Steam, Stardock Central

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.

Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that bugs
you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving more and
more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).

You may recall that we released Galactic Civilizations in 2003 via Stardock
Central. It worked as follows:

1) User buys the game at either:
a) The store
b) Direct from www.galciv.com
c) Buys a Drengin.net (later renamed TotalGaming.net) subscription.

2) They then:
a) Store user installs the game from CD or could even toss out the CD if
they wanted and just use the serial # to download the full game or updates
from Stardock Central.
b) The direct electronic buyer just downloads the game via Stardock
Central onto their computer.
c) TotalGaming.net subscriber downloads it, like their other games that
are part of TG.net and plays it.

Similarly, The Political Machine, published by Ubi Soft, is similar (though
not quite the same because Ubi Soft didn't include serial #'s in the box).
But a user can buy The Political Machine from politicalmachine.com and
install/download it from Stardock Central.

Once it's on your machine, you can use the built in features to back it up
to CD and put onto other machines (non-net connected ones for instance so
you can, for example, play Galactic Civilizations on your laptop on the
plane).

The system *seems* to work very well but we've only got ~300,000 users using
Stardock Central whereas Steam no doubt has a few million.

I bought Half-Life 2 via Steam. It downloaded fine. Works great. I even
copied it to another machine here and it works fine there too. No CDs
involved. So am I missing something here? Steam seems to work pretty well.
I understand the problem where people bought HL2 at the store and that first
day was problematic. Stardock Central doesn't have that level of validation
of the CD version but that doesn't seem like a problem inherent to Steam but
rather a single bad incident one
suspects.

So what I want to know is why is there all this angst about Steam and what
do we need to do to avoid that with Stardock Central? Or have we already
done something different in Stardock Central that isn't raising these
concerns? Because in March Galactic Civilizations II goes into beta
(distributed via Stardock Central) and the last thing we want are people mad
at us.

Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations
http://www.stardock.com
TotalGaming.net - http://www.totalgaming.net
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:44:32 -0500, "Brad Wardell"
<bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote:

>Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.
>
>Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that bugs
>you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving more and
>more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
>TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).

Brad, it's not being able to get the stuff online that's the problem,
it's the way that Steam takes over your computer and forces you to
load it and forces you to connect every time and basically makes ALL
the determination about how you are required to use your own computer,
just because you want to play one lousy game.

--
Rob Berryhill
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Brad Wardell wrote:
<snip>
> The system *seems* to work very well but we've only got ~300,000
> users using Stardock Central whereas Steam no doubt has a few
million.
<snip>

No, it does not work very well for the end user. Stardock Central is
freaking nightmare. It's slow, it's buggy, it's a pain in the ass,
everytime you want to load it up it seems like it has to spend an hour
downloading a new version of it. It also is apparently spyware, as it
installs itself in the startup menu of things that are run
automatically when Windows boots.

As someone who only plays Galactic Civilization (and from the cd-rom I
bought), I have no use for any of the other features of Stardock,
other than just getting patches for it. But you've made it seemingly
impossible to get patches or check on them without using the damn
thing.

Stardock Central is basically different than Steam. Rather than simply
updating a web page with various info on it, Stardock central seems to
be your own version of a web browswer that only connects to Stardock.
I simply don't understand the point of it, other than to piss off
people like me.

Though it's not nearly as bad or as intrusive as steam.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:44:32 -0500, "Brad Wardell"
<bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote:

>Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.

Just killfile the two or three idiots that rant insanely about it and
all the imagined scary stuff disappears.
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:44:32 -0500, "Brad Wardell"
<bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote:

>So what I want to know is why is there all this angst about Steam and what
>do we need to do to avoid that with Stardock Central?

Easy: don't get big. The bigger you are, the more likely you are to
attract idiots who will post trollish rants about how terrible you
are. There's only a couple of people who are making all the noise
about Steam. Its just that they seem to spend about 12 hours/day
searching for any post related to Steam and posting a bunch of
nonsense as a follow-up. Just ignore them

On another note, an actual criticism of Steam: Steam seems to be
rather slow and inefficient. It could easily do with a good deal of
optimization. If you're going to make a steam-like application, try
to make it a bit faster/more memory efficient. Thank you :)
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

drocket wrote:

> On another note, an actual criticism of Steam: Steam seems to be
> rather slow and inefficient. It could easily do with a good deal of
> optimization. If you're going to make a steam-like application, try
> to make it a bit faster/more memory efficient. Thank you :)

