Ditto. I’m fine with launchers also.
I don’t see the big deal. I mean heck I remember a time when launching a game took ages; now with SSD’s and average memory at 8 gigs for most PC’s games launch quickly no matter how many “steps” are involved.
I don’t feel I’m that old of a gamer at 31, but I definitely can’t complain in terms of the way games launch these days as opposed to the past.
I remember APB did “background patching” and by background patching i mean it secretly installed the pando seed client to steal your bandwidth 24/7.
Unrelated to above, but you really don’t need a launcher for auth and patching, sure it’s easier to do but look at eve pre-launcher. Launch game, game starts, log in, done. When there is an update, the client closes, launches a dedicated updater, and you’re off to the races. I don’t claim to know all the big advantages there are on the development end to using a launcher which seem to motivate the major shift towards them in the past decade, but i can echo critic’s stance on launchers being a major(probably minor tbh) negative from a user experience perspective.
[quote=“mattk50, post:22, topic:2475”]
look at eve pre-launcher. Launch game, game starts, log in, done. When there is an update, the client closes, launches a dedicated updater[/quote]
Yeah, that’s good & all until your game crashes at launch, at which point you’re… fucked, since even if we publish a patch, you won’t be able to install. Launchers are there for a good reason.
I feel exactly the same. Sure, having some nifty shortcuts to launch the game faster is always nice… but it should be reserved for experienced players and not become a generality, unless you want a horde of players demanding a support ticket because “they can’t change the server to which they want to connect”.
And trust me, most users are dumber than drunken chimps, and that’s including me 
If there is a comparison to be made, we can all have a look at Blizzard products, which are most of the time very well polished and nicely designed, while having a security-oriented thought.
And they have a launcher.
The problem is not the waiting, it is letting the user know when the waiting will be over.
I remember the first versions of CIV 5 that loaded during the opening video!! We were boasting with friends about what exact time we could skip the video, meaning a better PC. It didn’t matter I had “only” less than 7 seconds to wait before entering the menu, because it felt like 30 seconds.
I also remember Guild Wars 2 launcher. They had the good idea to put how many files were left to download… and the terrible idea to bind the progress bar to the number of files instead of the general size. So you’d thought “this bar is almost at the end, should be quick now”… but that last file was >100 Mo 
Ditto.
Steam…brrrrrr. Hate it. When they allow us to manually update then I will download it.
You can refuse automatic updates from Steam already. You left-click on a game in your library, “Properties” > tab “Updates”. Then you choose how to deal with updates.
Although I agree, if you want to play a game without the latest update that sometimes can be revealed to be noxious, then GoG is your friend.
I think Zen’s talking about Steam updating itself rather than the games. If you don’t want steam to update your games you just set the download time to a time of day you’re asleep and your computer is switched off.
auto launch the updater on crash using a hidden “launcher” thing that is never displayed or interacted with by the user? same experience benefits and that wouldnt be an issue, and then you wouldnt need to start up the game just to update as in my eve example. as soon as it notices a crash or update it could open the relevant crash report/update ui but otherwise never appear.
This is really really nitpicky though, at this moment in time it would be a huge waste of time and effort for a thing that 99% of the people playing the game won’t give a damn about.
Thanks Tjafaas. That’s how long it’s been since using steam. lol. Definitely a plus now!
Yes, that is what I was referring to…steam updating itself. Is there a way to change setting to manually? Really don’t want yet another app running all the time even though I rarely if ever use it.
From what I can see, the impact of steam is negligible. The client + everything attached to it takes less than 100mb ram, and not even a tenth of a percent of my cpu time when idle.
The updater only pops up at the start of steam and closes, when I get to the login screen.
Not to mention that the idea of wanting to not update the steam client is… weird. I mean, you can’t play EVE without an up-to-date launcher and client, the launcher automatically updates everything. So why should Steam behave differently?
Eve only updates when I click the icon and open the launcher…which is fine.
so basically exactly the same way as steam does. I presume that eve notifies you ingame when there’s a patch available, right?
The last I used steam, and I admit it has been over 2 years ago, it would automatically update itself every time you turned on the computer. Without the option to turn this off I would rather not.
You probably had the option ‘run steam on windows start’ enabled, or put your steam icon into the autostart.
So the option exists? Didn’t before.
[Update] Just talked with someone and was told that you have to turn off Steam in the Start up tab in your computer… awesome. lol
I agree with JB47394, launchers that hinder you from getting into the game are extremely annoying. I have many times not played a game for that exact reason, I just don’t want to wait 5 minutes or more to have fun. Im sure that won’t be the case for me with Battlescape, but it might for the more casual player.
+1 for auto-starting launcher in the system tray (as the default setting).
I don’t mind launchers in general.
What I do mind is sitting to play the game and finding that I have to start a half-hour update process before I can continue.
A launcher that can update in the background automatically solves that.
Ok i see what some people here are saying and I guess i’ll rephase it:
So what they want to see happening is:
a) Patching should happen automatically through Steam. If their game is on Steam then the game should be up to date through Steam’s auto-update functionality. They HATE having to patch using the Launcher even tho Steam says it’s up to date.
b) Authentication should happen only once if the user selects “Remember my account”. A combination of security checks and mobile Authenticator should periodically check for login for obvious reasons. The Guild Wars 2 or Battle.net launchers are a good exampes: email code verification, Authy’s code, IP/location check. User interaction should not happen on every login.
c) Some people want a “Play when ready!” checkbox. This will run the game if the Launcher is logged in and fully patched.
d) Some people want “Close to notification area” and “auto-hide to notification area” checkboxes.
The result of the above 4 points will mean, in an ideal world, that Steam will automatically patch the game ahead of the Launcher if a new version is available. When the game is “Ready” on Steam a user runs the game and it should, in the background, auto-login, do all the authentication and patching checks (it’s already patched) and run the game in a few seconds without user input or popups. If a Hotfix or a minor patch was needed through the Launcher then the launcher should (while minimised in the notification area), patch the Hotfix and run the game as soon as it is ready.
The user experience will be, assuming all checkboxes and options are selected:
Obviously this won’t happen during development but is merely a vision shared by some members of a very streamlined and convenient process. All these things have individual toggle options in the Launcher’s Settings menu and may come closer to or after v1.0 release version.
I don’t mind Launchers but i do see the appeal of the slickness of the experience where the game launches as fast as possible with minimal user interaction.