I think those that found steam painless probably have broadband, for us mere mortals on steampowered 56k its the difference between just getting a cuppa while it initialises and spending a hour or so staring at a virtualy immobile progress bar, it gets doubly annoying when you get the said progress bar foisted on you for no apparent reason and you where totaly happy with the way it was running anyway.
I agree with Rob k the UI is hopeless, whats wrong with windows standard compliant interfaces for crying out loud, every example of custom interface I have seen sucks, companies like cyberlink (power producer, power director), Greenstreet or europresses interface providers (high in the sky), all are annoying to the Nth degree, if they want the "cute" look then make the app skinnable, don`t inflict pink pebble buttons over a cyan backdrop on me thanks
one thing I do think, if the game was cracked so fast then thwarted/irritated potential owners are going to be MORE likley to get the cracked version so that they can play it, when HL3 comes out a lot of people are going to wait for the crack rather than suffer steam all over again,in other words Valve have invented a system that actualy encourages part of the potentialy legitimate user base to use the easier and unobtrusive cracked software rather than steam, and thats just plain DUMB.
IMO valve should either release an updated and sane steam application asap, or they should release a patch that disables the update and management components so that people without net connections or unwilling to spend hours online can run the game they bought in good faith, steam hasn`t stopped the hackers anyway, so they should minimise losses by allowing purchasers to run the game steamlessly if they wish, when stores are haveing to post warnings about not accepting returns then you can be sure that steam is costing them lots of customers and a big loss of goodwill from their users.
Mentor.
ps: I know it mentions internet connection under requirements on the HL2 box, but any single player game that has an online component does, it`s misleading (delibratly imo) to just put it in the system requirements box and not list it as ESSENTIAL for product activation , I personaly think it shows a contempt for their customers, a sort of "well?, once they get it home and find out, thats their problem!" attitude.
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pps: @ Killswitch Sheila: it`s always illegal to use a cracked version (unless you crack it your self for your own use I suppose?...grey area?)
PC1: P4 3ghz, 1gig mem, 3x160gig hd`s, Radeon 9800pro w cooler (3rd gfx card), 6 way speakers.
PC2: AMD 2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra, 16 bit SB.
Mini ATX cases suck.