I was looking and Steam is usually eating around 20mb and whilst playing
online about 5% CPU....I'm not sure what it needs, but that seems a
little high ;-)
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Brad Wardell wrote:
> Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.
>
> Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that bugs
> you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving more and
> more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
> TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).
>
> You may recall that we released Galactic Civilizations in 2003 via Stardock
> Central. It worked as follows:
>
> 1) User buys the game at either:
> a) The store
> b) Direct from www.galciv.com
> c) Buys a Drengin.net (later renamed TotalGaming.net) subscription.
>
> 2) They then:
> a) Store user installs the game from CD or could even toss out the CD if
> they wanted and just use the serial # to download the full game or updates
> from Stardock Central.
> b) The direct electronic buyer just downloads the game via Stardock
> Central onto their computer.
> c) TotalGaming.net subscriber downloads it, like their other games that
> are part of TG.net and plays it.
>
> Similarly, The Political Machine, published by Ubi Soft, is similar (though
> not quite the same because Ubi Soft didn't include serial #'s in the box).
> But a user can buy The Political Machine from politicalmachine.com and
> install/download it from Stardock Central.
>
> Once it's on your machine, you can use the built in features to back it up
> to CD and put onto other machines (non-net connected ones for instance so
> you can, for example, play Galactic Civilizations on your laptop on the
> plane).
>
> The system *seems* to work very well but we've only got ~300,000 users using
> Stardock Central whereas Steam no doubt has a few million.
>
> I bought Half-Life 2 via Steam. It downloaded fine. Works great. I even
> copied it to another machine here and it works fine there too. No CDs
> involved. So am I missing something here? Steam seems to work pretty well.
> I understand the problem where people bought HL2 at the store and that first
> day was problematic. Stardock Central doesn't have that level of validation
> of the CD version but that doesn't seem like a problem inherent to Steam but
> rather a single bad incident one
> suspects.
>
> So what I want to know is why is there all this angst about Steam and what
> do we need to do to avoid that with Stardock Central? Or have we already
> done something different in Stardock Central that isn't raising these
> concerns? Because in March Galactic Civilizations II goes into beta
> (distributed via Stardock Central) and the last thing we want are people mad
> at us.
>
> Brad
> --
> Brad Wardell
> Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations
> http://www.stardock.com
> TotalGaming.net - http://www.totalgaming.net
>
>

No difference except maybe your point about number of units shifted and
the fact that this is the first time for a SP FPS. Dont know if you
have done everything differently but as you have Steam you'd be better
placed to answer that one. Good luck with the game. No matter what you
do you will always have some people mad at you.

BTW - this free advertising is pretty good eh?

--
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Brad Wardell" <bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote in message
news:6KidnSI2Ms-4WXfcRVn-1Q@comcast.com...
> Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.
>
> Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that
> bugs you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving
> more and more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
> TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).
>
> You may recall that we released Galactic Civilizations in 2003 via
> Stardock Central. It worked as follows:
>
> 1) User buys the game at either:
> a) The store
> b) Direct from www.galciv.com
> c) Buys a Drengin.net (later renamed TotalGaming.net) subscription.
>
> 2) They then:
> a) Store user installs the game from CD or could even toss out the CD
> if they wanted and just use the serial # to download the full game or
> updates from Stardock Central.
> b) The direct electronic buyer just downloads the game via Stardock
> Central onto their computer.
> c) TotalGaming.net subscriber downloads it, like their other games that
> are part of TG.net and plays it.
>
> Similarly, The Political Machine, published by Ubi Soft, is similar
> (though not quite the same because Ubi Soft didn't include serial #'s in
> the box). But a user can buy The Political Machine from
> politicalmachine.com and install/download it from Stardock Central.
>
> Once it's on your machine, you can use the built in features to back it up
> to CD and put onto other machines (non-net connected ones for instance so
> you can, for example, play Galactic Civilizations on your laptop on the
> plane).
>
> The system *seems* to work very well but we've only got ~300,000 users
> using Stardock Central whereas Steam no doubt has a few million.
>
> I bought Half-Life 2 via Steam. It downloaded fine. Works great. I even
> copied it to another machine here and it works fine there too. No CDs
> involved. So am I missing something here? Steam seems to work pretty
> well. I understand the problem where people bought HL2 at the store and
> that first day was problematic. Stardock Central doesn't have that level
> of validation of the CD version but that doesn't seem like a problem
> inherent to Steam but rather a single bad incident one
> suspects.
>
> So what I want to know is why is there all this angst about Steam and what
> do we need to do to avoid that with Stardock Central? Or have we already
> done something different in Stardock Central that isn't raising these
> concerns? Because in March Galactic Civilizations II goes into beta
> (distributed via Stardock Central) and the last thing we want are people
> mad at us.
>
> Brad
> --
> Brad Wardell
> Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations
> http://www.stardock.com
> TotalGaming.net - http://www.totalgaming.net

