy, and didn't like it, so I didn't even bother getting a cracked copy.
However, both of them have had Steam issues over and over again. Eventually, I got them both cracked copies, which work flawlessly. (Even for online play on uncracked servers, interestingly). I can guarantee you two things: One, they will never purchase another Valve/Steam game. And two, I will be getting them both cracks when HL3 (or whatever else) comes out next. Great way to discourage piracy, Valve. You've made sure that your paying customers have to deal with your shortcomings, while cracked copies get around them and work all the time.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...please fix the audio stutter or whatever it is bug in HL2. Thanks!
UNTIL STEAM IS WORKING AGAIN
Valve uses a fire now, instead of a teapot?
The real solution to this would be for people having trouble with this to band together, and demand their money back.
Take it to the courts as a class action lawsuit, and demand a full refund of the purchase price. It should be fairly easy to prove that without the steam systems being online and working, that the game is not payable. This should not be acceptable to anyone.
Once even ONE of these lawsuits succeeds, this idea will go away. So long as they can get away with it, they will.
H.
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
OMG! You cant game for a night! ARGH! The world is gonna explode and everyone will die!
Who the hell cares, you cant play a game for a night, big deal... go play something else if you are that lonley where you can't actualy do something; like geting your butt away from the screen and going out somewhere.
Requiring steam is extremely irritating. If it was almost ANY other developer, no one would put up with this crap. Problem is, valve puts out such quality games that we're willing to wade through the muck to get at them.
you're welcome
[nt]
I personally regret buying HL2. Not so much for steam. But the driving parts make me extremely sick. And at times the giant bugs look too real. I am like terrified playing the game, I don't know why. I have more reasons to shut the game off than turning it on.
This was really a pain earlier today at the 400Man Lan. Unfortunately some hoping to play in tournaments could not. Kinda sux when you spend $55 on a game and have a tough time getting it rolling at a LAN. Big thanks to the crew of LPNW! Awesome LAN. http://www.lanpartynw.com/
i did just as you state at the end of your post, at the point steam was required i no longer will play/own/purchase/etc... any game which requires it. i was really looking forward to halflife 2 until i found out that you couldnt play it in single player mode without first registering through steam (which would require steam being installed on my box, something i will NEVER allow)
I can't play my SINGLE PLAYER game because of this!
gnometetris, nethack, dopewars, bzflag. I keep busy.
Didn't someone make Tax software that fucked the legitimate users, and let all the hackers have their way? What was the software? I can't remember. They had some kind of online thing... and you got to install it on a computer once, activate it, use it, and if you ever moved to a different computer, you were fucked. I remember the online activation didn't work for many people either... did they ever fix it? What became of it? Did someone sue? I have a tax accountant, I've never needed tax software, but I remember the newspapers making a stink about it.
Frankly, I'd take the fucking box, CDs, receipt, and go back to whatever slimy electronics store that sold the piece of shit, and I'd demand my money back. Tell them that Valve sucks, that you're unsatisfied with the product, and you want your money back, every stinking penny. Teach Valve a lesson!
And if the store won't get you your money back, I'd be calling up Valve, saying that you're not satisfied, demand a 100% refund.
-- No sig for you!
Valve really need to focus on fixing thier existing problems before releasing anything else.
The steam bugs are no.1 on that list.
Counterstike: Source bugfixes are no.2
Until atleast those problems are fixed, they should'nt be working on anything else.
I bought HL2. My experience is that I so far have been able to play about 2 hours of gameplay. I have spent more time with support then playing this game. Most of my problems arrive with steam. They can take this game and the whole experience and shove it. I am going back to FARCRY and would gladly buy FARCRY 2. I am done with this type of gameplay monitoring/ wannabe drm crap.
"Steam Users Get Steamy." Prepare for the onslaught of "Anonymous Coward"s!
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
58c2183cc1999159ba8b91d01bfb0f38 Steam-Down.exe
General Forum: Yes, something is not right
Paste of the link's contents in case the forum is too bogged down:
And yet another word from myself: Steam seems to be back up and running. Give it a try.
It's back up and people who couldn't connect now can it seems.
straight geeeeeeeek.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I have had no connection problems to steam tonight, and looking at todays connection status history most people arnt either. Anyone who has sifted through the stupidity on the steam forum knows that the news writer was most likly a whiney 8 year old who didnt get personal tech support from gabie himself...
Stupid litle wanker. He ISNT buying the game.
Fucktard
There you go guys.
Buy DRM-enabled crap, get fucked by the DRM-enabling company.
If it smells like shit and if it looks like shit, then it is probably digital restrictions management.
Even though I heard that Half-Life 2 was a decent game, I still haven't bought it. I practically stopped playing Half-Life 1 when Valve switched to Steam to authenticate players, because Steam didn't work in/on Linux. I know that Steam is supported by Cedega (WINE on drugs), but I'd rather not install a piece of DRM on my system even if it's running in a windows-emulating sandbox.
If I bought a game, why would I need to "authenticate"? Surely the fact that I bought the game in the first place is authentication enough to play the game. There is no reason for a developer (as in the guys who wrote the software) to implement a dehumanizing 'feature' like online authentication: it's a time-consuming and highly user-unfriendly idea. Another program to install; to run in the background; and to consume precious memory. "Why dehumanizing?", you ask? I am constantly reminded that Valve can cut me off of my entertainment anytime they want (or in this case, don't want).
Sure, go ahead and tell me "Surely someone will come along and crack it so I can play it without encumbrance". Really? What if not? Why do you wait for someone else who isn't in any way related to the game developers to reverse-engineer the executable to code an DRM-emulator. Look at the irony! Warez guys implementing an "DRM-emulator"!
