Steamed!

[Fisherking]

Steamed!

Okay, so all my newest games are on Steam.

Trouble is that Steam, at least in Germany has been down for about 18 hours now.

No word on when it will come up.

That will at least teach me to never, ever go to online mode unless I want an update or load a new game.

[Vladimir]

[Greyblades]

Weird. All I could think of watching that was how in spite of the rest the CG battledroids still hold up 10 years later.

[Andres]

Did the mines in Germany run out of coal?



I'm here all day.

[frogbeastegg]

That's a nightmare I've had a few times. Got to love that loop of "Error: must be online to go offline".

I managed to work-around it once by turning my router off. For some reason that made offline work as intended instead of grumbling that I wasn't online. Worth a try, if you haven't done that already.

[Monk]

That's a nightmare I've had a few times. Got to love that loop of "Error: must be online to go offline".

I managed to work-around it once by turning my router off. For some reason that made offline work as intended instead of grumbling that I wasn't online. Worth a try, if you haven't done that already.

If steam fails to find an active internet connection after a few minutes it will ask you if you'd like to enable offline instead. That is, when it's feeling like it. As much as I like steam and use it daily, it is incredibly finicky about when it will let you go offline

[frogbeastegg]

If steam fails to find an active internet connection after a few minutes it will ask you if you'd like to enable offline instead. That is, when it's feeling like it. As much as I like steam and use it daily, it is incredibly finicky about when it will let you go offline

Oh yes. Offline mode is my second biggest bugbear with steam now they've fixed a few others. The first being forced integration of owned DLC and the latest patch at all times.

The steam cloud is a bit of a menace too. "Sorry cloud's not available for reasons we won't bother to explain. Your games may or may not be missing stuff. Playing now might mess up your files if you do have any on the cloud. Wanna play anyway?" I don't think I have anything on the cloud, but with steam I never feel certain of anything.

[Monk]

Oh yes. Offline mode is my second biggest bugbear with steam now they've fixed a few others. The first being forced integration of owned DLC and the latest patch at all times.

The steam cloud is a bit of a menace too. "Sorry cloud's not available for reasons we won't bother to explain. Your games may or may not be missing stuff. Playing now might mess up your files if you do have any on the cloud. Wanna play anyway?" I don't think I have anything on the cloud, but with steam I never feel certain of anything.

Some games use the cloud to sync their save-games. Shogun 2 was the first game I had that did this, it's a nice feature in some ways but it's one I will never take advantage of. I only have one computer that I consider gaming worthy so I don't need mobile access to my saves.

[Fisherking]

That's a nightmare I've had a few times. Got to love that loop of "Error: must be online to go offline".

I managed to work-around it once by turning my router off. For some reason that made offline work as intended instead of grumbling that I wasn't online. Worth a try, if you haven't done that already.

I shot my self in the foot there.

After several login attempts I thought the file was to blame so I reinstalled steam.

I can’t login offline because it tells me there is no saved login information.


It would seem that a few people found a work-around by going to Hot Spots and connecting to servers in the US.

So, tell me why they can’t switch servers here, to rout around the problem? Besides, it is all of Germany and there is more than one server. Why has it taken almost a whole day and still no word of a fix?

Steam is terrible at providing client information to users. That really needs to be addressed.

[Voigtkampf]

Steamrolled?

PS Sorry, I know its cruel, I just...Could not...Resist...

[Fisherking]

Now you need to explain it to everyone.

It just says "This video is not available in your country."

[Vladimir]

That's what you people get for two world wars! Rickrolls.

[Fisherking]

I am not German, wise guy.


Anyway, I am still STEAMed.

After the Steam Network cam back up, it now doesn't see the installed games and want to download them all again!

Anyone have a work around for this one?

[Voigtkampf]

Now you need to explain it to everyone.

It just says "This video is not available in your country."

Stupid YouTube... grmph...

Here is the song

Know your Meme... You've been RickRolled...

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rickroll

It was just a stupid lame joke (Steamed = RickRolled, harr harr) and I am ashamed of it now.

[Fisherking]

Well, it looks as though I may get my games back after only 9 hours rather than 18.

Small consolation.

Steam Support is, is, well I can’t say that word here.

I have been on steam for about 6 years now and never realized I was not retested to use their forum.

I did that early yesterday. I got approved only this morning.

It would seem that Steam has regular business hours and operates from the Pacific Time Zone.

No round the clock support that you should expect from a company dealing with clients from all time zones.

It is like they have a technical and admin staff of ONE. There must be more but it certainly is not obvious.

