Steam

Hey y'all,

I am curious if any of y'all have any experience with Steam? Now that my new netbook does not have a CD-Rom drive I am looking at a new way to download games and stuff. Steam looks rather nice and popular but I was looking for some hands on thoughts on the program before I install it. It will mainly be used to download stuff from their really good sales I have read about and a few free games they have to offer

 

steam is pretty awesome simply for it convenience and how its a centralized place to manage any games uve purchased from them, allows u to download it whenever u want, it helps to get rid of the problem with loosing ur game CD

 

IMHO,if you have the bandwidth to download their games,Steam is simply the best and most convenient way to play today's games......no scratched or DRM-infested discs anymore:forget Securom,Starforce and other protection checks that ruin your gameplay .
Wanna backup?Simply copy your Steam folder to another partition or external drive and you're set.
Corrupted backup location?Then simply redownload your purchases.....

 

I'm not much of a gamer, but I've been using Steam for the last couple of years without issue.

Like you mentioned, I'll grab a game every now and then during an awesome sale. The sale prices or so good that I don't mind paying even if I only play the game for a few days.

Bottom line, no complaints here...

 

Steam rocks. Download their application, games, and enjoy.

 

Steam is a big load of crap.

If you dont have a net connection games arent available. If its a popular game Steams servers bog down and you cant log on which makes your games unavailable. If its release day for a game Steam servers go offline for long periods of time making it impossible to download a game you have already paid for.

 

honestly how many offline games are there anymore? maybe just the quick play ones like Plants vs Zombies perhaps, but most big games are online

and personally i feel the pros outway the cons since i have yet to have any serious connection issues or anything.

 

Steam is really good.
Negative points:
1. Some games "never" (reasonable time) drop their price ( this is not only Steam's fault ).
2. Prices are still high for new releases considering they spend only bandwidth. I believe they could be more "aggressive".
3. Steam has "allowed" or does not do much to prevent a parallel market of Steam keys that often has as result a money loss or even an account loss for the user.
4. Security wise Steam seems strong although I have not seen an intense campaign to educate users to protect their accounts. Often, on Steam forums, you can see users complaining about hijacked accounts. Usually this is not a security hole but result of not "well-educated" users.
5. I have not found official infos about how long a user will own the game or for how many years Steam will support a game. Maybe I was not able to find an answer.

 

Well I have downloaded it and I must say I am liking it so far. I do not have very fast internet but thanks to Steam I can shut down my PC for the night and when I wake back up I can have Steam start the download from where I left off. That has already came in handy (yup I am on day two of downloading TrackMania). However I feel if I ever want to buy a game I will go somewhere with faster internet before I but it

 

I used Steam for a little bit and it worked very well. However you can't resell any games you purchase, so for me that was a deal breaker.

 

Few basic tips when selecting a server. Once the server results are retrieved, sort by latency in the drop-down list. And only connect to servers within your country.

For example, if I were to connect to an overseas server, sure I'd have a ping time of 400. Connect to a local server, ping time of 15.

Try Counter Strike Source. Under $20, great game, doesn't have the most intense graphics, and works well on slower connections. http://store.steampowered.com/app/240/

 

many modern games are going with account systems tied to ur serial as well as other mechanisms which making used game purchasing almost a thing of the past, there's still some games that dont do this yet, but its a growing trend.

 

My experiences with Steam are great.

Good account security;
Very responsible, customizable and "social" app;
Great download speeds;
Fast built-in Store browser with flash support;
Fast updates to fix reported bugs;
Well organized Store and Library;
Relevant news and offers;
Complete support.

I buy several games and they all work very well, online/offline.

 

Bah, steam. Its like using Live. I prefer the old school methods, from times before the consoles.

You buy the game, you go home, install it. If you reformat or have a problem, you reinstall it.

Want to sell the game, go ahead unless there is an account tied to it.

You want to play offline, go ahead.

You want to play at a LAN party, go ahead.

You want to join a dedicated server, go ahead if the game is popular enough for that. You want to host your own server, go ahead. With many you could even host dedicated from your house.

These days every game (FPS) you have to play many hours to even get all the weapons. I don't have time to play that much. Just opt me out of the idiotic ranking system, give me my weapons and let me relax for a little while for petes sake.

How about the latest and greatest, no dedicated servers. Its all peer to peer sessions. Now instead of a nice fat pipe from a dedicated server, you might be playing on some guys 256k upload pipe. Woohoo! Now thats an upgrade!

Now it seems, if you want to play some of the better titles, you must use steam. I used to go to LAN parties throught the year when time permitted. Steam games make that hard to do. It won't be long and I will have to buy a console to play games.

Yep, I sure miss the good old days of PC gaming. I am still uncertain if pirating killed it off or the industry itself with the ever hungry quest for the most eye candy - and thus they priced themselves out of the market. I can't blame people for buying a $400 gaming system instead of a $1000-2000 gaming computer, which is outdated in what, 3 years?

I think I will go back to reading up on some internal mechanism now

Sul.