How Do You Feel About Steam Client?

[Adam Jensen]

Haven't had issues with them in the past few years.

[Deleted]

Love it, it's great having access to all my games whenever I want, where ever I want. And now with the whole trading cards thing, I can even save money by selling them.

[Torched]

Here's just a short list of problems I've had with Steam:

-Lag
-The client is clunky and needs to be redesigned, imo.
-Sometimes the download speed of games has been so slow it can't even be considered decent by todays standards and no I can assure you this is not cause of my connection.
- The fact that Steam HAS to run in the background at all times to play any games is just ridiculous.

Lag on Steam? say wha? maybe you should invest in a better computer.
Downloads speeds are slow?.... I´m downloading at 12-13Mb/s... that must be on your end.

Why does it bother you that Steam runs in the background when you play? Steam takes up around 100Mb of memory.. most people have 8gb of memory if not more.

In all my years Ive used Steam I have never had a problem with it.. and I own around 100 games on it and I use Steam daily.

[Dawnseeker]

It's generally very good, bit wonky today etc 'cause of the summer sales; it's a bit like when WoW releases a new expansion, bound to be heavy server load.

[zaxlor]

Update it's browser based interface. At the minimum it should have tabs. I'll often want to check out 2-3 games that are in the special section or deal of the day and having to click back and forth is annoying.

Let me open tabs like you can in pretty much all browsers and it'd be SO much easier to use. Possibly do something with the way the screenshots work too, as opening them up in an actual broswer is annoying, as well as not being able to just click on the image to get them to scroll.

As for speeds, or connection issues, I've never had any problems. It's nice how you can just turn it on, let it download and do other stuff online, knowing that your games get patched. What I wouldn't mind, is it only downloading updates for games you've played in say x days, so that it's not downloading a 5 gig patch for a game i've not played in over a year.

[Deleted]

Never really had any issues aside from the chat disconnecting now and then, which is terribly annoying if you're chatting with a friend.

[DeltrusDisc]

Must say I can't say I've had any bad experiences with Steam.

It has provided me with far too easy ways to empty my wallet, though! XD

[manybadgers]

Steam has offline mode so I'm good.

Edit: I meant the friends thing.

[DiParagon]

Only reason i still have the steam client is because i got the name Paragon way way back when it came about for Half-Life. I honestly dont use any part of it, i only keep it due to the name, of which people try constantly to get from me. I keep getting e-mails where people try to reset the password.

[chazus]

-Lag

Maybe it's time to upgrade your computer?

-The client is clunky and needs to be redesigned, imo.

Eh. I like a simple list, rather than some gaudy tile system.

-Sometimes the download speed of games has been so slow it can't even be considered decent by todays standards and no I can assure you this is not cause of my connection.

That's probably your area, not steam. MY complaint is that steam always maxes out my connection (25mb/s)

- The fact that Steam HAS to run in the background at all times to play any games is just ridiculous.

No, it's not. It's common for everything. Welcome to the internet age. If you don't like this idea, you might want to go back to 2002. Lots of things will be this way soon, so get used to it. Besides, what's the problem with it being needed to start a game?

And now, today, I just can't seem to be able to purchase a couple of games

Sounds like a problem with your payment system. I would contact your bank.

[Mercadi]

A few months ago had issue with it not being able to connect to the Steam servers, and I thought I'd reinstall it.
When uninstalling it deleted a bunch of mods for my games (I thought custom data would stay) that were hard to get, and some of those mods aren't even downloadable any more. I'm still a bit mad.

[Wilian]

Steam client is just as any other online based DRM to me (And oh please don't start that fucktalk about offline mode. It has NEVER worked for me when I actually needed it to)

I only buy games that has extremely reduced price point in it.

From my "Worth of games" write up I've made:

"Then my favourite, DRM schemes. I prefer my games without DRM because I as a customer should not be punished by ineffective "attempts" to fight piracy as it does nothing but limit what I can do with the game. The list goes from progressively from CD - check and key to Online Activations (unlimited) 'til Always Online/Limited Activations. Out of all these, the Always Online/Limited Activations are the real offender and could work as sole reason to not buy it until the game hits the 5-10e price range, while the others are still manageable. I buy my games to own them, not to rent server space."

As for it's functionality, beyond the "offline" issues I've had the UI is functional and I have no issues overall.

[Kuthe]

While I completely disagree with you OP.
Never had a problem in over 4 years.
No lag, great sales.
Only time my payment is rejected is when my balance is too low.
I don't mind if having to be open. I always chat with my friends over it.
Great way of combining everything together and allowing you to easily chat with your gaming friends.

It's because of this that I see what Microsoft was attempting to achieve with it's previous policies on XBox1. Steam on Consoles basically, but it's just not ready to be accepted by the community yet.

[Slippermoon118]

Only Had 1 issue in the past 3years and that was due to 1 game that wouldn't run correctly. Steams customer support is pretty good they will try to work with you to help you fix your problems. and I love steam sales.. Nobody sells pc games like steam does. I give it 10/10

[rylangel]

Sounds like a problem with your payment system. I would contact your bank.

I know I had both the issues the OP had with it saying the CC was declined and another saying the purchase couldn't be processed. However, I tried again immediately after and it worked.

[SoulForge]

Steam doesn't distribute games at 100 mbps. Or 80. Or 70. Or 60. Or 50. Or 40. Or 30. Or 20.

You'll have to clarify why you are saying this. I can easily hit 18.7 MB/s

[Mercadi]

Oh yeah, and Steam doesn't provide options for downloading games in their original language (other than English) in the U.S.
It's a non issue for most people here, but for me it's a big disadvantage.

[Drahzere]

You'll have to clarify why you are saying this. I can easily hit 18.7 MB/s

mbps =/= MB/s

[kail]

Steam may not be perfect, but its a program/store that I love more than most. Can't think of a suitable replacement for what Steam provides (and I haven't even utilized all Steam has to offer).

Few things it could improve on is higher quality trailers, better browsing speed (can't seem to keep up with me), and a customizable in game UI i.e. the notification window can get in the way for some games.

[lordjust]

Why do you feel like I need to make a comparison? Imo a client this widely used shouldn't have so many problems if you ask me. But I could ofc be alone thinking this way.
No, it's not a "hardware/location issue" either since I live in Sweden with a decent rig and 100/10mbit/s connection. None of that should be the problem.

Considering it's almost 03.00 over here in Europe I doubt the servers are under the heaviest load since I believe EU/US don't share servers.

The shop site is shared with every location and only the download servers are region specific. Also towards the download speed. We have summer sale and thousands of people are trying to download things from the same server. It's normal that in these peak times the servers can't give you full speed. You can try to connect to another server for a better download rate. You can check the server load somewhere on steam to see if there's a server in your region that may give you a higher speed.

As for steam, it's ok. Sales are good but not always the cheapest and everyone does sales today so that it isn't special anymore. My only complaint about steam is offline mode. Yes, it has offline mode but you can only get into offline mode if you're online. If you normally use online mode and your connection goes away because your ISP fucks up you can't enter offline mode. It would be better if the login fails steam asks you to enter offline mode but that's not the case.