Topic: Steam stuff

[Pugnate]

Long story short, I decided to play some PC games after what has been a long time, before going to bed.

I decided I'd play a bit of L4D's singleplayer, and it tells me I have to do some retarded update. I decide that I'll play Bad Company 2 instead, and same story, except it wants to do a longer update.

So I went and made a thread about it at PC gamer.

http://www.pcgamer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=38175&posted=1#post38175

The first response is priceless.

He misses the point entirely, and instead decides to polish Valve's cock.

[idolminds]

Yes, Steams automatic updates. Good in theory but being forced to download them and not being able to play until the patch is applied is terrible. Thats one area Impulse does it better. Patching is automatic, but you really do get a choice in downloading it when you want. Its a shame Steam doesn't let you do the same.

Of course they still haven't updated Steam so you can choose your install directory on a per-game basis. What do they do with all the money they are making?

[Pugnate]

OK this was my bad:

I had the games set to autoupdate. I changed the setting and I can play without being forced to update.

[idolminds]

The worst part is when people say "Oh no, You can set games to not autoupdate!" not realizing that that only delays the update. You can't play unless its fully up to date. Some say not all games are like that but I have NEVER been able to play a Steam game with a pending update.

They really should change the wording of "Do not automatically update this game" option, because it gives the wrong impression as to what its purpose is.

EDIT

Wait, seriously? I've never been able to do that.

[MysterD]

Impulse is nice b/c you don't need to run Impulse program to run a game. You really only need Impulse program for activation purposes (that's if the game actually has some sort of DRM with it) and for acquiring patches.

On Impulse, you will be notified when there is a new patch for a specific game within the browser - it'll put a big exclamation mark symbol over the game, letting you know it has an update available to it. It's all up to you if you want the update and you can tell it when you want to download the update. You do NOT have to have newest said version to actually boot-up a game there.

Plus, Impulse games often will let you install your game wherever the hell you want - unlike Steam games.

[Pugnate]

Since creating this thread, I've messed with the settings. It seems it won't force an update if you don't set it to autoupdate. However you can't change the settings once it has started updating.

Frustratingly, it also reverts to the autoupdate setting when you quit a game and then try to relaunch. Looks like they just really want you to constantly download updates.

[Xessive]

You decided to complain on a forum because Steam doesn't let you play a game that's meant to be played online, offline without updating? Silly.

This guy, "Downloaded," is a jackass. If you're going to be critical of someone's post you can at least be constructive.

[Pugnate]

Yea turning off the autoupdate thing hasn't worked really.

Also, check out the thread now. A lot of people have the same complaints.

[idolminds]

Its interesting how people will jump to defend any criticism of Steam, even when they can see exactly what the problem described is or have even experienced it themselves. They brush it off like "Well, what can you do?" or "All the pros outweigh the cons."

Lots of people have lots of money all tied up in their Steam accounts, and there is no crime for liking Steam while still being critical of it. Its your money, you should be more critical!

[MysterD]

Yea turning off the autoupdate thing hasn't worked really.

Also, check out the thread now. A lot of people have the same complaints.

Despite some of the great things about Steam - there's a lot of freaking quirks and odd things about it.

But, I'll tell you one thing - I'll take Steam over G4WL any given day. G4WL is just flat-out garbage. I prefer Impulse over Steam for many reasons - but Impulse's Friend tools suck and ain't nowhere on Steam's level.

It kinda might be a good idea to not have 4,000 Steam games installed - especially ones that get updated all the time i.e. Valve games and Killing Floor.