Way OT. Help STEAM (games) recaptcha FAIL!

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rfrazier

Well-known member
Sep 30, 2020
549
187
HI all,

I've got an interesting problem for someone in their 50's. Before I continue, I'll say that I've been dealing with computers for 37+ years, and dealing with the internet ever since it became available to the public. I didn't just start this stuff yesterday.

Decided I'm not having enough fun so I decided to get into gaming. Been threatening to for a while. I don't like the combat all the time and scare you games. I'm more into simulation, puzzle, analytical stuff with a slant toward space exploration where possible. Again, MINIMAL or no combat and fright. I signed up for the Humble Bundle subscription where you get a few games per month. I also set up a free account over at GOG which does DRM Free games. I linked the GOG account to HB. Some of the HB games are DRM Free but many are on STEAM.

One of the games I got with my introductory offer (Tropico) requires Steam. So, I figured I'd set up a Steam account and then link it to HB too. The ATTEMPT to do so is where my story ends.

I go to the steam site join page (https://store.steampowered.com/join/), fill out the data, then click the box to prove I'm not a bot, except I CAN'T. EVERY stinking time, I get "Your response to the CAPTCHA appears to be invalid. Please re-verify that you're not a robot below." I assure you, I'm not a bot, and I know how to pick out buses, cars, cross walks, and such from a grid of pictures. Over, and over, and over it fails. Tempted to break something nearby. :mad:

Before you ask, I've tried it with shields up, including noscript (trusting the sites I can see), privacy badger, and ublock origin. And I've tried it with shields down, all those disabled. I've tried it on Firefox and Brave (based on Chrome). I'm on Win7 and have not tried (old) IE. I'm on a VPN if it matters.

In googling around, I am NOT the only one having this problem. There are lots of MAD people.

You might say, contact support. You can't. All you can find is FAQ's. Apparently you can't contact them unless you have an account. If you can't make an account, you're sunk.

As Spock would say, "the logical choice is an act of desperation". So, I'm posting here. :cool:

A virtual tip of the hat goes to whomever tells me where that slightly modified quote comes from.

Side note, got a pretty cool space based walking simulator game called Stardrop from HB. Goes a bit slow and has a few rough edges but not too bad.

All help is appreciated. Gaming is supposed to relax me, not make me furious.

Sincerely,

Ron
 
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The VPN might be the problem.
I was having trouble loading my game once, I had forgotten to disconnect the VPN. I read somewhere that it's against the Steam ToS to use one.
 
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I DuckDuckGoed it
S1E17: The Galileo Seven

also just learned how to use the SPOILER tag ;)
 
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First season of ST:TOS, The Galileo 7. I just re-watched this on Netflix 3 days ago. :) It refers to Spock dumping all of the fuel in the shuttle craft and igniting it while in a decaying orbit over a hostile planet in order to attract the attention of Enterprise which was about to abandon the search for the missing shuttle craft and 7 crew members and warp out of the system. Also, I love run-on sentences and was excited to get to post the right answer first.

Edit: ... and then missed it by 3 minutes.
 
* BELLS * WHISTLES * CHEERS * MUSIC *

You guys got it.



Here's the quote:

"KIRK: Now we all know, and I’m sure the doctor will agree with me, that desperation is a highly emotional state of mind. How does your well-known logic explain that?

SPOCK: Quite simply, Captain. I examined the problem from all angles, and it was plainly hopeless. Logic informed me that under the circumstances, the only possible action would have to be one of desperation. Logical decision, logically arrived at. "

Regarding my gaming problem, I'm going to try later without the VPN, although I can't imagine why recaptcha would care. Anybody with other ideas feel free to post. Thanks for the suggestions thus far.

Ron
 
I can't imagine why recaptcha would care

The CAPTCHA is frequently a 3rd party website. If you have disabled third-party cookies, then you may face a problem.

Steam has a web-site and an installable client, have you tried with both? (The client uses an internal version of Chromium, I believe.)
 
Interesting. I ALWAYS have 3rd party cookies disabled. I haven't tried the client yet. Just the website.

Ron
 
Hi Guys,

I turned off my VPN and the Steam account creation procedure went through smooth as silk, including recaptcha. My security features were still in place, and I had trusted, the steam properties as shown in the noscript dialog as well as the recaptcha site. Strangest thing I've ever seen. Thanks for the ideas.

