Civ5 - shipping with Steamworks * plus Digital Deluxe Edition

There is no use in this Steam good/bad disscussion.
There are Steam lovers & haters and arguments with technical details or examples personal good/bad experiences will not change their attitudes (The emotional part is too high). There are 2 solid opposite parties (none of them a minority) and that will not change.

One side will be disappointed and that is currently the "no steam"-party. Steam is appropriate for certain customers and not appropriate for others. That's okay..
The bad decision is to force steam. The user should decide what he wants to use. If he choses "single player", you have to keep the DVD in the drive without steam , if you choose "Direct IP", everyone has to keep a DVD in the drive without steam , if you choose "internet play", you HAVE to use steam.

Leave Steam to the steamers, let the others have their own way and do not force them to do something they do not want to do for reasons emotionally , by principle or what ever.

Steam is not he problem with CIv 5, mandatory Steam is it.

BTW: Just for the records: I belong to the No-Steamers-Party and yes, i informed me about Steam/Steamworks in the internet before saying so and asked a friend about his experiences.

I'm honest enough to admit that Civ5 is too good a game that i can not stay away,

But i will try to give Fireaxis as less money as possible , which means waiting with the buy, do my little part to deny them a good sales start with that and wait for a later cheaper collectors Edition.

pluton said:

the bad decision is to force steam. The user should decide what he wants to use. If he choses "single player", you have to keep the dvd in the drive without steam , if you choose "direct ip", everyone has to keep a dvd in the drive without steam , if you choose "internet play", you have to use steam.

Leave steam to the steamers, let the others have their own way and do not force them to do something they do not want to do for reasons emotionally , by principle or what ever.

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qft^^

I've bought Civ4 several times, for me and friends, and I've convinced people to buy this awesome game. Prior to this news Civ5 for me was a blind buy - that's over.

2K Elizabeth said:

Steam is part of our game

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You want to FORCE me to install software I don't need and I don't want on my computer. If it's part of the game and can't be cut out you guys made a big mistake.

I go to stores (physically) and buy my games there, take them home, install them and play them. This is not going to change, that's for sure.
So with Civ5 I would take it home and would be forced to install steam IF steam servers would be ready and in the mood to let me install a castrated game(without some civs etc). That for a singleplayer game is absurd.

And with the DLC - ridiculous - is Activision or EA now publishing the game? Making extra money with stuff that should be in the game already? Shame on you!

If things stay this way a developer with integrity is going to get my money.

If Steam is permanently and completely usable offline at all times, then I may consider picking up Civ V in a couple of years' time when it's half price or less. No one has yet said that this is true and others have provided lots of anecdotal evidence that this is absolutely not true. If so, I will likely never buy Civ V.

One can just hope they don't tie Steam too deep into the game, so that it may be removed sometimes. Otherwise we'll have to wait for Civ6, hoping 2K/Firaxis dosn't make the same mistake twice :-(

Anyway, I have a question. I want Babylonia and I want a physical manual(physical dvd and cover would be nice but not that important), is it possible to have both of these and only buy one version of the game? .

Another thought..this is really going to hurt the kids..I started playing Civ when I was like 8 at an after school program. I had to figure out how to play on my own cause the adults hardly knew how to use a computer. This is going to throw up another layer of complication and confusion and keep new users away. How many school librarians or daycare teachers are going to purchase and install a game successfully that isnt "plug and play"? I'm sure the adult customers can call or email CS to deal with all the problems steam causes but what about the kid who goes into the library to escape bullies or whatever.

Speaking of the children, is steam going to censor mods that add Hitler to the game or add nude leader heads ?

2K Elizabeth said:

Steam is definitely in this game, yes, but the decision wasn't made in a vacuum and input from fans on many forums over many months helped inform it.

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Pics or it didnt happen..I've been following Civ V for a bit now and I dont remember any polling about whether I wanted this spyware on my computer. This wasnt a polling choice...this was a steam offered you guys tons and tons of money for exclusive control choice. I wonder..assuming the fans did want to protest this...I bet Valve has all our leadership, moders and media people under non disclosures agreements. Thats one way to deal with critics eh ?

