 
KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·Cox HSI
 ·AT&T Southwest
edited
| Hmmm..... This is kind of interesting... sounds like a new twist on direct marketing, you buy it, it automatically downloads and installs, and updates.
Still, I'm always skeptical of not "owning" a physical item. Can you sell it? Re-use it? etc
While I see a market for this kind of distribution, I'm not a fan of the idea of "software rental" or "Monthly usage fees". We'll see how this works out...
[text was edited by author 2003-01-14 12:59:27] | |
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IronChefMoto
Premium
join:2001-02-08
Alpharetta, GA
| I tried Steam... ...a few months ago and found it to be a neat way of installing a free copy of Counter-Strike, at the time anyway. It was buggy, to say the least, but not in terms of distribution. The Steam variant of CS didn't work on many game servers -- glitches of sorts would plague gameplay. It'll be interesting to see if the world's most popular (???) online FPS can migrate to a subscription model.
Until that model comes into full play, however, I'm glad that I can always update my old copy of Half-Life with a standalone mod of Counter-Strike in lieu of the Steam service.
IronChefMorimoto | |
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NeoGeo64
Premium
join:2001-09-22
Leesburg, GA
| Re: I tried Steam... I don't know about this.
I prefer owning the physical item.
It would be a good thing, however, because all of your game saves, etc, would be in a centralized location... in case you ever needed to reinstall your OS... etc.
I still think having an actual game disc is better. | |
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AthlGrond
Premium,MVM
join:2002-04-25
Aurora, CO | I have seen this kind of licensing from Unix software vendors for years. I guess that makes it just one more thing that MS will be borrowing from Unix.  | |
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| | cableblows
join:2001-06-17
Indianapolis, IN
| not i, if i buy a cd, which i do for games and software, I own it, not MS or anyone else and i don't care what the lic. agreement says! I did try this, once, and i couldn't get a refund when i found it didn't work as promised! i am still working on it. | |
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footballdude
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO | Cost I'd go for this if it was a significant savings over buying the CD. If they price it about the same, I'd rather own the plastic. | |
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Penguins
Have You Played Atari Today?
join:2001-12-01
Cleveland, OH | Re: Cost HAHAHAH
This is capitalism son. Any decrease in cost will be absorbed as extra profit.
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Pure magic in 2k of 6502. | |
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bear73
Metnav... Fly The Unfriendly Skies
Premium
join:2001-06-09
Grand Forks Afb, ND
·Midcontinent Commu..
edited
| Re: Cost I dislike the idea of STEAM. Subscribe per month. Ummm, thanks but no. I'd rather have a CD. I wonder if anyone has thought of what it will do to anyone holding a LAN tournament. Now the folks putting on the tournament will have to have an internet connection just to play a 3 year old game.
And then there is the mod scene... how will STEAM play with mods? I enjoy being able to install all of the mods out there for just about all of the games I have. It's the mods that are the largest reason I still play games on the computer rather than a console.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-15 01:03:19] | |
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Go Chargers7
Fa Shizzle Ma Nizzle
Premium
join:2002-09-24
Huntington Beach, CA
| Upgrades yeah, original product no I wouldn't use this service for anything other than upgrades. With the rate that I upgrade, swap drives, etc, I would feel WAY more comfortable with a physical media along with the book etc. Game pricing is such that I don't mind paying what they're charging for hard copies of titles. A packaging reduction to say a DVD case would be nice, but electronic distribution of a 1GB title is a bit much. Plus, with DL limits coming fast and furious from providers like Cox, how many titles would you be permitted to purchase before getting a nasty email saying that you are using too much of their unlimited service.
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Made in America; tested in Japan. | |
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jose3030
Premium
join:1999-08-17
Manassas, VA | Re: Upgrades yeah, original product no fo realla. | |
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emcglynn
join:2000-11-05
Pelham, NH
| What the hell is Valve thinkin'? I've been sort of following this for over a year now (as an avid CS player at one time), and the only thinkg that coming to mind was..... what the hell are they thinking?
They have a best selling mega hit, and rather try and extend that franchise and improve it they branch off on some dot-com get rich scheme and let Half Life falter.
I stopped playing because I got sick of updating my server list. That can take 15-20 minutes to download 25,000+ servers. And they tell me they are going to control the game content and files? Hope they bomb big time on this one...... | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Re: What the hell is Valve thinkin'? The one thing I wonder about Valve is....what happened to making GAMES?
