Since no one likes Steam, what type of DRM would you prefer?

I don't have the Internet at home, I don't plan on getting it until I'm a lot richer, which may be a long time. But I would like to play the next version of a favourite game. Except I can't. End of story. Can't play any of the new games that I'd like to.

What I can't understand is why much more expensive applications use a flexible system like a challenge/response, where you don't have to have internet on your 'install' computer.

My vote would be a simple disc check but sadly that's not going to happen.

How about the same DRM that Relic put in Company of Heroes?

Got an internet connection? Register the key to your Relic account. Whenever you're online it verifies with the online account and you're good to go.

Don't have one? If the game detects no internet connection, it checks to see if the disk is in the drive. If it is, you're good to go.

tom2050 said:

I was just mentioning a fact that there have been people that have had their accounts close permanently or temporarily during MP games from Online Steam Moderators that look for these things, and have the power to close an account for a reason they deem appropriate.

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Its a fact, is it? Which people? I've never heard of temp bans from Steam. Which games do they moderate? What reasons do they ban people for?

This is a fact, not sure what the big deal for saying this was? Could someone please explain? Could a moderator please explain in a thorough statement and not leave a half-answer? It is a possible hinderance, although unlikely.

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No, how about you explain as you're clearly the guy in possession of all the facts.

If you enter Steam moderator into google you get this thread, some devices for regulating hot water vapour, references to the steampowered.com forum moderators (some of whom are Valve employees and others are volunteers), a bunch of results related to phishing attempts over IM by S T E A M mod and s.t.e.a.m. muderatur, and about 3 results using Steam moderator in the same context you are. Some cheat/hack forums arguing over why they got banned, if VAC detects their cheat/hack or what. The Steam moderator looks to be a bit of a boogeyman to them as they don't seem to want to believe a piece of software would be sufficient to detect them, there must be a human watching them. I wouldn't call those guys a reliable source.

isndl said:

It seems that there's a mod for Half-Life 1 called Paranoia that includes a modified opengl32.dll which VAC will ban for. From what I've read, it's mainly for some changes to the Bloom lighting effects, but unless you're aware that it's there it's quite possible that you'll inadvertently get yourself banned by accident for using it. I haven't seen anything (overtly) similar for newer games on Steam, but it does highlight the possibility of accidental VAC bans for innocent intentions.

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This was an ugly incident. The problem was Paranoia messed with texture transparency in a similar way to some wallhacks. This wouldn't have been a problem, given that it was a singleplayer mod but the changes propagated to the multiplayer version of half life in some early closed betas of Paranoia. This was an unintentional mistake by the modders.

I suspect the whole thing caused Valve to revise procedures and stuff.

Magma said:

The poll is a bit biased and also lacks several options to be the least accurate;

- No DRM
- One-time online registration
- Other
- I don't know/care

It should also be placed in perfect order from the level of DRM, which clearly this is not.

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Well, no DRM at all (not even a disc check, one of the options) obviously isn't happening, and if you don't know/care, then don't vote....yeah there could be more options, but adding too many options just makes these sorts of polls a mess sometimes.

BobDole said:

Well, no DRM at all (not even a disc check, one of the options) obviously isn't happening, and if you don't know/care, then don't vote....yeah there could be more options, but adding too many options just makes these sorts of polls a mess sometimes.

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Excluding them because of theory (No matter how realistic, I agree, no DRM will probably not happen) is not a good way to go to be honest. You limit the options and thus the poll becomes biased towards what you think. It's like asking a question in a poll while giving these options:

Yes
Yep
Yah
Most definitely
Agreed
Of course
Maybe

It just do not make a reliable poll, hell even below 1000 votes this is not reliable.

Teodosio said:

No DRM would be good. What's the point of DRM anyway? Is there a DRM-protected game that is not available on torrent websites??? They are better than the original versions too because they do no require stupid cd-checks or Steam.
Is there still anyone that believes DRM is useful against piracy?
If they want to sell their game they just need to provide a good product at reasonable price. I would certainly buy Civ 5 immediately at 25€ based on good reviews to reward developers' efforts, even if I knew I could pirate it for free.

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Steam games are actually some of the hardest to pirate, as even a successful crack will not be able to access the many steam features that are considered to be integral parts of the game. A pirated TF2, for example, would be basically useless, as TF2 is a multiplayer-only game that uses Steam for all the good MP stuff.

Conventional DRM works by attempting to keep the pirates from breaking it long enough for the developer to make the majority of their profits in the period immediately following the game's release; Steam works by tying many of the game's features to an outside program that can't really be pirated. It's probably the least intrusive form of DRM that actually does anything (I don't even pirate games, but I can still get past a CD check in around 30 seconds), so I typically buy games that either use it or are on it over any other form of DRM.

Right, this might be a complete noob question but what the hell. Apart from civ 4 I play 0 games on my pc although I do play a LOT of civ. Both single player and multiplayer. Mp is with a group of likeminded early thirtysomethings. We now play online by connecting over ip and have recently discovered pitboss. we all have our own legal copies of the disc.

One time we hired a cottage in the middle of nowhere and spent the whole weekend playing civ over a LAN. There was no Internet there. Phones didn't work there.

If I understand what's proposed for civ 5 correctly, that would no longer be possible for us to have a LAN game without an Internet connection?

Sorry but I've never heard of steam until last week

@Rik

Steam is a software.

It requires you to log in to your steam account, then it will load up, and even though your games are all downlaoded onto your computer untill you log in to the steam server you can't play them.

