Valve, is that you?

It's pretty amazing how Steam's customer service is complete shit but people will just sweep that under the rug easily

Barely anyone does; in fact it is probably the most talked about thing relating to Steam. What is consistent, is the people saying it is "swept under the rug" even though it is a constant discussion and point of ridicule - with good reason.

The only good thing to come of the support side of things is the Steam Refund policy, which should have happened years ago. It's taken the refund policy from one of the worst and typically obfuscated, to one of the best - but only because of its automation. Customer service in general remains the same even with the improved support site.
 
I don't anticipate Valve games anymore, I can't get excited for Portal 3 despite loving the first two because I just don't think it's ever going to happen. Maybe that's a good thing, eliminating hype, but it certainly doesn't make me feel good about Valve.

You can't anticipate a game that doesn't exist because it doesn't exist, sure, but if it did exist, could you anticipate it?

If the Steam Controller doesn't take off, I think Steam Machines and SteamOS are DOA, and Valve seriously has to reroute themselves.

I think this is dramatic overestimate of the focus the company is putting on SteamOS/Steam Machines.
 
What the hell? Do you know how much money they rake in? Do you know how the competition got big enough to make those AAA games? By expanding when they had the money to do so. Valve refuses to, for some reason. It really seems like they consider themselves a shopfront more than a developer.

Due to Valve's flat structure they really can't just go on mass hiring sprees. Valve is maintaining three extremely popular online games on PC, they are running the most popular digital game storefront on PC, they are creating hardware to go along with their platform all while racking in tons of money.

They literally have zero incentive to drop millions on a AAA game that takes them years to create and that most people will burn through in a single weekend. That's not who they are now and they haven't been that for many years.

It's time for people to move on.
 
I can't speak to your issues with Project CARS, but as someone who plays the game every day, your statements about Dota Reborn are completely overblown.
 
Barely anyone does; in fact it is probably the most talked about thing relating to Steam. What is consistent, is the people saying it is "swept under the rug" even though it is a constant discussion and point of ridicule - with good reason.

The only good thing to come of the support side of things is the Steam Refund policy, which should have happened years ago. It's taken the refund policy from one of the worst and typically obfuscated, to one of the best - but only because of its automation. Customer service in general remains the same even with the improved support site.

It's "swept under the rug" because while people talk about it, no one does much to actually hold Valve accountable for it. Especially versus other retailers.

Then again, due to how big they have become in the PC space, we may have no other choice. Which introduces a whole other set of issues...
 
so basically this is valve doesn't make games(aka ones i want) Only real issues is steam support and client could use some change.
 
What??

That's not possible, me and my friends just bought the insurgency 4 pack yesterday.

I assume steam would encourage 4 packs now considering their new refund policy basically makes it impossible for 4 packs to be refunded unless no one even opened their gift.

Insurgency came out last year.
 
I don't get the Valve dramatics every month though.
Sales aren't worse, you just own everything you want.
Dota 2 is still transitioning over to S2, so a little patience helps.
And Steam itself is filled with new features and is as far as i'm concerned just getting better.

My annoyance is the flood of bad indies, but i know what i want so looking through them isn't the end of the world.


Make a thread when they start demanding a monthly fee and i'll be there,
but this is monthly Valve drama.


Why?

Half of this thread is nostalgia speaking

Valve used to make some of the best damn single player campaigns in the entire industry. I could care less about some strategy game or the latest hat in Team Fortress.

None of that stuff really excites me; good for them that they found an new audience while disregarding their old one. It obviously seems to be working out for them.
 
Valve used to make some of the best damn single player campaigns in the entire industry. I could care less about some strategy game or the latest hat in Team Fortress.

None of that stuff really excites me; good for them that they found an new audience while disregarding their old one. It obviously seems to be working out for them.

they found a new audience? Um when they bought cs/dod trust me that was always there audience. MP has always been there main thing since then.
 
They weren't though.

2, 3 and 4 packs are still being sold and plenty of games released last august and september are doing so.

