So, you're just gonna sweep this one under the rug?

[Hazode]

I notice that all the threads asking what happened during the 1 1/2 hour outage were deleted. I think we're owed at least some kind of response, no? It was hardly a day, and you could still play all (or at least, almost all) of your games in offline mode, but the point is that during the outage Valve was very quiet, not a peep from anyone saying what has happened, how long it may be down or even a quick message saying "We're experiencing problems, be back shortly".

Some of you may just think I'm complaining for the sake of complaining, but I'm not. I'm complaining because no one at Valve has done anything to reassure us, the community, the lifeblood of Steam, that everything is ok. For all we know, we could have been hacked, I mean, according to http://steamstat.us pretty much every server worldwide was down. That's not a tiny "Ooops, shouldn't have unplugged that moment", in my book that's a catastrophic failure. Props to Steam/Valve for getting it sorted in just under 2 hours, but I still believe we should have some kind of comment on what happened. It's poor business practice to not talk to your customers when something bad happens. If my ISP suddenly had a problem and their whole service went down, you could be damn sure that they'd let us know what was going on, why and how things happened. In the end pof the day, we're paying customers, and I believe we should be treated better by actually being told what is going on to the service that we pay for. (Some of you will argue we don't pay for the service, we just buy games - well, we DO pay for the service, since we are buying these games from Steam, to play on Steam servers.)

It takes less than two minutes to write a comment on what was happening, and it's especially aggrevating to not hear a single peep, especially when they have a thread DEDICATED to outages, whether they be planned maintenence or unplanned outages right here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=784745

Worst part is, last time it was updated was about 7 months ago. This honestly makes me question how much Valve care about their customers.

[BillyTheFish]

The did this with the DDoS complaints in January, too. I've heard the Moderators are under strict instruction to delete anything that criticises Steam's technical side.
I just posted about the way trade bots are openly at work on Steam market and that got removed too.
Hope you see this before they bin it!

[Hazode]

Originally posted by BillyTheFish:

The did this with the DDoS complaints in January, too. I've heard the Moderators are under strict instruction to delete anything that criticises Steam's technical side.
I just posted about the way trade bots are openly at work on Steam market and that got removed too.
Hope you see this before they bin it! :trolol:

Seen it and noted! Next stop Orwellian Steam - now with added curfew!

[ReBoot]

To be honest, I would delete 100 identical threads myself without any orders from above.

[TeKraken]

The thread you linked hasn't been updated since last year. Says it all.

[Hazode]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

To be honest, I would delete 100 identical threads myself without any orders from above.

Yes, but the reason there were so many threads is because no one communicated with us, leaving everyone in the wind. If they had simply posted a message on the forums, they would have saved themself the work of deleting all the threads (and their customers would be a bit happier, but that might not be such a high priority in their books) By deleting the threads, all they've done add more fuel to the fire, so to speak.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Hazode:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

To be honest, I would delete 100 identical threads myself without any orders from above.

Yes, but the reason there were so many threads is because no one communicated with us

Yes and no. There are several examples of threads being opened on the very same topic when there's clear communication present. Communication can't prevent forum morons from being forum morons.
That said, the lack of communication is annoying at least, yes. I personally also wish to know what the bloody buck is going on.

[Hazode]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Hazode:

Yes, but the reason there were so many threads is because no one communicated with us

Yes and no. There are several examples of threads being opened on the very same topic when there's clear communication present. Communication can't prevent forum morons from being forum morons.

You do have a good point, there's been many times when I've seen someone make a thread asking a question that's been blatantly answered in a stickied thread.

[doctor3d]

I just assumed it was due to bandwidth overload from all those kids downloading Ghosts for the free weekend.

[sir vival]

I just assumed it was due to bandwidth overload from all the automatic information being sent to the NSA. I mean, they are legally required to tell us if there was an unauthorized security breach, but, even though it should not happen, they are legally required to not tell us if the NSA hacks their system. If there is a formal response somewhere, please post the link to the relavent thread. But if it is just a response that says, paraphrased, our system was down and we are sorry about that, well, its a nonanswer isn't it?

[sir vival]

Maintenance issues. Sure. See the above link. I guess even being hacked can be described as a maintenance issue. I was never a conspiracy theorist. But I might eventually stop using the internet and start reading books again. Hack that NSA!

[Silv3r9]

Imho, nowadays most people are but inches away from an internet connected device at all times, this alone makes me question the reasons/excuses as to why no official word ever comes regarding service problems/downtime/maintenance or whatever else goes on around here.

How hard can it be to post a line of info on the help forum or social media? Maybe there is a telepathy beta I don't know about.

Information (if you can even call it that) always comes from some random user on the forums repeating the same lines like a trained parrot: "It's been fixed/they've handled it already/whatever other crap" but for me this will NEVER be enough - where the heck did they get such privileged info?

[sir vival]

Its actually telepathy 2.0 You are so behind the times.

[sir vival]

I agree with your humble opinion. It is so easy to give an answer. And when no answer is given, it just implies there is something wrong with the system, whether it is Steam acting like a monopoly (ie we don't have to give our customers service), a tech issue (ie the Steam servers), a simple PR issue (ie we need to maintain the maintenance thread), or something more sinister (hack attack, NSA, your mom). As a general rule, being open is better, both for community, and for business.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

It's easy to give an answer, but it's not as easy to give an accurate answer, and it's even less easy to give an accurate answer that will not cause people to bombard the Steam staff with even more questions. I suspect this is part of the reason.

[Undergrowler]

Originally posted by QuintSakugarne:

It's easy to give an answer, but it's not as easy to give an accurate answer, and it's even less easy to give an accurate answer that will not cause people to bombard the Steam staff with even more questions. I suspect this is part of the reason.

That is no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ excuse. A company as big as Valve AND in a service business should be able to come up with a answer within a couple of seconds.