The Steam Review

This just in from Valve, relating to this recent post:

The Steam filesystem driver is tool we use to have games see .gcf files as if they were just loose files on disk (a virtual disk). It’s a great bit of software that lets developers quickly have their game up and running on Steam – this way Red Orchestra didn’t have to change any code in order to use the cache files, it’s just handled transparently for them. It’s only loaded when launching Red Orchestra (and in the future, other Steam games that don’t write to the Steam API directly), and doesn’t have anything to do with DRM.

Being able to access your games from anywhere you log on is a big feature of Steam that isn’t going to change.

As well as easier development, the drive system should help reduce the amount of files that need to be duplicated from the GCF, which currently ranges from entire games (e.g. Darwinia) to 200-odd Megabytes of binaries and other data for Half-Life 2.

While Monday’s Steam update may have been aimed at getting the final beta phase of Friends 3.0 out into the open, it also saw the quiet release of Steam Media Player, a Windows Media Player wrapper suggesting that Zombie Movie, last heard of in October, is finally on the way. The executable can be found in the /bin folder: double clicking adds SMP to the ‘Open With…’ menu in Windows XP, and files can also be dragged directly onto it. Alongside the standard WMP features, SMP features a fade in and fade out effect and per-frame navigation with the arrow keys. Finally, resource file resource/SMPStatsDialog.res and associated entries in resource/vgui_english.txt mention the collection of usage data when playing media in SMP (thanks Koraktor and Andy):

Alt+Enter reveals the embedded Windows Media Player interface.

Valve would like to collect some data from you that is not in any way linked to any other information about you, such as your address, phone number, purchase history, lifestyle decisions, pr0n surfing habits, etc. Don’t worry – we’re the good guys! Trust us. Really. And buy more games. MORE, damn you!

Anyways, back to the data thing – can we send the information we’ve collected below to our servers to allow us to make better movies for your viewing pleasure?

Needless to say, the text above isn’t accessible to end users.

Another new addition some may find to the /bin folder are the /x64 and /x86 subfolders, which were added during a previous release of the Friends beta but have now been removed, their existence on the drives of people who ran the beta purely because Steam doesn’t normally delete files outside GCFs. The folders contain 32-bit and 64-bit versions of SteamDrv.sys, a system file which looks to be a contraction of ‘Steam Driver’. They are inactive, no longer being part of the platform, but represent a worrying development nonetheless. StarForce, a physical-media copy protection scheme, has frequently come under fire for silently installing its own drivers on systems running protected software, though the damage they cause or do not cause in doing so is a matter of equally frequent debate.

Steam on the other hand has a remarkably low footprint, being entirely contained within one folder and one registry entry, and, being largely cross-compatible with Linux (by way of the Dedicated Servers), does not seem to use any OS-specific ‘hooks’ as many other DRM systems do. A Steam driver would naturally widen that footprint, as well as attract waves of criticism regardless of how stable or harmless it may be.

However, this all of concern may come to nothing: both files are dated 2002, whereas almost every other Steam binary has up-to-date build times. It could simply be a case of outdated files being mistakenly added to the beta download. There is also the possibility that the filename is actually a contracted ‘Steam Drive’, suggesting if it is true a virtual disk for the Steam filesystem (thanks Andy).

Valve have now responded to this post with an explanation of SteamDrv.sys’s role.

Steam’s run of smooth releases since Half-Life 2 came to and end tonight as confusion, invalidated content and slow downloads marred the release of Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45.

Troubles began immediately after release, with the small download usually consisting of final binary files delivered at a snail’s pace, as slow as 6Kb/s for some users. When their download eventually completed impatient gamers then found that the game would launch and immediately crash, an issue usually associated with outdated version of DirectX when seen with Source games, but here resolved by manually validating the game’s caches. When this process was complete users discovered that 20% of the game, probably representing the content from the second phase of the preload, needed to be downloaded again, once more at low speeds for many. The first reports of people entering the game eventually began to filter through at 7:35GMT, over half an hour after release. Complaints of ‘outdated server’ error messages followed, seemingly related to outdated account rights that could be resolved by logging in and out of Steam.

