Forced Updates on Steam

[petteyg359]

WTH are u ranting about?

When I was big into LAN parties we all standardized on a certain, patched version of UT because no one wanted to be dl'ing a bunch of patches during a LAN party and we played
w/a set of mods, we commonly had all the patches loaded on the dedicated server so anyone w/a non-compliant version could apply them. But how would that work out in the steam world? It woudn't, because the mods you have working today, might not work tomorrow when steam chooses to update your game -- which is exactly what happened to my HL2 mods. The HL2 mods I had were the only worthwhile reason to play HL2 at all. How do figure modders are going to endlessly update their mods for free when forced game updates break them?

How do you figure Valve should keep an infinite amount of disk space available to keep every version of everything available? You're insisting that not only they don't update your game, but that they allow you to choose an old game version to install on new Steam clients.

 

[magellan]

How do you figure Valve should keep an infinite amount of disk space available to keep every version of everything available? You're insisting that not only they don't update your game, but that they allow you to choose an old game version to install on new Steam clients.

I never wrote anything like that. My main beef is that if I don't want a game updated, I should have that option. There was a fun mod from HL2 that my brother and I used to play and we can't anymore, because the modders got tired of keeping up w/Valve's endless update cycles and so did I. WTF any of these updates ever brought to HL2 I'll never know, because the game never looked or played any better. As a matter of fact, all the HL2 updates ever did was break the mod.

 

[petteyg359]

I never wrote anything like that.

You don't have to write it. It's the simple logical follow-through of what you want. If Mod A requires old version X of game B, then every single time somebody installs game B Steam has to ask "Do you want version M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y, or Z?", and then they have to leave potentially insecure network code on live servers, or make people constantly switch between versions to change between offline-mod-play and online play. Then there's a potential legal cost, because some fool with the old version with network security issues will run a server on that old version, get pwned, and try to sue Valve over it.

WTF any of these updates ever brought to HL2 I'll never know

You could choose to know... http://www.steampowered.com/platform/update_history/index.php?skin=0&id=220

 

[motherboard1]

I think Valve is listening, my STEAM Library just exploded with Update requirements today, seriously like half my Library. Metro 2033 and Last light, Payday 2, Life is Strange has another one, Tales from the Borderlands, etc, etc. Old games out of no where all requiring Updates.

 

[magellan]

You don't have to write it. It's the simple logical follow-through of what you want. If Mod A requires old version X of game B, then every single time somebody installs game B Steam has to ask "Do you want version M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y, or Z?", and then they have to leave potentially insecure network code on live servers, or make people constantly switch between versions to change between offline-mod-play and online play. Then there's a potential legal cost, because some fool with the old version with network security issues will run a server on that old version, get pwned, and try to sue Valve over it.

Why would Valve have to keep multiple versions of HL2? I don't care what version they keep current on their servers, all I wanted to do was keep a version that worked w/the mod I liked.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, because from what I understand I don't actually own the games I buy.

In the real world of enterprise IT, operating system vendors don't push updates on their customers unilaterally, because most of the time, the applications are more important than their operating system and breaking the applications is a no-go -- especially when those applications are revenue generating.

- - - Updated - - -

I think Valve is listening, my STEAM Library just exploded with Update requirements today, seriously like half my Library. Metro 2033 and Last light, Payday 2, Life is Strange has another one, Tales from the Borderlands, etc, etc. Old games out of no where all requiring Updates.[/QUOTE

Are the developers of Metro 2033 and Last Light still patching those games? Really?

 

[EarthDog]

Gaming isn't enterpise. Completely, and I mean COMPLETELY different set of requirements there.

Not to mention, how some (most?) Add ons work in that it can only work on a certain version or range of versions of the game. So the host would have to maintain support for those. Ithe can be a daunting ting task.

 

[magellan]

Gaming isn't enterpise. Completely, and I mean COMPLETELY different set of requirements there.

Not to mention, how some (most?) Add ons work in that it can only work on a certain version or range of versions of the game. So the host would have to maintain support for those. Ithe can be a daunting ting task.

I didn't expect support from Valve for the HL2 version I was using to play my mod. It's far too late now, but I wish I could've just kept the version of HL2 I was using and never had it "updated" at all. It's not like my brother and I were playing vanilla HL2 anymore.

 

[motherboard1]

Are the developers of Metro 2033 and Last Light still patching those games? Really?

I doubt it. It's likely something on valves side, since it happened to so many games all at once.

 

[petteyg359]

I didn't expect support from Valve for the HL2 version I was using to play my mod. It's far too late now, but I wish I could've just kept the version of HL2 I was using and never had it "updated" at all. It's not like my brother and I were playing vanilla HL2 anymore.

So if your drive crashed, you wouldn't be blaming Steam for not having the old version of HL2 available for download?

 

[motherboard1]

So if your drive crashed, you wouldn't be blaming Steam for not having the old version of HL2 available for download?

No, and if was operating on that level of barely competent I wouldn't have found the (as of now non existent) disable automatic\forced updates for dumbies\Just let me play my game please button.

 

[magellan]

I doubt it. It's likely something on valves side, since it happened to so many games all at once.

But what? What would valve have to update in Metro 2033 or Metro:LL? Both of those were single player games. I doubt Valve is given access to the source code for these games either -- at least I'd hope not.

 

[Janus67]

You could always go and find patch notes...

