Valve Announces Steam Cloud: Online Network to Store Saved Games Indefinitely

[Hard core Rikki]

Valve Announces Steam Cloud: Online Network to Store Saved Games Indefinitely
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52906




Valve today announced Steam Cloud, a free Steam system that will retain users' saved games and configuration files indefinitely.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 will be the first games to support the service. User key mappings will also be saved in Counter-Strike, and Left 4 Dead will ship with the feature.

If players are offline, the service will store the data and then add it to the network on the next connection. According to Valve, saved games and configurations will be stored forever.

Valve further noted that the service will be freely available to developers, and is set to launch in the "near future."

The company also detailed plans for several new Steam systems, including a driver auto-updater and calendar functionality.

Another feature in development is a system-requirement checker. The program will analyze your hardware and compare it to multiple games, estimating your performance and recommending upgrades.

Valve is also considering storing replay videos and kill-cam screens from games such as Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source.

Discuss ;P

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[fried_egg]

this is all part of their plan to some day replace the desktop. seriously though, valve is like that guy you know who is always offering to do too much for you. he's pretty creepy and you always wonder if he has some sort of ulterior motive.

[mudlord]

Reminds me of MS's plans to move MS Office totally online....

[Hard core Rikki]

If you mean SAP remote services, it's going there anyway (Photoshop itself is already available as an online service now - Photoshop Express). There, no piracy ;P

Games do not have the same implications as software geared for creativity. Having your saved games tied to your account could hardly be considered any bad (unlike for sensitive works, a copy of which which might not be in the safest place, on google's servers for example)

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[cottonvibes]

[sarcasm]
i have online OS that dosn't let my PC boot unless i'm connected to the internet. it works great!
[/sarcasm]


anyways, what Valve really needs to do is update Steam chat!

it needs more features like custom Fonts (or at least Font Size), and the ability to send pics and stuff.

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[Coolsvilleman]

Well if they do offer all those services that would be pretty cool... except when it says you need the latest geforce 1800000GTX to run your game and you know your 1700000GT will work just fine but the sys req app wont let you run it.

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[cottonvibes]

the 1800000GTX pwns the 1700000GT, its common sense

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[Mad]

Its nice addition, but having the ability to save logs of chats between friends would do enough already...

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[Titus03]

Well... I've used to store all my game settings and saves manually, but with Steam it takes quite a long time to collect everything together. I'm not against the idea. It would be good to have at least backups online, but I'd rather like the idea of having only one folder for settings and saves in \SteamApps-folder. Would be easy to backup manually.

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Last edited by Titus03; May 30th, 2008 at 16:47..

[Raziel]

Thought about this lots of times, finally someone's doing it.

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[skoreanime]

Not a bad idea. Saving stuff server side always has its benefits...but also has it's ugly side as well. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out how it shifts the gaming market.

[Samor]

nice feature, especially if you're a reinstall-addict like me.

Many games already do this though, of course (to stay out of the mmo area, Trackmania remembers your official records and unlocks tracks accordingly on reinstall)

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[SCHUMI_4EVER]

I like my saves on my harddrive just fine....

Looks like I will eventually be forced out of gaming due to everything ending up online...

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[Samor]

yes, even forum discussions are online nowadays

the only disadvantage would be if the online service going down would mean the loss of your progress.... but trackmania uses a double system (saves both online and offline). Not every game does, though... I think that if the TDU servers go down, my savegame would be useless.

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[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Wait....TDU is only online? I thought there was single player aswell? Now I am definitely not getting that game.

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[Samor]

it's also single player. but, the savegame is either for online OR for single player, not both (as in, you can't switch later on).
So, if you have an online game it only works online. If the servers would be down it'd be useless (even though it actually saves locally).
Single player you can always restore, but it's never online. And playing it like that kind of kills the fun of the entire game.

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[PCXL-Fan]

I think this is a nice idea. I only hope it compliments the hdd saves and doesn't replace them.

Originally Posted by Coolsvilleman

Well if they do offer all those services that would be pretty cool... except when it says you need the latest geforce 1800000GTX to run your game and you know your 1700000GT will work just fine but the sys req app wont let you run it.

Problem with your theory is that Geforce cards will have already taken over, enslaved mankind smf become our Geforce Overlords by the 570000GTX Skynet edition long before 1700000GT came out.

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