Steam UI Update Beta Drops IE Rendering For WebKit

Citing massive growth in their user base ("25 million users, 1000+ games, 12 billion player minutes per month, and 75 billion Steam client minutes per month"), Valve unveiled a revamped UI for Steam on Tuesday, opening the beta test to anyone who wants to try it out. There are many changes, and an increased focus on social features: "Right from within your own game Library, you can now track which of your friends plays each game or invite them to play one with you. Before you've even bought a game, knowing whether your friends play it is one of the most useful pieces of information to have. So on the store homepage, there's a new listing of what your friends have bought or played lately." Tracking games and achievements have both gotten simpler, and Valve has dropped the Internet Explorer rendering engine in favor of WebKit. An enterprising user also found files that may indicate the existence of an OS X Steam client.

Comments

Why OSX?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Exactly how many steam games have OSX versions? Does anyone actually game with Macs?

Re:Why OSX?

[oiron]

Maybe they're trying to create the market?

Re:Why OSX?

[sopssa]

Quite many games in stores at least have that PC&Mac logo, so I don't see why it wouldn't be the same in Steam.

And even if not currently, Steam gained popularity on PC because it was the first online platform to buy and play games (it wasn't as good as it is now, they had to work a lot on it). Now they're first on Mac's too and will dominate that market too.

Re:Why OSX?

[PePe242]

World of Warcraft. Don't know if it is being sold through steam though...

Re:Why OSX?

[am 2k]

Torchlight is one out of my head. Well, the Mac version isn't out yet, but it has been announced.

Re:Why OSX?

[BlueTrin]

I would buy more games off Steam if I could get both versions for the price of 1 game, the key would be unique for both to prevent me playing on both computers at the same time.

I am sure that I am not the only one who has a Mac and a PC, especially here on Slashdot.

I would not mind playing Starcraft 2 on a MacBook when I am abroad.

Re:Why OSX?

[Trepidity]

I'm not sure what portion of Steam's sales they account for, but Steam does distribute a decent number of indie games, and Mac sales often account for a disproportionate share of indie-game sales, possibly due to Mac users being culturally more into "pay $10 for an app" mindset, and less competition from AAA titles.

Re:Why OSX?

[iainl]

Since you need to be logged in to your steam account, that's phenomenally easy for them to enforce, too.

Re:Why OSX?

[halowolf]

I game on my Mac quite nicely. But I also have it Bootcamped with Windows 7 and that is where my Steam is installed. I wouldn't bother putting it into my Mac OSX atm.

Re:Why OSX?

[Professor_UNIX]

World of Warcraft is a really old game though. I can't see it attracting a lot of new players to any particular market. Everyone who wants to play WoW is already playing it.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of casual games have Mac versions. Steam did get into a bit of casual, though it has nowhere near the selection of stores specialising in it.

For other games, there are few, but they do exist. One off the top of my mind is City of Heroes (an MMO I used to play).

Re:Why OSX?

[ThePhilips]

I would not mind playing Starcraft 2 on a MacBook when I am abroad.

IIRC, but Steam is more or less a front-end for the publishers and their ego. Highly likely, as it was always before, Mac ports would require a different key thus one has to purchase the Mac version separately. This is long standing tradition, mainly due to the fact that Mac porting is licensed/subcontracted to another company and has different money trail. Since it means -in theory- more profit for publishers, highly likely Mac v. PC on Steam would be the same as it is with boxed version of games.

Re:Why OSX?

[Kenz0r]

World of Warcraft. Don't know if it is being sold through steam though...

(Activision-)Blizzard has been trying to get their own piece of the legal game download market through the Blizzard Store.
I think it actually has a chance of taking off. Steam got big through Valve's big titles: Half-Life 2, CS:S and other source engine games.

Blizzard has even bigger games: World of Warcraft and soon Diablo III and Starcraft 2. Those three titles alone can turn the Blizzard Store into a well-known and credible platform.
Once that has happened they can move in the newest Activision titles, instead of offering them on Steam.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard releases their games for both OS/X and Windows, and you don't have to buy separate versions.

Re:Why OSX?

[Culture20]

Exactly how many steam games have OSX versions? Does anyone actually game with Macs?

Maybe they're trying to create the market?

We're sorry, Steam has been rejected from the iTunes app store for duplicating iTunes functionality. If you would like to alter your app and resubmit, please feel free.

Re:Why OSX?

[ladadadada]

As a counter-example to your assertion, I started playing WoW about three weeks ago on a Mac.

Despite WoW being an old game, it is constantly being updated with expansions and new content. Even old players are still finding it a rewarding experience.

I understand that this doesn't mean that a lot of users are like me, but to say that "Everyone who wants to play WoW is already playing it." is not correct.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Mac tripple boots between Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Any game I can play on OS X I do, however for those that don't I'll play under windows. Using Unreal Tournament 3 as an example I picked ALL of the Unreal Series up in a sale for $20. UT 3 for the Mac is STILL not released and currently being priced around 30 UK Pounds (~$45). I know this isn't Steam's fault of course but given the option I suspect most potential Mac Gamers are being driven off because the prices are extortionate and products delayed (assuming they make it in the first place). Give me the option to buy my game of choice on my platform of choice at a reasonable price and I'll leap it it. Hopefully Valve see this and can help deliver...

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're sorry, Steam has been rejected from the iTunes app store for duplicating iTunes functionality. If you would like to alter your app and resubmit, please feel free.

The iPhone and the Mac are not the same thing.

Re:Why OSX?

[Alphathon]

Very true, but they are the exception, not the rule. It's like saying most games are supported on linux because UT2k4 is.

Re:Why OSX?

[MistrBlank]

I think he was going for sarcasm....

Re:Why OSX?

[Masami Eiri]

Give it time.

Re:Why OSX?

[Pojut]

Uh...why was parent modded troll for pointing out that the Mac version of Torchlight isn't out yet? Come on, people...if you are going to mod, at least try to mod appropriately. For example, you should mod down my post because I'm about to make a shameless self-plug.

Here is my review of Torchlight: http://livingwithanerd.com/torchlight/

Re:Why OSX?

[Ephemeriis]

Exactly how many steam games have OSX versions? Does anyone actually game with Macs?

Gaming has never been that huge on the Mac. A large part of this is limited retail shelf space... If a retailer knows the PC version of a game is more likely to sell than the Mac one, they're more likely to stock the PC one. Which means less shelf space for Macs... So less Mac users go into the store to buy stuff... So you put less Mac stuff on the shelves...

These days we're seeing the same trend with PC gaming. Consoles are taking over the market and you're seeing less and less shelf space devoted to PC games.

But that doesn't mean that folks have stopped playing games on the PC, nor does it mean that folks don't game on the Mac - just that the marketplace you use to buy your software isn't a retail store.

There are tons of games on Steam that you will never, ever see on a store shelf. And why not? It isn't like you're giving up physical shelf space... Storage is cheap. Throw another disk in the array and call it done!

So, why wouldn't Valve try to expand their market a bit? Plenty of publishers still release games for the Mac... And right now they're struggling to get the games out there and in front of people's eyes... They'd probably love something like Steam.

Re:Why OSX?

[gparent]

And for that matter, most if not all Blizzard games.

Re:Why OSX?

[BlueTrin]

There is a small issue in this, as you can use steam in offline mode, this allows you to play, usually, the single player portion of the games on multiple computers, but since you can do it with two PCs this is no worse than with a Mac and a PC !

Re:Why OSX?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

That point can't be emphasized enough. The difference between gaming on a Mac and a PC and the difference between their target markets is incredibly important. Your average Slashdotter will buy a game, get a message about needing to update a driver (download a patch, tweak a setting, stock up on magic smoke at the nerd store, etc.) and not only look at it as an excuse to tinker under the hood for an hour, but actually enjoy themselves the entire time. The typical Mac owner not only doesn't enjoy tinkering under the hood, they aren't even aware that such a thing is possible or that there's even a hood. Never underestimate the number of people who want their software to plug & play as reliably as a USB device. Also, the people who are attracted to Macs because of their ease of use are also the ones who are least likely to spend hours and hours learning how to play a twitchy shooter and most likely to enjoy a game they can pick up in five minutes and play in short bursts rather than devoting an entire weekend to it.

A platform like Steam that integrates neatly into an OSX desktop and makes buying and playing games as easy as a mouse click or two might not sell a million copies of the Orange Box, but I can easily see sales from the Big Fish Games catalog going up a few hundred percent in no time. People who are willing to spend $3,000 on a Mac that's outperformed by a $1,000 PC are exactly the ones I'd be aiming my $10 game at.

Re:Why OSX?

[commodore64_love]

You just reminded me why I don't want to buy a Mac. The software has a short lifespan, such that you don't know if your old copy of Microsoft Office 97 will work or not. (Most likely not.)

It works just fine on 98, XP, Vista, and Win7. Windows backwards-compatibility helps save me money.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am surprised in 2010 short-sighted assessment of Macs and OSX still exist.

But then I recall the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory.

1. Mac users care more for whats under the hood. I like running a *nix like environment in a package that is stable, fast and supported widely. (You do know that Mac is BSD under the hood, right?)
2. If you payed 3g's for your Mac, you got a pretty hefty system. Are you playing with Photoshop for a living? Good for you.
3. Outperformed is a great unspecific term. it lets you spew opinion as fact, with no actual content, or corroborating evidence.
4. Halo was written on Mac. Many Mac's actually.
5. Mac's are workstations, true hardware comparisons (with Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Acer) actually puts the price in line with its features.

I'm just saying...

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for hardware backwards compatibility, nothing beats Linux. I have several scanners that haven't worked on Windows since version 95 since they were abandoned by their manufacturer (thanks HP). With Linux, I use them everyday.

Re:Why OSX?

[magus_melchior]

Since Blizzard is going for equivalent functionality through battle.net, I'd say... no.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite many

What the fuck kind of English do they teach over there in the UK?

Re:Why OSX?

[Bruiser80]

As long as your game doesn't run the first few versions of DirectX you should be fine :-)

I had FF7 and 8 for the PC. They used weird DirectX drivers that have since been retired. There are hacks available to bring them up to current though.

