ZOMFG! How I hate Steam!

[sunset]

So, I bought Fear 2 on amazon.uk the other day.
Installed and played 2 minutes before getting back to work.
"- Nice game, I´m sure I´ll have lots of fun once I find me some time to play it."
Life goes on.

Yesterday, my PC´s power supply fried.
I took it to the shop, they replaced it, installed a new DVD drive and just for kicks, installed a new RAM stick for a whammy 4gig total.
(Or so it should be since tech guy tells me Win X 32 bit will only recognise 3.3gigs.
No prob, I´ll wait for Win7 64 bits.)
I arrive at home, it´s hot and I´ve already wasted the whole day back and forth with the computer under my arm, why not have some fun?

I put the Fear 2 DVD in the tray, click the steam icon on the desktop.... nothing happens.
I click and click and click... nothing.
Maybe conputer hasn´t recovered yet, lots of changes... I restart the computer.... Steam has problems shutting down.
Reboot.
I go for the steam icon again. And again. And again. Nothing.
I go to my computer and try to acces the Fear 2 dvbd directly, play from there.... nothing as well. It asks me the language, I choose english, next options windows I choose "Play Fear 2".... nothing.

After 3 or 4 attempts like this (with steam having shutdown problems throughout), I decide to get that f$%#r out of my computer.
I uninstall Steam.
i try to uninstall Fear 2. Pproblem. "Steam is already running".
WTF!
How can it still be running, I just uninstalled the damn thing.
Fear 2 icon disappears, so I imagine it unistalled itself somehow.
I restart the computer.
Shutdown problem, Steam has problems turning off.
WTF! I uninstalled the damn thing, how can it still be there in my computer giving me a hard time?

I decide to reinstall the whole thing again.
I paid for the damn thing, might as well find out what´s wrong with it before throwing it out the window.
Problem again, Steam bla-bla-bla.
Arrgh!

I just wanted to play a game.

<- curls into fetal position, sobbing

Has anyone else have to face this type of misery?

[alx]

No, I've never had that problem. But that's only because I refuse to buy any game which uses that nazi DRM scheme, exactly for the reasons you've stated

The problem is that you've altered your machine enough that steam thinks it is a different machine. They'll never give you your money back and might not even help you fix it

The moral of this story? Don't buy any game using steam. EVER

In other news: I curse them along with you, Sunset! May they all rot in hell for what they've done to you

[AlexY]

May 30, 2009 9:27:58 GMT alx said:

The problem is that you've altered your machine enough that steam thinks it is a different machine. They'll never give you your money back and might not even help you fix it

I don't think that's the issue here. Steam games are tied to an account, not to a machine. I can play my copy of the Orange Box wherever I log in, not just on my computer - and if I change something in my configuration, that should prove to be no problem.

You said the computer was basically fried, right? Try to run a registry cleaner, defragment, etc. Steam might be a nuisance here and there, but these problems you stated seem to be of a higher importance. Watch out for any kind of weird behaviour.

Did Steam start along with the computer? Maybe the process was somehow "left" in the comp's memory somehow...

[sunset]

It´s the first Steam game I´ve ever bought, so I had no idea of what they were all about.
i still don´t really...

I had to go the the programs directory in the c: drive and delete the Steam folder.

Because I´m crazy like that, I installed the damn thing again and it´s now running. I even managed to play a couple more minutes. Nice game, pretty graphics, couple scary tidbits.

But the whole thing did leave a foul taste in my mouth, especialy because I still don´t understand what went wrong.
A new ram stick and dvd drive are enough to mess with it? WTF....

Interesting fact, when I re-installed it this time it asked for my steam account info but not the game´s serial number.

[Alone]

May 30, 2009 14:22:56 GMT sunset said:

It´s the first Steam game I´ve ever bought, so I had no idea of what they were all about.
i still don´t really...

I had to go the the programs directory in the c: drive and delete the Steam folder.

Because I´m crazy like that, I installed the damn thing again and it´s now running. I even managed to play a couple more minutes. Nice game, pretty graphics, couple scary tidbits.

But the whole thing did leave a foul taste in my mouth, especialy because I still don´t understand what went wrong.
A new ram stick and dvd drive are enough to mess with it? WTF....

Interesting fact, when I re-installed it this time it asked for my steam account info but not the game´s serial number.

It won't ask for it anymore because the game is now registered with Steam as being in your possession. You shouldn't have to ever use the disc again and can install the game from anywhere as long as you connect to Steam to do it. And a new RAM stick can be enough to mess with your OS as a whole if it's installed badly enough.