This is fucking hilarious.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Oh, and in the course of starting it, it stole my focus twice despite Windows being set to disallow that.
How/where do you set this in Windows (2K/XP I'm assuming)? It pisses me off when applications keep steeling focus from what I'm doing to show me something I can safely deal with later at my leisure. Of course if Steam steals the focus anyway, I suppose it's of rather limited use to begin with. But still, I'd love to know how to set this option.
Keith D.
I mean why? MOH is alot better and you don't have to go through their servers to get a game?
Yeah mod me for troll.
... but that's not what happened.
The software works. It may have problems, and I personally object to the whole way they've done it, but this is an outage, not fraud. Big difference.
If your ISP told you that while you were paying for service from them, they weren't ever planning on delivering it, that'd be a *major* issue. Well worth small claims, at least.
If they went down for two days, you'd be pissed, but you'd deal with it. Well, unless you had some sort of SLA guaranteeing that outages wouldn't happen "or else". I don't see what the difference is.
This is an outage. The same thing happens at ISPs sometimes, and people may get pissed but they rarely demand their money back unless it's a *massive* outage (many days or weeks). Unless they have an SLA, they rarely get their money back even if they do ask for it.
I never said it didn't suck, I just said I think it'd a pretty stupid thing to sue over.
Anybody still using Steam is a fully qualified ass-hat idiot. The crack's been out for weeks already. Steam wastes precious gaming resources.
Come on people, grab a clue!
+15 Insightful
DRM is only valuable to organisations I care not for. When DRM causes problems for the consumer you can't act surprised, because DRM dosn't exist to protect your right to legitmately use software but blatently to secure the profit of corporations.
Internet cafe's have been screwed by steam because in the old days they had to simply go out shopping and buy n number of copies of HL/counterstrike to have the cd-keys needed to play online with. When steam was launched they quietly created an 'internet cafe' programme which by fine printing made it a violation of the EULA to use retail cd keys in an internet cafe environment.
The "few geeks and nerds" are more in touch with the ontological and unhuman reality of DRM because we got shafted by it first, now some of the Steam gamers are in touch with this too.
I think you meant "Mod parent down". This is Slashdot, News for Nerds. We are supposed to have news about this kind of thing. A large portion of Slashdotters are against DRM, and this is a prime example of why DRM schemes are a Bad Idea. I'd say this qualifies as a relevant thing to be discussing.
The offline games are still available to users. The trick is to getting the offline games to work when the servers are acting up is to actually be OFFLINE, so that steam can't find an internet connection. If ANY of the steam servers replies at all, there will be a verification delay. In situations like this, the delay can be considerable.
Anyways, the workaround for the offline single player games is to just disconnect before firing up steam. It really is goofy, because if it can't find a net connection, it checks for local files for signs of the verification and fires up. If you're playing an offline game, I don't see why steam doesn't just do that to begin with to keep the delays to a minimum.
The "Uncanny Valley". (google for it)
As a game/CG-Movie gets too real, you see all the little things that arn't right - people start looking dead/slack ect, instead of all the things that ARE right (wow, that lip-sync looks so perfect).
Different people have different thresholds. I haven't met mine yet, but i can't play HL2 above low/medium, and i lack pixel-shader support.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I was having trouble logging into Steam like everyone else. So, I clicked 'Retrieve a Lost Account' and then 'I Know My Account Name' and finished the rest of the process.
I can log into Steam just fine now. Maybe that'll fix it for others - or maybe Steam's servers are back up and running now.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
I bought the collectors edition of HL2. I'm not into counterstrike or any of the other games, I just wanted HL2. I installed it on my machine and tried to run it and ended up spending the better part of 2 weeks trying to get it working.
I had the priviledge of participating in live chat, e-mail and phone support with several different reps working from scripts in India. None really knew what was going on, but their flow charts did point in the right direction: there was some problem with the DVD or the drive that was keeping the game from running.
Upon launch the HL2.exe process would run, ramp up it's memory and processor usage and then quietly quit. no error, no feedback. After several reinstalls of both game and OS I exchanged my dvd for a new one, only to have the same problem. Rather than swap out my drive I pulled disc check crack off the internet and sure enough the game loaded without any issues.
Not only is there issues with their remote auth for the game, but there are issues with the SecuROM protection they use on the actual discs, forcing me to crack my legit copy of HL2 just to get the damn thing to *run*.
Fuck You Valve, If you release any more worthwhile games I'm just going to steal them to begin with... It's easier in the long run.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
There was bad news today for those who are either unwilling or unable to discontinue their activities on Valve games. There was no sign of any of the afflicted parties simply finding somthing else to do for 10 minutes of their lives. And many complained that Valve doesn't implement the same level of redundency in their system to allow gamers to login, as the gamers themselves have implemented at home to ensure they can ceaselessly play CS.
As of 12:00 AM several had imploded under the strain and others simply stat dazed asking themselves how this could happen.
"Your game network's down? Go pick up a book, and be glad you've got a hand to do it with and aren't facing sniper fire while you do it. Jeez."
What would you say if you couldn't read your book because the publisher decided you have to call and ask permission first? Would you take your own advice, or would you quite rightly complain that it was unnecessary in the first place?
"Derp de derp."
If Steam is indeed based in Atlanta, wouldn't it be fair to say that hell has indeed frozen over?
