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Author Topic: Steam is the Worst Present  (Read 5123 times)

PTTG??

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Steam is the Worst Present
« on: December 25, 2007, 02:25:00 pm »

I got the Orange Box for X-mas. Well, I said to myself, I might not have wanted to buy it, but these are good games nonetheless.

Wrong.

I have a message to the people at Valve: An install program is designed to uncompress and organize the files as you see fit, all in accordance with the way you have designed the program to be installed on the customer's computer. Your steam installation program does not do that. It DOES NOT INSTALL STEAM.DLL.
Let me put that simply:

YOU KNOW THAT PART WITH THE ACTUAL CODE IN IT? IT'S NOT THERE.

In order to get it to work, do I need to go pirate a  steam DLL from somebody and manually install it JUST TO TURN IT ON?
If you are going to install crapware/spyware on my computer, at least make it easy.

...

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am going to be playing DF for a long, long time.

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Tahin

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2007, 02:30:00 pm »

Heh. Just download and install steam from their website. The program itself is free.
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PTTG??

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #2 on: December 25, 2007, 02:41:00 pm »

That's not the point! If these guys worked at Ford, they'd sell you a car that looks awesome and can pull a 747 up a sheer cliff. Then you go buy one and not be able to get it off the lot because it doesn't come with an engine.

RAHHHH! PTTG SMASH!

Seriously though, thanks, I would not have figured that out on my own.
Actually, the downloaded kind does not work either.
Steam just does not work, in the same way that a tea cup does not work as an artificial heart. I'm getting my money back if I have to take it as an inch of flesh from Gabe Newell's heart.
[ December 25, 2007: Message edited by: PTTG?? ]

[ December 25, 2007: Message edited by: PTTG?? ]

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PTTG??

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #3 on: December 25, 2007, 03:06:00 pm »

OK, you know what, I have a question:
Has anybody besides software reviewers and Gabe Newell himself actually managed to get The Orange Box to work? Outside of them, I have not heard of ONE PERSON to EVER successfully get this game to work.
I am serious. Nobody has even had so much as a response from the Valve support team.
They make a good game (or so I've been told) but I would never pay money for this level of frustration.
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Aristharus

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #4 on: December 25, 2007, 07:19:00 pm »

Umm, I did.. And so did two of my friends who bought it. Never had any problems with any of the games.
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Locus

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2007, 11:25:00 pm »

Yeah, Steam works perfectly for me.
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Capntastic

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2007, 05:15:00 pm »

I, or anyone else I know personally and play games with have ever had any problems of any type with Steam.

Edit:   And my computer is a heap that is missing tons of files (due to many haphazard reformattings) that allow me to do stuff like use MSPaint without jumping through hoops or make new folders by right clicking.

[ December 26, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

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Aquillion

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2007, 05:58:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by PTTG??:
<STRONG>I got the Orange Box for X-mas. Well, I said to myself, I might not have wanted to buy it, but these are good games nonetheless.

Wrong.

I have a message to the people at Valve: An install program is designed to uncompress and organize the files as you see fit, all in accordance with the way you have designed the program to be installed on the customer's computer. Your steam installation program does not do that. It DOES NOT INSTALL STEAM.DLL.
Let me put that simply:

YOU KNOW THAT PART WITH THE ACTUAL CODE IN IT? IT'S NOT THERE.

In order to get it to work, do I need to go pirate a  steam DLL from somebody and manually install it JUST TO TURN IT ON?
If you are going to install crapware/spyware on my computer, at least make it easy.</STRONG>


Did you try uninstalling and reinstalling?

Also, what exactly happened?  You installed it, it installed without error, then when you tried to run Steam it gave you that error?  It should spend a bit of time automatically updating the first time you run it, but it shouldn't fail to find major dlls (obviously)...

Anyway, try uninstalling and reinstalling first, that's the obvious thing to do.

...oh, and as an aside, remember to never run Dwarf Fortress memory editing utilities when Steam is running!  It won't be able to distinguish between editors for Dwarf Fortress, and editors for its online games, so it'll ban you for cheating.  Other people have encountered that problem.

[ December 26, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

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PTTG??

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2007, 10:15:00 pm »

Thanks, I got it working now. So, yes the games are not bad, just not worth the trouble to get them to work... plus, I have the convenience of having someone watching my computer constantly... On the other hand, hey, I'm getting cake.
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Capntastic

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2007, 10:45:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by PTTG??:
<STRONG>Thanks, I got it working now. So, yes the games are not bad, just not worth the trouble to get them to work... plus, I have the convenience of having someone watching my computer constantly... On the other hand, hey, I'm getting cake.</STRONG>

A:  You seem to be in the lone minority of people who have had Steam troubles.   And it seems you've fixed them.   Hurray!
B:  If by 'someone constantly watching your computer' you mean 'checking to see if you're cheating' and 'some statistics about how long/often you play' then yes, there is Big Brother peeking over your shoulder while you shoot headcrabs.   The horror.

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Capntastic

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2007, 10:50:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Aquillion:
[QBIt won't be able to distinguish between editors for Dwarf Fortress, and editors for its online games, so it'll ban you for cheating.  Other people have encountered that problem.

[ December 26, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ][/QB]


One other person, and it wasn't confirmed if it was DF utilities running that caused him to be banned or not.   But still, don't risk it.   (Which should be common sense.)

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Reasonableman

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2007, 04:45:00 pm »

I got the Orange Box for Christmas as well. I had been anticipating Portal for some time, and whilst waiting for it to come out I bought the HL2 GotY Edition. At the time I had dial up. Little did I realize that this single fact effectively F#%$ED ME IN THE @$$!!!
After struggling to get the goddamned Steam system installed, I proceded to install HL2. After 45 mins of "Preparing to install..." (keep in mind my PC well exceeded minimum requirements) I finally began installing the program. About halfway through that (another 45 min.) I was greeted with a lovely little "C: Drive Full!" message. WELL I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO INSTALL IT THERE, NOW DID I?!?! I had to eventually reinstall the entire platform to the D: drive. That I could put up with; stupid me, installing to a nearly full drive. Oh well, now that that's finally done I can play in peace. To which, Steam said "Nope! to ensure that no one exploits our game delivery system, we need you to download and install a few patches!"
Shite.
At dialup speeds, I estimated total download and install time at oh, say, a week. Not exaggerating.
So I finally caved and literally hauled my entire system to a neighbor's house to borrow a cup of intertubes. After patching, I had to struggle for another half hour figuring out how to set up an offline mode.
From that point all was smooth sailing. I played HL2 and quite enjoyed it.
Despite that, I'm still considering returning the Orange Box out of principle.
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Guy

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2008, 10:43:00 am »

quote:
Originally posted by PTTG??:
<STRONG>plus, I have the convenience of having someone watching my computer constantly...</STRONG>

This also helps, since I doubt you'll start playing as soon as you start Windows.

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kuribo

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Re: Steam is the Worst Present
« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2008, 10:45:00 am »

quote:
Originally posted by PTTG??:
<STRONG>OK, you know what, I have a question:
Has anybody besides software reviewers and Gabe Newell himself actually managed to get The Orange Box to work? Outside of them, I have not heard of ONE PERSON to EVER successfully get this game to work.
I am serious. Nobody has even had so much as a response from the Valve support team.
They make a good game (or so I've been told) but I would never pay money for this level of frustration.</STRONG>

are you kidding me? i've been playing it for 3 days now, and i imagine the numerous people on the TF2 server i played on did as well

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