I'm "Steamed"

[Gremlins666]

It annoyed me enought that I have to have Steam running in my control panel

It annoyed me even more when I had to drop my firewall to get it to install.... why do I have to expose my PC to infection to install this? It's not like ZoneAlarm is an obscure product.

It annnoyed me even more that after 6 or 7 attemps at installing.... uninstalling and rebooting the program kept crashing.

Tried on two pc's... one of which is new.....

2K you just lost me as a customer.... I will NEVER EVER buy a game with these kind of installatrions hassles. I've waited for this game for so long..... I won't even take this back.... i'm too ashamed to admit I bought it.

All that work at preventing people from "stealing" your games just cost you a legitamite customer. And I will be sure to let my friends know as well.

[Lawsie]

steam is a great way to play games on the PC. I'm sorry your having difficulties but you could have had them with or without steam. Software issues on the games themselves are not steams fault. Have you tried verifying cache integrity of your game files? (right click on the game in the games library and go to properties. You may have a corrupt file or even a missing one.

[Truth]

1. Steam is an amazing program. Embrace it
2. You can play a game in offline mode if you'd prefer
3. You shouldn't have to drop your firewall but merely allow access of Steam and/or Civ V. You also aren't exposing yourself to exposure to a virus. Just try to hold back on going to porn websites for a while, if possible
4. There are always unlucky as well as unhappy customers. I'm sorry it didn't go as smoothly for you as it went for the vast majority of the rest of us
5. After working for customer service for a while, you learn to ignore people who threaten to never shop at said location again, and of course the classical "I'll tell all my friends/family." (I will admit it's an amazing strategy if you want the manager's pretend caring as well as free stuff)

You'll figure it out eventually. Best of luck!

(Also, I would suggest visiting the support section, or phoning a friend)

[Soviet_Storm]

It annoyed me enought that I have to have Steam running in my control panel

It annoyed me even more when I had to drop my firewall to get it to install.... why do I have to expose my PC to infection to install this? It's not like ZoneAlarm is an obscure product.

It annnoyed me even more that after 6 or 7 attemps at installing.... uninstalling and rebooting the program kept crashing.

Tried on two pc's... one of which is new.....

2K you just lost me as a customer.... I will NEVER EVER buy a game with these kind of installatrions hassles. I've waited for this game for so long..... I won't even take this back.... i'm too ashamed to admit I bought it.

All that work at preventing people from "stealing" your games just cost you a legitamite customer. And I will be sure to let my friends know as well.

Can someone block this guy?

Yeah your allowed to be angry, but expect problems at launch, if this was such a worry for you it would have been better to wait for a month before purchase so all issues can be patched out

Just chill out and put your argument across progressively not in a rage

[Tech Ian]

It annoyed me enought that I have to have Steam running in my control panel

It annoyed me even more when I had to drop my firewall to get it to install.... why do I have to expose my PC to infection to install this? It's not like ZoneAlarm is an obscure product.

It annnoyed me even more that after 6 or 7 attemps at installing.... uninstalling and rebooting the program kept crashing.

Tried on two pc's... one of which is new.....

2K you just lost me as a customer.... I will NEVER EVER buy a game with these kind of installatrions hassles. I've waited for this game for so long..... I won't even take this back.... i'm too ashamed to admit I bought it.

All that work at preventing people from "stealing" your games just cost you a legitamite customer. And I will be sure to let my friends know as well.

If it ain't Steam these days it is Games for Windows LIVE, and I understand the frustrations but its not a game-breaker. Activate the game, set Steam to offline, create yourself a desktop icon and away you go.

[danangleland]

@ Truth: He already said he didn't like Steam, why can't you respect his views? It isn't something to embrace if it does nothing you want and several things you dont want. As for the rest of your post, 'Truth', apart from point 4 it was generally insulting and patronising, certainly not helpful.

[Spectro87]

I'm not going to respect his opinion. Here's why:
Steam doesn't just "crash all the time". There's something wrong with your computer. "6 or 7 attempts at installing" is obviously exaggerated and pretty much impossible in the time frame that Civ V has been out. Also, if the game installed and it doesn't work, it's your fault. Update drivers, DirectX, etc. Also, Steam doesn't "run in your Control Panel". In fact, NOTHING "runs" in your Control Panel.
I don't respect the opinions of ignorant or angry people that use Steam as a scapegoat for all their technical problems. Steam has saved PC gaming from death, and is the best way to download and play PC games.

