No particular reason for posting this now, just occured to me I haven't covered it yet.
A few years back I bought Half Life 2 off eBay, I buy 99% of my games off eBay partly because of a lack of disposable income and partly because I rarely have time to play most games fully due to spending my free time playing MMO's so just can't justify paying full price.
Now what I didn't appreciate at the time is that Steam games are tied to the Steam account they are registered to (there is a time-limited and seemingly tortuous transfer process which appears to be of little practical value) and that Steam accounts are not transferrable.
All of this is spelled out in the Steam EULA (which I suspect few gamers have ever read) and referenced on the exterior packaging of Steam games but obviously you don't find that out until the box arrives.
The point here being that, while the seller of a Steam game/account _should_ at least be aware of these points, the buyer (unless previously experienced with Steam) won't be aware of the unauthorised and risky nature of buying a Steam account,
Getting back to the story, Half Life 2 turns up with the account username & password, I change the registered email address and password but the username is fixed. Time goes on and I purchase afew other games and add them to the Steam account and then one day (over a year later) I can't login to Steam and get a message saying the account is locked because of suspected hacking.
Fortunately I still had the sellers email address so I email him asking if he's made any attempt to access the account. It transpires that he owned 2 copies of Half Life 2 and accidentally supplied the wrong copy for the account details he gave me. This meant that when he ran the serial number check for his remaining copy it replied back with the account name he supplied me, being unable to access this account (because I had changed the password & email) but being in possession of the correct serial number (and apparently having forgotten he had sold it) he was able to get Steam to lock the account out and investigate.
Unfortunately at the same time, I had contacted Steam informing them that I had purchased the account over a year earlier (in case my attempts to contact the seller failed) which gave them the excuse they needed to ban the account.
Eventually I was able to work with the seller to get Steam to unlock the account after jumping through some hoops but I suspect this is rare.
I have since opened my own Steam account but have yet to purchase anything through it or register anything against it (or my purchased account for that matter) due to my experience. That's not to say Ive avoided Valve games as I've simple purchased then on XBox (although XBox Live can't really do Teamfortress 2 justice!)
The lessons to be learned here are that firstly you don't really own software purchased through or registered on Steam as they can stop you from using it even though you have the Media and even if it's a single player, offline game.
Secondly it's very very easy to get scammed on eBay when purchasing a Steam account because the seller has the power to get the account locked even if he can't get it back (because the buyer can prove he has the serial number)
Finally I wonder what the legal position is (in some countries) with respect to ownership and resale rights (since you effectively don't get either)?
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
My love/hate relationship with my iPhone
It's been said by some that I'm the only person they know that complains about the iPhone so I thought it was probably time for my definitive list of gripes having had it a year now.
Battery Life:
My biggest complaint, my battery life is truely terrible. I'm charging on average twice a day, a full charge before I leave for work and then, depending on usage, another one by late afternoon or in the evening to make it through the night (mainly to stop me having to charge it from flat in the morning or turning it off)
I identified my poor battery performance fairly early on and took the issue up with O2, who referred me to the Genius Bar in the local Apple Store. The Apple staff member simply instructed me to turn off push email on 3G when not using them (I originally got the iPhone to eleminate the push email data charges of my old phone so I'm always using push email and therefore 3G!)
Camera:
Theres no denying the quality of the camera in the iPhone is awful. Low megapixel count, no flash, no zoom and no video, all things that were pretty standard on phone before the original iPhone came out (never mind the 3G).
I do find it odd that Apple haven't added video or zoom in any firmware updates especially in light that the 3Gs gets them, a paid for zoom app appears to be available in the app store but I'm pretty sure you need to Jailbreak to get video.
Windows XP64 bit support:
I realise I'm one of the few people probably running XP64 but given that iTunes for 64bit Vista runs fine on XP64 (once you modify the install file to not check OS versions) I don't understand why it can't just support XP64. Prior to getting the iPhone I was running an older version of iTunes under XP64 that didn't have the OS check on install but the iPhone required a newer version of iTunes to work with.
Unfortunately, while iTunes works fine for sync'ing with the iPhone the driver support doesnt allow me to do firmware upgrades, restores or access any of the photos on the phone. Fortunately I have an XP32 laptop I can do all this on.
Interestingly the iPhone box doesn't come with any 'minimum system requirments'!
Picture Messaging:
This was eventually addressed in a firmware update but the lack of integrated Picture Messaging from the outset was a significant oversight on Apple's part. Incoming picture messages arrived as a normal text message with a link to a web page where you could view the picture message (data connection notwithstanding) but the only way to send outgoing picture messages was initially only through Jailbreaking the iPhone and installing a non-approved application or later by installing an approved application that wasn't able to use your tarrif and sent picture messages had to be paid for via PayPal.
