I know- this Big Brother-ish Steam thing is overkill. I don't use it but a colleague of mine said he'd lend me the new counterstrike, but all I need is the key as the game is downloaded from Valve- then every time I try to play any of their games, even Single-player, it logs into their website to see if I'm legit??? Get over yourselves, Valve!
Yeah I was browsing through their forums when I was having those crashing issues at first. Some guy went to a Lan Party, someone somehow got his login information and I don't know what he did to his account. But when the original owner tried loging in to his account he couldn't get access, it wasn't until after he sent in a request to find out why he couldn't login that they CLOSED his account for pirated activity. My memory is vague but I do know that you don't send in a request if you're pirating... seems counter productive. So he got into contact with them further and they refused to reopen his account becuase of the pirate like activity.
WTF!? To go further it possibly wasn't even that someone at his lan party got ahold of his password, becuase the IP they logged it on was from Sweden or someplace not in America(which he is from). So, if you got hacked, or if they hacked Vavle or Steam and got some passwords... your SOL if they fool with it. On top of that NOT once did an admin reply to his requests there after. I haven't looked at it recently though.
The most steam has been down is about 5 hours and that was under a heavy dos attack about 10 months ago. The steam content server can become full, but only within the first 1 hour of a major patch, like released last night, and usually you can get the update anyway(I got mine about 20 minutes after the patch was released) And they always keep about 1 Gb's for auxillary backups and about 1 Gb's for logins.
Now WON, erk I remember when that went down for 3 days
And there always offline mode.
And about the acount thing, valve gets loads of "my key got stolen" "my freind used hacks" 9 times out of 10 it's BS on the posters part, and the other 1 time, well, it's not up to valve to secure your computer and im under the mentality if you didnt secure your computer or your account let that be a harsh lesson to you.
I have seen it where valve has made a mistake on their part and they have always come onto the steampowered forums and corrected the posters issue personally.
as for valve killing the account.. IF you can prove that the cd key is legitimately yours through photos of your cd's with the key, I dont see why they cant just issue you another key. I can understand valve wanting to thwart piracy but there are limits and sometimes they take it a bit far.. I paid my 50 bucks, I should not have to pay another 50 because something was stolen from me when I can prove ownership.
It's too bad that I won't support valve or their games because of crap like this. Instead of losing money because of pirating, now they have lost a potential customer due to lack of wanting to hastle with it. Good Job, Jackasses... Hope your next fiscal year gives you an f'n clue...
I don't understand how you can't play without steam - go to offline mode.
I have my own legit copy of half-life on three seperate machines depending on where I want to play the game - one of those machines is heavily firewalled from the internet and I only allow steam to connect when there is a patch, other than that steam is never connected and I can play all games with no issues.
I think you need to look at the offline mode settings of your games, I think the misinformation about steam "checking to ssee if your legit every time you play" rumour needs to be squashed, it's just not true.
I like steam, it causes me zero issues regardelss if it is up or not.
the other issue - the identity theft is a third hand story, you can not tell me if it is really true or not, the forums are full of "I know someone that this happened to and Valve said this to them" and suddenly it's fact, the rubbish I read about people who blame steam and valve for problems they have often caused themselves.
You can play in offline mode if you're trying to play Cpunter Strike against other people ONLINE?
Ohh and the ones I have seen have been first hand, as in they get pretty offencive when someone comes in flaming them becuase they didn't have any issues. What I find hiliarious is that it is those same people who bitch and moan when in another game they DO have an issue and get pissed when everyone is flaming them becuase they have no problems. One big circle, and everyone just needs to shut up if all they have to say is a stupid excuse of a flame. And no that was not pointed at anyone here.
Well, it's all about experiences with a product, some people hate IE some hate mozilla yada yada.
I have had only good experiences with valve and valve games, they put out a great deal of support for the SDK(currently about 4 active valve developers on a maling list im on) And they are all nice guys, but their timing sucks :P And the community that they foster the majority is unfortuneatly(argh spelling tired) in the mental age category of 14.
Not aimed at anyone here
I suggest if you are unsure about steam, just pickup your old HL cd key and see how it goes, very few people actualy have problems with steam. There are instances where valve ****s up a patch but they usually fix it the same day, more then can be said for a publisher like EA*cough BFV M16 EXPLOIT*cough* And I can guarentee you are gonna start loving steam when they actually start putting quality mods ON the steam backbone so the lazy people like me just click download sven coop or NS and tada it's done.
