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Steam client overhaul coming; beta "probably" in Summer

J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Credit to Nzyme32 and Sajko:

Nzyme32 said:
Probably already posted - Valve's Steam Team Interview
Pretty interesting so far, but only a quarter way through
Click to expand...
Sajko said:
Looking forward to that client overhaul they plan. They mentioned they are aiming to launch beta in summer. But then again this might shift as we are talking about Valve here.
Click to expand...

The question comes at the end of the video. Valve accidentally included a mock-up in a beta update a few weeks ago:

C3mybLrXAAA0WSd.png

C3myhbVWIAESq5D.jpg


It's been a long time coming: the last overhaul was in April 2010.
 
K

kulapik

Member
Welp, youtube is down right now.

edit: and it's back, it doesn't sound like it's exactly that overhaul, sounds more like just some improvements to the current client, but who knows
 
Vigilant Walrus

Vigilant Walrus

Member
I want something slick, and responsive like Discord and Slack. Something that is buttery smooth. Like swimming in a pool of vaseline in a furcoat. it's so smooth. the animation transitions being just right. snappy, tight, just rightttttt
 
Blam

Blam

Member
Vigilant Walrus said:
I want something slick, and responsive like Discord and Slack. Something that is buttery smooth. Like swimming in a pool of vaseline in a furcoat. it's so smooth. the animation transitions being just right. snappy, tight, just rightttttt
Click to expand...

I mean if they switch steam to a webapp, I'm gonna lose all hope. Because fuck webapps.
 
C

CryptiK

Member
Blam said:
I mean if they switch steam to a webapp, I'm gonna lose all hope. Because fuck webapps.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this. Battlefields new UI uses it and its slow as fuck. People complained about battlelog and now its basically worse than Battlelog but just in the program.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
Vigilant Walrus said:
I want something slick, and responsive like Discord and Slack. Something that is buttery smooth. Like swimming in a pool of vaseline in a furcoat. it's so smooth. the animation transitions being just right. snappy, tight, just rightttttt
Click to expand...

I'm completely with you here. I want it to look good, be snappy, have nice transitions and animations and be overall super smooth (this included not taking too long for anything).

Short: Make it look and function like something from this decade.

Bonus points: High DPI compatibility. Because, again, it's 2017 and not 2007 anymore.
Another one: Make it touch-aware. Not necessarily full touch-compatible, but at least let me properly scroll through the lists with touch.
 
dr_rus

dr_rus

Member
HL3 exclusive to Steam v2 confirmed?

Anyway, I fully expect them to fuck this up in some way or the other. Valve's UIs are awful, simply awful.

JaseC said:
C3myhbVWIAESq5D.jpg
Click to expand...

Is that a desktop screenshot there under "GAME ... WIDGET", completely with a Win10 taskbar and notification area? High quality mockup. One can't help but wonder how this ends up in the client's installation files...
 
Blam

Blam

Member
CryptiK said:
Pretty much this. Battlefields new UI uses it and its slow as fuck. People complained about battlelog and now its basically worse than Battlelog but just in the program.
Click to expand...
flaxknuckles said:
Those Electron apps run like complete crap. Save me a seat on the fuck webapps train.
Click to expand...

I mean Discord is doing work to make it work well, and Ubisoft has done a good job with uPlay.

But EA can actually seriously drop the entire origin client. Because that new UI is shit.
 
D

Diablohead

Member
I had to google steam in 2009 to remind myself how it looked before the current style and I kind of miss that era of steam, it looks really lame now but that was how I played counter strike and browsed servers back in the day! green and mint.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
A-V-B said:
Why are they doing this again? Steam is pretty darn functional and easy to read.
Click to expand...

Because it could look and perform a lot better and use modern features like high DPI scaling, so that it doesn't look tiny or blurry on displays with a high resolution.
 
T

The Dutch Slayer

Member
Last time they announced something like this was big picture mode that took 18 months from announcement to release so yeah don't get your hopes up for this to come quick.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
A-V-B said:
Why are they doing this again? Steam is pretty darn functional and easy to read.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty fine with how it is on a standard PC setup, but it kind of sucks trying to deal with it on a Windows tablet. Doesn't scale well, lots of little things to easily miss.
 
A

A-V-B

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
I'm pretty fine with how it is on a standard PC setup, but it kind of sucks trying to deal with it on a Windows tablet. Doesn't scale well, lots of little things to easily miss.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't there be a tablet-offshoot of Big Picture mode, then?

Big Picture
Little Picture
Desktop
 
N

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
When was the last major steam rework? Like 2010? Yeah steam is definitely overdue for an overhaul, hopefully we get cleaner usability and less bloated functionality that rarely gets used.
 
M

McStickenstein

Member
It'll probably release the same time as Nier Automata.

In any case, I found the default UI to be decent, and UI mods makes things look good enough already.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
A-V-B said:
Shouldn't there be a tablet-offshoot of Big Picture mode, then?

Big Picture
Little Picture
Desktop
Click to expand...

Designing and maintaining a third UI would be a lot more time consuming than simply modernizing the main interface, which would accomplish the same thing.
 
A

A-V-B

Member
brotkasten said:
Designing and maintaining a third UI would be a lot more time consuming than simply modernizing the main interface, which would accomplish the same thing.
Click to expand...

But if you don't do it like that, you're sacrificing an entire computer-range of ease either way. No Little Picture, tablets eat it. No Desktop, desktops eat it.

Tablets do need their own interface, but you can't combine the two (tablet/desktop) and not run into problems. A desktop is not a tablet. I mean, this was the general criticism of Windows 8's interface, wasn't it?
 
Eolz

Eolz

Member
Looks really nice!
I'd be surprised if they keep it in the end considering their weird UX decisions lel.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
kulapik said:
Welp, youtube is down right now.

edit: and it's back, it doesn't sound like it's exactly that overhaul, sounds more like just some improvements to the current client, but who knows
Click to expand...

They more or less say that they've not settled on a final design. Granted, that technically does leave open the possibility of the current design being retained, but I'd wager Valve's given the positively ancient VGUI the flick in favour of Panorama and will give the client a new look to drive home the fact that it's truly new.

Not Spaceghost said:
When was the last major steam rework? Like 2010?
Click to expand...

The last line of the OP answers that very question. ;)
 
S

see5harp

Member
Steam is so fucking terrible with windows scaling. Shit straight up sucks and I can't believe more people don't repeat it over and over.
 
R

rrs

Member
can the UI be green again

edit: oops accidentally bumped a months old post. but seriously that stuff looks quite nice
 
L

laxu

Member
About time. I've been using the Air for Steam skin so long that I didn't even remember how crap it looks with the stock skin.
 
B

BombStrike

Member
I just want better sorting/filtering in my game view, for example unplayed games, achievement completion rate, sort by time played, filter by public tags, etc...
 
Alexander DeLarge

Alexander DeLarge

Member
Why would anyone want Half-Life 3 before Source Engine 2 is ready? The Half-Life series has always been a technical showcase/platform for modding.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
I sure don't want transitions. The worst thing about big picture mode for me is the slow transitions and laggy feel. If I click something, I want it to instantly do what it's supposed to, like ye olde Windows 95, not scroll or animate or jiggle or delay.
 
S

Sini

Member
I hope that skins will still be supported. And that they won't make usability worse in any way.
 
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