Other than Half-Life and that failed idea for a gaming protocol that would be more efficient (the name I forget at the moment), they're a vapourware company, sitting on Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2 for the past four years....
They did release the Gunman Chronicles and seventy five thousand variations of Half-Life...but that's it....
Seems kind of risky for a company that hasn't actually proven themselves yet. If this fails, how much effort and manpower was put into it? | |
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| | Meeble
join:2002-09-19
Champaign, IL
edited
| Re: What the hell is Valve thinkin'? you guys are missing the point, you are purchasing the right to use the software. you can go to any computer with net access - sign into steam - and play CS - the software runs off the steam server and is served to you - so you don't need CS on your machine. This is great because i use a couple computers but only one wonid will work at a time and it takes time to expire before you can sign in again. this would correct that and not make me patch every machine I have CS on.
Also - they didn't release most of those half life variations. a lot are done by independant developers.CS was made by gooseman and was independant until valve/sierra scooped it at like beta .8 because everyone and their mom was playing it
there is a transformers half life mod that was in the works but I guess has been stopped temporarily. looks good.
this steam thing isn't that great my friend has been testing it and it makes CS unplayable since most servers don't have the compatible files at the moment since they're not public.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-14 15:41:18] | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Re: What the hell is Valve thinkin'? Yeah I understand what it does....it's essentially called being an Application Service Provider, and with the exception of a few companies who are providing off-site educational software to schools, it hasn't been successful.
Partially because broadband is still only in 15-17% of the populace.
EBGames hasn't had success with their model....RealPlayer is doing ok with theirs, but they're busy selling games like Checkers and Pro-minesweeper.
My question is....like I said...Valve has plenty of massive money makers sitting there on the shelf...Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike 2....why suddenly decide to become an ASP? Seems like a big risk for a company that essentially had a road before it paved in gold... | |
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join:2002-09-19
Champaign, IL
| Re: What the hell is Valve thinkin'? studies show the first successful model in a particular business is always 20% higher revenue than anyone that comes later on. they're banking that the broadban number is jumping much higher this year [hich i agree] and their planning for the future. if steam sucks well CS condition zero comes out march 31, and from their reports you'll have to buy it to play - there's no free mod of it for previous CS owners/downloaders. | |
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Liam69
@telus.net | ur a fucking moron, u dont have to "download" 25,000+ servers, u have to set a filter so to eliminate servers that aren't responding, ones that are empty, and ones that aren't dedicated.
fucking moron | |
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| | emcglynn
join:2000-11-05
Pelham, NH | Re: What the hell is Valve thinkin'? Thanks for your input.
No, really. | |
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| | cableblows
join:2001-06-17
Indianapolis, IN
| said by Liam69:
ur a fucking moron, u dont have to "download" 25,000+ servers, u have to set a filter so to eliminate servers that aren't responding, ones that are empty, and ones that aren't dedicated.
fucking moron
you kiss your mom with that mouth? how did you get that by dsl reports to post it? play nice, not everyone knows everything. | |
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CoxCable4
banned from most servers for cheating
join:2002-10-02
PwnZone
·RoadRunner Cable
| as long as the filters are up playing tfc/cs i want to find a good server but i cant if the server is down, half the time it redirects me to a different ip, and i lose my filter and have to go through 30,000+ servers and on a cable connection even on a ds-3 that will take a while. just tell them to keep the filters up and im happy. shoot if it requires me to host it then i will have to host it. | |
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IronChefMoto
Premium
join:2001-02-08
Alpharetta, GA
edited
| Another reason for Steam -- universal cheater bans If I remember correctly, the whole WONID database system that was the back-end of Half-Life's unique multi-player identification system is being migrated OUT of Sierra, where it originated when Sierra launched Half-Life from the Valve developers. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Anyway...by migrating the WONID database system back to Valve (???), I think Valve is aiming to make a universal cheater ban possible. Get banned on a Steam-enabled server, and you don't play your game/mod on ANY other server in the Steam system. No more jumping to a server other than the one where you were banned.
I think this would only apply if the Valve Anti-Cheat system caught you, but from what I've seen, it's sort of flaky anyway, even in its near Steam format. Also, I don't know if this universal ban system would resolve the fix of hacking into the registry and entering a new WONID from a key generator or WONID list.