[Rebel44]

I'm not going to respect his opinion. Here's why:
Steam doesn't just "crash all the time". There's something wrong with your computer. "6 or 7 attempts at installing" is obviously exaggerated and pretty much impossible in the time frame that Civ V has been out. Also, if the game installed and it doesn't work, it's your fault. Update drivers, DirectX, etc. Also, Steam doesn't "run in your Control Panel". In fact, NOTHING "runs" in your Control Panel.
I don't respect the opinions of ignorant or angry people that use Steam as a scapegoat for all their technical problems. Steam has saved PC gaming from death, and is the best way to download and play PC games.

I agree

10char

[TheMystic]

Gremlins, what are the crashes saying? I can't recall ever having Steam crash on me over all these years honestly, so in my opinion what you're experiencing must be pretty rare.

I'll try to help you, just let me know the specifics of what's going on. Also, you shouldn't have had to disable your firewall unless it's extremely strict. That's also strange, I have Steam on two computers each runs a different firewall and I've never had to disable anything for a Steam product install.

[danangleland]

Steam has saved PC gaming from death, and is the best way to download and play PC games.

That's your opinion. How has it saved PC Gaming? Steam has done little of note that other services didn't offer. Playing without the disc in the drive was done before Steam, also other firms offer it currently. Other than that, Steam offers....interminable advertising and meaningless 'achievements'. It certainly isn't the best way to play games for me. Let me give an example. I bought a game called Warband. It installed itself on Steam by default, although it could be uninstalled and downloaded directly from the developer's website, which I later did. While I had it on Steam though, I had to wait for hours for patches to begin downloading, even though I knew they were available on the developers website and I could have been downloading them manually. More importantly, on one occasion my Steam client (or whatever it is called) malfunctioned. No mention of any such problem on the Steam website. For half a dozen hours, an evening's gaming, I wasn't allowed to play a single one of my Steam games (even though they were all installed on my hard drive), and had no clue what was wrong. It begun working again very late at night. On a few occasions I have been unable to play in offline mode, because I wasn't connected to the internet! And did the game load faster with Steam, or ever so slightly slower? Slower. So there was no benefit, and a few disadvantages. So please stop stating things as though they were facts and not the inflexible opinions of a fan. Even if I had never had a single error with Steam, it would not be a better way to play games, since it provides me with nothing I want.

Additionally, you were needlessly pedantic about the control panel thing. Obviously he means the Steam icon shows up in the control panel/bar at the bottom of the screen, and it is annoying since it reminds him the app he doesn't want in the first place is active.

[radic202]

Well originally I was one of those who would not use Steam basically because I ALWAYS buy Boxed copy of my Games and just having to install "another program" on my computer to run something I already own made me grunge. But now that I have been using Steam for several years and have about 8 Boxed PC Games that only run via Steam and no more DVDs to put in the drive to play a game as well as instant patching and most of all I can uninstall a game and simply re-install 1 year later if I feel like playing it again without inserting the DVD/CD to install is a bonus to me. Heck I even bought R.U.S.E. via Steam DL (no boxed copy available).

So all and all I used Steam because I had no choice but now use Steam because it has grown on me.

For the OP, like someone else suggested I would simply run the Integrity program under the Properties, it fixed Just Cause 2 for me almost instantly and I am sure it will help with Civ 5.

Good Luck.

[Gremlins666]

I've been with Civ since the very first version... and I love the game.

It appears I have offended some people... otherwise, why would you tell me to "stop the porn". Or block my post....I don't have a right to complain about a product giving me trouble?

And YES I did try several times to install steam..... it kept getting to 99% and freezing. It only worked after I disabled my antivirus AND my firewall.

After which Civ crashed three or four times when I tried to run it.

And YES I realize steam doesn't run in the control panel.... my bad.... I had just spent an hour in the control panel uninstalling steam over and over, so I had control panel on the brain.

And Yes I also realize it could just be my pc... that's why I went to the "clean pc" I keep for testing software.

Maybe I am an idiot.... my job is as a senior systems analyst... I do desktop support for over 500 customers... i'm no genius.... but I hope i'm not an idiot when it comes to installing software.

And NO... I wasn't making an idle threat about "I'll tell my friends". I have a group of six people I play with on a nightly basis... and they were all waiting to hear my results with the game before they tried talking their wives into letting them spend the money.