Re:Why OSX?

[h4rr4r]

So why not just run BSD?

Re:Why OSX?

[smartr]

**cough** battle.net marketplace... http://us.battle.net/faq/index.html

Re:Why OSX?

[Blakey Rat]

Yah. Just yesterday I installed Wizardry 8 on my Windows 7 PC-- worked like a champ, first try, all I had to do is set compatibility mode to "Windows 2000". That game originally came out in November, 2001.

I doubt *any* software written for Mac in 2001 still runs on Snow Leopard on a modern Mac, frankly. In fact, I can nearly guarantee it-- since the Classic layer is gone for x86 Macs, and everything released in 2001 would be written for Classic. (I guess if you're lucky enough to have a PPC Mac, you could in theory run software from 2001 in it.)

I just wish Microsoft's record of backwards compatibility on the Xbox was as good as on the PC. Their backwards compatibility toolkit for the Xbox 360 supports a lot of original Xbox games, but there's still a large number of games that simply will not run. :( But I guess as long as I can get my Panzer Dragoon Orta fix, I'm ok.

Re:Why OSX?

[ahankinson]

I can think of a few reasons that matter to me. I'm sure some people can think of a few other reasons.

Re:Why OSX?

[RadioElectric]

Just yesterday I installed Wizardry 8

That is the first game I ever returned to the store for "sucking".

Re:Why OSX?

[toastar]

On the windows 7 rig, I'm confident that I can get oldies to run one way or another, the market for older mac games instead is more limited.

still, I welcome greatly the use of webkit in the client instead of trident.

Dosbox works on macs too

Also Getting rid of IE was genius, why didn't they do that a year ago.

Re:Why OSX?

[toastar]

And for hardware backwards compatibility, nothing beats Linux. I have
several scanners that haven't worked on Windows since version 95 since they
were abandoned by their manufacturer (thanks HP). With
Linux, I use them everyday.

But with Linux you have to buy hardware that 6 months old because they haven't release linux drivers for the new model yet.

Re:Why OSX?

[Blakey Rat]

I could see that, if you haven't played other Wizardry games. It kind of stands out (for me at least) as being one of the last "old-school" computer-RPGs. The problem is that by the time it came out, I think most people had moved on gameplay-wise and weren't interested in that anymore. I miss the genre... Oblivion tries, kind of, but it just doesn't work without a party.

There's also the issue that it was kind of rushed due to Sirtech's going out of business towards the end of the game's development. But the 1.2.4 patch is fine.

Re:Why OSX?

[Killer Orca]

This is where I think Steam falls short, when indie games are offered with Steam they will also come with Steam's DRM, but through other services, they do not; e.g. http://store.steampowered.com/app/26800/ vs http://www.direct2drive.com/8106/product/Buy-Braid-Download

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what now?!?

Your average Slashdotter will buy a game, get a message about needing to update a driver (download a patch, tweak a setting, stock up on magic smoke at the nerd store, etc.) and not only look at it as an excuse to tinker under the hood for an hour, but actually enjoy themselves the entire time.

Maybe the average masochist enjoys getting a game and finding that it doesn't work on their system but the average person, who is also the average Slashdot user for the record, doesn't enjoy having to go through a bunch of updates just to get a game to work.

You Mac vs. PC arguments are very interesting. Could you please post some PC Gaming vs Console Gaming arguments as well.

Re:Why OSX?

[PingSpike]

I thought most titles from d2d used d2d's own type of DRM as well. Is Braid an exception to the rule or am I mistaken about the rule itself?

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

...when I am abroad.

So when is your operation?

Re:Why OSX?

[RadioElectric]

I remember being quite into the Might and Magic games at the time, but I had gameplay issues even with those!

I always found the idea of having a party of characters that somehow all stood on the same spot and moved as a single unit quite strange. It was difficult to think of it as an actual group of people, maybe more appropriate some sort of bizarre shapeshifter "FORM OF... A RANGER!".

My main problem with Oblivion was that the world was so homogeneous compared to Morrowind. It just felt *small*. Morrowind, despite it's earlier engine, manages to have more striking scenery. I'd go so far as to call it beautiful.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better! 6 month old hardware is invariably cheaper.

I just go to ebay and type the word Linux into the search bar and reorder it by price lowest first. Then I just pick and choose whatever looks the shiniest. Gotta love them 8 dollar wireless adapters.

Now to respond to your trolling. Most hardware works out of the box the first day with Linux. The stuff that doesn't, I just don't buy it. Yes, I have to be slightly selective. But how is this different than say a Mac? I have also found that hardware that ships with open source modules be they on the vendor website or sometimes even stuffed on the CD that ships in the package, tend to be better quality.

That being said, there is not a single class of consumer hardware on the market today that at least one vendor doesn't have Linux drivers the first day. And that includes video cards, cpu's, chipsets, wireless cards, mice, keyboards, printers, webcams, flash card readers, scanners, so on and so forth.

Re:Why OSX?

[commodore64_love]

>>>I have several scanners that haven't worked on Windows since version 95 since they were abandoned by their manufacturer (thanks HP). With Linux, I use them everyday.
>>>

That's only half the story.

I installed Ubuntu Linux with the Xfce desktop on an old Compaq Presario 700 laptop, and the sound stopped working. I asked for help at the ubuntu.com forums but none was forthcoming, so after a week of wasted effort I gave up and used my XP restore disc (which will still run any program).

When Ubuntu 10.x LTS is released I'm going to try again, but I'm not expecting any better results. Microsoft, as evil as they are, simply provide better longterm support. They have to - business demands it.

Re:Why OSX?

[Blakey Rat]

I always found the idea of having a party of characters that somehow all stood on the same spot and moved as a single unit quite strange. It was difficult to think of it as an actual group of people, maybe more appropriate some sort of bizarre shapeshifter "FORM OF... A RANGER!".

Wiz 8 tried to get around this by having the little mini-map showing where your characters were in relation to each other. You could re-position, or re-orient your characters at any time. When it did some combat mechanics, it took this into account-- for example if you have a character facing backwards, you can't get jumped from behind. Also if you have, say, an archer behind a warrior, and the archer gets blinded or confused, they are very likely to hit the warrior by accident.

Of course the viewpoint was still first-person, but there's not much they can do about that, not with that technology level. Now I suppose you could just render the whole game in third-person...

My main problem with Oblivion was that the world was so homogeneous compared to Morrowind. It just felt *small*. Morrowind, despite it's earlier engine, manages to have more striking scenery. I'd go so far as to call it beautiful.

The smartest thing Morrowind did was set the game on an island. So you never run into a situation where you're walking through a forest and suddenly you hit a point where the game just said, "You can't go that way." That made Oblivion's world feel small, even though it's actually larger than Morrowind's. The first time I hit that in Oblivion, it was just like... "really, Bethestha? Really? Way to destroy the last 3 hours of immersion." Despite that, I still think Oblivion is the superior game, and I play it all the time.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

When whoever bought that laptop picked it up, what OS was on it? Windows. Of course you would expect Windows to work on it. Er, duh?

I use Linux because I like having the source code with the software I run first, secondly, I prefer the superior functionality in the context of my needs. I also have the sense enough to not even bother being disappointed when it doesn't work on something it wasn't designed to work on. Same reason I don't put diesel fuel into my car's gas tank.

If you desire to run Linux and it works on whatever random laptop you try to put it on, be happy. If it doesn't, and you tried everything, that's just how it is. Nobody on the forum helped you quite possibly because there was no help that could be given other than maybe plugging in a usb sound blaster. Now, if you're serious about trying to work with Linux like I am, you do what I do. You go out and purchase hardware that it is designed to work with. Kind of like what you do with OSX. You wouldn't try to run Windows on an old powermac would you? Of course not, you know it wasn't designed for that. I hope I haven't been unclear.

Re:Why OSX?

[MadnessASAP]

I have the anti-thesis of your story, a virus riddled laptop I was reinstalling windows:
Widows Vista: Sound Worked.
Various linux distros during restore: Sound worked without and fiddling.
Windows 7: Sound no longer works regardless of fiddling or driver version used.

See I can pull up one off examples to prove any point I want to.

Re:Why OSX?

[aztracker1]

1. Most mac users use the *nix underpinning as a talking point, and couldn't tell you where there profile is on the underlying filesystem, let alone deal with the hidden directories. Also, the UI layer isn't based on any prior open-source *nix subsystem (not GPL, but open-source).

2. For $1k I can get a Core i7 with 8GB of ram and a decent video card together. (for $1400 can do much better) In terms of performance a generic PC will cost about half as much. Video cards alone are generally 2-3x as much for lesser generations of hardware. I understand that "Workstation" Xeon processors are a bit more heavy duty than a desktop proc, but the i7 is better than a last gen Xeon.

3. See above, a core i7 will outrun the procs currently available in a Mac Pro for general use. Beyond this, you can get an ATI Radeon HD 5770 that is more powerful and less costly than the options available for a Mac Pro (from the Apple Store at least).

4. That's a bit of a straw man argument. Though I would think that via Steam, they'd be able to have a working WINE based solution to offer a greater list of compatible games with auto-magic installation on Intel based Macs.

5. True, but if you want a gaming system, the "Workstation" is pretty much your only available option, as Apple doesn't cater to the mid-high range desktop market. Only boutique low end, or workstation higher end. So the only thing you can compare against is the Mac Pro (workstation class), which is grossly overpriced as a value measure for what you get. I wouldn't mind paying a $500 premium if I could have a mid-high end desktop grade hardware with OSX supported, but it isn't available. My son's new desktop for his birthday last month was around $1450 (i5-750, 8GB ram, ATI 5870 gpu) And will outperform a base level Mac Pro at about a 60% higher cost, let alone having to put another grand in to even meet the performance for general use and gaming. Not only that, but your typical desktop is only a better PSU and Video card away from being a decent gaming system ($280 or so + $600-800 PC). The Mac Pro, you've pretty much spend $3k getting there.

Re:Why OSX?

[Lunix Nutcase]

I call bullshit. If the sound worked in Vista it would work in Win7 too. In fact Win7 is probably running the exact same driver as well.

