Steam/Suggestions

This page contains suggestions for the Steam client.

SDK In-Game Status

When some starts up the SDK, it sends out an notice that the user is "User is now playing SDK" and it reads "In-Game" for status. Can that be changed to something a bit more like "User is now working in SDK", with the user status reading "Working"?

--Mic

Enable user to select Game Content Server manually

Although Steam™ already automatically select game content server for the user, it is not foolproof. Sometimes it select a very slow game content server for the user, and requiring the user to delete the ClientRegistry.blob file to let Steam™ to reselect server.

Therefore to overcome this, there should be an extra option to let user select Game Content Server manually on top of the automatic server selection by Steam™.

In the selection list, please format the content server as <Country> : <Server name> : <Latency> : <Server Load> . This would let user to easily identify which server to select.

--Oon

Enable customization for Non-Steam games

Non-Steam games that have been added by user should be customizable for this categories:-

• Developer Information
• Game Icon (without the Shortcut arrow)
• Right-click interaction menu (such as adding "View update news" or "View Game Manual")

--Oon

Video playback enhancement

Videos that are streamed from the store shows a trackbar. However, the trackbar only shows information related to time and offers a play/pause button. A simple enhancement to the videoplayer, would be something like a trackbar where the user can go back and forth in the timeline to rewatch something in a video, without watching the video from the start. Downloaded videos also lack this feature. --K4emic

Better management for files outside of GCFs

Some files (e.g. EXEs and DLLs) need to be extracted from the GCFs to work. This is currently done by extracting the specific files into SteamApps/<account>/<gamedir>. And that's quite inefficient as it's done for every game and every account even if it's a file like hl2/media/valve.avi, which is the same for all Source games. This process consumes time (when first starting a game) and disk space (as long as the game is installed).
In my opinion there should be a directory like SteamApps/shared that contains files which are needed by multiple games and/or accounts. This maybe even a good place to store custom content (e.g. maps) so that multiple accounts can use already downloaded maps. --Koraktor

• Seconded. Duplicated files are a waste of disk space. Especially if the files are big. Also, games that use same engine (such as Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life: Source) can use the same files (game exe, and some materials). -- Oon

NCF for media files

Red Orchestra uses a new system called NCF. This enables Steam to manage RO's files, which are now saved outside of the usual GCFs. This should also be used for Steam's media, because in the moment disk space is absolutely wasted by extracting the videos from the GCFs and saving them in SteamApps/media.
At least that's the most obvious way, but maybe there's even a way to enable Windows Media Player to use the Steam API. --Koraktor

Universal Game Saves

Have steam track and upload the most recent game save to the steam servers so that in the future when you decide to start playing a game again, or play a game on a different computer, you are able to pick up where you last left off in the game.--bugmenot

Seeing as steam is used by nearly 1.15 million users, theese savegames could quickly consume a lot of harddisk space. Especially by people why doesn't care about how many savegames they have. Restricting the amount of space available for each account could solve this issue and limit the costs to a few small harddisks. --K4emic

Steam for Linux and Mac

Current Steam games are already cross-platform compatible:

• Half-Life and Source Engine Server (Windows, Linux)
• Darwinia (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)
• Red Orchestra (based on Unreal Engine Technology which is available for Windows, Linux, Macintosh)
• Jagged Alliance 2 (Windows, Linux)
• X2: The Threat (Windows, Linux, Mac)

so people [1] including myself, think the Steam platform should follow. -- Matthias 09:57, 3 Aug 2006 (PDT)

Linux might just be on the way. :-) --TomEdwards 10:15, 3 Aug 2006 (PDT)

Steam "E-Mail"

I actually use the Steam client as one of my primary methods of communication with friends, as of course do my friends. It is inconvenient when a friend is logged out, as there is no way to leave them a message. I suggest that you add an offline message queue, or a "Steam-mail" apparatus in which to send long-term messages. You could even set up an integrated email server, giving people something like username@steam.com which would send directly to their Steam client.

Companies to Assimilate

These companies would make excellent content for the Steam platform:

• Blizzard Entertainment (Starcraft, Warcraft, WoW, etc.)
• EA Games (Battlefield Series, Command and Conquer Series, and more.. This would involve convincing them to abandon EA Link, their inferior platform for digital distribution.)

EA now currently publishes many games on Steam.--TheByrus 03:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would re-buy games I already own from both of these companies just to have them on Steam, and I know this to be true for many others.