1. On steam: Personally I'm pretty much undecided, but hopeful.
People complaining about a possible preformance hit; oh come on, get real. If your PC can run Civ BtS late-game (without having to wait half an hour in between turns), I doubt you'll notice the "extra load" of having steam running in the background. It's also really not that "polluting" to your system, if you uncheck "the startup automaticly with windows" box, it has no effect whatsoever unless you choose to start it up yourself.
What does worry me is the internet requirement; I use steam (Orange Box rocks, Portal 2 will too) and I know there's an offline mode that somewhat works. But as has been posted before, there's some problems with steam demanding to go online for updates/demanding a game to be updated which could cause compatibility problems with mods. I bought Assassin's Creed 2 when it game out and couldn't play it because of their lousy DRM and failing servers, I was planning on buying Settlers 7 too, but I won't buy it or any other Ubisoft game until they get rid of their anti-paying-costumer software. I hope 2k/Firaxis doesn't go the same way.

2. The "Deluxe Edition": I'll buy it. If you released a €89 "Limited Edition Collector's Edition" with nothing extra but Sid Meier's Morning Urine Sample -which if nothing else would be proof that it's in fact somewhat limited in availability- I would buy it. I love your games and don't mind sponsoring you some extra if it means you keep making those games. The "extra content" is a disappointment though. I'd much prefer some paper tech-tree, luxury edition manual or any useless "collector" stuff. What you have now really feels like the people who buy the normal version get cheated out on content that should be in the game. Also, it brings me to point 3.

3. The most worrying thing about the improved modding community, the steam requirement and the extra content, is the implication this seems to have on the modability of the game. Will Firaxis/2kGames control what mods are available depending on their content? Right now, I could write a "Civ4 Full Nudity XxX P0rN MOD!!!11eleven!1!" and anyone could download and install it. It won't be pretty, but I've got the liberty to create and distribute it and everyone's got the liberty to play or ignore it.
But now you bring "exclusive Babylon civilization" as $10 extra... What if someone decides to just mod in Nebuchanezzar or Hammurabi (or even 20 extra civs, 100 extra units and techs ala RoM) with the same (or almost the same but slightly different) unique buildings/units which people could just download for free instead of paying extra? Will you -thanks to the system you seem to be setting up- be able to just ban this extra content? Is the free modding community no longer free?

I have bought every game in the series since Civ I and I love it. I also love how the new game shapes up feature wise, but if they combine it with steam, I WON'T BUY IT (and I won't pirate it either, out of principle)!

What's their problem?? I was so happy when BtS came out without DRM. I could actually get it running in Wine without applying a stupid crack. I hate this development.

This is worse than ever. I'm deeply disappointed.

This is a pathetic move. I hate Steam more than anything on my computer. The only reason i have it is because i was forced to by Empire and Napoleon. I want to buy a game, not the license to play one. I want to be able play against my brother in the next room without having to buy two copies. it's pathetic and frustrating poor from 2K. all my respect gone.

Do not want DRM. Do not want double-dose-of-DRM Steam. Also do not want DLC [full, standard expansion packs are okay] shoved down our throats. Civ5 is a big screaming "Do not buy!" since today's announcements.

Been lurking a while and to me this is worrying.

I have nothing against Steam and use it (even bought Civ4 complete back in Christmas even though I had Civ4 and BtS on DVDs), although as a consumer I am not thrilled games will be locked to one service and this will only be available from Steam when it comes to digital distribution as Ive understood. Probably have to buy Civ5 from retail store, as I'm not a fan of the 1 $ = 1 € pricetag Steam operates with.

But the part that worries me is the mention of exclusive content and map packs...look at Empire & Napoleon Total War, the games have become less moddable, most likely because SEGA does not want competition to their paid DLCs.
As a Civ fan I will not be happy seeing civs, units and whatnot that have come in expansions be sold for 5 $/€ through Steam, as the trend as I see it is that majority of DLCs are over-priced compared to what you get.

Summed up, I fear the new DLCs might have a negative impact on modding and what is being allowed to mod, in addition to overpriced DLCs and map packs for stuff we've usually found in expansion packs.

I startet a little poll, 'cause im curious about how many ppl of each "side" we have here ;-)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=363733

I've bought Civ 1,2,3,4 but sadly will not be buying Civ 5. The same happened with the Total War Series. I had looked forward to Empire: Total War but when they went with steam I decided not to waste my money. I have an unreliable internet connection and thus often have trouble staying connected for any length of time. Hopefully there will always be other games available that don't require permanent or intermittent connection to steam to check you are using a genuine version.

I am curious to see how that poll plays out. People who have and use steam by and by really like the platform. If Elizabeth's overlords include steam voicechat and multiplayer support to the extent that Valve has done with their games and steamworks, I applaud them - it's going to make for a fantastic game, and you'll find it to be much easier to organize games of Civ 5. I was on the fence about Civ5 before the announcement, but me and all my buddies are preordering it this summer.

