Civ 5 digital deluxe coming exclusively to Steam! Steamworks confirmed!

[spaztek]

Posted this in another thread too:

I am very unhappy with compulsory Steam.

I have no issues with Steam itself, and use it frequently; but the host of conflicts, issues, etc that arise when a game is Steam-only is too much for me to handle. Even just reading about it on the forums is irritating.

Finding this out today has now made me reconsider my desire for this game.

Although I know it is already set - 2K PLEASE reconsider this decision. You are really alienating a lot of people with this.

[The Almighty dF]

Originally Posted by isndl

My computer configuration may have played some part in it, but I would say the more significant factor would be the the platform update that I had to download when I started Steam; after all, all my games worked perfectly fine before being forced to update.

If you want something closer to the present, just now I heard about an update for Half-Life 2 and Episode One that added new achievements, so I figured I would reinstall so I could collect them at some point. Went through the little installation wizard, got to the last page with the finish button, clicked it and bam, Steam is Not Responding and I had to kill it with the Task Manager.

Mentioned it in a conversation with someone else I know and he said he had Steam lock up on him about five times auto-updating one of his games earlier today, causing him to miss out on a L4D2 Versus game with some friends. He finally got his game updated, and my installation is proceeding along fine now that Steam was restarted.

Steam works after a fashion, but I would not call it entirely stable.

I've had a few auto-update issues here and there, I won't deny they're an issue.
Normally I only get the more harmless "auto-update stalls for a bit, then finally continues" bugs.
There's also the security issues I've mentioned a few times before. I'm in no way going to say Steam is a perfect program. I'm only going to say that it normally doesn't cause any hinderance to games as you play them, does not causes issues with anything it's not connected to, etc.

I think most of the anti-Steam people here need to redirect their anger towards a bigger Civ5 issue: DLC.
That's practically being ignored here on the forum. Steam's normally, at worst, a minor inconvenience/irritation (unless you have no internet connection, or you have your account hijacked.)
DLC, however? That opens up a pretty huge can of worms, and a lot can go wrong.

[Grouchey]

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

I've had a few auto-update issues here and there, I won't deny they're an issue.
Normally I only get the more harmless "auto-update stalls for a bit, then finally continues" bugs.
There's also the security issues I've mentioned a few times before. I'm in no way going to say Steam is a perfect program. I'm only going to say that it normally doesn't cause any hinderance to games as you play them, does not causes issues with anything it's not connected to, etc.

I think most of the anti-Steam people here need to redirect their anger towards a bigger Civ5 issue: DLC.
That's practically being ignored here on the forum. Steam's normally, at worst, a minor inconvenience/irritation (unless you have no internet connection, or you have your account hijacked.)
DLC, however? That opens up a pretty huge can of worms, and a lot can go wrong.

I agree with this, but Steam is rightly seen as the enabler of DLC, and the Babylon offering was a huge red flag. There is a strong relationship between putting the game on Steam and selling DLC. Steam and DLC's close association only fuels the outcry against Steam.

[ArcadicGamer]

Originally Posted by tom2050

Steam is not free of stability issues. If I had to guess, the only reason you say that you are "FOR" one of the most draconian DRM's that exist is to argue against me. Therefore, I do not believe your statement that you enjoy being forced to connect to internet to play offline; and any problem with the connection drops your offline game.

STEAM does not close your games if you lose internet connection during a game. Even if its a MP only game.

And sure, nothing we use on a PC is 100% stable. Firefox crashes now and then, so does XP, Vista and 7. Not to mention every game i've ever played has crashed at least once. And i shouldn't be forced to install DirectX to play a game if i don't want to. I could keep going, but the point has been made.

[The Almighty dF]

Originally Posted by Grouchey

I agree with this, but Steam is rightly seen as the enabler of DLC, and the Babylon offering was a huge red flag. There is a strong relationship between putting the game on Steam and selling DLC. Steam and DLC's close association only fuels the outcry against Steam.

Not true, Steam/Valve isn't usually associated with pay-for-DLC actually. Free DLC that Microsoft makes them put a pricetag on for console users? Yes. But not normally pay-for DLC. Just look at all the add-ons for TF2, the new campaign for L4D2, etc.