Steam is disliked becauase;

1) If you buy the game it can take hours to subsequently validate it online.
Apart from the fact that time is literally priceless, on a dialup connection
this can be both frustrating and expensive.

If a game is single player, you should not have to go through this. You
should not have to pay to allow you to play a legally purchased game - no
matter whom you have to pay to do this (i.e. your dialup ISP). Valve
"misjudged" the number of servers needed for this - strange as they knew how
many CDs had been pressed and how many copies had been downloaded?

2) All of your Valve games are tied into your Steam account. You cannot
sell one without the others. It does - to be fair - seem unlikely that you
would want to sell HL2 if you liked HL1, but it is the principal that is
important here.

3) There are worries about what happens to HL2 if Valve go bump. However
unlikely this is, people said that about Enron and Marconi and they did.
Although the need to reconnect after a month or so - despite specifying
offline mode - was cited as a bug, it eroded the already low confidence in
Valve and leads to suspicions that they want you to be forced to connect
every so often - "just in case".

4) A valid point brought up recently - you have to install the latest patch,
no matter what. This brings to mind Tribes2 - a pretty much online only
game which went through many patches. There was a point when a patch made
the game too unstable and the DEVS advised people to "roll back" to a
different one. This is also important if you have a LAN game and everyone
is on different versions. Sure, this may seem like a small point to those
unaffected by it, but if you have legally purchased the game, why should you
be forced down *any* route? If you are at a LAN party where this is an
issue, then it is a BIG issue, believe me!

Bottom line is that, Valve are selling you what is admittedly a fantastic
FPS, then tying you in. As many people have commented, Steam is a good
idea, badly executed.

Finally, at least Valve do seem to have the gamer in mind to an extent.
Their anti-piracy and anti-cheat principals seem to have failed, but I have
never received any Spam, or had any suspicion that they are abusing Steam
for other reasons - i.e. marketing. I think that, for 80% of gamers (no
idea where I got that from!), Steam is a convenient and efficient system for
running Valve games. It is certainly easier to run Mods from Steam than
before if nothing else!

For the 20% left, this is a serious issue and should not be overlooked by
other Devs. I think the principal of Steam could be developed, if the above
criticisms are addressed...

Regards

Schrodinger
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

In article <6KidnSI2Ms-4WXfcRVn-1Q@comcast.com>,
Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote:
>Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.
>
>Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that bugs
>you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving more and
>more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
>TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).

The main reason I won't be buying HL2 would be that once I have paid
money for the game and acquired the media, I don't want to need to
rely upon the continued good will (and existence) of the game
publisher/developer in order to install and/or play the game.

Steam is somewhat of a different case, in my mind, from the Stardock
system. Since in practice I would be buying HL2 in a store, needing to
be online while installing the game is an added, unnecessary,
complication. The Stardock games I have, I needed to be online in the
first place to obtain the actual game so this represented no added
complexity in installation. If I had bought GalCiv in a store and
found that I couldn't install it off-line I would get upset.

I am also wary of this whole CD-code system that gets checked against
a centralized database of good and bad codes. It adds another
unnecessary (for me) level of complexity that increases the risk of me
getting into some sort of trouble trying to use the game. PC gaming is
sufficiently frought with risks as it is - I don't need one more.

What this all sums up to is that HL2 is a no-go for me because of the
added inconvenience and the additional risks.

That said, I should add that I have lately been moving away from PC
gaming because of other common inconveniences. I may be more sensitive
to such issues than most people.