If I went to Walmart and bought a TV... and I came back and said... "It doesn't work"... I would hope there isn't a crowd of people heckling me with "it's because of all the porn".... "he didn't plug it in right"..... "that tv works for everybody else"...."you should ban him from the store"

You can block me if you wish... My frustration was with the installation process.... .I thought that's what forums were for. If I have offended you I apologize.

I'm glad it installed smoothly for most people... I truly am.

PS... to the poeple that offered suggestions... thank you very very much.

[Spectro87]

That's your opinion. How has it saved PC Gaming? Steam has done little of note that other services didn't offer. Playing without the disc in the drive was done before Steam, also other firms offer it currently. Other than that, Steam offers....interminable advertising and meaningless 'achievements'. It certainly isn't the best way to play games for me. Let me give an example. I bought a game called Warband. It installed itself on Steam by default, although it could be uninstalled and downloaded directly from the developer's website, which I later did. While I had it on Steam though, I had to wait for hours for patches to begin downloading, even though I knew they were available on the developers website and I could have been downloading them manually. More importantly, on one occasion my Steam client (or whatever it is called) malfunctioned. No mention of any such problem on the Steam website. For half a dozen hours, an evening's gaming, I wasn't allowed to play a single one of my Steam games (even though they were all installed on my hard drive), and had no clue what was wrong. It begun working again very late at night. On a few occasions I have been unable to play in offline mode, because I wasn't connected to the internet! And did the game load faster with Steam, or ever so slightly slower? Slower. So there was no benefit, and a few disadvantages. So please stop stating things as though they were facts and not the inflexible opinions of a fan. Even if I had never had a single error with Steam, it would not be a better way to play games, since it provides me with nothing I want.

Additionally, you were needlessly pedantic about the control panel thing. Obviously he means the Steam icon shows up in the control panel/bar at the bottom of the screen, and it is annoying since it reminds him the app he doesn't want in the first place is active.

Over 50% of all PC games purchased are digital, most of which are on Steam. Steam offers an easy to use client that patches your games for you, provides an integrated IM client, non-intrusive DRM, community options, an in-game web browser, and much more. None of this is forced on you. If your patch downloads are slow, it's your internet. I get minimum speeds of 700kb/s. Also, Steam doesn't "malfunction". Whatever you did, you broke it. All of these things are fact. You clearly are computer-illiterate and probably messed it up. I'm backing up this accusation with the fact that you somehow think the "Control Panel" is in the bottom right corner of your desktop. Any idiot should be able to use Steam. I guess that is not a fact.

I posted this in another topic. Try these before you blame Steam. Still doesn't work? It's your PC, not Steam.

If you don't have the required hardware as stated in the system requirements, then you can't play Civilization V. You should know that by now as you purchased a PC game.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/
Scroll down to the end of the page on the above and check your hardware against those specs.

You can also try running an automated test at http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/ or http://yougamers.com. You will have to download plugins for those, but they are 100% safe.

Make sure you have the latest video drivers.
( http://www.ati.com | http://www.nvidia.com )

Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...1-50ceb6d8fa8d

Try right clicking Civilization V in Steam and select Properties. Click the Local Files tab and then click "Verify integrity of game cache".

You should do all of these steps BEFORE you post about crashes.

[Onrye]

Over 50% of all PC games purchased are digital, most of which are on Steam. Steam offers an easy to use client that patches your games for you, provides an integrated IM client, non-intrusive DRM, community options, an in-game web browser, and much more. None of this is forced on you. If your patch downloads are slow, it's your internet. I get minimum speeds of 700kb/s. Also, Steam doesn't "malfunction". Whatever you did, you broke it. All of these things are fact. You clearly are computer-illiterate and probably messed it up. I'm backing up this accusation with the fact that you somehow think the "Control Panel" is in the bottom right corner of your desktop. Any idiot should be able to use Steam. I guess that is not a fact.

