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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."
I can't even play HL2 offline a game i payed for a reatil box for. I smell LAWSUIT!
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.
That's what they'd like you to believe - that you don't really own a copy of a copyrighted work. Valve can sell copies of their game for $50 and then go and claim they didn't sell anything at all, but just because something is in a license paper doesn't make it real.
Until you try logging in, fail, and it loses the offline mode option (which everyone will do)...
) ;
I've been a Steam supporter, but Valve needs to implement real offline mode. Additionally, woudl it kill them to multithread the UI?
I should have the option of launching Steam in a way that doesn't require a single socket to be initiated. As a backup...
if(cannot_go_online) enable_fully_functional_offline_mode_immediately(
How hard is that?
Also, I bet that they lost STEAM_0:1 data, this is too much downtime for no explanation without there being data loss of some kind.
-
though every game that requires a cd check (every game iv played for quite some time) with a central server to play online (the only reason to even buy games) would suffer from the exact same problem should the company crumble along with said central server.
That's essentially what the problem is with Steam and those affected by this now. We're talking about offline play though, while you may think online play is the only reason to buy games, there's a lot of people who prefer to never play online at all. Those games (the offline portion, or offline only games) certainly should not be affected by a company going out of business or an authentication server going down later on.Just one example, the Madden games on PS2 have online play but that play is only good for (at most) a year. After that you're stuck with an offline only copy, but it still plays just fine offline as it should.
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.
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
To be fair:
0.) Valve (or anyone else) should not be allowed to sell you something and then claim that you don't actually have any rights to use it. In other words, this copy protection bullshit should be illegal!
The fact that the cracked versions working perfectly fine encourages copyright infringement is just poetic justice.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is the biggest legitimate concern about Steam that most people voice - what happens if Valve goes under? I've been hoping someone in the gaming industry with enough pull could simply ASK Valve the question:
... or some variation on that theme. Newell should have an answer for this, if he doesn't, he should be pushed hard enough to need one. I feel as though there's no reason to distrust any response he gives, so if he says they've got a plan, that's enough.
''If in the unlikely event that you were unable to continue providing authentication services within a reasonable amount of time, would you make certain people could activate the game?''
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
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.
And you'll pirate Half-Life 3, and Half-Life 3's authentication system will be even worse for legitimate users? That makes a lot of sense, sure thing.
Would you rather Valve spend tens of millions on developing Half-Life 2 and 3, sell it without DRM and barely sell a maybe a quarter of what they sold now due to rampant piracy? Let's see, estimates of cost on HL2 production range around... what, 30 million plus? They've sold 1.7 million units so far, so cut that back, say 250,000 units to be generous. That means they'd have made $12,500,000 -gross-. With an ungodly amount of that - more than half - going to the distribution channel.
Sounds like a great way to lose money hand over fist... Oops, I think I just came up with the XBox Next marketing plan for Microsoft. Again.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Didn't buy it. Don't even have a cracked copy, I don't like that game. It cracked nicely for a couple friends, though. The cracked copies are working perfectly, even right now, unlike the legitimate copies, which both of them bought. The legit copies, on the other hand, only worked intermittently, even in "offline" mode.
People -will- crack games. No matter what any software company does. The only question the software company needs to ask themselves is-how appealing do you want to make the cracks? The more you encumber your legitimate users with "authentication", the more of them you drive to cracked copies with that garbage removed.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
How is DRM nescessary? It doesn't even work. Right now there are at least TWO cracks that go right around steam. Most games and other software drm schemes have been beaten quickly, in some cases the cracked versions have come out first.
Yet the game companies, music companies, and movie companies still make very large proffits.
Reality strongly argues against your claims.
The simple factors are convience and quality.
Which is better: paying $6-$12 bucks to see a movie on the big screen, or searching for and downloading copy to watch on your 19" monitor, a copy that may be crappy quality?
Which is better: Paying $16 for a proffesional cd you pop into almost device the right shape and hear music, or searching for a copy of lower quality that you then have to expend resources (admitted only about &.50-&.75 and a few minutes with nero et al) and time and effort on to make a simularly playable disc that lacks the cool art, liner notes, etc.
See the pattern here?
Games are still making lots of money even though they add drm schemes that reduce the convience factor, which in turn makes the 'pirated' versions MORE desirable simply from a convience standpoint even without the cost in dollars factor. FUD* is a factor against game 'piracy', without it DRM would likely drive a much larger segment towards the cracks than it already does. And as drm schemes get worse (and this is a LOT worse than most) it counters the fud even more.
Sorry but as I see it DRM is counter to the best intrests of the game companies as it only adds costs and costs them in paying users.
*=Not all fud is bogus, fear of being cought, uncertainty as whether or not the crack has built in malware,doubt as to whether it'll accidently screw up your system, etc. All have varying degrees of truth to them.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Plus there's the added fear that installing a cd-crack with the properly bought half-life2 will disable all my other payed-for off-line games.
