What’s your take on the criticisms of the HTML-based Steam Library?
Criticisms include but are not limited to:
Slowness
Memory usage
Migraines
Epilepsy
There’s still criticisms regarding it? Huh, TIL. I thought all of those were sorted out a few weeks/months after its release.
Personally, I don’t really have any issue. Thank god the library isn’t as slow as Origin, as that library is insanely slow for me (just typing in a search term can freeze the whole window for 1-2 seconds).
Of the Steam client?
I’m a fan of the more minimal view so I generally use that.
For the full view there’s a few options and if you work with the dynamic library mechanics and sorting it’s possible to build some good categories plus the main client options can reduce some of the image loading and caching which can be a issue in terms of speed and memory with larger game libraries.
There’s a command to outright skip the Chromium component but it breaks large parts of the UI in turn so it’s use is limited unless you do things manually or use the command line interface of the Steam client.
Otherwise I think Valve has done a good job for feedback and fixes and additions since the beta plus updates to the CEF component so it’s not too terrible but as I said I generally use the minimal view as I prefer this.
Also yeah it’s a big step up over Origin which I had a lot of issues with it even remembering some of the settings properly and then loading data and such I think it’s improved but EA hasn’t released something I’ve been immediately interest in for a few years now.
Ubisoft is a bit in the middle it’s not that slow but it has a lack of customization options though they have more recently made larger improvements to account security and back end fixes going by the change logs.
There’s a few dedicated users claiming both major memory usage and/or health issues, and there is even the occasional encouragement to pirate, in this thread:
… I really want to write a script sometime that goes through Steam forum threads and summarizes the number of posts each individual user have made, to create top lists of of the top users that contributed to the thread, along with the percentage of posts they’re responsible for…
The original library as it was had a few minor issues, but that’s why Valve added the Low Bandwidth Mode, Low Performance Mode, and Disable Community Content switches. I would assume those would take care of most of the issues. Design-wise, there’s very little difference in terms of colors used from the old library, after all.
As to the migraines and epilepsy, that’s even weirder… Do they mean due to the community content that appears? If so, why not just disable it?
That was a fun endeavor.
Here’s the top 50 posters in that thread. It’s interesting to see how the top 10 posters are responsible for almost a fifth (18.4%) of all posts of that thread.
Replies Percentage Author SteamID Profile
------- ---------- ------ ------- -------
616 2.95 greenraven22 87789037 https://steamcommunity.com/id/greenraven
456 2.18 Magla 102235233 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Magla
385 1.84 BananaJane 26342336 https://steamcommunity.com/id/BJPlantano
361 1.73 Baltist 40719612 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198000985340
359 1.72 Back2FutureFan6 849258954 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Back2FutureFan6
358 1.71 Max Caulfield 164279256 https://steamcommunity.com/id/RealMax_Caulfield
332 1.59 obliviondoll 163463842 https://steamcommunity.com/id/obliviondoll
264 1.26 Chesmu 838382596 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Chesmu
257 1.23 Lex 70506369 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030772097
231 1.11 Digressive (1-800-WAA-TATA) 14762872 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197975028600
172 0.82 Peepsta Who? 346523438 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198306789166
138 0.66 Reepus Vanguard 121674635 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198081940363
130 0.62 okazaki2552 241829158 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202094886
129 0.62 XBL Laberbacke 74937338 https://steamcommunity.com/id/XBL_Laberbacke
123 0.59 Barking_Death_Squirrel 116837981 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198077103709
121 0.58 haknslash 18591420 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197978857148
120 0.57 [bin]zwieda 10170034 https://steamcommunity.com/id/binzwieda
118 0.56 Zalfir 90816569 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198051082297
118 0.56 PhotriusPyrelus 47997957 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198008263685
107 0.51 Templar 37192376 https://steamcommunity.com/id/BlackRaincoat
104 0.5 Fuhrer_51[RUS] 79947998 https://steamcommunity.com/id/fuhrer_51rus
101 0.48 Neuticles 205672532 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Neuticles
98 0.47 Gasivodo 11422250 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197971687978
96 0.46 spaarten 213036726 https://steamcommunity.com/id/spaarten
93 0.45 FizzyElf 400764919 https://steamcommunity.com/id/AtlasEntertainment
82 0.39 Црезена Лоренски 81980757 https://steamcommunity.com/id/crezenalorenski
77 0.37 CuddleKing 120232672 https://steamcommunity.com/id/cuddleking
76 0.36 The-Skull-Will-Conquer 122652565 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198082918293
73 0.35 Seraphina 65412987 https://steamcommunity.com/id/LolifoxSera
