To Steam or not to Steam?

[CmdrFlesh]

Patrick_Bateman69 wrote..

(...) Obviously, *something* is happening between the Steam client and Valve when the Join button is clicked. (...) What the hell does Steam need to do with the Steam servers in order to join a game? Nothing, but something is going on there. What? (...)

Maybe it just re-downloads the main executables (hl.exe, some dll's, etc.) to overwrite possible hacks. That way they could assure you're running a fresh & clean CS. ?

[bartlisa]

Hi Nighthawk,

I was wrong to say the updates arn't betas, I meant they are _playable_ right now, for a high price. heh, has CS ever really been out of beta?



As for the background stuff, it remains to be seen. The control they are giving themselves comes with responsibility. Its a slippery slope and at the bottom is the mal-ware that comes with Kazaa.



Thanks for keeping it real.

[Patrick_Bateman69]

CmdrFlesh - Whatever it's doing, it shouldn't be doing it.



Gamespy simply runs cstrike.exe with the server IP passed to it, then hibernates. All communication from your computer after clicking Join is between your CS client and the CS server, nobody else. This is the way it's always been and should continue to be.



Valve is obviously collecting some sort of information when you join a game. This seems like a blatant abuse of it's playerbase. Not surprising, since the entire Steam beta is essentially a way to exploit the CS playerbase by forcing a million players to get a highly desirable update through Steam.



Valve is basically taking advantage of the CS playerbase, which it now "owns", to beta test a new product that is not directly related to CS. Sure the goal of the new CS versions is to use Steam but the beta for Steam should be seperate from regular CS updates. Stealing our time to beta test their new product is beyond low, it's evil.



In Valve's defense, whatever is happening when someone clicks Join may be merely statistical gathering for the purposes of the Steam 2.0 beta, and when it ships, it might go away and revert to more friendly Gamespy-type behavior. But if it doesn't, all Joins will be contingent upon Valve's servers and bandwidth being sufficient to handle the load. If this feature stays in, we all will have to wait just that much longer to join a game.

Oh, and before anyone says "CS is free so Valve can use us to test anything they want" - well, I paid for CS.



What I bought CS 1.0 from the store, I knew the functionality it had in it at the time. It's pretty low to take advantage of paying customers by changing that functionality later (even if it is ultimately for the purpose of "enhancing" CS with new Steam features).



Since what I bought was a retail product, I expect all updates to be of retail quality. I'm not biatching now since Steam 2.0 Beta is a beta, and I haven't even participated in it yet. I'm simply speculating on the behavior based on what we know now of the Steam testing results - all of which has indicated that the quality of my CS Retail playing experience will be diminished when it is finally released.



I'll be happy to eat my words when they release Steam and it updates within a reasonable time and joins games at a speed comparable to all previous releases. But I get the feeling that's not going to be the case.

Added @ [time="1043367731"]

CmdrFlesh - one more comment. I hope to high heaven that it's not "redownloading the executables/DLLs" - the notion that it would need to consume so much bandwidth, every time you join a game, just for cheat checking, is beyond absurd.

[DaMaGeINC]

Valve need's to stop worrying about future versions of cs and start working on a new engine for the game, all they are doing is making Cs gayer and gayer and gayer. Ive been playing the game since its was beta 1 and recently I have just quit the game due to the amount of n00bs out their and the gay so called "improvements" they have done to Cs. The reason I liked Cs was because of the professionalism of the players and the addictiveness of the game, but with all the latest versions to the game, it has become more childish and gay.

[abel]

.Sorcerer. wrote..

I find it amazing that there is all this stink about Steam 2.0 beta. Does no one remember that 1.5 came out at first with Steam 1.0 beta? I have played both and I can say that the 1.0 beta was more stable and had less server problems. I guess it might have been because it was not as publicized as 2.0. Or it might be that Valve tried to incorperate too many new 'features' into Steam 2.0.



The article did seem like a bash on Valve and CS. As for the adds that he was talking about, I have yet to see them. I think that if Valve was smart the next CS update and Stream beta should be a closed beta and not let the entire CS community go out and try it.

Do you mean cs 1.4?

[kareeser]

Patrick_Bateman69... in response to your post above about how there's a pause b/w the game client and the game server, I'll just pretend that you're paranoid.



