The latest Steam Beta Client is out with Valve's revamped chat interface, along with some minor UI work as well.
Here's how the new interface and settings look, which is quite a lot cleaner and it does certainly look a lot more modern that's for sure. Steam's chat system was probably one of the oldest parts of Steam, so it's good to see a renewed focus on improving it.
The new favourites section is interesting, giving you a section to plonk people in you regularly chat with.
And here's how glorious the actual chat is, so I can send you all hilarious memes:
They updated the Group Chat feature as well, to be a lot more like Discord. You can add additional text and voice channels to them, including the rich image stuff like shown above. Group Chats can be given a name and avatar to save them as well, to pick it back up later.
Another benefit, is that it seems to finally keep some chat history too. I've closed and re-opened multiple chats, closed Steam itself and I still see what has been said.
There's additional handy features have been added too, like right clicking a game in your friends list and being able to go right to the store page:
However, it looks like this update has broken group chat for Steam Groups (like our Steam Group), as Steam will complain it can't find Steam running (as amusing as that is). In the shot below you will see that bug in action, plus the slightly different UI in the top right and bottom right.
To get around that issue, you can join the Group Chat from the Steam website, which then saves it into your Group Chat section of your friends list. I'm sure they will solve that weird issue soon. So the actual Group Chat interface now looks like this (very Discord-like):
You can join our very own GamingOnLinux Group Chat using this link, if you're bothered about it…
Another nice thing about the update, is that chats are finally tabbed together. You don't have many windows just for chat, all nicely under one roof now. To me, that's much nicer.
They've also completely rewritten voice chat from within Steam as well, with a WebRTC-based backend. It uses Opus encoding, encryption and the voice chat now goes through Steam directly, instead of being peer 2 peer. This should hopefully fix the issues where you couldn't connect to your friends to voice chat. It also now only requires a single click to voice chat with someone, although, that feature only works if your friend is also in the Steam Client Beta.
In addition, a feature I'm very happy about, is the new invisible mode. This allows you to show as offline, but still actually act is if you're online. For someone with as many people on their list as me from various tournaments and so in, it's a lot less hassle.
All of this works in the webstore too, not just the client. There's more I've likely missed, so do see the full details on their special update page here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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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.
Why don't you complain to Valve? Currently, people are using Discord, which will eventually sell our data to the highest bidder. I'd much rather have a voice chat integrated into Steam than this discord stuff with its opaque business model.
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For Valve to copy their interface is ... insane.I share your distrust of Discord and most other proprietary chat providers, but their interface design is clearly not the reason. It's not even that unique.
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> encryption and the voice chat now goes through Steam directly, instead of being peer 2 peer.If that's not clear enough, here's exactly what Valve said:
What?
Steam voice chat was rewritten from the ground up with a new WebRTC-based backend. As a result, voice chat uses high quality Opus encoding, voice traffic is encrypted, and all traffic is sent through Steam servers rather than directly to peers. This keeps your IP address private, which masks your physical location and also prevents network attacks.
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Removed the ability to go offline? Good job, Valve, oh how sometimes I hate you.
Edit: My bad, Should have read the next page first
Last edited by pete910 on 13 June 2018 at 8:43 am UTC
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Are the valve guys crawling this website? Because I've been ranting on another article how the steam UI is outdated and stuff :))
Last edited by mihaib on 13 June 2018 at 8:43 am UTC
Last edited by mihaib on 13 June 2018 at 8:43 am UTC
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> encryption and the voice chat now goes through Steam directly, instead of being peer 2 peer.If that's not clear enough, here's exactly what Valve said:
What?
Steam voice chat was rewritten from the ground up with a new WebRTC-based backend. As a result, voice chat uses high quality Opus encoding, voice traffic is encrypted, and all traffic is sent through Steam servers rather than directly to peers. This keeps your IP address private, which masks your physical location and also prevents network attacks.
Fair enough, webrtc is not in of itself, secure though. There's no denying group communications is hard (ask Jitsi), but moving from realtively decentralized to hosted media bridges it introduces other problems, some of which are legal but also simple logistics. If two friends are in the same network, there's no reason to send their data to a 3rd party for example.
To be clear, I _haven't_ used the beta nor seen the protocol. Bit skeptical based on Valve's history though. It's only very recently that they even used SSL on their store at all (only the checkout was).
Fair enough, but I believe I understand why this change was needed. For a long time any application that would directly connect you to (and expose) an other players IP has been abused (ddos etc). Making sure that the players IP no longer reaches anyone should make these kind of problems rarer :)
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Doc Angelo Jun 13, 2018
No 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.
Thanks 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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This exactly, I had people message me and chat with me while offline in Steam before. The only difference with the invisible mode is how it looks to you. It works exactly the same as the old offline mode, except now you get to see more.No 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.
Thanks 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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You could still suddenly get messages from other users even while offline? I thought those only came in once you went online in chat. Regardless of all that, when you're online in chat it pops up a new window, and I'm 99% sure it doesn't do that if someone messages you while you're in offline chat mode in the old client.Yes, in the old online mode, exactly as I said, you could still see messages. It would give you a notification of missed messages, once clicked it would open the chat. This invisible mode is actually a lot nicer in how it handles all this, while still allowing you to show up as offline.
In the new client, it's basically the same. I tested it with BTRE, exactly like before you get a notification that doesn't get in your way:
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Doc Angelo Jun 13, 2018
Can'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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I wonder if i can tear away my friends kicking and screaming from Discord :P
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Doc Angelo Jun 13, 2018
Steam 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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Doc Angelo Jun 13, 2018
One 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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One 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.That's probably the reason they stated that chats were now relayed trough Steam servers and not p2p anymore.
Valve has some serious questions to answer if any of that has changed (yeah I know, good luck with that).
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Doc Angelo Jun 15, 2018
Indeed. 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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That's okay though if you trust the people you chat with. So I guess it could work as an option.Indeed. 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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Yes, and then the whole point of protecting the users IP is gone. It's easy to imagine someone turning on p2p, forgetting about it, accepting an invite from someone, accepting or joining a call...That's okay though if you trust the people you chat with. So I guess it could work as an option.Indeed. 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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That particular problem would be one of UI design. The user should not be allowed to "forget about" something important. But Valve isn't likely to consider this worth their time, so this is getting a bit academic.Yes, and then the whole point of protecting the users IP is gone. It's easy to imagine someone turning on p2p, forgetting about it, accepting an invite from someone, accepting or joining a call...That's okay though if you trust the people you chat with. So I guess it could work as an option.Indeed. 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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I'll always lean towards giving users choice, but in this case I don't see how giving users the choice would have helped anyone.
Thing is, valve likely wants to make sure that they aren't the reason why IP addresses are being leaked, regardless of how dumb users are. If people want p2p voice chat there are many other alternatives out there that would resolve that, which would give you the choice and take potential blame away from valve.
Thing is, valve likely wants to make sure that they aren't the reason why IP addresses are being leaked, regardless of how dumb users are. If people want p2p voice chat there are many other alternatives out there that would resolve that, which would give you the choice and take potential blame away from valve.
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Thing is, valve likely wants to make sure that they aren't the reason why IP addresses are being leaked, regardless of how dumb users are.Oh yes, the Apple / lowest common denominator school of software design: Every user is an idiot, and if they aren't, they probably didn't want to do anything "advanced" anyway.
The hypothetical problem you describe could be solved with a single disclaimer and a safe default.
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