Civ5 - shipping with Steamworks * plus Digital Deluxe Edition

[2K Elizabeth]

I don't think your evil. I think you made a serious mistake dropping the Steam bomb on us without being prepared to address the obvious concerns it would raise. Now days later there is still no definitive info. You make it sound like you are holding back info we seek so you can release it in some flash bang package to dazzle us with its pretties. Well, at this point, I'd think getting solid info to the fans would be of the highest priority. You've got goodwill harming discussions occurring across all the fan sites. Not good. The time of taking your time to release a dazzle package is over. Save that for the things we don't yet know. But the cats out of the bag as relates to Steam. Time for dry info and hard data to appease our concerns... if you seek to placate the detractors alarm anyway.

Most Steam questions I can answer. Anything that I haven't is likely not finalized yet - but if I've missed anything, let me know, I'll get you an answer.

 

[2K Elizabeth]

Ah ..you work in marketing AND customer service ? I begin to understand how you came to the conclusions about steam being "in our best interest" that you did.

FYI You've got a huge conflict of interest there...and no credibility what so ever.

I respectfully disagree with you there, but actions are going to speak louder than words on that front. I hope I gain your trust.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I have civ3 and every time i capture an AI city, all other cities drop to rumble and the AI setups one capital somewhere else...
is this suppose to happen or is something wrong with the game?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=15

Try the Civ III forums, it's been so long since I played that version, I forget what's going on. Sorry.

 

[Nick Danger]

...but actions are going to speak louder than words on that front...

That's my mantra, and you're misusing it, for it proves the opposite of what you're claiming:

2K's words are 'we'll enjoy steam's benefits'.

2K's actions are to force steam upon everyone -- not just those who want it (and they have that right and I'm glad they're able to get it) but also those who don't want it (and they have an equally valid right to that).

2k's actions belie their words, which tells us what 2K truly believes -- that giving us the choice is not in their perceived best interest (else they'd do that as it'd be a PR bonus and not the current PR brouhaha).

Truth is that 2k believes that forcing steam and making a number of long-time customers unhappy will be a net $ gain, so 2k is ok with that. Instead of admitting this they're blowing smoke up our keisters with insulting pr double-speak.

Civ has progressed from being handled by gamers to being handled by suits who put $ first and foremost. Such is the way of things -- most/many successful games/businesses end up like this.

2K Elizabeth is just doing her job, and it's not personal from her or towards her, as we're all just doing our job as employees/customers by letting each other know how we feel.

 

[Shotgunbadger]

Eh it's kinda lame that the special version is one of the most iconic cultures, but honestly it's no biggie, it's still the price of a console game to get the fancy version and it comes with a map too.

Steam is great, you can organize all your games and it's honestly like having a gamestop right in your house, I can't remember the last time I made a trip to a game store since getting it really. It's entirely hassle free, seriously, you just click 'install', it downloads, and then once you boot up you'll most likely have to put in a serial key or something like any other game, then boom, you're in game. Along with that it has an IM and friend list right in it you access with just shiftkey+tab, so you and your friends can chat as you play, or just chat period.

Steam is great and it's great to see Civ 5 using it as a strong resource it should be.

 

[Shotgunbadger]

Oh hey the special edition also comes with a sound track, that's pretty awesome too, worth an extra ten bucks.

 

[CrazyStreetBum]

Steam is great and it's great to see Civ 5 using it as a strong resource it should be.

I saw this post and registered strictly to agree with it. I'm glad SOMEONE here doesn't have their head shoved far enough inside their rectum to become a human Klein bottle.

I currently own 82 games on Steam. I have reinstalled Windows multiple times (whether due to upgrade or hard drive failure), I have uninstalled and reinstalled specific games multiple times, and I have even replaced my system's motherboard multiple times. Not ONCE has Steam complained and required me to reactivate anything. (I did have to re-enter the CD-key occasionally with a few titles that used Games for Windows Live, but it was only GFW Live that prompted and not Steam.)

