Steam needs to get to the 21st century standards FAST!

[Hyper Warrior]

Hello

Im new to steam and have been playing around with it for about a couple of weeks now and im somewhat not impressed on how steam prefers to add instead of improve.
I see alot of addons going on, but not alot of improvments to their system.

When are companies going to start listening to customers instead of white collar suits that think what they are developing probably looks good in theory, but 9 times out of 10 its impractical!

For example; i thought i would put steam customer service to the test by this scenario and you all can make your own judgement/opinion on this matter.
I wanted to disable this VOICE option as 99% of gamers including me all use skype to communicate with their friends and other people around the globe. And when you have programs like steam TRYING to impliment things like this, this is how it turns out CRAP!

Developers and programmers should stick to do what they do best its improving their own software not exploring in other areas that they are not good at.
Example; i get mechanics to fix my car, not the local butcher!

Anyhow the reason for this post was i contacted STEAM OFFICIALS to ask how to disable this feature voice, as i couldnt see a ON/OFF function for it and they basically told me it cant be disabled and i had to just turn all the functions to 0.

Now i just thought of this and maybe the steam developers ought to think about this for a while too! As this will boost your sales 10 fold.
We can put a man on the moon, we can train birds to speak, dogs to do tricks, we also have broken the sound barrier, but we can impliment a disable function inside a program?
So my question is this, WHY NOT?

i have found a post dated back in 2010 stating AGAIN why there is no need for this function voice and i couldnt see ANY steam official giving a valid response to why we need this ridiculous voice option and now its 2013 and it still has gotten that function and we still cant disable it, so again WHY NOT?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1370487

AGAIN, im new at steam and so far i have a program that i cant adjust to my likings, plus this topic has been brought up time and time again to get this removed or have a disable funtion on it and nothing has still not been done about it, so i ask myself this question;

Is it my worth while having steam?
Should i be like the next donkey with a carrot infront of my eyes?
I would really like a valid reason from a STEAM OFFICIAL why do we have to have this voice function anyways?

All i know is i dump alot of money into games and i was refered to steam by a friend, because of the discounts and so forth, but so far i bought a game for $30 to get full access of steam and im still getting ads, plus everytime i open steam i dont go straight to my library i go straight to store, trying to get me to buy more stuff.

Anyhow just thought i would point out there that im new to steam and im not impressed so far with the annoyance of things going on i might as well uninstall it and call it a day.

Steam to me isnt worth the EXTRA hassles and frustrations in my life so i can save a couple of bucks on games. i beleive sometimes its worth paying the extra dollars so i dont get these silly headaches from companies like this.

So i suggest, you must fix this voice option now and remove ads from my steam account and crap, plus when i open steam i want it open at my library not at the store, and listen to your customers more, not the white collar suites behind the table that spend 90% developing and implimenting, compared to your customers that use your product 90% of the time.

This isnt fixed in the next month or so ill uninstall steam and forget it, i just dont think its worth the extra headache in life, sorry.

[Tito Shivan]

Steam - Settings
There you can set steam to launch your library and not show you the ad popups.
Simple as pie.

[I brought a gun]

Voice IS disabled anytime you're not using it, dude. I don't know what that complaint's all about. The codec could maybe use some work, and I prefer Mumble to coordinate with my friends while playing for that reason, but it's not operating, not talking to your sound drivers, not listening to the microphone, not ANYTHING but an option in the menu unless you're actually using it.

I'd think if you had the energy to type up this mile-long rambling tirade, you might have the energy to distill it into a list of specific complaints instead of a jumbled, confusing and unclear rant.

[Satoru]

99% of gamers including me all use skype

Who in gods name uses skype for gaming. Standards are like Ventrilo, Mumble, etc. Skype is hardly 'standard' for 99% of gamers. It's just you. Really.

Just make the voice chat push to talk. That way it never activates

Ads you can disable in the settings->Interface portion

[ｐｓｙｄｅｘ]

Originally posted by Satoru:

99% of gamers including me all use skype

Skype is hardly 'standard' for 99% of gamers. It's just you. Really.

