Are Steam-games known for being freed from the Steam chains

[Raptor1]

Fallout: New Vegas had a few problems at release, but I haven't seen that many since it was patched a few times. Then again, I haven't encountered most of the issues people were talking about at the beginning, so it might be just me.

As for Steam. I prefer games in boxes, of course, and when I buy digital downloads it's usually through GamersGate, but Steam has a lot of good deals and is usually convenient enough that I've never had a serious problem with it.

[Spike88]

I for one prefer my games on steam, ease of access and all that nonesense.

Speaking of steam, can anyone spot what's wrong with this title?


Just found it on my steams window

[Egan]

Originally Posted by Dowly

If they don't, you can get all three original Fallout games from GOG.com
for $5,99 a piece and they work on 64bit Win7.

Oh, I'd forgotten about them. I think they've re-released B17 The Mighty 8 as well. Cheers! My copies of the early Fallout games are the DVD re-release from a couple of years ago so they might actually work without messing around.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Spike88

I for one prefer my games on steam, ease of access and all that nonesense.

Speaking of steam, can anyone spot what's wrong with this title?


Just found it on my steams window

I see nothing wrong with that...

[Skybird]

Why I'm asking, after having tried to help an old gentlkeman whom I assist in computer management tried Shogun2, and he/me/we didf meet nothing but trouble with unaccessability of the game, he had given up several weeks ago, finally gave the game to me. I tried it to install on my system then, which by DVd takes 45 minutes, plus 3 hours of downloading and half an hour of defregmnentasing, then examining the new steam menu thjat looked different back then, and finding the offline option. But the game locks with that. Starting it new and switching steam to online, causes the game to not launch due to the game being unavailable, says the message. Next checking if it downloads again, which it doesn't. To cut it short, I have done the reinstallation combo three times now, every time it took all the afternoon, and the damn thing started just two times, but failed to launch 17 times. That is a score that leaves an impresison, doesn'T it. And even if it always would download something, I am oissed by the perspective that if I sit down and want to play I get hindfred by the game becaue it updates again. The offline option doe snot work, btw, it ALWAYS seem to block the game from starting.

I then checked the itnernet severla times, google, and found that the complaints of Empire and Shogun as well as other steam-driven games not being available are legions. I seem to be no exception, but seem to be part of a very numerous, big group.

Now, i can pass on Shogun, although I sdee that it looks really good. I was asking because Skyrim also comes with steam, and that hurts. I definetly will fold my cards over Skyrim, with terars in my eyes, but this steam thing is ther worst piece of vbtrown stuff that has ever hit my computer. Starforce (SH3) slowed my system and messed up my DCD drive, so it was not pleasant either. But this steam brown stufgf is as bad if not worse.

It goes without saying that nothing with Steam will ever be tried again over here. Even not Skyrim. Not one penny I will give them. Glad I did not pay for Shogun 2.

People should boycott this thing instead of arguing why to tolerate it. Too many people have problems with it. If sales would dive into the basement level, Steam would go. And that wouzld be godo for everybody. You can upgrade yopur damn games manually by an integrate doption - at a time of your choice. And you should be able to launch your game whenever you want - not when a compoany that alraedy got payed agrees to let you play. Damn Valve suckers. Hope their company HQ goes up in flames and their servers along with it.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Did you not read all the responses to your OP? Iirc only one other person had issues with Steam, and they still use it. You are being short-sighted on this - cutting off your nose to spite your face springs to mind, I don't know if you have that expression?

[Skybird]

The posters in that thread did not even correctly understood what the problem was and thus gave answers to questions that I did not really ask. They described a different problem situations - which were not present in their described form on that man'S system. I had given up the thread back then, for this reason.

And if you want to know more precisely than basing on one thread in a forum that has nothign to do with Steam, I recommend you do a search via Google, like I did extensively. When I say the complaints of people locked out of their games or unable to play when they want count by legions, then I mean it. It is not just Shogun, but apparenbtly Steam-based games in general. Empire especially got mentioned as problematic, too.

And I searched just the German-tongued web, !

[Herr-Berbunch]

Google search terms like 'Steam problems' or 'Unable to play Steam game' and you'll get page upon page of people bitching about Steam, obviously. I think by having issues with one game, that you didn't even pay for, and refusing to use Steam in future is just absurd. I think online DRM, as long as it's not too intrusive (or like Sony's rootkit from CDs a few years ago), is perfectly tolerable if you've got a reasonable t'interweb connection.

