 
ryang
Premium
join:2001-04-01
Chicago, IL
| Their fault not ours Steam/Valve should have known the masses would eat up this thing. The Steam installer was leaked a few hours before the official release time. The same exact strain would have happened at that set time. That's what happens when you update a free mod,used by hundreds of thousands. I see Steam charging a fee in the future.
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-=AIM=-My Pbase Pics | |
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 | Hiryuu
join:2003-01-17
San Jose, CA
| Re: Their fault not ours Exactly. When it was released a couple of hours early, techs were claiming the servers werent set up, yet STEAM was working - albeit slowly - so the servers were up, just not able to handle the masses.
I managed to install STEAM, CS1.6 beta, and have played on servers. I didnt get a single error during all the installing/downloading so I consider myself lucky.
~Hiryuu | |
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EasyNetwork$
Vip
Premium
join:2002-09-01
Brooklyn, NY | Re: Their fault not ours i find it funny thought, what the f*ck were those guys thinking!
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footballdude
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO
| Re: Their fault not ours said by tiger72  :
This way people dont have to wait for months for new patches to come out
Why would STEAM cause patches to be released quicker? | |
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Budwhyzah
@adelphia.net | Re: Their fault not ours uh.....yeah what he said. Steam aint gonna make updates come any faster. | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Keep in mind though that probably 30% or more CS players bought the game....so they do make a profit....in addition to selling Half-Life itself....so we're not talking a good will operation here. They are in it to make cash in a wide variety of ways.
In this age of watching MMORPG after MMORPG collapse because of a lack of bandwidth, there's NO EXCUSE that I can think of for them not to be prepared with a wide pipe, even if this was the beta. They know better than anyone just how popular that mod is.... | |
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Voodoo
Premium
join:2001-05-04
Mount Arlington, NJ
| Steam will not charge for regular CS in the future. However, consider this. If Steam is *required* for CS 1.7 when CZ is released. People with the free version of CS (a large majority) will have the opportunity to buy and download CZ through Steam rather than a retailer. This means Valve more than likely profits more and Sierra gets shafted.
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Programmed to appease you We're symbols of perfection Humanoids run by your laws: Destroy-Erase-Improve | |
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tklown
join:2000-09-17
Sayreville, NJ | sigh They were out of their mind to be the only source of the installer. Sheer stupidity | |
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MrMaster
What If
Premium
join:2000-12-16
Austin, TX
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Who works there? Monkeys? You have to be pretty damn dumb to max out your bandwidth even before going live with a beta. The person in charge of this, who the hell did he/she screw to get their job?
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| Alphy
join:2001-12-31
Troy, MI | Re: Who works there? Monkeys? Wanna take a guess at what the costs are to lease a 500mbit line and for it to through out oh, say maybe 10TB (since the international CS community will ALL be scrambling to get a 40mb patch). Lemme fill you in, its alot. | |
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EasyNetwork$
Vip
Premium
join:2002-09-01
Brooklyn, NY | Re: Who works there? Monkeys? Well... speakeasy may come and save them!!! /me crosses fingers
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| | ryanjms
join:2001-05-05
Beachwood, OH
·Time Warner Cable
| Yes, but if Valve feels that they can create a content delivery system of the future, capable of updating millions of pieces of software, they should have mapped out ahead of time how much the bandwidth would cost them.
500mbit line when thousands of people with 1mbit+ cable and dsl lines are trying to download is completely retarded. It should have been multi-sourced throughout the country with a ton of OC3s and T3s etc... They'd need well over 2-3gbits to serve people with any type of speed. | |
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| | Ronan0
join:2003-01-20
Ireland | They should've used a service like Akamai. There's no point in getting a 10TB link for distributing a patch that only comes out once every six months. It'd be much more economical to go with the Akamai model. | |
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LaZ3R
Premium
join:2003-01-17 | Re: Took a day i agree, they should just buy more bandwith, cheesse, it pretty obvisous that so many people are going to download it, so they didn't plan at all, not even 1 touch. | |
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drew
Reformation
Premium
join:2002-07-10
Port Orchard, WA
clubs:
·wavebroadband
| valve = morons if a leaked version could cause the crowding, then theres no way the official release could have been handled.