 

[motherboard1]

But what? What would valve have to update in Metro 2033 or Metro:LL? Both of those were single player games. I doubt Valve is given access to the source code for these games either -- at least I'd hope not.

@ the time I made the post your talking about I remember the rumblings on some of the STEAM forums, following the bread crumbs lead to something about STEAM updating or changing redistributable something or others. I get the feeling your asking because you think I'm making it up, and that's ok, just call me a liar and I'll go back and dig it up on the STEAM forums. If your not calling me a liar then I'll just reiterate, it happened, I turned on STEAM and roughly half my STEAM Library was in Light Blue highlights with "Update Required" next to them including many old titles that you would not expect to be getting any updates/patches at this point. btw I turn on STEAM pretty much daily, so this isn't something that accumulated over time.

 

[motherboard1]

You don't have to write it. It's the simple logical follow-through of what you want. If Mod A requires old version X of game B, then every single time somebody installs game B Steam has to ask "Do you want version M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y, or Z?", and then they have to leave potentially insecure network code on live servers, or make people constantly switch between versions to change between offline-mod-play and online play. Then there's a potential legal cost, because some fool with the old version with network security issues will run a server on that old version, get pwned, and try to sue Valve over it.

Why? What makes any of the things you listed actual consequences of not forcing me to update?

Having the option to download older versions of the game would be great sure, I would have bought Dead Space 2 long ago, it had awesome reviews and is considered a cult classic, except a late life patch basically enabled God mode by default, opening up a bunch of powerful gear for the player right from the beginning of the game, and filling the world with an abundance of supplies and ammo, removing both the "survival" and the "horror" from Dead Space 2. Making all modes easy mode. If I already owned Dead Space 2, why would it be of any consequence to the Developers or STEAM to just let me hit PLAY instead of DOWNLOAD and keep playing the original version?

Nobody is asking the developers not to update their games and servers and move on without me. But I'd like the option to Stay or Go. As it is now, I either accept the alterations to the software or I'm left with nothing, not even a good Local/SP experience in some instances. Oh and the updates often come with a new EULA.

Rocket League had a new patch a few days ago, it comes with a new EULA as soon as you launch the game, you can't even exit the game unless you agree to the terms, can't even Alt F4. Gotta kill the process or pull the plug. That's malware in my books. The EULA also has you agreeing to allow certain data collections such as your hardware, or no play for you. I don't actually care about that particular data collection and already volunteer hardware info to Steam/Origin, but its the principle.

 

[motherboard1]

Check this out.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/268500/discussions/0/224446432324482988/

New Patch to bring in controller support for X-com 2. But the patch breaks the game in a critical way, making it nearly impossible to correctly target enemies . 3 days in Firaxis acknowledges the problem. Ok, but in the mean time this single player game is practically unplayable, even though the previous version would work fine.

I'm not playing this game at the moment, but I've had my progress halted by bad or un-timely patches more than a couple of times. And even Origin allows you to opt out of patches for games in your Library.

Did I mention I hate being forced to download any modifications to my software?

 

[motherboard1]

I know I'm preaching to an empty room here. But here is another update.

STEAM now has some games, IE Tomb Raider/Rise of the Tomb Raider, in which I am not allowed to even select "Only Update when I play this game"

Literally the only Tab is " Always Keep This Game Up to Date"

So as long as you have STEAM open, if there is an 50 Gb update to this game, your downloading it. I guess you could just close STEAM..... for now.

Will we ever see another day when we're in control of our operating systems and the software on it?

 

[petteyg359]

I know I'm preaching to an empty room here. But here is another update.

STEAM now has some games, IE Tomb Raider/Rise of the Tomb Raider, in which I am not allowed to even select "Only Update when I play this game"

Literally the only Tab is " Always Keep This Game Up to Date"

So as long as you have STEAM open, if there is an 50 Gb update to this game, your downloading it. I guess you could just close STEAM..... for now.

Will we ever see another day when we're in control of our operating systems and the software on it?

You can probably blame the publisher for that one, rather than Steam.

 

[wingman99]

Battlefield 1 mad me update my Video Driver yesterday.

 

[Kenrou]

Have you tried setting it to an hour that you know the PC is going to be off or just throttling the download to its lowest setting (16KB/s for me) and go on playing ? i have never had a game stop on purpose just to start an update, it usually waits for me to finish my "session".

 

[motherboard1]

Have you tried setting it to an hour that you know the PC is going to be off or just throttling the download to its lowest setting (16KB/s for me) and go on playing ? i have never had a game stop on purpose just to start an update, it usually waits for me to finish my "session".

View attachment 193323

Allowing a super slow download doesn't really solve the problem, you still can't play your game once there is an Update available for it. I thought about making the Steam download folder Read Only, until there's an update I actually want, then I've gotta open the flood gates, that doesn't solve the problem either though. As for the hourly restriction, your forced to give it one hour per day, I've given it 5AM-6AM.

It's like you walk out your front door in the morning to go to work and your car is jacked up in the driveway, the auto dealership guys have set their own appointment and showed up to install a new rims, new paint job, and some other junkware. But you liked the old color, and the new rims are cheap junk, and they busted your tire in the process. You didn't want any of this, you just wanted to drive, your car, your way. This is how things work in the digital world now.

I particularly like the horror stories I've read where somebody wakes up and their Windows 8 is auto installing Windows 10.