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

[lemmy101]

Steam is BY FAR the most awesome thing to happen to PC gaming since PC gaming. Hate to be all fascist about it but everyone should agree with me immediately:

1) Valve are like a big cuddly game studio / publisher when you compare them to 90% of the corrupt money grabbing Activisions out there.
2) Pirates hate Steam. Okay it's not crack proof but hell, it's giving publishers more faith in PC releases. Consider you may not have got a Civ 5 AT ALL if Take 2 didn't have a non-controversial (or you'd have thought Steam woulda been non-controversial) method of DRM. Would you prefer Ubisofts, for example?
3) Steam friend lists. I have all my friends on my Steam friend list. A lot of them not MSN level people I just kinda know and I can see what they're playing, invite them into a game when they're browsing the web or in a different game. It's like a nice community and if you've not got that you're missing out.
4) What would you prefer for matchmaking? Gamespy? Are you serious? I can't even begin to say how poor Gamespy is. It's horrible. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE.
5) Steam allows offline play.
6) Digital purchases on Steam are awesome. I bought Halflife 2 years ago, 2 apartments and 2 PCs ago. Reinstalled Steam when I got Left4Dead, and there they were. The deals Steam have are amazing, and I've got about 140 games which I'd have likely lost long ago between house moves and general absent mindedness / scratched discs if it wasn't for Steam.
7) Steam doesn't have viruses, spyware, malware or anything. Anyone who thinks otherwise is being stupid.
8) Anti-cheat system. Okay VAC isn't perfect, but what it is is tied to your Steam account, and therefore tied to ALL the games you own. Cheat on HL2, get banned off every VAC game you own. Kicks the crap out of Punkbuster which, at worst, you'll lose that one game. In practice, you'll only really get banned from servers.
9) Patches. The messing about with installing patches with PC games, gone forever! I've not installed a patch in years. Okay some patches are bad, but if your ENTIRE customer base is getting auto-updated it's much more vital to fix issues in patches.
10) Steam supports indie developers. Indie developers need supporting. Well done Steam!
11) It's reliable, fast, sexy looking.
12) It doesn't stop you buying the game in the shop, and doesn't demand you go online or add friends or anything. So what's the problem?
13) Accounts are getting hacked no more than dirty old men are pinching kids. It's rare, will very very likely never happen to anyone here unless you leave them in a stupid place, and yet is sensationalised like it's a certainty.

This is why I'm completely right, as are all the others who say this is a good thing. Anyone who disagrees is having a reactionary DRM panic attack and failing to realise this is an awesome thing on practically every conceivable level, if not for you, then for Take 2 / Firaxis and PC gamers in general so you should just suck it up and 'put up with it' or get into it.

'nuf said.

 

[Gliese 581]

If I understand correctly you don't need to be online when you've registered the game on Steam or whatever and can run it in offline mode indefinitely. Btw thanks to whoever cleared that up for me in a previous post.
So if you want to avoid security threats from online use of Steam you can.

Of course there are other issues but this argument against Steam is not the most compelling to me.

 

[Modiga-Disabled]

On Hijacked Steam Accounts

You don't need evidence for this, its happened, and its happened to anyone who's lost a Steam account through phishing. The picture posted is a phishing attempt.

On Hijacked Steam Accounts regarding Steam itself

Any service that uses a login (Email, Banks) can be "hi-jacked" the same way. People steam credit card information through the same methods. You should be smart about how you go about clicking on links on the internet on ANY website, let alone instant messages. I don't see a real point in discussing how "safe" Steam is, as its just about as safe as what each person does on the internet. Everyday there are attacks like this doing a lot more damage than stealing your game accounts.

Steam is not a security hole. Its the user.

Valve have even added prompts to help stop people from making stupid mistakes. A non-Steam URL when clicked will open up a prompt. Not that seems to help much because people turn it off and then click on unsafe links anyway.

Also, if you type your password into a chat window it will warn you that you're doing so.

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."

There's really only so much that can be done to help stop people give their account information away.

