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."
Suckers.
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!
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...
Anyone who plays MMORPGs knows what they're getting into before they buy the game.
One doesn't go buy a boxed copy of a single player game expecting to find themselves unable to play it because some dodgy auth server down.
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.
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.
Anyone who has played an MMORPG is more than familiar with these
Yes, thats because mmorpg stans for Massave Multi ONLINE role playing game.
last I herd, playing half life 2 a SINGLE PLAYER GAME sholdn't have the added problem of not being able to play the non online game because they can't maintain their servers.
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?
Uhh what's wrong with that? Lots of network transfer speeds are measured using Kb/s (modems, etc) - it's a common unit of measure and just as good as KB/s - so as long as it says so, who's fooling anyone?
Why the fuck should anyone have to jump through hoops to play a fucking single-player game offline? That should be the default setting. How many people even know about this? I'm sure valve wouldn't publicize it, lest they have everyone going around using the software that they paid for without asking "oh please sir, may I have some more" and denying them valuable usage statistics!
If you want an old, reliable, never-failing game, pull pong out of the closet.
funny, i can install and play my copy of half life 2 whenever i want to, I guess that Valve fucked up by making the pirate copy inherently superior to the legit copy.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
It figures I'd get flamebait/troll moderation for showing a dissenting opinion... No, I'm not new here, just willing to step out of line and speak up.
I think you're confusing "fundamental" with "universal". Steam has a fundamental problem: Requiring, at least one time, authentication over the internet to play the game (in single-player only). It lacks a universal problem: Some people have no problems, while others have nearly constant problems. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. But it is a SAD day when a company implements a protection scheme that punishes paying customers, and rewards hackers. Hacking things is fun for some; Valve is providing a thrill. And after one 1337 h4xx0r figures it out, no one else need do any work to get a free, unimpeded game!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The fact that it's a game versus some mission critical software doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is you paid for a product that you can fairly expect to work when you need/want it to. If they can't keep their servers up and running, then they need to refund some fraction of the original price to make up for their failure.
--
RumorsDaily
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'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.
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
In this case you paid for the service, and you expect the service to be provided when you need it, not when the company feels to it. When businesses buy services the contracts clearly say what happens when the service provider fails to provide. For example, many small businesses outsource paycheck management; imagine what would you do if such a company fails to pay you your salary?
In this case we also talk about damaging someone's posessions, which are represented here with a Steam account. Many people said already that all you buy is the account, and once you lose it you have nothing. Well, a whole lot of accounts are lost - hopefully only temporarily, but nevertheless their property has been damaged already.
And finally with regard to being unable to use the product, that's literally true here - people paid for something and they can't use it.
...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?
Well a temporary outage of a game isn't enough to sue over IMO, and anyway, you probably said it doesn't matter when you agreed to the EULA.
Now if the same happened with my Oracle DB, yes, heads should roll.
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
I want a world where all software must be open-source, even if the code is locked away in the Library of Congress for release upon the expiration of copyright.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
HL2 is a single player offline game.
It shouldn't have to phone home each time.
Atleast on each MMORPG games I've played every time there is significant outages your account gets credited for the outage.
Howm any people are going to see even a penny compensation from valve because of this?.
The problem with this sort of error is that the problem is causing a bad login which invalidates your copy of HL2 (and any other games requiring steam) until valve gets steam working again.
It's not a simple case of "Steam servers down, do you want to play in offline mode" it's a "Our servers believe you're not authorized to play this game any longer"
Considering the HL2 box doesn't mention the need of a service contract to work and you cannot be reasonably expected to know that beforehand (like you could be with the EULA, at least that's what the court claims but that only holds true for common EULA demands, you cannot be expected to know if an EULA introduces new rules) Valve is commiting fraud. No, telephones don't need that warning on the box because they would work if you could get a valid datastream from somewhere while circumventing Steam would likely get you a DMCA lawsuit. By omitting that warning they're either making Steam an illegal hidden cost (because it was not known at the time of sale) or invalidate it as a copy proterction mechanism (if they claim HL2 is just a receiver for data generated by services like Steam, omitting the like would make it an illegal cost).
Note that even though Steam is "free" at the moment, personally identifiable information is considered a value. And besides, forcing you too enter an additional contract to make your purchase work the way it was advertised to work out of the box is fraud (since the good was advertised to work without the contract but doesn't).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
"Um... Sure, I can see it'd be frustrating, but dude it's a *game*."
Point of game: Entertainment.
Game not in operation: Not entertainment.
Cost of Game: $50
Parent poster: Clueless.
"Derp de derp."
Tell ya what - I'll sell you a glossy, empty box. I'll even fill it with a bogus CD. When you come to me and complain that it doesn't work, I'll just tell you it's just a game.
Second, maybe my ideal is a little anti-capitalist. But anti-American? Certainly NOT! The Constitution's idea of copyright is not for the benefit of authors or publishers; it's for the benefit of the public. I'm tired of restating this argument myself; instead, please read about it here and here.
Third, DRM systems are by NO means "inevitable." For one thing, is iD going out of business because Doom 3 doesn't have DRM? Also, "selling games" is not the only possible business model -- there are several MMORPGs where the game itself is free, or even Free, but the developers make money by selling subscriptions to the server. And I'm sure there's plenty of other possibilities out there too.
And finally, if ensuring the public's rights results in fewer games, then so be it. If the US has to choose between freedom and economics, the choice must be freedom!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is the very reason I didn't buy in the first place. I was in the middle of Best Buy, game in hand, and asking myself "Hmm, I wonder how steam works", I went home and talked to some friends. My friend Colligan is like "Yeah, the game works fine if you don't connect to the internet", but I was still skeptical since it said that it was required on the box. I ask him if I can play it for a few hours, so we go around town, playing it until... all the sudden the game won't start up. I say to myself "ha, I knew that was going to happen," as we proceeded to the range of the nearest wireless access point in town, and I didn't buy the game.
Story in short: When a company requires that you connect ONLINE for an OFFLINE game, something is INHEIRENTLY wrong. Either they should advertise the fact that you have to have an internet connection to use the game, or they should not require users to connect to the internet to download a new key so that they can continue to play the game. It's rediculous in so many ways, and the fact that I may not even have internet and might have to get the internet just to play the game alone should be grounds for a lawsuit. Especially since stores will NOT allow you to return a game once it's been opened. I don't think those guys at Best Buy would listen to me whine, "But I didn't know you had to connect to the internet to play this OFFLINE game, honestly!! "
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
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.
Serious point though, imagine buying a DVD and sitting down to watch it (saturday night or whenever) and not being able to because first it needs to connect to a authentification server which isn't working properly.
No consumer should have to put up with this ridiculous treatment. The fact that gamers do is just one symptom of how strange the game industry is. Valve are definitely one of the best examples of this, still no one can exaplain to me the reason for the original false start september 2003 HL2 release date. Why is it that Gabe Newell, the team leader, didn't know that the game was no where near being finished when he annouced that date ?. Why did he go on to make a deal with ATI to include HL2 with their video cards when those cards would be a year out of date by the time of the games' eventual release ?.
Any other industry and people wouldn't put up with such asshatery, why us gamers do I don't know.
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.
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.
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.
Artists? Con-men who rip off their customers and make their lives miserable, more like. The pirated release is actually easier to install and faster to play.
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