Steam Launch of Patch...When is this going to happen? (A. Now!)

[khub]

Regarding Steam's service standards;

I have just raised a query with my credit card provider, Steam are not providing what we entered into a contract with them to provide. This transaction is covered by laws pertaining to retailing in your jurisdiction, I purchased via steam as I was in North America at the time of release. My credit card company have refunded the charges and will pursue Steam for not fulfilling their side of the contract. I urge anyone who feels that Steam has let them down to do the same.
Khub

Sounds like you're bragging. Congrats, you're wasting a credit card companies time because a software patch didn't come out when you wanted it to. Have fun with your credit report.

Yeah, that's going to be bad all around. Steam provided your game when you bought it, didn't they Khub? I don't remember any promise to give us updates AT ALL, nevermind giving us updates within a week. Lying to your credit card company about things like that does not make them happy, and the days of credit card companies handing cards out to anyone with a pulse are gone - hopefully forever. Steam sure isn't going to be happy about the false accusation, either.

In this case I contacted Steam using their customer service portal, when we were unable;e to resolve the customer service issue regarding this transaction with them, I informed them I would be cancelling this single transaction. I have supported Steam as a means of distribution since HL2. I pay to use my credit card and get the consumer protection that it affords, in this case I invoked that protection.

I did not lie to my credit card company . I feel that I am justified in making my protest at their understaffing, their lack of service. I was just reminding people that they are consumers and have a choice in this matter.
I'll brag at the steam users if I can find a retail copy where I live tho
Khub (still excited about new missions)

[strude]

Ego should provide the steam exe for download so we can patch own steam versions ourselves.

Don't Steam produce the Steam exe though, not Egosoft?

[Cisor]

Ego should provide the steam exe for download so we can patch own steam versions ourselves.

Don't Steam produce the Steam exe though, not Egosoft?

Nope. Think about it... They'd need the entire X3tc build environment/chain/source code to be able to create their own exe. Would you, as egosoft, give someone your source code?
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[Predator02]

Nope. Think about it... They'd need the entire X3tc build environment/chain to be able to create their own exe.
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Nice if you knew what you were talking about but you don't.

A lot of people here have absolutely no perspective or patience. Suck it up and wait.

Steam isn't preventing anyone from playing the game right now, 1.4 works perfectly fine.

[AcerbicMaelin]

You know, as horrible as it is, I agree with this. The problem right now isn't so much that the Steam release is delayed...It's that those people over there got it, and these people over here didn't. Bugs aside. If you had everybody in the 'these people over here' category, then there wouldn't really be a problem. I mean sure, people would KNOW that it was released on disk early, and some people would be saying, "IF I'd bought it now I could be playing the patched version," but you wouldn't have nearly the amount of indignant people as you do with half your English speaking customers saying, "Hey, I got the patch, let's talk about it!" and the other half saying, "Man, why don't I get the patch!?"

If everyone is suffering equally, than nobody feels singled out.

That's what it used to be about, but now it's about something different. We Steam customers were annoyed when Egosoft released the patch early and we didn't get it early too. But now it's worse: now, thanks to this glow bug issue, we are getting the patch late. Egosoft did the right thing in sending Steam the updated patch, now the problem is that Steam apparently only has one person who is able to install the updated patch (!?) and that guy is unavailable.

The upshot is that we Steam users, instead of getting the patch early (last Friday, when everyone else did), or even on time(yesterday, when it was scheduled), are now getting it a week late at the earliest because either Steam have got it all held up in red tape, or else because the only guy who knows how to do it is on holiday.

Furthermore, Steam have been characteristically silent about the whole affair and failed to even say a word about it - only the Egosoft folks will give us Steam customers any news.

The most aggravating part of all is that, as crummy as this state of affairs is, we got lucky in regards to what could have (and probably would have) happened. If Egosoft hadn't released the patch early, they wouldn't have found the glow bug in time to stop the Steam 2.0 patch release, and we Steam users would have been stuck with a broken game for a week, waiting for Patch Guy to come back from Hawaii and implement the 2.0a fix so we could play the game again.

[SirMerlin860]

what i was getting at is the fact that the steam forum has 6 moderators and i don't think any of them have replied to any of the posts within it. and the email support takes about two weeks to get a response.

if they want to charge for a service they should provide that service.

getting the game patched may take time but the last update i can find on the steam site is the release of version 1.4

[Gothsheep]

I understand that, and I guess I'll stop talking about it, since I just...I can't get excited about it. I'm actually glad for the delay, because it means I can exploit the giant rewards for the build missions a little bit. (Just getting enough money to buy a TL) I'm not going to have the required missions done to even see the new Aldrin content, so...yeah.

[Cisor]

Nice if you knew what you were talking about but you don't.

And you know I'm incorrect how?

I'm a dev with 25+ years experience so it simply stands to reason for me.... It's called experience.

To explore the logic for you... There are multiple developers using steam, so it makes sense they are all given steam stubs to call from their exe's.

The reverse, where steam gets the source code for the various games from all the developers is unthinkable.
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[strude]

Nice if you knew what you were talking about but you don't.

And you know I'm incorrect how?

I'm a dev with 25+ years experience so it simply stands to reason for me.... It's called experience.

To explore the logic for you... There are multiple developers using steam, so it makes sense they are all given steam stubs to call from their exe's.

The reverse, where steam gets all the source code for the various games from all the developers is unthinkable.
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I got the impression that the steam component was simply added to the exe. Like a virus would add it's code and still execute the main exe code?

[Cisor]

Nice if you knew what you were talking about but you don't.

And you know I'm incorrect how?

I'm a dev with 25+ years experience so it simply stands to reason for me.... It's called experience.

