Steam Pros, Cons & FAQ.[Please try not to start a discussion]

[NovaSilisko]

First off, I'm sorry if there's already a thread on this. I was not able to find one. If there was already, just delete this one and we'll forget about it.

I just want to try to point out a few misconceptions that I keep seeing regarding Steam.

1. Do I need an internet connection to install Civ 5 with Steam?
-Yes. A one time activation menu will pop up during the installation, asking you to enter your serial number, which will then be verified online. After this you can start Steam in 'Offline Mode', which as the name suggests, does not require an internet connection.

2. Does offline mode prevent multiplayer/LAN play?
-As far as I am aware, no. As the game is not released, I cannot say for certain. But I do believe that you will be able to start steam in offline mode on two separate computers, after installing it on the second, and play LAN via that. If you're going for an internet game, based on examples I've seen, Offline mode should not prevent this. It does for games made by Valve, but only because they're made directly and fully for multiplayer.

3. Does steam need to verify my game every time I play?
-If you run in Online mode, it periodically will. Otherwise no, excluding the time at installation of course.

However, there ARE disadvantages.

1. Patches are only available through steam, and offline mode prevents them from downloading.

2. Your account CAN be stolen by someone determined, but this is true of anything you can make an account for.

Possible cons to some:

1. Steam is required to run in the background, even when offline. On average it doesn't use too much memory, but sometimes it will randomly go up to hundreds of MB of memory used.

2. You have to accept the Steam/Valve EULA - and that valve has the right to deactivate your account if they see a reason. Please note that this is very rare however.

3. DLC. You all probably know of this by now.

4. Steam starts with your computer after you install it. However, this can be disabled easily. In the Steam settings menu, under the "Interface" tab, simply untick the "Run Steam when my computer starts" box. No more steam autostart.

As is said in the thread title, please try not to discuss steam. There's already a few threads for that, I just want to give out some facts.

 

[The_Coyote]

one additional disadvantage - but only if a game forces Steam

4. you have to accept the "subscriber agreement" (incl. the privacy policy) of Steam / Valve incl. all future changes of them to play the game

[if you add it to your list, perhaps you could formulate it a bit more neutral if i lacked the ability to do this myself]

 

[Nick Danger]

1. Do I need an internet connection to install Civ 5 with Steam?
-Yes. A one time activation menu will pop up during the installation, asking you to enter your serial number, which will then be verified online. After this you can start Steam in 'Offline Mode', which as the name suggests, does not require an internet connection.

While not requiring being online, steam will apparently be required to run in the background even if playing a single-player game offline, in steam offline mode.

To some that's not a negative, to others it is.

 

[Dale]

DLC can be a positive too as it allows the player to expand on the original content with new things.

 

[NovaSilisko]

Added some more stuff to the first post.

 

[CivFanMUC]

Con: You need to be online to activate offline-mode.


Question: If you forget to do so, or if your internet-connection breaks for some reason - how is one able to play?

 

[OSLOW]

wow it's been a while since I last posted here.this steam thing seems to have a few ppl in an uproar about it, i'm not sure what steam is or how it's used for civ and so far it seem all we have to go on is pure speclation about it ,, cus well we just dont have all the facts yet from 2K yet .untill they tell us or give us more info about the game I see steam as as just a place to buy it on line. the one thing i hope this does not turn into is someone thinking that we the civ playing commuity will be turned into cashcows.with that said i'll say one more thing ,I for one WILL be going down to the store and buying my copy of civ5 if i need steam i'll get it hooked.

thank you
oslow/ boogie man

 

[Nictel]

Pro

You can make a friendslist of all people who play Civ5
You can add friends and see who is online/what they are playing. Giving you the ability to drop in to a game your friends are playing.

Lag and sync issues should lessen
Depending how it is set-up; peer2peer or separate servers some of the issues GameSpy caused should be gone or at least lessen with Steam.

Setting up multiplayer games is easier
See above points.

Question: If you forget to do so, or if your internet-connection breaks for some reason - how is one able to play?

You need to be online to download it so after downloading you can immediately set it to offline mode. (Or you can download it somewhere else and move the files over. In that case you need to log in afterwards to verify the files.)

If you permanently lose you internet connection between installing and setting it to offline mode and have no access to internet what so ever then yes you have a problem and will not be able to play. But that would imply that nobody has internet in your neighbourhood and that is a far bigger problem.
So it is a possibility but a VERY unlikely scenario. You only need like 2 minutes of internet connection to switch to offline mode. That shouldn't be a problem for anyone, even those on ancient 56k lines.

 

[Chalks]

Con: You need to be online to activate offline-mode.

That's untrue. Obviously.