For example, any one of my games I can install into any computer anywhere in the world as long as I can log into Steam to do so. It's permanently saved to the Steam account. Think of it like a GMail account. As long as you can log into it, it doesn't matter where or from what computer you log into it from, it still acts the same. Steam works in a similar manner, as long as the system you're installing the game onto meets the hardware requirements for that game.

May 30, 2009 9:27:58 GMT alx said:

No, I've never had that problem. But that's only because I refuse to buy any game which uses that nazi DRM scheme, exactly for the reasons you've stated

The problem is that you've altered your machine enough that steam thinks it is a different machine. They'll never give you your money back and might not even help you fix it

The moral of this story? Don't buy any game using steam. EVER

In other news: I curse them along with you, Sunset! May they all rot in hell for what they've done to you

...Maybe you're thinking of Spore or some of the other games with SecuROM which actually keeps track of the system settings. Steam doesn't because it's becoming "cloud gaming," which means it doesn't keep track of your computer configuration (it only checks it at all when they explicitly ask you to take a hardware survey) so that its easier to run the application in Cyber Cafes, nor the user account logged in, and is made by design to be able to run as easily in as many places as possible. Per account log-in, anyway.

The only requirement that Valve has for Steam is that you run the games out of the Steam "box," you don't even need to connect online to do it if you restart it in "Off-line mode."

[blacky]

Yeah Steam likes you fuck about with you, about half the times when I try to play 'Left 4 Dead' the system tells me that "Steam is already running" Well I am not telling it to run steam, I am telling it to play the game, and this goes on and on. People have told me to disable firewalls or reinstall and that crap. But I found if I persist the game will eventually realise that I am not actually trying to run steam, but the game (Clever! *Sarcastic clap* )

[sunset]

It´s a brand new day.
A brand new GLORIOUS day.
So, I decided to start the day by playing a little bit more of Fear 2.
I´m SO happy that I got Steam working again...

So I turn on the computer and click the steam icon on my desktop.
Nothing.
- This $#&% again?!

>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<
Nothing.

- Noooooooooooo!

[Father Vincent]

Reminds me of a coworker that I talk games with in the halls.

A little while ago, he said "I'm gonna get rid of my game consoles, that stuff's getting too complicated and expensive. I'm just gonna play games on my PC from now on."
So I was like, "OK, if ypu wanna be simplistic and economical, that's not a bad idea."

Next week he says, "Dude, this PC thing isn't working out like I'd hoped. It's almost impossible to get any good games."
"Well," I said, "There's lots of good multiplatform games you can get off of Steam."
"Yeah, but don't you have to pay for those?"
"Umm . . . yeah. You weren't expecting to play them for free, were you?"
"Well, yeah."
"Yeah, see, that's called 'piracy'. It's illegal. That's why you're having trouble getting games for free, because you're not supposed to."

Nice guy, but not very bright.

[sunset]

Well, I dunno about your friend but my Fear 2 copy seems pretty genuine to me.

Console or PC, games may be a tad expensive, but I only buy half a dozen a year , so I can absorb the finantial blow easily enough.

I actualy spend FAR more money in DVDs, comics and graphic novels than videogames.

[alx]

If steam no longer checks hardware configuration, then that's a change. Originally it used to, I know several people who upgraded hardware in the past and had that issue

I think Alone is confusing Steam's Online package with the underlying DRM scheme. But like I said, I'd never use it so I wouldn't know anything about the current state

But the fact that Sunset can't even uninstall steam and experiences shutdown issues goes a long way to illustrate how poorly written the steam code is

Invasive DRM schemes shouldn't be tolerated. I was hoping for a change after the Sony debacle but so far, no luck

[Alone]

May 30, 2009 20:39:16 GMT sunset said:

It´s a brand new day.
A brand new GLORIOUS day.
So, I decided to start the day by playing a little bit more of Fear 2.
I´m SO happy that I got Steam working again...

So I turn on the computer and click the steam icon on my desktop.
Nothing.
- This $#&% again?!

>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<>click<
Nothing.

- Noooooooooooo!

How exactly does the problem occur? Does Steam not launch at all? Are all the files still there? Have you had any other problems with your computer since you got it back? And what are your system specs?

