to Steam, or not to Steam

(.Chris.) #221

It was a thread about whether or not Brink will use steam which was answered long ago.

(Joe999) #222

ah crap. i thought it’s a steam whine thread. on the previous pages it sounded like it. my bad

(shirosae) #223

I’ve had problems with Steam, and I’m on these forums. I don’t remember any sort of survey being done about this. Where did you get the information required to make this assertion?

The reason I don’t bother posting about any of those problems is that whenever I’ve tried in the past, the Steam Hivemind would descend and assert that Steam can have no problems, that any problems I encounter must be the fault of my system and not Steam, and frankly if I can’t get Steam working then there’s no way that my system could manage the game I just spent money on anyway, so I should stop complaining.

tl;dr: I gave up trying.

That I gave up doesn’t negate the fact that I had enough problems with the platform to stop using it and to hope that publishers will stop trying to force me into it.

This is all to say this: I currently have Steam installed, so I count in the user figures, and - shock horror - I think Steam is pants. I’m also on these forums, and I have had problems with Steam. That I do what the Justice League would have me do (stop posting) is no reason for any of you to statistically declare me a member of your ‘everyone-loves-Steam’ orgy.

(DarkangelUK) #224

I completely understand there may be problems (as I stated), but it’s just like any bit of software… cos no software is infallible. My issue is when The Brain Trust start posting useless rants towards users who like Steam… just because they like Steam. Warranted issues are very welcome… paranoia and asshatyness should be kept to Trust meetings.

TO THE JUSTICE CAVE!

(Voxie) #225

Thanks for providing the source, Joe. The problem, or rather the absence of a problem with that article is that they banned users who downloaded and played the game illegally, without paying for it. This won’t affect us legitimate Brink players at all. Oh, and FUD stands for “fear, uncertainty and doubt”.

And to shirosae and Apples, you’re correct to correct me on that. :slight_smile: That was my own conclusions from reading these forums and I was speaking in broad strokes without clarifying it as such, but my point still stands that most of the criticism about Steam here will not affect us.

To say anyone here is a member of a “Steam orgy” is facepalm-worthy – while some of us are quite fond of the platform, I’m sure that none of us thinks it’s perfect nor turn our heads away from its shortcomings.

(Senethro) #226

Joe, it sounds from the article like the pirates still had a functioning Steam on their computer and possibly some kind of spoofed login to let them play HL2. What they were doing was misusing the Steam service, not just pirating.

Of course, its still Valve’s fault for banning them right? Oh, those poor pirates.

So don’t be lazy and stupid and when you pirate games use a crack that completely removes Steam instead of staying logged in.

(Joe999) #227

i don’t care about pirates. the impact of piracy is something that doesn’t need to be discussed, it’s obvious. and tbh piracy is not my problem, it’s the problem of the companies and it’s their problem to find a way to solve it. but if eg ubi soft thinks it can defeat piracy by pissing off their honest customers, then so be it. i don’t buy any ubi soft games anymore.

but back to steam. you can play that down to whatever you like. there’s always innocent people involved. of course when i read the forums back then, i thought people used excuses so that they’d get unbanned. that changed when i was on the steam forum and read the stories of previously banned ones who got their accounts back. and that got me thinking. it can happen to everyone. and i’m not prepared to deal with some person across the ocean who disabled everything i paid for only because someone made a mistake. people make mistakes, machines make mistakes. as i said. it can happen to everyone. and i’m not prepared to take that risk. i like to play the games, for which i paid a lot of money, without dependency of some big brother company.

and i thought you’d be capable of something better than insulting someone if he has a different experience and opinion. guess i was wrong :frowning:

(.Chris.) #228

Innocent people get run over on the road every day by accident and lose their life (a lot more than silly game collection), so I guess you don’t take the risk of crossing the road either…

(tokamak) #229

Well you’re still allowed to let off some…

(Senethro) #230

Joe999, they weren’t making mistakes. They were intentionally abusing the Steam service. While the article in question doesn’t say I suspect those guys were the ones who cracked Steam so they could download HL2 for free using Valve’s bandwidth.

