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[Aspartic]

I agree with Dreamer. Treating people who actually support your company like criminals is a great way to piss them off, which results in either them not buying your stuff, or getting it modded/hacked to bypass your stupid security. Has there ever been a game that wasn't hacked in less then a week? Not that I know of at least. I know I like digital distribution, but I will not be using Steam for it again, ever.

On the other hand there are still a few companies that don't require all that crap. Stardock's Galactic Civ 2 has you register a game id once, and then your never bugged about it again. The only time you have to deal with them at all is to download patches, but even then it checks your file to see its regged and you have to do nothing. Hell, you don't even have to have the cd in to play, unlike many games.

I bought CoH:OP off Steam and have regreted it ever since. Steam missed about a gig(!) of data from the install and took about 2 weeks to fix it. Combine that with the fact that between Steam and CoH's new log ins, I *have* to be online and connected to Steam and the Relic server to play any game mode, including single player and skirmishes. That's not really an issue for me, but it is for some people, and its the principle of it all that pisses me off.

P.S. It didn't help that they never did respond to my ticket or my email about the issue. I finally spliced together the missing sound files from the game's vinilla 1.x to 2.0 patch, which worked fine, until they finally fixed the issue and I had to redownload the Steam version of the files. How do you miss a freaking Gig of data?   :mad:

[DrMorbly]

Well, since I don't cheat, hack, or have had my account stolen, I deduced that it was some sort of memory changer or something of the like that VAC misinterpreted as a cheat.  Since, other than DF, I haven't changed anything on my system in the past 10 years I've had my account on steam, it made sense.

I already got that resounding NO when they responded to my support ticket with, "We do not lift bans.  VAC does not make mistakes."

Also, as of VAC2, which was developed with Counter-Strike: Source I believe, VAC bans are permanent.

[MindSnap]

Seeing as we're al sharing steam horror stories... A while ago my steam account was "disabled" for no obvious reason. It may be that I had let two(2) friends play   on my account, but thats it. Now, I didn't play CS much and had beaten half-life, but was playing a mod called dystopia a lot. So I made a new account, bought episode 2(which I wanted anyways) for 20$ and played all the mods I wanted. Now I use a laptop that makes playing shooters painful.

When they disabled my acount I was pretty pissed off. It felt like they were stealing from me. That's why I'll never trust them again.

Moral: Save money. Play indie games.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by MindSnap:
<STRONG>It may be that I had let two(2) friends play   on my account, but thats it. </STRONG>

Oh so you broke the rules in the TOS and are complaining you got caught.   I see.   Very suave.

Edit:  Here is what you agreed to and willfully violated -
"You may not reveal, share or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account."

Anyways, it sucks that using a cheating program got you banned from a completely different game.   You should fight it, of course, but it's not like STEAM is screwing people over on purpose.  Anyone who is getting all reactionary is being completely absurd.

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[Asehujiko]

Every company has a few dumbasses in it. Things go wrong when those get into top management or costumer support.

It looks like you have encountered one of the latter.

Valve isn't the worst of it's kind, look at 2k for that. Bioshock DRM disabled every single game on my pc that has integrated securom. One full reformat later, most of my games are working again but reinstalling bioshock yields a big F*ck You from it's install limit.

[valcon]

Valve is a good company run by good people.

Talk to them, email them, send them a link to the program you were using and to the dwarf fortress page.

Who knows, maybe DF will end up on steam ^_^

Seriously though, they will probably be lenient.

[Shadowlord]

How would he even know which program VAC didn't like?

[briktal]

quote:Originally posted by DrMorbly:
<STRONG>Well, since I don't cheat, hack, or have had my account stolen, I deduced that it was some sort of memory changer or something of the like that VAC misinterpreted as a cheat.  Since, other than DF, I haven't changed anything on my system in the past 10 years I've had my account on steam, it made sense.

I already got that resounding NO when they responded to my support ticket with, "We do not lift bans.  VAC does not make mistakes."

Also, as of VAC2, which was developed with Counter-Strike: Source I believe, VAC bans are permanent.</STRONG>

Steam was a bit buggy back before all the stuff that came with the release of Half-Life though.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Living in Russia is a nice way around such problems. If you don't like Steam, Starforce, or Securom (or just russian localized versions), there're always pirates, you don't even have to download anything - 5$ per DVD in most stores. If you have nothing against such evil stuff, the legal DVDs are usually 10-15$ apiece.