Re:Why OSX?

[cheesybagel]

If it is the original SimCity, it was done for 68k based Macs There are emulators for old Mac hardware (e.g. Sheepshaver and Basilisk II). However you are probably talking about SimCity 4 Deluxe.

IIRC Windows 7 removed the DOS mode emulation, so you need an emulator to play DOS games as well. Either you run Windows XP inside a VM, or you use something like DOSBox.

Re:Why OSX?

[toastar]

I'm just saying I like to pick my hardware based on the specs not the drivers

Re:Why OSX?

[aztracker1]

Well, 10% more market share with minimal effort is probably the biggest reason to do it. Most of the games they're pushing through steam can run via WINE, so integrating WINE into a Steam solution for Mac makes sense. Not only that, but given the limited retail channels for gaming on Mac they have the potential for a much higher return rate on that platform over the Retail competition on the PC.

Re:Why OSX?

[mr_flea]

I think you're reading too far into this... just because they're using Webkit doesn't mean that they're suddenly going to roll out everything for Mac. Google Chrome uses Webkit, but I'm sure many would argue it's focused on Windows. I think they're just trying to escape IE. (Which is probably something forced upon them, as I hear that certain European versions of Windows might not have IE at all, which I would assume breaks anything trying to use it.)

Re:Why OSX?

[MadnessASAP]

Right, because clearly I have nothing better to do then lie on /. message board about driver problems in Windows. Actually I don't have anything better to do, I'm waiting on the drier, nevertheless I stand by what I said.

You may also be surprised to hear that hear that the changelog for Windows 7 doesn't just include "Redesigned UI", they did actually improve and change many other areas of the OS, even the driver framework.

Re:Why OSX?

[Fussen]

I agree. The Macintosh OS creates everything for the rest of iSeries. You have to program and design on an OS.

I also recognize that because we are dealing with communications systems, there is a lot of personal information being sent through the iSeries. While the mobile OS is young and not native to Mac OS 10, Apple has to validate programs so that the integrity of your credit card information stays valid to their user agreement.

Mobile apps can be very dangerous. They are running alongside WiFi/GSM transceivers and if these mobile devices go trojan/viral, they can spread through miles like silent cold wildfire. Sony's PSP has a Hard-switch and indicator LED for their WiFi so if their system goes rouge and you know it shouldn't be transmitting, you can kill the radio.

Re:Why OSX?

[billcopc]

I call your bullshit. Windows 7 has a completely new sound engine. While many aspects of Vista are mostly unchanged in Win7, the sound API is by far one of the most improved features. A heap of old drivers are incompatible with it, because they step outside their boundaries and try to do stuff that clashes with the new engine, such as speaker management and overzealous jack sensing.

For a laptop, if it's one of those weird sound card + modem jobbies, I would be surprised at all if the drivers were utter garbage. It's very difficult to get proper driver support for a component that has no retail counterpart, you're stuck with whatever your OEM redistributes, or in some cases the chip vendor might offer a generic driver that kinda sorta works but might not support custom functionality designed by the OEM.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding ding ding!

And I choose my OS based on the specs, not the drivers which is why I run Linux.

Re:Why OSX?

[Golddess]

I would buy more games off Steam if I could get both versions for the price of 1 game

Except that can't ever happen. It costs extra* to develop for both PC and Mac vs developing for PC _or_ Mac. So either your PC and Mac version costs up to twice as much as the single platform version, or the single platform version (if one exists) is overpriced.

Personally, I'd rather have the option of buying just the Windows version for $X, and then if I decide to later, buy the Mac version separately, rather than pay $X*2 to buy product I'd only ever use half of (and may only get half of).

*unless you're working on something simple enough that all is required is a recompile on the appropriate platform.

Re:Why OSX?

[Fri13]

What, are you saying that from iTunes store 144 000 apps there is not even single game?
Why the Solitaire is most played game in the world?

Re:Why OSX?

[Lunix Nutcase]

I call your bullshit. Windows 7 has a completely new sound engine.

No it doesn't. Windows 7 has some additional features but to claim it's a "completely new sound engine" is completely unadulterated hyperbole. Windows 7 uses WASAPI and UAA just like in Vista.

A heap of old drivers are incompatible with it, because they step outside their boundaries and try to do stuff that clashes with the new engine, such as speaker management and overzealous jack sensing.

Such as which drivers? If there was such a huge driver incompatibility then why can I find only a handful of forum posts and those were mostly over a year old?

Re:Why OSX?

[Fussen]

The way Windows 7 handles gaming hardware compared to OS 10.6, if Steam does complete the mac version, they'll have room to just call it "Almost boiling water."

"Almost boiling water" will be controlled by:
QuickDraw
Core OpenGL
Quartz 2D
Core Image Core Animation
Core Video
ColorSync
QuickTime

I swear, Windows 7 manifests my MacBook Pro's previous aluminum life as an F-18 turbine because she just wants to SCREAM at 6000 RPMs when Windows does anything multimedia. Ever since Direct-X 3, I have seen OpenGL handle things far more efficiently. Direct-X is just a windows botch override that is not native to windows. At the point of Halo's creation, MS creates a Direct-X native machine.

Re:Why OSX?

[bonch]

Mac apps before OS X were written for a completely different operating system, so I wouldn't expect them to work.

Re:Why OSX?

[thetoadwarrior]

You're right, they should wait until someone else does all the hard work, builds up Mac gaming and makes it hard for anyone else to get into it.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about anybody else but I have an onboard sound card on one of my motherboards with an AMD 3000+ CPU on it so it can't be too old that worked with XP and Vista and absolutely will not work in 7 no matter what I do. Which sucks because I'd really like to use the new version of Windows but without sound, it's kind of pointless.

Re:Why OSX?

[Hurricane78]

Well, I heard that some are installing Windows inside a VM on OS X. ;))

(Linux here, and my Windows and OSX VMs lie under K -> Games -> *)

Re:Why OSX?

[Hurricane78]

please feel free.

Exactly. Feel. Not be free. Just feel.
It’s the new craze these days. ;)

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't game with Macs for the simple reason that most of the "Mac versions" of games are just the Windows games wrapped with Cider. So you end up with two types of people: the ones who buy the Mac versions, realize that they suck, and think Macs are bad for gaming, and the people who buy the Windows versions and run them under Wine/Crossover because they think Macs are bad for gaming. If Valve were to, say, actually release an OpenGL version of Source, all the games would run great.

Plenty of the games on Steam have those Cider wrappers though. Like Dragon Age: Origins.

Re:Why OSX?

[ooshna]

Now, if you're serious about trying to work with Linux like I am, you do what I do. You go out and purchase hardware that it is designed to work with. Kind of like what you do with OSX. You wouldn't try to run Windows on an old powermac would you? Of course not, you know it wasn't designed for that. I hope I haven't been unclear.

I think that is one of the biggest problem with Linux. When I was younger and had a few extra junk computers laying around I tried to get into Linux (Mandrake) for fun. Unfortunately I could never get the sound to work properly I went on forum after forum and was told that I needed to change my kernel to get the drivers I needed to work (I have no clue if this info was correct) so after a few weeks of tinkering and whatnot I finally gave up. It was that experience that almost completely ruined Linux for me. Now if I could find drivers for my legacy 2wire wireless adapter I might actually be running Ubuntu now instead of win7. So from my own experience the difficulty just getting your sound or video card to work with Linux is what will keep it from becoming a real contender in the desktop battle.

Re:Why OSX?

[DJRumpy]

#1 Your points about knowledge of underlying OS is true for pretty much any OS. There will always be people who are curious and there will be people that just don't give a damn. Are you trying to imply that people who use Mac's are somehow impaired? I have no difficulties firing up terminal to get something done.

#2 This is where people always start talking about how cheap they can get a PC, yet they never show you the same Apple equivalent PC on an actual manufacturers website. They just throw out a few links to some random piece of hardware from tigerdirect or amazon. If you actually went to an HP/Dell/Sony/Lenovo site, you'd find that the same hardware as a Mac as the same costs. When they actually do send you to such a site, they always link to some piece of hardware that is 'close' to a comparable Apple in specs, yet never quite the same, and only one generation or two (older, slower, cheap integrated graphics, less L2 cache, slower processor/slower ram, etc). There is no big surprise here. Apple isn't some bulk reseller of cheap parts. They are a hardware manufacturer, just like Dell, Sony, etc. They have support infrastructures, manufacturing costs, warehousing costs, etc. Want a cheap PC? Got to TigerDirect. Go to a manufacturer's site, and the comparable hardware looks pretty much just like Apple's pricelist. Sometimes it costs more, sometimes it costs less. but in general, the prices are consistent.

#3 I'm already using an iMac. 27" display (2560x1440), with Quad I7 (2.8Ghz) with 8GB of DDR3 1067 MHz ram, and an ATI 4850. I've yet to find anything it has a problem with. It cost me $2200.

#4 Why bother with Wine? Just offer Mac software and be done with it. If the interest in Steam is there, the software for Mac will follow

#5 - See #3. You didn't mention if you used some old display or bought yourself a 27" display equivalent. I'm guessing that wasn't included in your price. It was included in my $2200 iMac.

Re:Why OSX?

[oakgrove]

I hear what you are saying and it does suck when your hardware doesn't work out of the box with Linux. Here's the thing, if you're running Linux just to fiddle around with some old hardware then more power to you. Personally, I don't have the time nor the inclination to mess around with hardware who's manufacturer doesn't care enough to contribute not only a driver but even the specs with which developer's can even make a free driver.

Here's the solution. It's up to you if Linux is worth 11 bucks or not.

Re:Why OSX?

[ooshna]

Just bought that. I'm willing to give it another chance. I think I'll go with Ubuntu this time though.

Re:Why OSX?

[Ihmhi]

Mac doesn't offer any sort of compatability mode?

I mean, okay, I get what they did with the migration from OS9 to OSX. It killed off a lot of legacy code and generally made the operating system more usable and secure. (A Mac fiend friend of mine called the jump from 9 to 10 "like going from Windows 98 to Windows 7".) But if you run a legacy app in a virtual machine, wouldn't it negate any potential security threats to the main OSX OS by virture of the very nature of virtual machines?