Minor UI Change

When you use items in the properties menu for a game, for example "Verify Integrity of Game Cache" (in order to fix the bug where 0% Updating is displayed), the properties window remains open in the background. I propose that a simple change be made in which when an option in this menu is clicked, the properties menu is automatically closed. This way when a number of games display this glitch, the user is not forced to close so many properties windows. Alternatively, you could fix the glitch, but it doesn't seem likely as this has been present since the dawn of Steam.

Major UI change

make the interface of the steam modular. for example,in the "my games" window i would be able to not see the "extra copies" section and so on this can also be made on the "my media" and "my tools" section

API

An API so developers could make third party chat programs.

What I mean. So, I wanted to talk to a friend on steam, but i wasn't at a computer, I could start up a chat program on my phone and talk to them. I could also see what game they were playing, if they were.

Also, it would be cool to have API calls to steam's website to get info about a user. Such at total time played in a game or if they are online. --Somken

Download throttle

A setting to throttle download speed for games/updates. This would help those of us with touchy DSL connections, where we may be downloading for a while and blasting it at full speed chokes our connection.

--tkmachine

Friend List Sorter

Create a method for users to sort and arrange their friends list based on clans, scrim teams, servers they play on, etc. Allow the users to pick subcategories and name them according to what relationship they have to the friends in the particular group. It would make finding which friends were online easier based upon your relation to them. I picture something similar to Window's Live Messenger's friend categorization or AIM's friend list where you can name the catergory, click the friend, and drag/drop them into a group. With many Steam users having several hundred friends, it would make the Steam Friends platform considerably more user-friendly.

Thanks! --Slazenger

I shouldn't have to be logged in to Steam in order for Hammer to compile maps

I'd like to keep playing Left 4 Dead on my one machine while my other machine works on compiling maps I'm working on but I can't do that right now without Steam logging out on my other machine and the map compile no longer responding.

--pixelminer

Custom Shortcuts for Tools Area

Currently I have Microsoft Visual C++ Express as a custom shortcut in my games menu but obviously it'd be more sensible to add this to the tools menu. There are also other tools that could have handy shortcuts right in Steam such as whatever 3D modeler someone has installed or maybe tools shortcuts for games other then Source/Valve-made ones. ie; Unreal Tournament 3 currently asks if you want to run the game or the map editor on startup when the simplified solution would be to add a shortcut to Unreal 3 with the map editor switch enabled in the Tools area.

--TheByrus 14:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Local Time in Steam Overlay

It would be more convenient if there was the local time somewhere in the overlay. This way I would not need to rummage around to find a clock and get blown to bits by a demo man :).

--Bigg_Dave March '09

Categories in games list

I now have quite a lot of Steam games and the "Favourite", "Installed", "Not installed" categories just arn't enough to sort them all. It would be great if we could create custom ones or just some way to manage all of the names.

--Bigg_Dave March '09

This sounds like a good idea. Maybe the ability to group by publisher, genre, or how often someone plays a game could be a way to do this?

--TheByrus 03:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Mixing content from different Valve games legally

I understand it is not considered legal to make a mod that mixes content from several Valve games; for instance, using CounterStrike or Day of Defeat models in a HL2 Ep2 map. This is because it violates intellectual property rights -- there is no way to confirm that the person playing the mod has actually purchased and by purchasing gained the right to use the content from the other game(s). I wonder if someone at Valve could address this difficulty by making an entity for a map/mod that would automatically check to see which games are present on the computer of the person playing the map and refuse to continue if the games in question were not there? For instance, if CounterStrike content was used, this entity would check to see if CounterStrike was installed, and so on for the other games. This seems a way to get around this difficulty while preserving property rights, and it would not be very inconvenient, since many if not most players have all the common Valve games.

--sagesource 06:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

True tear-off menus in Hammer

I like to work with dual monitors. Can Valve modify Hammer so that I can tear off the texture picker, the toolbar, and so on and position them outside the main window on a second monitor? That's what I do with Photoshop, for instance, and it's a much easier way to work. It would also enable some lists that tend to get rather long, such as visgroups, to be made larger so that more of their content could be seen.

Another nice thing would be a programmable button bar for positioning on a second monitor. I'd like to be able to select the main types of entity and perhaps a range of often used textures with a single click, instead of scrolling around.

--sagesource 06:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)