I was under the impression that games that already had 4 packs prior were allowed to keep selling them but they'd just never go on sale. Note the sanctum 2 4 pack. What recently released games have had 4 packs? I haven't seen any for august or september.

Edit: Seems like they do put the 4 packs up for sale. table top's is currently on sale.

Edit 2: From the Vermintide devs.

Unfortunately steam apparently no longer does 4 packs on new released titles :(

Link

So it seems that 4 packs are no longer being made for newly released games.
 
You probably then missed how Source2 helps contents creators in a lot of ways, Which, is a plus for me, but if you really think they will be not taking a dent there, then you're obviously missing a part of the big picture.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Reborn and I think they made the right choice in porting the game over there. They just had to rush it and I'm against rushing things because the one suffering the consequences is always the end user. And that's the thing around what my point pivots: They chose to go a route that's not good for the end user on the short term and there was nothing that prevented them fron holding back for a little longer other than their own schedule (that couldn't meet, and that's why they need to rush now).

And I feel that that's what's going on with a lot of things Valve now. They've got their own schedule and it doesn't matter if it affects negatively the end user or it doesn't. they will just follow that route and then backpedal if needed (like with the Workshop).

There is no extra way at the moment for them to earn money by getting Reborn out there faster. That it is easier for content creators does not matter.

By deploying it earlier they can get way more valuable feedback and it is clear by the way they have updated the client in the last few weeks. A huge amount of it is dictated by the community. Before this we didn't get anywhere near as much talk about issues in the new client even when they offered the option.

Same thing with Windows 10 really, for months people are able to use it and there has been plenty of transparency on loads of things in it. Then it releases and suddenly all hell breaks lose about people thinking it is a nightmare for your privacy and security.

Then we are a some time further and many of the issues have quieted down again.

It is not even like Reborn feels broken, if there were major issues that they could have tested we would have heard in the weeks before that. There didn't seem to be massive issues, so they released it. There is a transfer window of a few weeks before all the features are back in, but it does work pretty well.
 
I was under the impression that games that already had 4 packs prior were allowed to keep selling them but they'd just never go on sale. Note the sanctum 2 4 pack. What recently released games have had 4 packs? I haven't seen any for august or september.

Edit: Seems like they do put the 4 packs up for sale. table top's is currently on sale.

Victor Vran has one.

Trine 3 has a 3 pack.

It's possible they upped requirements to be able to sell one but they are still being sold.
 
I love Steam, but I miss the Valve that made Half-Life and Portal.

CS is still great (shitty skin/crate culture aside) and I appreciate that DOTA2 and TF2 are loved games, but it feels like they've lost that drive to keep pushing the envelope in non-competitive games.

To think we got HL2 + eps, Portal and L4D in the span of a few years is crazy now.
 
It's "swept under the rug" because while people talk about it, no one does much to actually hold Valve accountable for it. Especially versus other retailers.

Then again, due to how big they have become in the PC space, we may have no other choice. Which introduces a whole other set of issues...

You got a comparison in mind? What retailers are held accountable in this different way that Valve seemingly escape? Legal action is already taking place

Valve hasn't done anything interesting in the past 4 years imo

I'd say the exact opposite. They are more interesting now then they have been previously. I fully expect new titles from them in the near future now that the brunt of the work they have been doing these past few years will actually release
 
Victor Vran has one.

Trine 3 has a 3 pack.

It's possible they upped requirements to be able to sell one but they are still being sold.

Well Victor Vran came out in July and Trine 3 had the triple pack up since April. It seems that they discontinuation is fairly recent.
 
At some point I mentally separated Valve out into two separate entities. The Valve that makes games that is generally great, and the Valve that keeps making questionable business decisions that pertain to Steam and friends.