Most likely it's just you who uses other than skype

[Satoru]

Originally posted by psydex:

Originally posted by Satoru:

Skype is hardly 'standard' for 99% of gamers. It's just you. Really.

Most likely it's just you who uses other than skype

If you're goig to make some rediculous claim that 99% of users use Skype for gaming you'd sure as hell better back that up. There are plenty of VoIP clients out there. I named two that are vastly popular and have wide usage. So say these represent 1% of users is pretty outrageous.

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by Hyper Warrior:

I wanted to disable this VOICE option as 99% of gamers including me all use skype to communicate with their friends and other people around the globe.


..... and remove ads from my steam account and crap, plus when i open steam i want it open at my library not at the store...

This isnt fixed in the next month or so ill uninstall steam and forget it, i just dont think its worth the extra headache in life, sorry.

Voice is disabled unless you are using it. If you have someone who keeps spamming you with voice chat requests then either turn the community features off or BLOCK them from contacting you.

You want to 'remove ads' - go to Settings and turn off the 'Notify me about..." item.

You want to start at your library and not at the store? Go to your settings and change the 'Select which Steam window appears..." option.

p.s. most of the people i know use mumble or vent and not skype!

[Max-Power]

Originally posted by Hyper Warrior:

When are companies going to start listening to customers instead of white collar suits that think what they are developing probably looks good in theory, but 9 times out of 10 its impractical!

You make me laugh :D Are you talking about Valve ?

Anyway I am using skype and never had a problem with the built-in voice chat, I just don't use it (Can not even tell if it is good or not)

[ManiacMal]

You should have started off the post with I'm new to Steam and gaming in general and while I'm at it I'll just start talking about sh*t like I know what I'm talking about. Skype is definitely not the majority choice for gamers in general Ventrillo and Teamspeak is.

Everyone else told you how to deal with the problems you couldn't be arsed to google. The first step when using a new software is to research it a little before you start claiming sh*t is wrong and options are not there.

Here I thought it would be an actual post of asking for improvements that are needed, instead we got a whiney b*tch post.

[Hyper Warrior]

I would like to clear one thing up first, i was not going on a rant or i was not dissing STEAM, i was simply just stating from a NEW PERSON point of view.

And secondly i have over 200+ people (including family) in my skype. The only time any of us use another viop client is because some people claim to have issues with skype.
I have 3 voip clients myself, skype, voipstunt and ventrillo, the major one i use is skype.
alot of people beleive or claim that skype doesnt have a PTT function, well it does.

Also i beleive STEAM was a great idea and i merely enjoy the program, but this is what i hate. When you install a program for example like STEAM, i merely hate the fact that you have to resort to researching for knowledge through googling or forums. "PC GAME" DC Universe Online is also majorly bad for this. I am a strong beleiver that technology is here to make life easier and when you have to resort to 3rd party researching and reading (googling and forums) to workout how to use it, then there is a problem.

I have alot of games that have their own built voip clients but atleast we have the option to disable them.

I used to own and play PLAYSTATION 2, i had like over 300+ games, i moved to pc games for 2 reasons, first was i was sick and tired of having to keep updating my console's all the time and second starcraft 2 was released.
i have joined a couple of SC2 communities and most of them that are even professional players also all use skype.

All im saying is simply this STEAM isnt a must have on my pc and its no different then buying the game with out steam installing it and playing it.

i have uninstalled games which i bought in the past, because they wanted to install 3rd party programs without any option to cancelling them. ie. Assissan Creed 2, threw it in the bin 15mins later because i had to install a 3rd party program, similar to steam.
So now i dont and never will play assissans creed ever again. Now i ask myself this simple question, how many people has that company lost due to the nature of having to have to add more software to their pc so they can simply play 1 game, for absolutly no reason at all?