If steam is unable to connect to the net it says "Would you like to start in offline mode?".

It would kinda suck if the only time that you couldn't run it in offline mode was when you were offline.

While not requiring being online, steam will apparently be required to run in the background even if playing a single-player game offline, in steam offline mode.

To some that's not a negative, to others it is.

Steamworks is the fundamental framework that the game is built on. You can't run the game without it. It is not just some system tray application, it is a game platform that significant parts of Civ 5 runs in. Playing it in offline mode still requires the foundations of the game to be there.

It is a common misconception that the little system tray app is just some sort of stand alone launcher for games that does nothing. It's actually just the visible part of an extensive game API.

 

[Nictel]

That's untrue. Obviously.

If steam is unable to connect to the net it says "Would you like to start in offline mode?".

I dunno about you but when I start without a connection it says: "Couldn't start Steam because a connection to the server could not be made."....?

 

[Chalks]

I dunno about you but when I start without a connection it says: "Couldn't start Steam because a connection to the server could not be made."....?

Ah, you need to save your log-in details and successfully log in once. There is an option in the system to disable the saving of log-in details, but it warns you that doing this will disable offline mode.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The single biggest advantage of Steam is the fact you get unlimited activations.

The single biggest disadvantage of Steam is that you are reliant on Valve and its Steam client to be able to play the games you "own" (i.e. the games you are licensed to play). If for some reason Steam is no longer supported one day, it is possible you won't be able to play some of your games. Valve are under no contractual obligation to maintain Steam forever.

 

[Chalks]

The single biggest advantage of Steam is the fact you get unlimited activations.

The single biggest disadvantage of Steam is that you are reliant on Valve and its Steam client to be able to play the games you "own" (i.e. the games you are licensed to play). If for some reason Steam is no longer supported one day, it is possible you won't be able to play some of your games. Valve are under no contractual obligation to maintain Steam forever.

They have officially said that if they stop supporting any games, they will unlock them for unlimited use without verification.

This is an extremely unlikely scenario, but they have no reason to do otherwise.

 

[eireksten]

@NovaSilisko: Perhaps you could update the OP with things mentioned in the thread?

Question: If you forget to do so, or if your internet-connection breaks for some reason - how is one able to play?

If you permanently lose you internet connection between installing and setting it to offline mode and have no access to internet what so ever then yes you have a problem and will not be able to play. But that would imply that nobody has internet in your neighbourhood and that is a far bigger problem.
So it is a possibility but a VERY unlikely scenario. You only need like 2 minutes of internet connection to switch to offline mode. That shouldn't be a problem for anyone, even those on ancient 56k lines.

As long as you manage to download the updates for the client (which don't take long, see this thread, you will be able to go offline. I you lose connection while not running Steam, it allows you to go offline at startup.

If you lose your connection while playing a game, nothing really happens (except you lose online functionality of course, as any game would).

 

[ddd123]

Pro

You can make a friendslist of all people who play Civ5
You can add friends and see who is online/what they are playing. Giving you the ability to drop in to a game your friends are playing.

this happened even in the ******** that was gamespy first edition
but another similar point is important to note imo

the chance to have access to ALL the civ players
while on the past versions it was up to the player to subscribe to some online system and log there now there will be all players available

surely some of them wont play but on average its more likely to increse the population of them

 

[PieceOfMind]

They have officially said that if they stop supporting any games, they will unlock them for unlimited use without verification.

This is an extremely unlikely scenario, but they have no reason to do otherwise.

Promises can be broken, especially when the person who made them despite their best intentions is unable to fulfill them.

I agree it's a very unlikely scenario, but so are lots of things that people insure against. Some people prefer to be prepared for the worst.

 

[Chalks]

Promises can be broken, especially when the person who made them despite their best intentions is unable to fulfill them.

I agree it's a very unlikely scenario, but so are lots of things that people insure against. Some people prefer to be prepared for the worst.

It's an unlikely scenario that is only really relevant if another unlikely scenario happens.

You've probably got other more likely things to worry about with worse consequences - for the same reason you don't worry about getting struck by lightening when you leave the house.

