Red Orchestra:Ostfront and Steam screws up

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-03-15 03:26pm

Let me tell you a story. This story is full of lots of misplaced nerd rage, pounding on a keyboard, and yelling profanity at my computer.

Monday night, I buy and begin preloading Red Orchestra:Ostfront over Steam. It finishes 6 o'clock Tuesday morning. The game is being unlocked
at 2:00 PM that afternoon. Since I was off that day, I goof around and come back a few hours before it unlocks. The hours pass by, and 2:00 hits. What does Steam do? Why, it downloads another 500 megabytes, which takes roughly 7 hours on my shitty connection. That pissed me off, but I can wait. I come back after the game is done, reboot Steam...and it errors out. Debug Assertion Failure. Steam won't even start now.

Today, I copy out all of the gcf files from the SteamApps folder, reinstall Steam, and copy them back in. But Steam apparently thinks I don't have any of them downloaded, and begins downloading Red Orchestra from 0 percent. Which will take another 14 hours. Or longer, considering how incredibly jammed the content servers are.

So why exactly is Steam trying to reinstall RO:O when the files are already fully downloaded and updated?All the needed files are sitting right in the steamapps folder. But steam doesn't see them.

What the fuck.

I'm now pretty much at my wit's end. Is there a way to force Steam to recognize these files? Its not seeing the Counterstrike:Source or HL2 gcf files either, since they're showing up in the Steam menu as not being installed.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-15 03:29pm

Yeah, I can see where you would be pissed at Steam but isn't more of your anger supposed to be directed at your shitty connection? The bottleneck is clearly your connection in terms of how long this is all taking. I had similar Steam issues when using Halflife 2 but with a nice connection the reloads didn't take that long at all and were only mildly frustrating.

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-03-15 03:37pm

Stravo wrote:Yeah, I can see where you would be pissed at Steam but isn't more of your anger supposed to be directed at your shitty connection? The bottleneck is clearly your connection in terms of how long this is all taking. I had similar Steam issues when using Halflife 2 but with a nice connection the reloads didn't take that long at all and were only mildly frustrating.

The problem is Steam is buggy and refuses to recognize the game files I already have downloaded. I can live with long load times; I have for the past 3 years. But not when I have to do it again because the software is shitty.[/i]

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-15 04:15pm

Tycho, in this case, the problem is your end.
You were pretty foolish for expecting immidiet acess, as if no one else had to DL more MB.

You were even more foolish to think your idea of saving the resource files and just copying them over would work.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-03-15 04:23pm

I put up with downloading update files for HL2 after it spent hours unlocking. I was on dial-up, and Steam is not something to use with stone age telecoms technology. I now have broadband, a nice cheap 2 meg ADSL line that makes playing online possible and downloading anything easy as pie. Steam has never given me any grief, even when on dial-up.

Personally, I'd recommend getting with the program and moving to broadband ASAP if you want to do that sort of heavy duty downloading.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-03-15 04:37pm

THIS ONE IS NOT STEAM's FAULT BUT RO's!
Trust me I've had similiar problems yesterday and today, it is NOT Steam's fault, it is Red Orchestra. Check the forums, the distruption service that RO used was pretty shitty and their first real try to date.

Combine that with the fact that RO will not run if the folllowing is true

Reasons why RO won't run
1. If you are using Zonealarm RO can't run because RO is not coded to work with Zonealarm's firewall and will reboot your machine after a runtime error. No workaround exists.

2. If you are using Norton RO may not run depending on which addons and which version you have running. Roughly 1/2 of Norton Firewall users are affeted by this and no-workaround exists.

3. If you are using AOL you can't see servers and therefor can't play the game. There are a few workarounds but they don't work perfectly and you can't see most if any servers.

Sufficet to say that RO's launch was a massive cockup and the 3rd party service they used @$@$ up the download files

Know issues thread
Don't jump to conculsions Tycho. People can code shitty games too.
Note which is why I changed the thread title, to reflect the dual nature of the screwups.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-03-15 04:44pm

I had to do that the other day when Steam crashed just as I was unlocked DoD:S.

I had to reinstall Steam completely after wiping ALL my local cache files (which had been corrupted by the crash) and redownload EVERYTHING again.

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-03-15 05:27pm

Well, this'll teach me to listen to anyone on the 'net again. I was told by about 4 or 5 people that copying over the resource files would work, and I took them at their word.

However, it is NOT my fault that Steam refused to boot up after RO:O was downloaded. I had already uninstalled Zone Alarm, etc, and was pretty much set. I haven't had any problems with the game itself yet because I hadn't even gotten to the point where I could start it up. Steam simply just broke after RO:O was finished downloading, thus why I had to reinstall it.