In exchange for having to run a platform that takes up as much memory as uTorrent, I get constant updates (which I can disable on a per-game basis if I prefer), I don't have to keep track of my discs and CD-keys (which I'm terrible at), and I get plenty of discounts for really good games I never would have tried otherwise.

I've seen firsthand that Valve actually puts effort into not screwing over its customers. For those who've ever played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I offer this thread as an example. OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) is a popular third-party tool for the game that allows for greater scripting functionality in addons, but did not originally work with the Steam version. Rather than just go "OBSE is a third-party program that we cannot support" like most places would, they patched the Steam version so that it would work, and provided code to the developer of OBSE that explained exactly where to hook the DLL into.

The fact is, I'm far more comfortable with Civilization 5 being in the hands of Valve than, say, Activision or Ubisoft. None of the whining about Steam has yet to demonstrate any connection to reality or recorded history (the first few months of the service exempted, which I admit had several flaws), and unless things radically change I doubt it ever will.

 

[mamba]

Sorry if my question has already been raised earlier, but I'm at work and can't read through the whole thread...

I'm concerned about the possibility of having extra civs, etc. available only if one pays. Isn't that going to have an effect on Games of the Month? And multiplayer gaming? Doesn't that pretty much force players who want the most complete version for social gaming purposes to have to purchase them?

How is this different from buying expansion packs, other than that the content and price are reduced ?

But now I'm very concerned about what effect this will have on the gaming community - and what would be the fate of mods? (And is there a reason why my favorite mod, Fall from Heaven, is being created as a standalone instead of as a mod?)

from what has been said so far it should be the most moddable Civ so far and mods can be downloaded from a central server or still be hosted on CFC as they are now.

 

[mamba]

Here's how your registry is going to look if you for some reason (like me) decide that you don't want Steam anymore. I tried the HL2 demo when I bought my computer 5 years ago, without knowing what Steam was. As you can see, it affects me every day, even though I unintalled it 4-5 years ago.

While I agree they should do a better job of cleaning up the registry this in no way 'affects you every day'. How does it do so, other than by occupying about 200 bytes on your HD ?

There are a lot of irrational arguments out here right now, scaring people who just do not know anything about Steam or what it does or does not do. I am all for people making informed choices, but this is becoming very much the opposite if that.

 

[Shotgunbadger]

Pretty much DLC is exactly like expansions but small scale and cheaper. If you look on Steam now you'll see a game called Empire Total War, I imagine it'll be like that, they have DLC for specific units for the assorted armies and all, and each pack has a bunch of units, so I imagine for us it'll be a few Civs in one pack, maybe with a map or two that fits with the cultures.

This is pretty much people who have no idea what Steam is saying it will be the doom of us.

 

[2K Elizabeth]

That's my mantra, and you're misusing it, for it proves the opposite of what you're claiming:

2K's words are 'we'll enjoy steam's benefits'.

2K's actions are to force steam upon everyone -- not just those who want it (and they have that right and I'm glad they're able to get it) but also those who don't want it (and they have an equally valid right to that).

2k's actions belie their words, which tells us what 2K truly believes -- that giving us the choice is not in their perceived best interest (else they'd do that as it'd be a PR bonus and not the current PR brouhaha).

Truth is that 2k believes that forcing steam and making a number of long-time customers unhappy will be a net $ gain, so 2k is ok with that. Instead of admitting this they're blowing smoke up our keisters with insulting pr double-speak.

Civ has progressed from being handled by gamers to being handled by suits who put $ first and foremost. Such is the way of things -- most/many successful games/businesses end up like this.

2K Elizabeth is just doing her job, and it's not personal from her or towards her, as we're all just doing our job as employees/customers by letting each other know how we feel.

Personally, I love Steam, but as someone who talks to a lot of gamers, I know that some people love Steam and others vehemently dislike it.