This is pretty much everything that is pissing me off about how Valve is handling itself in the last couple of years. They just seem to have completely disregarded everything about quality when it comes to Steam. Steam itself is just a really poorly functioning piece of software and there's really no moderation when it comes to what actually gets sold there anymore. And Valve apparently wants it that way.
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Reborn and I think they made the right choice in porting the game over there. They just had to rush it and I'm against rushing things because the one suffering the consequences is always the end user. And that's the thing around what my point pivots: They chose to go a route that's not good for the end user on the short term and there was nothing that prevented them fron holding back for a little longer other than their own schedule (that couldn't meet, and that's why they need to rush now).
what is your basis for assuming that any of this is true? I could just as easily say that it's likely that the client was in such a state that development required full scale deployment to iron out the necessary features and bugs. You seem to assume that they can somehow polish the thing to a seamless perfect launch but that's just not how these things work.
 
Valve could have waited months with the Reborn launch and results would still have been the same. The launch was always going to be rocky.
 
Barely anyone does; in fact it is probably the most talked about thing relating to Steam. What is consistent, is the people saying it is "swept under the rug" even though it is a constant discussion and point of ridicule - with good reason.

The only good thing to come of the support side of things is the Steam Refund policy, which should have happened years ago. It's taken the refund policy from one of the worst and typically obfuscated, to one of the best - but only because of its automation. Customer service in general remains the same even with the improved support site.

Fortunately, after using steam for 12 years, I still haven't had to contact support.
 
At some point I mentally separated Valve out into two separate entities. The Valve that makes games that is generally great, and the Valve that keeps making questionable business decisions that pertain to Steam and friends.

This is pretty much everything that is pissing me off about how Valve is handling itself in the last couple of years. They just seem to have completely disregarded everything about quality when it comes to Steam. Steam itself is just a really poorly functioning piece of software and there's really no moderation when it comes to what actually gets sold there anymore. And Valve apparently wants it that way.

Why not. Their idea is that they want everything to have a chance and for users to decide what it is they like and don't like, so all developers have a chance of success. As said in that talk - the big issues are preventing fraud, copyright infringement, clones, malware etc - things Steam still struggles with. They also want to allow for multiple forms to editorialise the Store by users, yet this has seemingly either been given up on or being picked up later, as the "curators" area is nothing compared to what they suggested back then.

Ultimately, if you feel the need to be spoon fed what is "quality" to you, you are not going to like where Steam is going - as said in the video "a bunch of network APIs" for content creators. In theory it's a great idea, if they can properly promote the meaningful content (ie those received well) while suppressing the content that is extremely poor.

There are plenty of games I don't want to see, but I don't care if they are on Steam or not, it doesn't make a difference. What matters is that I can easily identify and avoid the ones which I either don't like or are in some way insidious, malicious, broken or spam - this is the area of Steam that needs massive work along side reporting / detection tools, if they intend to continue in this direction.

Valve could have waited months with the Reborn launch and results would still have been the same. The launch was always going to be rocky.

I agree with this, but they haven't been nearly open or forward enough with their communication. It seemed obvious that this would be the case, and that they would have to push the update out to everyone in order to get the feedback they needed - yet they didn't communicate that or explain the situation, so some get annoyed with it.
 
also can someone fill me in on why the steam client is so hated? i hear people calling it barely functioning and so on. now I don't exactly consider it a marvel of modern technology and I could definitely see it be improved a lot but at least for me it's fully functional and I can't recall ever having issues with it. sounds like mindless hating and hyperbole to me.
 
also can someone fill me in on why the steam client is so hated? i hear people calling it barely functioning and so on. now I don't exactly consider it a marvel of modern technology and I could definitely see it be improved a lot but at least for me it's fully functional and I can't recall ever having issues with it. sounds like mindless hating and hyperbole to me.

Obviously, there's lots of room for improvement.


But in terms of functionality, it's not like there's a better alternative. It's fine if people complain though. Pushing for improvements on the client is a good thing.
 
it's amazing how irrelevant they are with games now

Truly startling in it's ignorance.

Needs to be your avatar quote.