Sat Nav:
Ok I realise that Google Maps isn't really Sat Nav but it was pretty obvious it was going to be used as one until something like TomTom came out (price notwithstanding). It really needs to have a caching options (such as caching the route of directions it's providing) because the minute you lose data connectivity you end up looking at a blank screen with a line and a dot showing your location (and you won't even know how zoomed in you are) and it needs to override the screen lockout setting. Asking it to speak the directions so you don't have to keep looking at the screen [while driving] is probably expecting too much.
Interestingly the new iPhone 3Gs has turn-by-turn in Google Maps but I don't know if any other issues are addressed. Alternatively you can Jailbreak and use xGPS.
Photo crash/reboot:
I wasn't the only one to report this but I suspect I'm in a minority of people who encountered this problem. I got sent about 3 high resolution photos via email which I attempted to save to the phone with the 'save all' function. It turned out that only the first image actually saved (saving each individually worked ok) however when you attempted to view these photos on the phone it would reboot the phone. Removing the photos from the phone proved difficult (in light of not being able to access the photos under XP64 as mentioned above) but in the end I was able to invoke the delete function before the photo had finished rendering and caused the reboot.
This was confirmed by Apple to be a known issue however, as their firmware update notes are as detailed as 'bug fixes' I have no idea if this has been fixed yet.
Notes sync:
Again this was addressed in a recent firmware update but initially the iPhone didn't sync notes when connected to an Exchange server for push email.
The Dock connector:
With the iPod Apple introduced us to the Dock connector. It would appear that even Apple cannot maintain a 'standard' either because accessories that worked with devices that previously sported the dock connector (such as the car charger for my iPod and even reportedly accessories made for the original 2G iPhone) are reported as not supported by the 3G iPhone forcing you to buy new accessories!
Battery Life:
My biggest complaint, my battery life is truely terrible. I'm charging on average twice a day, a full charge before I leave for work and then, depending on usage, another one by late afternoon or in the evening to make it through the night (mainly to stop me having to charge it from flat in the morning or turning it off)
I identified my poor battery performance fairly early on and took the issue up with O2, who referred me to the Genius Bar in the local Apple Store. The Apple staff member simply instructed me to turn off push email on 3G when not using them (I originally got the iPhone to eleminate the push email data charges of my old phone so I'm always using push email and therefore 3G!)
Camera:
Theres no denying the quality of the camera in the iPhone is awful. Low megapixel count, no flash, no zoom and no video, all things that were pretty standard on phone before the original iPhone came out (never mind the 3G).
I do find it odd that Apple haven't added video or zoom in any firmware updates especially in light that the 3Gs gets them, a paid for zoom app appears to be available in the app store but I'm pretty sure you need to Jailbreak to get video.
Windows XP64 bit support:
I realise I'm one of the few people probably running XP64 but given that iTunes for 64bit Vista runs fine on XP64 (once you modify the install file to not check OS versions) I don't understand why it can't just support XP64. Prior to getting the iPhone I was running an older version of iTunes under XP64 that didn't have the OS check on install but the iPhone required a newer version of iTunes to work with.
Unfortunately, while iTunes works fine for sync'ing with the iPhone the driver support doesnt allow me to do firmware upgrades, restores or access any of the photos on the phone. Fortunately I have an XP32 laptop I can do all this on.
Interestingly the iPhone box doesn't come with any 'minimum system requirments'!
Picture Messaging:
This was eventually addressed in a firmware update but the lack of integrated Picture Messaging from the outset was a significant oversight on Apple's part. Incoming picture messages arrived as a normal text message with a link to a web page where you could view the picture message (data connection notwithstanding) but the only way to send outgoing picture messages was initially only through Jailbreaking the iPhone and installing a non-approved application or later by installing an approved application that wasn't able to use your tarrif and sent picture messages had to be paid for via PayPal.
Sat Nav:
Ok I realise that Google Maps isn't really Sat Nav but it was pretty obvious it was going to be used as one until something like TomTom came out (price notwithstanding). It really needs to have a caching options (such as caching the route of directions it's providing) because the minute you lose data connectivity you end up looking at a blank screen with a line and a dot showing your location (and you won't even know how zoomed in you are) and it needs to override the screen lockout setting. Asking it to speak the directions so you don't have to keep looking at the screen [while driving] is probably expecting too much.
Interestingly the new iPhone 3Gs has turn-by-turn in Google Maps but I don't know if any other issues are addressed. Alternatively you can Jailbreak and use xGPS.
Photo crash/reboot:
I wasn't the only one to report this but I suspect I'm in a minority of people who encountered this problem. I got sent about 3 high resolution photos via email which I attempted to save to the phone with the 'save all' function. It turned out that only the first image actually saved (saving each individually worked ok) however when you attempted to view these photos on the phone it would reboot the phone. Removing the photos from the phone proved difficult (in light of not being able to access the photos under XP64 as mentioned above) but in the end I was able to invoke the delete function before the photo had finished rendering and caused the reboot.
This was confirmed by Apple to be a known issue however, as their firmware update notes are as detailed as 'bug fixes' I have no idea if this has been fixed yet.