Now after you have logged into your account you can technically go into "offline" mode, whereby you cut your internet connection without logging out of steam. So you can still play your games offline. But if you powered down your computer then when you turned it back on again steam would no longer be on, so if you wanted to play a LAN game of ciV then you would need to load up steam, log in, go into offline mode, take laptop or PC with a generator , to the cabin and then being playing. Without turning off your computer.

Suffice to say it would be a lot easier if you and your likeminded group of friends simply went somewhere with an internet connection, then you don't have to go through so much procedure. All you need do is hook each of your computers up to an internet accessible cabin, (note: it can be a really bad internet connection) then load up steam on each computer, log in to all your seperate accounts with your own copy of the game and begin playing by LAN. I assume LAN will still be a multiplayer option, no reason why it wouldn't.

Actually, you can tell Steam to boot in online mode and it functions just fine without an internet connection even after a system restart. You can still have your LAN games.

Rikard78 said:

Right, this might be a complete noob question but what the hell. Apart from civ 4 I play 0 games on my pc although I do play a LOT of civ. Both single player and multiplayer. Mp is with a group of likeminded early thirtysomethings. We now play online by connecting over ip and have recently discovered pitboss. we all have our own legal copies of the disc.

One time we hired a cottage in the middle of nowhere and spent the whole weekend playing civ over a LAN. There was no Internet there. Phones didn't work there.

If I understand what's proposed for civ 5 correctly, that would no longer be possible for us to have a LAN game without an Internet connection?

Sorry but I've never heard of steam until last week

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Basically Steam is itunes for games.

Steam has an offline mode that, once you've got the game and Steam client fully up to date, will allow you to play the game without logging in again for at least 3 weeks. Some people report being able to be offline for up to a year.

We don't have all the details about MP currently so any specific questions about LAN requiring internet connection may not be able to be answered. If we look at Blizzard's Starcraft 2 then they've removed LAN mode from that game completely and require you to form games through their battle.net framework. I'd hope Civ won't be that restrictive.

Theres a Steam Sale going on for the next week which looks to have some good deals.
http://store.steampowered.com/
Of particular interest might be the Games for under £7/£4 tabs on the right.

If you're big multiplayers then Steam has some features that may be useful to you. You could add your party to your steamfriends list and see what game they're playing and when. Games more fully integrated with Steam even have a 1-click join that instantly puts you in that player's game. It also has an IM and voicechat function that you can use with the Steam overlay that appears over the top of your game and saves you alt tabbing and risking crashes etc.

Senethro said:

Basically Steam is itunes for games.

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Except songs bought through iTunes don't require iTunes to play.

Interactive software is not music.

I honestly don't see what the difference is. You download something that you paid for.

Interactive software is not music.

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So I can buy and download a song from itunes without any interaction?

deanej said:

I honestly don't see what the difference is. You download something that you paid for.

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Oversimplification, overgeneralization.

3 EMS said:

So I can buy and download a song from itunes without any interaction?

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Semantic argument that you know doesn't work.

The point is deanej, if you dont have to be online on the steam account to play the game, whats to stop you copying the game you downloaded and giving it to 20 people to play on whever they want. Steam is good at stopping piracy, and it really doesn't cripple legitimate players unless they are living in some prehistoric apartment without internet. I mean why the hell do so many people not have internet on thier "gaming PC" I have seen a few such arguements. lol.
Most other people have no problems with the internet or the fact they will be forced to use steam, and then thiers the group that don't like change and don't like being forced to have steam on thier computer to be able to play the game.

If you will consider Steam a crouch thats deemed necessary to be able to play the game, and it doesn't really cause you problems, acutally it has many useful features, this is why Civ bosses have choosen to incorporate it, it gives thier customers extra features for free, like enchanced multi-player possibilities, such as a good friend system. I don't understand why people think its a curse and not a blessing. The only way Steam is in anyway penalising is if you don't have an internet connection, and in that case you should damn well get one.

All new games require some for of DRM, Steam is one of the best. It's more effective at piracy prevention without the awful consequences of some, Steam for example is not a secret virus like SuceurROM, It doesn't limit Installs, like many new games which is a travesty. As long as you have steam you can uninstall/install/download/delete your ciV as much as you want, its grants you a lot of freedom all accept the fact that you are needed to have Steam to run the game, which is no different than needing SecureROM on your PC (which is harmful) to play a game with it as DRM, or that you need an Internet Connection to install a game with one time internet access needed to verify its install.

whats to stop you copying the game you downloaded and giving it to 20 people to play on whever they want

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What's to stop me from copying a song and giving it to 20 people? And yet the music industry has already ditched DRM. It's time for the movie industry and the game industry to follow suit.

I don't understand why people think its a curse and not a blessing.

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Because some of us don't care about those features (gasp). I don't see the appeal of multiplayer; none of the features steam offers are even remotly useful to me. Even the updater, since civ5 would be the only I game I use on steam (I'm not a gamer), so I might as well just download the patch from Firaxis. If I don't use any of those features, why should I need steam? And all it would take to make this possible is a few if statements in the code!

which is no different than needing SecureROM on your PC (which is harmful)

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It's very different. SecuROM at least allows you to use Vista/7's games explorer to manage your games (steam does not). And if you install a SecuROM game in a sandbox (www.sandboxie.com), SecuROM won't infect your computer. Can't do that with steam (it random does and does not work sandboxed).

Steam doesn't infect your computer.

Requiring Steam to run in a sandbox is necessary for a portion of the customer base so small that it would be ridiculous to cater to it. Your standards of security are silly (when it comes to entertainment software). It would be easier for you to just reinstall windows the 1 year in 3 that something happens to your computer than to have all this daft sandbox and god knows what other precautions you take.