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General: A Steam Dream
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
No, not a steamY dream but rather A Steam Dream. In today's column, MMORPG.com Lead Writer Bill Murphy talks about the connected Steam community. Bill wonders when MMO players and developers will realize the need for "interconnectivity" is essential to gaming communities. Check out Bill's thoughts on the matter and then leave a thought or two in the comments.
This is going to be a short and sweet article this week. And you can thank me later for it. Sean Stalzer has touched on this issue before, but there’s a big missed opportunity within online gaming: a unified community. Essentially, I guess you could say that MMORPG.com and other genre websites fill this role, but all we can do is offer articles to read and a forum to chat about games in. What I’m talking about goes much further than that. Look at a Steam for example and the way all games purchased through it share a community. You can chat with any of your friends across any game they’re playing, so long as it’s a Steam-bought product. Meaning that no matter what game you’re in, you can always stay connected to your friends and be ready to switch titles, so long as they’re logged into Steam or playing a Steam-activated game.
Read more of Bill Murphy's A Steam Dream.
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Comments
I was a late joiner to Steam, but now that I have been using the last year I have to say it is my preferred way to play now. I also love the fact that I am able to stay in touch with people I have met through various games using their buddy list which is now pretty much a permenant fixture on my desktop at home and work. There is a huge opportunity here and I think a few years from now we will see it playing an even bigger role than it does now.
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Steam... ugh.
If you feel like being bombarded by never-ending advertisements, constant patch conflictions when playing on non-steam servers, and lots of downtime when the steam network is down, then by all means... enjoy steam.
I personally can't stand Steam... especially when I'm forced to use it, e.g., MW2 / Black Ops.
I share your dream Bill. Good article.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
You can run almost any game through steam and that will enable the steam community overlay within that game. So, it's been realized, the future is here!
I do share your dream, it's actually how I think PC gaming will evolve, I've been in Steam ever since they offered it as a simple beta along with CS 1.6 and I've seen such potential at that time.
Right now Steam is pretty much my only means of purchasing games - if it's not there I will not purchase it. The only exception are Blizzard games.
It's really the biggest advantage I can see on consoles - the PSN/Xbox Live unified community. Sure, it has a huge disadvantage (like the PSN which has been offline for what now, over a week?), but such is the weakness of anything online - being offline, though PSN is really an exception since they had a much more critical breach. I don't even remember any downtime in Steam.
Steam even went as far as connecting PS3 users through Portal 2 in which you can login into Steam through your PS3 to play and communicate cross-platform.
This.
Not to mention that even 10+ years ago I kept in contact with my Ultima Online buddies even while playing other games by using ICQ.
Really, all of the tools to socially integrate with others over the Internet has already existed for years. it hasn't been "realized" because a lot of people don't care to be joined at the hip to a social network 24/7, and those who do are too busy playing farmville on Facebook.
I've been a member of steam since it's official release in 2004, and I only have 4 people on my steam friend list. One is my brother, and the other three are friends I know in real life. Personally, I see no reason to give my MMO aquantences the ability to interupt whatever I'm doing whenever they feel like it, but that's just me.
Its easy, just use Xfire, see what games your friends are playing and use either voice or text to chat
I dont tihnk the industry needs to waste $ on making such unified systems as they are already out there
Maybe they should bundle xfire on the DVD/download package
Rather than using Steam which only tracks the games you have bought from them, using xfire will track most games including those you have bought on steam and new messages / whos talking etc will pop up in a nice game overlay too
Big proponent of Steam here. It's my primary source of games and has been for a couple of years. The convenience overwhelms all other factors.
As for MMO friends on my phone -- not a f*@#$g chance. I loathe the damned things to start with (phones not friends). The last thing I want is have my leisure time revolve around one of those blasted contraptions. That goes doubly for Facebook, Twitter or any other social media garbage.
My game friends *are* game friends because I interact with them in the game. I make allowances for third party tools like Vent or TS out of necessity. But I can see in the future that the criteria for joining a guild might be "Must have iPhone" or something equally offensive.
The whole social media trend is disturbing.
Blizzard tried to do something with their bnet friend thing or whatever, i forget the name, i never used it.
Steam will actually work for most games that you dont buy from it also. You just click on "add a game" at the bottom of the library screen and can add non steam games to the list.
Not all of them allow the overlay but ive been able to access the overlay on pretty much every non steam game ive gotten.
Ive asked a bunch of friends to add me on it but they dont use it very often. lol
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"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Wasn't this what XFire was supposed to be for?