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Shouldn't they have a "validate all logins" fallback system? Allow those pesky pirates a chance every 2-3 months to actually login, in exchange for no DoS for the paying customers? Sounds like a good deal to me, since they can't guarantee 24/7/365 uptime.
not down now. never has been. don't have to deal w/ cds, and it always works and gives me new patches w/ bug & exploit fixes. it's great. why do so many whine?
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
This reminds me of the good old Amiga times when lots of games used code wheels or questions in the manual to curb piracy. Ahhh, those were the days! Then, just like today legitimate customers had to suffer.
:)
"Those who don't know their history are condemned to repeat it". Seems semi suitable
Didn't you read? Both his friends bought the game, but couldn't use it due to steam problems, so he got them cracks which apparently works.
This has always been my beef with copy-protection, anyone getting an illegal copy are much better off then are the ones who pay.
They don't have to locate a manual, or check key-codes, or log-in to somé bogus webservice. They dont have a problem making a backup and they dont have a problem installing on a second machine so they can play with a friend (actually, blizzard handled this nicely in StarCraft - punch in your cd key once, and if you want to play with a friend you can install network play copies).
Basically these people tried to do the right thing and it didn't work, and I'm guessing they can't get their money back.
insidious PostBlock censorship devise update (Score:mynuts won, posted vapouriously)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 30, @06:44AM (#11519131)
not even politically motivated, robbIE MiSuses this junk just to protect his monIE supply (yet another example of how way too much is never enough), &/or his greed/fear/ego based felonious stock markup FraUD execrable cronIEs/sponsors.
all in all, senseless greed motivated censorship could only delay the inevitable, which is freedom of speech, one of the mandates of the creators' wildly popular planet/population rescue initiative.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators, rebuilding declining civilizations since/until forever. see you there?
*Cough*Audio Stutter Bug* cough*
I'd respond, but you're obviously flamebaiting here.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
..and steam is immoral - don't forget.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You don't buy games which have stupid use policies like "must connect online to play".
... Well that's ok because I have UT2k4 and GTA:SA to play ;-)
My friend thinks I'm silly for holding out on "cool games" like this
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"Games ripped off from the net is one of the biggest cause of income loss for gaming companies"
Last I looked, it was crappy games that was the biggest cause of income loss.
I think the next company that releases a FPS should just go out of business. The world doesn't need another FPS for any reason.
" I've been ipbanned due to too many downmods longer than I've had to go without the karma bonus."
/. is fun. For you, its a complex puzzle to be figured out. Maybe you should stay away from computers, and they seem to have vexed you.
Wow. So not only is your opinion worthless, a jury of your peers has voted them worthless.
I wouldn't know how that feels, as my karma is maxed. So I can karma bonus 5+ when I want to make a point, and then AC when I want to make fun of idiots like you.
For some of us,
" i have had 0 issues with steam hl2 silver package"
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
No matter. The simple truth is that pirates have no problems, only legitimate paying customers have a problem.
Which is the better value?
(I almost added "moron" to the end of that question, but I realized I would be publically insulting you. I won't do that. I'll just think it and keep it to myself, moron. Oops, sorry, didn't mean to do that.)
Part-true, part-untrue. If you're not connected to the internet, Steam will start in offline mode. You can still create LAN servers.
However, if you've previously failed to log in due to a fault like the one described in the article, Steam will disable offline mode, which is dumb.
Valve could have saved themselves a lot of problems if they'd just made steam fall back to offline mode when it couldn't contact the content servers.
He's not "flaimbaiting", he's "trolling". Big difference.
And anyway, he's a moron, although I would never say that publically.
Simply not purchasing future products that are Steam driven. I uninstalled Half-life 2 not two days after having it because the Steam application made the game more trouble then it was worth. I am completely not satisfied by their product thanks to Steam.
If Valve can remove the Steam wrapper around Half-Life 2 and allow me to play it like any other game I'd concider installing it again. I would also concider purchasing future products from them. For now, Valve has totally lost me as a customer on future products and I have nothing but bad things to say about the one I did purchase in terms of performance an ease of use. I know how people love Counter Strike and the other mods, still I don't think it's worth the hassel that Steam bestows apon you for it.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Steam is draconian DRM system! It limits your abilities and rights to what Valve wants. Valve wants everyone who plays to pay. So it forces online play. (Sure there is an off line mode, but you need to be on-line to enable it!) Valve doesn't want after market sales, so Valve forbids them. Valve doesn't want cheating, so it mandates that everyone uses the latest updates. And Valve does a bit "favor" in converting all of your other Valve games to the Steam format. So you'll need to go on line to play those too! How nice.
I bought Half-Life 2 when it first came out too. But I didn't bother opening it because I wanted to see what happened with Steam first. I'm glad as heck I sold it months ago because it saved me from being screwed.
I just don't get how the same people who were again Palladium can be so pro for Steam?! Is playing a "cool" game for a few hours really worth infesting your computer and PAYING for the privilege?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
It's maybe not so bad. The companies that piss off customers more and more will put themselves out of business. The smart companies will see the way the wind is blowing and make a killing at the expense of the chest-beating anti-piracy ones. Of course, governments will still listen to cries of woe about "pirates", despite record profits from the smart companies.
Hmm. I hadn't thought of that, but you do make a good point regarding teaching Valve - and the industry - a lesson.
... the contrast is amazing.
... but it might take more than this to make one practical.
Copy protection pisses me off a *lot*, because it only punishes legal customers. Anything that cuts down on that would make me a happy man. Alas, a lawsuit would probably just make them do a better job of the same thing next time, rather than drop the idea entirely.