Actually real facts would sound more like this:
- nobody really knows what % of digital sales Steam is responsible for
(http://www.buzzbox.com/top/default/p...ic=npd%3Asales)
- retail pc games still make more money
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/222146.asp)
- preventing you from doing what you want with a game is intrusion, and Steam (and all DRM, by definition) does that, therefore it's not "non-intrusive". It's "less-intrusive" than other DRM schemes.
- "easy to use" is opinion and not fact

I deleted like half my message just to save space and only retort at you half as much. Your facts are weak, sir. I see no signs of computer illiteracy in this guy, just frustration with a buggy piece of software, which I sadly agree that Civ5 is. I played it for a good 3 hours tonight before giving up in despair. I was trying to play around with my graphics settings to improve my tolerable but bad performance. Lowering the resolution and reducing settings (and running in DX9) apparently made things worse...except that...wait, even reverting my settings was performing horribly now. Coming off of a fresh reboot and restoring my settings didn't restore my earlier performance. Even if I could fix this with some arcane recipe of tricks, I shouldn't have to. The game is dogged with issues. I look forward to a patch.

Also, if you think Steam never malfunctions (and that it's a fact), try googling "valve steam outage" sometime. I'm not saying it happens a lot, but it does indeed malfunction. Heck, if there was an IT service out there that was 100.000+% uptime, I'd start to suspect I was in the afterlife or on the island in Lost, or some other mystical place.

[ROFL]

Also, if you think Steam never malfunctions (and that it's a fact), try googling "valve steam outage" sometime. I'm not saying it happens a lot, but it does indeed malfunction. Heck, if there was an IT service out there that was 100.000+% uptime, I'd start to suspect I was in the afterlife or on the island in Lost, or some other mystical place.

Exactly. Google returns numerous hits for my problem - this "steam unavailable" issue during post-istallation update. The official "Steam" solution is to disable your internet security and anti-virus software, which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? I manually allowed Steam through (the more reasonable solution), but also tried disabling just to verify. Their other solution is to delete a bunch of files from your installation directory, which their own software generates. Now this issue (that I'm having) as well as their solutions have been around for at least 3 years. The rating on the support FAQ is a "1 out of 5" which tells me that the solution is half-assed and certainly doesn't work for most. On top of that their only support appears to be via email to which they have yet to repond.

Their network is currently available and not near overloaded.

Yeah, Steam is great . I'm sure I'll be loving a platform that I'll never use again, if I get it to work this one time to register some software that I bought, but apparently do not own as of yet .

[Ellestar]

steam is a great way to play games on the PC. I'm sorry your having difficulties but you could have had them with or without steam. Software issues on the games themselves are not steams fault. Have you tried verifying cache integrity of your game files? (right click on the game in the games library and go to properties. You may have a corrupt file or even a missing one.

I tried. It works fine, it corrects my files. And again. And again. And again. Same files, again and again. Is it that hard to copy the right files on my HDD? I mean, ok, if Steam programmers are so retarded they can't do it with their program, they should let ME do it instead. I'm kinda sure in my qualification to be able to download and copy the right files in the right folders, if they let me to do it, that is. But no, it's better to keep me in an eternal correction loop.

[Aekar]

There are many things I could say about Steam, but I will say only three.

I tried several distribution platforms (Impulse, Steam, Gamersgate) with several titiles in each (two dozens each for Impulse and Steam).


1. Steam is the only one which "launches itself" when you launch a game. Impulse, for instance, doesn't need to be launched to launch any other game.


2. It is also the only one which fails to install the game icons on desktop ; everytime I install a game and it asks to install the desktop icon, I say 'yes', and it does install an ugly generic icon instead of the game one.


3. And the most problematic thing: after purchasing Empire at War two years ago, I tried to re-download it. Do you know what Steam told me? That its servers were unable to fulfill this request!

This means that I was unable to play my game! I tried 3 days long and it refused to download it. Although they werre still supplying servers for Napoleon Total War, it seems that Empire Total War was no longer interesting them - whereas they made a lot of money on each.



So, these are the three things which annoy me with Steam. Of course, I always think that a computer is a tool to play a game, so having software in it to be able to play a game doesn't annoy me much - still, Steam isn't the deluxe thing you are talking about.

I still don't understand why AAA licenses like Civilization force Steam on us, as this doesn't increase their number of sales as much as they do increase the number of Steam users, but won't start a debate about it here.

I like the way Steam advertise games though, and its deluxe look; they are also Steam skins around I would like to try to ake it look even better.

[DonNatcho]

You shouldnt be to mad about steam when it comes to firewalls. The problem are more likely ☺☺☺☺ty firewalls. For example Zone-alarm, even when you uninstall it or completely disable it it stills seems to affect the system somtimes, i had more than once a problem with programms not getting a connection or other problems that seem to be caused by Zonealarm may i recommend you Comodo its also free its a bit more complex but its way better.

