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[Retropunch]

But someone can do Steam better:
 - There's no reason for it to act as DRM itself, requiring that you launch steam before you can access any game you've purchased on steam. Let developers decide whether they want DRM in their product (never mind that DRM is a lost battle anyway), even if the default is going to be "launch in steam and use steam as DRM."
 - Steam itself takes a while to load. If the platform must be launched before accessing the library, then reduce the memory and processing footprint. (Throwing it onto an SSD is not the solution.)
 - Steam has many secondary functions that I expect many users just don't use. I have no need for a friends list, streaming, big picture mode, VR, the in-game browser, communities, music player, etc. I mostly don't even need the store. Turning these into opt-in modules might help reduce its processing footprint. (While most of these are not explicitly loaded until the user actually uses them, there will still be pre-loading involved.)

I do agree to a point, but as nenjin said, I do use most of those functions and find them very useful. Big Picture Mode is great for when I have friends/family round - I don't really want them messing about on my PC but they can pick up and play whatever they want in big picture mode for instance.

More than anything though there are two main things that steam does in my opinion that makes it useful:
- It keeps everything together: I can see when things have updates/automatically updates games, I can get most games in one shop and pretty much everything on there will run fine (not performance wise, but it won't be missing stuff etc.). Yes, it gave them a tiny bit of a monopoly, but it *worked*.

- Multiplayer works: Some of you may have forgotten/may not have been alive in the bad old days of multiplayer when it took about three hours to get everyone on the same laggy, awful server that would constantly drop out. One of your friends would always not be able to connect for some absolutely unknown reason and it'd all stop working when you tried to play it the next day.

The issue is that the first one is going because every game studio has decided it needs it's own launcher. It's fucking ridiculous. Even if some people hated steam, it did do it's job - I'd say it had probably the biggest impact on gaming since the internet, and I know many people who wouldn't have got even half as into gaming if it wasn't around. It made things easy, and it wasn't too evil in the process.

Now companies have decided to split up something that worked just to get a few more eyeballs on their games and it's going to be that every studio now wants one. I've already got three launchers, and all of them want all my details, a whole lot of system resources and are constantly nagging me about updates/whatever. As with all these things, as soon as it gets more difficult than just paying, people will turn to piracy.

 

[Parsely]

I love Big Picture mode. I can boot Steam, lock my PC, turn on the TV, and just let my friends go HAM on my Steam library.

[Levi]

I kinda hate it, it always seems to run slow when I press the button that brings it up and it sometimes messes with how my controllers work even in non-steam games.

[nenjin]

It was crippling my system when playing Monster Hunter World until I told Steam to not use it. The Big Picture UI on PCs seemed horrifically unoptimized. Or maybe it runs in 4k and assumes your PC has a 4k monitor and hardware.

[n9103]

It's always been horrible. Have accidentally entered it several times over the years when switching between small and large view. From the first month or so, when I intentionally checked it out, to about a week ago, it's always been laggy. Whether on HDD or SDD, ATI or Nvidia, one monitor or two, XP or 7. It's one of the things I *really* wish they'd let us 100% disable, or at least remove all the hotkeys and menu links to it. Do. Not. Want.
Hell, it's even come to my attention that it has an HID mapper that is probably messing with any non-standard inputs you may be using. In my case, after they rolled it out, it started treating my gamepad like a keyboard, something I definitely never would've done since it's always behaved just fine as a gamepad.

[Retropunch]

I've honestly not had a single problem with it. It loads up instantly, the UI works fine (and I don't have a 4k screen) and it doesn't mess with anything or lag. Odd that lots of people are having problems with it - I can only imagine my particular hardware just happens to like it.

[nenjin]

I just notice it when I actually open the Big Picture UI. (Which is a complete pain in the ass to use when responding to or trying to view Steam messages.) The UI is so incredibly laggy. Although it may be game specific. MHW it was terrible, but I think when I was playing Crawl in Big Picture mode I didn't see the same lag issues.

[LordBaal]

Niveras basically described gog galaxy.

