Ogaburan
Warlord
Say what you want, for me its just annoying. It just hangs out in the background like an uninvited guest eating my precious CPU usage.
Steam - love or hate?
- Thread starter oogabla
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HATE HATE HATE!
I don't want this other software on my system sitting there and running in the background until I turn it off from the system tray.
I don't want it to delay my startup and start downloading patches that take forever.
I don't want adverts for new games popping up.
I don't want to give a third party access to my computer through my firewall and doing whatever it feels like.
I don't want it there at all. It feels like a breach of my privacy.
I just want to be able to play the game.
But come to think of it... actually I don't because Civ 5 is so poor. So it's not that much of an issue.
But in future I will carefully check whether Steam is required, and if so, I will vote with my wallet and not buy it.
I don't want this other software on my system sitting there and running in the background until I turn it off from the system tray.
I don't want it to delay my startup and start downloading patches that take forever.
I don't want adverts for new games popping up.
I don't want to give a third party access to my computer through my firewall and doing whatever it feels like.
I don't want it there at all. It feels like a breach of my privacy.
I just want to be able to play the game.
But come to think of it... actually I don't because Civ 5 is so poor. So it's not that much of an issue.
But in future I will carefully check whether Steam is required, and if so, I will vote with my wallet and not buy it.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
That is weird as hell. First time I've heard of it happening too, so yeah I don't know what's up. You could try e-mailing Steam support and politely complaining about it as it is definitely something that should be fixed.
Actually it says both what I said and what you posted. Steam removes everything in the folder its installed in, you can however copy/move the steamapps folder to somewhere else and it won't touch it.
You shouldn't install it into just program files anyways, that'd be user error.
I enjoy the ease of the digital distribution, the amazingly cheap sales, the up-to-date patching, the community features, ingame steam community, tracking hours (sadly only for games you bought on Steam and not just those you launch through it (you can add shortcuts for non-steam games)). I still use X-Fire (mostly for screenshots and tracking hours played) but very few people I play with use it, whereas they all use Steam. It also allows me to keep my desktop free of icons, as I add all the shortcuts to Steam and don't need to go hunt them down in a folder on my desktop.
Yep, and while not the most utopian it certainly could easily be worse and I really don't mind it.
Spoiler :
Organization of games is nice for those of us with lots of games (more than, say, a dozen).
And communications don't work in Offline mode of course. I fully understand the annoyance for those who don't play offline and agree that Steam needs to improve its offline accessibility. Still, at least it offers an offline mode. Unlike Ubisoft.
And what the heck is DigDis?
1. Then exit it, you can also quit Steam from the File menu in the upper left (click Exit).
2. Both are turn-offable.
To disable auto-updating you need to "right-click" on the name of the game in the big list and click on "Preferences" and then go to the "Updates" tab and change the setting there.
3. Same Interface tab for stopping Steam from running when Windows starts.
DaviddesJ
Deity
Buy the game once, no need to insert disks to play (this was a huge problem with Civ IV, I used a cheat to get around the disk requirement but it was still a pain), single purchase to install on many machines and re-download whenever I want, PC and Mac versions with one purchase, automatic patching.
DaviddesJ
Deity
No, you said that the Steam uninstall won't ever remove other software, while the page actually says that if Steam is (incorrectly) installed into a folder with other software, it will remove that other software too. That seems the most plausible explanation of this user's problem.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
I meant outside of its folder, sorry for the confusion.
I've already stopped it from starting up when I boot my computer. But after I play Civ 5 it hangs around running in the background unless I remember to turn it off every time in the system tray afterwards.
If they must use Steam, they should make it completely invisible to the user.
If they must use Steam, they should make it completely invisible to the user.
I think what 2K don't "get" is that people consider their computers to be their own domain. I arrange things how I want and decide what programs I want running.
Any piece of software that does things without permission (even if it's trying to be helpful), will be annoying and attract hate, especially if it uses up resources, be it internet access (some of us have slow connections used by multiple people, and a limited monthly download allowance, where we have to pay money for every megabyte above this that we use), time (shutting the damn thing down, closing ads etc), or computer memory/CPU usage.
