Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Annoying experience with non-pirated software

<< < (2/5) > >>

cranioscopical:
Then problem was that after it installed, it had to download an "update", which was downloading at 6kb/s
-jgpaiva (July 16, 2011, 06:19 AM)
--- End quote ---

Not much consolation but I get this all the time with Steam. Buy a boxed product, install it, Steam leaps in and 'manages' things typically by spending the next two days downloading 'updates'. The idea of buying a game and playing it RIGHT NOW seems outdated. Buy from Steam and spend the same amount of time downloading the game in the first place  :mad:

(Not that I play games, you understand — not since Steam, at least.)

I quite often buy games for my nephew and it's tough for a kid to get a game and then have to wait… and wait… and wait…

Good luck getting a response from Steam support, any queries of mine have gone unanswered.

jgpaiva:
The idea of buying a game and playing it RIGHT NOW seems outdated. Buy from Steam and spend the same amount of time downloading the game in the first place  :mad:
-cranioscopical (July 16, 2011, 10:45 AM)
--- End quote ---
Yeah, but what surprised me was: I was playing an offline game, why couldn't they just let me play the game right away, download the update on the background and then ask me to install it later? Or at the very least, have an option for "do you want to upgrade right now"? Honestly, I've always been a fan of steam since I've first found out about it until now, and I think it really has the power to revolutionize the way we buy games, but I'm really disappointed with this experience :(

Good luck getting a response from Steam support, any queries of mine have gone unanswered.
-cranioscopical (July 16, 2011, 10:45 AM)
--- End quote ---
I hope not! I'll wait a few days and then activate amazon's support, as I know they are pretty efficient in these matters. (I'm just trying to avoid it as steam's solution would be instantaneous, whereas amazon would steal me even more time)

cranioscopical:
at the very least, have an option for "do you want to upgrade right now"?
-jgpaiva (July 16, 2011, 04:30 PM)
--- End quote ---

Indeed! I fail to see why this couldn't be the default position.

wreckedcarzz:
I haven't had this issue, but I've had the equally annoying problem of having a game download to 100% but stop a few KB short - of course it happens with a really big game, that I'm really excited to play (like GTAIV- 16GB, and I was less than 10KB short, and no quick fix would help). You have to delete all the game data, and restart the download. This commonly happens when you switch download servers mid-download (so instead of my local server, USA - Phoenix, as it tends to run slow at times, I switch to say, a Canadian server).

What I do now, honestly, is I'll torrent the games first to see if I like them, if they are worth the cash, then keep them until I purchase the game and it is ready-to-go. In the meantime, I have a copy of the game on-hand, launchable whenever. I have two copies of Just Cause 2 installed; one torrented, one from the recent sales on Steam. I've yet to move my savedgames over and make sure everything works.

And (I would presume) Steam can't have an optional update system because then you'll have people exploiting known game bugs and managing to get online, and you can't lockdown online functionality of one game without the game supporting it. And who is going to code that in when you get automatic updates anyways?

Carol Haynes:
Two points to contradict some of the things and a possible reason fro slow downloads:

1) I didn't experience any of this installing Portal 2 from a disk - I was up and playing in about 20 minutes (and that included installing Steam and registering an account).
2) If you go to the program properties you can turn off automatic updating
3) Freezing on the first screen isn't normal - have you checked the files are not corrupted in some way? Again go to the game properties and check the file integrity.

If you bought recently then Steam have had a massive sale on and the servers took a real hammering meaning that it was almost impossible to get a download slot and when you did they were slower. Things should be back to normal by now.

Re. Steam support - granted I only contacted them once and I got a reply within 30 minutes!

Whilst I don't like the idea of Steam insisting you play online once the game is installed you can play the game offline with no problem (just click to go offline on the Steam menu). Having said that the coop part of Portal 2 is brilliant and obviously you need a server connection to make that work!

I don't generally like copy protection systems but I can understand where games manufacturers are coming from, even more than the music and video companies. Games cost a huge amount of money to produce (the budget for Portal 2 was around $10 million IIRC) and after the initial to rush to buy a new game the price drops like a stone and purchases rapidly drop off (P2 was already less than half price on Amazon UK within about a month of launch). I know a lot of people buy games but it isn't an enormous market for individual games and the revenue stream is restricted to sales whereas Music and Video have alternative streams of income through broadcasting and cinemas.

I understand that pirated copies can be found and don't have the restrictions but this is one area where I think games manufacturers really have a point if you want decent games written.

By the way the minimum requirements are pretty clearly stated on Steam for Portal 2 and from what I have seen it seems pretty forgiving if you miss by a small margin in one area. It would be good to have a demo though - how about one unique room this is not in the game itself (a taster rather than a demo).

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page