Others have had problems with getting the game to work for various reasons. Maybe your solution exists in the following forums:

forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=505&order=desc
www.projectorigincommunity.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=20

May 30, 2009 18:59:31 GMT @blacky said:

Yeah Steam likes you fuck about with you, about half the times when I try to play 'Left 4 Dead' the system tells me that "Steam is already running" Well I am not telling it to run steam, I am telling it to play the game, and this goes on and on. People have told me to disable firewalls or reinstall and that crap. But I found if I persist the game will eventually realise that I am not actually trying to run steam, but the game (Clever! *Sarcastic clap* )

It does this because the games aren't launched from GameOverlayUI.exe (which is actually the sandbox environment that's used to run the game) but from Steam.exe whenever you try to play. It's slow, but it's part of the modular process used to accommodate for the various elements of all the different games available on Steam. Think of it as Steam starting up an emulation game system before actually running your game.

I've had the same message come up before with games not made by Valve, so it's not specific to just certain games. I find it to be a rather redundant message which I think they could have done without.

May 31, 2009 0:29:50 GMT alx said:

If steam no longer checks hardware configuration, then that's a change. Originally it used to, I know several people who upgraded hardware in the past and had that issue

I think Alone is confusing Steam's Online package with the underlying DRM scheme. But like I said, I'd never use it so I wouldn't know anything about the current state

But the fact that Sunset can't even uninstall steam and experiences shutdown issues goes a long way to illustrate how poorly written the steam code is

Invasive DRM schemes shouldn't be tolerated. I was hoping for a change after the Sony debacle but so far, no luck

If you never used it before, how can you even understand to how it works, let alone have even observed it work?

Steam itself never checked hardware with the exception of the surveys as I previously stated. It does take software surveys without notifying the user, such as statistics of its own games and the Steam system itself (for telling which game is selling the most, etc.) for purposes of marketing and pricing. This is how Valve continues to sell games that have been out for quite some time with sales, their weekend deals, free weekends, etc.

Note that I say "Steam itself." The underlying functionality of individual games can still check your hardware (how else does the game know it can run?), but this is nothing new to anyone who's played a game since the days of floppy disk installations. The extent that it checks depends on the game, which is not something that is strictly regulated by Valve.

For quite some time, the Steam version of EA's C&C Red Alert 3 had the SecuROM data, which was contained in the original retail release of RA3 published directly from EA. The Steam version later removed the SecuROM DRM, whereas EA is well-known for having "loosened" the DRM on the retail version of the game.

Your claims of "invasive" DRM being in Steam is akin to conspiracy theories. It contains no rootkits, changes no system settings, has no background tasks run outside of Steam itself, does nothing outside of the operation of the application and the components contained within (the games, videos, etc). In fact, all it does is lock a game into a personal identification system, that of an email address and a password, which is then checked when you initially sign on to Steam by contacting the authentication server, something it doesn't even have to do if you restart and the application in "Off-line Mode." You are claiming that Steam is invasive because it functions like a desktop-based email client.

[alx]

Okay, back when Vista was many release candidates away from shipping, there was a big discussion going on with the way that OS would determine the hardware configuration of your system, built a profile and then decide whether or not the system was the same system based upon deviation from the original profile. I don't know if that is true (I refuse to use vista either) but that's what I've heard and read

In the same conversation, an engineer mentioned that Steam worked much the same way. He could've been mistaken about that but he is usually well informed and I take him at his word

After that, several guys were bitching about how they'd bought Half-Life2 and upgraded to increase performance and could no longer play HL2 due to Steam related issues

Now my buddy Sunset upgrades and has a similar problem. You gotta admit, it sounds like a DRM issue... But it could be something else and I suppose that should've been called out

When I called Steam invasive, I'm gonna stand by that. If you can't uninstall it, even when you no longer want it on your system then that's invasive. AOL and RealPlayer are the same way and are considered malware by many spyware applications

Having said all that, I will admit that I have no experience with Steam or other similar DRMs... That's by choice and I was up front about that. I never claimed it was gospel, but I'm not entirely talking out my arse, either

Anyway, that's my $.02 regarding Steam. Bank it, spend it or toss it, that's up to you...

[Toadkiller Dog]

Hmm, I've actually never had a problem with Steam.
Granted the only Steam enabled games I have are Left4Dead and Half-Life 2, but I've had zero issues with the program. AND I'm a Vista user as well. In all honesty, aside from it being a resource hog, I've had zero issues with Vista either.

If Vista is anything it's not new user friendly, but it took me about a week to learn to do almost anything I needed transferring from XP to Vista. It may do some things wrong, but it does a lot right as well. It has a good deal of serious improvements over XP. It's all in learning how to manipulate and control it, as well as learning flat out what you can do with it.

[sunset]

May 31, 2009 7:02:37 GMT Alone said:

How exactly does the problem occur? Does Steam not launch at all? Are all the files still there? Have you had any other problems with your computer since you got it back? And what are your system specs?