/me slaps idiots that made Steam.
i have yet to actually be able to even get into a game of 1.6beta.
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Jesus Christ, why don't you come save my life. Open my eyes and blind me with your light and your lies. | |
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jekler
join:2000-11-23
Cincinnati, OH
clubs:
|  Poor planning is our motto
Battle.net isn't alone in the game. Every game service that requires a company-hosted game server is a complete failure. Simutronics, which is arguably the largest MUD company, can barely keep servers up to run a text-based game. If the state of the internet doesn't even allow us to reliably host a text-based game, a vision like Steam is a few decades away.
The story with Steam is nothing new and doesn't surprise me. What would surprise me is if someone actually built a service that worked and didn't need an on-staff PR consultant to deliver excuses. It seems like gaming companies have stopped trying to make things work and just plan to be complete and utter failures.
Jekler | |
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Beowoulf
Wut?
join:2002-02-12
Humble, TX | Re: Poor planning is our motto it was just a test not a official release, they just wanted to test if the servers can handle all the traffic, i for one signed up the next day after the suspension. | |
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Overdrive
Are You Where You Want To Be?
Premium
join:2001-05-31
Waterbury, CT
| Re: Poor planning is our motto said by Beowoulf :
it was just a test not a official release, they just wanted to test if the servers can handle all the traffic, i for one signed up the next day after the suspension.
If they want to learn how to test their servers they need to contact Logitech. They had a free wireless keyboard and mouse just for showing up on their site on Dec 20th and it didn't go down.
That was one heck of a way to test a server. Offer something free. I get a great mouse and keyboard that I am using right now.
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Need a Web Developer? | |
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soulburner
join:2002-09-23
Pahrump, NV
| said by jekler :
It seems the motto for the entire infancy of the internet is "We weren't ready for that yet." Every game, server, and online service repeatedly sings the "We weren't ready yet" song. Battle.net has been unable to keep their servers up for more than a 48 hour stretch since the release of Diablo II, and that was 2 and a half years ago.
Hey, do you remember when blizzard ran the D2 stress test? It was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. The idea was to stress the servers (hence the term "stress test") to see if they could handle the flood of people. Now, here's the funny thing:
The released the stress test in waves. Their reason for doing so, was so that the sudden flood of people didn't totally kill their servers. They knew that they were doomed long before they even released something, and like you said, they haven't recovered from it yet. | |
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GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA
| All I have to say is: Why? It took about 15 minutes to register the account, and now takes almost 5 minutes to login each time. The CS download took approx 100 minutes, but it didn't seem like it installed. There's a thin line between ambition and stupidity, but I think this leans more towards the latter. I've always hated download management software, but why the made this the only means of acquiring the updates is completely beyond me. I speak for myself only, but I'd rather have a multitude sources to download a large update from (let's say, once every 5 months), rather than use some crappy, buggy software to download minor updates from an extremely congested server on an almost daily basis.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-18 15:41:05] | |
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GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA
| Constantly? More like every 3-4 months. And why would I want things downloaded onto my computer without my knowledge and consent, regardless of what they are? Did it ever occur to you that this may be used a vector for things other than downloading updates? Imagine the bandwidth Valve servers would require to handle 100,000 simultaneous downloads with the same efficiency that allows all those players to receive updates from the 100s of sources at the speed and reliability with which they do now. Even their 500mbps was barely up to the job, anything remotely sufficient would require $$$, and they need some means of getting back that $$$ don't they? And now who do you suppose has all that $$$?
[text was edited by author 2003-01-19 17:07:12] | |
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GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA
| And maybe they could use both of these methods of distribution in some way, let's say, multi-source for large updates, and steam for small bug fixes and such. But as I stated in my first post, steam being the only method of distributing all the updates is what my gripe about this is.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-19 17:10:48] | |
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Speedy8
Premium
join:2002-08-22
Alliance, OH
clubs: | We just need bit torrent to become popular and all net connections to be symmetric. That's my dream world anyway. | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN | It seems to work fine now. It only took 20 minutes to install. | |
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vrangel
join:2000-08-11
Spring Valley, NY
|  Not so bad
After that updating cs itself took only 10 min. Played some and the only problem is frequent disconnects.