[arstal]

Originally Posted by Grouchey

I agree with this, but Steam is rightly seen as the enabler of DLC, and the Babylon offering was a huge red flag. There is a strong relationship between putting the game on Steam and selling DLC. Steam and DLC's close association only fuels the outcry against Steam.

All the DD platforms sell DLC. That is something I do not blame Steam for. DLC itself I evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

[isndl]

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

I've had a few auto-update issues here and there, I won't deny they're an issue.
Normally I only get the more harmless "auto-update stalls for a bit, then finally continues" bugs.
There's also the security issues I've mentioned a few times before. I'm in no way going to say Steam is a perfect program. I'm only going to say that it normally doesn't cause any hinderance to games as you play them, does not causes issues with anything it's not connected to, etc.

Again, I would have to respectfully disagree with the notion that it normally doesn't cause any hindrance to games as I play them. I've had Team Fortress 2 stall out for over 15 minutes trying to authenticate with the Steam master servers, just sitting at a perpetual 'Preparing to Launch' dialog. Restarting Steam fixed it, but it's absolutely ridiculous that it could even happen in the first place. More often than not, I'm spending more time waiting for my games to authenticate than it takes for the main menu to load once I'm past the authentication.

Originally Posted by ArcadicGamer

STEAM does not close your games if you lose internet connection during a game. Even if its a MP only game.

And sure, nothing we use on a PC is 100% stable. Firefox crashes now and then, so does XP, Vista and 7. Not to mention every game i've ever played has crashed at least once. And i shouldn't be forced to install DirectX to play a game if i don't want to. I could keep going, but the point has been made.

The key difference as I see it is that I have a large degree of control over the behavior of other applications like Firefox and XP. I can disable automatic updates, I can do all kinds of neat things to get them running the way I want. If there's crashing, it's unusual and there's a lot of interest and effort in getting the problem solved.

Steam is literally an opaque black box where you cannot disable the automatic platform updates, and thanks in part to its nature as a DRM tool, there's nothing out there that helps me run Steam the way I want it to. If Steam fails after an update, you have no recourse but to hope the developers are on the ball, because you can't roll back and you can't fix it yourself.

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

Not true, Steam/Valve isn't usually associated with pay-for-DLC actually. Free DLC that Microsoft makes them put a pricetag on for console users? Yes. But not normally pay-for DLC. Just look at all the add-ons for TF2, the new campaign for L4D2, etc.

It's funny how people tout the DLC Valve offers as proof of their good intentions, yet gloss over some of their less appreciated decisions. I remember playing the L4D1 demo and watching the victory trailer that promised new campaigns, new enemies, new weapons. There are plenty of interview recordings and transcripts out there where Gabe Newell stated that L4D was going to receive new content just like TF2.

What we got instead was a game mode that became boring after a few hours of play and a two map campaign of dubious quality - everything else was rolled into a sequel and sold at full price. They didn't even bother to address smaller issues like the ammo imbalance between shotguns and automatics, even though they clearly understood the problem when they made changes for L4D2.

[The Almighty dF]

Originally Posted by isndl

What we got instead was a game mode that became boring after a few hours of play and a two map campaign of dubious quality - everything else was rolled into a sequel and sold at full price. They didn't even bother to address smaller issues like the ammo imbalance between shotguns and automatics, even though they clearly understood the problem when they made changes for L4D2.

I want to address this one real quick...
Yes, Valve lied about L4D1. Kinda.

Yes they did make a big profit off releasing L4D2, and yes they did promise L4D1 would be treated like TF2... But they screwed up.
Design wise, L4D1 is... fairly flawed. Yeah you can do a lot with mods, but as you've probably learned from doing custom maps, there's a lot of bugs. A lot. There's a lot you really, really can't do right because of how they made L4D. I figure Valve realized how huge the patch would be to -fix- L4D1, realized how much it'd cost them, and decided just to go ahead and make it L4D2 to justify the costs.

It's not really a first in the video gaming world either, sadly. I can think of two other examples from two different companies I -normally- trust.

