Dear Valve
Please accept the following feedback for consideration. This feedback
is specifically limited to usage of the SteamCMD interface on GNU/Linux.
Please document command usage for SteamCMD. There doesn't seem to be any.
There is this document here, but it does not document the various
options and parameters which can be used with SteamCMD:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD
If I do a "./steamcmd --help", nothing useful happens, which is probably
the first thing an educated administrator might do.
Exit codes? Document them.
Please stop trying to use the binary itself as a means of documentation.
Documentation is documentation. The binary isn't. I should not have
to type "help arg1", "help arg2", "help arg2 subarg1" et-cetera on the
interactive menu-driven interface to find out how to use the app. I
can't imagine how painful this must be to implement and keep up to date.
Should I be using the steamcmd.sh script, or steam.sh, or just call the
steamcmd binary directly? steamcmd.sh magically appeared recently, and
nobody really knows why because you didn't communicate this change with
your user base. Those of us who had been using steam.sh, found it
stopped working because you changed it and we don't understand why.
Looking at the header comments does not make it apparent how these
scripts are to be used and why each is different. Please improve
communications when changes occur.
Design suggestion: Please stop trying to make SteamCMD an interactive
command-line interface. These are bad, sad, and wrong. Pros hate
interfaces like this because they are slow and painful and feel like
they were written to be a crutch for stupid people. Noobs can't use
them because a mouse isn't involved. Thus, you piss off everyone and
spend a lot of effort doing it. Why did you feel that bash needed to be
replaced? Do you really hate readline so much that you needed to
re-implement it? Something about those who feel the need to reinvent
unix are condemned to... yea.
While I appreciate this;
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_Application_IDs
How's about a "./steamcmd --listappids", like the old "./steam -command
list"?
Please stop littering log files all over the place. I've already got a
steam.log file sitting in the steamcmd dir, and then you've got a logs
directory, which apparently wasn't good enough for this one log file.
And then there's that ~/Steam/logs/stderr.txt thing. Am I going to have
to write a cleanup script just to clean up these logfiles? And for F*ks
sake, why would you name your log files "*_log.txt" instead of just .log???
Thanks for your consideration.
Fletcher Dunn wrote:
The orangebox engine games (Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike:Source, Day
of Defeat:Source, HL2:Deathmatch) are being upgraded to SteamPipe.
Steam’s new-and-improved content delivery system. SteamPipe is
currently used by most games on Steam.
This change will impact server operators in at least two significant ways:
·You will use steamcmd instead of the HLDSUpdateTool to install/update
the server.
·The conversion will entail significant changes to the way the files
appear in the local filesystem on the server and client. The client no
longer uses GCF files. Instead, most assets are packed up into VPK, and
those VPKs are the same on the server and the client. The server no
longer uses 1000’s of loose files.
We’re using the TF beta to test these changes and identify the bugs, and
give everybody a chance to make sure their favorite mod or plugin will
work in the new system.
Everybody is encouraged to download the TF beta!
We’ve prepared an FAQ that discusses the details of the change and
answers the questions we anticipate:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7388-QPFN-2491
Please report gameserver related bugs in this mailing list.
Client bugs can be reported through this mailing list, or in the TF beta
forum.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1038
Thanks for your help, and happy testing!
(And remember, playtime in the beta counts towards item drops in the
release game.)
- Fletch
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# Jesse Molina
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