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Brad Wardell" <bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote in message
news:6KidnSI2Ms-4WXfcRVn-1Q@comcast.com...
> Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.
>
> Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that
bugs
> you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving more
and
> more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
> TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).
>
<large snippage>
>
> So what I want to know is why is there all this angst about Steam and what
> do we need to do to avoid that with Stardock Central? Or have we already
> done something different in Stardock Central that isn't raising these
> concerns? Because in March Galactic Civilizations II goes into beta
> (distributed via Stardock Central) and the last thing we want are people
mad
> at us.
>

I have avoiding reading the various Steam threads, so all I can give you is
my personal opinion. I don't know if any of this is related to what the
complaints about Steam are or not. I bought Galactic Civilizations and had
no quarrel with registering it via an internet connection. I would have a
quarrel if I was required to connect and re-register or verify registration
every time I wanted to play a session. I am also the kind of person who has
a relatively small number of "favorites" that I have carried over from one
machine to the next. I would be concerned that a "constant contact"
registration system would not handle that, or handle my changing ISPs. A
"constant contact" registration system also does not account for the fact
that there is a large percentage of computer users who do NOT have, or even
want, internet connections. For them the old standby of the mail-in
registration card needs to be kept.

--
Multiversal Mercenaries. You name it, we kill it. Any time, any reality.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Schrodinger" <no@way.com> wrote in message
news:H6AGd.866203$O24.126422@news.easynews.com...
>
> Steam is disliked becauase;
>
> 1) If you buy the game it can take hours to subsequently validate it
online.
> Apart from the fact that time is literally priceless, on a dialup
connection
> this can be both frustrating and expensive.
>
> If a game is single player, you should not have to go through this. You
> should not have to pay to allow you to play a legally purchased game - no
> matter whom you have to pay to do this (i.e. your dialup ISP). Valve
> "misjudged" the number of servers needed for this - strange as they knew
how
> many CDs had been pressed and how many copies had been downloaded?
>
> 2) All of your Valve games are tied into your Steam account. You cannot
> sell one without the others. It does - to be fair - seem unlikely that
you
> would want to sell HL2 if you liked HL1, but it is the principal that is
> important here.
>
> 3) There are worries about what happens to HL2 if Valve go bump. However
> unlikely this is, people said that about Enron and Marconi and they did.
> Although the need to reconnect after a month or so - despite specifying
> offline mode - was cited as a bug, it eroded the already low confidence in
> Valve and leads to suspicions that they want you to be forced to connect
> every so often - "just in case".
>
> 4) A valid point brought up recently - you have to install the latest
patch,
> no matter what. This brings to mind Tribes2 - a pretty much online only
> game which went through many patches. There was a point when a patch made
> the game too unstable and the DEVS advised people to "roll back" to a
> different one. This is also important if you have a LAN game and everyone
> is on different versions. Sure, this may seem like a small point to those
> unaffected by it, but if you have legally purchased the game, why should
you
> be forced down *any* route? If you are at a LAN party where this is an
> issue, then it is a BIG issue, believe me!
>
> Bottom line is that, Valve are selling you what is admittedly a fantastic
> FPS, then tying you in. As many people have commented, Steam is a good
> idea, badly executed.
>
> Finally, at least Valve do seem to have the gamer in mind to an extent.
> Their anti-piracy and anti-cheat principals seem to have failed, but I
have
> never received any Spam, or had any suspicion that they are abusing Steam
> for other reasons - i.e. marketing. I think that, for 80% of gamers (no
> idea where I got that from!), Steam is a convenient and efficient system
for
> running Valve games. It is certainly easier to run Mods from Steam than
> before if nothing else!
>
> For the 20% left, this is a serious issue and should not be overlooked by
> other Devs. I think the principal of Steam could be developed, if the
above
> criticisms are addressed...
>
> Regards
>
> Schrodinger

Thank you for summing it all up so nicely. There are legitimate
concerns about steam, and from what I can tell Stardock doesn't
have any of these issues. I haven't bought any games through them
so I can't say for sure, but it doesn't seem anywhere bad as steam
and I have no problem with how Brad has his setup.

Jim
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

>Brad

Um. Well, that was all a very good question.

But, really:

Brad: good.
Big company: bad.