And FAQs are bad? Tell me about it

Not to mention yes steam like any other programm has had bugs not to mention downtimes yet you can do all SP-things just by logging in in offline mode while in downtime you can even play in online mode while downtime just not MP.

Btw. when you encounter download problems just change the server in the settings that often does the trick, especially when one seems to be on its capacity limits (when big releases happen and everybody seems to be on the same server)

[Gremlins666]

Rumors of my idiocy to the side (ahem).

I could never get Steam to install properly from the Civ 5 DVD (and that was using two different drives... and another entirely different PC). It Did however install fine when I downloaded the Steam install from their website. Maybe there is a problem with my disk... it wouldn't be the first defective media that I got shrink wrapped.

Steam is now up and running.... but the game crashes when I load it.... but the error appears to be direct X related... I am running the most current version of Direct X... and I did try it as a direct X 9 too.....I also got the most current ATI drivers from their site. Hmmmmmmm

I can chip away at this and probably figure it out.

I still stand by the opinion, that I prefer to not to have Steam as a mandatory component of the installation. It's one more thing running in memory that can conflict with other programs.

I can understand why there is a loyal Steam following... and it does sound like there are a lot of pluses. I just don't like having it forced on me.... there could have been a non-Steam version included on the disk... I wouldn't have minded downloading my own updates.

I would like to thank the people who tolerated my frustration.... and to those who offered helpful advice.

I've been playing Civ since the very first version.... any frustration I have was born from the frustration of not getting to play my favorite game..... especially in this economy, when the money is tough to come by.

And to those of you who think I'm an idiot.... maybe I am... maybe I'm not... but I am a customer. And I do have a right to my opinion.

I hope all your future purchases are problem free.....

[danangleland]

Over 50% of all PC games purchased are digital, most of which are on Steam. Steam offers an easy to use client that patches your games for you, provides an integrated IM client, non-intrusive DRM, community options, an in-game web browser, and much more. None of this is forced on you. If your patch downloads are slow, it's your internet. I get minimum speeds of 700kb/s. Also, Steam doesn't "malfunction". Whatever you did, you broke it. All of these things are fact. You clearly are computer-illiterate and probably messed it up. I'm backing up this accusation with the fact that you somehow think the "Control Panel" is in the bottom right corner of your desktop. Any idiot should be able to use Steam. I guess that is not a fact.

I posted this in another topic. Try these before you blame Steam. Still doesn't work? It's your PC, not Steam.

How does any of that insulting post answer what I wrote? Read again you odious little turd.
Didn't change anything before it malfunctioned, didn't change anything to make it start working again; it did it all on its own. Plus things like Steam do go wrong from time to time, as other posters pointed out after you. And you completely ignore the point, AGAIN, that it does nothing I want- your list of Steam features is meaningless because I said I don't value them, I don't need them. And it is forced on me in the sense that there are some games like Civ 5 which require the player to use it. And I am not having any problems with Steam at the moment so have no use for the list of links, I never said I had a current problem. Furthermore, did you read anything properly? I never said my patches were downloading at a slow rate (which could, potentially, be affected by the number of people downloading from the same source). I said the downloads didn't start until many hours after the patches were available for download on the game developer's website. The patches weren't ready for Steam to download until hours after they had first been made available on the developer site. And control panel in the bottom right hand corner? No, I don't think that- I was assuming that the OP was referring to the bottom bar on the Windows screen when he mentioned Steam 'running' in it, and explaining what he meant (since you had apparently 'misunderstood' him and insulted him accordingly. I was trying to help you understand what he meant). If you read my post that would be obvious. You are clearly pretending to misunderstand so that you give your nasty little mind an excuse to be rude. You have been no help to anyone in this thread, and your responses have been filled with glaring (and I am sure deliberate) misrepresentation of what is being discussed, repeatedly ignoring the concepts that have been talked about, and replying as if people had asked you for a list of Steam features.

[starrywisdom]

I would much rather use Steam then have every single company that wants to use steam features(cloud, patching, DRM, etc etc) then use 2342309 different programs that only half work, half the time.

If you don't like Steam - then PC gaming might now be the right place for you anymore. Steam has gathered a lot of steam(lol) because of all the features it has built in and is an established platform that companies can use much cheaper then creating their own pipeline to do the same things. Steam is only going to become more popular and used, companies have slowly been integrating steamworks - and the trend shows no slowing down.

