When I read these boards, I see alot of steam hate, with a lot of accusations thrown out. "Requires an internet connection", "resource hog" etc. Now I used to hate steam immensely, Back when those things were true. Many of you haven't used steam in a long time, And Still believe these things to be the case, but several patches have fixed this. Offline mode now actually functions when you turn on steam and you have no internet, you no longer have to connect online, then turn on offline mode, its just lets you go into it. As for resource hog well, I have steam open with my PC and it uses 19 MBs of my 4 gigs. Not too much and I've never noticed a difference when I don't have steam on. Now if you hate steam for other reasons (and please share if you do) that's fine I just grow tired of seeing these accusations that were true a year or two ago but aren't the case anymore. That being I would still rather buy from impulse but it's not the end of the world when a game is steam exclusive.
I don't really have any issue with STEAM to get to the games that I bought from them. Never was on the 'hate' bandwagon but am glad to hear they are not as intrusive and hard-liners as in the past.
Well there's the fact that the boxed version of Steam games still make you install Steam, which totally kills my primary motivation in getting boxed copies. Up until recently, my internet was pathetically slow, so installing off a disc was always much, much, much faster than the 5+ hours it would take to download a game. Plus there's the fact that the boxes don't say they require Steam installed (at least they didn't when I bought the box of Portal).
Another thing (and I know it's small, but still) is that Steam doesn't actually close when I close it, it's still running in the background. If I clicked the little "X" in the corner I want the program to end, not just minimize. That's what the minimize button is for.
I like Steam but I have to agree it doesn't make much sense to sell a box with a disk if that disk is not going to, at the very least, have the full install for version 1.0 of the game.
Steam can easily balloon up to 50mb of ram usage (and I"ve had it go as high as 100mb...we're not talking in-game, either).
For me, the most obnoxious thing is that there's absolutely no way to set the damn thing to close upon a game closing. Whether it's a resource hog or not is irrelevant; I simply do not want it running in the background. Due legalities, I may not "own" the game, but I damn well own my PC and I'm going to have it run the way I want to. It's amazing how, on other forums, people praise Steam to no end but COMPLETELY whine if another process has to be run. There were dozens of people angry on one forum over GTA4 requiring the Rockstar Games Social Club to be running. They didn't want an "unnecessary" component left running on their computer- I feel the same about Steam.
I also often hear "Why do I need GFWL when I bought the game from Steam?" too. With that logic, why do I need to run Steam? I'm not a fan of GFWL, but at least that closes with the game.
That's my single biggest issue with it- it's designed in a way to be a core component of your PC. Once you have a Steam-game, they want you running that damn app 24/7.
I also think it's silly that they can't manage to track achievements when offline.
It's about control. I want to control what I buy, whether I want to be able to archive, reinstall without internet, or play it in a lead sarcophagus. I want to have the ability to play on my terms, not theirs. I don't want to have to worry about getting banned from playing my games cause I irked the wrong person on their forums or some asshat hacked the account and got it banned for me. I do have a sizable Steam catalog, but 90% of it was games on extreme specials. I wouldn't invest even near full retail price for a game with such limits.
I don't hate Steam. For me, Steam just doesn't add much value so I am not willing to pay more to use it (aka full price). If Civ V shows up for 20 bucks, I'll probably get it, at fiftty or higher, not a chance.
If it's your first Steam game and don't have an account (as it was for me with Portal) You have to download Steam and create your account, etc, which with a bad internet connection takes forever. And for games like Supreme Commander 2, where there are Day 0 patches that are over 1 GB, it is just painful.
The point I was trying to make is that on most programs, you click the little red X in the upper right corner, and the program ends. I close MS Word, and there isn't any system tray application of Word still running. Steam doesn't do that, which really bugs me (like I said, it's a small thing, but I find it annoying). I don't really care that other programs do it too, it bugs me when they do it. Steam just has the added bonus that it does other things I don't like too.
It's still an inconvience that I don't want to have to deal with. And on my old internet connection, I would average about 15-30 kb/s (I know, that's pathetic, but it's true). And if you don't have internet for whatever reason when you're installing your game, you're screwed.
Except some of those applications actually have legitimate reasons for continuing to run. If your antivirus isn't running, it's not doing it's job, which is a problem. MSN and Skype need to be running to recieve messages/calls. If Steam isn't running... nothing happens. As far as I'm concerned, there is not good reason for Steam to continue running when I'm done using it. Some people might want it open for community features or whatever, but I don't. They could at least give me the option, like Impulse lets me disable Impulse Now.
It's very easy to right click the Steam icon and click "exit." I believe there's even a "start Steam when windows starts" option that can be disabled. But some people will even complain that spending literally less than 1 second closing a program on a computer is torture, I just don't get it....
^^ they do complain about that lol. Finding the absolute tiniest flaws they have with Steam so they can jump on the bandwagon of Steam haters. I think that's the new hip thing to do.. god damn hipsters.
I already said that the point isn't that it is a huge hassle, it's just a minor annoyance. My point is that I shouldn't have to spend that one second closing a program twice in the first place. If I close Steam, I'm done using it and it doesn't need to be running, it's that simple.
How many times have I said it in this thread? I know it's a minor thing. Shall I say it a couple more times, so that it sinks in? It is a minor issue. It's not that big of a deal. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. It just bugs me. Is that clear enough for you, or do I have to find some more ways to say the same thing?
I don't hate them anymore (not sure I ever did). I just ignore them now.
right click steam icon - setting - interface - uncheck "start steam when windows starts."
That way it will not be running unnecessarily when you don't plan on using it. I don't know if you can get it to close when the game exits, I think they intended friends/contacts to be able to message you/invite to play/updates to autodownload if that's what you have selected,,,I'm sorry, you'll have to exit it manually as far as I can tell if you want it closed after a game. You're right, it sucks sometimes, but...lots of other programs do too. Atleast Steam has a purpose, however.
Its good to see that the offline mode works now. I'm still not inclined to buy games there however. Also its still a pain to try to get custom maps for a lot of games to work since it installs games in the Steam folder instead of the same folder a store bought copy would.
Don't you just direct it to the Steam/game folder? Again, I haven't played mods in awhile, but that's what I remember having to do...
If it was proven that having an active steam acount got you interest from very attractive (and dirty but not physco) females (or whatever you prefer)... would you dance with your devil?
Whats your Steam hate worth?
I don't mind the way the program operates, I do mind that it's simply slow. I recently upgradded my internet connection, and despite the rest of the internet loading at incredibly speeds, Steam still takes far too long to check for updates, log into my account, load the start-up spam and get the hell out of my way so I get to my game. Impulse takes, quite literally, all of about 3 seconds. Valve need to lift their game in that regard, otherwise Steam as a program isn't that annoying. I don't like Steamworks, however that's a different issue entirely.
On my systems Impulse takes far, far longer to log in and check for Impulse client and game updates, it's quite annoying. Steam works much faster for me. The Impulse client always felt a lot more bulky than the Steam client. With the new Steam UI the "bulkyness" of Steam got a little worse though.
Steam isn't slow on my computer...
Hmm, that's odd. Most of my friends have the same situation that I do. Steam takes around a minute before you're able to double click on your game and play. It's less time if there are no pop-ups when you launch, maybe around 45 seconds? There's got to be a reason for this?
I haven't noticed Steam taking a long time to update, although I have it set to auto do those things. I don't have it set to auto start. Ever since that update to the "new" Steam... it takes a bit to startup.
Permanently running DRM on my computer hardly qualifies as a "purpose."
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