C//
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"James Gassaway" <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:aPAGd.2230$m31.27986@typhoon.sonic.net...
> "Brad Wardell" <bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote in message
> news:6KidnSI2Ms-4WXfcRVn-1Q@comcast.com...
>> Okay guys, this anti-Steam stuff is starting to scare me.
>>
>> Can someone put together a concise list of what it is about Steam that
> bugs
>> you? The reason I ask is that, as time goes on, Stardock is moving more
> and
>> more stuff to Stardock Central. That's what we use to deliver
>> TotalGaming.net games to people (http://www.totalgaming.net).
>>
> <large snippage>
>>
>> So what I want to know is why is there all this angst about Steam and
>> what
>> do we need to do to avoid that with Stardock Central? Or have we already
>> done something different in Stardock Central that isn't raising these
>> concerns? Because in March Galactic Civilizations II goes into beta
>> (distributed via Stardock Central) and the last thing we want are people
> mad
>> at us.
>>
>
> I have avoiding reading the various Steam threads, so all I can give you
> is
> my personal opinion. I don't know if any of this is related to what the
> complaints about Steam are or not. I bought Galactic Civilizations and
> had
> no quarrel with registering it via an internet connection. I would have a
> quarrel if I was required to connect and re-register or verify
> registration
> every time I wanted to play a session. I am also the kind of person who
> has
> a relatively small number of "favorites" that I have carried over from one
> machine to the next. I would be concerned that a "constant contact"
> registration system would not handle that, or handle my changing ISPs.

>A "constant contact" registration system also does not account for the fact
> that there is a large percentage of computer users who do NOT have, or
> even
> want, internet connections. For them the old standby of the mail-in
> registration card needs to be kept.

Mail in registration cards have always been useless from a consumer point of
view - at least as far as the UK is concerned. Your consumer rights have
not been enhanced one iota by returning them - and the company concerned has
a load more data they can sell and/or use about you in return for asking
them to honour their legal obligations.

I think I'm getting bolshei in my mid age...


> --
> Multiversal Mercenaries. You name it, we kill it. Any time, any reality.
>
 
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"Schrodinger" <no@way.com> skrev i meddelelsen
news:H6AGd.866203$O24.126422@news.easynews.com:

> 1) If you buy the game it can take hours to subsequently validate it
> online.

Get rid of your old 1200 baud modem. ;-)

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm
 
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"Schrodinger" <no@way.com> skrev i meddelelsen
news😀rBGd.869813$2W1.66990@news.easynews.com:

> I think I'm getting bolshei in my mid age...

OT: How's your cat doing these days?

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

>>Brad
>
> Um. Well, that was all a very good question.
>
> But, really:
>
> Brad: good.
> Big company: bad.

Urgghhh. Sickening.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Arcana Dragon" <this@ress.is.invalid> wrote in message
news:41eae655$0$250$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk...
> "Schrodinger" <no@way.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:H6AGd.866203$O24.126422@news.easynews.com:
>
>> 1) If you buy the game it can take hours to subsequently validate it
>> online.
>
> Get rid of your old 1200 baud modem. ;-)
>
> --
> Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-

I'm back on my 1Mb broadband now, but at the time had to endure 56k dialup
thanks to my ISP cocking up bigtime.

I was disappointed to learn that it was not necessarily because of my
antediluvian methods of net connection that it took so long to validate
HL2....
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Arcana Dragon" <this@ress.is.invalid> wrote in message
news:41eae6be$0$250$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk...
> "Schrodinger" <no@way.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> news😀rBGd.869813$2W1.66990@news.easynews.com:
>
>> I think I'm getting bolshei in my mid age...
>
> OT: How's your cat doing these days?
>
> --
> Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-

Dunno, I keep meaning to open the box - but the suspense keeps me awake....
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

> Brad, it's not being able to get the stuff online that's the problem,
> it's the way that Steam takes over your computer and forces you to
> load it and forces you to connect every time and basically makes ALL
> the determination about how you are required to use your own computer,
> just because you want to play one lousy game.

You got that ?
It takes over your computer and turns the user into a dribbling paranoid
lunatic.
All for one lousy game.
That's all the proof you should need, Bradley, old chum. Off you go now.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Arcana Dragon" <this@ress.is.invalid> wrote in message
news:41eae655$0$250$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk...
> "Schrodinger" <no@way.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:H6AGd.866203$O24.126422@news.easynews.com:
>
> > 1) If you buy the game it can take hours to subsequently validate it
> > online.
>
> Get rid of your old 1200 baud modem. ;-)

On release day it was taking people hours even with broadband.
It was like an MMORPG launch, with tens of thousands (or more)
trying to login at same time. And all for nothing, since steam did
nothing to stop or slow piracy. *nothing*
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Jeremy Reaban wrote:
> Brad Wardell wrote:
> <snip>
>> The system *seems* to work very well but we've only got ~300,000
>> users using Stardock Central whereas Steam no doubt has a few
> million.
> <snip>
>
> No, it does not work very well for the end user. Stardock Central is
> freaking nightmare. It's slow, it's buggy, it's a pain in the ass,
> everytime you want to load it up it seems like it has to spend an
hour
> downloading a new version of it. It also is apparently spyware, as
it
> installs itself in the startup menu of things that are run
> automatically when Windows boots.
<snip>

Oh, and I forgot, it screws up the windows toolbar, so I have to
reboot after running it.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

>> Um. Well, that was all a very good question.

