[Dough with Fish]

But, dammit, if Valve isn't trying to do something great with it. And what might that be, you may ask? Well, aside from launching their own games, they are putting various indy games up on it (namely the new title Nexis and the upcoming Defcon), but they are also giving gamers a chance this October to expierience one of the most over-looked games ever. And that is Psychonauts. And, I for one, have never had a single problem with Steam. Maybe I'm lucky, who knows, but I think its a great system.... Anyways, I hope that psychonauts cleans up on Steam... it deserves all the attention it gets.

[Turnsky]

the premise behind steam is good andall, but with games that are so reliant on it (read HL2 & episodic content), that if you don't have a decent connection, it's an absolute pain in the ass to work with.

it has its pros, and cons, it's gonna take a while for it to be of any actual good, Psychonauts across steam is really cool and all, but if you don't have a credit card, you're screwed.

[Prophet]

Yeah yeah. Steam is father Steam is mother. Trust the Steam.

What you fail to understand, my little product of high tech society, is that Steam has its pros and cons. Just like Turnsky said.
And people like different things. Like me, who likes turn based strategy and strongly beliefs there is absolutley nothing good about Steam. But I still don't go around broadcasting my opinions around. Quite simply because I don't give a **** about other peoples opinions about Steam. And as I am a simple person, I think others do not care about my opninions about Steam either, and like to think on their own.

[Blaise Russel]

Yeah yeah. Steam is father Steam is mother. Trust the Steam.

What you fail to understand, my little product of high tech society, is that Steam has its pros and cons. Just like Turnsky said.
And people like different things. Like me, who likes turn based strategy and strongly beliefs there is absolutley nothing good about Steam. But I still don't go around broadcasting my opinions around. Quite simply because I don't give a **** about other peoples opinions about Steam. And as I am a simple person, I think others do not care about my opninions about Steam either, and like to think on their own.

Wherefore the post, then?

[Prophet]

I sometimes lose control when I encounter things I dislike. That happens way too often, the universe must hate me...

EDIt: Frigging keyboard hates me. Can't event type anything without producing gibberish. Leave me alone!!

[karajorma]

That said there are a lot of people out there who probably would have appreciated a warning of just how bad Steam actually is before they went out and bought HL2.

[Mefustae]

But what of the equal number of people who were told by warned by their peers to avoid Steam like the Black Plague, only to install it and have no problems whatsoever. Y'know, just like me.

To this day, i've had nary a problem with Steam, and I just can't see what everyone is whining about. I mean, c'mon! Some people treat it as if it were some rootkit-esque, ultra-invasive program that installs components into every corner of your computer that not even a format could dislodge!

[karajorma]

What about them? They made an informed choice. They'd heard that there could be problems and were able to choose that they would give it a try despite that.

|The converse is not true in the case of people who didn't know how bad Steam could be.

[Cobra]

it has its pros, and cons, it's gonna take a while for it to be of any actual good, Psychonauts across steam is really cool and all, but if you don't have a credit card, you're screwed.

*bought counter-strike source, day of defeat source, and half-life 2: deathmatch from a store for $30* OOMPH! can't touch dis!

Steam is very good in my opinion, i have NEVER had a problem with it, excluding the trivial corrupted .blog files.

[Flipside]

I think a lot of fear of Steam comes from the fact we've spent years having the idea that installing a program which remotely links to another computer in another country is a very bad thing to do. That's why Windows Activation still irks some people.

Personally, I prefer something physical like a CD Rom in a package. I guess when you come from a 'Nation of Shopkeepers', you get used to dealing in physical goods

[Cyker]

That's more or less the reason why I'm staying away from things like Steam and Windows XP - I don't like the idea of not having control over stuff I own.

It's also why I really REALLY hate StarDock for tricking people saying they don't have copy protection, when in fact they do in the form of their forced-registration crap (If you want a non-buggy game!).