 

[Chalks]

If I understand correctly you don't need to be online when you've registered the game on Steam or whatever and can run it in offline mode indefinitely. Btw thanks to whoever cleared that up for me in a previous post.
So if you want to avoid security threats from online use of Steam you can.

Of course there are other issues but this argument against Steam is not the most compelling to me.

Pretty much, once you've registered it and got the game installed you can play as if steam wasn't there. A couple of check boxes in the settings window will prevent steam from trying to load on startup and from any of the game adverts or store related windows from ever appearing.

You can even stop it from trying to update the game if you want.

It really is pretty much as flexible as possible while still providing content protection.

 

[lemmy101]

Short of giving out your steam password, or having malware on your pc I can't see any real security risk that should concern anyone enough to not use it. There are millions and millions of steam users out there, why would yours get hacked? I'd be missing out on a lot of cool stuff if I didn't do anything that involved any kind of negligible risk.

 

[Rebel44]

8) Anti-cheat system. Okay VAC isn't perfect, but what it is is tied to your Steam account, and therefore tied to ALL the games you own. Cheat on HL2, get banned off every VAC game you own. Kicks the crap out of Punkbuster which, at worst, you'll lose that one game. In practice, you'll only really get banned from servers.

Incorrect. VAC bans based on game engine, so if they catch you cheating in HL2, you are banned from all current and future VAC servers when playing game any based on that game engine.

 

[lemmy101]

Fair enough.

Still better than punkbuster though ;D

 

[Avs]

Incorrect. VAC bans based on game engine, so if they catch you cheating in HL2, you are banned from all current and future VAC servers when playing game any based on that game engine.

To note though, your Steam account can be banned for abuse (in conjunction with VAC).

 

[civ_king]

Yep.

It's astonishing that someone who knows about Ubisoft's absolutely dreadful DRM can complain about Steam.

Here's a company actually doing things right, and you know how wrong things can be but you still stomp your little feet.

ISteam actually, I was poking at the people who thinks Steam sucks by comparing it to Ubisoft

I saw on the 2k forums that the rumor is Civ5 will be on Steam for macs.

Well, steamworks will be a mac version so because it's a key part of Civ V than it should speed it the process

Thanks for that. Bolding it helps.

Also: They never said no when the question was asked (and its asked on twitter everyday). They have never answered that question directly. We only know that the Mac version of Steam is in beta right now...which makes it more of a reality.

I'm assuming Firaxis will take the same path as previous Civs, in giving Aspyr the rights to port after the codebase is complete, ie: when the game goes Gold. It'll take Aspyr a few months to port to Mac and then you'll see it released probably mid next year.

But that's if recent trend holds true.

hopefully it comes out earlier than that

 

[The Almighty dF]

On Hijacked Steam Accounts

You don't need evidence for this, its happened, and its happened to anyone who's lost a Steam account through phishing. The picture posted is a phishing attempt.

On Hijacked Steam Accounts regarding Steam itself

Any service that uses a login (Email, Banks) can be "hi-jacked" the same way. People steam credit card information through the same methods. You should be smart about how you go about clicking on links on the internet on ANY website, let alone instant messages. I don't see a real point in discussing how "safe" Steam is, as its just about as safe as what each person does on the internet. Everyday there are attacks like this doing a lot more damage than stealing your game accounts.

Steam is not a security hole. Its the user.

Incorrect, actually.
Steam -does- have several security holes. It and Youtube (these are the only two I know with this particular hole) have issues when it comes to what account information they save on their end, which allows anyone with the knowhow to acquire said info without -needing- to use phishing techniques.

Youtube's easier than Steam, though. So I can at least say that. A complete moron could steal a youtube account (and they often do, as you've seen from raids from the various chans.) There are actually videos on Youtube on how to steal Youtube accounts, I don't think you can get more hilarious tahn that.

Also as someone else pointed, you don't have much to worry about unless you've pissed off someone that knows how to do it, unless you associate with people that know how to do it, etc. Because outside of that, getting your account stolen is about on par with winning the lottery.