>> But, really:

>> Brad: good.
>> Big company: bad.

>Urgghhh. Sickening.

Yes, now isn't it?

C//
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"James Garvin" <jgarvin2004@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:6f2dneeh87eDanfcRVn-3A@comcast.com...
> drocket wrote:
>
> > On another note, an actual criticism of Steam: Steam seems to be
> > rather slow and inefficient. It could easily do with a good deal of
> > optimization. If you're going to make a steam-like application, try
> > to make it a bit faster/more memory efficient. Thank you :)
>
> I was looking and Steam is usually eating around 20mb and whilst playing
> online about 5% CPU....I'm not sure what it needs, but that seems a
> little high ;-)

Especially so to people like me with on older board not worth putting
more memory on (at 512), when I'm upgrading in a few months, and
trying to play with high textures. I get major texture thrashing, even
though my system handles them pretty well otherwise as far as frame
rates. I really wish it didn't need to be there at all in offline mode.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Jim Vieira wrote:

> "James Garvin" <jgarvin2004@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:6f2dneeh87eDanfcRVn-3A@comcast.com...
>
>>drocket wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On another note, an actual criticism of Steam: Steam seems to be
>>>rather slow and inefficient. It could easily do with a good deal of
>>>optimization. If you're going to make a steam-like application, try
>>>to make it a bit faster/more memory efficient. Thank you :)
>>
>>I was looking and Steam is usually eating around 20mb and whilst playing
>>online about 5% CPU....I'm not sure what it needs, but that seems a
>>little high ;-)
>
>
> Especially so to people like me with on older board not worth putting
> more memory on (at 512), when I'm upgrading in a few months, and
> trying to play with high textures. I get major texture thrashing, even
> though my system handles them pretty well otherwise as far as frame
> rates. I really wish it didn't need to be there at all in offline mode.

I just checked...in offline mode it takes about 20mb memory and usually
is around 1% CPU....

My guess it that it is some kind of handler for various things that
usually are online...but in offline it still acts as the handler, but
doesn't need the cycles to actually do anything...
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com.remove> wrote:
>Once it's on your machine, you can use the built in features to back it up
>to CD and put onto other machines (non-net connected ones for instance so
>you can, for example, play Galactic Civilizations on your laptop on the
>plane).

There are two problems that people have with Half Life 2 that I don't
believe Galactic Civilizations has.

The first is that HL2 requires online activation similar to Microsoft's
Windows Product Activation. Unlike with WPA it can only be done online,
it can't be done over the phone. This means that HL2 can't be played
on PCs that can never connect to the Internet. It also means that Valve
has the power to arbitrially prevent you from installing software you've
legally purchased. They might think you've pirated the software when
you haven't, and one day eventually they're going to stop supportting
the product. Like WPA, the activation process only has to be done once
when you install the game. After you've completed it successfully you no
longer need access to the Internet to play the game in single player mode.

The second is that HL2 will try to connect to Steam whenever you play
the game, even in single player mode. While failing to connect won't
prevent you from playing the game in single player mode, it does mean
that if your PC is normally connected to the Internet then Valve will
be notified every time you play the game.

(I should point that both problems can be worked around, using a crack
and a firewall respectively, but these "features" don't add value for
consumers.)

It's important to note that Steam is not being seen here as a way to buy
games online, it's seen as primarily being an anti-piracy technology.
While buying HL2 using Steam may not be the most popular way of obtaining
the game, it's an uncontroversial aspect of Steam. Unfortunately for
Valve, the negatives aspects of Steam will taint peoples overall view
of the technology, and won't do anything to encourage them to use Steam
to buy games. You might want to publicize the differences between Steam
and Stardock, in case people come to see them as being too similar.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/rridge/
db //
 
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