All that's hapenning is Steam sending verification codes AND the client connecting to the server.



Remember back in 1.5 when you'd connect to a server, and it would say



Connecting to Elitez0r's CS 1.5 Server

110 Seconds Remaining...



Steam eliminates the 110 seconds (10 seconds for me). Didn't you notice that after the wait, you can connect to servers faster?



- Kar

[Ghengis]

OMG The aliens are coming, Mind control In Steam Argh!!!!

[bLaCKaT]

bozer wrote..

In your mind maybe it was leaked, but don't blame what you call a leak as the reason for STEAM being such a horrible launch. Valve themselves never once blamed it on anyone else leaking their product, which is all I'm trying to say. Don't blame the initial launch of steam 2.0 being shitty due to a leak... since even Valve hasnt blamed it on that. Blame them for not being fully prepared if anything.

Steam was never launched; Valve wasn't ready for the demand, correct. But so many sites made this sound like that CS1.6 was the "final" version that everyone thought they needed Steam. It was publicized too much.



This idiot that wrote the article was one of those people.

[blake87]

i have downloaded steam 2.0 and when installing it, it says: Unable to uncompress data

[Gnu]

Patrick_Bateman69 wrote..

After the update is downloaded and the server IP known, why is there a delay when the user clicks Join?

Because Steam isn't going through the same WON servers that we use now for Half-Life, and the authentication servers are flooded.



Could also be trying to contact the Friends server at the same time, and timing out (or getting a response that the server isn't available). I haven't bothered to sniff this one, because I'm not some lithium-induced Orwellian git.



(Wait a second ... I AM on lithium. Nevermind.)

[PieWarrior]

Everbody's always going "It took me 2 hours to download" I don't know whats wrong with your connection but I downloaded it in 6 minutes. I am only running a SHARED cable connection (I share it with my area). Its max is 1.5mbs but I rarely get that. In normal cs 1.5 I never get a ping better than 30. Just saying I don't know why you guys take more than an hour.



"life is like a squad of Ninja monkeys on a box of peanuts"

[kareeser]

You downloaded at that speed because you waited until a time like NOW to download it.



If you tried to download CS1.6BETA when it first came out, you'd have been waiting for 2 hours too,



- Kar

[PieWarrior]

Actually, I downloaded it a few hours ago (3) during the height of internet traffic (4-5 o' clock) SOme serversare buggy i'll admit, but the Famas is very lethal (Try the burst, 1-3 burst usually gets someone). The new names are off and not realistic anymore but I can deal with that. The Galil is good because of its big clip and more power than all smgs. The Riot shield is cool, but should be used for support not for attacking. I wall of 2 or 3 shields is impregnable unless you get hit a lot (Hint hint stay crouched). This update was worth going through the time when it didn't work. All peoplewho get it some time that don't have it yet "The Riot Shield is a support weapon not a impenetrable fortress.".



"1 Headshot, 2 headshot, 3 headshot, KICKED"

-Anthem of the n00bie server

[CubicVirtuoso]

Edited by [user="95925"] @ [time="1043380567"]

Well, yes it is CubicVirtuoso, the writer of this article you all hate. I am well aware that this is BETA 1.6 and BETA 2.0 and this is why I wrote the article. If you haven't noticed the article was on Valve's side it just explains their current situation to those who didn't know what was going on. I personally think Steam is a wonderful program, but not worth the download until the final version comes out. As I said before, Steam was Valve's way of seeing what thier limits were with the Half-Life community. They think that they own the Half-Life community when the Half-Life community owns itself. The bottom line is that CS 1.6 should of just been released as a normal run of the day patch and let Steam work out its bandwidth issues. And for more information I am running on a Cable modem and it still took 2 days to get the updates... I had to wait for the servers to unclogh with bandwidth. Just clearing some things up. BTW thanks everyone for your comments, good or bad they are very helpful. Also www.halflife.org is a very informative site it posts about 5-6 news articles per day and is very easy to use. Please help out our community and visit our site.

[-SDc-Match]

I got Steam the Thursday it came out and took me all of 40 minutes to get CS 1.6b. Of course, connecting to a server was another story, but all I did was a fresh install of Steam and download CS 1.6b again in 20 and now I am playing on every server I connect to. If you are still having problems with Steam, do a fresh install. Fixed all my problems. :)