Causes are still unclear, but several possibilities are already emerging. Steam’s content servers are not experiencing unusually high load except for those in Europe, where, critically, the majority of Ostfront’s fan base is installed; load balancing taking its toll once again. Also, that a chunk of game data equal to the second preload required downloading again after manual validation suggests some form of corruption between the two preload phases: phase one’s decryption perhaps performed during validation, but phase two’s 20% being discarded as invalid.

This post will be updated if and when new details emerge.

Manual validation is no longer required: Steam will now do it for you.

Another pair of revealing job placements have been added to Valve’s Jobs page: a smack-talking DRM/Security opening, and an intriguing Web Applications position.

Senior Software Engineer, DRM/Security
Deliver the next generation of digital rights management, anti-piracy and anti-cheat solutions. Help solve some really hard and interesting problems to grow the digital game distribution business and keep the online gaming experience fair and fun for our customers. Numerous bad people all over the world will attack your code, this is your chance to prove you’re smarter than they are.

The DRM elements of Steam haven’t had any interesting developments for some time now. A quick scan-over of the usual places reveals four or five cracked clients running around that allow users to connect to standard Steam servers – but tellingly, not one of them can access servers running VAC. They must be having a great time. Reliable information on VAC itself is proving harder to come by, but going on the contents of the official forums it seems to be doing its job.

The position clearly suggests that the core authentication system is undergoing changes, undoubtedly being upgraded to its Steam 3.0 iteration. As we’ve seen, VAC helps, but the underlying authentication system doesn’t seem (going again on the crackers’ discussions) to have had any major updates for quite some time – VAC being something that merely ‘plugs in’ on top of it. I could always be wrong of course…

Senior Software Engineer, Web Applications

Description
As a senior engineer in charge of web applications and tools, you’ll be part of an extremely motivated and experienced group of people. You will:

• Work as part of Valve’s core development team, adding web applications and components to our best-of-breed computer games and pioneering e-commerce platform.
• Regularly ship a variety of products from small internal tools to large-scale web applications used by millions of people per month.
• Directly and meaningfully impact the experience of those players & customers.

Responsibilities

• Develop an understanding of Valve’s player community and contribute creative web-focused design solutions to improve the experience of using Valve’s products
• Improve internal visibility of various game-related and Steam-related data
• Follow-through from project inception through design to detailed completion
• Iterate on solutions based on internal and external (customer) feedback
• (further bullet points cut)

What could Valve want from a web application when they have Steam? Displaying data to those who don’t use it might be one answer, as could the republishing of data for inclusion in web pages, perhaps for server stats, personal stats (matchmaking?) or even something similar to the Xbox Live GamerCard. It should certainly be interesting to find out.

Picking out human players from the throngs of innocuous NPCs is only the first step on the road to offing them…

I’m sure many of you will recognise the Half-Life 1 mod The Ship, if only by name. It was a quirky deathmatch-but-not in which players became assassins, given a target to kill before the round ends, with the macabre “Mr. X” overseeing proceedings and rewarding successful killers, his cash prize sized on the ‘style’ of their take-out. Things became more complex when the cruise liner on which each game is set is filled with NPCs, and when you realise that you’ve got to avoid the player assigned to you as well.

“The Ship is not just about killing though, the trick is to kill cleverly, to select the right tool for the job, to find your quarry and to despatch them in style without being caught by security. Players who broadcast their actions will end up dead, fined, or doing time in the ships brig. Players also have to take care of themselves; they must eat, drink, sleep, wash, use the bathroom, socialise and entertain themselves. These needs make for an interesting interactive and immersive world, and they ensure people are in constant motion while providing many opportunities for stealthy murders.”

As you may have already guessed, The Ship is taking the fashionable ‘mods to riches’ route with a vastly improved Source version (in fact the mod release was only ever a preview), The Ship Online, winging its way to your wallets this June. An interview with developers Outerlight can be found on TotalVideoGames.com.

A quick question to TSR’s subscribers: do you prefer your feeds with full post content, or the one-line summary the system currently uses?