As they charge full retail price for most of their games, as well as being the sole source to access those games they must be very profitable. I don’t know what the mark-up is on games but I would assume it is between 35% to 50%, which means that is the amount of the charge that they keep. So as much as half the price of a game goes into their pockets. That and unlimited inventory.

One might expect better service for what they are paying, but it would seem that dealing with Steam is much like dealing with a Government Agency. Your problem is just an interruption of the daily routine and they have better things to do, like go on breaks or take long lunches.

Pardon me if I seem a bit miffed but if you had spent the last 36hours, thus far, trying to get to the loading screen of one of your games, you might be a little edgy too.

Anyway, I would hope that something might be done to address these issues.

Such low quality service would seem to me to impact the customer/client base.

Isn’t there anyway to get them to shape up?

I know it is not one directional. I remember CA having difficulties with them over release times and patches as well as a total lack of interest in most end user problems.

Oh, and my first post on the Steam Forums! I got a locked thread for posting in the wrong area, I guess.

That sure did a lot to improve my opinion of them, you know.

[frogbeastegg]

It would seem that Steam has regular business hours and operates from the Pacific Time Zone.

In the UK we get patches and sale changeovers at 6PM. Some brand new games aren't available until 6PM, others are out at 9AM, or midnight - it's a lottery in my experience. Sometimes they put up a countdown clock and then move it back a day or two before release in order to sync us up with the US. The UK has had unique problems with certain games - we don't get them. They're available for everyone else, we can buy them anywhere else, but not on steam's own store for reasons no one will explain. That includes a few steamworks games.

The one time I needed to use their support it wouldn't let me sign up for a steam support account, no idea why. I had to ask another user to submit the query for me. Because I don't know how their timezone relates to mine, I have no idea when their support is in or out of work, or how their expected turnaround time relates to my 'real' time.

As they charge full retail price for most of their games, as well as being the sole source to access those games they must be very profitable. I don’t know what the mark-up is on games but I would assume it is between 35% to 50%, which means that is the amount of the charge that they keep. So as much as half the price of a game goes into their pockets. That and unlimited inventory.

I've heard 30% but have no idea how accurate that is.

They sort of have limited stock in terms of CD keys. There's been a few popular sales where they ran out of keys and people couldn't get the games they had paid for until a fresh batch of keys arrived. I don't know what would happen if they couldn't get more keys. Presumably that's never going to happen, but the wait can be lengthy and people would be justified in requesting a refund.

Pardon me if I seem a bit miffed but if you had spent the last 36hours, thus far, trying to get to the loading screen of one of your games, you might be a little edgy too.

Been there, done that. One of the assorted reasons I only use them for cheap games. Shogun 2, ETW, and Civ 5 are the only games I have which cost more than £15 IIRC. Most cost me half that, or even less.

Steam has improved significantly since my first, lousy experience with them (ETW) but there's still some distance to go. More reliable offline mode, better tailoring to global markets, the ability to disable DLC or use an earlier game version for singleplayer, easier access to support, better obedience to user settings instead of its current tendency to randomly override them, support for fonts larger than pinhead size across the steam UI, and servers which don't have a seizure each time there's a popular game or sale. I don't like the timed locking of new retail steamworks games either. Why should my disc be useless because it's not the right time yet?

Still, when it all works correctly it's fine and takes some hassle out of organising and updating my games. It does have a very large range, and some very good sales.

[Whacker]

Steam is horrible.

Try gog.com instead.

[Husar]

I missed this earlier, I've had an internet outage myself and Steam wouldn't go to offline mode.

Fortunately I have an apple smartphone that can be used to alleviate such problems by finding a solution and downloading the necessary tools. *ahem*

Can't find the link right now but basically it boils down to there being some bytes that Steam changes to allow you to use offline mode.
Now if you shut down windows while Steam is running, Windows doesn't shut Steam down correctly so the bytes don't get set correctly, thus preventing you from using offline mode if you boot your computer offline the next time. I resolved that problem by downloading a small hex editor and changing those bytes myself as per the instructions I found.

Actually, now that I looked again, that and other solutions can be found here.

Deleting vital files when you have no chance to get them back at the moment is often a bad idea by the way.
As for the support, last time I used it it was actually helpful and even replied in German although I messaged them in English.
Don't remember how long it took though.

I also didn't post in their forums but open a support ticket last time I had a problem that seemed more serious.

As for Whacker's suggestion, the last time GoG was down for a day or two, we had a huge thread where everybody was hating on GoG about not being able to access their games etc.
It's a nice website though and just opened up to new games as well.