What Is Steam?

Kenichi-SNK · January 2004

<div class="IPBDescription">Not farmiliar to this program.</div> Im not farmiliar to this program i hear about all the time and see around NS and Half-Life.
Im no nub on the games and HLSS and such models blah blah blah, but i havent tried this STEAM.

What is it? and what am i missing out on?
<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'> <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'>

MrMojo · January 2004

www.steampowered.com

I suggest getting the steam hl installer.

Steam is basically Valve's version of WON, an authentication system all HL mod servers are based on. It's an improvement over WON ( some would argue otherwise), it has a better servers window, a friends list, and other good features. You need steam to play NS 3.0, as it's steam only.

Rellix · January 2004

Its a significant improvement over WON many extra features a GUI etc.

Although some people have "compatibility" problems.

J-2000 · January 2004

i found a 592 KB ver of steam, it has no chached games on but i just transfered and updated em all, it was much quicker and didnt take up much space
its on planet half life i thinks

Shadowcat · January 2004

So they finally back up after being ddosed.

Schmeebis · January 2004

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (J-2000 @ Jan 9 2004, 06:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> i found a 592 KB ver of steam, it has no chached games on but i just transfered and updated em all, it was much quicker and didnt take up much space
its on planet half life i thinks  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Actually the downloads section of www.steampowered.com has a "Minimal Steam Installer." So you don't need to deal with PlanetHalflife or any of that Gamespy, Fileplanet logging in to download a file business.

PseudoKnight · January 2004

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Shadowcat @ Jan 10 2004, 01:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> So they finally back up after being ddosed.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Actually, they are "increasing redundancy".

Grillkohle · January 2004

If you have a small idea about what you are doing with your computer you will not run into problems with Steam. And if you will, you should be able to solve them yourself by using google, asking for help in forums etc..

Steam is a gaming platform that runs the authentication for all VALVe supported games (CounterStrike, Half-Life, Day of Defeat, Ricochet, Team Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, Opposing Force and in near future Natural Selection), but it also has some good and needed improvements over the old WON system.

The best one is probably the Friends List which lets you add players on the list and makes it possible for you to send a message to them, even if they are playing. It also shows on what server those friends are and has an option that will let you join the server your friend is on immediately, without entering any IPs and stuff like that.

Then there is the new server browser which has a handful of useful filters, also, you can click a server, move it to your favourite list. If you want to join a server but it is full, you can just simply set Steam on auto-connect and play on another server, and as soon as a slot gets free on the server you want to play on, it will switch you over.

Another great feature is the update system which downloads updates as soon as Steam is started. These updates are published by VALVe on a regular basis, usually each wednesday night.

That is about all Steam has to offer. Even though there were some bugs and stability issues in the first versions, Steam runs pretty stable now and is much fun to use. Steam > WON.

What Is Steam?

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