[n9103]

Niveras basically described gog galaxy.

Yea, I was kinda thinking the same, but Galaxy does have a few of those secondary functions, though far less than Steam of course.

[Rose]

If anybody doesn't have borderlands 2 or 1.5 yet and wants them, both games and all DLC are in a bundle for 95% off.

[Mech#4]

If anybody doesn't have borderlands 2 or 1.5 yet and wants them, both games and all DLC are in a bundle for 95% off.

Apparently there's also some visual updates (higher resolution graphics) for Borderlands 1,2 and Pre-sequel coming for free for owners of them with a number of other updates for Borderlands 1 for a "Game of the Year" addition.
From an Ars Technica article on Borderlands 3:
"Elsewhere in the presentation, Gearbox announced a 4K remastered edition of the original Borderlands coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC on April 3. The "Game of the Year" edition adds quality-of-life improvements to the 2009 original game such as support for customizable heads and skins, an on-screen mini-map, simplified item management, and a more challenging final boss battle. PC players who own the original Borderlands will receive this update for free, Gearbox said.

Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel will also receive 4K updates through a free texture pack available for the previously released Handsome Collection, also available April 3. And Borderlands 2 VR will be receiving its own updates to support the PS4's AIM controller and four major DLC packs from the original version of the game."




In other news, Warcraft 1 and 2 have both been released on GOG.com, much sooner than I expected.
Selling for $9.00 AUD ($6.30 USD) and $14.00 AUD ($10.00 USD) or in a bundle for $21.00 AUD ($15.00 USD). They come with similar visual updates that Diablo 1 had if you wish. Warcraft 2 also comes with the "Beyond the Dark Portal" expansion.
Warcraft 2 also comes with Battle.net capabilities. Though warnings about that since it means opening ports on your router to connect that means bypassing anti-virus software.

A few months ago I actually played through both Warcraft 1 and 2, at least through the canon campaigns (Orcs in the first game and humans in the second). I enjoyed Warcraft 1. It has some mechanics quite different from 2 and 3, namely having to place buildings next to roads, though it wasn't particuarly hard since with later levels you can make armies of elementals to fight for you.
 
Warcraft 2 was good also, though I have to mention some of the later levels are easy to get into a no-win situation without realising it. Upgrading your settlement to level 3 and building ships both requires oil. This means that you need to secure oil by building a navy and defeating the A.I. on the sea early on otherwise you can get stuck with no way to attack other islands. Air units are available but they're really not that good verses ships or buildings.
Just the way Warcraft 2 manages naval units and the oil resource could have been done better I think. The rest of the games still quite fun with very nice pixel artwork for the units and buildings. Factions have very little differences between them (mostly spells and, like, one upgrade for ranged infantry).

I wouldn't really recommend the games for skirmish maps against the A.I.  I couldn't figure out how to get it working well in Warcraft 1 (it seems to choose campaign maps to set the skirmish games on. They don't really work that well) or in the case of Warcraft 2 the A.I. cheats a lot and builds much faster than you with unlimited resources. Thankfully its pathfinding is really not that good so maze-like maps can completely prevent the A.I. from reaching you.

[marples]

Apparently there's also some visual updates (higher resolution graphics) for Borderlands 1,2 and Pre-sequel coming for free for owners of them with a number of other updates for Borderlands 1 for a "Game of the Year" addition.

That will explain all the recent changes to the store page seen on steamdb.

[forsaken1111]

The early unlocks for humble monthly bundle just dropped and I already own one game, no interest in another. PM me if you want them.

Absolver - https://store.steampowered.com/app/473690/Absolver/
Minit - https://store.steampowered.com/app/609490/Minit/ Taken

I'd normally do this in my own thread but it felt like a waste for two games.

[Folly]

Now through April 18th, The Witness is free on Epic Games Store.

I paid full price for this charming puzzle-solving adventure back when it first launched, and considered it well worth the price.

[Il Palazzo]

The Witness is free on Epic Games Store.

Spoiler: ooh-kay... (click to show/hide)