Unreal Tournament 2003. Buggy as hell, incomplete. Epic Games basically went "Y'know. We screwed up here... but it's gonna be expensive to fix." So they released 2K4. 2k4? Awesome. It's what 2k3 should have been. But it still screwed over those of us that bought 2k3 to begin with.

Rock Band. The first RB game is... really, really messy. The vocal system is inaccurate, the talkies are near impossible, hammer-on timing feels off, you can only do DLC in one stage, you can only do band world tour in multiplayer, the instruments that came with it were fragile, etc. Overall Harmonix and EA dropped the ball big time, and decided that the best way to fix it, financially, was to release Rock Band 2, which is everything RB1 should have been complete with sturdier instruments.

Basically... yeah, Valve screwed up big time. But, honestly, since I've had this happen before, I guess I'm not too sore.
It could be worse, really. They could be selling me the same game -more- than twice (which is why day one DLC scares me a bit.) The Sims is kinda like that. You buy a foundation, and every year you pay $30 for another part of it that should have been in the game to begin with (and in many cases, like with Seasons, was already programmed in.)
I get the reasoning, they're exploiting the fact that most of us, even those of us that complain, will still buy. (Hell, look at the L4D2 protest group. The majority of them were caught playing L4D2 within a week of release.)

I'm in no way going to call Valve a good company. I just see them as one that screws me over less regularly than many other video game companies. Though there's still a few ahead of them, at least they aren't Blizzard-Activision, EA, or Take-Two (I'm sorry Firaxis but, yes, your parent company is a dick. I've never seen a company so anti-patch in my life. Due to this so many games released under 2K end up depending on the fan community to make them stable. The Elder Scrolls series, Fallout 3, Call of Cthulhu, etc.)

I guess the point I really want to make is... we don't have a gaming utopia. We have to judge things relatively. Before you attack something, think about its peers.
I know some will say that's not right, that's not fair, etc. but that's how things work. DRM is an industry standard now, so you have to judge each form of DRM compared to each other form. Yes, video game companies are going about some... I don't know a good term to use that is censor appropriate... less than noble means to get more money from you for something you normally pay less for. You just have to judge each company by how they do it.

Honestly, I for one am largely glad that, for multiplayer, I can use -Steam- now instead of Gamespy Arcade. I complain about Steam's security issues, but you can't get worse than Gamespy Arcade. You just... really cannot. That's partially why the place is swarming with bots and spammers.
I'm also glad that I won't again have to choose where I buy my game based on the bonuses, as I did with Star Trek Online earlier this year.
I'm still disappointed that a game franchise I love is heading down a path that will make it harder to mod, while claiming it'll be easier. I'm also disappointed that in order to get the full game I need to pay $10 extra. As much as I complain, I'll still probably buy it. Time will tell if I stick with it or move back to Civ4, but I'll at least give it a try before fully condeming it. The announcements will only help me lower my expectations so as not to get my hopes up.

[Grouchey]

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

I'm still disappointed that a game franchise I love is heading down a path that will make it harder to mod, while claiming it'll be easier. I'm also disappointed that in order to get the full game I need to pay $10 extra. As much as I complain, I'll still probably buy it. Time will tell if I stick with it or move back to Civ4, but I'll at least give it a try before fully condeming it. The announcements will only help me lower my expectations so as not to get my hopes up.

If you pre-order it on Steam for whatever reason, you will make a statement and they will hear you. After they hear you, the only reasonable expectation is for 2K/Firaxis to head further down the path outlined above.

[Commander Bello]

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

(....) but that's how things work. DRM is an industry standard now,(...)

With all due respect, but I cannot agree.

Things are working the way we as customers are allowing them to work.

Any person who like you (from what I get from your words) or me is unsatisfied with "how things work" has the option to try to change it. We are powerful, since we are the ones with the wallets.

If enough people refuse to buy Civ5 at release date and the weeks after, chances are good that 2K may rethink about the Steam way.

If we will resign, nothing will change. It is us who can influence the decision.

[arstal]

DRM may be an "industry standard", but it's only because mainstream gamers let it be a standard.

