To Whom it May Concern,

I purchased Fall out 3 New Vegas and would dearly like to play the game .

As there is no way to directly contact any one concerning product complaints I hope you will forward this to the relevant Party.

I purchased this in South Africa , We are unfortunately cursed with expensive Internet as well as very slow Internet , For this reason the following problems are extremely difficult to solve In Johannesburg.

I was excited about the release of Fall Out 3 New Vegas and purchased your software on the Release date , however at the time I did not have connection to the internet - As a result when I returned to install and play the game I was unable to install It . I chose not to return the game because I was awaiting the Parastatal "Telkom" ( Our incompetent telecommunication company that operates our Internet Back bone ) to install our internet connection.

As a result 4 Months(edit : weeks) down the line I was able to install you software , After 5 hours waiting while your patches installed I was Able to Install the Game . Unfortunately real life got in the way and I was Unable to return to play you software Until today .

So I Made Myself a Cup of coffee and went down to the shops and purchased some Cigies , and with joy in my heart decided to commit myself to a great game. After starting my computer for the first time in three weeks I did not close the Incredibly annoying " Please Connect to Steam Screen " and boom - Nothing ...

Restart and try again . Nothing but " connecting to steam " , so I looked on the forums and it is suggested that the file ClientRegistry.blob be deleted . Done , now you guessed it more updates! Now bear in mind that we are on a 385 kb/s line that tops out at 22 kb/s. and 2 hours later the download reaches 99%
and steam crashes again , so after much searching through the forums the only conclusion is to delete ClientRegistry.blob again . And what do you know more updates.

So to round it all off i am on the 4th time deleting the ClientRegistry.blob file due to steam crashing / stalling after the 99% . this has taken 8 Hours.

I would like to round off this complaint with the following statements

I bought fall out 3 because it is not a multi-player game.
Fall out 3 does not require any interaction with anyone at all on the Internet
I understand the concern with software piracy but a once off steam activation would suffice
There should be optional web based software Updates/ Patches , Like every game ever released!
Fall out 3 should have the warning " Massive Download Time Required Before Play " Printed in bold on the front cover.
Steam is NOT Required to play this game , Steam is nothing but and advertisemant
Bethesda should dissociated itself from steam

It is 4:30 in the afternoon on Sunday and I have to go to work tomorrow having wasted my weekend with your useless software . As game designers you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Regards
A Concerned Gamer

It's actually just "Fallout: New Vegas", not "Fallout 3: New Vegas".

Sorry to hear about your problem man, hope you find a way to play it.

Fallout 3 New Vegas??? Fallout 3 has zero to do with New Vegas. Beth went with steam since it provides them with an easy way of distributing patches, DLC's and mod tools. I have played this game for months and I haven't been inside the steam client to actually see the adds more then two maybe three times.

Edit: And it wasn't Beth that make the game. Obsidian made it. And a mighty fine job they did.

Quick couple of things.

This is Fallout: New Vegas, not Fallout 3. Fallout 3 is Games For Windows Live dependent, not Steam dependent.

It's been less than two months since the game was released. Perhaps you meant "four weeks" instead of "four months".

Steam is required for activation and patching of the game. Once activated it can be set to offline mode for playing without an internet connection. It sounds like you didn't finish setting it up the first time.

Not every game ever released has "web based software Updates/Patches". Civilization V for instance.

Steam is more than an advertisemant. It is a DRM manager.

Contact form for Bethesda Softworks: http://www.gamesas.com/eng/contact_email.php

im sure it is a great game... but ive been at 28% "Updating steam" for an hour and im expecting another month before i can spend my month playing it

Steam is slow at updating I'll give you that. Have you tried fiddling around with the download settings of the client?

So you're ragging on the game designers and calling the software useless when THE OBVIOUS ISSUE IS YOUR INTERNET SERVICE. Sour graqes if ever there was an example. FYI, my software installed just fine and runs properly, so there you go.

The OP has a valid complaint in my estimation, he paid for a product and expects it to perform in a reliable manner. If the game wasn't bundled with Steam, he could use a download manager with resume capabilities to get updates, and the game would start even if he didn't update. Steam is just a corporate dumb down...