BTW, I play some games under Linux, and it's bought home to me just how annoying copy protection is. My copy of neverwinter nights, unmodified, has been migrated with my home directory across three OS installs. It doesn't care. It's never asked for the CD, and not only that, but it doesn't even force me to watch splash screens. I suspect that's because they just couldn't be stuffed implementing said "features", but
I'd pay extra for a game with less offensive copy protection. On the flip side, well, there's a reason I don't own HL2.
Anyway, enough with that little tangent. I'd be interested to see how a gaming class action would work
FUCK YOU, Valve. I'm keeping my penis.
Personally, I love Steam and have never had a problem with it. It even solved one of my problems: my third CD was damaged, but Steam allowed me to download the data on that CD. Meaning that I could install HL2 with a damaged CD without exchanging the whole set- good deal. Maybe you're all mad because you're cheap and you don't want to pay for anything- I see a lot of posts about how you pirated Half-Life 2. Personally, I find that inexcusable. But it's not my place to enforce copyright laws. Or maybe you're mad because of Steam's ability to drastically limit cheating in CounterStrike. A lot of you strike me as people that might take offense at that. :P I don't know. But I think Steam's the best thing to happen to the gaming industry. It entirely eliminates SecureROM technology. I don't need the CD's for anything anymore! It also handles updates very gracefully and allows the user to download things like the SDKs all in one go. Now, play nice. :)
My Systems
Rule #1 for running any online community is: Never respond to complaints in forums.
That's why I play the warez version of HL2 in single player mode - no lockouts, no problems! Meantime all you suckers who paid for the game have to suffer every time their servers go down.
Hence the swashbuckling pirates get to play all they want, whenever they want (arr matey), yet the paying customers get punished by Valve in the name of IP protection.
Worst . . . copy-protection . . . ever . . .
My line of business IS video games. I operate a lan center. I pay through the nose every month to Valve to participate in their Cyber Cafe program. This allows me to charge people money to play Valve games without running afoul of some insidious EULA (that only Valve seems to have a problem with - every other company is fine with us). Friday and Saturday are my 2 busiest days of the week, wherein I pull in over a grand and a half each day in admission fees alone. With these Steam problems, my customers couldn't play CS:S, DoD, HL2:DM, etc. Much to my annoyance (I'm not a CS fan, but many of my customers are), I had customers walking out because they couldn't play their favorite game and demanding refunds as they walked out the door. I counted over 50 customers who had paid for a package pass that costs $13 who left early and demanded refunds because of Steam. That means the business lost over $650 because of today. Will we be demanding a credit from Valve? You bet. Will we get it? Not bloody likely.
So there's some perspective for ya. My business lost actual, real money because of Steam problems. Because of the license management software we have to use as a part of this cyber-cafe program, we can't use offline mode, EVER. That's just the way it works.
Our center didn't even have it the worst - I've heard from other centers that had tournaments planned for today that lost thousands in entry fees, prizes, etc. The ones that are really hard off are the ones who have competition nearby that run cracked copies of everything - they NEVER have problems with Steam. Lan games only, but that's what people come to us to play.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
same here, i only buy games i can copy. why? because i don't wan tto find the damned CD everytime i want to play it.
some companies like epic are great, ut2003 had copy protection and CD-checks... untill they released a patch to remove it lol.
My copy of UT2004 came with no more DRM than a CD key. It even runs on Linux, that DRM-hostile environment. How did they get that one past the publishers who would "NEVER allow them to release without DRM?"
Just so more typical greedy corporate incompetence ... take that all yoy DirectX idiots. Serves you right.
Don't overpaid uncaring executives just suck?
The forums now seem to have imploded under the strain of complaints.
No problem. We'll just move our complaining to the Slashdot comments instead.
Seriously, can't you people do this somewhere else?
You needed to be modded down to hell.
He stated that he BAUGHT the game to.
These were my thoughts on it a few weeks ago. And these.
Firstly, I was able to log on last night. Everything was fine. If I hadn't been, I would have played some other game. Secondly, if Valve went tits-up, I would be sad, and then realize that for my $60 buck for HL2/CS:S, I had gotten more gameplay than $60 bucks had bought me since Final Fantasy VII. I have games right now that I don't play at all, just because they bore me. What if Valve died? The world will keep turning, folks.
you missed the headline of this whole slashdot article then?
I haven't had too many issues. but really, pirated have it easier - no random waits when starting the game to play it(updating/checking..). plus, sometimes it chooses piss poor servers(or they have just piss poor servers to download from, kind of funny when i can get my free linux updates faster than the game steam game downloads, eh?).
were i just copying i wouldn't be pissed off about that i can't upgrade to a package that would have half-life: source. were i just playing pirated cs:s i wouldn't be that pissed off about the piss poor physics engine integration(it's just poor how the movable items push everything).
were i playing on laptop.. no question about it- I'd get the pirated versions for it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Besides from what other posters have said it looks like it's not tied to any specific server.
Lets try a process of elimination. Since it doesn't appear to be tied to a single server, that leaves:
Hack/Virus
Internal Network (Swtiches/Routers)
Internet Connection
Power
In the cases of the Internal Connection (we are not talking your average consumer equipment here) if one or more network devices failed and they didn't have a backup that would cause them to fail.
Internet Connection: Backhoe outage? Someone cut the line to one of their server farms? This is assuming that there is more than one farm.
Power: The UPSs ran out of juice and the power still isnt up. Or someone hit the emergency power off and they are rebooting still.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
while I hate CS, I think this sums up the worst part nicely
" The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable."
