Will it be steam based?

[azzaman333]

Probably the most ignorant post I have ever read. Why are so many Civ users so ignorant of Steam? There's this weird stigma amongst the 30-40 year old gamer crowd that they absolutely hate Steam.

Scared of new technology.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

Some of the Steam-fans here are exhibiting a flagrant disrespect for other peoples opinions not to mention a complete disregard for others factual bad experiences with Steam.

This thread contains a group of people stressing the need for Steam to be optional due to their concern/discontent with Steam, be it for reasons of principles, technical or some other. This would leave people with a choice, it's called freedom and it is a good thing.

The Steam-fans however, having had good or even great previous experiences with this third-party software/distribution system appears to wish to impose their solution on everyone else implying that if we don't embrace it we're ******** in one way or another. Needless to say, such an attitude belongs in the trash bin.

 

[Grey2ham]

I actually like steam.
I still prefer to buy boxed copies and buy very little through steam (except the bargains, HoI3 for 6.99? yes please.) However, even my non-steam supported titles are loaded through steam's interface, including my non-steam CIV.
I have boxed copies of Dragon Age, Empire TW (CE), Nap TW (CE), & MW2, but i love the fact that i can launch almost any game i have through steam's interface. Halfway through one of my friends might even message me for a session.
I've had very few problems with steam. The most regular is that steam's servers go offline for maintenance and i'm booted out of a multiplayer game (MW2, TF2, CS). This hasn't happened in any 'offline' game e.g. Dragon Age, only during multiplayer.
I will get a boxed copy of CiV but I hope it is steam supported.

I also like the mini-patch system. My games are auto-updated in small bundles, especially with regards to balancing. This is where I appreciate match data / game data, being recorded. If something is becoming the 'one true way' to win then it can be rebalanced. e.g. the dual wielded remington shotguns in MW2. There was a set-up that made them lethal at mid range, not the intention of the developers but it was discovered and abused by the community. It was relatively quickly patched out.

 

[Chalks]

This thread contains a group of people stressing the need for Steam to be optional due to their concern/discontent with Steam, be it for reasons of principles, technical or some other. This would leave people with a choice, it's called freedom and it is a good thing.

Steam may be optional, but modern DRM will not be. Since pretty much all the complaints about Steam are actually complaints about modern DRM, it makes no sense.

I want to see this game powered by steam rather than powered by some other DRM system which has a very good chance of being significantly worse.

Others apparently don't want Steam because they think the DRM alternative is magical ponies.

 

[HAND]

I want Civ 5 in a box on DVD! Steam only should be optional, not essential.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Steam may be optional, but modern DRM will not be. Since pretty much all the complaints about Steam are actually complaints about modern DRM, it makes no sense.

I don't care about DRM as long as it is not as idiotic as that thing witch Ubisoft is pulling. What I don't like is the idea of having to register to a third party website that markets and sells PC games in order to activate my game.

Standard registration/confirmation at least registers you with the company that made the game, not a third party company that sells games.

It would be like buying a car and than having to register it at your local grocery store in order to get the keys.

 

[cspyr0]

Some of the Steam-fans here are exhibiting a flagrant disrespect for other peoples opinions not to mention a complete disregard for others factual bad experiences with Steam.

This thread contains a group of people stressing the need for Steam to be optional due to their concern/discontent with Steam, be it for reasons of principles, technical or some other. This would leave people with a choice, it's called freedom and it is a good thing.

The Steam-fans however, having had good or even great previous experiences with this third-party software/distribution system appears to wish to impose their solution on everyone else implying that if we don't embrace it we're ******** in one way or another. Needless to say, such an attitude belongs in the trash bin.

I would agree with anyone's decision not to go with Steam if they've burned you in the past. But most of these posts are about misconceptions (if they go under my games won't work, I can't back games up, I'd have to be online all the time to play, can only install on one computer, Steam gives you cancer, etc.). Not only are they just plain wrong, but people keep posting the same ignorant things even when there are corrections in the same thread!

Steam may be optional, but modern DRM will not be. Since pretty much all the complaints about Steam are actually complaints about modern DRM, it makes no sense.