Time to suck it up - or switch to consoles.

[otghand]

I should have done my homework better but as a long time player of the Civ franchise it never occurred to me that 2K would require anything other than buying the game to play the game. Telling me to suck it up or not play is just arrogant, and not at all helpful (not that being helpful was your likely intent).

I don't want Steam on my machine. I try to keep my installation as clean as possible - pretty much the only thing I do with it is play games - for work i have OS installations suited to the task (OS X, Solaris, LINUX, all flavors of Microsoft) - the two, gaming and work, never meet, and the gaming computer is rarely online except to download patches or mods.

The bottom line is i have learned a lesson - read the fine print and never assume that what I am buying will work as a self contained whole. Has 2K lost a customer? No, not if they go back to selling a game that is self contained. I will not knowlingly buy a game that requires a an internet connection to play or install - that is just asking for trouble. Games are recreation - they should not be a hassle. I have work for that.

[starrywisdom]

I should have done my homework better but as a long time player of the Civ franchise it never occurred to me that 2K would require anything other than buying the game to play the game. Telling me to suck it up or not play is just arrogant, and not at all helpful (not that being helpful was your likely intent).

Like I said, Steam is not going anywhere - and more and more companies are requiring steam since their suite of services save companies a lot of time, effort and money. I would suspect if you want to avoid Steam here in about 10 years - you won't be playing very many new games.

It could be argued that the loss of customers because of Steam inclusion is totally eclipsed by the advertising and additions that having Steamworks included as. So yea.

[otghand]

So far all I have seen as a user is that Steam got in the way of playing the game. It actually prevented me from playing it the day I got it, as I took my gaming laptop with me to a venue where I had to sit for a few hours while my child was at a class. I did not have wireless access and could not even install the game. There went a few hours of gaming, and I actually have very few of those available to me.

It sounds like all Steam does is DRM and patch management, and the latter very badly. What does Steam do for the company that is worth driving away customers?

[Gremlins666]

If Steam ever goes out of business (and I realize that would be years in the future) and I want to reinstall one of their games on my PC.... what happens then?

[starrywisdom]

If Steam ever goes out of business (and I realize that would be years in the future) and I want to reinstall one of their games on my PC.... what happens then?

They said they would let the public know before hand allow you to burn all your games to disc - as well as releasing a patch to make all games playable without the steam connection. A simple search of their FAQ would reveal this.

[pillinjer]

If Steam ever goes out of business (and I realize that would be years in the future) and I want to reinstall one of their games on my PC.... what happens then?

If you have a physical disc, you might have a chance to find a crack/patch to run your game. Otherwise you lose your ability to play it, same as the fact that without a floppy drive you cant play the original Civilization.

[colinpass]

while the argument that it helps smooth things out by having a quality interface of systems blah blah techno talk, i get it. that may not be true. im not a big pc gamer, dont play a lot but have played a few, big releases like warcraft, civ, ect. its 2010, and complex games with good graphics ran fine on the computers of 2005. playing civ 4 and 5, i dont know a ton about game developing but i dont see how the graphics-gameplay of civ 5 are that far ahead of civ 4. to me the graphics are a little worse honestly. my point is that i am positive this game could be used effeciently as games were in the old days, without the need of steam or something like it. the reason we have to put up with this is money im sure. it saves developers making the programming steam has. plus, for the first time in my video game history, i've bought a game that required me to install a program to play, that when i open and close shows me advertisments for other games. dont think i missed that.

[PMonkey]

I posted this on another thread, it may help a little with some people:

What I would recommend people to do in order to keep stress levels down:

1) Update your graphics card drivers. Download an install the driver then restart your pc.

2) Update DirectX here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...D-85FC422D1388

Select “DirectX End-User Runtime” download the file and run. Then let Microsoft do it’s thing.

3) Register and install Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/

Once Steam has done it’s thing and updated, it may start up in a big browser type window. Personally I find this annoying. To stop this appearing go to: View > Small Mode.

4) Now I would install Civ V, either by means of your DVD or digital download.

If you need any help then just ask me, I’ll be happy to. If you get stressed, have a cuppa. Games are not like they use to be, and I have a feeling this will become the norm.

You need to remember that once Steam is set up, that is it. You can set it to Offline mode and it will not download anything untill you go back into Online mode.