 

[GoNzOTW]

To those complaining about the one time online activation...

News flash: Most games these days, save the few that go with no DRM at all, will require at least a one time online activation. Some even require a CONSTANT internet connection and don't use Steam at all.

Welcome to PC Gaming folks.

 

[isndl]

1) Valve are like a big cuddly game studio / publisher when you compare them to 90% of the corrupt money grabbing Activisions out there.

The lesser of two evils is still an evil, no matter how you look at it.

2) Pirates hate Steam. Okay it's not crack proof but hell, it's giving publishers more faith in PC releases. Consider you may not have got a Civ 5 AT ALL if Take 2 didn't have a non-controversial (or you'd have thought Steam woulda been non-controversial) method of DRM. Would you prefer Ubisofts, for example?

Pirates hardly care about Steam. Even games like Team Fortress 2, designed with Steam in mind and in practice a test bed for new Steam features, is cracked. And it's a multi-player only game to boot.

Insinuating that Steam is the only reason we have CiV at all is nowhere near the truth, however.

3) Steam friend lists. I have all my friends on my Steam friend list. A lot of them not MSN level people I just kinda know and I can see what they're playing, invite them into a game when they're browsing the web or in a different game. It's like a nice community and if you've not got that you're missing out.

There are lots of ways to be a part of a gaming community. Steam is nice, but it's hardly the only option.

4) What would you prefer for matchmaking? Gamespy? Are you serious? I can't even begin to say how poor Gamespy is. It's horrible. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE.

Gamespy's not perfect, but neither is Steam. If you try playing L4D regularly using the matchmaking service, you'll figure that out soon enough on your own.

5) Steam allows offline play.

That wording alone should alarm you. Offline play is a concession, not a core feature. And it doesn't even work reliably; go ahead and try starting Steam with your internet disabled, without turning on offline mode beforehand. I'll wait.

6) Digital purchases on Steam are awesome. I bought Halflife 2 years ago, 2 apartments and 2 PCs ago. Reinstalled Steam when I got Left4Dead, and there they were. The deals Steam have are amazing, and I've got about 140 games which I'd have likely lost long ago between house moves and general absent mindedness / scratched discs if it wasn't for Steam.

Yes, it is quite nice. Just don't lose your account, or you lose 140 games all at once.

7) Steam doesn't have viruses, spyware, malware or anything. Anyone who thinks otherwise is being stupid.

Steam doesn't have malware by itself, but it's a potential vector for them, especially as Steam gains popularity. The integrated browser is simply begging for a drive-by execution exploit in my mind, not to mention a myriad of other ways Steam could be exploited. All it takes is one loophole that wouldn't otherwise be there if Steam wasn't required.

8) Anti-cheat system. Okay VAC isn't perfect, but what it is is tied to your Steam account, and therefore tied to ALL the games you own. Cheat on HL2, get banned off every VAC game you own. Kicks the crap out of Punkbuster which, at worst, you'll lose that one game. In practice, you'll only really get banned from servers.

And Punkbuster now features hardware bans as well as CD-key bans. What's your point?

9) Patches. The messing about with installing patches with PC games, gone forever! I've not installed a patch in years. Okay some patches are bad, but if your ENTIRE customer base is getting auto-updated it's much more vital to fix issues in patches.

It's more vital to for them to fix bad patches, but that doesn't help me as the customer. That afternoon I planned on playing games? Gone, because I didn't have the option of refusing the patch. This is especially bad if you're an edge case which doesn't affect the majority of the player base and it's nowhere near as vital for them to fix the problem.

10) Steam supports indie developers. Indie developers need supporting. Well done Steam!

Yes, supporting independent developers is nice. That doesn't mean we need to bundle Steam with CiV. There's a time and place for everything.

11) It's reliable, fast, sexy looking.

I've been using Steam for the last couple years at least, and to me it's none of those things, even after the 2010 UI update.

12) It doesn't stop you buying the game in the shop, and doesn't demand you go online or add friends or anything. So what's the problem?