 

[eireksten]

I was thinking of starting a thread like this myself, but now that it's here, I might as well just come with my suggestions. Hopefully the OP can update his post My Pro, Con and Myth list:

Pros

• You can download the game an unlimited amount of times from Steam. Meaning you don't have to worry about backing up the game files whenever you get a new computer, are reinstalling your OS or simply for some reason want to delete the game for a while.
• Steam works as a DRM, effectively removing the need to add other DRM to the game.
• Steam handles updating and patching of your game.
• Bug Reporting. Bugs and crashes can quickly be reported to the developers. This allows them to get more information about the problems with the game, and hopefully also release patches/updates faster to fix it.
• Steam is under constant development. Bugs and other issues with Steam can be reported to Valve and hopefully fixed. We might also see general improvement in the general online framework Steam provides.
• Everyone will in theory be connected to the same online community through the game. This will hopefully make it easier to distribute mods and to find games online.
• Steamworks provides a framework for a lot online functionality for the game.
  • Access to the Steam Community, for achievements, leaderboards, profiles, avatars, friends lists, text chat, voice chat and forums.
  • Framework for Downloadable Content (DLC), both free and (lacking a better word) non-free.
  • Multiplayer matchmaking. Play with other players around your level.
  • Cheat Detection. Cheaters are banned from dedicated servers (that are connected to the anti-cheating.
  • Access from any computer. As long as you've got your account information, you can play the game from any computer (not at the same time, of course). You can also save your games in the Steam cloud, thus having access to your save from any computer as well.
  While many of these things could potentially be developed in-house (by Firaxis), making use of Steamworks lets them spend their resources on other parts of the game. As these modules have already been tested and improved through the use in several other games, it is likely to be more reliable.

Cons

• You need a Steam account to play your game, and therefore also need to accept Steams end user license agreement (EULA).
• You need to download the Steam client (1.5MB) and update it (a little more) to be able to play your game. I guess the client might be distributed with retail versions of the game, but it still needs to be updated during installation.
• The Steam Client needs to be running whenever you play a Steam game. It could be in offline mode, of course, but will still require about 10MB memory resources.
• In order to activate or update the game, you need to go online.
• As civ is requiring Steam, you are forced into somewhat supporting a third party company (Valve) in order to play the game.
• You can only be online with your account with one computer at a time. This means that if several in your family/household wants to play the game at different computers at the same time, you need more licenses. The exception is if everyone (or all but one) are offline.
• Steam provides DRM. Unless you already realized it, the above works as DRM. Yes, 2K are not distributing Civ5 DRM-free, if you were hoping for that.
• I think I've read about some issues where Steam wouldn't allow offline play until the client was properly updated. That is, the last time it was online it found an update, but didn't get to download it (because you closed the app first). Haven't experienced this myself, though. If this is a problem, I'm sure Valve are getting loads of complaints about it and are working on a fix.
• If Valve goes bankrupt or otherwise decides so, they will no longer support the game through the application. They have said that they'll unlock all games that will no longer be supported. As long as they don't break their word on this, we will be safe.

Myths

• You need to be online in order to play the game - Wrong. You only need to be online during installation, activation and when updating. Unless the publisher (2K) requires so, you'll then be able to play while offline.
• You need to be online in order to start Steam. - Wrong. If you're not online, Steam asks whether you want to go offline or try again. Unless of course Steam was already set to offline mode the last time you used it.
• Losing connection throws you out of the game - Wrong. I've tested, and nothing really happens.
• You'll be stuck with lots of Steam ads. - Wrong. You can disable the ads, and won't even need to open the Steam client UI in order to play. Anyhow, you can also easily set your homepage to the games library (as opposed to the store).
• Steam and Steamworks is extremely buggy and have loads of problems - At least partially wrong. While you'll find lots of threads about problems with Steam around the web, most of these have already been fixed. Steam has improved a whole lot lately, and is continuing to improve. As any other program you can probably find something that isn't perfect, but all in all Steam is pretty reliable. Also, Valve is continually developing and improving the application. As most of us have already experienced how Civ4 and CivRev worked online, I think we should appreciate that Firaxis are making use of a tested and tried framework for their game.

Unless the OP keeps updating his post, I'm open to suggestions of change to this one. From both sides of the argument of course

 

[CivFanMUC]

Pros[*]You can download the game an unlimited amount of times from Steam. Meaning you don't have to worry about backing up the game files whenever you get a new computer, are reinstalling your OS or simply for some reason want to delete the game for a while.

Same with regular Retail DVD without forced online-activation

Pros[*]Steam works as a DRM, effectively removing the need to add other DRM to the game.

and DRM in general is in which form an advance for us customers? (no need to answer that rhetorical question)

 

[Dale]

Myths

• You need to be online in order to play the game - Wrong. You only need to be online during installation, activation and when updating. Steam can validate your game against local data, and unless you disable this you can play while offline.
• Losing connection throws you out of the game - Wrong. I've tested, and nothing really happens.

These two are dependent on title and publisher. Ubisoft recent games such as Assassin's Creed II and Settlers 7 require constant internet connection, and loss of connection will throw you out of the game.

From the Steam pages for these two games:

Ubisoft requires a permanent Internet connection to play this video game at all times.