I want to see this game powered by steam rather than powered by some other DRM system which has a very good chance of being significantly worse.

Others apparently don't want Steam because they think the DRM alternative is magical ponies.

Exactly. All the legit complaints about Steam are the same things that other DRM will do, yet your other DRM options won't give you additional features like being able to download the game whenever you want, or auto-patching, or the in-game chat network. Maybe everyone is hanging onto the very small possibility that they will decide to use magical ponies.

 

[Chose]

If you buy from Steam you will be required to connect to Steam. That's built into all Steam games. That is the DRM replacement.

That is still not answering the question of the OP. The question is if it will be required to buy from steam. Some games you may chose to buy from steam, which will result in you having to connect to steam. But you can buy it at a store which in that case you will not be required to connect to steam. Just like it was for Civ 4.

 

[Tamed]

Some of the Steam-fans here are exhibiting a flagrant disrespect for other peoples opinions not to mention a complete disregard for others factual bad experiences with Steam.

Factual experiences YEARS ago. People have no clue what Steam does for gaming now.

 

[deanej]

And Windows has been over its crashing problems for years now, but that doesn't mean that the association is gone!

 

[azzaman333]

Some of the Steam-fans here are exhibiting a flagrant disrespect for other peoples opinions not to mention a complete disregard for others factual bad experiences with Steam.

This thread contains a group of people stressing the need for Steam to be optional due to their concern/discontent with Steam, be it for reasons of principles, technical or some other. This would leave people with a choice, it's called freedom and it is a good thing.

The Steam-fans however, having had good or even great previous experiences with this third-party software/distribution system appears to wish to impose their solution on everyone else implying that if we don't embrace it we're ******** in one way or another. Needless to say, such an attitude belongs in the trash bin.

The reasons for people wanting to not use steam are based on paranoia and misinformation.

I don't care about DRM as long as it is not as idiotic as that thing witch Ubisoft is pulling. What I don't like is the idea of having to register to a third party website that markets and sells PC games in order to activate my game.

Standard registration/confirmation at least registers you with the company that made the game, not a third party company that sells games.

It would be like buying a car and than having to register it at your local grocery store in order to get the keys.

A better analogy would be that you bought the house from someone (Firaxis), who gave the keys to a friend (Valve) who will let you in when it's confirmed you bought it.

Also, for what it's worth, Valve don't just sell games through steam. They've made some damn popular games themselves, including Half Life, Counter Strike Source, Team Fortress 2 and Portal.

I want Civ 5 in a box on DVD! Steam only should be optional, not essential.

You can buy it a box, and steam can still be required.

That is still not answering the question of the OP. The question is if it will be required to buy from steam. Some games you may chose to buy from steam, which will result in you having to connect to steam. But you can buy it at a store which in that case you will not be required to connect to steam. Just like it was for Civ 4.

I have boxed versions of the Orange Box, and Half Life 2 GotY edition, which require steam to be activated. Being able to buy a game in store is irrelevant to whether it requires steam or not.

Having said that, unless other games from 2k are forced to use steam to activate, it would be unlikely Civ5 will require steam.

 

[Greybriar]

The reasons for people wanting to not use steam are based on paranoia and misinformation.

....Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a limited, terminable, non-exclusive license and right to use the Steam Software for your personal use in accordance with this Agreement and the Subscription Terms. The Steam Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Steam Software.....

Software is owned, not licensed

If Steam is required to play Civ5, I won't buy it. I prefer a retail boxed copy that I own without the requirement for an internet connection to play.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Digital distribution methods are bad for people without internet access, but fortunately they are a tiny minority. Like directx is bad for people who want to play their games on windows 3.1. There comes a time when you have to decide whether or not you want to live in a technological stone age or if you want to be able to enjoy the latest stuff. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be that hard for you to acquire a stable internet connection on a system capable of playing the game.