Valve is the worst game company (as bad as EA) ever created just for that reason. You cant fucking play a game without authenticating on the internet? Thanks! Next we're going to have to enter a 100 digit CD key every time
It's amazing how much valve has done so much right and so much wrong at the same time.
Basically, what steam does is handle it's userbase for an FPS game exactly like a MMORPG does it. The only difference is they dont charge you a monthly fee for using the service.
There are some benefits to this design, Particularly the ability to patch more often and offer new content on the fly rather than downloading a huge patch every 3 months. They can also sell their games on it. It's how I bought HL2 and it worked really well.
The disavantages to this are numerous for this particular type of game. Not being able to play offline is the big one. LAN parties get screwed royally by this. Basically if you dont have internet in your lan party your screwed. Also, since valve really screwed up on many points of the program, such as rollout, it's filled with bogus accounts used for nothing but cheating and the like.
I definetly like many parts of steam. especially the part that I dont need CD's anymore to scratch, lose CD keys, and the like, but they really need to iron out a lot of the legitimate issues that FPS players have with this system instead of force feeding them that it's just like an MMORPG now, and if you dont have Internet or we screw up, your screwed.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Reliability is part of the value proposition, just like frame rate and any other feature.
Maybe some of you are aware of Steam's poor defense against hackers, but for those who aren't, please check out the Emporio Team. Emporio released a CS:Source hack that allows ANYONE who downloads CS:S or HL2 to play wihtout valid anything. They are constantly updating the patches to keep up with Steam, and so far, that has only been 8 patches over a duration of 1+ year. Most people playing CS:S right now are using the hacked version... check out http://csconditionzero.tk/
If nobody pirated their games, there would be no need for the DRM. Pirates are at least as responsible for DRM as media companies. So if you don't like DRM, then stop pirating games, music, and movies. You're just making life difficult for paying customers.
This is a spurious argument. "So if you don't like DRM, then stop..."? What will that accomplish? Nothing. They aren't making life difficult for paying customers. If every 'pirate' stopped infringing copyright today, it wouldn't matter. The DRM genie is already out of the bottle. Media companies (Valve included) will never go back. For these companies, the doctrines of Fair Use and First Sale are "quaint and obsolete" (to turn Gonzales' phrase).
Regardless of the copyright protections outlined for us, the paying customers, the difficulty is not being caused by 'piracy' [copyright infringement], it's being caused by investors. Media wants to bleed a stone when it comes to music, movies, games, etc. because they are driven by one goal only to increase return on investment. Unfortunately, the real solution would be to turn back the coporate influence in Washington, reduce the reliance on capital markets, and trend back towards Constitutional government. You're a bright reader though, and know this will never come to pass.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
I have to say that when Steam does work it's a great system. I can't tell you how long ago I lost my original Half-Life CD or how many times I've reformatted my winblowz box, and yet it doesn't matter. As long as I have an internet connection and my steam id I'm good to go, on any computer anywhere. This has made prepping for the occasional LAN party easy and quick.... just my two cents.
What I'd like to add is an explanation for why Valve created Steam at all.
Don't - we don't care. Its still immoral.
would say: "Isn't it great how I don't have to keep track of a CD and I can go re-download all the old games I paid for 5 years ago to as many computers as I want to without any hassle. And they give me free content later as it becomes available without paying for an expansion pack."
You must be working for Valve if you believe people would say that and not "Remember when you could buy a game and use it without BigBrother decideing if you were allowed or now. When you didn't have to hope that some servers were up to allow you to use it. When you could install something 10 years after you bought it because it didn't need "authentication". When you weren't a slave to greedy software houses"
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
-
Please be assured that if you are having problems, it is only temporary and your accounts have not been lost or damaged or otherwise compromised.
Further criticism of Central Control will not be tolerated.I have received word that it's being worked on, and the Steam crew hope to have things back to normal for those with problems very soon.
This is a recording.
Well?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
We had a big LAN tournament going and couldn't connect any of the computers, when it finally got working we ending up doing single elimination and half of the teams had already left! KKHHAANN!!!
I've been saying it ever since HL2 came out. This was going to happen sooner or later, and everyone who bought into this bullshit system would get burned. Or to be more precise, got exactly what they deserved. I boycotted HL2 and CS:S and haven't been happier. In fact, these kinds of outtages only vindicate my stance. DRM and product activation schemes must die. They serve no useful pupose than to punish the legitamate users. Think gun control, the only people that won't have guns will be the honest folks since the criminals won't care about the law and will do their own thing anyway. Piracy is the same way.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
My son bought Half Life and had all sorts of problems with Steam. Through him I have heard a litany of problems that others are having. Frankly, I understand that sometimes there are problems with technology, what I can't understand is the arrogance and unresponsiveness of Steam.
My suggestion is that the next game that comes out requiring Steam, be massively boycotted. Even if the company goes out of business, the coders will be employed quickly elswhere or start their own businesses, the business people will go on to oblivion where they deserve to be. Just my 2 cents worth.
They have disabled "search" in their forums, and seem to have been deleting threads discussing this issue. There were quite a few large threads complaining, asking for information, and discussing the downtime last night, but I can't find a single one.
Additionally, during the peak of the complaints, they may have disabled posting, as I was unable to. (this could have been related to the load-- I'm not sure) I previously have not had any trouble posting to their forums. Posting is re-enabled this morning. Anybody know if it's back up? I can play, but I'd love to get a game set up with my friends, and they were all affected.
"I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt"
Who are you, and why does this matter? Why is your "benefit" any benefit at all?
I don't get what you're saying here...but I'll tell you this. THe lesson is that for this particular game, you'd be stupid to buy it, because the pirated version is superior in every way.