Others have had problems with getting the game to work for various reasons. Maybe your solution exists in the following forums:

forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=505&order=desc
www.projectorigincommunity.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=20

It worked the first time, just after I installed steam and fear 2 from the 2 dvds.

But now, it won´t respond anymore.
I click on the steam icon in my desktop and it does nothing. Not a reaction.
Program is all there, I just checked the programs directory int eh C: drive and there´s an 11.6gb steam folder.

It´s the only program that is giving me a hard time, from Photoshop to Zbrush everything else is running as smoothly as ever.

I emailed customer support yesterday but no response so far.
I´ll take a look into the forums, maybe someone has an idea....

This is SO aggravating!

[Alone]

May 31, 2009 10:06:33 GMT alx said:

Okay, back when Vista was many release candidates away from shipping, there was a big discussion going on with the way that OS would determine the hardware configuration of your system, built a profile and then decide whether or not the system was the same system based upon deviation from the original profile. I don't know if that is true (I refuse to use vista either) but that's what I've heard and read

This is true. It is known as Windows Genuine Advantage. It was horrible when Microsoft first did it, but they've learned from the mistakes of it and eased back on it, even though it was a pretty dumb idea in the first place. You can read all about that in the Wikipedia article.

May 31, 2009 10:06:33 GMT alx said:

In the same conversation, an engineer mentioned that Steam worked much the same way. He could've been mistaken about that but he is usually well informed and I take him at his word

Yes and no. Valve collects similar data and probably using similar methods, but it doesn't make use of it at all in the way that Microsoft did. It is only for their hardware surveys.

May 31, 2009 10:06:33 GMT alx said:

After that, several guys were bitching about how they'd bought Half-Life2 and upgraded to increase performance and could no longer play HL2 due to Steam related issues

If they bought NVidia cards, I wouldn't be surprised. Some of the NVidia drivers were absolutely awful, especially Vista ones. Most of the hardware vendors know what they're doing, but when it comes to the software, I kinda wonder where NVidia's head is at sometimes. RAM problems also cause errors easily. Driver and RAM problems are probably the most common computer hardware problems in recent history.

May 31, 2009 10:06:33 GMT alx said:

Now my buddy Sunset upgrades and has a similar problem. You gotta admit, it sounds like a DRM issue... But it could be something else and I suppose that should've been called out

When I called Steam invasive, I'm gonna stand by that. If you can't uninstall it, even when you no longer want it on your system then that's invasive. AOL and RealPlayer are the same way and are considered malware by many spyware applications

Having said all that, I will admit that I have no experience with Steam or other similar DRMs... That's by choice and I was up front about that. I never claimed it was gospel, but I'm not entirely talking out my arse, either

Anyway, that's my $.02 regarding Steam. Bank it, spend it or toss it, that's up to you...

I think it sounds more like the problem of corrupt files, bad directories, or RAM-related issues, but tomato, tomahto. I'd be more likely to wonder about the game itself or the new hardware, particularly the RAM, screwing something up rather than the methodology it works on.

If everything's working right, Steam actually does uninstall quite easily. It even repairs itself pretty well if components are missing, but it's naturally not flawless and does sometimes have problems. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the game itself causing the problem rather than the system it uses.

AOL and RealPlayer create false positives with many spyware applications because the behavior those programs exhibit mirrors that of malicious software. The programs themselves aren't intentionally harmful to the computer they're on, they just really, really suck.

The DRM of Steam completely avoids being invasive for the reasons I already illustrated, but has its own problems that go much further beyond the topic of discussion and aren't at all what you seem to think the term "Digital Rights Management" entails. If you have a general problem with digitally distributed games, then you might find yourself having a hard time getting some games in the future. I'd be happy to PM further details about the giant murky pool that is really DRM if you want.

May 31, 2009 15:34:37 GMT sunset said:

It worked the first time, just after I installed steam and fear 2 from the 2 dvds.

But now, it won´t respond anymore.
I click on the steam icon in my desktop and it does nothing. Not a reaction.
Program is all there, I just checked the programs directory int eh C: drive and there´s an 11.6gb steam folder.

It´s the only program that is giving me a hard time, from Photoshop to Zbrush everything else is running as smoothly as ever.

I emailed customer support yesterday but no response so far.
I´ll take a look into the forums, maybe someone has an idea....

This is SO aggravating!

Have you tried installing the game by using Steam instead of the discs? Try just reinstalling Steam, and instead of using the dvds, try just redownloading the game. Also try running the game .exe file directly from the "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\FEAR2" (or whatever it's called) folder.

Are you getting any error messages or even just the general Windows error sound when you try opening it?