Ultimately- the key is to support the companies that are pro-consumer.

Doesn't mean you have to boycott 2K , but support DRM-free and non-Steam gaming

[frekk]

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

I guess the point I really want to make is... we don't have a gaming utopia. We have to judge things relatively. Before you attack something, think about its peers.

There's some truth to that, but it's actually a rather bad mindset for the consumer to have ... where, in that formulation, is there any progress for the consumer? The consumer, in this formula, is just trying to hang on to what he already has. When he wins, he keeps what he's got, and the best he can hope for is to win this game most of the time - meaning that he is only sliding back a little bit rather than alot. But inevitably, he's sliding back and the relationship between him and industry takes on more and more of an imbalance, with industry, rather than the consumer, calling all the shots.

Instead of a race to the bottom, this is more like a slow crawl to the bottom.

[MaxCiv]

Originally Posted by Commander Bello

With all due respect, but I cannot agree.

Things are working the way we as customers are allowing them to work.

You are right, the customers, the vast majority of the people who buy games don't even know what DRM is nor they care about it. The average Joe, barely knows to install the game and when prompted to activate it online, or to insert the disc (even if the game is already installed) or whatever the DRM might be, they just follow instructions and click next because they just want to PLAY the game.

Originally Posted by Commander Bello

Any person who like you (from what I get from your words) or me is unsatisfied with "how things work" has the option to try to change it. We are powerful, since we are the ones with the wallets.

That's true in theory, but the reality is different. Civ 5 will most likely outsell all of the previous versions and even assuming that 50% (very unrealistic estimate) of users on this and other boards will not buy the game, it will have zero impact on the total sales of probably few million units during the lifespan of the game.

Originally Posted by Commander Bello

If enough people refuse to buy Civ5 at release date and the weeks after, chances are good that 2K may rethink about the Steam way.

If we will resign, nothing will change. It is us who can influence the decision.

Quantify enough. As of now there are 48151 registered users on this board which is, correct me if I am wrong, the biggest community hub dedicated to Civ games.

Out of those, how many are actual active? Out of those how many have intention or are considering buying Civ 5? Out of those how many are against Steam? Out of those how many explicitly said that will not buy the game? Out of those how many will actually boycott the game?

As you can see you are overestimating "your power" by several orders of magnitude. The vast majority of "Civ customers" don't even know of the existence of these boards, like they don't know what a mod is, and they don't know or care about drm, Steam, or the other technical or controversial topics we discuss here daily.

With this I don't mean you and the others should not voice your dissent, create petitions, etc. Just don't have unrealistic expectations of things changing because of it. If you don't like what they are doing with THEIR game simply don't buy it, pretend Civ 5 never existed and be happy with it.

[Commander Bello]

Originally Posted by MaxCiv

That's true in theory, but the reality is different. Civ 5 will most likely outsell all of the previous versions and even assuming that 50% (very unrealistic estimate) of users on this and other boards will not buy the game, it will have zero impact on the total sales of probably few million units during the lifespan of the game.

I agree with you that even if all active members of CivFanatics would decide not to buy the game the sales figures still would be impressive. No doubt about this.

Yet, the absolute figures are just one thing.
Companies are working with plans or in this case, with estimations and expectations. And if the fanbase might make them miss their estimation of first day sales, first month sales, then they may start to wonder, what has gone wrong.

Even a mere 3 per cent can have some influence.

About this forum: sure, in relation to the overall number of purchasers, CivFanatics still are very small.
Yet, here are the ones who are on the internet. The ones who are not on the internet for sure aren't here. But will they be the ones to buy a game with mandatory internet activation? Some will, some won't. Chances are good that the resistance in that group is even stronger.

And voilá, one step closer to the assumed 3 per cent.

[MaxCiv]

Originally Posted by Commander Bello

Yet, here are the ones who are on the internet. The ones who are not on the internet for sure aren't here. But will they be the ones to buy a game with mandatory internet activation?

