> Likewise, Bloodlines is a Source engine based game, but it is > stand-alone. Bloodlines is not distributed via Steam (since > it's not a > Valve product).
Comments from Erik during the early design and beta sessions, seemed to have painted a picture of other games (non-valve ones) being able to utilize Steam for their distributions, for a fee to Valve of course. > Steam is a distribution system. Period. That's all Steam does is > distrubute files to clients. There isn't a Steam query > protocol that's > accessible by end users or MOD authors (as far as I'm aware). > I think > you are thinking of the Source query protocol that allows > applications > to query Source servers for information about the games there is > running. There isn't anything like this for Steam that > determines which > applications Steam is supporting (other than internal > proprietary stuff > that Steam does all the time anyway). I think this is where I was confused. To me, and many others, Steam replaced WON. So, naturally, everything WON provided, Steam now does. This includes the unique Steam IDs per user, the servers running (aka the old master server listing), and now new features like tracking which games a user has purchased licenses to play, etc... So, I guess the confusion is in that I don't see a clear seperation of Steam and Source. If steam isn't managing the master server list, what is? I don't recall hearing anything called Source Server Network or something. > > I should probably review the steam query... > > Do you mean "Source query"? That all depends on what I want to query. But, more importantly, it depends on the answers to my previous questions above. > MOD is a change that someone has made to a base stand-alone > game. You > can MOD HL2, you can MOD CS:S (well, sorta). You can MOD > DoD:S (once it > comes out). Yeah, I'm aware what a MOD is. But, I had no idea that CS:S, DoD:S, HL:S, and all the others are individual games. I also didn't know that each one of those games could have MODs too. I think resource information sites are going to need know this seperation as well, because they classify everything like we did in HL1, which after today's discussion, seems wrong. > There are no MODs for Steam, since Steam is only a distrubtion system > and not a game. There are MODs for stand-alone games that are > distributed via Steam. As far as I know, Valve doesn't currently > support MODs (like Frontline-Force, Action Half-Life, Firearms, etc.) > being distributed via Steam, although it has been mentioned > in that past > that Valve may provide bandwidth to make some MODs supported > by Steam, > but these still aren't "Steam MODs", they are MODs to stand-alone > products that Steam will automatically update for you. Well, these HL1 MODs like Natural Selection are on the Steam list, but for downloading, you end up over on their website. So, it doesn't appear that these MODs are distributed via Steam. They're just listed as available for the community's sake. It seems that more could be done in steam to improve this support though. That list could get pretty big and will be confusing on which game base each MOD is for. And I know they're not "Steam MODs" either. They should have some sort of game base designation though. Or maybe a drop down list of game bases that filter the list of games on display. Steam still gives off the appearance of evolving. I wouldn't be surprised if Valve doesn't even know what end-game they have in mind for Steam. It's a new concept put into implementation and there are many questions as to what it should really do. It's definitely come a long way from early beta. - HoundDawg _______________________________________________ hlds_apps mailing list [email protected] http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_apps
