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[Stop It]

what was steam like in 2004?

Awful. Does anyone else remember the 6 month (if not longer) Friends system outage?

If you told me back in 2004 (I was using Steam since the 2nd beta stage and ever since it went "final" in Sept 2003) that in 2010 I would own over 150 games via Steam and would consider it the pinnacle of DD services I would have told you to get off!

Only Valve titles, friends network was rarely online, free parlor games were playable through friends list, and a number of people had problems activating HL2.

I remember visiting the Steampowered forums some hours after the HL2 launch, yikes. I was one of the lucky ones who got to play HL2 without Steam messing up the process and I didn't expect the wave of evil that hit the forums over the issues that Steam caused. Things have come a long way since then.

 

[gillty]

2007 was really the turning point for Steam, until TF2 and the Orange Box I had a hell of a time convincing people to drop xfire for steam friends, I remember I was the first one I knew on steam community. Up until then the software was super buggy and was a bit of a memory hog that and friends went down constantly but Valve has managed to turn it around quite a bit.

 

[Aselith]

Here's a screenshot I got from a steam rememberance thread on their forums (not sure how old this is though. This was what the client looked like until, what, like 2 years ago or so?) They also have screenshots of Steam beta clients which are WILDLY different. We've come a long way, baby!

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1087352&page=7

 

[Cindres]

It was a simpler time.
Hard to think Steam used to fucking suck, i remember having to use it for HL2 and CS:S and being continually pissed off.

 

[Mr Sandman]

Here's a screenshot I got from a steam rememberance thread on their forums (not sure how old this is though. This was what the client looked like until, what, like 2 years ago or so?) They also have screenshots of Steam beta clients which are WILDLY different. We've come a long way, baby!

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1087352&page=7

Oh my god! Don't remind me man, shit was hideous!

 

[Dina]

Uhm, Steam's redirect to Paypal doesn't work anymore.

edit: cc still works tho.

 

[zombieshavebrains]

I remember using it when HL2 came out. Friends never worked for me. I would add someone and they would never appear. There was no store. Sometimes steam would be "running" but would never come up for you to use it so you would click the .exe and you would get a steam is already running message. You would close it through task manager, start it again and it would still never pop up. And when they forced all CS 1.6 players to use steam to play it man were they piiiiiisssssseeeedddddd. And the green...

 

[MNC]

I started using Steam when Orange Box was announced. I remember the green olive drab skin! It was pretty silly. Long way indeed!

 

[Stallion Free]

I started using Steam shortly before HL2 released and it bothered me so much that they left OpFor as just Opposing Force without having Half-Life in front of it. I got lucky with the HL2 activation too and was able to play fine day one. I used X-fire back then so I don't remember even using the friends list at first.

Also, if you don't buy Bloody Good Time, you have no soul.

 

[Diablohead]

I had steam installed for the hl2 launch but I spent nearly all my time in the CSS beta, then I had steam uninstalled for quite a while until a few years back which now runs all the time in my system tray, it's my main way to talk to friends too.

 

[Toma]

I started using Steam something like 2-3 weeks ago and I am addicted to it >_>
They really should get more old games to rerelease on the service. I had a HARD time hunting down Pathologic in a local videogame store just to try it out. Or all the old-school RPG's for that matter.

 

[MNC]

Hey what the fuck, Worms 4 pack is gone for this sale? Such bullshit.

 

[archnemesis]

I started using Steam something like 2-3 weeks ago and I am addicted to it >_>
They really should get more old games to rerelease on the service. I had a HARD time hunting down Pathologic in a local videogame store just to try it out. Or all the old-school RPG's for that matter.

Have you tried GOG.com? They have a lot of good old school stuff, unless you mean really really old games such as Wasteland or SSI's Gold Box series.

 

[Stallion Free]

Hey what the fuck, Worms 4 pack is gone for this sale? Such bullshit.

Yeah, those assholes fucking owe you that 4-pack. Let's go burn those motherfuckers down....


:lol

 

[MNC]

Yeah, those assholes fucking owe you that 4-pack. Let's go burn those motherfuckers down....


:lol

Yeah, I'm a fucking cheapskate and I want to wringe every penny out of them.

Steam sales taught me bad things

 

[Lumine]

Isn't Steam much older? I might be remembering this wrong, but I think Steam launched back when counter-strike 1.6 released and Valve stopped using the Won service. I also remember the launch being a mess. It literally took days to get through the loading and updates to finally get online on Steam and literally no one cared for it nor understood why we were being fed this crap. We just wanted to play CS 1.6. :lol


Yeah Steam has come a long way since then.

 

[Stallion Free]

Yeah, I'm a fucking cheapskate and I want to wringe every penny out of them.

Steam sales taught me bad things

If you are such a cheapskate then go play the F2P Worms clone Hedgewars. It is so close to the real deal that they could probably be sued.