The reality of development is that we can't compile multiple games - that won't ever be the best solution. Saying that is an oversimplification of the situation, of course, but I'm saying it because when you say that 2K doesn't care about consumers, or 2K is forcing anything upon someone, that's really not the case and personally, I want to stand up and say that to you. But unfortunately, we can't poll each of you and make a personalized version with only the features you want, so instead we are working to find out what people want and craft a good solution to cover everyone and hopefully, for those who don't want some of those features, they are lightweight enough to be ignored.

People's qualms with Steam also vary, so your experience will differ. And whether you believe me or not, it's still important for me to say that we're not interested in purposefully making anyone angry. We're here to make a kickass game all of you will go nuts for.

 

[arstal]

Well, I just tried to TF2 right now. Game was bricked by Steam due to the servers being too busy.

It can happen, and when it does, poof there goes your games for a while.

 

[Shotgunbadger]

Well, I just tried to TF2 right now. Game was bricked by Steam due to the servers being too busy.

It can happen, and when it does, poof there goes your games for a while.

It happens very rarely and for a short time, it's like saying all games suck because your power can die.

 

[Rub'Rum]

It can happen, and when it does, poof there goes your games for a while.

Your *online* games. Not Civ V.

 

[Nekator]

It happens very rarely and for a short time, it's like saying all games suck because your power can die.

Badger.. is it possible, that your acc here is only to post a Pro Steam "info" after the next? I honestly doubt the credibility of people like you or even more this "CrazyStreetBum" who calls everyone ******ed and more crap.. but strongly agrees with you. Strange Coincidence



@2K Elizabeth i haven´t seen any response from you to the DLC problematic, that you simply cut out a civ and try to make extra bucks of it.. ok, i understand you propably can´t just simply say "yeah it´s true our Deluxe Edition is just a rip off", but what´s more interesting for me and i´ve asked already once- how modable will Civ 5 really be?

If it will be quite easy to make your own civs, the deluxe thing won´t be a great sell for you, so i guess it won´t be that easy (i think i can remember some interviews with Shafer, who already stated such) and to be honest, a Civilization game, which can´t even have modded Civs is crap imo (especially after the great modability of Civ IV) and i definitley wont buy it.

 

[da_Vinci]

Been sproadically following this thread (may have missed parts of it), and I am someone who has never used Steam or D2D. To paraphrase Sam Ervin (for the "who is that?" crowd ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Ervin) "I am just a simple country computer user" ... (which also says something about my age).

My fundamental question is this: The current variations of Civ IV allow me to purchase a disk, install, an play Civ oblivious to Steam, D2D or even the internet, for that matter. Others can get it via these other means. As far as I can tell, that worked pretty well (am I wrong?)

So why then mess with success, and distribute Civ 5 exclusively via Steam? What is the PROBLEM with doing it the way it was done for Civ IV?

On a different note ... I hope any autoupdate feature of Steam can be disabled, since the GOTM and SGOTM game series depend on using versions of the HOF mod that are patch-specific, and pitboss games make the timing of patching rather interesting. I have had dual and triple installs of civ at one time to accomdate multiple patch versions at once. Is an uncontrollable Steam auto-update going to throw a grenade into these CFC icons?

dV

 

[TorontoHenry]

Personally, I love Steam, but as someone who talks to a lot of gamers, I know that some people love Steam and others vehemently dislike it.

The reality of development is that we can't compile multiple games - that won't ever be the best solution. Saying that is an oversimplification of the situation, of course, but I'm saying it because when you say that 2K doesn't care about consumers, or 2K is forcing anything upon someone, that's really not the case and personally, I want to stand up and say that to you. But unfortunately, we can't poll each of you and make a personalized version with only the features you want, so instead we are working to find out what people want and craft a good solution to cover everyone and hopefully, for those who don't want some of those features, they are lightweight enough to be ignored.

