Valve Unveils Steam Cloud

Erik J tips us to news of Valve's announcement that their content distribution system, Steam, will receive an update "in the near future" called Steam Cloud. The new service will allow users to save games and configuration settings online. According to MaximumPC: "This system will be completely transparent to the user. The files cache locally, and will upload when Steam detects an internet connection. There will be no restrictions on users - no save quotas or file management - the system will 'just work.' Any Steamwork game will be able to support these features, and it'll be free for customers and developers."

A great adea

[by Anonymous Coward]

Finally, it's about time. I've loved the fact that I can access my Steam games anywhere (like from work ;), but hated that I couldn't continue my saved games...

Re:A great adea

[Vectronic (1221470)]

"I've loved the fact that I can access my Steam games anywhere (like from work ;), but hated that I couldn't continue my saved games..."

Steam evaporates. Its very hard to save it.

"Valve Unveils Steam Cloud" ... come on... that should have been "Valve Releases Steam Cloud"... then we could say stupid shit like "well close the damn valve!"

Not to mention

[Moraelin (679338)]

Not to mention "any Steamwork game". What's that? Steampunk? :P

Re:

[Pyrion (525584)]

No. Steamworks [wikipedia.org].

Re:Not to mention

[debatem1 (1087307)]

Not on my network, it doesnt.

Re:A great adea

[SnowZero (92219)]

"Valve Unveils Steam Cloud" ... come on... that should have been "Valve Releases Steam Cloud"...

Yes but at the moment this new version of Steam is just vaporware. Thus I'll leave mine on the back burner until new Steam is produced.

In other news...

[pokeyburro (472024)]

...CowboyNeal Unveils: Methane Cloud.

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[kalirion (728907)]

Hasn't work for CS:S in the last few updates. I've had to ALT-TAB out of the game to "pause-update" to keep TF2 from updating, because simply pausing the update before launching CS:S was not enough for some reason.

On the other hand, the updates were always auto-paused when I've started a single-player game like HL2. I wonder if some boolean is reversed or something.

And there is no way to pause steam client updates.

No file management?

[Drenaran (1073150)]

I understand how for some users not having file management isn't something they'll notice or care about, but what about the multitudes of people that would enjoy having a choice? What if we just plain don't want something game related (save, setting, whatever) stored any more? I checked the article to see if there really weren't any options at all about your stored files, but unfortunately it gives about the same amount of information as is in the article summary.

This seems like a fairly big thing to leave out seeing as there seems to be a great deal of options and tools (import/export/backup, etc.) for controlling your data (games/saves/etc.) when it comes to the current Steam client.

Re:No file management?

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

What? That's a terrible idea. A Steam game is just a huge tree of files that's parsed by the Steam loader. Those files, including cached sound data and map node resources, are being updated continuously as you play through the game. What difference does it make if one more file is altered to store configuration data? Would you really rather have to re-set your audio/video settings every time you want to play, as well as rebind your keys, as well as re-tweak your Voice volumes, as well as reconfigure your steam community overlay options? Have you even seen how powerful the console is? It would take me 10 minutes to manually execute everything in my autoexec.cfg.

Valve

[by Anonymous Coward]

Is consistently late with consistently stellar products.

I know I'm a happy customer... eventually!

Steam rocks

[Toreo asesino (951231)]

Steam is the first online content distribution system that's genuinely made it easier to buy a game rather than pirate it.

New games are purchased, downloaded, activated and constantly patched all automatically and in no time at all...it's step in the right direction in combating piracy; just make it easier to NOT pirate ffs rather than just stuffing games full of anti-piracy nastiness.

Re:Steam rocks

[Majik Sheff (930627)]

And what happens when Valve decides that they don't want you to have a game any more? What happens if/when Valve goes out of business or is bought by a less scrupulous company? Oops, sorry. EA owns your ass now.

Re:Steam rocks

[FoolsGold (1139759)]

There are many "what ifs" when it comes to Steam, but given the popularity of the system, it would seem a lot of people prefer to look on the bright side and take a gamble. If everyone had to worry about the what ifs in life, we'd never have any fun cos we'd be too afraid.