I can genuinely say that the paying, clueless-to-piracy customers drew the short straw while people with a pirated copy are getting the most out of it.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Or.... pull the genius move of NOT BUY EVERYTHING MEDIA TELLS YOU TO!!!
. The actual gameplay blows donkey balls and the engine is so resource intense that it's impossible to play at a "nice looking AND >20 FPS" rate on any modest graphics card. To me that's not progress that's just "something".
I disliked the idea of Steam from the get-go. Hence I didn't buy HL2.
The problem with people like you is that you'll buy anything your told to, e.g. review posted on slashdot about upcoming HL2 engine, then IGN hosts a screenshot gallery, then you simply must own this game. It has l33t properties.
Even if you think "I'm deciding to buy this" if you actually do buy it, it's totally the marketing wheels spinning.
Not only that but as fun as HL2 is, it does get a bit tiring after a while. When I'm at my friends place playing the game I spend most of my time finding inventive ways to make the exploding red barrels explode all at once.
I fell for Doom3 and what a ripoff that was. Generally I don't buy games first day but Doom3 was hyped and it looked very sweet. Then it turns out to be "YetAnotherStaticWorldWithShinyPolyRendering(tm)"
Now I rent first [xbox/ps2] then buy. At least losing 5$ for a crappy game is better than losing 40$.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
And you'll pirate Half-Life 3, and Half-Life 3's authentication system will be even worse for legitimate users? That makes a lot of sense, sure thing.
:-(
Would you rather Valve spend tens of millions on developing Half-Life 2 and 3, sell it without DRM and barely sell a maybe a quarter of what they sold now due to rampant piracy? Let's see, estimates of cost on HL2 production range around... what, 30 million plus? They've sold 1.7 million units so far, so cut that back, say 250,000 units to be generous. That means they'd have made $12,500,000 -gross-. With an ungodly amount of that - more than half - going to the distribution channel.
How did the RIAA/MPAA argument get modded +4? Same thing with music and films. Add large amounts of DRM, inconvenience the person that actually paid for it, and claim piracy is the reason the price is so high. Then do bogus calculations and claim every person that downloaded would have actually bought it full price, which is patently not true, and claim X billions in losses.
How can a company that get it so right with Half Life (you can freely copy the CD and don't need it in the drive, the CD key lets you in the 1 player, 2 people on the Internet and 4 people on the LAN), and then get it so horribly wrong with Half Life 2. I'm gutted that I have to boycott it, I was so looking forwards to it
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
They don't publish it. On their support site in the "New copy, CD key already regged" They tell you to -- I'm not making this up -- mail your packaging, key and reciept, or photos thereof, to VIVENDI UNIVERSAL GAMES. They don't even take responsiblility. Further in this document, they tell you it will take a couple weeks for vugames to figure it out.
... My receipt is dated Nov., when I installed, I got to play online for a day or two before Steam came back and said my key was already on file. On Nov. 26 I mailed my crap to vugames and, wait for it, still haven't heard back from them with a new key.
... I don't even think I can get a refund (in store return) at this point, so I just have to keep waiting.
They could tell you about the command line switch -steam, but they don't. They expect you to sit on your hands while you wait for them to get back to you with a new key, that may already have been genned by the time you get it. But get this
THAT'S RIGHT VALVE, I'VE BEEN WAITING TO PLAY YOUR GAME FOR OVER TWO MONTHS. The sad thing is
The moral of this story: Key checking schemes only hurt the customer. There is some asshole out there that genned my key and has been happily playing online ever since, because VALVE WON'T HANDLE IT. If you bought a hard-copy they refer it to the publisher. That's fucking gay.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Actually, Valve doesn't care about its customers at all. There are all the evil business decisions, but the sheer amount of technical retartedness boggles the mind.
Many, many games today (Halo 2, anyone?) load levels dynamically, so that the player has very, very few loading screens to sit through. Yet HL2 makes you wait for at least a minute for every level, with nothing but a "loading" screen -- not even a progress bar.
Even an Xbox (a console!) does a better job of getting friends together to play a game than Steam. There's a running joke that several years ago, someone at Valve tripped over a cable to the Friends Network server, and it hasn't been working since. The few times I've ever seen it up, they've taken away most of the worthwile features, such as "join player" or whatever. What's the point of in-game IM if you can't even find the person? Is it any wonder that people use things like TeamSpeak instead? Why can't Valve, with its millions, beat TeamSpeak, with its $0?
I have never seen FY maps work in Counter-Strike: Source. FY maps were the reason that I used to keep playing Counter-Strike when I got bored and would have gone to play Quake 3, because an FY map is small and fast. But last I checked, it's impossible to make an FY map (you cannot create guns on the floor with Source SDK), and difficult to play one (the guns usually disappear before freeze time runs out). How hard can it be, people? Almost every single multiplayer game I've ever played can have guns resting on the ground at the beginning of a map, but not Counter-Strike: Source.
I have yet to find another game which can screw up map textures just by downloading custom maps from a poorly configured server. That is, if I connect to bad.server.ip, and I then connect to good.server.ip running the same map, my textures will still look wrong.