If Steam was like, you download it and you can burn it to DVD and then never have to worry about it ever again, then I'd be more for it, but the fact is if somebody hacked the Steam server and deleted it and everybody's accounts, or Valve got eaten by EA or sued into oblivion, I wouldn't be able to install any of those programs anymore because of that external third-party dependency.
Frankly, in my eyes there is NO REASON why we should need to do stuff like that anyway - It's all because of their paranoia and control-freakness.

The worst thing is that all that hoop-jumping doesn't even do any good! The games are not cheaper (Rising costs being blamed mainly on piracy, so why is NEVER cheaper??), and they are no better protected than anything else! And then there's all the post-sales stuff.
When HL2 came out, my friend (Who bought it retail, the sap ) was unable to play it for something like 2 weeks because of the servers snarling up. He couldn't understand why he needed to download such a large chunk of crap when he'd BOUGHT the damned DVD.
After getting fed up, he decided to get his money back and get something he COULD play.
And he couldn't.
The store wouldn't refund him because the box was open, Valve wouldn't refund it because he didn't buy it from them, and he couldn't sell it because it was already tied to his Steam account.
To be fair, he did eventually get it running when he found a cracked version on SuprNova...

[Ulala]

Steam worries me because of this age old tale: A boy finds out that the next generation of consoles is coming, with the latest and greatest features, and the hottest new games. In his excitement, he goes to the local video game store and trades in all his old games and old system to get store credit in anticipation for the newly coming system. When the day finally comes that the latest system is released, the boy goes to the store only to find to his dismay that the store has gone out of business. It was completely empty and closed up. The boy had lost all of his games and there was no way he was ever going to get his money back.

Okay, so it's not the perfect analogy.. and granted, Valve is a little bigger than the local video game store and isn't as prone to the harshness of the business environment, but 9 years from now when I wanna make a nostalgic run through HL2 or play a reminiscient game of CS: Source with some friends, I'm going to be very pissed if I can't because the files are no longer available or the company no longer exists and steam won't let me play them, even after I install them off my discs. I paid $50 for them, and I want them, fully functional, until the day I die.

[asyikarea51]

Has anyone read up on the upcoming changes to CS: Source?

 

[IPAndrews]

No. Pray tell. Do we finally get a bazooka?

[asyikarea51]

They're introducing some sort of economy into the weapons purchasing.

Supply and demand sort of thing. More people buy a certain item, price goes up. The less people buy it, price goes down. Takes effect in early October.

The radar was already bad IMO (I've kind of learnt to live with the radar since it offers some advantages, but the patch that came with the radar screwed up custom maps / gun skins ), but this... My opinion on this is mixed... I'm just worried that the price of Kevlar with the helmet is going to go through the roof

[WMCoolmon]

Interesting idea, I may actually log on to CS:S to see how it goes.

[asyikarea51]

I'm just wishing for a cvar that allows us to turn it off. I'm on the "against" side of the... heated... issue...

>_>
<_<

And no, I don't deem myself a heavy M4A1/AK47 user. But armour is one of the more important things, if the price goes up, those headshot nutz0rs are probably going to jump for joy

[WMCoolmon]

http://www.steampowered.com/stats/csmarket/

So far it hasn't gone up too much. deagle lovers will be hurting though.

[asyikarea51]

Guns like the M10... I feel that the M10 isn't accurate enough for the money. IMO it doesn't put the shots to the target in at least some form of consistency to warrant widespread use, even with a price drop. I know it's supposed to be a crazy spraying SMG, but having to run up close (and expose yourself to the opponent) for the thing to actually hit at full auto...

...ahwell.

Just have to see how it goes, I guess... 

[ZylonBane]

It's also why I really REALLY hate StarDock for tricking people saying they don't have copy protection, when in fact they do in the form of their forced-registration crap (If you want a non-buggy game!).

If you hate Stardock, you're a dumbass. They're one of the good guys.