Some complaints about water vapor

As I've recently said, I enjoy Steam and think it is fairly innovative and is the template that most digital delivery systems will someday follow.

At one point, I was talking about how convenient it was to respond to my friends via an integrated Instant Messenger. I could chat without tabbing out of the game, one of my favorite features.


The only problem is that it isn't truly built into the game's interface, but rather is through the Steam UI overlay. This usually isn't an issue, but occasionally I do have problems with the hardcoded nature of the Steam UI. I think it would be infinitely more useful if I could remap the commands and otherwise have more control over the UI in regards to specific games.


For example, in Mount & Blade, if you hit tab in a town or city, it takes your character away from the area and you have to start over from the outskirts if you go back in. Since Steam's UI is hardcoded to activate from Shift + Tab, this can be annoying.

Another point of contention: when you get a chat message from a friend, it appears unobtrusively in the corner of the screen. Not a big deal in most games, but some of them have important information right behind where my friend is spamming me with penis jokes. I need to see ammo, health, time remaining, whatever... so if I could choose where the chat mini-window showed up, that would be so much better.

Yet another annoyance is the fact that some games auto-pause when you open the STEAM UI, and others do not. Often times I'll be at a boring point in a game and I'll want to chat with a friend while I'm waiting. Many games, this works like a charm. In others however, it annoyingly makes certain that the game's paused and therefore I'm not whiling away the boring parts through social interaction.

None of these are major issues, to be sure. Minor annoyances that add up, yet I tend to be forgiving considering that Steam is a "first generation" community-based digital delivery service.

Recently, they started an open beta regarding an overhaul of the Steam UI. I've begun participating in it, and definitely feel like there are some improvements. Overall I'm not entirely pleased, but it is a beta so I'll reserve judgment for when it is officially "done".

It will be interesting to see what the end results are... hopefully some of my complaints will be addressed.