Can we please all stop assuming that not having a good internet connection is simply a "choice" or that it's some part of being "technologically backwards". I'm going to assume right now that it's fairly easy to get a half decent internet connection in pretty much any part of the US (even if that assumption is wrong it doesn't change my point) but in many parts of the world in either more isolated areas or where the number of ISPs available is limited (meaning less competition and ridiculously expensive internet costs), having such a nice usable internet connection is a luxury.

For a game that is primarily single player, it is inexcuseable IMO that it be possible a person trying to install the game completely without internet connection be refused play just because he/she doesn't have internet at the time.
Geez, sometimes even weather or other natural occurences (e.g. lightning storms, flooding, a tree branch falling on your phone line in the backyard) can cause interruptions to internet connections

I'm currently in the process of changing internet providers and I've been told the new connection mightn't be available for 2 to 4 weeks. Funnily enough, this is a good time for me to get some games in. All those games that require internet to install are useless to me at the moment. I can store the 3.19 BtS patch and use it over and over without having to download it each time (I'm not sure if you have to do that with steam or not, after a windows re-install for example).

The addition of steam to the mix means that when you next come to install the game, you don't need to dig out your CD (which you've probably lost) or the CD key (which you've definitely lost) to play again.

I have never lost a CD nor a CD key. I find it extremely difficult to lose a CD key with hard copies of games because it's extremely easy to put the cd key in the box . Sometimes I might temporarily "misplace" a game box but that isn't any more likely than me losing an email or some other thing that has a key in it.
Maybe I'm forunate in this sense because I don't have kids or animals that would somehow destroy a disc, but I doubt that that's the main selling point for many people that go with steam.



For me, one of my biggest issues with using Steam (the only game I use it for is TF2 which I play rarely) is that it takes a long time to start up. Maybe you don't need to launch offline games from steam but I have not tried this obviously because TF2 is internet-only anyway (as far as I understand). If BtS required steam to launch, my modding activities would be so tedious I would probably not mod at all. Maybe steam sucks for modders?

 

[Afforess]

Maybe steam sucks for modders?

Steam actually has a really nice mod distribution system.

As for the internet connection issues, you are acting like you somehow can't turn on steam's "OffLine" mode where you can play all SP games just fine without the internet. This makes your entire post moot.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Steam actually has a really nice mod distribution system.

As for the internet connection issues, you are acting like you somehow can't turn on steam's "OffLine" mode where you can play all SP games just fine without the internet. This makes your entire post moot.

Do they provide the full install of Steam on the game disc? If not, it most certainly does not make my entire point moot.

If steam was on the disc and you could activate the game using steam without being online, how can that possibly be called "online activation"? You are speaking like this "offline" mode magically makes you not require an internet connection to install the game.

As for the "modding distribution system", I'm more concerned about the the modding process itself, not the distribution. civfanatics already gives me a nice enough system for distributing mods.

When you mod, do you do it on a steam-version of Civ4?

 

[Chalks]

In many parts of the world in either more isolated areas or where the number of ISPs available is limited (meaning less competition and ridiculously expensive internet costs), having such a nice usable internet connection is a luxury.

In many parts of the world, having a 3D graphics card is a luxury. Are you going to argue that the game should support software rendering?

In many parts of the world having a computer at all is a luxury! We should make Civilization 5 a board game instead.

The overwhelming majority of the target market have a persistent internet connection. Almost all of those who do not, still have intermittent internet access - more than enough to activate a game online.

The fact is that if you don't have internet access - none at all, even if you wanted it, there is no way you could connect to the net - you are in a minuscule minority of modern gamers.

Whether you like it or not, you ARE living in the past - be it for geographical reasons or what ever. And you are outside of the target demographic of most games which require online activation and it would be ludicrous to think that you are going to have any sway over the direction of a modern game.

 

[cspyr0]

Do they provide the full install of Steam on the game disc? If not, it most certainly does not make my entire point moot.

If steam was on the disc and you could activate the game using steam without being online, how can that possibly be called "online activation"? You are speaking like this "offline" mode magically makes you not require an internet connection to install the game.

There's going to be a Steam version and a non-Steam version - it's what 2k/Take-Two have been doing lately. The non-Steam version is still going to have some crappy DRM like Windows Live that requires an internet connection to activate, though. I would bet copious amounts of money on this.