Having no internet access at all and not be part or follow the user community of a particular game are two different things. Obviously you cannot do the second without some sort of internet access, but on the other hand, having access to internet doesn't necessary mean you will sign up and follow any particular community even if you bough and play the game.

[Grouchey]

My suggestion would be that people who are concerned about the direction Firaxis is taking try to organize around not pre-ordering the game and not purchasing DLC. And I don't care a whole lot about whether it's effective however you want to measure that, to do nothing is just asking for trouble later, imo.

[isndl]

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

Yes they did make a big profit off releasing L4D2, and yes they did promise L4D1 would be treated like TF2... But they screwed up.
Design wise, L4D1 is... fairly flawed. Yeah you can do a lot with mods, but as you've probably learned from doing custom maps, there's a lot of bugs. A lot. There's a lot you really, really can't do right because of how they made L4D. I figure Valve realized how huge the patch would be to -fix- L4D1, realized how much it'd cost them, and decided just to go ahead and make it L4D2 to justify the costs.

Except that it shouldn't matter how big the patch would be, since you're using Steam and you're guaranteed to be patched to be playing online, right? Most the upgrades were for the engine anyways, and the maps may need to be updated to conform to new engine standards, but all the assets are untouched and so the download size isn't going to be gigantic - certainly no more than the updates TF2 is receiving. You're practically reinstalling the game if you install TF2 from the Orange Box CD these days.

My personal belief is that they ditched L4D because they realized that the 360 couldn't handle the update easily, and so they made it a new game to justify it. TF2 on the XBox is already stagnant, so they're free to ignore it completely while they go hog-wild churning out content on the PC.

Originally Posted by The Almighty dF

I guess the point I really want to make is... we don't have a gaming utopia. We have to judge things relatively. Before you attack something, think about its peers.
I know some will say that's not right, that's not fair, etc. but that's how things work. DRM is an industry standard now, so you have to judge each form of DRM compared to each other form. Yes, video game companies are going about some... I don't know a good term to use that is censor appropriate... less than noble means to get more money from you for something you normally pay less for. You just have to judge each company by how they do it.

I understand that the gaming companies aren't perfect, but when they make public statements that they're going to support the game, and people put their trust in the company and purchase a game that reviews criticize for being somewhat light on the content under the assumption that more content is coming, you've reached a new level. And then you release just barely enough content that you can say 'yes, we do have content on the way', and proceed to release most of the content you promised as a new game? Despicable.

Yet somehow people are perfectly willing to ignore the whole thing and continue to point towards TF2 as a shining example of Valve's commitment to the community. Other companies may not give the same support Valve has, but they don't promise that support either.

[Senethro]

Its worth remembering that theres probably 30% more content in L4D2 as compared with 1 and they're doing some clever free support for it. Its obviously a fully fledged sequel and not just a collection of patches/expansion content.

Basically, having been spoilt (and continuing to be so) by TF2, valve's fans had a tantrum at their company not giving them huge quantities of free stuff in all their games. Hell, some kind of update went through on the Half Life series yesterday and I know theres a sizeable Counterstrike upgrade in beta testing right now.

[arstal]

Instead of worrying about not supporting Civ, support the companies that do provide what we want instead first.

2K can go whatever direction it wants as long as I can get games that I want from other sources. I"ll be here if they return to their senses.

[Xiao Xiong]

Originally Posted by Senethro

Basically, having been spoilt (and continuing to be so) by TF2, valve's fans had a tantrum at their company not giving them huge quantities of free stuff in all their games. Hell, some kind of update went through on the Half Life series yesterday and I know theres a sizeable Counterstrike upgrade in beta testing right now.

They're doing the update because they're about to start selling these games to Mac users. In the case of CS:S they have to port it to a newer Source engine in order to be able to do that. I guess Valve sees huge opportunity in the under-served Mac gaming market so they're bringing their biggest titles to the party.

Not that I'm complaining that a bunch of my PC games are getting a free upgrade to a better game engine, but they do have a profit motive there.

Between Civ and CS:S I have to say I have lost a lot of hours of my life that I will never get back. Not that I'm complaining about that either though!

My two favorite games are both getting big new revisions in the next while, guess I am going to be "unproductive"