I can't say I dislike Steam or Securom (never used the former, never had problems with the latter), but the situation with these protection systems is pretty ridiculous in some cases. I only got the licensed Supreme Commander DVD after I found out there's an original english version tucked up in there, and that an "undocumented feature" of one of the patches was killing Starforce.  

[qwertyuiopas]

Hopefully, they simply havent gotten to your email, at worst, they rejected it for some reason(such as impoliteness) or some filter missed it or deleted it before it got to them.

Ask them if their detection software only reacts to programs trying to change their games? If it responded to something diffrent, it may not quite be legal. Take it to microsoft, make a huge problem for them?

[Torak]

Personal Computer privacy act, they cant ban you for running a completely unrelated program without absolute proof you were cheating, which you weren't.

isn't it also illegal to be monitoring a persons computer without consent/legal grounds?

[Ltheb]

Thats what I thought too. It says in the EULA that they will ban you if they catch you cheating, but make no mention of how they do this. Had they mentioned a memory scan in their EULA, you would have no argument; by hitting agree, you basically say 'Its OK with me.' By not mentioning one, then either A: They use some other method, which flagged you for an unrelated reason, or B: They use a questionably legal method of memory scanning.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Ltheb:
<STRONG>Thats what I thought too. It says in the EULA that they will ban you if they catch you cheating, but make no mention of how they do this. Had they mentioned a memory scan in their EULA, you would have no argument; by hitting agree, you basically say 'Its OK with me.' By not mentioning one, then either A: They use some other method, which flagged you for an unrelated reason, or B: They use a questionably legal method of memory scanning.</STRONG>

Last time I checked the EULA wasn't the absolute last say on what a company can and cant do with their product, it's more legal information, they wouldnt provide such information in the EULA. But still the same, banning you for use of another product or whatever, is illegal, because they have no right to monitor your activities outside of anything steam-related. Ill try to dig up that old ass bill that says something along the lines of "Monitoring of a private citizen's personal computer without consent is illegal and punishable in the court of law."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECPA

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: Torak ]

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>isn't it also illegal to be monitoring a persons computer without consent/legal grounds?</STRONG>

quote:Originally posted by Ltheb:
<STRONG>Thats what I thought too. It says in the EULA that they will ban you if they catch you cheating, but make no mention of how they do this.</STRONG>

Section 5 of the EULA that you agree to when you use Steam:

"Steam and the Steam Software may include functionality designed to identify software or hardware processes or functionality that may give a player an unfair competitive advantage when playing multiplayer versions of any Steam Software, other Valve products, or modifications thereof ("Cheats"). You agree that you will not create or assist third parties in any way to create Cheats. You agree that you will not directly or indirectly disable, circumvent, or otherwise interfere with the operation of software designed to prevent or report the use of Cheats. You acknowledge and agree that either Valve or any online multiplayer host may refuse to allow you to participate in certain online multiplayer games if you use Cheats in connection with Steam or the Steam Software. Further, you acknowledge and agree that an online multiplayer host may report your use of Cheats to Valve, and Valve may communicate your history of use of Cheats to other online multiplayer hosts for Valve products. Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers. You acknowledge that Valve is not required to provide you notice before terminating your Subscriptions(s) and/or Account, but it may choose to do so."

They don't have to give specifics of how it works, because that would only help cheaters.   Seriously, if y'all would actually read the EULA instead of raging against the machine like a bunch of thirteen year olds, you'd see that Steam/Valve did nothing out of line, other than make a small mistake in this one admittedly suspicious case (running memory editing utilities while playing Counterstrike) that they'll probably rectify if dealt with in a civilized way.

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>
They don't have to give specifics of how it works, because that would only help cheaters.   Seriously, if y'all would actually read the EULA instead of raging against the machine like a bunch of thirteen year olds, you'd see that Steam/Valve did nothing out of line, other than make a small mistake in this one admittedly suspicious case (running memory editing utilities while playing Counterstrike) that they'll probably rectify if dealt with in a civilized way.

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]</STRONG>

The fact of the matter is that they were monitoring a completely unrelated (and private) part of his computer, which is illegal for anything outside of a court-ordered warrant. I've got no issue with a company protect it's interest within it's own rights, it when they break someone else's is that it's crossing the line.

Also, I ask you to refrain from calling me a "thirteen year old rage against the machine-er" as it's calling my knowledge of law juvenile, which it is not.