Whats the excuse? The Terms of Service don’t apply if you didn’t read them? Oh, it was just one mistake?

(SockDog) #231

Sony and MS ban accounts and consoles from their services. I don’t see why Valve should have to be different if they know someone is ripping them off or circumventing cheat protection (kinda like Punkbuster does without “The Horror”)

Yes Valve should have an appeals process for account bans, they may do internally. I’m not sure if publicising such a process publicly would help legitimate appeals or hinder them.

If it concerns you that much, register Brink under its own account. Buying and playing Brink doesn’t mean you need to buy all your games on Steam or under the same account.

I think Steam bans for cheating only affect your ability to play online (in relation to access to the single player component) and then only on authenticated servers. Someone confirm?

Issues regarding Steam not working seem to be no worse than those in games. At least Steam is an ongoing development, issues get resolved.

Steam is not perfect but it allows social interactivity, functionality and consistency across multiple games. That’s a bonus for developers and end users if you ask me. Lets not forget not everybody wants to trawl forums, irc, xfire, external server browsers, skype, vent, icq/msn, email, websites etc etc etc.

(Voxie) #232

That’s correct. You’ll still have access to the single player portion of the game as well as dedicated servers running without VAC protection (that is if Brink will allow running servers with VAC disabled).

(brbrbr) #233

both.
but sadly Steam fanboys garbage rhetoric tend to prevail.
covertly-offensive PoV enforcement and other brainfu…k/brainwash[google “Neuro Linquistic Programming” and other approaches 2].

sure.
you have right to have opinion.
and thats right protected by law in one country, called US.
other countries have dual standarts so they “have” constitutions but its not work because have NO law status and simply paperwaste/pfff[and nobody care about. sadly].
so you don’t have reasons to found/backup YOU opinon, except: 1. you discuss it with someone. to which this thread is NO dedicated. just for sharing opinions. note: Opinon existence NOT presume right/ability/willing to discuss it. 2. you asked about that by court/friends.

(Ashog) #234

[quote=Senethro;227303]Joe, it sounds from the article like the pirates still had a functioning Steam on their computer and possibly some kind of spoofed login to let them play HL2. What they were doing was misusing the Steam service, not just pirating.

Of course, its still Valve’s fault for banning them right? Oh, those poor pirates.

So don’t be lazy and stupid and when you pirate games use a crack that completely removes Steam instead of staying logged in.[/quote]

And what does my avatar have to do with this, dumbnethro?

(DarkangelUK) #235

Grow up, you’re acting like a bloody spoiled child name calling.

(Senethro) #236

I hate you so much dumbnethro!
______/

(Crytiqal) #237

Steam blows

(Catched the little word-joke in there? :P)

(signofzeta) #238

Steam? Yes.

Mandatory Steam? NO!!!

(SockDog) #239

[quote=signofzeta;227468]Steam? Yes.

Mandatory Steam? NO!!![/quote]

And how do you propose they include Steam enabled functions without using Steam?

(signofzeta) #240

they don’t.

I don’t remember any xbox 360 games that require xbox live, or PS3 games that require PSN to play. I can just pop in a 360 game, use a profile without xbox live, and be able to play on it, albeit with limited features. I don’t see why the PC version of this game has to have steam, when the PC version can also have limited features.

Has anybody seen any PC games that require steam to use? That is, you can’t play it without steam? That if you don’t have steam, and you run it, the only thing you could do is move the cursor in the main menu, and not be able to play the game itself? Is this what Brink is going to be? A steamless version where all you do is customize your guy and not be able to play single player or even offline?

Let us put it this way, if I can’t go in, start a lan server, and shoot at walls without steam, then the game has mandatory steam, which I feel is a bad idea. I’m a little bit lenient on mandatory steam for online matches, but not by much.

Also mandatory steam should only be for games that are 3-5 years or older.