IronChefMorimoto
[text was edited by author 2003-01-14 15:47:15] | |
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| boatiti
join:2002-11-13
| Re: Another reason for Steam -- universal cheater bans Actually that would be a good idea to do a universal ban kind of system. I am tired of getting on the server and playing some fscking hacker with 200 ping and 60-5 score. On top of that, I once played on a server when a guy had been kicked 3 times, coming back everytime to screw the game for everyone.
And that idea is not new either, as Blizzard has this kind of system. Battle.net is free to use for everyone who purchased a copy of Warcraft II Battle.net Edition/Warcraft III/Diablo/Starcraft/etc. Plus they have ladder, global stats, etc.. great thing to make everything uniform and smooth. And of course, people who get caught cheating repeatedly (Blizzard monitors for this) have their CD keys permanently banned - the only way for them to play again is to buy another copy of the game (hee hee).
However, as some probably know this, that system is not bulletproof either, as it remains closed and tightly under Blizzard's control...people who attempted to create bnetd daemon under linux (successfuly, by reverse engineering the protocol) have faced legal issues from Blizzard and the project had to be shut down (although I believe it did receive some legal support and is now fighting back).
My point being...Universally controlled service is great..you pay a fee and you get to play on a bunch of closely monitored servers with no cheaters, with tournaments, etc... However, the use of the software outside of the subscription modem should still be allowed so people can host lan parties,etc...however, there is no guarantee as to hacking and other misuses otherwise not present in a subscription service. | |
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midlife2
Fruit Of The Loom Sucks.
join:2002-05-23
Jamestown, KY
|  banned eh
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Dime
The Original X
Premium
join:2002-05-14
Findlay, OH
edited
| ? .
[text was edited by author 2003-01-14 18:10:02] | |
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Dirk Daring
join:2000-08-03
Ashburn, VA
| So much for Adelphia on this? "Steam requires a Broadband connection. Term “broadband” refers to any Internet connection capable of sustained throughput of at least 256Kbps. We have designed it to deliver the optimum experience at 384Kbps."
Is this *upload* also? If so, forget everyone on Adelphias network who are capped at 128k (more like 100k).
Dirk | |
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Night007
Premium
join:2001-12-29
Vineland, NJ |  The Requirement?
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| tisual
join:2001-12-14
Bennettsville, SC
| Re: The Requirement? Its download speed that counts, not the upload.
Valve has been using stream for betas for years now so I don't see what the big woop is about this .
I used stream a lot of play there betas and while it worked I can't say it was a pleasurable way of doing things.
Sort of reminds me of the CVS system. | |
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| | Hougy
join:2001-06-05
Acworth, GA | Re: The Requirement? valve is currently working on half life 2 for pc and xbox. there have been rumors of tf2, and valve is very good at not releasing any info (such as half life) on their games. steam is used by me, and i like it. i perfer it alot more than gamespy | |
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Hgh
@194.105.x.x
| eh I don't think peeps have quite the right idea!! Not all of the game will be stored on the server, mostly it will consisit of .cfg and .ini files etc etc. This is part of the filtering out the cheats and hackers thing, but I believe that you will still own the game.
You will still download an update as usual, but some of the more important files will be kept on the server. I don't know how this will affect harmless scripts like buy scripts etc or how you would set a LAN game, but we'll have to wait and see.
By the way if you sick filtering for servers use The All Seeing Eye and only filter servers in you country 8) | |
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BlueManofSteel
@swbell.ne
| ASP IDEA When the time comes and the game is getting older, what happens to the people who still want to play the game? Would they have to just stop playing their alltime favorite game just because the company stopped providing the game? They should have it where the main base files are on a regular CD or a "physical disk" and when playing a game only check and secure if these files are not tampered and misused in anyway which can lead less cheaters and hacks in use. What about this solution? | |
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erhan28
join:2003-10-21
Naples, FL
| Steam was ok Until ...... ok i thought Steam was cool. u know with the user interface looking cool and all . but untileverry other week had a F#@&ing update ( oh were sorry it sucked this time ... recall. .. glich fixed..... BLAH BLAH BLAH ). anyway they suck because now i have to download Counter- Strike AGAIN..... and all my maps are gone.  .... before i had to down load the update so u know i di then ... 97.......98........99.......1005...THEN OOps ERROR . .. = what do u mean F--- ing error ... and steam ur programing STAF SUCKSSSSSSSSS... idoits man i just want to play som C-S. | |
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Re: banned eh