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
First of all you Can Disable Auto-downloading Patching of your Already installed game on the Steam Interface... Patching issues ? i dunno i think 1 or 2 game in the past years had that issue and it was resolved in a matter of days.
And what the hell about downtimes... i been using Steam since it First launched... And i never Faced a Downtime that would prevent Me from playing any of my games. also Games server dont lag because of steam.
My question to you is , Have you Even Fricking Used Steam? its Group/communities.. its chatting options... Yes ok i do admit...you need friends for those.... dang....Friends right....WoW......yup.... Its ok, if you werent so shut off about systems like those, maybe ud have a few internet buddies...
Cya.
As others have already pointed out Bill, Steam does what you mentioned already.
That being said...Steam is a program that has a LOT of room for improvement. Any enterprising developer would be wise to take a look at what Steam does well, and what it doesn't do well, and improve upon it. The market is prime for an app that works like, but better than, Steam.
I kinda hate Steam as well. Why should I ever have to load/run a 3rd party TSR (terminate & stay resident for you non-techies) client in order to play a game. Why should I EVER (and I do mean ever) need to be online to play a single-player (or LAN or Hot-Seat) game on my computer?
It's one thing to need to be connected in order to play an MMO...but something like Civ or Dragon Age or Total War?
Essentialy I avoid purchasing anything on Steam unless there is absolutely no option to get it any other way....and then I think twice about whether I want to make the purchase or not..simply because I'd rather not have to deal with Steam.
The only good thing about Steam is that it keeps track of what games you own in case you ever loose the physical media...but there are plenty of other digital distribution channels that do that as well...minus the intrusive 3rd party client.
Finally, I really DON'T want to be universally connected (and tracked & marketed to). If I'm playing a turn based wargame with my wargame buddies...I don't want to be bugged about what my MMO Guild is doing...or what my buddy who plays FPS games are doing. If I want to know about that, I can fire up clients dedicated to that...or just check my e-mail or a guild website.
Heck, I already feel too connected for most parts of my day as well. Alot of times there is nothing better then being out-of-range of a cell phone signal....or just turning the darn thing off in the first place.
/rant>
I've been using Steam for years, since..well, the original Half-Life I guess, or whenever Steam launched... I think it was for Counterstrike, back in the early 2000s. Anyways, I've never had any of those problems.
1. "If you feel like being bombarded by never-ending advertisements." I've never seen any advertisements on Steam, unless you mean the Store page, which shows New/Featured/Coming Soon games and their prices... You know, kind of like, some kind of Online Store. Or maybe you mean the Spotlight game which shows the current On Sale game, which pops up twice a week (Weekend Sale/Midweek Sale) and shows a game that is usually between 50-90% off. At this moment, Mount & Blade is on sale for 80% off... I love seeing good games for super-cheap prices.
2. "Constant patch conflictions when playing on non-steam servers." Can't really comment on this one since I use Steam to play on Steam servers. However, I can comment on Steam's constant auto-updating which is awesome. All the games in your library are kept up-to-date and you never have to go searching for a patch.
3. "Lots of downtime when the Steam network is down." Not sure what you're talking about here, but I've never seen Steam go down, at least not in the past 4-5 years. The only time I've ever had a problem was when working up North, and the camp had Steam access blocked, and couldn't connect to it using my mobile-internet stick. Just wouldn't connect...but then again, couldn't do much with it at all. In other words, I hate to say it, but I think the problem is on your end.
Not entirely true. I was going to post the same as you, but when I thought about it, I did in fact see the Steam Network go down a few times way back in the day... Back during my Counter-strike days. Now, according to Wiki, Steam launched with CS 1.6, back in 2002... so... the Steam network did in fact go down, nearly a decade ago.
I will never knowingly use Steam.
For reasons of my own, and especially GrumpyMel2 mentioned above.
The MMO/MMORPG Genre doesn't need Steam... If I wanted the features Steam provides most of those I could get with Xfire.
HOWEVER I never dsired those features so I don't have Xfire... so why would I want Steam?
Steam will just end up being another mouth to feed with profits... and there are already too many mouths that need to be fed by this genre that shouldn't be at the dinner table to begin with.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
i've been using steam now for several years.. the service has improved over time.. and now.. i can't imagine not having it.. i have quite a few games through it.. i used to buy games via mail order - play/amazon etc.. but now.. i usually check out steam first.. living in the countryside means i need a good reliable service.. which steam provides.. its the best platform imo, for PC gaming.. you only have to look at ones like xbox live and games for windows live to see why Steam is better for gamers. .. not to mention.... Steam does for free what other games platforms try to charge money for...
