You are always going to find egregiuos examples of abuse. If you look through the long list of players, there are so many incompletes from completely legit players whose internet never cut out in the middle of a game.
It's not just about use and abuse
Steam empowers the player to avoid abuse by blacklisting (eg. people don't play TTE_Camel_)
Steam is 1 account per purchase and your ID can never change
It's just a bit inconvenient to do the lookup from their in-game name to their Steam account
AoC community is small. You will know pretty much everyone around your level who plays during the times you like to play. and the ratings help a lot. and that's more than what Voobly can do ("Hi guys. I'm a [linethru]2100 smurf[/linethru] 1608 player. can I join your game?"). They should be improving the game, and it'll be good if we get a client that empowers actual players instead of giving the smurf the advantage not only in ratings but also in strategy and player knowledge.
It's not just about use and abuse
Steam empowers the player to avoid abuse by blacklisting (eg. people don't play TTE_Camel_)
Steam is 1 account per purchase and your ID can never change
It's just a bit inconvenient to do the lookup from their in-game name to their Steam account
AoC community is small. You will know pretty much everyone around your level who plays during the times you like to play. and the ratings help a lot. and that's more than what Voobly can do ("Hi guys. I'm a [linethru]2100 smurf[/linethru] 1608 player. can I join your game?"). They should be improving the game, and it'll be good if we get a client that empowers actual players instead of giving the smurf the advantage not only in ratings but also in strategy and player knowledge.