Notes sync:
Again this was addressed in a recent firmware update but initially the iPhone didn't sync notes when connected to an Exchange server for push email.
The Dock connector:
With the iPod Apple introduced us to the Dock connector. It would appear that even Apple cannot maintain a 'standard' either because accessories that worked with devices that previously sported the dock connector (such as the car charger for my iPod and even reportedly accessories made for the original 2G iPhone) are reported as not supported by the 3G iPhone forcing you to buy new accessories!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Lots of ground to cover.
So there I was linking my Twitter with my blog when I saw the date of my last blog :-( (hey, I've never claimed 'frequent blogger' miles!)
Well we've got alot to cover and hopefully not a ton of words to do it, apologies if details get missed in the brevity
Eve:
Yep still playing Eve, managed to get in on the Bob vs. Goon action (I'm not saying which side I'm on) lots of fun and no complaints about the outcome. That said it's been a bit boring since then but my other characters empire wars and wormhole fights has been making up for it - back to feeling a little burnt out though these last few weeks - One of my group wants us to go play Aion, but I suspect it'll be horribly grindy thanks to it's Korean origins (assuming my aging rig can run it with all the pretty effects I see on YouTube)
SWG:
There was a free reactivate recently for the SWG birthday (don't ask me which year as I'm past caring). This time I actually decided to try it, made it from the site of my old house back to Mos Eisley before logging, the accelerated animations just terrible, Traders are still gimped and the game is a ghost town - call me when you launch 'classic' (i.e. pre-NGE) servers SOE
In other news I'm sad to comment that Jeff Freeman/Dundee of NGE fame took his own life some time ago. I'm not aware of the circumstances around this but I'd like to say that my criticism of him was purely professional.
Matrix Online:
Sadly this closed down recently, while the game play was fairly dull the hand to hand system was novel for an MMO. Unfortunately another example of an excellent virtual world environment flushed down the tubes by SOE (although in this case by not really bothering to develop it rather than over developing it like SWG) - Station Access just got less appealing but I'm not aware of it being made any cheaper
Planetside:
European server is being merged with the remaining US server so thats had a free reactivation too. Played it the other night but the Terrans are still outclassed unless they get decent numbers (which they don't) and I couldn't work out what the new capacitor thing on the Terran MAX is (if its a shield it certainly isn't a very good one). Got pushed off every continent we fought on. Had some good fights but mainly we were just zerging into hostile fire due to lack of numbers.
I wonder what the ping will be like for us Europeans on the US server (the free period runs out 1 day after the merge so I'll see if I remember) and will this be the next SOE game to be shut down?
Neocron 2:
I'm not 100% clear on this but I think it's currently free (to existing account holders anyway, even if they weren't subscribed) due to some financial issues with the parent company. Hasn't been a patch for ages though so the game play is probably exactly as last described.
Well we've got alot to cover and hopefully not a ton of words to do it, apologies if details get missed in the brevity
Eve:
Yep still playing Eve, managed to get in on the Bob vs. Goon action (I'm not saying which side I'm on) lots of fun and no complaints about the outcome. That said it's been a bit boring since then but my other characters empire wars and wormhole fights has been making up for it - back to feeling a little burnt out though these last few weeks - One of my group wants us to go play Aion, but I suspect it'll be horribly grindy thanks to it's Korean origins (assuming my aging rig can run it with all the pretty effects I see on YouTube)
SWG:
There was a free reactivate recently for the SWG birthday (don't ask me which year as I'm past caring). This time I actually decided to try it, made it from the site of my old house back to Mos Eisley before logging, the accelerated animations just terrible, Traders are still gimped and the game is a ghost town - call me when you launch 'classic' (i.e. pre-NGE) servers SOE
In other news I'm sad to comment that Jeff Freeman/Dundee of NGE fame took his own life some time ago. I'm not aware of the circumstances around this but I'd like to say that my criticism of him was purely professional.
Matrix Online:
Sadly this closed down recently, while the game play was fairly dull the hand to hand system was novel for an MMO. Unfortunately another example of an excellent virtual world environment flushed down the tubes by SOE (although in this case by not really bothering to develop it rather than over developing it like SWG) - Station Access just got less appealing but I'm not aware of it being made any cheaper
Planetside:
European server is being merged with the remaining US server so thats had a free reactivation too. Played it the other night but the Terrans are still outclassed unless they get decent numbers (which they don't) and I couldn't work out what the new capacitor thing on the Terran MAX is (if its a shield it certainly isn't a very good one). Got pushed off every continent we fought on. Had some good fights but mainly we were just zerging into hostile fire due to lack of numbers.
I wonder what the ping will be like for us Europeans on the US server (the free period runs out 1 day after the merge so I'll see if I remember) and will this be the next SOE game to be shut down?
Neocron 2:
I'm not 100% clear on this but I think it's currently free (to existing account holders anyway, even if they weren't subscribed) due to some financial issues with the parent company. Hasn't been a patch for ages though so the game play is probably exactly as last described.
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