Steam does have resume capabilities. There really isn't a reason for it to fail to download the update (though a slow connection will take a long time, obviously).

I think tweaking the connection speed settings does have some effect on how it organizes the downloads in their manager, so that's something to look into.

Sorry to hear this, but at the same time- welcome to modern computer gaming, where the main focus is rigid control on the part of the game company, and the peons (aka "customers") come a distant second if that.

As apologists will tell you while sneering down their noses, it is possible to play the game without Steam's intrusion in what they'll euphemistically call "offline mode." Now ask them where the nice simple single toggle to activate "offline mode" is and watch the hilarity ensue as you're told to toggle off "keep updated automatically," toggle off Steam cloud synchronization, and if I'm not mistaken one other setting that's got to be toggled somewhere. Pffft..."offline mode" indeed, more like "you can get Steam out of your face, but the process is a bit like pulling hen's teeth because they allow it as a formality, but don't really want you to go there."

I haven't managed to get this alleged "offline mode" activated myself despite having picked through 4 different threads where someone explained the process while maintaining it was "easy." :rolleyes: Fortunately, I don't suffer your woes- I'm just trying to get it out of my face on the logical principle that a single-player game with no online multiplayer component should not require an internet connection to play.

Uh... :huh: All you do is click on the "Steam" menu, and click "Go offline"...

From the menu along the top of the main Steam page:

Select Steam->Go Offline and click the 'Restart and go Offline' button.

You are now offline. Next time you start Steam it will inform you that you are offline and ask if you want to stay offline.

The only complication is that any update to the game must be allowed to complete before selecting Offline mode.

To the OP, I'm sorry to hear of your troubles, hope you get them fixed soon

@ToJKa,
You type fast

Thank. You. Both.

OP, what system are you running on? Sorry if I missed it. If we know then a moderator can move to the appropriate "Issues" forum.

I am on the PC and have no problem running Stream in off line mod. My gaming computer is usually not connected to the internet and Fallout NV starts fine on it.

It is true that the first update took a while for me, even with a relatively fast internet connection. But as mentioned above, I think stream allows you to download updates in over multiple sessions.

And I don't know for sure but deleting "ClientRegistry.blob" does not sound like a good thing. That might be part of the problem.

Doesn't Steam only work on the PC? PS3 and Xbox 360 are handled by their own content delivery systems (though I heard Steam wants access to the Xbox).

And, oddly enough, deleting the ClientRegistry.blob is a common suggestion for fixing Steam issues. I think it's almost the "verify game files integrity" function of the Steam program itself. Forces the program to re-evaluate all its settings/updates/etc.

poor guy the OP, he has a legitimate concern and people derail his thread bickering about nothing to do with his problem..


since he mentions Steam at all he is obviously on a PC-


sound like his internet connection is very very slow, maybe he is timing out while trying to download the updates-

if there were only some way of playing the game on PC with no Steam...hmmm...

,)

i play on 360 though, hopefully people will stop bickering and actually try to help the OP

Sorry, not knowing anything about the PS3 or XBOX (or much about Steam) I didn't know that Steam implies a PC. That is good info to know.

I'll request a move.

:shakehead:

Here's the deal, guys. The OP, here, actually seems to have a pretty well-worded, civil, and respectful post about valid issues with the game. And then it gets derailed by a bunch of bickering.

Am I really the only one who sees the problem already happening here?

i dont even remeber when i got this game.... i just want my [censored] patch

Here is a recent post from the Community Manager...




Also, a few posts went away. Accusing people of trolling is often a flamebait tactic, and we warn people for flaming and flamebaiting, including random accusations of trolling, in an effort to shut someone else down. If you think there is a problem in a thread, hit the report button. That is what it is there for. :stare:

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Patches should be available as a download-able installer (even if that installer logs in to authenticate).

Valve should maintain a dedicated toll free dialup service to connect for authentication (of either regular Steam or the downloadable installer mentioned above).

**With this in place I would loose most of my gripes with Steam.
(It would also mean that paying customers could download patches and client to a thumb drive, then install them at home; if they have a phone / modem).