After disconnect I check the server again and it shows huge latency.
Not sure where the problem is. | |
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MightyPez
join:2002-05-01
Saint Paul, MN
·Comcast
| Not only was it a shoddy release... But there are already cheats for it available. I suspected someone ina server cheating because as soon as he rounded a corner his gun would snap up and get 3 head shots in a row (that's 3 seperate kills folks). I went to a well known cheating clan site and confirmed my suspicions that cheats were already working. | |
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GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA | Re: Not only was it a shoddy release... Only the update system changed, the rest is the same. LTFX and other swiss knife hacks detect player entities, not color aim or something of that nature, so they're bound to work until VAC module is able to detect them. | |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| the key word is beta What everyone needs to keep in mind is that this was a beta release; it was meant to test steam and see what it could take BEFORE they try to sell it to anyone. They found a flaw and it will be fixed. And remember that most game companies do little or no beta testing, barely support the the program when it comes out, and then only patch it to eliminate it's most blatently obvious problems (which are sometimes "fixed" by excising the malfunctioning features ala: Echelon and multiplayer support).
Valve has never hidden the fact that Steam will eventually be used as a money maker. The fairly obvious intent being software distribution on an annual subscription basis. Valve has also stated that they will continue support for their cd based products after steam is released as a retail product.
As for the CS patch it will be released as a standalone patch as well. And those of you who are mad because you can't update to cs 1.6 now, what does it matter, unless I missed something, the steam based servers aren't compatible with the cd based servers. And there are considerably less steam cs servers.
Valve's biggest problem is that they're too open about what they're doing. If they would've kept their collective mouths shut no one would be upset about this and the myriad other things they announced way before they were anywhere near completion.
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The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. -Churchill | |
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| jekler
join:2000-11-23
Cincinnati, OH
clubs:
| Re: the key word is beta "Beta" doesn't really have any meaning in the computer industry anymore. It's tagged on to virtually every single release of every single product. In the past, the idea of a 'beta' test was that you had a closed circuit of individuals to test your software and make sure it works under conditions similar to actual release conditions. Modernly, it's just a way to avert blame when it doesn't work. "Well, it wasn't supposed to work, remember, we said it was just a beta version."
Anytime you have to preemptively tell people your stuff is broken, you should go back to the drawing board until you come up with a plan that doesn't include "Say it's broken" as Step 1.
Jekler | |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| Re: the key word is beta An open beta is better because more people test the software on many more platforms.
The bottom line is no one was charged for this software; you don't even have to own a retail copy of Counter strike to participate in the beta. If you don't understand that the software is going to be buggy at this point, after they point it out to you in the readme, you shouldn't install it.
I for one applaud VALVe for their commitment to extensively testing their software before charging people for it. I have a stack of games that I've paid good money for that don't work because the publisher and the developer were more concerned with getting a piece of software out the door than making sure it works properly (which is why I'll never purchase anything from EA unless it's in the bargain bin).
And as I've said before, despite all the things said to the contrary on many websites, the word from VALVe is CS 1.6 will be available as a standalone download for those that purchased the game on CD in the near future.
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The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. -Churchill
[text was edited by author 2003-01-19 03:34:36] | |
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Jaime
Premium
join:2001-06-03
Huntington Beach, CA | Steam isn't the beta product here, CS is. And Steam was the problem with errors and such, not CS. | |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| Re: the key word is beta Yes steam is the beta, they chose to pre-release the CS patch on steam to get more people to test it. If you don't believe me go to www.steampowered.com when they put the client back up and see what they call it. It's steam beta 2.0.
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The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. -Churchill | |
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs: | Re: the key word is beta it's Steam v2.0 Beta.
It coincides with the CS v1.6 beta.