People's qualms with Steam also vary, so your experience will differ. And whether you believe me or not, it's still important for me to say that we're not interested in purposefully making anyone angry. We're here to make a kickass game all of you will go nuts for.

Elizabeth, if we agree that some people love Steam, but others hate Steam, then why did TakeTwo decide to make Steam mandatory? I understand that extra development effort might be required to maintain a -Steam and a non-Steam version, but surely that cost is negligible compared to the cost of alienating the fans who can't stand Steam, and will refuse to purchase Civ 5 if there's no choice but to accept it?

 

[mamba]

My fundamental question is this: The current variations of Civ IV allow me to purchase a disk, install, an play Civ oblivious to Steam, D2D or even the internet, for that matter. Others can get it via these other means. As far as I can tell, that worked pretty well (am I wrong?)

So why then mess with success, and distribute Civ 5 exclusively via Steam? What is the PROBLEM with doing it the way it was done for Civ IV?

It is NOT exclusively distributed by Steam, you can buy a DVD in stores just like for Civ 4. It DOES use the Steamworks toolset for registering online and multiplayer however.

On a different note ... I hope any autoupdate feature of Steam can be disabled, since the GOTM and SGOTM game series depend on using versions of the HOF mod that are patch-specific, and pitboss games make the timing of patching rather interesting. I have had dual and triple installs of civ at one time to accomdate multiple patch versions at once. Is an uncontrollable Steam auto-update going to throw a grenade into these CFC icons?

You can prevent auto-updates afaik (i.e. read on this thread), I doubt you can have multiple installs for different patchlevels however.

 

[da_Vinci]

It is NOT exclusively distributed by Steam, you can buy a DVD in stores just like for Civ 4. It DOES use the Steamworks toolset for registering online and multiplayer however.

OK, thanks for the clarification, clearly I misunderstood the issue ... somewhat.

So my high school buddy from way back and I play some Civ IV cross country one night a week ... we use the direct IP connection to link up (no gamespy or other lobby method). It is nice and simple. Is that not going to be possible for Civ V?

Then there is pitboss, the way we turn multiplayer into a turn based game. Also connecting via direct IP, no lobby involved. Will that be impossible for Civ V?

You can prevent auto-updates afaik (i.e. read on this thread), I doubt you can have multiple installs for different patchlevels however.

Hmm ... could be problematic for the SGOTM series, as those games take about 4 months to finish. Pitboss games often last a year or more, but some common patch date can solve that problem, provided you are in only one game, of course.

dV

 

[Sub]

So why then mess with success, and distribute Civ 5 exclusively via Steam? What is the PROBLEM with doing it the way it was done for Civ IV?

Presumably, Take Two is going this route because Steamworks:

- offers anti-piracy features. It'll still be pirated, but the pirated version will be delayed for a day or two. Most game sales happen within the first week so the longer you can delay your game getting pirated, the better it is for your sales
- ensures that 99% of the users are all on the same version of the game (Having a lot of different versions makes game support a nightmare),
- provides real time sales data. What company wouldn't want to know the exact amount of units sold at any given time?
- helps fix bugs. When your game crashes, relevant information is sent back to Take Two which is a great help when attempting to fix a bug
- offers a platform to launch dlc, which is something take two intends to use, judging from their preorder map/babylon bonus
- offers multiplayer features (ie: matchingmaking, a server browser [steam's server browser is by far the best that I've used], multiplayer voice chat)
- makes it easy for them to implement achievements

It does all of this at no monetary cost. They may lose a few customers, but from a business point of view, it's probably worth it just based on the money they'll make from selling dlc alone / not having to pay licensing fees to securom or whoever / not having to spend money developing those features themselves.

There are also a lot of positives from the consumers point of view, so it's a give and take situation really.

On a different note ... I hope any autoupdate feature of Steam can be disabled

You can turn the autoupdates off with two or three mouse clicks.