It doesn't stop me from buying the game in a store, but it does demand that I go online. And if it decides to brick itself after going online, I have no recourse other than hope Valve will play nice and help me fix the problem.

13) Accounts are getting hacked no more than dirty old men are pinching kids. It's rare, will very very likely never happen to anyone here unless you leave them in a stupid place, and yet is sensationalised like it's a certainty.

Account hacking will only become more prevalent as Steam gains popularity and accounts accumulate more and more games. I prefer not to keep all my eggs in one basket, thank you very much.

This is why I'm completely right, as are all the others who say this is a good thing. Anyone who disagrees is having a reactionary DRM panic attack and failing to realise this is an awesome thing on practically every conceivable level, if not for you, then for Take 2 / Firaxis and PC gamers in general so you should just suck it up and 'put up with it' or get into it.

'nuf said.

DRM is the least of my worries when it comes to including Steam in CiV.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

Some people can look beyond one game into the future. It's called discounting for the future in economics term. The people who are legitimately boycotting are doing this.
The people who are grumbling yet buying are being short-sighted, or genuinely value the game enough that the reduction in value due to DRM isn't enough to tip the value of the game below $50 or something they would buy instead.

The fact you're willing to buy two copies, one of which will effectively be a brick, says you are in that group.

There's another group that genuinely likes Steam. I consider them weird, but so be it.

Those two groups have rational reasons not to boycott the game- and I understand if they don't. My only issue with the Steam fanboys is they don't understand why other people dislike Steam.

It's not anti-DRM points, it's trying to prevent worse things from being used in the future.

Also, the fact that Ubi DRM exists does not make better then Ubi DRM= good.

Not trying to flame you, but you're missing the entire point of the other side here.

Honestly, when other DRM such as Starforce, Securom, Stardock's app, AC2's required Internet connection are presented against STEAM, its a no-brainer why we can't see beyond the wall. The bottom line is, STEAM doesn't attack the customer like any of the above have. People will always have issues using any software. I as a STEAM user, see people complain about STEAM when their use of STEAM or their lack of computer-know-how is at fault. Its easy to understand that some people want things to be like the good-ole-days of CD keys and 5 disk installs. Its easy to understand that people don't want to use STEAMs community features. What is hard to understand is why a simply 2mb install and a internet connection would make you not buy your favorite game.

I hated STEAM when i had to install it for HL2 and CSS. I wanted to punch the wall when COD4's data corrupted from too many people d/ling the files and i had to re-d/l it. I'm also esstatic that i beat Portal 2:37 in the AM, likely one of the first 10,000 to accomplish that. I also know that come Midnight of the release, i'll be playing my first game hours before people who won't adapt to a changing time. I probably would like Stardock's app if i didn't have steam, as i've had issues with it similar to those i had with STEAM in the begining.

The point being, if you haven't used STEAM, do us all a favor and don't post. If youve used STEAM and have legitimate complaints, then your opinion is warranted. Idiots who don't use a product and condemn it in the same breath are doing nothing but hurting the image of this board.

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[ori]

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[CivilizedTiger]

Well, here's why I don't necessarily like this. I don't claim that the devs are making a mistake, they should have had market studies before, and going with Steam probably made the most sense profit-wise. And to be honest, I don't even blame them for that. They should care about profits more than about customers, and I'm not being sarcastic here. We all want to live as well as possible, and to blame the devs for doing the same is to be incredibly hypocrite.

Anyway, the two things I hate are the fact that I have far less control over my own game along with giving Steam a bit of control over my PC and the fact that it's forcing me to go social, which poses some privacy concerns for me. And privacy is very very important to me. It's the reason why I don't have a facebook account, for instance, or anything similar. I don't care that most people like the idea, I don't care that I'm in the minority, no one should tell me that I must conform, that I must be like the others, no one should tell me that I should have a public profile just to play a game.

And I don't want Steam to control any part of my PC or game.