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UMKC:2382/8097 kbps RoadRunner:2092/369 kbps | |
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BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Everett, MA
clubs:
·Comcast
| ea is ok EA and EA sports weren't all that bad on launch days besides for battlefield 1942 which was almost as bad as ut 2003. Games that were launched and did well for them were their whole sports line and even their racing/economy sim Motor City, they have realatively large numbers of about 20 thousand users total which are held in check in one data center per ea office with a relatively small pipe they weren't to bad and EA also had some days where they encouraged all users to play at once. Which i heard brought the pings up slightly...
I think in counter-strikes case they failed to see how much of a demand for the beta would cause. would have been a bit smarter to let the link stay low for a couple days and let people slowly learn about it... But thats just an opinion of mine far be it from anything worth while 
BTW my disk for that game has been sitting like a coaster for the past 10 months as a coaster do to the amount of cheaters. | |
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braden
join:2001-12-12
Aliso Viejo, CA
| Good Idea, Bad Timing I think Valve is on the right track here. I can see computers becoming more thin; retrieving or accessing most of the content and programs from central servers. That's what the whole .NET stuff is about, and Valve is just doing the same thing, only with games.
The only problem is that the internet is still limited in bandwidth. I think when everyone can afford 100mb connections for $30/mnth (and Valve can afford much more than that) then you will see these types of content delivery systems take off. That is, unless the size of these programs grow faster than the pipes. | |
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bear73
Metnav... Fly The Unfriendly Skies
Premium
join:2001-06-09
Grand Forks Afb, ND
·Midcontinent Commu..
| Re: Good Idea, Bad Timing said by braden :
I can see computers becoming more thin; retrieving or accessing most of the content and programs from central servers. That's what the whole .NET stuff is about, and Valve is just doing the same thing, only with games.
This is where Business/corp. LANs are headed. Large mainfraims with "thin clients". Basically dumb terminals.
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If ya gotta go, Go with a SMILE! | |
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| | gnubeest
Gnu
join:2001-10-28
Nashville, TN
| Re: Good Idea, Bad Timing said by bear73 :
This is where Business/corp. LANs are headed. Large mainfraims with "thin clients". Basically dumb terminals.
I still continue to be amazed by this; my, how we've come full-circle. I remember the days when having a full workstation at your desk was a wild luxury. Now that everyone and the janitor has a full PC at their work area, we're trying to shuffle them back into the mainframe era.
Still, I don't see how this can be anything but good. Tech support will be much easier and cheaper to manage, network security will increase tenfold, data efficiency will rise, and per-client hardware costs will scale much better. | |
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akristov
join:2001-01-31
Tampa, FL
clubs: | Why can't they just put this on a P2P network then you could goto their site/mirrors and get a MD5 checksum? This seems like an excellent opportunity to use the power of P2P in a positive manner for the greater good. | |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| Re: Good Idea, Bad Timing It's not getting the steam client that's the problem. It's that when everybody starts up steam and tries to run counterstrike for the first time the client has to dl a large portion of the counterstrike files to a cache on your PC; which in this case was probably at least 50% of the cs community all within a couple of minutes of each other. And because one of the purposes of steam is to be used for subscription based services, the steam client checks the steam server to see if the users subscription is current, which times out because of the overload, so steam sits and waits for comfirmation from the server which may or may not come eventually.
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The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. -Churchill
[text was edited by author 2003-01-19 03:50:22] | |
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs: | I think that this would be a great idea.
Use the public's bandwidth to distribute it.
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UMKC:2382/8097 kbps RoadRunner:2092/369 kbps | |
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GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA
| Either way.. I just think the idea of a centralized update server was a stupid one on their behalf in the first place. Besides, why should be pay for updates for a game that we already bought (and yes, unlike a lot of others, I did in fact buy this game)? Although I do like the idea of distributing updates via P2P.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-18 23:10:39] | |
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| gnubeest
Gnu
join:2001-10-28
Nashville, TN
| Re: Either way.. said by GeneStarwind :
Besides, why should be pay for updates for a game that we already bought (and yes, unlike a lot of others, I did in fact buy this game)?