73 0.35 Rainbowsaur 82878228 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Rainbowsaur
69 0.33 Zorro 92114981 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198052380709
67 0.32 Krido 50385795 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Krido
64 0.31 Kael 69903995 https://steamcommunity.com/id/6K6
63 0.3 BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M! 9680878 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197969946606
62 0.3 Karvlok 158766080 https://steamcommunity.com/id/karvlok
61 0.29 pyromaniac420710 861576622 https://steamcommunity.com/id/pyromaniac420710
61 0.29 Neo74 387234906 https://steamcommunity.com/id/zibat_ant
60 0.29 Deagle Trainee 369431323 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198329697051
59 0.28 THE BLACKOUT 412263644 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198372529372
59 0.28 muffins 16820485 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197977086213
58 0.28 TYPICAL HUMAN 100649254 https://steamcommunity.com/id/supethingbanan
57 0.27 Xane Tempest 133338199 https://steamcommunity.com/id/XaneTempest
56 0.27 Graufang 49811820 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198010077548
55 0.26 Red Phantom 107471805 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198067737533
53 0.25 Crashed 43240569 https://steamcommunity.com/id/Crashed0
52 0.25 TrackEx 111463100 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071728828
50 0.24 ramyland_maelstrom 64151957 https://steamcommunity.com/id/ramyland
50 0.24 [SK] Kaldaien 1031086364 https://steamcommunity.com/id/kaldaien_sk
50 0.24 ^5Air^7Grue 297395478 https://steamcommunity.com/id/gruesomecat
49 0.23 RoyalGamer 366345589 https://steamcommunity.com/id/justroyalgamer
48 0.23 BRINGBACKTHEOLDLIBRARY 51078779 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198011344507
Edit: Lol, Kal has 50 replies in that thread? Did not expect that.
They call me a troll yet they are more active.
And what about the claims of health risks by the 7th most active poster?
Apparently greenraven22 is the ringleader of this whole scam…
I’m embarrassed 
There was a lot of misinformation about the library when it first went live. Now, I frankly don’t care. SKIF is more convenient when all I want to do is launch a game, installing them still requires the Steam client. I totally didn’t expect this to be the outcome when I designed SKIF, I was just playing around with the new art assets, but I like the UI now 
Also, SKIF is, uh, not slow HTML. It is slow D3D11
TBH, I don’t think it’s slow at all. ImGui’s not th emost efficient way to build a UI, but I can optimize it pretty well.
My only complaint with new library is that it is now required in order to uninstall games.
If you don’t use Steam’s social functions, old library with -no-browser was perfectly sufficient; it can install games, launch games, sync save-files, track playtime, track achievements, manage DLCs, and uninstall games.
Now, uninstalling will not work without browser component. All other basic functions still work though. But, I don’t understand why is a browser needed to uninstall games? 
Yeah the steam://install switch works but the uninstall one doesn’t do a thing so it’s either the command console or manual cleanup of the files and folders including the .acf manifest and the registry information about whether the app is installed or not.
Epilepsy is a interesting one though for the reported issues, thought Steam was limiting users to JPG / PNG images only for the art for their games so no flashing banners or sounds like it’s the 1990’s to early 2000’s of internet advertisement heh.
Good thing too I guess, naming changes, mini updates and anything to get that top listing and sorting order advantage so if sound cues and animations were possible that’d be hell.
EDIT: Hmm wonder if Valve still has autoplay enabled by default for the trailer come to think of it that might be a concern although some of the stuff in the big topic and other threads might just be junk or misinformation too.
1 Like
This have always been optional and set through the account properties or the client settings.
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Hmm must be remembering it incorrectly then, thought it was auto playing and it was toggled in the video settings but once set it would remember the preference.
I should check the account settings more often come to think of it, Valve recently introduced a toggle for the heart symbol word filter though I believe it’s more for the chat functionality and community groups.
Only thing that feels like it’s missing now is a minimum price slider together with the existing maximum one, sort out some of the daily titles and the numerous unpriced apps that show up.
Capping the store results so you can browse per month or week in addition to sorting by review scores and popularity rather than the entire Steam listing wouldn’t be bad either, get a good overview but not for everything on the store.
(Suppose a max number of entries per page when not using infinity scrolling does kinda work too but less effectively.)
Think Valve’s idea is more on the user finding and getting recommendations and suggestions though or some of the more highly rated curators for filtering some of these titles but not missing too much either when there’s up to 30 or more titles on the Steam store daily and without having to go through the store listing in entirety for the day.
(Plus DLC and demos but that’s easily sorted at least.)