All im simpy saying in this forum post is this, if steam cannot have a disable function for voice it tells me that they are propably not that tech saavy about writing programs, this is probably a template design that they bought and dont know how to modify it through code. I dont know their reason and or what ever their excuse is.

Popular games and software dont get released until every aspect of the game or software is looked over, for example Twitch, Gran Turismo, StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 and so on. ever since i ventured to gaming on pc im finding a lot of companies are just whipping up designs and releasing it without thorough testing it first.

Here is another thing i found with steam, its the highest ranked program overload on processing power, example in my task manager it runs at 205,500k where i dont have another program that runs any higher then 80k. Big ass processing power just to have as an addon program for games. im running a win7 64bit intel i7 and 16gb of ram, so it doesnt really bother me, just thinking about all those other people that cant use this program because of how much it sucks the juice from peoples machines.
maybe steam developers should concentrate on stream lining their program so its not a massive weight on other people machines. they could get possibly a million more people using it.

Anyhow before i go just would like to point out again, this isnt a rant or rave, or an episode where i hate steam.
just if companies want to sell a product like steam, they should make it simple, easy and manageble to use and aim to improve their system, where people like me dont like googling and using forums searching for knowledge to use any type of software, i beleive if i have to do that then the companies too cheap to care. Example there is no HELP SEARCH i could go to, like a manual to read to learn it.

This is just my opinion and steam may loose me and probably more people because of these things, i just took the time to speak up before uninstalling it, and giving steam the chance to defend their reason on why we cant disable voice, but its becoming more so clear that all they care about is adding to their software rather then improving it. i wouldnt care if it was in BETA or in early years of development i would understand why not, but i found a post dated 2010 complaining about the same thing and alot of people left because of it and the customer service they received from steam staff, so i just dont wanna waste my time if a company doesnt care about their users, more worried or concerned about other rubbish things.

[LoTekRabbit]

Originally posted by Hyper Warrior:

When are companies going to start listening to customers instead of white collar suits that think what they are developing probably looks good in theory, but 9 times out of 10 its impractical!t

Except that Valve is a private company run by a well known and respected game designer, programmer, and gamer.

[Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel]

Originally posted by Hyper Warrior:

-snip

Save us all the trouble, just go buy a ps4 in Q4 and never come back. My eyes were bleeding after reading your incoherent, rambling, naive, ill-informed, and unorganized blog of a post.

[ariba]

You can always play on consoles. Hell, you even have Uplay and Origin.

Enjoy.

[aWildSkitty]

.....Really, all this over the fact you couldn;t figure out who to turn off voice chat? Go back to your beloved Sony then with their share and streaming crap.

[ManiacMal]

It's hard to believe this isn't a rant when it is exactly a rant. Why throw out a number like "200" people you have listed on Skype, how does that make your misinformed knowledge any more creditable? Great your frat party of j@ckoffs and your grandma use Skype, how does that reflect that the mass majority of gamers use teamspeak/ventrillo/mumble?

[Satoru]

Is it just me or is that entire walls of text

1) Have absolutely nothing to do with '21st cenurty standard'
2) What the hell are '21st century standards' anyway?
3) After all that there are only a few salient points that are already recifieable in the client?

I mean there are literally paragraphs of nonsense just for the voice options. When it could have been more succinctly pointed out as "I would be nice if the push to talk voice option was a radio button to enable/disable as that would make it cleaner from a UI perspective and not make it seem like the voice option was always on"

For those who dont' want to read the walls of text

1) Make it obvious that voice chat is disabled in the UI
2) I'm getting ads (Steam->settings->Interface->uncheck bottom box)
3) It defaults to the store page (Steam->settings->interface->Favorite Window)
4) Steam users 200MB of memory (Steam is an application+Browser, feel free to see how much memory IE/Firefox/Opera/Safari uses just when you turn it on, and 200MB is hardly that much on a 16GB sytem, and WIndows always allocates as much memory as an app needs and since you have gobs of it Windows gives Steam tons of memory, you don't actually understand how memory allocation works)