 

[azzaman333]

If Steam is required to play Civ5, I won't buy it. I prefer a retail boxed copy that I own without the requirement for an internet connection to play.

I would guess that just about every EULA has something similar in it.

And, as I have stated at least 3 times previously in this thread, you don't need an internet connection to play. You only need one to activate the game through steam, after that you can run it in offline mode.

For a game that is primarily single player, it is inexcuseable IMO that it be possible a person trying to install the game completely without internet connection be refused play just because he/she doesn't have internet at the time.
Geez, sometimes even weather or other natural occurences (e.g. lightning storms, flooding, a tree branch falling on your phone line in the backyard) can cause interruptions to internet connections

Steam or not, it's likely to be part of the DRM on the game.

For me, one of my biggest issues with using Steam (the only game I use it for is TF2 which I play rarely) is that it takes a long time to start up. Maybe you don't need to launch offline games from steam but I have not tried this obviously because TF2 is internet-only anyway (as far as I understand). If BtS required steam to launch, my modding activities would be so tedious I would probably not mod at all. Maybe steam sucks for modders?

Steam would still have to launch, but once you launch it (in either online or offline mode) the game is available. Any computer that can run civ4 should be able to leave steam idling in the background.

I would say that steam isn't ideal for modders though.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

I would agree with anyone's decision not to go with Steam if they've burned you in the past. But most of these posts are about misconceptions (if they go under my games won't work, I can't back games up, I'd have to be online all the time to play, can only install on one computer, Steam gives you cancer, etc.). Not only are they just plain wrong, but people keep posting the same ignorant things even when there are corrections in the same thread!

You are quite right cspyr0, it is indeed ignorant not being able to reason. But lumping the ignorant poster(s) you're referring to into the same grouping as the rest of us is not right, nor is turning discourteous as some other posters have.

Take a look at the following quotes. Are they the result of insightful reasoning and good judgement of character or are they just ranging from nonsense to plain insulting?

Why are so many Civ users so ignorant of Steam? There's this weird stigma amongst the 30-40 year old gamer crowd that they absolutely hate Steam.

Scared of new technology.

Factual experiences YEARS ago. People have no clue what Steam does for gaming now.

The reasons for people wanting to not use steam are based on paranoia and misinformation.

To azzaman333; Some posters did provide an substantial description of how well Steam works for them in the beginning of this thread, and I started by saying that I understood and respected the arguments given, but reasonable arguments against Steam and other DRMs can be made as well. When I told about how the release of Empire-Total War turned into a nightmare for a great number of fans/gamers, not only with the installment but also when trying to play the game, and how some of the problems was a direct result of the inclusion of Steam, you responded "then you're doing it wrong" and Badesmofu suggested that I was under some false conceptions as if none of you had actually read what I said. Granted, those installment errors are most probably fixed by now, but I am sure the producers (the CA's) loss of fans/customers is not easily repaired and the story gives a (more than just anecdotal) example of problems that can arise when involving a third party software.

To those of you advocating that DRM is the future and that we are living in the past if we don't succumb to this empirical truth I must emphasise the need to differ between digital distribution, wich most certainly will be one option in the future (any half-decent person within marketing knows the key to great sales lies in making the product easily accessible in as many ways as possible), and DRM as a copy protection wich is not at all working well at the moment and is being abandoned by some of the more clearvisioned actors in the entertainment industry. To create a nuisance for fans and cast suspicion upon 99,9 % of the audience in a futile attempt to prevent what 0,1 % will manage in a couple of hours anyway is not "the future".

I want to see this game powered by steam rather than powered by some other DRM system which has a very good chance of being significantly worse.

And I rather have the flu than the chicken pox, but most of all I'd prefer not to be sick at all. Programs designed to protect the copyright of the producer won't prevent illegal copying, it will only create obstacles for normal usage (again, I do not doubt the value for some with digital distribution).

 

[Greybriar]

I would guess that just about every EULA has something similar in it....

I guess you missed the fact that the "something similar" as you quaintly phrase it is not legal in the United States.