Steam really grinds my gears...

[wat docdude]

Okay so I don't have any source of decent high speed internet (And if I get any of that "OMG NO CabLe Live in THe Nao" Crap I'll be angry, I can't help it, it's not available where I live, the closest thing is satellite [Which I have and it's pretty garbage])

Anyways I purchased Empire: Total War. On the back of the box it says it "Requires internet connection and free steam account to activate." So yeah I'm cool for that. I've played games that require Games for Windows Live activations and stuff. Just one time activations are no big deal. However Steam is the most unfriendly piece of junk if you don't have broadband/DSL.

I should be able to just activate it in Steam and live the rest of my life playing it in offline mode, however it decides to shove this patch down my throat right as I get the game installed (Which takes far longer than it should). Normally a small patch would be okay, but this thing insists on getting me angry and is 15,100 megs out of 16,500. I mean. It seems totally weird that the patch is that large, but the point is that I can't do that on my data cap. It's not possible. And it's not really possible for me to just "ration" it out over time.

Is there any feasible way for me to get out of this stupid patch download or better yet steam altogether? It ticks me off that I paid for this thing and I can't use it because of some company not thinking of people that might not have available internet. I mean...what am I gonna do bring my desktop to the nearest Burger King with WiFi!?

 

[cloud8521]

steam rules, and you can turn off the patch downloading in the options.
but 15,100 megs out of 16,500 means that it screwed up installing or something became corrupt. otherwizer it would show the patch by the size of the patch only.
also it may be about time you get another Internet plan or a console. the PC gaming industry is moving in the steam distribution direction for a major portion of its games

 

[wat docdude]

steam rules, and you can turn off the patch downloading in the options.
but 15,100 megs out of 16,500 means that it screwed up installing or something became corrupt. otherwizer it would show the patch by the size of the patch only.
also it may be about time you get another Internet plan or a console. the PC gaming industry is moving in the steam distribution direction for a major portion of its games

This is what I was talking about.

And I have a Playstation 3. And as soon as this comes out on there I'll jump on it, but as of now no such luck...

Also the fact that I've been computer gaming since I was small.

But hey thanks I'll give it a try.

 

[cloud8521]

steam rules, and you can turn off the patch downloading in the options.
but 15,100 megs out of 16,500 means that it screwed up installing or something became corrupt. otherwizer it would show the patch by the size of the patch only.
also it may be about time you get another Internet plan or a console. the PC gaming industry is moving in the steam distribution direction for a major portion of its games

This is what I was talking about.

And I have a Playstation 3. And as soon as this comes out on there I'll jump on it, but as of now no such luck...

Also the fact that I've been computer gaming since I was small.

But hey thanks I'll give it a try.

the patches you get from now on should be relatively small, if any are made by the devs at all.

and steam does not use much internet even when running online. for the last few days ive left it running and been doing normal Internet use, and i only used >2 gigs

 

[wat docdude]

So it still starts at like 15/16.5 gigs and says it's updating.

Trying steam in offline mode does nothing either, as there is a check during installation.

Sometimes it just decides to download the game and not even go from the disk. Which I have to cancel.

It's also a major pain to install. It takes way longer than it seems it should, and I get rewarded with it telling me I need a stupid update.

 

[Everlong]

I've not got ETW myself, but have a look here and see if this helps How To Install Empire Total War Without Steam Download? - Yahoo! Answers.

 

[transpro61181]

Im feeling the Steam woes as well. Im deployed in Iraq with satellite internet and just installed COD MW2 and now steam wants to update it with 2 gigs. And its doing it at a painful 9.3kb/s. THREE DAYS and counting and i still have 400mb left to go until its done. Its the steam servers not my satellite cause internetspeedtest tells me the satellite is getting 1.2down and .8 up. Yeah thats low but I can download a 1gb file anywhere else on the internet in about 4-6 hours. CURSE U STEAM!!

 

[Everlong]

Im feeling the Steam woes as well. Im deployed in Iraq with satellite internet and just installed COD MW2 and now steam wants to update it with 2 gigs. And its doing it at a painful 9.3kb/s. THREE DAYS and counting and i still have 400mb left to go until its done. Its the steam servers not my satellite cause internetspeedtest tells me the satellite is getting 1.2down and .8 up. Yeah thats low but I can download a 1gb file anywhere else on the internet in about 4-6 hours. CURSE U STEAM!!

Steam servers always take a pounding during the sale. Try changing the Steam download server in the Steam options. That can sometimes fix download speeds.