Re:Why OSX?

[yukk]

When Ubuntu 10.x LTS is released I'm going to try again, but I'm not expecting any better results. Microsoft, as evil as they are, simply provide better longterm support. They have to - business demands it.

Sure they do. I remember buying a Microsoft force feedback joystick a few months before XP came out and XP not even supporting their own hardware. Smooth guys. Thanks for nothing. Yeah, I know. That's what I get for buying M/S. Well, I learned my lesson. Never again. Ever.

Re:Why OSX?

[oakgrove]

Excellent. Glad I could help.

Ubuntu is a good choice (I run it). But don't be afraid to check some of the others out too. There are many experiences to be had with Linux. For example:
Arch == often faster
Debian Lenny == potentially more stable (at the expense of newer hardware support)
Fedora == typically slightly fresher packages

Ubuntu is a great all-around distro though and the quantity and quality of the community surrounding it is phenomenal. That's why I use it.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite many

What the fuck kind of English do they teach over there in the UK?

The original kind?

Re:Why OSX?

[BikeHelmet]

Never underestimate the number of people who want their software to plug & play as reliably as a USB device.

The irony here is, Windows has a better track record for USB sticks and external HDDs.

With Windows, you yank out the cord. With OSX, you unmount volume, yank out the cord, and if you're unlucky it tells you there's a write failure 30 seconds later. ;-)

Not intended to be flame. I've used OSX 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6. It pisses me off that they can get some things so right (printers) and others so wrong. (external HDDs)

Did I tell you about the time a Mac fried my HDD enclosure through a firewire port? Or the time it screwed up a camera card by creating a .trashes folder? I had to format that thing in Win2k, because the POS Kodak camera would lock up afterwards.

Re:Why OSX?

[Korin43]

If you can't get new hardware to work, you're either wasting your money on a $800 video card (to use on an OS with no good 3D games), or using a distro that never updates anything (like Debian or Ubuntu). The only hardware choice I've made because I use Linux is to only buy nVidia video cards. Everything else works fine.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Mac tripple boots between Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Windows 7 and Ubuntu, and I don't have a spellchecker in any of them.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Why OSX?

[c4t3y3]

Codeweavers have ported mainstream titles to the mac, like Modern Warfare, Team Fortress, Left4Dead, and many others, even the Steam client itself. However, it would be great to have a native Steam client, and since it is mostly a webapp, it shouldn't be too difficult to port. Just do that, and you will be able to sell on a different platform.

Re:Why OSX?

[mattack2]

Yes, it was called Classic. Can you run MSDOS programs from 1981 on Windows 7? Serious question.

Re:Why OSX?

[aztracker1]

#1 I was responding to the point about "Mac users care more about what's under the hood". It's essentially false, and if you took a subset of windows or linux users, you'd probably find the opposite.

#2, Apple is currently selling a LOT of hardware in their line that is at least a generation behind, not to mention their video cards. The fact is I want a mid-range desktop, there is no Apple mid-range desktop. Period. A non-apple mid-range desktop will out-perform a lower-end Mac Pro for less money. It's that easy. Go to http://www.falcon-nw.com/ pick the Talon at $1500 or so base price, is a better option for gaming than a base $2400 Mac Pro.

#3 For $220 I could put together a faster system with PC hardware. Also, what happens when the display goes out when it's out of warranty? Oh crap, there goes the computer. Many of us want a separate computer from the monitor, as one usually outlasts the other for most people.

#4 Why double the effort of a multi-million dollar development process that has already been made? I really hope you aren't running a software company, and if so, tell me which one so I can avoid it.

#5 I specifically said a mid to high-range desktop. Can you name a desktop Mac sans-monitor that will outrun a Core i5 or i7 with a 5870 or 5970 GPU in gaming for less money? Oh yeah, and can you upgrade that video card in your iMac now that it's again, a generation behind, like almost all the hardware in the currently selling Mac lineup.

It's worth mentioning that I actually like OSX a lot, have a lot of friends running Macbooks and will probably be getting one. Unfortunately they have nothing that compares to my desktop.

Oh yeah, I have a 42" display for my desktop there isn't a similar option in an iMac. One down side to your iMac, is you can't get the same display in a second screen, as they don't sell a 27" LED backlit cinema display to match, for those that do want two monitors.

Re:Why OSX?

[aztracker1]

#3 should be $2200.

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Pricing ... PC Pricing ... now which is better? Oh yeah, the PC one has twice the onboard memory, and costs less than half the price.

Re:Why OSX?

[DJRumpy]

Actually studies that show that Mac users tend to be more educated than typical PC users:

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-943519.html

Mac users are also found to be less gullible than PC users:

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/10/microsoft-users-gullible-advertising/

On that last link, I'm also happy to note that Linux users are not gullible..they are actually a even less gullible than the typical Mac user. Just because a Mac user likes a no-fuss system doesn't mean we aren't interested in what makes it tick or the specs it comes with. The weirdest outcome of one of these studies? 85% of Mac users also own a Windows PC (either via multi-boot or hardware purchase). They aren't shy about using either platform.

Its well known that Apple doesn't shove the biggest processors into their laptops (or iMacs) which isn't surprising. Most laptops don't have quad core processors yet either. Most of the Mac line IS laptop hardware so this isn't a surprise. In addition, for typical Mac users, it isn't always about having the latest and greatest. They want stability, good performance, and a PC that won't break down in 2 years. I agree that some of their hardware could get higher end graphics cards and processors sooner, but they make up for it with systems that are rock solid. There is a reason they always top the charts in customer satisfaction and reliability.

I was wondering how long it would take you to start quoting 'home built' costs. I already responded to that. I already consider it a non-issue. Apples prices are comparable to other Manufacturers with the same specs. No surprises here that they cost more than a home built PC.

On the Steam topic - Why double the effort? Because there is money to be made? You do realize that they do make games for Mac? They are already successful in the PC market. Why stop there? I'd take a crack at the Mac if I had the funding as there is a LOT of potential revenue there. Steam obviously does have the capitol.

On point #5 - The iMac isn't user serviceable (well it is for a ./ user, but not the typical end user). 10 years ago, I would have been replacing my video card every year or two. I find as I get older, I simply don't care. I'll use this Mac for 2-4 years, and simply replace the Mac when I get tired of it, and donate this to some family member. One of the advantages of a long career in the IT industry. It does have some financial benefits ;)

I see your point on the display, but I have no use for a second display, nor do I have the desktop space. 27" is perfect for my needs but an iMac isn't for someone who wants dual monitors.

There are a couple of things that were important to me a few years ago:

a) Tear down and upgrade piece mail
b) more flexibility on display options
c) Purchase a faster desktop unit

None of these are important to me now, so the iMac is a good choice for me. If it wasn't, I'd probably just build a hackintosh and be done with it.

Postnote: If you're looking to get a Macbook Pro, hold out a bit..a hardware refresh is rumored to be in the pipe with I5 or I7 options.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/24/macbook_pros_in_tight_supply_new_models_could_broaden_gap_with_macbooks.html

Re:Why OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very nice job of making the GP's point by quoting some whole seller prices against a manufacturers. Kudos on graduating to moron ;)

Re:Why OSX?

[Golddess]

That's what I thought as well, that D2D had even worse DRM. Was going to do the research last night but then I forgot. >.>;

Somewhat related, not all Steam games have DRM, such as all the Commander Keen games.

Re:Why OSX?

[Taevin]

Except that can't ever happen. It costs extra* to develop for both PC and Mac vs developing for PC _or_ Mac. So either your PC and Mac version costs up to twice as much as the single platform version, or the single platform version (if one exists) is overpriced.

Your conjecture is easily to disprove by pointing to the Blizzard Theorem, which states "if your developers aren't mentally handicapped and your executives have semi-functioning brains, developing software for more than one platform does not take a significantly larger amount of effort than developing for a single platform."

Seriously, where do you get this idea that a dual-platform game costs twice as much as a single platform game? The only developer that I've purchased games from that are cross-platform discs (both Mac and PC on the same CDs) is Blizzard and their games cost the same as any other. The only difference I've seen is that other publishers usually build for Windows and hire out to some other company like Aspyr to port the game. Then they sell both for for the same price as a regular game (that is, if you're not buying from Blizzard and you want the game for both platforms you are paying $x * 2 whereas Starcraft 2 will just be $x and I'll be able to run it from my PC or my Mac).

Re:Why OSX?

[Ihmhi]

Built into the OS, no - they've phased out DOS in 7 (frankly, a stupid move on their part IMO). But DOSBox still exists, so essentially with a third party program you can.

For your question to better fit the Mac, it would be more like asking "Can you run a Windows XP program on Windows 7?" OS9 is not THAT old. d;

Re:Why OSX?

[Golddess]

1) I didn't say twice, I said up to twice. Obviously some things could be shared between the two versions with little to no change.

2) I think you missed my bullet point that if all that is needed is a recompile on the appropriate platform, then of course it won't cost extra to develop.

I know nothing about Blizzard's development process. It is entirely possible that they develop games that will work on both platforms with little to no code change. However, if, say, Starcraft 2 took 18 months to develop for both PC and Mac, but it would have only taken them 12 months to develop just a PC _or_ Mac version, then it did cost Blizzard more to develop for both platforms vs developing for a single platform. Or do you think all those developers would decide to work for free for those 6 months?

Re:Why OSX?

[aztracker1]

The first article points to general education, or generally higher education. Not better informed about the technology of their hardware. Don't get me wrong though, I like Mac just fine, love the OS in fact. It's simply that they don't have a product that is compelling to *me* specifically. I tend to run mid to high range desktop hardware, not workstation hardware. For me, I want more than what's in the non Mac Pro systems, and don't want to pay the workstation premiums for a workstation class machine. So, I'm pretty much in the cold.

I may go with a macbook next time around for my laptop, still going to stick with my netbook for a while longer. I just pulled the trigger on newegg's order button for my i7 desktop setup (about $1200 in hardware) not including the ATI 5770 I recently bought, which includes an 80GB Intel SSD, a faster 1.5TB drive and 8GB of ram. I'm not including the OEM OS, since I have an MSDN account though. All total would be about $1500, for a system that will outpace a Mac Pro for most tasks (short of paying over twice as much)... If I ordered a similar system it would probably be about $1800-2200 or so though.