Re:Steam rocks

[MrHanky (141717)]

While I agree it's a likely scenario, it's not really any different from how many other games stop working after a few OS revisions. As an example, System Shock 2 was released on 11 August, 1999, and has never worked reliably on Windows 2000 and XP (it also refuses to install unless you feed the installer a command line option). So if you bought a new Windows XP based computer little more than two years after SS2 was released, you would likely be unable to play it. And that's for a true classic, one of the best games ever, etc.

Copy protection sucks. Steam makes the shortcomings more obvious, but not bigger. It's cheaper than less reliable physical media, and it is reliable. Now. Perhaps not in the future, but seriously, those old games are rarely as much fun as you remember them to be.

Re:Steam rocks

[mollymoo (202721)]

That may be true, but it's not like your copy of Windows 98 (or ME, if you're perverse) will have evaporated into the ether, so you could still play the game if you kept the old hardware and OS. With continual online checks you don't even get that choice, you can change nothing and the game will just stop working when the publisher gets bored of providing the authorisation servers.

DRM like this results in de-facto perpetual copyright - if the keys never get released the copyright materials never get released to the public, so the public interest side of the copyright bargain never materialises. I think we need laws to enforce key escrow, patches to disable online activation when the authorisation servers are taken off-line and the like. They're just running rings around the intentions of copyright law otherwise.

Re:Steam rocks

[Phydeaux314 (866996)]

First, I think Valve is primarily owned by the founders, so unless they decide to sell it, I don't think it's likely that it will get sold.

Secondly, Valve has publicly stated that if the company does go out of business, they already have DRM removal patches ready to go for all the content on Steam. So if Valve does go belly-up, you won't lose access to your games.

Re:

[dintech (998802)]

If the rules change and Valve pull the rug out from under you, that's when the piracy starts. Users will download a copy that they feel reflects their rights. I know that if was locked out of my Steam account, my next stop would be usenet. No doubt about it.

Re:

[The MAZZTer (911996)]

And what happens when Valve decides that they don't want you to have a game any more? What happens if/when Valve goes out of business or is bought by a less scrupulous company?

That's when we start Googling for game names with special keywords which lead us to downloads that make the games not require Steam running anymore to use. Even if Valve themselves don't free their games from Steam when it goes under (which they have said they would, and I like to believe they are trustworthy) we can always fall back on the huge community dedicated to making games free. We already paid for and own the games anyway.

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[Slugster (635830)]

I have a copy of HL2, but I can't play it anymore.

I bought a CD copy at a local retail store, it worked for about a year and then one day it said my password was incorrect... I never gave out the password, never played it from any public or other PC and nobody else played on my PC.

{I kinda still wonder what the fuck was ON those CD's, because after loading them and connecting to Steam for the first time, it still took my PC over two hours to "decrypt" the files--all the while keeping the lights on, on

Re:

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

I completely agree.. unlimited matchmaking, being able to easily download any of my games whenever and wherever I want at insane speeds, steam community.. it's all well worth the tiny prices Valve asks.

Stardock/Direct2Drive both better in my experience

[patio11 (857072)]

Although all three of them beat the freaking snot out of putting a CD in the drive.

Re:

[Pyrion (525584)]

Maybe, but Stardock Central isn't so anal about how many computers it's loaded onto simultaneously.

Re:Steam rocks

[Splab (574204)]

Back when it launched it wasn't without hitches, but it sure has come a long way since then.

However, a major issue I got with steam is its not possible to control the amount of information they publish about your activities if you use the friends system. A coworker persuaded me to activate friends so we could play together, thats fine - but suddenly the amount of time I play, when I play and what games was available to anyone who knew my login/alias.

To me privacy is very important and I sure as heck don't like any information about me available unless I specifically put it there - now activating fiends does tell you this, however like any other windows monkey I just hit next till it was active, didn't seriously expect a company to retain and publish private information without the possibility of getting it removed (officially). Steam to their credit did remove it immediately when I wrote them and told them that their practice was illegal in Denmark.

Re:

[The MAZZTer (911996)]

Steam only shows information about non-Steam games being run if you specifically add them to Steam and then only launch them through Steam.

For Steam games just sign out of friends before launching, but I fail to see how letting your friends know you're playing Team Fortress 2 is a privacy concern, unless you're playing it at work, in which case I would prefer your boss find out and fire you because I need a freaking job.

More seriously, if your friends can see you playing a multiplayer game, they have th

Re:

[Tragek (772040)]

I want to see a wishlist too; There's games I'd love to buy if I had the funds. If I had a wishlist, i'd probably buy more games.

Umm...

[NoobixCube (1133473)]

Sooo... You store your settings locally, they are uploaded silently, then you go to a friend's place, who has a computer with lower hardware specs, and... your save is unplayable, because it never makes it to the config screen?

Re:Umm...

[Awptimus Prime (695459)]

Sooo... You store your settings locally, they are uploaded silently, then you go to a friend's place, who has a computer with lower hardware specs, and... your save is unplayable, because it never makes it to the config screen?

I don't know what world you live in, but even when changing video cards and monitors, most Windows games will still load but fail back to the default resolution and color depth. This isn't 1990.

Re:

[NoobixCube (1133473)]

Sorry. My hardware has pretty much only ever moved forward, however slowly (Still using a GeForce 6200, which I only got about a year ago). I've never had reason to find out they fall back to the default when they fail. I've found when I set the options too high it causes a lot of problems, since a game will technically run without a hitch, but be completely unusable, even on menu screens.

Re:

[Awptimus Prime (695459)]

But you appear to be able to set the options back after setting them too high. The point is, you probably aren't going to find a situation where you are completely locked out of a game because it loaded the wrong config file.

I've never had a situation arise where a friend would come over and install a game on my machine so one of us could sit around and watch the other play. Either you bring your own machine and I'll supply the monitor or we'll be playing something on the 360.

Re:

[urcreepyneighbor (1171755)]

This isn't 1990.

As long as I didn't miss the big millennium party, I'll be fine. :)

I can't wait until I can play Prince's 1999! It'll be so cool and funny!

Finally!

[YodaToad (164273)]

Yes! I'm really excited about this. I've been buying the games I can from Steam since the original release because I like the fact I don't have to keep track of CDs or DVDs when I reformat my PC (which tends to be every couple months). I've always wished there was a way that games could automatically store my progress online so I don't have to remember to back up my save games (or forget to as is usually the case). It sucks when I'm playing Bioshock and reformat only to realize that I forgot to save and lost all the time I already spent playing. It tends to kill games for me because I don't feel like playing through that part again. I never finished Quake IV, Prey, Bioshock, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and a few other games because of this.

I was happy when I found out UT3 saved all my controls and single player stats between installs because it's always a hassle setting those up.

Now I can be as forgetful as I want and not have to worry!

Re:

[dintech (998802)]

when I reformat my PC (which tends to be every couple months)

Solidarity brother. I'm a windows user too. :(

... and make images.

[Animaether (411575)]

Then you don't have to re-install.

10 Restore the drive image, update that which needs updating and add/remove that which in the months between restores you've added/removed yourself*, and create a new image.
20 do stuff for several months
30 goto 10

* that's the 'difficult' part.. keeping track of what you've added that you really like and want to have on the new image, what you no longer use and can be tossed from the image, etc. For example, I updated my WiFi drivers for this notebook recently. It doesn't

Sounds great

[88NoSoup4U88 (721233)]

Such a coincidence; This week I've been backing up most of my config-files for all of my Steam games (and sent them off to my email to be stored there), as I became quite fed up with having to re-bind my keys on each install (and since I'm preferring ESDF-config over WASD, it's quite some work to get everything bound for each game).

So for me, this is one of the better improvements coming from Steam the last few months.

One thing I'm very curious about is how much of the config files are saved though: For example, my TeamFortress 2 configs are very much deviating from the default: I have seperate class-configs, voice-commands configs and some other .cfg-files which are referred to from the default-config file: If this would only store the default-config file, it has no use for me.

Also, it would be quite cool if the configs would be saved for the several mods for HL/HL2.

ESDF?!?!?

[mefdahl (93154)]

I was really starting to believe that my son and I where the only people left on earth that use that left hand layout. Way way back when binding your movement to home row was l33t, this was the way everyone I knew who played FPSs bound there keys for the LAN parties. Always kind of wondered where wasd came from, and how they strafe left and run at the same time.

Good to know there is someone else out there that is constantly remapping there keys to esdf.

Re:

[alisoul (923488)]

i started playing on the very unorthodox a/z/ctrl/alt - did that for years before switching to wasd. no, i didn't hit the windows key (much) - the bigger problem was having to use my index finger to hit the space bar to jump while strafing right. i haven't pc gamed in quite a while, but if i do go back, i think i'll give esdf a shot - with so many binds now, seems like a good idea.

Re:

[Splab (574204)]

Same here, always wondered why the heck anyone would want wasd over esdf for fps - there are quite a lot more buttons to be used from esdf - and you got the added benefit of being able to find the damned keys in the dark (the little thing on f).

But I guess we just don't subscribe to the right 31337 letters, I also missed the one about VIP and hostage maps in CS were teh suxors.

Re:

[The MAZZTer (911996)]

Since Valve themselves implemented class-specific configs I am sure they will make sure to store those. If you have made your own .cfg files you may want to merge them into autoexec.cfg since that will probably be uploaded. Or you can type "bug" in the console of any Valve Source game and file a bug report requesting that Steamcloud follow "exec" commands in autoexec.cfg to recursively upload other .cfg files you make.

Steamcloud may also simply sync directories, so all your CFG files, whether you use th

What's the purpose of saving config files online?

[master_p (608214)]

I just don't see any purpose in saving config files online. Even for backup purposes, a USB key is more than enough.

Mice is mice? Not.

[tepples (727027)]

unless you're using something crazy like a 7-button mouse at home, keyboards are keyboards and mice are mice.

High-DPI optical mice are not low-DPI ball mice, and keyboards with extra keys aren't ordinary 104-key keyboards. Furthermore, gamepads aren't keyboards.

Hypothetical

[Kamineko (851857)]

What would happen if I had a different set of HL2 saves on two different computers? Would it just merge the two seamlessly like cards in a deck, or would one take precedence?

Fun with Statistics

[Clovis42 (1229086)]

Valve really loves statistics, and if you've ever listened to a commentary track they are very intent on players making it through their games. I wonder if they will be scanning these save game files to create statistics on how far players get in the games they play, or how long they spent in various areas, etc.

Even the save game habits of players would be interesting. I always create a new save game file for every save. I can't remember the last time this was actually helpful. In the past some games would actually make it impossible to continue if you forget to pick up a certain item. If you kept replacing your save game file you were forced to start from the beginning. In FPSs I'm always afraid that I'll start chewing through ammo and get stuck in an area with sparse ammo and be screwed. So I'll make saves with titles like "GoodAmmoGoodHealth5", and "nearlyDead7".

They already have a lot of this information anyway, like how long you play a game, and what achievements you've completed. I'd like to see some of their statistics if they do datamine the files.

Re:

[hansamurai (907719)]

They're already basically do that. Here are some stats from HL2:Ep 2, maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I'm sure they have that info too.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php [steampowered.com]

Re:

[grm_wnr (781219)]

Because only people who love stuff like that play NetHack in the first place.

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[SCPRedMage (838040)]

Nope, sorry, not happening...

The files cache locally, and will upload when Steam detects an internet connection.

You keep a copy of all your settings on your local system. So long as you're playing on the system you made the save game, you'll always have access to it...

JUST LIKE NOW!

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[theprophetofmephisto (1163535)]

the point of this is so you can save a game and your settings at one computer and continue it at a different one exactly if you were on your main, man. read the article.

Re:

[kalirion (728907)]

Great, so if I have a monster rig at home, then when I visit my parents, Counter-Strike: Source will attempt to run at 2560X1600 with 16xQ AA and all other settings maxed out on their little Dell with it's integrated video card and a 17" CRT....

Re:

[FrostDust (1009075)]

I really doubt such a system would stop players from loading saved games. While, yeah, obviously you would need an active internet connection to download the data from Steam, the article indicates that the data would still be stored player-side, so there's nothing preventing him or her from saving to/loading from their hard drive. Concerned players could even backup their saves, configs, etc. to a flash drive, if they were planning on playing their games on systems without a guaranteed connection to Valve's

Re:

[dintech (998802)]

I wish it did a better job...