As to caring about Valve; they apparently don't give a f*ck about me; I'm simply paying them back the favor.
While I'm positive people have voiced their opinions to Valve, I thought it was time I did so as well. I've been boycotting HL2 and Steam for a while now, and who knows, maybe my e-mail is the one that'll send them over to the light side :)
Anyways, here it is if anyone cares:
To whom it may concern,
I thought it was time to voice my opinion regarding Steam. I have been a HUGE Half-Life fan. I've purchased multiple copies of half-life so that we can play multiplayers together at home (I didn't even have to do that since they were all LAN games and the CD keys don't appear to be enforced by LAN games, but still, I've paid money for multiple copies of HL because it's a good game and I buying software is a nice way to support the companies who put out decent software). I still play half-life, cs, tf, and dod on a regular basis.
However, with regards to Half-life 2, I cannot justify giving you any money for the game (no matter how good it is), and I have voiced this opinion heavily to my friends and co-workers. Many of them are unaware of the reasons why they would not want to purchase half-life 2 until they heard from me and now they agree completely and refuse to buy Half-life 2.
The main issue that has prompted my unwillingness to purchase half-life 2 is Steam. The DRM measures used in Steam are draconian. If I purchase single player game, I see absolutely no need to access an online system just to play the game. Apparently, on 1/29/2005 many users suffered from the exact problem that I had envisioned when I first heard about this. If something goes wrong, you can't play. Yes, I know about offline mode. However, offline mode doesn't really work well I only boot to Windows to play games. Each start of the steam client apparently "phones home". This is absolutely unacceptable to do for a single player game. The fact that if something goes wrong on your end could prevent me from playing a single player game I purchased is completely absurd.
I understand the need to protect yourself from piracy, but based on the information I've been reading, pirates have already figured out how to circumvent Steam. At this point, you're hurting your paying customers more than pirates. Apparently, paying customers (once you have their money) rank lower than pirates.
The second point I have with Steam is a minor one. Cheat banning. I understand why you do cheat banning. My problem with cheat banning is your methods of dealing with it:
1) If the cheats are removed and one BUYS a new cd-key then they can play on the secure servers. Keyword here is an individual has to BUY a new key after removing all the cheats. This is analogous to our legal system sentencing someone, then saying, if you bribe me, your sentence is commuted. This is absurd and doesn't reflect well in my eyes, as well as a significant chunk of the gaming community. I absolutely understand the need for cheat protection, but when the solution to it, after being caught, is to give you more money, well, you can see how that looks.
2) Directly from your FAQ:
"Valve's Anti-Cheat system (VAC) automatically detects programs and other methods used to cheat in Valve's games and does not have any false positives in the system.
We will not un-ban you regardless of the reason. It doesn't matter if someone else used your account, you didn't know what you were doing was wrong, your brother or sister downloaded a cheat you didn't know about, etc."
How can you guarantee that there are no false positives? Any detection system is guaranteed to be exploitable. It just needs time to figure it out. What if someone figures out the exploit and were to release a W32.Steam.Cheat virus, how would you handle this? Based on your FAQ, VAC can do no wrong and you won't un-ban anyone. Will this statement stand?
This second point regarding cheat banning is completely speculative not knowing what your VAC system actually does. However, the tone of the "We will not un-ban you regardless of the reason" once again solidifies in my mind that you care more about
I have HL2 and i HAVE played offline without connecting to Steam. Even had my net connection turned off to make sure this worked.
Suckers! Keep buying into these evil copy-protection schemes. Stupid is as stupid does.
The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable.
This is incorrect. Offline games (ex., HL2) will run fine even without an internet connection. Originally, the game did try to connect, but this was fixed about 4 days after HL2 was released.
You can't blame users, that's too easy. Mass boycots on anything just don't work.
You can't blame the users for using Windows XP with the monopoly that Microsoft holds. Most people aquired XP with a new PC, others got it at work, and a few people actually purchased the upgrade. Unless you're into the technology, you just don't know what the online product activation represents. I can't fault people for it.
You have to approach the problem a different way. What that way is, I don't know. Maybe Linux will bring the answer, maybe it will be something else. We'll know it when it comes.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
i was at a friend's birthday at a gaming center 30 miles away from me. the manager called steam and complained that he was losing $200 or so.
oh well, thank god for halo 2
This claim that you cannot play offline without connecting to Steam is a lie. I've done it. Just keep your net connection turned off when starting the game.
If you had simply disconnected from the internet instead of blocking with ZoneAlarm you'd see the game runs fine in offline mode!
If the game detects there is no internet connection, it's fine. By blocking, you are confusing the game. It detects an internet connection but then cannot communicate.
Get it?!
I'd pay extra for a properly tested and debugged game. If it was online, for working and reliable servers too. Mostly just a debugged game though.
I think that's why Deus Ex was one of my favourite games - the darn thing worked. Ditto Master of Orion II (though that wasn't entirely bug free), Star Control II (awesome game - check out the now-open-sourced builds), Half Life, etc. OTOH, some games are so awesome it's even worth putting up with bugs - eg System Shock II.
Alas, I doubt it's not going to be a US$10 difference, not if you want the game developer to make that reliability guarantee a legally binding one. Check out prices for SLA service plans at your local ISP and compare them to similar no-gurantee plans and you may get some idea.
I do think that it'd be more viable to offer a "light" guarantee - you know, game will be largely bug free (what a thought!), servers will work at 99% or better if online, etc.
