Posts Tagged ‘Steam’

For at least a year, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get Minecraft to show up in Steam’s friend list. The problem was that adding the exe normally as a non-Steam game resulted in a green “now playing” for a few seconds before returning the user’s status back to the blue “Online”. We have finally discovered a method, using both the Minecraft exe and the jar file, and have documented it below.

• This issue affects users with Java 64-bit installed on their PC.
• Do not use this walkthrough if you are running only Java 32-bit – it will actually give you this issue. Add the exe normally as a non-Steam game, i.e. stop at step 2 below.
• This is not for getting the in-game overlay to work properly. Steam overlay just does not like Minecraft; it will usually not function at all and may even lock up or crash your game.

• Go to the Minecraft download page here.
• Download Minecraft.exe in the “Minecraft for Windows” section.
• Click the small link “Show all platforms” under the “Minecraft for Windows” section.
• Download minecraft.jar in the “Minecraft for Linux / Other” section.
• Move the two files into the folder you want to run Minecraft from.

2. Adding Minecraft to your Steam games library

• Open your Steam library.
• Click “ADD A GAME…” in the bottom left of the window.
• Click “Add a Non-Steam Game…”
• Click “BROWSE…” and locate the folder with the two files.
• Click on Minecraft.exe and press Open. Minecraft should now be checked in the Add a Game window.
• Click “ADD SELECTED PROGRAMS”. Minecraft should now be in your Games list.

3. Using the jar file to launch Minecraft and fixing the icon

• Scroll down the Games list and locate Minecraft.
• Right-click Minecraft and click Properties.
• Click “CHOOSE ICON…” at the top.
• Click Minecraft.exe and press OPEN. The icon should now have a shortcut arrow.
• Under Target, change “…\Minecraft.exe” to “…\minecraft.jar” and click CLOSE.

You can now play Minecraft through Steam and show your friends what awesome game you are enjoying.

• If you get stuck at the white Mojang screen, navigate to “C:\Users\[account name]\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\bin” and delete the jinput.jar file. (AppData is a hidden folder.)
• Double-check the Java version you have installed on your PC. Stop at step 2 if you only have Java 32-bit. Follow the entire walkthrough if you have Java 32 AND 64-bit OR if you have only Java 64-bit installed.
• Use Internet Explorer (bleh) 64-bit to download Java. We have had issues in the past using Javas downloaded with Firefox and Chrome.
• Make sure that you have downloaded the files for the correct platforms.
• Make sure the two files are in the same folder.
• Make sure when adding a non-Steam game, to choose the exe and not the jar file.
• Make sure to choose the icon first before changing the target.

Testing

• Internet Explorer 9, 32 and 64-bit, to download Java.
• Java, Version 6 Update 30, 32 and 64-bit.
• Java 32-bit only, Java 32 and 64-bit concurrently, and Java 64-bit only, with the exe and exe+jar files.
• Windows 7 OS, 64-bit.

Last updated on April 17, 2012.

Throughout my ten plus years as a server moderator and multiplayer gamer, I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of meeting many other players. Likewise, I’ve seen a multitude of names, some being good, some not so hot. Being new to the internet culture, I started off with the typical initials and numbers for lack of anything better.

Over time, a profile name goes from being some letters and numbers to a true online identity with your personal reputation and ego attached. Your name is often the only thing other people will have to associate you with and first impressions on the internet work the same as in real life.

Suggestions when creating your permanent persona »

Valve has been busy working on many updates for Steam recently. Read the online gaming sites and you will find about a new one every month. Here are some that we have heard about so far:

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Some people find the sound that Steam plays when you receive an IM from a friend annoying. For other people, it’s just too loud. Here’s a quick “How to” on changing the wav file:

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to “C:\Program Files\Steam\friends”
2. For backup purposes, rename the file “message.wav” to another name, something like “message_old.wav”, for instance.
3. Copy the wav file that you want to use into the directory.
4. Rename the new file to “message.wav”.
5. Right-click on “message.wav” and select “Properties”.
6. In the new window, select “Read-only” at the bottom and click”OK”.

It’s as easy as that.

We recently started playing Day of Defeat: Source. It’s an enjoyable game with one major problem: at the end of every round, a sound clip plays representing the winning team. This sound is blaringly loud. This is not a problem, you think to yourself, I’ll just go turn down the music. So you go into your options and turn down the music.  Next round ends and the music seems just as loud. You turn it all the way down and still the music deafens.

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Giant robots, hobos, and mimes, Oh my. Penny Arcade fans may recognize these three bad evilnesses from the well-known webcomic, but to any other crowd these words should never be brought together without some kind of jam-retardant… bee suit. Yeah.

I first heard about this game from the PA website, being a reader and all, and was moderately interested in how the two authors could move their medium into a game format. Being skeptical about these Developer Nubs though, I didn’t really give it a second thought. The game was eventually completed and made available on XBOX Live and as a downloadable in Steam.

On a whim I purchased the game, being burnt out on all the failures of (MMO)RPGs being offered recently. Players are able to create their own personalized avatar and fight alongside Tycho and Gabe through comic-style panels of Penny Arcade art. Speech bubbles are employed to deliver the dry humored Big Words that readers have become accustomed to from the strip. It was quite apparent that the game is a port from console but a simple user interface and controls makes it a non-issue.

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I was looking at the Team Fortress 2 Achievement page and noticed something I thought was little weird. More people have gotten the “Milestone 2″ achievement (24 Medic Achievements) than the “With Friends Like these…” achievement (Play on a team of 8 made up of only players from your friends list.) with 4.4% and 4.3%, respectively. These just barely knocked out “Chief of Staff” (Accumulate 1 million heal points) at 4.0%. The least achieved one, excluding “Milestone 3″, is the “Family Practice” achievement (ÜberCharge ten of your Steam Community Friends). Sad lot, we gamers, eh?

Any avid Team Fortress 2 player has seen the intro video enough that it’s permanently burned into their memory.  Thankfully, it’s easy to remove.  This also gets rid of the repeating minimize/maximize issue that occurs for some users.

From the “My Games” tab, right click on ”Team Fortress 2″ and select “Properties”.  Click on the “Set launch options …” button.  In the field, enter “-novid” without the quotation marks.  Click “Ok” and you’re done.