I realise that the resources and time it uses up are in reality tiny, but still, the fact that it's using any will make people dislike it. It's like a unwelcome goblin that sits around in the corner of your bedroom watching you, not doing very much, but occasionally springing into life and trying to be helpful. Sane people just want it to go away and leave things as they were!
Any piece of software that does things without permission (even if it's trying to be helpful), will be annoying and attract hate, especially if it uses up resources, be it internet access (some of us have slow connections used by multiple people, and a limited monthly download allowance, where we have to pay money for every megabyte above this that we use), time (shutting the damn thing down, closing ads etc), or computer memory/CPU usage.
I realise that the resources and time it uses up are in reality tiny, but still, the fact that it's using any will make people dislike it. It's like a unwelcome goblin that sits around in the corner of your bedroom watching you, not doing very much, but occasionally springing into life and trying to be helpful. Sane people just want it to go away and leave things as they were!
DaviddesJ
Deity
I think what you don't "get" is that most people don't care. Obviously, the publishers know that some small number of people will hate Steam, or anything new. But people like you are a tiny share of their market. They think making the experience somewhat better for lots of people outweighs pissing off a few, and also that the mechanics of Steam will increase their share of paying users. And I think they are probably right on both counts.
What evidence do you have for this? It seems to me from reading these boards and this thread in particular (which you obviously haven't done) that a lot of people hate it, not a "tiny share". Even so, you still don't seem to understand why this is so annoying for me, and I suspect, all the other people who seem to dislike it.
If it did make the experience better then maybe you would have a valid point, but it doesn't - it's just a pain in the arse that serves no function other than DRM, which other publishers have enforced in a much less intrusive manner.
Senethro
Overlord
Earlier tonight there were 56,000 people playing Civ5 simultaneously. I think we can infer that Steam hasn't hurt total sales. The noise you're seeing here are largely the grognards who want the same Civilization as previously, with upgraded graphics but still playable on the same computer as Civ4. They've always been a minority even here as endless polls about Steam in the months prior to release showed.
Community features, patch and DLC distribution, SteamCloud saves, backup creation utility, multiplayer bits and pieces amongst other things. You've made no effort at all to learn anything about it and would rather just rant ignorantly.
DaviddesJ
Deity
Of course, now we get the universal response of anyone whose opinion isn't agreed with, "You obviously haven't read the thread." Give me a break. Half a dozen people, maybe, have posted here about their strong dislike for Steam. Let's say that represents 6 lost sales. 2k needs to sell millions of copies of Civ V to recoup development costs and make a good profit. So that's something like 0.0003% of their market.
Complete non sequitur. You don't know how many people would have bought it were there not Steam involved. And I bet most people who bought it were not aware of the Steam requirement until they took out the DVD and tried to install it.
Try this forum?
Check for updates button worked perfectly well
Not useful to most people and if you're desperate to play on multiple computers a pen drive is easy to use
I admit, I have no idea what this is
I don't play multiplayer so can't comment on whether Steam is useful for this (tried multi once with Civ 4 and it was not fun)
You still don't get it. I don't want to learn anything about it. I don't want it at all. I just want to get on with playing the game. It doesn't take a genius to see that this is just DRM with a lot of overheads.
I'm not going to go through and count, but the balance seems split pretty evenly between the love/hate camps.
Let's not. Because these people have already bought the game. And liking or disliking Steam has very little to do with whether you buy the game or not. In any case, why should I care how many sales 2k makes.
You, Sir, deserve the Nobel Prize for misuse of statistics. How about we say, only 5 people in this thread said they liked Steam, so that's only 0.0002% of the number 2K need, therefore there is no chance of Civ VI ever coming out. I realise in reality you're probably not that stupid, but why make such fallacious arguments?
tom2050
Deity
- Joined
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- 5,516
There are areas, as rbj2001 said, that have download allowances, in which people must pay if they exceed.
With Civ 5 requiring a 1 GB download patch, that is an annoyance right there. It's not even a patch, it's a large portion of the game they decided not to put on the DVD.
