Valve opens Steam community spigot

By Staff, GameSpotPosted Sep 13, 2007 5:10 pm PT

Half-Life 2 developer rolls out upgraded member-focused version of download service.

With Half-Life 2: The Orange Box's launch less than a month away, Valve has pulled the stopper on a large-scale update for its Steam download service. First hinted at in May, the update adds a robust set of community features to the game-download network, which boasts around 13 million subscribers.

New to the service are personalized member pages and profiles, as well as the ability to create and join user groups, schedule games with friends, voice chat with others both in and out of game, and track other players' in-game performances. Many of these features can also now be accessed within games hosted on Steam.

A welcome page on the just-launched Steam community Web site has an introduction to all the new features. Steam subscribers who prepurchase The Orange Box will also be able to participate in the Team Fortress 2 beta beginning September 17.

66 Comments

  • playstation_wii

    Posted Sep 20, 2007 3:27 pm PT

    aw man. I wanted to get tf2 beta

  • Oldwolf62

    Posted Sep 19, 2007 3:51 am PT

    Wow Steam just keeps on getting better, and yes the games are much cheaper on Steam. Which I like, alot

  • BorkaBonum

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 10:09 pm PT

    It's Tuesday.... still nothing.

  • BorkaBonum

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 12:28 pm PT

    Why is people crying over Xfire beeing a "resource hog", it's very small and consumes about 13mb of physical memory, don't **** around, Steam consumes alot more power than that. The new Steam in-game communicator and such works fantastic for Steam but nowhere outside that yet, I'd prefer Xfire as it's so universial but I try to use the Steam functions as much as I can while playing Steam-based titles. Crying over the "controls" of the Steam stuff is also stupid as you can set the keys from Shift + Tab to anything more convinient.... Xfire is a exceptional messenger, Steam is just getting closer to beeing useful as it's always just been a static client for locking in your CD-keys.

  • BorkaBonum

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 12:14 pm PT

    Still nothing...

  • jaredcrazy3232

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 9:39 am PT

    i first hated steam when it first came out.... now i cant live without it and would cry if something were to happen to it.... just goes to prove that if u don't like it valve fixes the problem and u like it.... but they can never fix ricochet lol.... i think (in my opinion) that, that game is their only blemish.....

  • BorkaBonum

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 8:27 am PT

    When in the name of Fidel Castro is the Beta opening? I've pre-loaded the game and is waiting like a little drugie on Christmas Eve. Add Borka, that's my SteamID.

  • Warshock

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 5:46 am PT

    WELL.. it is now 7:50 on september 17 and I have yet to see the beta be open...jesus... don't they know that they have fans ready to kill their families over this.. how unconsiderate...

  • GrimBee

    Posted Sep 17, 2007 4:59 am PT

    I used to really HATE steam for forcing people to be online when alot of the time I didn't like to put my PC online..
    Since my pc is now a bit of a piece of crap, when I get my gaming PC its only connecting for updates and game downloads - but I couldn't think of any other online service that I would want except Steam.

    Steam games work out INSANELY cheaper, I hope they don't change the $$ on it, because I bought half life 2 episode 1 for £5 a few months ago. And the orange box would only cost me about £20 on steam.

    This is why I have grown to like steam. Sure enough - you do get the odd problem and hiccup from a steam update now and again, but usually everyone is in the same boat, so its not a big deal really.

    But you know - try telling me that when I can't fire or spawn back in or get the magnum out (for all unknown reasons) at some critical moments online
    Overall - steam is excellent, they get alot of games first. And alot of the games on there are top notch, and with a nice access to mods from the games you have and a shopping page which isn't cluttered with ads for NON games -- steam is an excellent service.
    The community feature, I hope, will not turn into a "looky what I got" thing like the XBOX 360's achievement points... but more of a "look at what YOU got" sort of thing.

  • marijuana_man2

    Posted Sep 16, 2007 6:27 pm PT

    Spigot?

  • RussianYulia17

    Posted Sep 15, 2007 9:59 pm PT

    it's sweet no doubt but, i thought it was suppose to be more of a "Myspace" type of Profile Page... :S

  • gatsbythepig

    Posted Sep 15, 2007 11:57 am PT

    good title

  • Agulf

    Posted Sep 15, 2007 4:23 am PT

    Xfire vs Steam discussion is pointless. I myself use both; see no reason why not to. Steam provides a better in-game chat for steam games, and xifre for non steam games. Now if valve would go off and BUY Xfire from viacom, that would be ******* awesome.

  • beckoflight

    Posted Sep 15, 2007 12:26 am PT

    I like Steam i find it more usefull & more safe than evan buyn products on disk's .... a disk an get scratched or broken ...but thei nformation on steam will never be damaged ! This is the future & i like it !

  • MarcoDeGammo

    Posted Sep 14, 2007 8:51 pm PT

    13 million subs is kind of misleading anyone whose every bought a halflife game or any game on steam has it.

  • GrimBee

    Posted Sep 14, 2007 6:51 pm PT

    its not half bad - its a bit slow for my liking, and during a freakish online deathmatch - holding shift and ctrl to access the friends menu is a bit annoying - and can cause some delays between messaging and going back to the game - but its very cool that Steam is making games on the pc feel a bit more natural.

  • ColdfireTrilogy

    Posted Sep 14, 2007 12:12 pm PT

    steam > xfire every time. Why? Cuz its useful ... i can function perfectly fine without xfire ... infact i have never used it. Why should i when my friends list functions perfectly fine integrated into the steam community. I get realtime updates to games. And its not a resource hog ... when it idles it uses only 3 megs of ram and less than .2% cpu power. Xfire is full of everything but does nothing well enough to warrant a necessity. Anyone that uses VOIP uses Teamspeak or vent if they are doing group matches so whats the point of xfire ... only one i can think of is it shows you how many hours youve wasted of your life playing a game. Something i dont want to know anyway.

  • Bgrngod

    Posted Sep 14, 2007 11:34 am PT

    BAh.. the only thing steam has done for me lately is become that program I close everytime I turn on my computer.

    WTB Half-Life 3 with a new engine?

  • thatguy0130

    Posted Sep 14, 2007 8:14 am PT

    I can't wait for Orange Box to be released!

  • SCPsyWarrior

    Posted Sep 14, 2007 7:53 am PT

    Seems like GS deleted all the comments pointing out that they made a mistake originally with the TF2 beta start date...

    Anyway, the Steam Community seems pretty solid. Helps me communicate with my friends when I'm playing GMod and they're playing CS:S.

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