Just the same, I may try a hackintosh setup again, I ran it for a while in the past, just got tired of pretty much a reinstall for each point release update.

I actually care less about my main desktop OS, as most of the apps I use native are available on OSX, Linux and Windows. All my work/project stuff is in VMWare. I've run about half a dozen different OSes in the past 3 years on my current setup, and to be honest Win7 x64 is about my favorite. Which is funny considering how much I've disliked each Windows version in between since Windows 2000 Pro.

Honestly, if Apple would release a desktop class Mac for around $1500 that's where I'd be happy, even for hardware comparable to a $1200 or so PC. I wouldn't mind paying $300-500 for an upgrade supported copy of OSX for generic hardware, though after the last OEM attempt, I'm twice shy.

Re:Why OSX?

[aztracker1]

this better? The fact is, in general the same hardware for a Mac is usually more than 60% more expensive, in this case over 100%. I would do a more direct comparison, but there really isn't a 1:1 comparison for mid-high range desktop hardware. And I, and most others on the PC side of the argument are wanting a mid-high end desktop. Not a mini, or all in one. If Apple had a $1000-1500 desktop solution, I'd probably jump at it.

I'm not quite sold.

[Tromad]

I'm not steam's biggest fan, but I liked how minimal it was. I do like the different game layout views; the icon enlargements are a nice touch. I'm not sure how useful this is to me as I have many non-steam games, so I edit windows 7's crippled game explorer instead of using the steam launcher, so I rarely see the steam interface. The store does seem much faster though.

Re:I'm not quite sold.

[sopssa]

You do know you can add shortcuts to non-steam games in Steam too? That way you also get the in-game browser and community features in it. You're the first person I've actually heard of using the Vista/Win7 game explorer though, if not using Steam it's much faster to write part of the game's name to start menu search box and launch it.

Re:I'm not quite sold.

[Tromad]

Yah but then you don't get any icons for non-steam games, which are the majority of my games. Using vista game explorer editor I can have nice huge boxart for every single one of my games, even my old DOS ones I launch via dosbox (Wizard's Crown, Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator, Romance of the 3 Kingdoms III, etc).

See this for an example, though I have my boxart much larger.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_C0PrNGg_f9I/SooziquYCbI/AAAAAAAAEU4/iRLdJma4PkU/s800/VGE%20Complete.jpg

Re:I'm not quite sold.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your friends use Steam, I recommend hooking it up. Then you could chat while playing Romance of the 3 Kingdoms without having to alt-tab out. Plus, the interface tells you what they're playing, so even when you're playing single player games, it still has the nice feeling of playing "together".

Re:I'm not quite sold.

[Tromad]

Here is an example of my game library. This doesn't include large games I haven't played in awhile.

http://imgur.com/9Cxp5.jpg

So

[OverlordQ]

Tracking games and achievements have both gotten simpler, and Valve has dropped the Internet Explorer rendering engine in favor of WebKit.

So does that mean my game will stop locking up every time I join a game because idiotic admins put horrible bloated HTML bastardizations as their MOTD?

Re:So

[BikeHelmet]

I downloaded the beta a few hours ago.

The first thing I noticed was, while the Supreme Commander 2 Demo was downloading, the UI kept locking up for ~120 seconds. (0% CPU)

The second thing I noticed was level load times dropped about 30% in TF2.

Browsing feels a whole lot quicker now - except during the freezes. :P

Re:So

[AndrewNeo]

Sorry, apparently they only changed Steam itself, as the interface used in the games to access a browser is built in with the engine, so it'd require an update and more testing for each game that still uses IE individually. However, apparently you can turn off HTML MOTDs. (Google it)

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

You can disable HTML MOTD's, at least in TF2.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Submit a bug report.. They may have left a pause/breakpoint

Re:So

[RoFLKOPTr]

So does that mean my game will stop locking up every time I join a game because idiotic admins put horrible bloated HTML bastardizations as their MOTD?

No, this is only an update for Steam itself. But this does indicate that Valve will probably be updating their games to use WebKit soon.

Re:So

[eiMichael]

Steam is that interface. It uses the same DirectX API type of thing as XFire that lets you IM people in game. I can bring up that same interface in WoW.

Re:So

[AndrewNeo]

No. You're referring to the Steam Overlay, which does now use WebKit. We were referring to the Source Engine feature that shows MOTDs in the VGUI (HTMLView) which is built on Internet Explorer.

Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[BlueTrin]

Am I the only one to wonder why it looks so similar to the new Battle.Net ?
Does anybody know if this project was started recently ?

On another note, I wish that there would be some kind of OpenGamingNetwork, with so many different networks such as: Live, Battle.Net, EA, Bioware, Gamespy (well I am happy that Gamespy is disappearing, the UI is horrible), it is very cumbersome to manage your accounts and keys.

Surely, this would be even better than a new GUI ? Isn't it Valve ?

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Xest]

It's not just Battle.Net really, these are features that XBox Live has had for a while and that Microsoft has tried to bring to Windows with Games for Windows Live also, which now has it's own games store too.

I don't think this was so much about bringing new features for the benefit of users in general as much as it was about keeping up with the competition.

If Steam didn't introduce these features it would start to look very dated.

One thing I wish ALL these services would introduce is download scheduling though, over the last few years there's been a shift towards capped peak time downloads in the UK (and many other countries), and I can't afford to have multi-gigabyte game updates and downloads and so forth chewing into my bandwidth allowance. I don't have the option of just loading it up when the off-peak period starts and downloads aren't capped, and turning it off in the morning, because I go to bed a couple of hours before peak time starts, and get up and go to work a couple of hours before it ends.

It may sound trivial but for me, and I imagine others in my position it's actually a big deal- I don't buy games via Steam partly because it's annoying only being able to download said games on weekends when I am up at the right times to be able to get it going and stop it during the off-peak period. For me, it's actually more convenient to just buy games in shops, or order them online. Similarly I don't buy retail games on XBox Live or even bother trying multi-gb demos for this reason- I can't control when they will be downloaded.

Valve, Microsoft, Blizzard et al. seem oblivious to the fact that being too lazy to implement a download scheduler is costing them customers. Sure there are workarounds, and ways to implement these sorts of things themselves, but they're hacks that updates can break and there's nothing less amusing than coming home to find some update has fucked your scheduling hack and you've had 90% your monthly on-peak usage allowance chewed up right at the start of the month because of it.

Of course another option is to go to an ISP that oversells and doesn't have caps like this, but then that's equally useless because those ISPs are the same ones that are utterly hopeless for online gaming.

It's ironic that once again, it's a simple feature that's ignored, but that most popular BitTorrent, or USENET clients provide- yet again, it seems piracy offers the superior distribution mechanism.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day ;)

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[ADT7]

Assuming you're close enough to the exchange for ADSL to not suck, switch to O2. They've been the best ADSL provider I've had here in the UK.

No caps, no "peak-time" and the speeds are close to as advertised (I pay for a 20Mb line and get 18Mb, with BT it was down at 12Mb, on the same telephone line as well, so figure that one out)

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Xest]

The problem is that our exchange isn't unbundled, or at least, there's no 3rd parties operating their kit on our exchange, so we're stuck with 8mbps ADSL max over BT's infrastructure.

That means that where I am we're stuck with ISPs who have to put up with getting ripped off by BT. The only upside is in a year or two we should gain decent connections from the Digital Region scheme so that might be something at least, although it's still a year or two off.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[TheKidWho]

It may sound trivial but for me, and I imagine others in my position it's actually a big deal

Yesm you and that other guy.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Zeussy]

I add steam as a scheduled task to start up in the off peak times. Before I go to bed, unpause the download, and close steam. Wait for the scheduled task to start it back up for me.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Xest]

I think really my best bet is going to be writing a quick .NET app to create schedules and kill Steam and load Steam at certain times I've still got the issue of heading off to work a couple of hours before off-peak ends and possibly forgetting to close it in the morning so I'd much rather see it automated than a months bandwidth on-peak wasted in a day!

It's just a little annoying that I have to do it all myself when it's a simple feature to implement, of course it doesn't help me with XBox Live either, I guess my only option there is some kind of protocol throttling on a timer on the router.

More realistically though as I'm busy when I get home I'll probably just carry on as normal though and not bother ;)

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[pebs]

Maybe you can get creative with your router configuration. Block update servers during the peak time, or set up your own bandwidth cap during that time. It could be tricky, and you may need something more than the Tomato firmware, maybe a full Linux or OpenBSD box (running on a lower power x86 machine) might be necessary, but seems like it should be doable.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Narishma]

It's not just Battle.Net really, these are features that XBox Live has had for a while and that Microsoft has half-heartedly tried to bring to Windows with Games for Windows Live also, which now has it's own games store with an extremely limited selection too.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could move to a country with decent broadband where it's not possible to use up your monthly allotment in a few hours.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[BikeHelmet]

What you save on steam sales would probably pay for a better connection plan.

I'm in Canada. I get 200GB/mo through TekSavvy for $27/mo. It's only 3mbit, but the cable where I live sucks, and no nearby ISPs can beat the bandwidth caps.

So far this month I've used ~70GB. Plenty of extra bandwidth if Steam wants to download tons of updates, or I want to download demos and new games.

I just leave it running while I'm out of the house or sleeping. It works quite well, and I never have to worry about caps like my Aussie friends do.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Xest]

The problem is, there really is no better connection plan.

The option here is to have no caps, and a slow connection with high latency due to being over-subscribed, or having a connection that's capped, but is at least fast and gives you the speed you pay for. It's really a trade off between speed and bandwidth.

If you're lucky and your area is LLU or Cable enabled you can get a better mixture of both, but it's still really only a small portion of the UK geographically that has that benefit.

I don't even really find bandwidth caps a problem for the most part, because everything else can be scheduled to download off-peak, it's just things like Steam and XBox live demos and stuff that can't.