As far as the rest of this thread, it's a bunch of what I presume to be older gamers bitching that Valve doesn't make the kind of experiences that cater to their very specific tastes anymore, in this case it's linear narrative-driven shooters.
 
also can someone fill me in on why the steam client is so hated? i hear people calling it barely functioning and so on. now I don't exactly consider it a marvel of modern technology and I could definitely see it be improved a lot but at least for me it's fully functional and I can't recall ever having issues with it. sounds like mindless hating and hyperbole to me.

For me it's fine right now, but as said above there is a ton of room for improvement and little things that could make it much better. The last time it saw a significant change was maybe 5 years back. Meanwhile BPM (the living room interface) was good but missing tons of features and with weird performance - yet now (as of a few days back) is being updated frequently and with better performance. They need to do that with the client too, but it is far from "barely functioning". They could leave it like it is for several years and it would likely still be ok
 
it's amazing how irrelevant they are with games now
they aren't even involved with their games anymore, TF2 is basically running off of fan content and hardly anything else
the only thing they got going for them is Dota 2 which wasn't even an original idea in the first place

You forgot to tell us about how PC gaming is dead.
 
it's amazing how irrelevant they are with games now

CSGO is the single largest competitive FPS and so much bigger than anything else out there, it's basically a monopoly in its genre. Dota 2 has 12 million monthly players. Both games are considered the best or among the best in their genre with CSGO being widely regarded as the best competitive FPS in history. What exactly is your point?
 
CEVO doesn't organize majors. ESL and DreamHack do. The latest ESL One Cologne had over 1m concurrent, which as far as CS history goes is I think the highest. But as far as eSports in general? Has to be LoL's 11m concurrent finals (which I think was last year, no idea about this year's data).

CEVO doesn't do Majors and I'm pretty sure LoL has a lot more viewers that CS.

Must have been a CS record I was thinking of then.
 
Reading further comments here.....I Wonder if not many of you need a "how to use a computer 101" or perhaps just a pair of glasses because what you're complaining about is there.

Not saying they are perfect... Lol imagine that! But many friends that had similar complaints have often used a worthless ISP and then blamed different clients as the thieves while I played with them never had an connection issue not related to maintenance. Or perhaps it's just that I play early evenings, CEST, and we're way fewer thus taxing the network less. No clue but still other friends complained that it took much resources and made their PC chug.. After installing multiple antivirus programs, that didn't have gaming mode set, and 5 "malware" detectors. Sigh.

Then again, just like I said earlier, I may be lucky and shit happens to work 99% of the time for me.


Now I'm going back to not playing Half-Life 3.
 
Why not. Their idea is that they want everything to have a chance and for users to decide what it is they like and don't like, so all developers have a chance of success. As said in that talk - the big issues are preventing fraud, copyright infringement, clones, malware etc - things Steam still struggles with. They also want to allow for multiple forms to editorialise the Store by users, yet this has seemingly either been given up on or being picked up later, as the "curators" area is nothing compared to what they suggested back then.

Ultimately, if you feel the need to be spoon fed what is "quality" to you, you are not going to like where Steam is going - as said in the video "a bunch of network APIs" for content creators. In theory it's a great idea, if they can properly promote the meaningful content (ie those received well) while suppressing the content that is extremely poor.

There are plenty of games I don't want to see, but I don't care if they are on Steam or not, it doesn't make a difference. What matters is that I can easily identify and avoid the ones which I either don't like or are in some way insidious, malicious, broken or spam - this is the area of Steam that needs massive work along side reporting / detection tools, if they intend to continue in this direction.



I agree with this, but they haven't been nearly open or forward enough with their communication. It seemed obvious that this would be the case, and that they would have to push the update out to everyone in order to get the feedback they needed - yet they didn't communicate that or explain the situation, so some get annoyed with it.

Their communication has been pretty clear when it has come to Reborn, better than with most things.

On announcement they said they would bring it out of beta sometime after The International en before launch they said they could now focus entirely on the new client and while there were some missing features they would be added in the coming weeks.
 
They literally have zero incentive to drop millions on a AAA game that takes them years to create and that most people will burn through in a single weekend. That's not who they are now and they haven't been that for many years.