 

[VGChampion]

I actually never had a problem with early Steam. My HL2 loaded up just fine on launch. Don't know if it matters as I had bought an ATI card before it was released so I was given the game for free thanks to that but no issues. I also never used the Friends List at the time as well since my only friends were people I knew in real life and I didn't feel like chatting during HL2. :lol

Anyways, guess I have to decide soon if I want the Dawn of War pack. It's tempting but I just bought Lara Croft and Costume Quest. Hmmm....

 

[slidewinder]

That default green look is not even that old. UGLY, yeah.

 

[1-D_FTW]

I was surprised to hear some people had to wait a couple days to get HL2 working too.

I remember being so excited, I woke up in the middle of the night, logged in to download the activation files, and went back to sleep.

 

[Remy]

I like that when you try to register Bloody Good Time with Ubisoft, "Steam" and "Xbox Live Arcade" are not options to answer "Where You Bought The Game From" with.

*headdesk*

 

[Mr Nightman]

Didn't start using steam until like 2 years ago, when it looked like this

Glad I never had to use the first interface design :lol

 

[VGChampion]

First interface design was okay at first because for a long time there just weren't that many games. I may be remembering wrong but I believe it was Valve only for a long time.

And is it just me or is the Warhammer complete pack missing and in it's place is an expansion? Guess I should have made up my mind earlier.

 

[erpg]

Valve and Codename: Gordon.

 

[Curufinwe]

RE5 for $15 is very tempting, however...

Capcom has no plans of bringing the 'Gold' DLC to the PC.

Is the Gold content any good?

I bought the PS3 version of RE 5 used in February so I could get the two DLC episodes, and I really enjoyed both of them. There's Quick Looks of them on Giant Bomb.

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-re5-lost-in-nightmares/17-2047/
http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-resident-evil-5-desperate-escape/17-2135/

 

[DMczaf]

Member since: September 12, 2003

I was there during the Dark Times.

 

[jambo]

Here's a screenshot I got from a steam rememberance thread on their forums (not sure how old this is though. This was what the client looked like until, what, like 2 years ago or so?) They also have screenshots of Steam beta clients which are WILDLY different. We've come a long way, baby!

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1087352&page=7

I miss the mini Steam bandwidth monitor.

 

[K.Jack]

For those who want the original Dawn Of War, the Platinum pack is an absolute steal at $15 USD.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

wow...Steam from the beta in 2002:

 

[Wolf Akela]

I still have old Steam installed in my laptop. Too lazy to copy my games to it, I think I'll keep it as a remembrance. :lol

 

[graywolf323]

Member since: September 12, 2003

I was there during the Dark Times.

November 1st, 2003 here :lol

 

[charlequin]

wow...Steam from the beta in 2002:

Steam was so fucking shitty when it started out. I remember when they included "Steam" in the new Half-Life patch the first time (which I only downloaded so I could keep playing Counter-Strike, natch) and it made the whole thing almost unusably bad. :lol

 

[Mihos]

I remember having to install Steam to play Total War. I was pissed about it, because I thought Steam sucked.

Consider this my formal apology to the Internet.

 

[zoku88]

I only started using steam when HL2 came out. In 2005, maybe?

 

[Diablohead]

Member since: September 12, 2003

I was there during the Dark Times.

Nov 5th 2004 for me, when did HL2 launch?

I remember using steam for the very first time watching some sort of trailer? I don't remember but it might have been another account, not that I care

 

[Recon]

I only started using steam when HL2 came out. In 2005, maybe?

I thought HL2 came out fall 2004? I dont know exactly, i know that when i started using it, it was my senior year in HS.

 

[Nabs]

started using it when audiosurf came out. great time to jump in.

 

[Slavik81]

what was steam like in 2004?

I started using it in on Christmas day, 2004. It was a program you could use to download Half-Life 2/CS:S, rather than install from disk. There wasn't much wrong with it, besides the fact that you had to have it running in order to play HL2/CS:S. Besides that, you could pretty much ignore it.

I never had a problem with Steam. Nearly all the hate comes from the Half-Life 2 launch, where the service failed under the load and a lot of people had to wait a day in order to play.

 

[MarshMellow96]

There's a STALKER bundle on Steam for £6.24 - what's the consensus on CoP? More stable than SoC? I need my STALKER fix and I can't play SoC because of X-ray crashes..

 

[Stop It]

Nov 5th 2004 for me, when did HL2 launch?

I remember using steam for the very first time watching some sort of trailer? I don't remember but it might have been another account, not that I care

November 16th 2004, I remember the date because it is also my sisters birthday.

Before that, I remember the CS:S beta that you got for pre-ordereding. I swear that because I "manipulated" the content servers, that I was probably one of the first 10 or so people in the world to play the game. Those were the days. People moaning about "slow" content servers or bad service clearly were not using it when getting 100kilobyte/s was considered fast.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Fuck GFWL. Fuck it so hard.

So I got Batman when it was on sale but didn't get a chance to play until yesterday. I try to play and it forces me to sign into GFWL...okay, I've got an account, that's fine....

Turns out my hotmail account has been "compromised" and I need Microsoft to verify my identity. Okay, a little roadblock and annoyance but nothing huge.