Yes you're tied to Steam, but so are millions of Steam users every day without complaint.

[Biggles]

Steam has it's advantages when it comes to online playing, but I really find it absurd and annoying that I'm forced to use it when playing games that doesn't even have a MP function, such as Mafia II

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Skybird

People should boycott this thing instead of arguing why to tolerate it. Too many people have problems with it. If sales would dive into the basement level, Steam would go. And that wouzld be godo for everybody. You can upgrade yopur damn games manually by an integrate doption - at a time of your choice. And you should be able to launch your game whenever you want - not when a compoany that alraedy got payed agrees to let you play. Damn Valve suckers. Hope their company HQ goes up in flames and their servers along with it.

Who are "people"?

You've just had had a whole thread of people tell you that their experience with Steam has been pretty good, and so has that of the roughly 50 friends I have on my Steam list. As I said, I think one reason that Steam holds such sway over the market is that it's not just DRM, it is also a whole package of services, and those services are pretty good.

Sorry, I disagree with you, you have a rather biased sample in your "too many people" study, which by the way isn't terribly good quantitative science to begin with.

Steam has its pluses and minuses, like everything, but overall it's a pretty good platform. Until someone invents a better business model for distributing games and maintaining games online, I'll stick with this one.
By the way, Steam also has an offline mode - which works darn well and has no issue letting you use games on as many PCs as you like, as long as you don't try to get online with them. I've had zero issues with that even on creaky old laptops where I just wanted to put an old game or two. Ran without a hitch, and I never saw more of steam than an icon in the system tray.

From game developers' perspective, it also makes a certain amount of sense to adapt their games to a platform that offers them a marketing tool, a matchmaking service, auto-update framework, and DRM all in one go. Again, the fact is that until there's a better economic alternative available to developers and publishers, I don't think you'll see them 'untethering' games. From their perspective, the ability to sell and maintain their games more efficiently is a much bigger gain than pleasing a few luddites.

[Dowly]

Doing a steam forums search via google gives me 8 350 results for the search words:
Currently Unavailable.

At the moment of writing this, there are 4,020,716 Steam users online.

Looks to me it's working just fine, all apps have problems, but to hint it's widespread
is just silly.

Did you read the FAQ for the "currently unavailable" issue at Steam's site, Sky?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Did you read the FAQ for the "currently unavailable" issue at Steam's site, Sky?

Yes. Already weeks ago.


CCIP, which part of when I said "offline mode does not solve issues" did you not understand? Or if you use google again. What you tell the many many peoples that also report that offline mode first works and then does not work anymore?

Do a search for for example "Shogun 2 Spiel ist nicht verfügbar", or something like that, as I said I already found a huge number of comments and desperate questions when just searching in German. Not just five or six. But pages over pages, on a wide array of game titles.

Anyhow, neither the Steam boards nor their FAQ help me, and do not help the many people who also are left stranded with a steam game that they bought but cannot play. Hell, even on Amazon they bitch about it. And the clever ones of them come to the same conclusion like me: this business model is not worth to be supported by my wallet's content. So I will not buy Skyrim, and cannot play Shogun 2, like it also did not run on a totally foreign system as well. I hoped that maybe I could get Skyrim a year later, free from Steam, but it seems not. Okay. Bad lesson learned, many many hours uselessly wasted, several afternoons and evenings killed over nothing - an experience that I made weeks ago over several days, have repeated now again over several days, and will not repeat another time. .

And the latter will not change in the future.

And now moving on.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Skybird

And now moving on.

But this is subsim, and we're only on page two! You know this isn't how it works.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

But this is subsim, and we're only on page two! You know this isn't how it works.

Good point.

Herr-Berbunch, you are a smelly apeman!

Name calling - check

Now, for the pointless "I'm right, you're stupid" debate, so here goes:

Black is really yellow!

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Black is really yellow!

Oh, so wrong!

Red is the only colour that domesticated ferrets can see; other colours appear as shades of grey.

I am, of course, assuming you're domesticated?

Not necessarily house-trained, but domesticated.

Source for the ferret vision (also known as boobopia)


Edit: Can I also put forward a motion to change Dowly's name to Duke Dowly, or Dowly Nukem?