Ron
 
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That's great, Ron! I'm pleased to hear it.

Steam, as a Valve product, is pretty trustworthy, AFAIK. Admittedly, I didn't get an account until I was forced to because I wanted a patch I could get only through the Steam client, but it's been over 15.5 years since I signed up. They've handled many ups and downs of being an online platform pretty well over the years, even if they forced the early users to sign up to get patches for their games. Steam has a pretty big user base, one which more than doubled in size after China un-banned video games a few years ago and allowed Steam's client into the country.

The freely-available statistics (accessed from the top left drop-down in the client? No, it's the leftmost option on the "secondary" menu, called STORE, the bottom option of which is STATS—click on STATS) are pretty interesting to look at. You won't see much data transferred over the past two weeks to or from Antarctica, but it's there sometimes, especially during the big annual sales. Also, North Korea is usually completely dark, but once in a while there's some unknown activity from Pyongyang. The maximum and average speeds from various countries have changed a lot over the years. It's been interesting to watch the changes as Steam has grown in number of users and as the worldwide internet has changed in speed. For a long time, South Korea had the fastest connections by far, but that wasn't the case last time I checked.

You can also compare your computer with the most common operating systems and other details of Steam users. It's not collected automatically. A certain percentage of users is given the opportunity to participate in the hardware & software survey each month. The selected users can decline or agree; that information is obtained from those who agree (OS used, version, GPU, CPU, number of displays, etc.). I think the bandwidth usage and transfer speeds are more automatically obtained. It's pretty amazing how much of the total usage comes from the USA (the only country with individual connection speed/transfer amounts statistics for each state, AFAIK), Germany, UK, and now China, which was once a country with no usage at all.

Steam goes down for a few minutes every Tuesday in the late afternoon Pacific time. You'll see that reflected in the statistics graphs as well.

There are a number of free to play titles you might find interesting, in the genre(s) of games you like and in the streaming videos & movies section, and also in the software section (some of which is related to gaming, but definitely not all!).
 
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@danlock I haven't installed the Steam client yet as I'm still playing through Stardrop that I got from HB. That's a mostly cool game but it gets a little slow at times. There was one time when I was trapped in a certain place in a starship and didn't know how to get out. The mission objectives weren't giving me enough hints to get out. I had to revert back to a prior chapter and redo part of the mission while playing really close attention to what the narrator said. I'll have to check out the statistics you mention when I finish this game, I may jump into the Tropico or Fantasy Blacksmith that I got from HB. Both are on the Steam system. I'll have to check out those other sections too. Thanks for that info. Ron
 
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I've been a subscriber to the Humble Monhtly (now Humble Choice) since the beginning, but there are 2-3 months I've skipped by putting my account on hold. I think I might do that for this month (the month with the Tropico game, which might be referred to as the November bundle), but I have until the first Friday of November (2020-11-06) to decide; I've never waited that long before so I don't think I will take that long to make a decision.

Best wishes!
 
Hi Guys,

I turned off my VPN and the Steam account creation procedure went through smooth as silk, including recaptcha. My security features were still in place, and I had trusted, the steam properties as shown in the noscript dialog as well as the recaptcha site. Strangest thing I've ever seen. Thanks for the ideas.

Ron
Glad you got it solved. Might I suggest Kerbal Space Program for a nice space simulation.
 
Glad you got it solved. Might I suggest Kerbal Space Program for a nice space simulation.

@Phillip Porch Thanks for the tip. Sounds like an interesting one.

Found it on Humble Bundle via Steam. Don't think that's DRM Free.


And on Gog, presumably DRM Free.


Ron
 
PS, Surviving Mars also caught my eye.


Ron
 
Well if you like puzzles, I'm going to recommend you check out "The Talos Principle" https://store.steampowered.com/app/257510/The_Talos_Principle/ It looks like a typical 3D FPS, but it's not. It's a puzzle game with a story overlaid (no spoilers) and there are very few twitchy type moments. There are multiple endings, depending on how willing you are to find all the secrets and do all the puzzles.
 
@PHolder Thanks for the tip. Depends on how puzzling the puzzles are. :cool: I still need my games to be relaxing.

Thanks for the tip. I've added it to my list of pending games. Now I won't be getting anything useful done for weeks!

Ron