I go through the process which requires me to enter my phone number so they can send me a code to verify. Only I never get the code...tried sending it four times. So I go to the next step which requires me to enter some information about my account...and somehow I have to remember what folders were in my hotmail account that I haven't used in five years...or the credit card I used to sign up for Xbox Live or any other paid services which I've never done. So basically I don't know how to get this taken care of without calling customer service which is probably closed today.

And I can't fucking play Batman because I can't sign into GFWL so it won't even let me save my fucking game. Fuck this shit.

Probably just gonna make a new Live account instead...don't plan on buying another Xbox so I don't give a shit about the games I owned or my achievements.

 

[TheExodu5]

Steam is starting to annoy me quite a bit. It's become very bloated and unstable for me. To top it off, I've been trying for the last hour to gift a game to a friend but the community servers seem to be completely fucked.

 

[Stallion Free]

Fuck GFWL. Fuck it so hard.

So I got Batman when it was on sale but didn't get a chance to play until yesterday. I try to play and it forces me to sign into GFWL...okay, I've got an account, that's fine....

Turns out my hotmail account has been "compromised" and I need Microsoft to verify my identity. Okay, a little roadblock and annoyance but nothing huge.

I go through the process which requires me to enter my phone number so they can send me a code to verify. Only I never get the code...tried sending it four times. So I go to the next step which requires me to enter some information about my account...and somehow I have to remember what folders were in my hotmail account that I haven't used in five years...or the credit card I used to sign up for Xbox Live or any other paid services which I've never done. So basically I don't know how to get this taken care of without calling customer service which is probably closed today.

And I can't fucking play Batman because I can't sign into GFWL so it won't even let me save my fucking game. Fuck this shit.

Probably just gonna make a new Live account instead...don't plan on buying another Xbox so I don't give a shit about the games I owned or my achievements.

Make sure you use a non-hotmail email this time.

 

[Nabs]

Steam is starting to annoy me quite a bit. It's become very bloated and unstable for me. To top it off, I've been trying for the last hour to gift a game to a friend but the community servers seem to be completely fucked.

they've been working on the servers this afternoon. try later?

 

[TheExodu5]

they've been working on the servers this afternoon. try later?

I will...but I still think it's pretty inexcusable for this kind of thing to still happen, especially without warning. Blizzard has the sense to perform their maintenance in the early morning, not the middle of the day on a weekend.

It's screwing up my day because it's stopping my from getting my cousin's PC ready with a few Steam games before I bring it to him tomorrow.

 

[Nabs]

yeah, i don't think it was planned. they usually give us a heads up

 

[FOOTE]

I sent a message to Steam Support but haven't heard back so I'm going to post it here too and hopefully someone else has dealt with this and has been able to fix it. I read a few posts above that they might be working on servers this afternoon, however this problem has been going on since July.

Here is my message to Steam.

Hi.

I am having problems staying connected to Steam. If I restart my computer it works fine for about 10 minutes, then I seem to lose my internet connection to it. The same thing happens with games. For instance, after a restart I can load Half Life 2 Deathmatch and connect to a server, but after about 10 minutes the connection is cut. After this happens I can right click the Steam tray icon and load a list of servers, but my latency is 0 for all of them.

At this point if I close down steam, I cannot get it to load back up. When I double click it, nothing happens but Steam is running in task manager... If I end the process, and try again nothing happens except for Steam running in the task manager again.

The only way to make things work correctly again is to restart my PC, and this only works for 10 or 15 minutes.

So far I've tried deleting the blob file, disabling my firewalls, opening ports, reinstalling steam (multiple times), I've stopped processes from running... I am at a loss. This has been going on since July, and I've run out of ideas on how to fix this.

Thanks for your help.

If anyone has any ideas about what I can do please help. I can browse the internet fine, and I have another PC in the house which connects to Steam fine every time, and I have tried my Steam user name on it as well. My PC is wired directly to the router.

 

[Baha]

I sent a message to Steam Support but haven't heard back so I'm going to post it here too and hopefully someone else has dealt with this and has been able to fix it. I read a few posts above that they might be working on servers this afternoon, however this problem has been going on since July.

Here is my message to Steam.


If anyone has any ideas about what I can do please help. I can browse the internet fine, and I have another PC in the house which connects to Steam fine every time, and I have tried my Steam user name on it as well. My PC is wired directly to the router.

Did anything change in July? ISP, router, modem, software added, things like that?

 

[indigo-cyclops]

Steam user since 2004 - not quite beta but god damn, long time ago it sure seems.

I just saw this and came here to look for info, heh. I've never heard of it but I love the art style and am in an RPG mood, sooooo ... I think I can part with $5.

Downloading now. Let's see what's up.

I downloaded it and played it a bit. The writing is a little pretentious but good, the combat is probably my biggest concern. It just seems kind of boring. Everything else seems really cool though.

 

[FOOTE]

Did anything change in July? ISP, router, modem, software added, things like that?

Nah, nothing changed.