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Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium
join:2002-12-05
Mullica Hill, NJ
clubs:
 ·Comcast
| get a clue
most steam haters are ignorant of the future. ive been saying this since steam 1st debuted with the CS 1.6 beta: STEAM is the future of software distrubution.
sure youd benefit from a broadband connection, but what OTHER internet protocol/platform WOULDNT benefit from broadband??? BBR linked a news article this week stating that 67ish% of Americans are online, while 50% of them are on broadband. thats more than enough market share (especially considering most gamers have had broadband for a while) to cater to broadband-only content. and STEAM still works with dialup anyway. (dialup users can always purchase the retail games, or DL via steam once and backup everything to DVD/CDROM/HDD and only worry about updates instead of the 5gig+ full downloads every time)hell, LOTS of other companies, sites, even PC GAMES now REQUIRE broadband. i feel for those on dialup, but the world moves on whether you're trotting along-side or not.
as it is with most issues, there are those that fully understand and those that don't want to. STEAM had a rocky start, Friends currently doesnt work (getting fixed in STEAM v3 which is slowly being implemented into every client), but it's been pretty solid since. it was the 1st major distributed software network launch and OF COURSE it would have bugs.
and yes, valve has the ability to throttle their bandwidth "on the fly" as they said. they puchased more for the DoD:S launch but i'm 100% positive they could add more if need be with minimal impact on players. and if you've preloaded DoD:S already, why do you care??
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Somnambulator - t3h 5133pw41k3r
The Common Grounds | |
tapeloop
Light, sweet triceratops.
Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
|  For a sleepwalker, you're pretty alert somnam. 
Yes, I remember the initial days of Steam back when WON was still up. Steam was buggy and crashed more than Windows ME. But in those couple of years Valve has brought Steam a LONG way and I really enjoy it. It's nice not having to wait in a queue on Gamespy every time I want to d/l a patch...
And the lack of a CD? So what? Most gamers buy titles for online play anyway, and if even if they didn't, they can get the CD version retail. I'm not sure if it's the same with DoD.
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Copyright infringement is illegal. Murder is illegal. Therefore, file sharing is murder. | |
ablack6596
join:2005-01-28
Scarsdale, NY | The fact that you go to Fileplanet for every patch discredits your entire post. There are plenty of sites you can download from just as fast or faster without waiting or waiting for a lot less than the at least 45 minute waits fileplanet has. | |
tapeloop
Light, sweet triceratops.
Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
| said by ablack6596  :The fact that you go to Fileplanet for every patch discredits your entire post. There are plenty of sites you can download from just as fast or faster without waiting or waiting for a lot less than the at least 45 minute waits fileplanet has. Gee, nice that my entire post's credibility hinges whether or not I d/l from Fileplanet. 
Those sites that you speak of where you don't have to wait? Yeah, you have to pay a subscription fee for most of them. And the ones that don't, well, it's easier just having my game patch itself rather than doing the leg work to get the patch. 'nuff said.
Nice try at the straw man technique though.
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Copyright infringement is illegal. Murder is illegal. Therefore, file sharing is murder. | |
ablack6596
join:2005-01-28
Scarsdale, NY
edit:
September 24th, @10:20AM
| reply to Somnambul33t
Yes many of them want you to pay a fee, but you aren't forced to. For example Fileshack.com. Fileshack has waits, but I've never seen them over 2 minutes. 3Dgamers has no waits, and is extremely fast if you have a free account. Then there are millions of other websites for game downloads.
Your post is bad, because you're comparing one of the worst places to get game files to Steam. Fileplanet is fine if you have an account, but otherwise it's just insane. I haven't seen Fileplanet have a smaller line than 30 minutes in a long time.
I'll agree that Steam can make it simpler, especially if you don't feel like keeping up on news about your game. However I don't think it's worth it to not be able to play when Steam is down, or your internet connection is. (This has happened to me twice. Once I couldn't play because Steam was screwed up and not letting certain accounts on, and a second time because my internet was out and it wouldn't let me play HL2, a SP game, without first going online and choosing to make it not need to go online.)
Also with the lack of the CD. If you buy a Valve game retail you still can't play if anything ever happens to Valve or Steam. You're required to unlock it by going on Steam. The only way to really get a disk with the game is to download it illegally. | |
Vvian Kalyss
join:2003-10-14
Stage 5.0
clubs: | ...you could probably argue that having bought a copy from Steam (that now does not work), you're entitled to get yourself a backup.
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Mikami Vvian, resident Girlfriend of Steel, care of the Tokyo-3 Middle Daughters Club | |
tapeloop
Light, sweet triceratops.
Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
| reply to ablack6596
said by ablack6596 :Yes many of them want you to pay a fee, but you aren't forced to. For example Fileshack.com. Fileshack has waits, but I've never seen them over 2 minutes. 3Dgamers has no waits, and is extremely fast if you have a free account. Then there are millions of other websites for game downloads. Your post is bad, because you're comparing one of the worst places to get game files to Steam. Fileplanet is fine if you have an account, but otherwise it's just insane. I haven't seen Fileplanet have a smaller line than 30 minutes in a long time. I just pulled Gamespy/Fileplanet out as the first e.g. I can think of...guess you can't get rid of the fixation eh? Fileshack, 3dGamer, Gamecloud, and even sometimes Torrent can also be used for d/ls, true. I use GameCloud now to get other games' patches and non-Steam mods...granted I have a subscription for those guys.
IMO, Steam wins when it comes down to Steam vs. d/ling patches via 3rd party sites, even the fast no-wait ones. It's a case of find servers, can't find many, try to log on to ones I do find, get "you need to update" error message, exit game, go to website, go another website, download, patch, find servers, play (BF1942 w/Punkbuster comes to mind.); versus open Steam, get patch, find servers, play.
I'll agree that Steam can make it simpler, especially if you don't feel like keeping up on news about your game. However I don't think it's worth it to not be able to play when Steam is down, or your internet connection is. (This has happened to me twice. Once I couldn't play because Steam was screwed up and not letting certain accounts on, and a second time because my internet was out and it wouldn't let me play HL2, a SP game, without first going online and choosing to make it not need to go online.)
Also with the lack of the CD. If you buy a Valve game retail you still can't play if anything ever happens to Valve or Steam. You're required to unlock it by going on Steam. The only way to really get a disk with the game is to download it illegally.
Maybe these are issues for Macs, but:
a)if Steam or your internet is down, you can still play in offline mode. My net was down for a few days when my router died, but I was still playing HL2 single player. Granted, you do still have to validate the first time--after that the backups work. Obviously you're not going to be playing much of any online game if your internet is down.
b)Again, with DoD I don't know for sure, but you can easily get CDs of HL2&CS:S without d/ling them illegaly. Available at just about anyplace that retails PC games, look around.
c)Steam hasn't gone down for me or any of my online friends since HL2 has come out. (This is not to say it's completely bug-free.)
Not even mentioning that Valve benefits from not having to distribute their own software instead of having to go through [insert game distributor here]--but that's more Valve's bottom line than us gamers. 
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Copyright infringement is illegal. Murder is illegal. Therefore, file sharing is murder. | |
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