Steam Questions.

[Kobra]

I haven't used Steam in a bit, but the steam accounts I have been using are from a corporate account for a Publisher I worked for awhile back (They got somewhere around 100 licenses to use in their offices when they signed a deal with Steam).  So I really can't BUY new games for those, they aren't my accounts. 

I just noticed "City Life" is on Steam, Starforce free and it perked my interest, so I have a few questions.

1) Can you resell steam based games, are they hard to sell and where would you sell them?  I tend to re-sell games when I am tired of them, and the added value of doing this is big to me. (for example a $30-40 game, I can usually resell for $25 when I am tired of it)

2) Can more than 1 person in a household use the same steam account AT THE SAME TIME?  IE Gametap offers up to 3 family members I believe - and all can be logged on at the same time.

So if anyone knows, I would love an answer, these two things have been holding me back from buying my own steam games.

[warning]

I don't have any clue about #2 but the answer to #1 is no.  You can't sell individually purchased games.  You could only sell the entire Steam account.

[Kevin Grey]

According to Steam's support site- the answer to #2 is no, multiple users cannot be logged on at the same time under the same account. 

[Windows95]

As far as I know, there is no way you can resell your games.  Each Steam account tracks which games you own and doesn't give you the option to transfer them.  If you purchase the retail version of a game that requires Steam (Half Life 2, etc.), I think you can then resell it, but you need to transfer the key, a service Vivendi charges $10 for iirc.

As for multiple account logins, I don't think that is possible either.  I have Steam installed on my desktop and laptop, both with the same accounts and games installed, but I don't think my friend and I could play multiplayer at the same time with my lone account.  I supposed you could force Steam to run in offline mode and then it wouldn't know if anyone else was using the same account or not.

[Kevin Grey]

Oh, and the caveat to #1 is that CD Keys can be transferred for retail purchased products, though I think it costs $10.

EDIT- Windows98 beat me to it.

[Blackjack]

This seemed like the appropriate zombie thread -- I thought I was the only person having problems with Steam crashing like every 10 minutes tonight, in every game I play (several different ones) or even just browsing the store, but it seems a lot of folks (not everybody) are having problems since the most recent update:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2137032

I wish I'd known that before I did a system restore and did everything short of standing on my head, thinking I'd messed up my system somehow.

My question is (so that I qualify for this thread ), what the frack do I do now that almost all my games are on Steam, and I can't play them in this situation (esp. with today's games all using checkpoint saves so I can't protect myself against random lockups)? Yeesh. That'll put a crimp in my return to PC gaming.  

Oh well, maybe I'll finally get around to seeing Drive at the theaters today (Saturday)...

And... I now have more empathy for the "anti-games-services-that-always-have-to-be-online" crowd. 

[EngineNo9]

Really?  Resurrecting a 5 year old thread?  I think this problem is different enough to earn its own thread. 

You can always put Steam in offline mode, though I have no idea if that will fix your problem.

[Blackjack]

I have an answer from the user forums (stop gap anyway), If you go to:
Settings>account>beta participation [lets you accept beta-updates of Steam]

It's in small text, lower-middle part of the account menu, is very easy to miss. There's a drop down menu labeled "CHANGE", to enable participation in beta updates program.

So they apparently have a fix in testing. One guy complained this beta update bogged down his downloads, though he confirmed it fixed his crashing issues.  

If I'm the only guy here having Steam problems, I just thought I'd feel kinda embarrassed to start a new thread about it.  

[Harkonis]

I'm having crashes every couple minutes, will try the update, it just appeared

[vrinnc]

I just got done playing a few hours of Space Marine and I had no problems from Steam.  Just many deaths in game.   

[Gratch]

Seeing Kobra's name at the top of the forum gave me a bit of a jolt.

[wonderpug]

Was about to say the same thing.  This thread is creepier to see than the scary spider picture thread.

[frost]

Seeing Kobra's name at the top of the forum gave me a bit of a jolt.

I don't know everyone here.  Who is Kobra, and why hasn't he been around since 2007?

[Harkonis]

Seeing Kobra's name at the top of the forum gave me a bit of a jolt.

I don't know everyone here.  Who is Kobra, and why hasn't he been around since 2007?

I can answer both of your questions.

1) You're better off not knowing
2) For very good reasons

[Soulchilde]

I saw Kobra's name and I thought ...WTF...

[Blackjack]

So they updated Steam today. Be very afraid...  

11:36Steam client update released
Client Update - Valve
A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Fixed high CPU usage in game library view
Fixed switching into offline mode
Fixed server browser for games using the HL1 engine
Fix favorite games showing in server browser that don't respond to pings
Fixed defragmentation if depot file is compressed by NTFS
Fixed retail installer setting correct game language

Nothing quite seems to relate to my crashing problem unless switching to offline mode locks up games.

To be fair, as much as I love this place (been hanging out here since around 2007-2008 I think), some of the buds I've invited here haven't stayed very long. I think some people prefer a smaller board and feel a little lost here. Me, I prefer a larger audience... yes, even in the threads where I talk to myself.  

[Sarkus]

I'm assuming the update is why I'm seeing Steam wonkiness today.  It completely shuts itself off and at one point when I restarted it I was told it didn't recognize my computer and I had to log back in.  Just a moment ago I went to pull up the menu and the icon on my taskbar completely disappeared.

[Victoria Raverna]

... when I restarted it I was told it didn't recognize my computer and I had to log back in ...

It did that before the latest update so the "bug/feature" existed before the latest update. BTW, when I got that message, I didn't type in my password to log back in. I just closed everything and ran Steam again. It logged me in automatically on the second run.