You can set games to not be auto updated aswell: Right-click on the game > Properties > Updates > In the drop down box select "Do not automatically update this game"

The adverts in Steam can be turned off in the menu: Steam > Settings > Interface > Untick "Notify me (with Steam instant messages) about..."

I hope this helps a few people.

James

[chickenhawk]

What's with all the steam loving?

Been using Steam since it's inception with Hlaf Life 2, have it over 3 accounts at my home, 6 friends as well, I've had no end of problems with the program over the past 6 years.

I've worked in the IT support industry for a decade so I'm pretty good at fixing issues, as such I've fixed every issue that arose with Steam (so far).

To say that Steam is "great" is pushing it a bit, it's a royal pain in the rear and a cheap and easy way for development companies to offer multiplayer services and a small measure of copy protection (yes anyone can and has cracked every single steam game to date) I've spent countless hours troubleshooting the program.

Our latest problem seems to be that over 4 decent spec Core2Duo and upwards machines steam by itself is eating 40% of the cpu resources, for what I have no idea, this would be ok if LAN play actually worked, which it doesn't.

So whilst I agree Steam has it's merits, try not to go around banging on the "Steam is great" drum just because you're experience with it is limited and problem free.

<EDIT> Shortly after writing this I started Steam and tried to launch Civ V, getting "Preparing to Launch Sid Meier's Civilization V" I'm sure I can fix it but another example of Steam falling over, my machine is a bulletproof monster btw, it works flawlessly.

[Gremlins666]

This will be my last post on the subject... but I am in..... wooo hoooo

To all the people who called me an idiot, said it must be my pc, told me I should have waited for a month for the bugs to shake out, called me an old fart for not embracing Steam.... well... you are entitled to your opinion... there's no ill will on my part.

To those who offered help... or examples of having similar issues... or just a kind ear Thank you so much.

[Lloydthegreat]

It annoyed me enought that I have to have Steam running in my control panel

It annoyed me even more when I had to drop my firewall to get it to install.... why do I have to expose my PC to infection to install this? It's not like ZoneAlarm is an obscure product.

It annnoyed me even more that after 6 or 7 attemps at installing.... uninstalling and rebooting the program kept crashing.

Tried on two pc's... one of which is new.....

2K you just lost me as a customer.... I will NEVER EVER buy a game with these kind of installatrions hassles. I've waited for this game for so long..... I won't even take this back.... i'm too ashamed to admit I bought it.

All that work at preventing people from "stealing" your games just cost you a legitamite customer. And I will be sure to let my friends know as well.

I installed in less than 10 mins....one of the easiest installations I've ever had.

[Arch Duke]

steam is a great way to play games on the PC. I'm sorry your having difficulties but you could have had them with or without steam. Software issues on the games themselves are not steams fault. Have you tried verifying cache integrity of your game files? (right click on the game in the games library and go to properties. You may have a corrupt file or even a missing one.

Never had an issue wiht B.net

Have had PLENTY with steam...

I odn't udnerstadn why everyone tries to defend ti...

it's crap... totaly crap, and I will not buy another product that requires steam... PERIOD.

Either 2K gets there own platform (like blizzard did) or this will be my last 2K product.

[Augwich]

Just to add my opinion to the boat here...

I think that steam is a great idea - being able to download/play your games on multiple computers and the like. That's really helpful. But I honestly am not a fan because of one real reason - Memory Usage. I have a not so good...ok crappy computer, and steam uses up a huge amount of my Memory and CPU when it's running - which is a pain because I can barely get most games to work anyways, and I don't want steam running in the background because it makes the games run even slower.

Another problem - internet connection. Granted, once the game is on my computer this isn't a problem as much, but I live out in the middle of no-where and have a very sporadic internet connection. So if I have no internet that day, then I can't play my game? That's bothersome to say the least.

[Aurer]

My opinion about Steam:

- Crashes

- Big privacy issues (i guess not many people reads licenses & privacy polices..hehe..), like being tracked down each time it connects.

- 2 or 3 times more to open a game, need to open steam, then sometimes like in this civ 5 another useless loader.. and the finally the game.. great...

- Useless in terms of product (the game) protection... with just one file you can disable steam protection and play any game steam-protected.

The funny thing is that we, the people who buy the game, after all and have payed for a working game are being used as beta testers.. i'll think a bit more the next time i see a Firaxis game..