@DaviddesJ: You make assumptions on the overall number of people who don't like Steam; there is no evidence to support this. In fact, if it was so small, Steam wouldn't be so controversial. The large controversy surrounding Steam shows in itself there is a large number that don't like it's underlying ways of doing business.
Most of everything you mentioned is nothing that anyone needs, except for MP (which only is good for online players).
I can't believe how you actually are trying to tie the number of people playing the game to say that Steam hasn't hurt sales. There is 0% way that you can infer that with any accuracy whatsoever.
56,000 people playing Civ 5 worldwide is not a whole lot at all (world pop=6,697,254,041+). There are probably more people playing Civ 3 worldwide; and definitely more playing Civ 4 if I had to take a guess.
And BTW: Inference is a good guess heuristics (based on logic, statistics etc.) to observations or by interpolating the next logical step in an intuited pattern. The conclusion drawn is also called an inference. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.
Your inference was actually just your assumption/guess.
With Civ 5 requiring a 1 GB download patch, that is an annoyance right there. It's not even a patch, it's a large portion of the game they decided not to put on the DVD.
@DaviddesJ: You make assumptions on the overall number of people who don't like Steam; there is no evidence to support this. In fact, if it was so small, Steam wouldn't be so controversial. The large controversy surrounding Steam shows in itself there is a large number that don't like it's underlying ways of doing business.
Senethro said:
Most of everything you mentioned is nothing that anyone needs, except for MP (which only is good for online players).
Senethro said:
I can't believe how you actually are trying to tie the number of people playing the game to say that Steam hasn't hurt sales. There is 0% way that you can infer that with any accuracy whatsoever.
56,000 people playing Civ 5 worldwide is not a whole lot at all (world pop=6,697,254,041+). There are probably more people playing Civ 3 worldwide; and definitely more playing Civ 4 if I had to take a guess.
And BTW: Inference is a good guess heuristics (based on logic, statistics etc.) to observations or by interpolating the next logical step in an intuited pattern. The conclusion drawn is also called an inference. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.
Your inference was actually just your assumption/guess.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Tried looking a how many process are running? Java update (jusched.exe) insists on running all the time even though I only let it check for updates once a month!
I have no issue with Steam running, and really its not a big deal. If you forget ot exit it when you are done that is your fault, I'm sorry. Minor personal issue.
I don't think they care, nor do a lot of people. Or they get used to it. Though I understand your concern.
It barely uses any system resources, and time really is a mere few seconds (otherwise you might need to do some cleaning on your computer). It also doesn't hog your internet connection or anything like that. Unless you are downloading lots of stuff through steam, in which case (even the patches) you have control over that. If you have a rather annoying ISP who sets tight limits then complain to them and ask them to raise the limits for their products (I know SimonL lives in Quebec and the ISps there set stupidly low limits, so he has to be careful how much he downloads, but gaming and running Steam is just fine).
I'm sane and I really like Steam. It seems to me you're biggest problem is that you are unfamiliar with it and don't like it being 'forced' upon you. Not so much the program itself.
Because people who enjoy the game are far, far less likely to post when things are going the way they want to. Its like this on nearly any forum, especially after a release. Anyone with a complaint goes to the forum and complains, hence why it always looks like the majority is hating it when this may or may not be true (as the situation depends).
Sigh, this has already been covered to death, try reading some of mine and other's posts in this thread.
I only heard that the 1 gig "patch/game content" was for those who pre-loaded the game, this is NOT specific to Steam. I've had the same thing happen with pre-loads from GamersGate. Those who pre-loaded also would have downloaded it on Steam afaik (maybe the disc allowed pre-loading, but I doubt it and haven't read anything about that). Hence if they downloaded it they should already be aware of their limits set by their ISP. So far the first few quickfix patches Firaxis has released are very small.
Covered above, more people will show up to complain then people who show up to congratulate. If something is working more or less well enough (or perfectly fine) you have no real driving force to go to the forums and post about it.
