Quoting: tuubiOh, okay. Maybe they didn't want to just remove the old way of configuring the mic before users get used to the new one. Makes sense as long as the new chat can be disabled with a command line switch.

Seems like some settings are synced across both sections, while others are exclusive to either one. The "microphone volume" from the "ingame voice" settings affects the "voice chat" volume, too, but it isn't displayed there. It's a mess honestly. The polish is not very high on this stable release. The main Steam window has shadows, the chat window not. Both windows don't snap at each other anymore. The old main view and the new chat view are kinda like two versions active at the same time.

But maybe that's just in line with the PC gaming spirit: Not very polished, but always the newest stuff. :D

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Quoting: tuubiIt's the beta. Unfinished features sometimes pop up, but usually they get cleaned up before they end up in stable.

The reduntant (?) audio settings are also in the stable release. I don't have the beta channel active.

Quoting: tuubiI tested this briefly: Invisible status does what you describe, and if you're offline, you need to sign in to actually send or receive messages, or even see your friends list. Just like before.

Good to hear that they've properly named offline mode for the chat. Not sure for what it's good, but now it works as expected. Before (the old chat) you could certainly receive and write messages. I remember my friends asking me how it is possible that I can write messages while being offline. The answer: You wasn't actually offline in the old chat. It was just a cosmetic thing. They shouldn't have called it offline before.

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Quoting: GuestUnfortunately I haven’t found an option to not sort friends by the game they are playing, and not display so prominently (and twice) that game…

I really liked with the old friends system that I could put some people into a "GAME XY" category, and they would only turn up there, and not in the standard friends list. That was a nice way of putting people you only know through this particular game into a "folder" without them wasting space in the friends list.

I understand that "Favorites" is kinda the solution for that, but I'm not yet sure if I like that.

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Quoting: ArticleTo make it even better, they added the option to not sign into the friends system when the Steam Client loads up.

That's the one feature I was missing. Now I don't have to remember to make myself invisible before I quit the client. Good on them to listen to customer feedback.

Quoting: SteamAdded 'Offline' as a selectable status. This will log the user's client out of Steam Friends and the user will appear as offline to their friends.

Seems to be the same as with the old chat. You're still able to receive and write messages, but the notifications are different.

What I found kinda weird is that there are now two settings for the microphone. One section is in the old location, in Steam Menu > Settings. The other is if you click on the gear icon in the friends window. I don't see a reason for keeping those two settings separate.

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Pixel Perfect Platformer Game Sale

Man, what a letdown. I really thought they meant "Pixel Perfect Graphics". But it just seems to be an arbitrary catch phrase with the word "pixel" in it. But at least they didn't call it the "rogue like sale".

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Quoting: devnullIndeed. p2p should always be an option though. The issues with voice and trading are signaling, requiring an active connection to steam is silly.

You can't have p2p without giving away your IP to those chatting with you.

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Quoting: devnullOne of the reasons to stag logged out of friends, is security. There were exploits against trading for example where people could send an offer and even if you didn't click on it, they could get your IP. In effect it pings your client.

Do you have a source for that? I don't think this is possible.

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Quoting: devnullSteam friends and Steam DRM are entirely different things though. If I'm not logged into Friends / chat, it a conscious descsion. I don't care about "achievements" in games either, thus don't log in.

DRM, achievements and chat have indeed nothing in common, except the connection to the account. Anyway, as long as you are logged into your account with the Steam client, all those things are available to you. The chat status "offline" was really just badly worded until now. There is no reason to be online in Steam and being "offline" in the chat at the same time, so there is no reason to implement some kind of split status for different things.

As long as you are able to appear offline to others, all is fine. What would be nice however would be the option that the friends window doesn't open itself automatically, like it was before. For people who don't need it every time.

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Quoting: devnullCan't say I've ever run into that. I have steam friends set to offline on start, didn't occur to me it would be logged in anyway but some quasi offline?? That seems really... creepy. I get flooded with messages when I login to it, if they've changed that now it may be the final straw for replacing steam entirely.

The above is with steam set to online.

I see it like this: You have one Steam account. It is used for everything you do on Steam. If you are not using the "Offline Mode" of the Steam client, you are logged into your account anyway.

The only question is how they call the different chat statuses and how they work. I don't see a privacy problem here.

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Quoting: GuestNo it does not do the same thing as "offline": you could get IM window popups if they send you an IM, and I assume you will get notifications about what they are doing unless you disable all of that notification crap which is harder than just telling it "offline"! This is all to push you harder into using their chat software which is proprietary and insecure and I don't care about or want to use, and it's SUBTRACTING a feature that was there previously: offline.

I'm not sure what you mean. You can receive and answer a message with the former "offline" and now the "invisible" mode. You can take a look what others are doing, before by going to the "Friends" page but not in the friends windows - now with invisible you can also see it in the friends window. You were not really "offline" before. You were logged in with your Steam account, and your messenger status was called "offline". It was weirdly worded. Now it's more straightforward and less confusing. I was irritated by not finding "offline" in the friends window at first, but it honestly makes more sense and is more correct now.

Quoting: GuestThanks Valve, I've deleted all my friends which I was only keeping around for emergency contact info anyway, because of this BS feature removal.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to do that, but you can switch to the non-beta version for the time being.

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