To explore the logic for you... There are multiple developers using steam, so it makes sense they are all given steam stubs to call from their exe's.

The reverse, where steam gets all the source code for the various games from all the developers is unthinkable.
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I got the impression that the steam component was simply added to the exe. Like a virus would add it's code and still execute the main exe code?

Probably very similar, but I'd be very surprised if the steam component didn't need to be compiled in, namely, explicitly defined and called by the runtime.

The DVD version calls the tages disc validation routine, while the steam version calls steam and checks number of tages activations.

These are explicit calls from the game exe.
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[Kapakio]

Probably it was mentioned already but I'm not gonna read 13 pages of rants, but do you realize that the original launch date of 2.0 was April 7? So, we could fairly blaim Steam for just 1 day of delay, not more. This generally means planning, they don't have to just advance 4 days with no warning.

[eladan]

Probably very similar, but I'd be very surprised if the steam component didn't need to be compiled in, namely, explicitly defined and called by the runtime.

An executable wrapper, perhaps?

There are an awful lot of assumptions being made by many people in this thread. Fact is that no one other than the people inside know anything about what is involved in the process. Any statement attempting to pin blame for the delay on anyone/anything is thus flawed, as without perfect knowledge of the process, it's very hard to accurately attribute blame.

The patch is delayed. Feel free to complain about it, but I suggest you try to avoid reinventing the procedure they follow. I'm sure they know it far better than anyone here does.

[Cantankerous]

Probably it was mentioned already but I'm not gonna read 13 pages of rants, but do you realize that the original launch date of 2.0 was April 7? So, we could fairly blaim Steam for just 1 day of delay, not more. This generally means planning, they don't have to just advance 4 days with no warning.

Last I heard though we have atleast another week until release. THAT does seem very slipshod on Steam's part. Still, as has been pointed out, it really worked FOR those of us who use Steam as we didn't end up with a broken game for the interim period as would have happen had the "glow worm" not been dealt with.

Yes, we have to wait a week. I don't like it, but a week isn't going to make me want to time portal around changing futures (ala Cartman)


Isshia

[Cisor]

Probably very similar, but I'd be very surprised if the steam component didn't need to be compiled in, namely, explicitly defined and called by the runtime.

An executable wrapper, perhaps?

Have you ever actually used an exe wrapper? Done it yourself? I have and in my experience a wrapper will not cut it to serve the functionality required by steam and tages, and by dvd tages. Why? For one, because wrappers are just too easy to see and reverse engineer away.

Any statement attempting to pin blame for the delay on anyone/anything is thus flawed, as without perfect knowledge of the process, it's very hard to accurately attribute blame.

Ego admitted the mistake with the glow bug packaging. QED.

The patch is delayed. Feel free to complain about it, but I suggest you try to avoid reinventing the procedure they follow. I'm sure they know it far better than anyone here does.

Not reinvent, just suggesting a way to help their steam customers in the interim. If there is a technical or contractual reason why Ego can't release the steam version of x3tc.exe then it would be nice to get that confirmed.
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[Saetan]

If there is a technical or contractual reason why Ego can't release the steam version of x3tc.exe then it would be nice to get that confirmed.

You'll need the patched exe and dll only for pervormance improvements because of better ram usage or similar ... for the plot, added factories and updated scripts you won't need the exe or dll.

If someone want the additional extensions by 2.0, he should try patching by himself. It's quite easy, as long as you keep in mind, that you must not use the .exe and the .dll shipped with the retail-patch for your steam-version.

If you are afraid you could destroy something with this method, do backups of your game-directory and of your savegames.


Screenshot of X³TC 2.0 with STEAM

--- edit ---
Ok, I just saw the warning by BurnIt because of possible incompatibilities of the savegame created this way to the original 2.0 .exe.

So, if you try this, you should make backups and keep them until the original steam-patch is released and working.

[Cisor]

If there is a technical or contractual reason why Ego can't release the steam version of x3tc.exe then it would be nice to get that confirmed.

You'll need the patched exe and dll only for pervormance improvements because of better ram usage or similar ... for the plot, added factories and updated scripts you won't need the exe or dll.

If someone want the additional extensions by 2.0, he should try patching by himself. It's quite easy, as long as you keep in mind, that you must not use the .exe and the .dll shipped with the retail-patch for your steam-version.

If you are afraid you could destroy something with this method, do backups of your game-directory and of your savegames.


Screenshot of X³TC 2.0 with STEAM

I hear you, but performance improvements is kinda important since so many people are getting bad fps with really good rigs.

EDIT: Your inclusion of BurnIt's warning is a good reason why people should not follow that approach.
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[Saetan]

Your inclusion of BurnIt's warning is a good reason why people should not follow that approach.
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That's why someone who is trying this method should do back-ups. If something goes wrong, you have the original files to set it back.

As long as you keep this back-ups save, there will nothing be unrecoverable destroyed.


My understandig:
The whole patch, besides the .exe, the .dll and the uninstall-directory only consists of the .cat & .dat, the .xml with the file-signatures and also the scripting folder. So there's not much difference to a modification. And, because it's official released already, there won't be major changes to this files, i guess, and so I don't believe, the savegames get bricked.

I can't garantuee for sure, but for this case there are the back-ups.

Also, I believe, to try this is the better way than just to flame like a lot seem to do.

[sc_hornetAMF]

well its now thursday, when are steam going to get off their arse?

I want the patch damnit, i feel like a 2nd class customer at the moment...

[CBJ]

...the update cannot be deployed before next monday.

Quoted from yesterday but already about 9 pages back.

[Galaga]

*shakes head*

Man... You people are terrible, one mistake and you're at throats.