First of all, I agree it is not a whole lot of people. However, the majority of the world's population is unlikely ot have ever HEARD of Civ5. Even today, selling 1 million copies of a game is decent, selling 5 million is really good. Civ5 is currently in the top 5 most played games on Steam, its competing with similar numbers for the top 3 spaces with Counter Strike, Counter Strike Source, and Modern Warfare 2. Team Fortress 2 is just below them with around like 20,000 players.
The number of players online obviously fluctuates, as not everyone has a lot of time to always be playing Civ5 and it depends on the time of day.
You also have no idea hoe many have NOT bought it because of Steam. These exact same arguments were voiced when Empire: Total War went the Steamworks route, same with Modern Warfare 2. And this certainly did not noticeably impact the sales of either game (Empire: Total War was really broken (for most people) when it was released, its fixed now. Civ5 is definitely not a broken game).
Ignorance causes fear of the unkown, and that is not a good thing. I highly recommend you check out Steam as much as possible and learn about it before completely condemning it.
Poor sales = death of civilization as we know it.
EDIT: And for those of you (which likely includes me in Civ5's case) who don't care about the multiplayer and just play singleplayer: How would you feel if you really liked the multiplayer part but it was really neglected because a bunch of people loudly complained they didn't want it in the next Civ? (Ignoring mtuliplayer in Civ5 is actually in need of patching, it also uses Gamespy).
DaviddesJ
Deity
There is a lot of evidence. After all, Steam is not some newfangled invention with no history. The companies that use Steam for their products have a lot of data to work with on how it affects user adoption. They aren't making this decision in a vacuum.
That said, you are right that I am only expressing my own opinion. Someone else can have a different opinion. But when people say, "If you disagree that Steam is harmful to Civ V, then you must not have read this thread," then that's just nonsense.
Senethro
Overlord
You're wrong and out of touch. Patches that size are not uncommon.
We weren't talking about the utility of it to everyone, which you've just decided you can judge on behalf of "anyone", he said no other functions existed and I was correcting his ignorance.
Oh please. You're utterly deluded if you think Civ3 and Civ4 still have a larger peak usage than many modern games. Why even bring the irrelevant world population in? You're grasping at straws or your thinking is very disordered.
The rule of thumb I was told from hanging about with some MMO devs was that a few days after release it was a great day if 10% of your userbase were playing simultaneously. That was an enthusiastic level of uptake suggesting people were enjoying the game. Civ5 on the Saturday night of release week peaked at 72,000 people playing simultaneously. Thats not how many people played in a day, thats how many were playing at once. So, if we follow the 10% rule (and until we see some sales figures, I'm at a loss for what else to do) then by Saturday 720,000 units of Civ5 had been sold after 5ish days in America and 2 in Europe.
Thats not bad but its not a figure that I would put any great faith in. But we can see its not a Starcraft 2 killer as some were hoping. However unless you're willing to assert that actually 1 in 2 Civ5 players were playing simultaneously, the game also wasn't a commercial failure.
Moderator Action: Please refute people based on the points they make, don't make your comments personal, thanks.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
You manage to highlight your lack of reading skills again, since what I actually said was that reading this thread shows that a lot of people don't like Steam, which is a fairly uncontroversial fact, not that it's "harmful to Civ V".
I have no problem with people downloading Civ 5 from Steam if that's what they want to do. Some people might even want to get hold of Steam once they've bought the DVD in order to make use of all its "useful features".
I happen not to want it and I don't appreciate being forced to use it. Give people the choice.
DaviddesJ
Deity
Well, reading this thread does not in fact prove anything about what "a lot of people" think, since the number of posters here is so tiny. And obviously a thread titled "Steam - love or hate?" is going to tend to attract people who have opinions about the subject. It's entirely consistent with reading the entire thread to think that 99% of Civ V buyers or potential buyers like the use of Steam just fine.
Snide remarks about "reading comprehension" toward anyone with a different opinion than yours are just childish.
We know what you want. I understand why you want it, too. Your desires are perfectly reasonable. But the publisher also has good reasons for not doing what you want.
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