On a separate note, I played on a new map today.... a kind of euro setting with cottages and stuff.....or something LOOKED FANTASTIC I was so utterly amazed I was killed twice in a row while starring at the scenery.
My biggest issue with Steam is that you cannot switch to offline mode without first logging into steam. If your internet goes down, and you want to play single player in offline mode, you simply cannot do it.
My biggest issue with Steam is that you cannot switch to offline mode without first logging into steam. If your internet goes down, and you want to play single player in offline mode, you simply cannot do it.
I just disconnected my PC entirely from the network here at home and tried starting Steam. As soon as it tried to connect, it asked me if I'd like to play in offline mode. As soon as I selected it I was able to load up Half Life 2 just fine, and I'm sure the other games would work as well.
I guess this is what we get for people (not just ourselves) from pirating games. Personally, Steam hasn't given me any problems, and if it did go down for an hour or more because of a DOS attack, or because the servers are overloaded with download requests then I sit tight and shut up. Bitching and moaning about it isn't going to make things any better. In fact, this sort of stuff is probably here to stay, so get used to it.
Comments
WTF!? To go further it possibly wasn't even that someone at his lan party got ahold of his password, becuase the IP they logged it on was from Sweden or someplace not in America(which he is from). So, if you got hacked, or if they hacked Vavle or Steam and got some passwords... your SOL if they fool with it. On top of that NOT once did an admin reply to his requests there after. I haven't looked at it recently though.
Now WON, erk I remember when that went down for 3 days
And there always offline mode.
And about the acount thing, valve gets loads of "my key got stolen" "my freind used hacks" 9 times out of 10 it's BS on the posters part, and the other 1 time, well, it's not up to valve to secure your computer and im under the mentality if you didnt secure your computer or your account let that be a harsh lesson to you.
I have seen it where valve has made a mistake on their part and they have always come onto the steampowered forums and corrected the posters issue personally.
I have my own legit copy of half-life on three seperate machines depending on where I want to play the game - one of those machines is heavily firewalled from the internet and I only allow steam to connect when there is a patch, other than that steam is never connected and I can play all games with no issues.
I think you need to look at the offline mode settings of your games, I think the misinformation about steam "checking to ssee if your legit every time you play" rumour needs to be squashed, it's just not true.
I like steam, it causes me zero issues regardelss if it is up or not.
the other issue - the identity theft is a third hand story, you can not tell me if it is really true or not, the forums are full of "I know someone that this happened to and Valve said this to them" and suddenly it's fact, the rubbish I read about people who blame steam and valve for problems they have often caused themselves.
IMOHO
Ohh and the ones I have seen have been first hand, as in they get pretty offencive when someone comes in flaming them becuase they didn't have any issues. What I find hiliarious is that it is those same people who bitch and moan when in another game they DO have an issue and get pissed when everyone is flaming them becuase they have no problems. One big circle, and everyone just needs to shut up if all they have to say is a stupid excuse of a flame. And no that was not pointed at anyone here.
I have had only good experiences with valve and valve games, they put out a great deal of support for the SDK(currently about 4 active valve developers on a maling list im on) And they are all nice guys, but their timing sucks :P And the community that they foster the majority is unfortuneatly(argh spelling tired) in the mental age category of 14.
Not aimed at anyone here
I suggest if you are unsure about steam, just pickup your old HL cd key and see how it goes, very few people actualy have problems with steam. There are instances where valve ****s up a patch but they usually fix it the same day, more then can be said for a publisher like EA*cough BFV M16 EXPLOIT*cough* And I can guarentee you are gonna start loving steam when they actually start putting quality mods ON the steam backbone so the lazy people like me just click download sven coop or NS and tada it's done.
And on what valve has to deal with account issues.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=138796
lmao!..
I just disconnected my PC entirely from the network here at home and tried starting Steam. As soon as it tried to connect, it asked me if I'd like to play in offline mode. As soon as I selected it I was able to load up Half Life 2 just fine, and I'm sure the other games would work as well.
I guess this is what we get for people (not just ourselves) from pirating games. Personally, Steam hasn't given me any problems, and if it did go down for an hour or more because of a DOS attack, or because the servers are overloaded with download requests then I sit tight and shut up. Bitching and moaning about it isn't going to make things any better. In fact, this sort of stuff is probably here to stay, so get used to it.