Anyway, there was a poster above who quoted Benjamin Franklin's quote on freedom vs security and someone replied that they should look first at their own government. That's just silly. Sure, the US government has severely limited the freedom of the citizen since 2001, but why should the poster fight the government HERE? This is a topic about the game, and the quote applies here as well.

And last thing: there was a cartoon somewhere of why DRM encourages piracy, and it showed the legit version of a movie having n legal advertisements and the pirate version being the move straight from the get-go. Anyway, it wasn't necessarily funny, and I thought it was exaggerated, but, it kind of applies to this game. Like it or not, forced Steam does nothing at all to stave off piracy, there will be a cracked version of the game mere days after it's launched, and for a long while, there'll even be all the updates that the devs are posting. The point of the said cartoon wasn't necessarily to support piracy, but to show that many of the anti-piracy measures that devs take are a burden on the legit customers, not on the pirates. I haven't decided yet whether I buy this game. In all fariness, it looks like a great game and I'd love it if Steam were optional. But if it isn't, I'll either not play it, or I'll buy it just to do the moral thing, because it's definitely not the version I'll be playing.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Well, steamworks will be a mac version so because it's a key part of Civ V than it should speed it the process

The Mac version of Steam is supposed to be out tomorrow (12th of May), rumor has it. I'm not so sure there will be an OS X version soon -- what makes me nervous is this talk about rewriting the graphics system from scratch, which would be hard to port if they didn't have the foresight to making it flexible enough to get away from DirectX-only.

However, once Steam is on the Mac and Civ V is on Steam, Firaxis will find themselves confronted with a small but loud and very vocal group demanding the obvious: Civ V for the Mac. In fact, the common reaction will be something like: Hey, where's my Mac version?

A drawback of Steamworks, if you will: It leads to certain expectations in your customers.

 

[Gliese 581]

Well as CivilizedTiger talked about, DRM does little against piracy the way I see it, I think it can even encourage piracy in some cases though I do think it increases initial sales when a game is not immediately cracked so it does have that benefit.
I can't remember the last time I played a game I bought out of the box without using a downloaded crack to simplify the whole process, that's saying something about screwing with the customer. I even have games that I haven't even opened the box because I want to pay for them but I don't want to bother with registering and such.
I think many players like me just want easy and fast access to games with nothing else tagged on, no starting other applications, going online, watching unskippable ingame logotypes at startup and so on (I always try to remove these), we just want to start the game and play with a minimum of fuss! Sadly I await the time when someone will enable commercials during our dreams and make them mandatory (bound to happen if it was possible).

With that said though it seems to me that Steam is not the worst end of the stick, I would prefer if civ5 didn't use it but it's not going to stop me from buying and enjoying the game.

 

[Chalks]

The Mac version of Steam is supposed to be out tomorrow (12th of May), rumor has it. I'm not so sure there will be an OS X version soon -- what makes me nervous is this talk about rewriting the graphics system from scratch, which would be hard to port if they didn't have the foresight to making it flexible enough to get away from DirectX-only.

Is there no standardised way to do this yet? I mean, since basically all PC games are DirectX, every time someone has to port something to a Mac they must have to go through the exact same thing to convert their DirectX specific code to Mac compatible code.

Surely someone could write a wrapper or something? It seems crazy that people are having to manually re-write the same code every time they do a port.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Surely someone could write a wrapper or something? It seems crazy that people are having to manually re-write the same code every time they do a port.

If I understand it correctly, that is exactly what Valve has done internally with their development system. There was something about checking in code that is then immediately compiled for Windows and OS X. I'm not sure if this is something they offer as part of their Steamworks services to other companies (and if yes, I'll be very, very cross at Firaxis for not using it). Blizzard has been making Mac games for so long -- all the way back to OS 9 -- that I'm sure they have something similar set up.

EDIT: (Oops, saved to quickly) I don't think Firaxis is big enough to have a system like that, or they hadn't given Mac versions serious thought yet.

 

[-Perceval-]

Fan's reaction after CA annouced that empire total war will be on steam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjnc4jqWa_w

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