Mr. William, the problem is as always with the money. You need to run big server database for milions of users with ability to create chats etc.
Although this dream may be shared with Microsoft dreams, since they are experimenting with Microsoft WGX (Windows Gaming Experience) which is suppose to be one identity shared among any web page on the net with having one shared avatar, ability to chat, invite to games etc. Something like Xbox Live but for web.
Steam is a favorite service. I also like EADM and Impulse.
The best thing to steam are its deals and its backup/recovery system. Staying in contact with friends is also retroactive because it also means all their enemies and people who don't like them could be pushed onto you or linked to you directly through steam.
It means if you have X amount of friends, and each friend also has at least one enemy, and they all know where to find you...It means as long as you do not have any enemies but are in the group, the total number of people you will deal with is 2X + 1 where the possibility of meeting people you do not know or an enemy is actually higher.
Its like a forumboard in a way...You can have a friend or two, but the majority of people you either DO NOT CARE ABOUT or are INDIFFERENT and Neutral to their existence. However, you find yourself dealing with many people you do not wish to intend to be party to.
As with others I too was a late comer to Steam, however it is most assuredly my preferred method of gaming now. A good article and a good read.
Retired: EVE, SWG, STO, EQ2, Ryzom, AO, LotRO, FFXI
Currently Awaiting: SWTOR, TSW, ArcheAge
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGCB-2555
There. So you dont have be a player hater anymore.
If you still have to connect to play, like say HL-2, thats because the software developer decided you need to, not Steam.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Who can disagree on this article ?
But regarding Steam, it is besides a community also a way to fire game promotions and other commercial at you. The games you buy are bound to your steam account, and also some of them can't be played without an active connection to Steam.
I had the craving for some civ some time ago, and I bought Civ5. In order to play Civ5 you NEED to register it with Steam, so I guess I had no choice. After a short time I realized Civ5 is a crappy game IMO, but after asking in the Civ forums I got the official reply that the game is tied to that Steam account and can never be untied.
Great, I had hoped to give the game to someone related now that I didn't find it enjoyable .. but I cant, unless I want to give my Steam accoutn away - And as stupid as I have been, I had some other games bound aswell, so that is not an option.
Here you go Sir, the keys to you brand new car.. oh btw, you can never sell it as it is registered to you forever.
It is not only Steam, others do the same .. Settlers 7 made me bind the game to an account, and the Civ5 on Steam just opened my eyes. NEVER AGAIN WILL I BUY A GAME THAT BINDS TO AN ACCOUNT FOREVER - Talk about taking it up the a....
When/If this practise stops, I guess I could tolerate Steam - They do provide a service, and the price is having them gather info about you for marketing purposes.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
I have always been extremely sceptical about digital download services & the like. I installed steam right back when Halflife2 arrived in my hot little hands but only because it was forced upon us. I promptly installed HL2, activated it and set steam into offline mode & never touched it again until CoD Black ops came out with its included steam works (Brink has this too).
What Can I say, the service has come a hell of a long way & the gaming goodness bargains on offer in the market place are almost impossible to ignore.
For your list of complaints:
- I dont mind the adverts personally as I like the bargains to be had. But you can quickly close them after steam launches & you can put the steam interphase into a minimalist mode where a lot less advertising shows up as a result.
- No patch conflicts here (and I own about 50 games now) but it is something I had heard complaints of in the distant past.
- Steam Network has never been down when I wanted to use it since i started using steam again after COD Black Ops came out.
- You can always put steam into offline mode to play when you have no net connection.
Overall I have been largely happy with steam, voicechat anywhere and the friends overlay are invaluable to me now.
For those complaining about binding games to accounts etc, welcome to the new world of digital distribution & the publishing war against secondhand games. Many Console games now require you to register your multiplayer key online and to name one EA encourages you to keep all your EA game registrations together. Steam & other digital distribution platforms are actually saving PC gaming, making it cheaper & more accessible to people.
People demonize steam based on its past (I know because I was one of them) but you should really give it a chance it has come a long way. Besides Pretty soon almost every game on every playform is going to require you to login to some sort of online account so you can play....
Ugh, not Steam.
They have the potential to turn PC gaming into another monopoly like consoles, where one company dominates the whole thing.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there