its been an age since i actually made a topic and im just checking to see if i remember :P.
but while im getting myself back up to speed on that.....what improvements would you like to see made to steam?
i can think of 2.
1) smarter downloading. guid wars has a great system where by the game only downloads what you need to get you started + what you need if you move areas and downloads other stuff in the background while you play. i think its a very clever and elegant system that allows the player to get stuck in as quickly as possible. it would be kewl imho if we saw something like this for downloading games from steam. games arent getting any smaller really in terms of GB size so getting the player stuck in as soon as possible and downloading more in the background while the player plays would be kewl.
this might not be feasible for every game (something like oblivion could be very difficult to break up) but it would be ideal for something like f1 2010 or HL2.
2) highlight system requirements and let the player know of any problems their PC may have with a game.
e.g. i look at the game page for f1 2010 (im just playing that a lot at the mo thats why it keeps popping up :) ) and it lists the games reqs and my systems specs. it will then highlight any issues my PC may have with the game such as not enough ram or GPU may be too weak. so i will know of potential problems before making a purchase. there are a few websites that do this but if it could be integrated into steam then that would be really handy...especially for those who dont really know whats in their PC.
this could be further extended by using player feedback to give more info. so when im playing steam could be profiling anonymous data like my FPS, settings used and such like and that data could then be used to recommend improvements to other users interested in getting a game. so in the sys reqs area of the game screen on steam it could say something like "a GPU upgrade to a 5850 would greatly improve performance for this game" or "we recommend med settings with your current PC for this game" or something like that. of course this would need to be opt in...collecting data in the background without consent can make people very nervous.
those are my ideas for possible improvements.
all ideas are welcome. thanks for reading :).
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