I forgot a bit of the details, but there’s basically two settings:
- Auto-playback of videos are controlled through the video player itself:
Unchecking Autoplay videos will basically store the preference in a cookie in the browser and remember it for all eternity. This is most likely because the preference should work for guests as well as signed in users, and it works in the client as well.
- Live broadcasts are disabled through the account preferences, at the bottom:
So if users don’t want “live” broadcasts (although most broadcasts nowadays don’t seem to be live per se, but just a looped pre-recording) they need to tick that checkbox.
It appears to me a small number of people with a political agenda. I suspect the health claims are bogus too.
For what it’s worth the overall spread of the posts are better than straight circlejerks.
You can look at the Petition to support Windows 7 thread in the Horizon: Zero Dawn as an example of a circlejerk.
In that thread:
-
752 unique users have posted in the thread.
-
Top 15 posters are responsible for 3723 replies – 62% of all replies.
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Top 50 posters are responsible for 4765 replies – 79.4% of all replies.
I forgot to write down how many unique users had posted in the Steam Library - Now Released thread, but based on how the top 50 posters I posted previously were only responsible for 18.4% of all posts, it’s probably thousands that have posted.
None the less, it can still be heavily influenced throughout the later pages or whatever. I didn’t really collect the data necessary to actually see posting frequency among the heavy posters over a period of time.
Much of the later posts are me arguing with the top 15.
P.S. The repeated demands for Windows 7 support for next-gen games is just crazy, especially when it means dumbing down the games to run on an old OS.
It’s getting pretty bad, they have said they have reported me repeatedly.
I feel like that’s the norm for the Steam Discussion boards nowadays. And I have really no idea why the mods allows some stuff, but not other. That Win7 support thread, for example, is just a trolling circlejerk of some <15 posters on either side of the argument – ad nauseam. I’ve reported it more times than I can count, and some mod should really move it to an off topic forum board instead of having it in ‘General discussions’ but nope – nothing of the sorts has been done.
lol, you mean the trolls like that GreenRaven guy? I’m sure they have reported you multiple times, and I’m sure Steam support just loves having to deal with that buffoon. I almost never used the forum report feature because I feel sorry for Steam support, I know that forum reporting is so heavily abused that I simply abstained from it completely rather than create more work for the moderators who are already not having a great day.
Suppose the moderators knowledge and their stance on some subjects also can cause some problems where some topics are shut down outright and others can go on despite borderline hostility or outright harassment and it’s down to whatever moderator is checking in on the topic and the various reports made for what action is taken.
The Steam forums are also fairly closed to what you have access to if a moderator action is placed and how well you can discuss or have it lifted feels like there’s good intentions behind it but the implementation is lacking and a bit cumbered by the back then designs and a whole bunch of legacy bits that should have been overhauled long ago.
As to the forum mood itself well I have no idea how to try and manage millions of active users in a effective way it has to be human controlled but they can never have enough staff with the current growth rate and increase in active users.
Suppose it’s a bit manageable if it’s a repeat fewer users or users utilizing multiple accounts no idea how some of those actions get overlooked when that should be easy with a bit more work but maybe that’s the problem even if this isn’t I don’t know helpdesk where it’s not the amount of resolved matters that are important or I would at least hope it’s not down to some quota here.
(And the skewed priority if a single user is mass reported even when it’s obvious something’s up with what’s going on here.)
I was mostly just active on a few game forums and the SpecialK community avoiding the activity other than reading some of the announcements and a few topics for whatever current game I was trying to go through and get some info about, it’s all a bit messy really and some of the bigger more active forums like the Steam ones or the beta boards must be really bad along with some of the bigger game launches and their boards ha ha.
Some probably do well too and others well I wouldn’t be surprise if a few are borderline mismanaged trying to silence or cover criticism and negative opinions although Valve has somewhat taken action against behavior like that along with problems like gray market sales and positive review fishing and keys for positive reviews or such.
EDIT: Wonder if Win7 compatibility topics are going to be somewhat like the new SSE4 compatibility topics ha ha.
Though the two have sorta co-existed for a while I suppose among other discussions of very enthusiastic fans and some unique tech meltdowns. 
Upcoming console discussion is bound to get heated too and renew the 30 or 60 FPS drama.
Wonder how well the HDR topic discussions and ultra-wide go, best not to get too curious I suppose as I doubt it’s going well.
EDIT: Well as someone who avoids and stays out of most of it that’s one thing, having to use it or being actively involved in some of the discussions and having it all tanking must be a real bother or finding some good or at least decent information and opinions even the reviews can be anything from one liners to ASCII art and some of the curators are just memes like Darth Vader ones.
(Near 1800 “reviews” and counting all being the same one-liner heh.)