Also Valdemar, I am using ADSL, but its a mere 512k line since absolutely nothing better is avaliable in my area.

My main complaint wasn't about the download speeds, it was about Steam becoming unusuable when RO:O was downloaded. I haven't even touched the game yet.

Edit: Oh jesus christ. It turns out the error I was getting when Steam broke was the same kind caused by Norton AV...but I don't have Norton.

Edit2: On second look, it was a different error. Oy. I feel goddamned retarded.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-03-15 05:35pm

The demand must be the limiting factor then, because 512 k is better than 56 k at least, and it shouldn't be that bad for downloading if given optimal bandwidth. I'm sure meg scale services will come around soon, if the US can't get it done, then no one can (or maybe the Japanese).

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-16 01:10am

It crashs with ZA installed?

One more reason not to buy RO...

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-16 01:12am

Ace Pace wrote:It crashs with ZA installed?

One more reason not to buy RO...

I guess if you like Zone Alarm or something...

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-16 01:13am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:It crashs with ZA installed?

One more reason not to buy RO...
I guess if you like Zone Alarm or something...

Yes, I kinda do.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-16 01:24am

Ace Pace wrote:Yes, I kinda do.

You know, windows comes with a firewall now

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-16 01:28am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Yes, I kinda do.
You know, windows comes with a firewall now

You know it kinda sucks.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2006-03-16 01:31am

ZA isn't really that bad once you turn off the constant "WAAAAGH SOMETHING TRIED TO ACCESS THIS COMP, KISS YOUR HEAD BETWEEN YOUR KNEES AND KISS YOUR ASS GOOD BYE" messages. It's not all that good either though.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-16 01:32am

Ace Pace wrote:You know it kinda sucks.

And Zone alarm is the pinnacle of modern comupter security

I place my faith in the firewall of my router, personally.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-16 01:34am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:You know it kinda sucks.
And Zone alarm is the pinnacle of modern comupter security
I place my faith in the firewall of my router, personally.

Yes, a firewall router is king(though configuring it is annoying), but as I currently lack that kind of hardware, I'll stick with usable stuff.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2006-03-16 01:34am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:You know it kinda sucks.
And Zone alarm is the pinnacle of modern comupter security
I place my faith in the firewall of my router, personally.

Amen brotha!

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-16 01:38am

Ace Pace wrote:
InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:You know it kinda sucks.
And Zone alarm is the pinnacle of modern comupter security
I place my faith in the firewall of my router, personally.
Yes, a firewall router is king(though configuring it is annoying), but as I currently lack that kind of hardware, I'll stick with usable stuff.

Are you suggesting that routers are unusable? And get a router

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-16 01:39am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:
InnocentBystander wrote: And Zone alarm is the pinnacle of modern comupter security
I place my faith in the firewall of my router, personally.
Yes, a firewall router is king(though configuring it is annoying), but as I currently lack that kind of hardware, I'll stick with usable stuff.
Are you suggesting that routers are unusable? And get a router

I'll get one when I need one.

No, I didn't say that, what I am saying is that ZoneAlarm is infinitly easier to configure then any router I've seen.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-16 01:44am

Ace Pace wrote:I'll get one when I need one.

No, I didn't say that, what I am saying is that ZoneAlarm is infinitly easier to configure then any router I've seen.

Well... it's easier than setting up a $100,000 cisco router, but I was thinking more along the lines of a $40 linksys one

. Yet, I do suppose that opening a box, and finding a power outlet is indeed more difficult than downloading and installing zone alarm

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-03-16 09:35pm

Well, I began playing RO today. And it kicks truly enourmous amounts of ass. Well worth all the hassle and wait.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-16 09:40pm

RO doesn't SEEM to be HL2 yet, so are they just using steam to distribute/sell it now? Why are so many new people starting to play when their site doesn't have any big updates since 3.3? WHY ARE YOU ALL PLAYING A GAME I LEFT A YEAR AGO BECAUSE THERE WERE NO DECENT PLAYERS argharghrgrhghg.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-16 09:58pm

Captain tycho wrote:Well, I began playing RO today. And it kicks truly enourmous amounts of ass. Well worth all the hassle and wait.

Details please.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-03-16 11:24pm

RO is sweet.

I love the level of interaction with the tanks, shifting positions etc is beautiful and its the first game that has made me feel claustrophobic in a steel beast.

Also, nailing a Nazi in the chest with an AT rifle from point blank range makes them fall down good and proper.