The issue would be how to enforce it. For MMORPGs etc you could use essentially an SLA, probably with free service time as a "payment" for downtime. For other types of game it'd be a lot harder - having the publisher pay out to buyers would IMO just never work.
Again the network resources are NOT unlimited if your program structure/workflow heavily depend on a network service, well your project is doomed from the begining.
Suck it down.
Huh, I can play fine... Oh yah, that's cause I'm playing the cracked version.
Which I prefer to call DeActivation, since it can only take away.
you had me at #!
I do realize that this is not really big of me or revelatory but: - STEAM is a steaming pile of...well i am sure you get the idea. 8-( emailed them days ago with a password reset...greeted with silence. hl II was just flat out awesome...and CS is just slick. But I feel it is unacceptable to be at the mercy of this software to play a game locally...not to mention online. be well. sphere41
Customer loses, pirate wins. Valve are treating their customers badly. We need to speak up about this before DRM, copy protection, etc. is further shoved down our throats. Insulting those who raise these issues is misguided at best.
The post deserved to be modded down.
Clever signature text goes here.
I have found a use for telephones with no upstream feed: I use them for intercoms on extra phone lines installed in my house.
using only facts present in your comment:
very little != non-existent.
Hehe. I agree. That's one of the reasons one should take everything around here with a train load of salt. I think the better question is why do they make so much effort to redefine things? Do they think that somehow the law is either going to ignore what we all know they're doing because it doesn't fit their redefinition? Or do they think the penalties will somehow be less because of the redefinition? The rest of the planet isn't as stupid as some slashdotters think, and can see through all the verbal games down to what's really important.[1] "Thou shall not steal"* I'm more than willing to bet that none of these redefinitions will do a pirate any good when brought up before a court. So why the self-delusion?
*The other thing that people play verbal games with. "Oh it isn't stealing. Arrrr!"
[1] Good way to win a court case. You all are too stupid to see what I see. I can feel any sympathy just oozing away.
Absolutely!!! It's not like these people didn't know. Steam was widely reported all over the internet, and people were warned over and over. Yet, there are those who will defend Valve's rights to protect potential profits, even now while they can't play their game. The fact people knowingly bought this, and now come whining is totally retarded. The idiocy is incomprehensible.
This is just too hilarious.
UT2004 can pass the time :)
I bought the game.
I wanted to play, albeit only offline (till i move out of student halls)
The game is good, its damn fun. But the effort i expended to play it took almost as long as the game.
Steam is evil crap etc, but the games ARE good.
if you're in a similar firewalled situation and have remote b0xen and plenty of time try
http://printlord.inversed.org/piercing.html/l here
Um, Halo 2 sold over 1.4 million units since launch, on the larger audience console market, and with advertisement that rivaled movies. Where the HELL did you pull 1.7 million units for Half-Life 2 from? Final Fantasy 7 sold like over 4 million units TO DATE, and you're telling me a PC game is halfway to outdoing the most fan acclaimed RPG? Yeah, RIGHT.
Immoral? That seems like an awfully strong way of putting it. No one's forcing anyone to deal with Steam; if you really hate it so much, play some other companies' games or find some other hobby.
Remember when...you weren't a slave to greedy software houses...
In theory, in the long run, the higher developer profit margins allowed by electronic publication and distribution could make it possible for developers to start riskier, more creative projects, because fewer copies of each would have to sell to make a profit. That's exactly the sort of thing the games business needs right now, I think.
I notice you aren't complaining about currently being a slave to greedy retailers or publishers. Publishers and retailers do very little of fundemental importance in the game development process, but they soak up most of the revenues that result. Isn't that greedier?
The fact is, if you want to play commercial video games, you are ultimately going to be at the mercy of one or more commercial entities. If you don't like it, well... there's always Nethack on Linux.
Am I the only one who has never had any problems with Steam? Except for the Friends downtime, its always worked very nicely for me.
according to Vavle they have sold over 1.7 MILLION copies of HL2. Whine all you want as long as everyone buys the games they will keep adding more crap like steam.
Speak with your dollars and stop buying this crap. Find another game or make one of your own.
Judging from your post, all you ever do is to worry about people all over the world, and you do everything in your power to help them.
So what the fuck are you doing on Slashdot? Shouldn't you be out there somewhere, polishing your guilty conscience?
You are whining about people whining about Valve's useless copy protection crap. How lame is that? Get a life.
You are nothing but a lame hypocrite who uses logical fallacies to make excuses for Valve's fuckups.
Clever signature text goes here.
Well I appreciate the references. Goes along with a paper I'm writing. I do however wonder why anyone bothers debating around here?* If the issue wasn't so important I would most likely let it drop.
*Bet few will even see your post. Being a person of veracity isn't popular around here.
I find it downright amusing that you comment about logical fallacies in my arguments when your entire criticism was based on ad hominem and straw man fallacies. Ad hominem, in that you resort to personal attacks. Straw man, in that I never based my argument on time management, but criticizing people's priorities. Sounds like I hit a nerve, asshole.
1) They hate Steam.
2) They bought the game, thus giving money to Valve.
Publishers look at the bottom line.
When I heard about the whole Steam Activation crap, I decided that I would not be buying Half Life 2. I only register items that have a useful warranty that actually does _ME_ good. My APC UPS for example... Any software I buy must work out of the box, no logging into remote servers accepted.
My current take on the situation is:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....
Letting a company hold you by the testicles is simply an exercise in stupidity. Apparently Quicken users have also recently learned this.
Note: Even though I have a legal copy of Norton, there are ways around the registration.
Sorry for geeky joke.
Has anyone actually tried to measure the uptime and availability of Steam? Does Valve publish any numbers? Do they have any publicly documented QA and operational processes/standards?