It's time for people to move on.
So they got Blizzard'd and I should view them accordingly?
 
Honestly I can accept if they're not as interested in developing games but ffs if you're going to be so focused on just managing your store how about some quality control with the nonsense that gets through steam greenlight? It actually bums me out thinking how little of an accomplishment it is to get an independent game on Steam now.

What does it matter though. The store was never a complete beacon of quality. All players care about is the games they know to exist and they mentally ignore the ones that they don't. Steam works off pure visibility so they still curate the games they feel deserve the front page and or banners. If something is escalated to the front you can be sure Valve thinks they can make money off it by it being worth a players time.
 
CSGO is the single largest competitive FPS and so much bigger than anything else out there, it's basically a monopoly in its genre. Dota 2 has 12 million monthly players. Both games are considered the best or among the best in their genre with CSGO being widely regarded as the best competitive FPS in history. What exactly is your point?

The point is that people like to whine about "the good old days" when it's mostly just nostalgia coloring their view. Valve is doing amazing work these days, as you pointed out.
 
I do wonder if greed got the best of them. More money is great, sure, but how much do you need? I had hoped that with the money from steam, dota, csgo and team fortress that they would be able to pursue some passion projects. It's too bad that they seem to only be putting out games that can generate a considerable amount of income.

I understand that that is part of having a business but how much is enough? If Valve focuses solely on revenue we aren't going to see one time buys like Half Life 3 or a new Portal. It doesn't work within their free to play economic model. It's really a shame.

That being said I love Dota 2, I just wish they would create one time purchase products like they used to.
 
Half-Life 3 is going to be so rad.

At this point I'm convinced that nobody there likes that franchise anymore.

I just wish they would release the story as a comic so we can just move on. I want to see a new Half-Life more than anything but its clear that Valve has turned into a place that does the bare minimum with TF2, Dota2, and CS:GO and spends most of their time doing research and development on projects that will never reach a production stage because their work environment just allows people to move on to a new project whenever they want to.
 
Every time I think Valve is going to announce the end of TF2 support, they turn around and announce a year's worth of plans to improve the game further, that seem to lead into yet another year of more things to develop.

Like they have comp matchmaking coming next year, which they want to add partly to help balance weapons, which just shows they obviously have no plans to discontinue support.

That's impressive.

Personally I'll be impressed when they announce its move to Source 2. Because it deserves it.
 
If you listen to Gabe, and by extension Valve, during interviews they always say they can't justify going back to their old developments with what they have learned.

Valve reaches more people, provides more entertainment value, and generates more revenue through their current development. As much as I want to see Half-Life 3 and Portal 3, it likely won't happen in the foreseeable future. L4D3 development has been leaked and alluded to multiple times, I'm hopeful for an announcement in 2016.

This is the simple truth of it. Valve has never been a company making games for the sake of making games. If you look way back in interviews and such, Gabe pretty much started up Valve and did Half-Life because he thought it was the best way for him to reach the largest audience of PC users. There's that quote about how back in his Microsoft days Gabe realized that at one point DOOM was reaching a wider audience than Windows itself.

Valve is not going to do HL3 or Portal 3 unless it can do them in a way that furthers Steam and its overall reach. DOTA2 has probably done that to a tremendous degree. SteamSpy has shown that a huge chunk of people who even have Steam installed essentially got it for DOTA 2. There are people who make a living off of Team Fortress 2's economy. Can a singleplayer FPS like Half-Life really do anything that major for the Steam platform or for Valve?

I'm gonna go ahead and make a wild prediction: I wouldn't be surprised if CDProjekt ended up headed in a similar direction in several years. If you think about it the Witcher games are sort of the same stage in the process that HL2 was in 2004 -- singular pieces of content action as vehicles for launching a client. We don't quite know what Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be but if it ends up being something beyond a singleplayer offline game, the way it interacts with GOG on PC could slowly change the way CDProjekt does business.
 
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