This rediculous rumour has to stop. No one is going to have to pay for Half-Life/Counter-Strike/etc. once it eventually gets to the point where updates are delivered solely via Steam. Steam is free. Counter-Strike will continue to be a free mod for Half-Life owners, and people who purchased Half-Life or Counter-Strike in boxed retail form will never have to spend another dime to continue to play. The only thing you'll ever have to pay for is purchasing new titles through Steam. End of story. | |
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gnubeest
Gnu
join:2001-10-28
Nashville, TN
| Patience, grasshopper. Steam actually ran pretty darned great for me when it was first launched. I was part of the early semi-closed beta group for the first version, and followed its progression to open beta, and I must say that the content delivery system was very slick. I can't wait to see what comes of it now, once they're up to full ... erm, yeah.
Yeah, I do wonder how Valve so wildly underestimated their bandwidth, and didn't have more content providers on board, considering the huge anticipation for Counter-Strike 1.6. However, the thing that people who whine and complain about this beta program seem to forget is that we're not beta-testing Counter-Strike so much as we're field-testing Steam (much the same as the first time). Developing massive Internet applications just isn't the same as developing local single-user apps; one misstep, and an early beta can have a show-stopping bug out of nowhere. I can't help but to think that it's not as much a fault of bandwidth as it is a flaw in the way Steam works that wasn't intended. | |
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53059959
Temp banned from BBR more then anyone
join:2002-10-02
PwnZone
| come the crowds lol. i always enjoy lagging a 500mbit pipe. valve of all people should know that if cs people are downloading-move out of the way. just looking at backbone mrtg graphs cs patch day produces a noticable jump. if they are serious about the stream system they need at least 10gbps of bandwith to multiple companies, top of the line cluster servers in a redundant datacenter etc... this reminds me of the time FIFA wanted to have people buy tickets for the world cup online, so they contracted it out to this british webhosting company. lol. the servers went down in minutes with the over 3 million hits the website was getting. GOAL! | |
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visdane
join:2002-09-29
Yorba Linda, CA | They need to use Akamai Akamai Akamai Akamai Akamai!!! Akamai Akamai
nuff said. | |
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ViviTheMage
vivi
Premium
join:2002-10-28
Minneapolis, MN
clubs:
| STEAM=trash uuughhh wheres the classic .exe they used to have. i dont care for this trash they call STEAM. 500mbits will not hold all of us CS players. they will need around 500,000 mbits of bandwidth.
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dan221081
@pipex.com
| Re: STEAM=trash Indeed the latest version of steam version 2 is so buggy I dont know how it got to open beta stage. I managed to get one game working in the early hours of the morning but saying that havent been able to connect since all I get is you have been disconnected from the server when i try to connect to a game. I would have kept it closed beta until they had at least got most of it working. | |
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yock
TFTC
Premium
join:2000-11-21
Fairfield, OH
| Cisco/VALVe Powerplay I would suggest that anyone adding to this discussion read the Powerplay article. It seemed to me very pertinent to what's happening now. When it all comes down to it, Steam is a way for VALVe software to make an extra buck. Nevermind the technological or social implications of having a centralized delivery system (ie. controlled content means less cheating, quicker updates, etc...). All they are after is a new product that will spark interest in future new products. What better way to showcase their new system than to slap up America's Favorite Game...and a few more they'll make you pay for in the future.
That being said, I think Steam is interesting. Will it work? That remains to be seen. Centralized delivery is always frightening. Bandwidth issues, system compromises, and a host of other problems that might bring the system to it's knees, or could very well infect millions of users with virii or trojans.
I think you need to be bigger than VALVe to pull this off. Look to companies who have pulled this off, and now host for the big dogs this way. Connexion, Akami, and I'm sure there are more. The people who provide bandwidth for Apple and Microsoft. Look to see how those networks are setup and maintained, and then something of this nature can be successful.
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Would you crunch a WU?BBR UT and CS Clans
Dystopia | |
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sinaz
Popenc-No
join:2000-10-14
Encino, CA | stupid title.... | |
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