It's kind of sad, because the UK has deteriorated in this respect, 5 years ago, whilst connection speeds were generally slower, I still had no cap and I didn't have the latency you get now despite "faster" connections.

I think the problem stems from ISPs overstretching themselves, they kept advertising £5 a month connections and such which are rediculous and simply are not a sustainable business model, so instead they took from those of us at the high end to subsidise these people with the intention of trying to monetise the low end users with content and ads. This battle for subscribers has just raped the quality of high end connections, of course, low end connections are even more crap- but at least in that case, you get what you pay for. So now I'm stuck in a situation where I'm paying more (£20 a month) for a decent connection, but getting far less than I used to for the money- but back then, it was £20 or nothing, there were no £5 and £10 plans.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Zeussy]

I didn't think about writing a C# app to do it. Could prob write it, and offer it as a free download on a blog, and quickly score up 10's of thousands of downloads.
I do agree that is a feature sorely lacking.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[BikeHelmet]

That's unfortunate. If it was bandwidth rather than latency, then a few £5 plans and some load balancing might be the solution.

But I really don't know how you fight latency, short of getting a better ISP, which isn't an option for you.

Re:Neat UI after Battle.Net changes

[Xest]

It should be quite trivial, you can quit or kill processes by getting an array of them with Process.GetProcessesByName(processName) in the System.Diagnostics namespace. It returns an array of Processes, that you can just iterate through with a foreach loop, and just invoke Kill() or Close() on each process with the name passed to GetProcessesByName.

Not sure about starting processes but you should be able to do it with the same object I imagine by instantiating a new copy of it, and you'd need to knock together a UI for defining the schedule itself, as well as a bit of code for persistence of the schedule, some short bits of code for a tray icon perhaps. You might want to set it up as a service possibly too, and create an installer, but all in all it's the kind of project you could put together in an evening I suppose. I just wish I had enough free evenings nowadays for that sort of thing ;)

Webkit

[Anonymous Coward]

Webkit is great. We are moving towards a world of web browser indifference. Now we don't rely on IE or Netscape idiosyncracies anymore.

It implies we also do not depend on a particular operating system anymore for web applications as the landscape diversifies.

Re:Webkit

[_merlin]

At this rate, WebKit could be the new IE6 - it could become so pervasive that people take it for granted, and develop web sites that only render correctly in WebKit. It's already in Safari, Chrome, Konqueror, iTunes, Steam, Midori, Maemo, Moblin, iPhone and WebOS, and will be coming to Blackberry soon. What does this mean for the interoperable web? (Yes, it's better than IE6 in that it's reasonably standards-compliant, cross-platform and licensed under LGPL2.)

Re:Webkit

[Midnight Thunder]

As long as you keep your website standards compliant there should be no issue. It should also be noted that while all these browsers share the same renderer, they don't all use the same Javascript engine. One thing that may help is that webkit is open source.

A good web developer should always make sure that their site renders on multiple browsers with different renders.

Beyond the W3C HTML validator are then any other cross platform tool that will test a website for standards compliance?

Re:Webkit

[tuttle]

Maemo and Moblin both use mozilla based browsers. Maemo comes with MicroB and Moblin comes with the Moblin Browser. Both can also use Fennec or Firefox Mobile. There may be some WebKit projects floating around for both of them, but I don't believe any of them are far enough to replace the platform browser. My guess is that the merger into Meego will continue to use Mozilla/Firefox.

Re:Webkit

[binarylarry]

Although the 800 pound gorilla, Android, uses webkit.

Re:Webkit

[Akzo]

When did Konqueror stop using KHTML and start using Apple Incs bastardisation of KHTML?

Re:Webkit

[Kjella]

That would highly depend on the WebKit project. Basically, I think it's much easier to say to Steam that "Sorry, but we don't want broken or non-standard rendering in Safari, Chrome, Konqueror, iTunes, Midori, Maemo, Moblin, iPhone and WebOS, and soon on the Blackberry, you fix your application" than it was for the IE team to do it. Not to mention that for a large part Microsoft didn't want to create a standards-compliant, compatible web competing with the Windows platform and IE. And when it comes to being an application toolkit like Steam the only thing a broken rendering would do is break your own product, it's very different from the web browser market.

Re:Webkit

[compro01]

Huh. I didn't believe you on that until I looked it up. I wonder why they don't use chromium.

Re:Webkit

[666999]

Chromium uses WebKit as well.

Re:Webkit

[Anubis IV]

Considering it works with all of the major, current standards and has far fewer quirks, I'd think it'd be a good thing for the interoperable web. Plus, it's open source, so if you don't like it, you can always change it yourself or fork it and make your own project. WebKit is a poster child for how browsers can do the interoperable web correctly, if anything.

Re:Webkit

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with I.E. 6 was that Microsoft was the only one working on the development, and they were in charge of the whole thing. Webkit is being developed by people at Apple, Google, Palm, RIM, Nokia, the KDE team, the GNOME team, and random other people. In addition, a lot of the important features, like the Javascript engine and even video tag support are being developed separately- Safari doesn't support OGG but Chrome does, for instance. With this many people, especially ones who have so much relying on it (Google with all their web apps and Palm's entire OS is just one giant Webkit browser running on Linux), it's probably not going to stagnate.

Re:Webkit

[ducomputergeek]

Thing is, I've yet to get a site to render correctly in webkit (Safari) that didn't also render and function the same way with FF or Opera.

I don't want to be tracked

[GhigoRenzulli]

Why everyone keeps saying that tracking every single move you make on your pc is such a great feature?

Leave me alone, mind your own business and stop collecting my own usage data for your strinky marketing purposes.

When I want to tell all the world that now I'm playing a game I will do it on my own, I don't need some steamy application to make it for me.

And yes, I want to subscribe to an asocial network. You subscribe and no one cares about you. Relax. Enjoy.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[sopssa]

So then just don't use Steam. There's a difference between being tracked involuntarily a la Google Analytics and tracking your game stats and achievements on a gaming platform that contains such community features, which you signed up for.

Your complain is like signing up to a dating site and then complaining how the girls won't leave you alone.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Anonymous Coward]

They've been tracking it for a while now. Nothing new here.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Mad Merlin]

Your complain is like signing up to a dating site and then complaining how the girls won't leave you alone.

More like the bots won't leave him alone, and he can't find any real live women.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[GhigoRenzulli]

I signed Steam to play games and not to be a part of some kind of gaming social network where others know what you're doing.
I don't see a tight connection (nor a loose one) between playing and letting know to all the world that I'm actually playing and what.
If I sign up to a dating site, it's for finding girls. It's not a valid comparison.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[naz404]

Your complain is like signing up to a dating site and then complaining how the girls won't leave you alone.

girls? it's the men who won't leave me alone that bother me! *shudder*

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[GhigoRenzulli]

It's nice when a guy with such a signature try to teach you something about real life :)

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[sopssa]

How does Steam let the whole world know if you're playing or not? Even if you use your usual nickname with Steam, set your profile status to private (it's friends only by default if I remember correctly) and don't add friends on it. No one knows you're playing then.

99% of games you can also buy on other media or download services than Steam (MW2 and a few other games being exceptions, since they use Steam).

Complaining about Steam's community and friends features is stupid because you don't need to use them if you don't want to.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Aldenissin]

I guess he has a point. Playing Peggle Deluxe you wouldnt want your friends to see you. However, for the rest of us, knowing what those of us with similar tastes are into is good intel. I have bought a few games partly based on what I saw others liking enough to spend time in. There is your connection. I don't love tracking so much either though, but what are you going to do? Cross the streams and give Google a Steam ip and vice versa? heh

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Krittick]

Your complain is like signing up to a dating site and then complaining how the girls won't leave you alone.

I highly doubt most /. users will be complaining about girls not leaving us alone.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Anonymous Coward]

Then good luck playing any high-tier games in the near future.
Everyone will be putting their games out through things like Steam due to the increases in piracy.

And why do you think Valve care about you, as an individual?
Do you think you are somehow special, amongst the X amount of users of Steam?
You are a statistic, nothing more.

Also, they have Asocial networks, it is called blogging with privacy mode enabled.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Culture20]

girls? it's the men who won't leave me alone that bother me! *shudder*

Stop playing a female night elf then. Sheesh.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[arth1]

Surely, I can't be the only person who saw the article blurb and thought "WTF?"
I mean, has what your friends play online now become the reason for whether to play or not? I hope and trust that this is only true for the minority of players in their teens and early twenties, while the majority of players in their 30s and 40s have gotten past the need to always have what their "friends" have, always do what their "friends" do, and constant single-syllable social networking.

I mean, it's nice to provide a "friends" chat interface (if it follows standards, like XMPP, so it doesn't become your only choice), but it's also nice to default to being able to play a game without anyone else being able to interrupt, or even knowing.
My friends have no business knowing that I sometimes prefer playing a single person game to playing with them, or how much I like my pink pony mane braiding simulator. Much like I close my front door and don't install webcams in every room, there are times for friends, and times for no friends, and the latter takes precedence.

And when I do want to play a game with my friends, I honestly prefer sitting in the living room, sharing a nice 25yo single malt, and playing together on the big screen. The simple joy of being with friends, Steam will never be able to provide or compete with.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're right. I can't think of a single reason why I'd want a game that my friends have, other than simply wanting to fit in. I'm so juvenile.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[wjousts]

Then good luck playing any high-tier games in the near future. Everyone will be putting their games out through things like Steam due to the increases in piracy.

And what I don't understand is why people seem to be happy about another (near) monopoly being built?

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[GF678]

So then just don't use Steam. There's a difference between being tracked involuntarily a la Google Analytics and tracking your game stats and achievements on a gaming platform that contains such community features, which you signed up for.

Unfortunately there are a growing number of games that now REQUIRE Steam, despite being available as a retail purchase. Given the size of Steam and the attraction PC gamers and developers have to it, it wouldn't surprise me if 90%+ of all major titles require mandatory Steam installation and registration in the future.