...can be found at a site that Slashdot has linked to before:m l
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/index.ht
It's the "Final Hours" of Half-Life 2. It's a long article, but an interesting look into the mind of the head of Valve.
By your twisted and evil logic, we can't worry about anything but the very worst disasters in the world, otherwise our priorities are wrong.
Sorry, but that's bullshit, and you deserve to be insulted for being such a socialist/communist idiot.
Who are you to criticize people's priorities? And what are you doing on Slashdot, when you should be out there helping people in need. You are a fucking hypocrite. Time to start practicing what you preach.Clever signature text goes here.
Valve released a patch to remove the CD check about six weeks after the release. It was conveniently distributed via Steam, and reached the entire userbase the next time they played.
I can play HL2 on any computer I want. All I need to do is login on steam, and voila.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Welcome to the world of steam. This is evolution, you know. You don't own your games, valve does. Welcome aboard.
Easily overcome: What does this even mean? Steam is easy to hack? It's much harder than any previous system (WON, for instance)... I really don't understand what you're trying to say here. Wrong. Previous systems - cd key based check by the server - were impossible to hack for the client, since they were enforced by the server. See Quake 3 for example. You might be able to get a stolen cd key from someone else (and make it work if it hasn't been blacklisted yet), or you may be able to join a 'hacked' server (which are few and pretty bad usually), but you can't 'crack' such system from home and join a normal server. There's nothing else to do about it from the client side - that's why it works. Security works on simplicity of design and not on obfuscation or complication. Steam, on the other hand, is is easily crackable. All security checks are done on the client side, so pirated version owners are able to play on legitimate servers without a problem - with pirated and cracked copies. More than that: they're even able to purchase the game from steam... without having a valid account. How's that for an ecommerce system? Valve just created a new content delivery system for pirates. Forget IRC, P2P, FTP - steam and an 'alternate frontend' for it is all pirates need. This isn't getting much attention because valve's attentionwhoring 'xxxx accounts banned from steam!!' is working as they should: making people believe steam is secure. It's not. Banning doesn't matter for those people, since they can create a new fake account and get their games working again in a matter of seconds. I could post several forum links (tutorials and files) here showing how it's easy to circumvent steam and leech from it, but I think it's against slashdot's policies. Rest assured, though, that steam 'security' pales in comparison to oldschool cd checks, bf1942/q3/ut/etc-style. Steam adds a new layer of annoyment (is that a word?) for legit players while still managing to work less than previous security systems. If that makes you happy, hey, power to you -- but I sure as hell know hl2 will be the last valve game I've purchased, and the last game I'll have used steam to play.
Valve removed the DVD check in a patch... rather than messing around getting a crack off the 'net, why didn't you just run Steam and let it update...
Sorry, buddy, but I'm not going to respond to trollbait any further. If you can't disagree without throwing in every insult you can think of, you're just not worth my time, fuckhead.
I'm gonna ignore HL2 until it gets a lot cheaper, because the stupid Steam requirement makes it a lot less valuable to me.
Currently prices are 50 Euros and more, depending on version. Once it falls to 20 Euros or less, I might buy it anyway. But that is certainly not what Valve was hoping for...
C - the footgun of programming languages
me bad, i forgot the 'WHERE' statement in 'UPDATE' request
What I find intollerable is that their status page lies. I was pretty nervous on Saturday night, when I couldn't log into steam with my account, but my friend could login with his. I immediately imagined Valve mistakenly blowing up my account for cheating, or piracy, or some-such.
It would be nice if the "Steam Network Status" page would, you know, display the network status, instead of just displaying "online" through an outage.
for buying a steam-enabled game. what did you expect?
when I found out that Steam was going to force authentication for single player/offline play I decided not to buy their POS product. I remember reading about 6-9 monthes ago that Valve had stated auth wasn't going to be required for offline play. Effing liars. I am so tired of DRM.
no sleepy!
The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable. I moved and didn't have Internet for 3 weeks. I was able to play HL2 in Steam's offline mode.
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You: Ocean of vitriol.
Me: Dash of ire.
I had this outdated theory that you sold things to people that they actually wanted. Apparently I misunderstood - what they must have meant was "We'll sell you whatever DRM-encrusted piece of crap we have, and you'll buy it." I mean, selling the paying customers a crippled version of what pirates get for free sounds like a way to win over customers to me.
No DRM works (at least until the entire network is DRMd - then the network's just useless). If it can be hacked it will be. Screwing over your customers isn't going to change that fact. If you make a great game but make it intermittently playable, you'll avoid piracy...because people won't buy your games. Except, in this case, the pirated version does everything the legal version does and plays consistently. So you handcuff your paying customers for the benefit of your enemies - sounds like a "win-win" to me.
DRM is a way to take rights from your customers at no cost to you. It doesn't prevent piracy - it makes the pirated commodity more valuable than the legal one. All it does do is assure that your customers will have to pay for things that used to be (and by law, should be) free. So, why shouldn't people complain? If they complain loud enough, maybe the people who sell DRMd material get the message: screwing your customers is a viable business model only if you are hoping to earn profits in bankruptcy.
Or, to put it another way, "If you can't be a good example, you can be a terrible warning." If enough customers complain publicly (and the others realize that the pirated copies are better than real), which one do you think Valve will be?
ok well if you like you can try to rape as much money from a very good game production studio...
"i hope theyre up for this" and if theyre not and they go under? no halflife 3, no tf2 etc etc
like the authentication or not, they still produce good games
and it takes money for that
MrBig