Bitchfest: All forms of DRM are bad, including Steam

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I'll try to keep it short.

I bought UT3 through Steam the week it was released on there. I never played it often, but it's a decent game to kill time every now and then.

So all the news about the new patch and Titan pack release made me want to fire it up. Too bad this was the closest thing I could get to playing the damn game on Steam for the last 24+ hours.

fffuuu.png


Most-likely Steam has been getting hammered by not only the Titan pack patching, but the free weekend of UT3 play they handed out. (imagine all those people dling 8GBs at a time)

It did not occur to me until a few hours earlier that I could just try playing in Offline mode. Screw updating the game if it won't even let me play it.

So I go into Offline mode, try launching the game, and for the next couple hours I keep seeing this:

wtfg.png


A few minutes before this post, the previous screen goes away. But then Steam gets stuck on this screen and won't do a fucking thing.

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I can't play it in online mode. I can't play it in offline mode.

During all of this, I'm hearing people on IRC and seeing people on Steam Friends playing the game they never bought.

So my friends are having a blast with their free weekend while I'm stuck not being able to play the game I bought..

Sorry, just needed to vent. I know it's only been a day without the game. But the fact that I couldn't even play it in the "DRM-free" Offline mode really grinded my gears.

Valve: please don't pull this kind of shit again if you don't have the server capacity to let your paying customers use the software they paid for.
 
Valve should definitely increase server capacity and implement a peer-to-peer protocol. Paying customers always get access to direct-download, but free weekenders can opt to use bittorrent if it would provide a better download speed. At the very least, it would lighten the load on the servers.

I downloaded UT3 on Thursday at a steady 700 KB/s after switching to the Northwest server. (Bought it during the holiday sale.) But most people probably weren't so lucky...

Steam's fan-fucking-tastic when it works, but when it doesn't it can be a royal PITA.

And I agree: Steam's offline mode needs some work. Impulse, for example, is always in offline mode. You only need to open the client to check for updates.
 
I feel your pain. It's bullshit to pay $50 for a game and then be denied to play it because too may people are already playing it. That happened to me sometimes. I like steam, ok, well I do like the chat and the ability to download anything I own anywhere but, they should have a way to play single player offline for ALL games.
 
What Valve should do is have their servers prioritize the people who BOUGHT THE GAME! I mean really, I payed 15 bucks, I want to get my update quicker than John Doe who's going to play the free weekend and then probably not buy the game.
 
I was hoping to get on the free UT3 action myself.
I was planning on "testing it out first" before buying it but it was already taking too long and was only fooling myself 'cause I'll know it'll be good and was going to buy it no matter what so I did (its only $12 no brainer). Hoping it would give me a higher priority over those who are getting it free, but it doesn't.
I set my download location from US south to South America and I think that sped it up a bit so try doing that. I still love steam and think it is very useful, its pros outweigh its cons immensely imho. No CD check, no install limits, download anywhere anytime any computer, auto game updates, the Overlay and the community features. I think its the best compromise for the consumer and developers too (cheap deals but not preused). the only thing I don't like is that sometimes games are the same price as retail. Even if theres not a deal or sale going on they should be about -$5 off the retail price because I could always just buy the physical copy of the games and get a nice case manual cd ect with it and not have to wait to download. Also you cant sell your used game.

I want to be able to add my retail cdkey of COD4 to Steam but can't, would totally love that feature too.
 
I wish I knew why the UT3 thing was such a cluster-frak, but I don't know. I've been downloading games from Steam fine for the whole weekend, so these must have been new servers meant specifically to distribute UT3.

By the way, if you already have UT3 installed and are just trying to update, you can patch and update it manually by downloading the files from a place like FileFront or BigDownload.
 
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