So sure, he can avoid using Steam. He'll just be left with a dwindling supply of non-Steam games, at least on the PC. It shouldn't have to be that way.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[YojimboJango]

Even more stupid is that the whole thing is 100% opt-in. If you don't want anyone knowing when you're playing a game then don't add them as a friend. Or if you just have to add friends to the service select the option to always appear offline and never log your stats.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Anonymous Coward]

You can log out of the Steam Community from the Friends panel. I haven't tried it, but it should keep it from broadcasting what game you're playing.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[spyrochaete]

You can make your profile private which effectively opts you out of any social features. You can also disable in-game overlays but I find those handy whenever I want to pull up a web browser.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[spyrochaete]

And when I do want to play a game with my friends, I honestly prefer sitting in the living room, sharing a nice 25yo single malt, and playing together on the big screen. The simple joy of being with friends, Steam will never be able to provide or compete with.

What about the other side of the spectrum? It's 10pm and you're in your jammies and you see on Steam that a friend is playing a casual game. With one click you can join his game, play together for 10 minutes, and make plans together for the weekend while chatting. There's a lot of value in that, even if it's not your very favourite means of gaming.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[sopssa]

You can do exactly that. Set Steam to appear offline for your friends list when you don't want to be bothered, and online when it's ok.

On the latter point, playing with friends in the living room with some beers is of course fun. But it doesn't mean it's either that or this, you can have the both. Many of the multiplayer games are more fun with friends even if you're playing on your computers (and the added bonus of being able to play with foreign friends).

I dont just buy some game if I see some friend playing it - you're allowed to think with your own brains and evaluate it. But there has been cases where I've spotted some of my friends playing some game and looked it up, and then buying it as it looked interesting and heard it was fun. Just like you could heard it on slashdot, some forum or gaming mazagine.

But any point about social interaction and such is quite stupid with Steam, as no one forces you to use those, and even if you do, you can easily decide when.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[AndrewNeo]

And mark your profile private so nobody else can see it.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Anonymous Coward]

It's okay, I don't have any friends either.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[naz404]

Hey, if you're going to make a character that you're going to be staring at for a long time, it might as well be something you can enjoy stare at!

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Lunix Nutcase]

I mean, it's nice to provide a "friends" chat interface (if it follows standards, like XMPP, so it doesn't become your only choice), but it's also nice to default to being able to play a game without anyone else being able to interrupt, or even knowing.

And you've been able to do this from the start. You set your status to show that your offline. It takes all of like 2 mouse clicks to do.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[Anonymous Coward]

And when I do want to play a game with my friends, I honestly prefer sitting in the living room, sharing a nice 25yo single malt

Cue the double-take when I misread that last word as "male"...

But joking aside, well said. I feel much the same way about gaming.

Re:I don't want to be tracked

[BikeHelmet]

You have to create a Steam Community login to get all those extra public features. It's separate from your Steam purchasing login, and Steam Support login.

By default everything is public, but you have no friends. I set everything to be private right away - I'm curious to find out if I show up in the new "What your friends are playing" list.

YES!

[the1337g33k]

I love that now I won't have to install both the ActiveX flash player and the Mozilla/Chrome flash player plugin.

Just tried it out and it seems that the store page is no longer has any flash elements at all. They seem to have written it all in javascript, which as most people will agree is much faster in WebKit then IE.

The interface reminds me of when I owned my Zune though (disclaimer: doesn't mean thats bad), but the new My Games page layout is much improved and in my opinion, awesome.

Re:YES!

[Goyuix]

They still use flash unfortunately, but as you describe - it isn't ActiveX Flash for IE, it is the "plugin" version for Firefox/Chrome. It only reared its ugly head in a couple of places for me - specifically the game details / videos and one or two animated marketing things.

The marketing things could easily be addressed in HTML - they are all just sliding/fading/hovering type effects.

The video could be easily addressed using the tag, though the whole h.264 patent nonsense may scare them off from actually doing that.

This is a beta, I am hopeful that they will address these concerns. I am very happy with the new interface personally.

Bring back compact mode!

[TheThiefMaster]

The new steam beta window is HUGE. A lot of people used the old compact mode (most of the time), so that steam was just a menu of games, not a "gaming portal" or whatever other buzzwords.

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[MrNemesis]

Haven't you heard? If your application doesn't have a synergistic community portal for leveraging paradigm-changing reality matricies you're officially a member of the Software 1.0 generation. I can't wait until the new version of TurboTax comes out with 1-click facebook export, twitter feed for liability expenses and a CoverFlow-alike system for making your tax returns totally pimped.

Never thought I'd be such a cynical old fart at 30, but if I want to socialise with people I'll do it down the fucking pub thank you very much :)

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[D Ninja]

Haven't you heard? If your application doesn't have a synergistic community portal for leveraging paradigm-changing reality matricies you're officially a member of the Software 1.0 generation. I can't wait until the new version of TurboTax comes out with 1-click facebook export, twitter feed for liability expenses and a CoverFlow-alike system for making your tax returns totally pimped.

Crap. That's an awesome idea! I can totally see how we can utilize this agile platform for demonstrating first-order capabil...wait...what? Am I a manager? Why, yes, yes I am. Why do you ask?

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[radtea]

Never thought I'd be such a cynical old fart at 30, but if I want to socialise with people I'll do it down the fucking pub thank you very much :)

That's not cynicism, that's humanity.

I'm pretty sure that 30 years from now there will still be pubs with people in them. I'm equally sure there won't be twitter.

But I do have a terrible feeling that half the people in the pub will have borg-implant cameras feeding their "SelfBook" stream, and we will all be stars in someone else's reality TV show.

When that happens I'm opening a bar called the Faraday Cage...

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[Hurricane78]

Man, I wish we had a fucking pub here. I’d fuck there every night. ;)

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[VoltageX]

*Now* is the time to tell Valve about it - on the forums they've set up for the beta.

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[TheThiefMaster]

Oh, I think they've noticed. It's in one of the stickies.

Re:Bring back compact mode!

[BikeHelmet]

It doesn't bug me. The old system was compact, but lacking in features. No way to drag games around, or sort them under custom headings. Okay, the new beta doesn't seem to yet either, but at least it's using more of my monitor. :P

What about that big bug

[conan1989]

There is also a rather nasty big bug causing game files to be re-downloaded
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1157669

Re:What about that big bug

[FlyveHest]

It IS a beta, you know :)

Re:What about that big bug

[happy monday]

Yes, I'm having to re-download Modern Warfare 2. Lame. Isn't not making your program randomly delete files the first thing they teach you in programming school? Bad show Valve, go and sit in the corner and put on your fricking dunce hat, idiots!!

Re:What about that big bug

[drb_chimaera]

You can just restore from a backup - I maintain a backup of all the really big games to save redownloading. When MW2 decided to re download following the beta activation I simply deleted stored data and ran the backup data installer, this installed fine and required no subsequent download or update.

More annoying is the lack of Steam Voice support atm (you can place a call, but the 'answer call' button doesn't work) and some people have reported issues with the Steam overlay too...

I wonder how it works on Wine

[Engeekneer]

Are there any ideas how moving to webkit affects using Steam over Wine? Now I manage to get the basic Steam installed, but buying games or downloading demos just doesn't work. Let's hope these changes help with that too.

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[Ailure]

Unfortunatly, steam client is broken in Wine now http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=19444 , but it doesn't seem to be webkits fault!

Hopefully it might eventually wind up being working better than the old Steam client ever was now that the IE dependency is thrown out.

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[Rogerborg]

Ditto. It's frustrating, since wine is now a pretty solid platform for gaming.

I'd love to give Valve money, but I'm not paying a Microsoft Tax in order to do so. I guess we're far too small a market for them to care about though.

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[DarwinSurvivor]

There was a rummor a while back that someone had found linux-compiled executables in a few steam games (CS series). That combined with this new "drop the windows-specifc embedded browser) could mean that we won't need to use wine at all in the future :D

Here's hoping!

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[Anonymous Coward]

It works great if you configure wine up to pretend it's Windows 7.

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[VGPowerlord]

Well, I imagine a lot of code for the game must already run on Linux, as they have Linux server binaries.

It's the graphics-related code that doesn't. Or so I assume.

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[Yvan256]

Yeah but then Wine goes into a shame spiral and it's all downhill from there.

Re:I wonder how it works on Wine

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, you are too small a market to care about. Deal with it.

If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do it?

[DrXym]

"Before you've even bought a game, knowing whether your friends play it is one of the most useful pieces of information to have."

Steam - now with added peer pressure!

xmpp for chat

[slashdotmos]

Good now if they add support for xmpp things would be highly looking up indeed!

Re:If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do

[iainl]

Except that (a) lots of games are mainly fun for the multiplayer, and (b) lots of those are a bit rubbish if you can only play with strangers (Left 4 Dead, for instance).

So knowing whether or not you'll be able to get a game is handy.

Download bar? About time

[nikomo]

Finally you get to see how big the update is when one is released. And it only took almost 7 years to code it.

Re:Download bar? About time

[Yvan256]

We would've known that for a long time if they had completed their coding progress bar code before their download bar code!

Yes...

[wfolta]

Does anyone actually game with Macs?>

... yes, we do.

Re:Yes...

[Alphathon]

I'd be interested to see what Mac gaming is like in general. Since historically it's been PC>Mac for number of games, release date etc, and atm PC gaming is falling behind consoles, how is Mac gaming doing? Do you guys have the same rediculous DRM issues?

Re:Yes...

[Taevin]

It's getting a lot better. Of course Blizzard has always been a shining example by doing cross-platform releases. EA seems to be jumping on the bandwagon as well, slowly but surely.

As far as DRM goes, seems like most of the games are ported by Aspyr and it seems like all of their newer releases don't use copy projection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspyr_Media

Re:If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do

[Spad]

If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do it?

No, but if my friend said they liked a game and historically liked similar games to me then it might make me buy it.

Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago we were told that Valve's official policy was to not support Linux with Steam, even if some games are Linux compatible because they didn't want to create pressure for games that weren't. This was for Red Orchestra which works on Linux, as do Unreal games AFAIK.

So I only believe the OSX talk if I see it working on a Mac.

Re:Linux

[sopssa]

OS X != Linux, and there are many more games that do support OS X.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

even if some games are Linux compatible because they didn't want to create pressure for games that weren't.