And what about the lagging technology? The Doom 3 engine has a Linux port, does most of the cool graphical things that the HL2 engine does, loads levels in half the time or less, has a progress bar, and came out months before HL2. And is it just me, or are they really still using BSP trees? BSP was obsolete in glQuake! And don't even get me started on Steam -- one auth server? Embedding Internet Explorer instead of BitTorrent?
If only we could have a company with id's technology and Valve's artists... But then, I may as well hope that Bungee developers leave Microsoft and finish the Linux Halo port they were planning.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Coincidentally enough, I was at a LAN Party last night, and some of the group wanted to get their CounterStrike on. They kept knocking on our host's networking abilities, saying Steam couldn't connect 'cuz his network was misconfigured. I play mostly Quake 3 and Call of Duty, and if the game required me to authenticate on an unavailable system to play the game I paid $50 for in the store, I'd be pissed too. Steam is great for content delivery, but as an authentication system, it clearly has shortcomings.
;)
As for your commentary on my lifestyle, I'd like to point out that I have been married for 8 years, and have a son and a child on the way. My wife lets me have some time to play video games, and I let her go out to scrapbooking meetings with her friends. It's called a HOBBY. If the time I allocated to my hobby of choice was infringed upon by the poor technology of a third party, I'd say I have a right to be irritated. On the other hand, I'd find something else to do.
FWIW, Microsoft Internet Hearts has never been down when I have tried to get on...
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
If it's principle, it's principle. If it's not, it's not. And that again is the point. If one is apt to shop lift because it's faster than check out, I guess that person will shoplift; Why? Because one is apt to shoplift, NOT BECAUSE of the 'time savings'.
... that's when the real explosion happened. It didn't hurt that some of the most popular games Ever (to that point) came out, Wolfie, Doom (and the like) followed by Quake and the true mainstreaming of online multiplayer gaming.
The argument that people pirate shit just because it's easy to do is fallacious. Period. If the law was important to them, they wouldn't do it in the first place. Right? Law-abiding citizens live by the rules even when it's not convenient. That's the way I live it, anyhow; That's what honesty is. Just because honesty is in short supply -- again -- has nothing to do with how short a download is.
Now to address specifics: "How many people were doing this ? compare with how many people were buying games..." in the heady days of C64's and the like? Well I don't know how old you are, but back then, in the 'hobbiest' days I like to call them, EVERYONE was copying some games and software. When you spent 2000 1980-dollars on a computer and floppy drives, data casette readers, modems, and maybe the branded monitor too, you were really hurting to spend hunrdreds of dollars on software. You were more apt to copy it wholesale at the local user's group meeting, and maybe ocassionally get some 'free' software by typing out a listing from BYTE. If you were willing to wait 20 MINUTES for a program to load off TAPE you better believe you were willing to wait longer than that for a download. I mean we are talking 300 or 1200 bps here.
Time progressed, modems and cpu's got faster, software got better, sizes increased, but until the mainstreaming of the software market, computer users groups and BBS's were a major source of infringing 'content'. Anyhow. We're talking around 1990 or so before people (average Joe) really started buying computer games. We're talking like Myst and Duke Nukem (pardon the loose dates). Then the Web came along, and once people starting finding out they could "Find anything on the Internet", porn, free software, free games
The point of this history lesson is to illustrate this: Downloading/Copying used to be the norm (whether it was infringement or legal) -- and has been DECREASING as the market has evolved, matured and grown. The proof of this is your opinion that mainstream users don't download games, that they all treat their computers like Atari 2600s: Buy a disc, stick it in, and tada it works.
Unfortunately for Sony, and fortunately for Valve, console gaming and computer gaming started at opposite ends of the distribution spectrum and have converged. Computing moved from tiny sales, mostly copying and downloading to a wholesale industry with tight product controls and MUCH LESS copying and downloading; While console gaming moved from this tight control, hardly any casual infringement straight to dreamcastisos.com and modded xboxes. The major cause for this, again, is not the time involved in infringement, or really the ease of infringement per se, it's the changing attitudes of the [mostly] young people taking part in the 'warez scene' for both computers and consoles (are they different anymore?). How would I know? I terminated accounts for infringement while I worked in CAT at AOL. Maybe you know from personal experience, but have a lower tolerance than some of your more freebie oriented peers. The syndrome is even more pronounced with movie/dvd 'traders': four, eight, or more, gigabytes via DSL or Cable for a movie or a season of TV. It can't be as isolated at you think.
Sorry for the long winded response. In conclusion "thats[sic] absurd eveyone[sic] has their limit," may be true but 'free' will push that limit way beyond what you claim. If the average high schooler is willing to download Playstation ISOs with an AOL dial-up connection that limit is way beyond just 'a few hours'.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
It uninstalled about 40 GB of my data before I even noticed it was doing that.
Here are some mails I wrote, with their replies.
In their reply:
So I replied back: