Steam

[MarkChed]

Right, I am new to computer games. I never had a PC before which was good enough for them, so all my gaming was done on Playstation, PS2, PS3.

I built my new rig, and wanted a racing game. I had heard good things about Dirt 3, so I went onto Steam, made an account and bought and downloaded it. After going into Morrisons (yes the supermarket) and seeing it at about a quarter of the price later that day I felt a bit ripped off, but, hey ho, my fault for not looking properly first.

The thing which really annoys me though, I still have not played it, I downloaded it, all 11+GB which took over 3 hours. Then I click play and am quickly greeted with "unable to contact key server". Apparently they sell you a game, take your money, and then say "we don't have enough copies of the game for you".

I am more than a little peeved at this point. So I go to the support pages, and try to find someone to contact, only there isn't anyone. Though there is a form you can fill out. Once you have created a special Steam support account.

I fill out the form, yet to have a reply. So I do more research on the Steam forums and find it is not just me with the problem. I go to comment on the thread.

How dare I? I do not have a forum account for Steam even though I have a Steam account and a Steam support account.

So I create a Steam forum account. I then go to comment on the thread.

How dare I? I am not allowed to comment as a mod has not activated my account yet.

So to recap. I got a Steam account, I paid money, I downloaded a game, I created a Steam support account, I created a Steam forum account and I still have not been able to play a single game!

Am I just having an unlucky experience with Steam or is this what Steam is always like?

Rant over!

 

[SavageCupcake]

have you tried re downloading the game? sometimes helps other than that you must just be unlucky :/ never had a problem with steam

 

[JazmaN]

Ohh i could fill pages with rants about steam mate, i try my best to avoid buying steam exclusive games, which unfortunately is hard to come by. Had you bought the retail copy of dirt you would only have had to go through the exact same process with steam anyway as its a steam exclusive.

Steam have a habbit of selling older games broken. For example i bought Max payne 1 and 2, both of which where made in 2001 and 2003, so arent compatable with windows 7, they have been patched to work with windows 7 BUT the sound files do not work, you have to search left right and center to find a patch to convert the sound, and then you have to launch using a batch file instead of the exe.

My grandfather bought a collection of puzzel games for my grandma to play, non of them work at all. He contacted steam support the same way you did, a week later he got a response saying an agent was looking into it, never heard from them again and the ticket was closed....

They dont even have a phoneline, well they do but all you get is a character from half life 2 telling you to go online and do it... Not to mention if your game is not up to date you cant play it offline..

 

[yassarikhan786]

Overall my experience has been good with Steam (touch wood). Maybe uninstall and reinstall. It probably won't make a difference, but it's worth a try imo.

It might just be Steam having a temporary issue with connecting to the key server.

 

[watchtower]

I don't mind steam, it does has it's issues like updates and not being able to play multiplayer games because steam can not connect but these are certainly the exceptions and not the rule.
Generally i will buy my games from amazon, even steam games like COD, this way i have a physical copy/serial and they are usually a lot cheaper than steam. As for steam forums... my experience has always been bad, you might start a thread with a legit complaint about MW3 then you get flamed for not playing BF3 instead (even though i own both), so i don't really bother much with their forums.

might be an idea to check that you have the ports open for steam:
Steam Client
UDP 27000 to 27015 inclusive (Game client traffic)
UDP 27015 to 27030 inclusive (Typically Matchmaking and HLTV)
TCP 27014 to 27050 inclusive (Steam downloads)
UDP 4380

This might help.

 

[Lollipop]

Ahh yes! Sounds like Steam to me! For every good thing about Steam i can find atleast one bad thing.

 

[watchtower]

Ahh yes! Sounds like Steam to me! For every good thing about Steam i can find atleast one bad thing.

+1 on that buddy, but you should try Origin, makes steam look like heaven. Remember the good old days when you would just install a game and play?

 

[006409]

the one good thing about steam, you only have the one DRM system, you no longer have to put up with game spy or anything else (with the slight exception of ubisoft games) but the main thing that pisses me of is when it says 'the stam severes are to busy to handle your request at this time'. they should have more than enough servers imo, kinda a breach of contract on there end by the seems of it. but hey i still buy all my games through them as they're all in the same place

 

[Yeren]

Steam are annoying as hell, what happened to the days of buying a disc and installing it??

 

[Timeless]

Guess it must be bad luck cause I have 141 games (Dirt 3 is 1 of them) on Steam and have had 0 problems.

While we do our best to anticipate demand from our users, occasionally we may run out of keys to provide for your purchase. When we are out of keys, this error will appear. You will be issued a key as soon as we have been given more by the game's publisher.

This error has happened several times before with Dirt 3. It seems Codemasters is slow with providing new keys so don't blame Steam for everything.

 

[Bang]

Ive occasionally had the problem connecting to the Steam server, but all in all my experience has been pretty good. Like a busy phone line, hang up and try again later. Sometimes resetting your modem might help. Other times you just have to wait it out. I hope things get better for you mate.

 

[seumasbeathan]

Well all I can say is I love steam and have never had a problem

 

[Perturabo]

I pretty much agree with what others have said. Steam is great when it is working but it has its little charms like loosing connection and stopping you playing anything, infinite syncing, deciding to update when you are in the middle of a game and booting you out etc

The problem with the CD key is down to the publisher rather than steam though I think, they are probably just being slow to send the keys out. But yeah the forum system is a nightmare and i will try anything else imaginable before posting an issue there usually. The good thing is that with so many users if you have an issue it has likely already happened to someone else and a solution can be found.