Now you'll be able to throw up a community announcement that says "hey, need 1 more for 6 player Civ5 game", and your buddy who's just watching youtube videos about cats sees the announcement, clicks on it and Civ5 automatically loads and jumps you into the pre-game chatroom. I have a bunch of steam friends who will get together and play random game X this way using steam.

A lot of the negative comments about steam I have been reading has been "uhh - steam seems scary and draconian! it must be WORSE than Games For Windows!" . Pretty much everyone in this thread that is for Steam seems to be enthusiastic for it. Those against Steam seem to have never used Steam and are trying to argue any way to avoid using the service.

If you're on the fence about Steam, I wouldn't immediately jump on the bandwagon against Steam. It's got a lot to offer, and you should probably sign up for an account, download a few of those free games on Steam listed a few pages back, friend some of your civfan friends here on steam and try out the social aspect of Steam. The instant messaging function and communities alone make Steam well worth the download. In addition to steam games, you can setup steam to manage all your games for you (even those bought outside of Steam, like Civ2 -- I have XWing and TIE Fighter being managed by steam). Download and try out steam first, make an informed decision. It's not nearly as evil as some of these basement dweller antisocial people would have you think

someone on page 2-3 said "hey i think that guy is a plant from valve" - well I am not a plant either, just a very, very happy customer of Valve's. Steam makes gaming a much more social platform, which in turn makes the games much more enjoyable.

Raneday said:

I've bought Civ 1,2,3,4 but sadly will not be buying Civ 5. The same happened with the Total War Series. I had looked forward to Empire: Total War but when they went with steam I decided not to waste my money. I have an unreliable internet connection and thus often have trouble staying connected for any length of time. Hopefully there will always be other games available that don't require permanent or intermittent connection to steam to check you are using a genuine version.

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Uhm, what? Steam doesn't require to be connected 24/7 in order to play games... In fact, you have to connect 1 time and that's it, unless for updating of course, but to download an update you'd need an internet connection regardless of what it's running on. In fact, it's easier with steam than without because if you lose connection halfway your 1GB update, steam will remember the part you downloaded and only download the rest when you're reconnected again.

Will Steam require me to buy two copies of the game if I want to install it on my wife and I's two laptops to play a LAN game? I'm not going to spend over $100 on the game just to have mult-player LAN functionality.

For those who are concerned about choice from where to buy:

CIV 5 will probably be on sale in retail stores (CD/DVD), Steam, GamersGate, Impulse, D2D and others. Both Empire and Napoleon Total War (which use Steamworks) can be bought from multiple digital retailers (including the recently opened GET Games). So its very likely that CIV 5 will also be available from multiple stores not only from Steam.

However you will need to download the free Steam client in order to install and authenticate the game you have just bought. Once authenticated you can even run the game on Steam's offline mode. Also if anyone doesn't like the auto-patching service, it can be easily disabled from the properties menu and you can patch the game whenever you wish. The Steam client is very customizable, so it should fit everyone's desires.

There should really be no issues really regarding this as their is still choice and moreover Steam supports mods and modding, so this desicion should not effect the modding community. I play Total war games bought from Steam exclusively with mods and i have not encountered any problems.

I actually signed up for Steam already and bought Civilization III from them. I had bought, downloaded, installed and sat there playing Civ III within half an hour. So OK. that's the future of game distribution, at least.

This morning I was a real hard-wing Steam-hater, now I've bought a game from them. I have really divided feelings still about this; I actually don't want Civilization V to have anything to do with these kinds of outside interferences.

I am worried about modding as well. What are the implications for modding? How will modding work with Steam and how will those automatic updates touch my mods? I already have my first mod for Civilization V planned, so I'd really want to get the details. For if I'm not happy, I will make my mod for 4 instead.

As for distribution of games Steam is really great. But what worries me and what I want to know is how it affects the games I've bought from them and what the implications are. I do not want any outside interference in my games. Last, but not least, I'd like to install the game I've bought on my girlfriend's computer too without having to buy two copies. I don't know if Steam lets me do that with the Civ III I bought today.

CivWarlord said:

For those who are concerned about choice from where to buy:

CIV 5 will probably be on sale in retail stores (CD/DVD), Steam, GamersGate, Impulse, D2D and others. (snip) However you will need to download the free Steam client in order to install and authenticate the game you have just bought. (snip)

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Translation: Steam (and Steam DRM) is the only way to get Civ5. Other people might be able to re-label it, but it's still a Steamworksed game.