Since when have Linux gamers managed to "create pressure" for companies that don't care?

UT3 never got a linux client. IIRC it just barely got a server.

My friend played WHAT?

[Culture20]

• Hell's Angels (TM) Biker Gang *Headshotkill played this twice last month
• Hello Kitty (TM) Magical Princess Tea Party *Headshotkill played this 14 times in the last week
• Hellspawn 2: The Redecapitationing *Headshotkill owns this
• Invasion (TM) WWII: Poland *Headshotkill played this once last month

Headshotkill? What the hell, man?

Re:My friend played WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me about it. What kind of person plays a game that doesn't start with "Hell"?

Re:My friend played WHAT?

[Jesus_666]

Yeah. I mean, they totally ruined Magical Tea Party with the localization.


Er, I mean Hellspawn 2. Yeah. Definitely Hellspawn 2.

Re:My friend played WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, seriously, everyone KNOWS the sequel to Hellspawn went downhill! Maybe they'll return to their roots with "Hellspawn 3: Explosion-Guts Returns"?

Re:My friend played WHAT?

[Culture20]

Yeah. I mean, they totally ruined Magical Tea Party with the localization.

Most honor to your tea bagging!

Not just games

[chronosan]

It's quite amusing when you get 20+ people asking you if Math Input Panel is fun.

Re:Not just games

[Canazza]

I like renaming my shortcuts something ridiculous, like "Super Wankatron 3000", or personal affronts to my friends, such as "Winston is a fudge packer".

OS X = Yay

[Thyamine]

But with more emphasis. I just haven't had enough coffee yet. I use Steam for a few games on the Windows side (notably HL2, et al), but I'd like to have it on OS X for gaming as well. I doubt this will push most manufacturers to release an OS X compatible version of their game, but it could help drive more gaming on Macs, leading to more interest from developers.

Privacy options?

[JSBiff]

I sure hope there is a way to turn off reporting what games you own or have played recently? If I want someone to know that, I'll tell them. It's none of anyone else's business what I own and play.

Re:Privacy options?

[Ailure]

You just set your profile to private, it's that easy. Infact by default it's set on private mode, and you have to opt in for the community features. Even the JSON/XML pages for fetching various Steam stats aren't accessible by others when your account is set on private mode (Valve cites apparent legal reasons for this).

Fixes an interesting issue.

[Orbijx]

With this beta release of Steam, they fix an interesting issue that cropped up with the release of Windows 7.

For users of that particular OS who have either removed Internet Explorer, or did not have it installed at all when the OS was installed (see: Europe, and the rest of the world that couldn't even stand the browser), Steam was half-broken. One could not see any screenshots for a game before purchasing. Anything that needed a popup window in Steam would NOT default to the main browser installed on the system.

People complained about this, asking Steam to start looking for the default browser on the system so they could at least go back to browsing for games and possibly buying them.

It's good to see them actually address that issue.

Maybe I'll buy Space Giraffe to celebrate.

Re:Fixes an interesting issue.

[DNS-and-BIND]

There's nothing that pisses me off more than a Windows app that opens (Internet Explorer) instead of (system default browser). The developer always comes back with a blank look "Who would ever not use IE? It's the web browser!"

Re:Fixes an interesting issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they use the website?

Re:Fixes an interesting issue.

[Orbijx]

Surprisingly, because it slowed down impulse shopping, and by the time we've found the game on the site, our urge to "buy the game if the screenshots or video looks good" is gone.

Also, as it was pointed out on the forums (can't link to the post for now -- behind the corp wall of fire) that this being broken under these particular configurations may speed up Impulse shopping, which could finally make Stardock a threat to Steam, since Impulse already had that "It just f'n works." thing going on. None of this "Open a browser to look, with purchasing client open at the same time" stuff -- See a thumbnail, click for screenshot, close lightbox when done, and if you want it, add it to the damn cart.

But that's just my opinion on that.

Re:Fixes an interesting issue.

[shutdown -p now]

It's even worse, because it's really easy to open URLs in default web browser - if you do ShellExecute() on an URL, that's precisely what will happen, and it's actually less code than explicitly invoking IE and passing it an URL.

Re:Fixes an interesting issue.

[BikeHelmet]

Steam is just a website displayed inside an interface. I do all my purchasing online through Firefox.

http://store.steampowered.com/

Screenshots never worked for me inside the default UI. I do all my steam store browsing in Firefox.

Re:Fixes an interesting issue.

[complete loony]

Except in this case it's an embedded instance of the web browser control trying to invoke another external instance of itself, passing the same cookies etc, that's broken. And since this is all microsoft's code, it's more code for steam to intercept and fix this behaviour.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Horrible UI fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like they've done created their own font-smoothing technique that can't be disabled in any way. Horrible. Check it out.

http://mplazear.com/steam.png

Re:Horrible UI fonts

[Yvan256]

Of course it looks horrible when zoomed, it's sub-pixel anti-aliasing.

Re:Horrible UI fonts

[MR.Mic]

I am using the new Steam UI, and it does not have this issue. All the font rendering is unsmoothed.

TurboTax DOES have 1-click facebook export already

[ahecht]

I just finished my taxes last week, and in one of the last steps after e-filing TurboTax offered to post a "I just finished my taxes with TurboTax and I'm getting a $XXX refund!" message to my Facebook profile.

OSX Client - Cider wrapper?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can imagine that an OSX Steam client will wrap the games in a wrapper such as Cider that will make them playable on a Mac. It's a good idea, but may come with a performance hit.

Re:TurboTax DOES have 1-click facebook export alre

[MrNemesis]

For a minute there I thought you were joking. One google later shows that turbo tax is only too happy to use people bragging about their personal finances as a marketing tool.

Un. Fucking. Believable.

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/03/turbo-tax-uses-facebook-connect-to-allow-friends-to-spread-the-word/

Maybe it's because I started drinking before I started using the internet but I really don't get this obsession with broadcasting absolutely everything in your life to anyone within a mile radius. It's like we're being punished like the Belcebron's in reverse and I get the impression that if I don't start telling everyone how me and my owtrageyusly hawt gf just had sex or that I'm popping out to the garage to get some oil for the lawnmower I'll be looked on as a freakish outcast.

But has the incompetent designers finally ....

[Snaller]

But has the incompetent designers finally made an interface where you can set the font size so you have interface readable by adults and not just the kids with perfect vision?

Eh no, of course not - the shit is developed by kids after all!

Re:But has the incompetent designers finally ....

[Yvan256]

Why don't you use a browser that zooms the whole page instead of only zooming the text? (which makes no sense anyway)

AFAIK both Opera and Safari zoom the whole page. Don't know about IE, Firefox or Chrome.

Re:But has the incompetent designers finally ....

[h4rr4r]

Buy some glasses grandpa.

Re:But has the incompetent designers finally ....

[shutdown -p now]

I assume he's not talking about browsers, but about Steam UI as such. An interesting question, though - doesn't it respect Windows DPI setting? Because that's what you should use to make text larger system-wide...

Re:But has the incompetent designers finally ....

[Ant P.]

Blame Microsoft for setting the standard at 96dpi MS Sans Serif fixed-layout dialogs in Windows 3. Valve are only doing their part to look like a native windows app.

I felt a great disturbance in the force

[Anonymous Coward]

As if a million voices suddenly cried out in glee, and won't shut up.

IPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they are just making a client for IPhone. (Buying a game on an Iphone does not necessarily equate to playing a game on an IPhone.)
This way, you may even be able to buy the game on your way home and find that it has already finished downloading by time you arrive.

Re:If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do

[Hatta]

What I can't figure out is why I would need Steam to tell me what my friends play. Isn't that what conversation is for? Before I buy a game, I'll not only find out whether my friends have played it, but what they think of it too. Can Steam tell me that?

Re:If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do

[The End Of Days]

I think the problem here is the word "friends."

We're not necessarily talking about people who are important to your life in general, we are talking about people to share gaming experiences. I don't know how it works for the general populace around here, but I have made "gaming acquaintances" with many people I don't actually know. I certainly enjoy playing with them, but we aren't friends in the social sense of the word. Steam facilitates this, while having *zero* impact on your ability to have normal relationship with your normal friends.

More likely a Linux client

[psyopper]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steam_confirmation&num=1 It's old, but talk of Steam coming to Linux has been going around in a number of places.

Re:More likely a Linux client

[Narishma]

That article is from 2008...

Re:TurboTax DOES have 1-click facebook export alre

[Jesus_666]

If I had a Facebook account I'd go and post: "I just finished my taxes with TurboTax and I'm getting a $-493 refund!"

Re:If your friend jumped off a cliff would you do

[adamkennedy]

Especially if that game was something awesome like Tony Hawk's Skate'n'BASE Jumparama, where you have to do rad skate tricks off of buildings, cliffs and other high structures.

Did you see that demo with the invert 720 low-deploy with the sports chute? I can't wait to try it for real off the radio mast down the road!

Noooooooooo!

[newdsfornerds]

How could they abandon I.E.?

How about some game folders?

[kalirion]

Does it let you organize your games into more than just "Favorites", "Installed" and "Uninstalled" yet? When you've got past a certain number of Steam games, those 3 options are just not enough.

Re:How about some game folders?

[Orbijx]

I puckered around with it this morning, and found that yes, you can categorize games with tags, and pull a specific tag up when trying to choose certain game types.

I've got Lord of the Rings Online, EVE, and Anarchy Online sitting under "MMORPG", Torchlight under "Crawler", Iji under "Platformer", and so on.

I've yet to see if the new overlay will work with a couple of games on this list (AO, Iji) since it didn't before, but I won't be disappointed if not.

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[account_deleted]

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WAHEY!!

[legio_noctis]

My pessimism has been proven wrong!

Yes, sorry, I can't think of anything intelligent or witty to say. I'm too happy.

I gotta learn to read more slowly!

[Lime Green Bowler]

JC, I read the title and almost buttered my shorts. "Steam... update.... drops.... rootkit". What a wake-up call!

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:TurboTax DOES have 1-click facebook export alre

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not because you don't post meaningless details about your life to web sites on the internet that you're viewed as a freakish outcast.