Will it be steam based?

[azzaman333]

How is steam evil?

Also, statistics show a lot of things that aren't necessarily entirely truthful.

 

[Chalks]

Steam is evil

If anyone is interested in why I'm treating some of the anti-steam lobby in this thread as if they are raving lunatics, it's because they keep coming out with crap like that.

In the context of a post that actually attempts to justify the comment then maybe it would be ok, but no, it's just thrown out there. As if it was some sort of undeniable truth that requires no explanation.

It's as if PPQ_Purple thought that his reply would be improved by starting it with an emotive, baseless and hilariously over the top accusation. As if the rest of the post would read better if we all thought about those running steam as cartoon style villains, plotting to overthrow civilization, while stroking a pet cat and laughing manically to themselves.

Here's a thought, go away and come back when your post contains substance.

 

[Senethro]

How is steam evil?

Also, statistics show a lot of things that aren't necessarily entirely truthful.

You're missing the point. PPRQ is being dishonest by not even sharing those statistics that informed him with us.

Or perhaps hes just making them up?

Regardless, anyone who claims to be able to not afford games while being able to afford a PC is lying.

 

[Chalks]

You're missing the point. PPRQ is being dishonest by not even sharing those statistics that informed him with us.

Or perhaps hes just making them up?

Regardless, anyone who claims to be able to not afford games while being able to afford a PC is lying.

This, exactly.

I can count the number of people who can afford a gaming PC and a broadband internet connection but can't fork out for a £30 game on no fingers.

 

[Senethro]

This, exactly.

I can count the number of people who can afford a gaming PC and a broadband internet connection but can't fork out for a £30 game on no fingers.

£30? I can't remember the last time I had to pay more than £25 for a new game. Even then, I can delay gratification for a couple of months and usually pick it up for £15 or less.

Check this place out: coolshop.co.uk . They're apparently a Danish bulk buyer thats just moved into the UK. I got CoD:MW2 for £22 by pre-ordering 4 months early. I'm a little suspicious that somethings not right when they're already offering Bioshock 2 for £18 but I've bought 4 games from them since they began operating last year and haven't been burned yet.

 

[cspyr0]

Civ 5 is going to have DRM. The people arguing for Steam in this thread are arguing for it because they recognise that Steam is the best quality modern DRM they could choose.

You might think you're arguing that Civ 5 should be DRM free by saying "Steam is bad" but you're not. You're just saying Steam in particular is bad. Which just means that if they listen to you, they'll pick some other DRM product and you'll be just as screwed as ever. Except we all will be, because the DRM product will probably be of significantly worse quality with more draconian limitations.

Feel free to hate DRM - but if they choose to have one (and they will), I really pray that they choose Steam.

Same here. I wish everyone could recognize how much better of a system it is so that other companies would feel pressured to mimic it, and we could do away with the more draconian DRMs. Exclusive Steam games are also extremely complicated to pirate; if all games used a Steam-like system then developers wouldn't be running away from PC games or giving us delayed releases.

Digital distribution is just amazing in how it lowers prices. Publishers of older games that wouldn't be inclined to rebox and sell it just say "sure, make this a special and sell it for $5 for a week".

 

[nokmirt]

So what's with the Steam promotion I see in this thread? And why are those of us who don't want Steam being treated like dirt? I see a lot of "answers" that support Steam which are not accurate. The only thing I see that is consistent is that there are some Steam fanboys doing all in their power to sell the idea of Steam.

I don't want Steam. That is my choice. If Civ5 requires Steam in order to install and play as do the last two Total War games, I will not buy it just as I did not buy them.

That's all folks. I'm outa here.

I agree with you completely. I feel I am the one purchasing the game. I should decide whether I want to play online or not, simple as that. If Civ 5 requires steam, I will not buy it, and I will stick to civ 3 and 4.

 

[nokmirt]

And if pirates were able to walk into the office grab the server wheel it out then (yeah this has happen, poor IT guy thought of everything but the good take the damn thing)

Pirates get updates sometimes and I mean sometimes, there games out there that just don't have hackers to ever get updates ever.



Can I point out that no one is saying that this should be Steam only? Were just saying put the tinfoil away.



Okay to all the anti-Steam guys out there lets get this straight right here right now

THERES AN OFFLINE MODE

Thats right kids you only need to turn Steam on once a month thats it

To hell with Steam dude, you should not have to even consider using it at al. Now is civ 5 going to require it? If so, thats just ridiculous! They are going to lose money, and I wonder what the system requirements are going to be to play the new civ. Probably have to seriously upgrade my pc. I am not sure this new civ is worth all this. It does not look all nthat much better, from what I've seen.

 

[nokmirt]

How is steam evil?

Also, statistics show a lot of things that aren't necessarily entirely truthful.

Because it takes away your basic freedom of choice. It is a socialist concept. I am not going to be told I have to have a program to play a game, I just spent 40-50 bucks on. To me it is just not worth it. I do not and will not play civ 5 or any civ online. It is a single player game to me. I have not played multiplayer since call to power 2. It's just not for me. So if I do not play online, I should not need to be online to run the game. Simple as it gets. I am just not into multiplayer never really have been. Not with any video games I play.

Although, I am not sure about Mogul Baseball 2010. It seems the database is online, for my historical players. I am running the demo, and have the boxed set coming in the mail. If it is online I guess I could live with it, but I used to play another baseball game a few years back, like mogul, but it did not require the internet.

I feel the more we are off the internet the better it is for us. Who needs it really, unless you are big into multi player.

 

[wabatt]

I don't think it Will require steam. It will be available on steam for sure though (like civ 4 and civ3). However, none of the others civs have required steam whats make people think ciV will be any diffrent?

 

[Arakhor]

Steam is a socialist concept? That's a new one.

 

[Senethro]

What nokmirt doesn't realise is that hes inviting a program on with everything hes paid anyway. I just happen to think that Steam is one of the less obnoxious DRMs out there.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Gamers who do not have internet access at their house are a minority.

Out of that minority, most of them own a laptop that they can take to an internet cafe or to starbucks, so they would be able to activate just fine. Those who don't, are an even smaller minority.

Out of that even smaller minority, pretty much every single one of them will have a phone line. They can simply plug their computer into the phone line and use a free trial dial up account to activate the game at absolutely no cost. The number of people in this situation who also do not have a phone line is an absolutely minuscule minority.

Of that minuscule minority, most of them will have friends who DO have internet access, so they could take their PC round to borrow their internet access once to activate the game.

And if you can't do that, then you are in such an absolutely minuscule minority that they could not possibly justify anyone changing their development plans to cater for them.

I do not believe you are part of that minuscule minority. I don't think I'm ever going to meet someone who is part of that minority, because it is so tiny and statistically unlikely for me to meet them.

Which of the above categories do you fit into? Because I am very sure that you could activate this game if you just stopped and bothered to read what I was trying to say instead of just skimming and reiterating that you don't consider yourself to be in a minority because you don't like the idea.



That may certainly be true. But that's not what this argument is about. You might think that's what this argument is about, but that's just because you've not been paying any attention.

Civ 5 is going to have DRM. The people arguing for Steam in this thread are arguing for it because they recognise that Steam is the best quality modern DRM they could choose.

You might think you're arguing that Civ 5 should be DRM free by saying "Steam is bad" but you're not. You're just saying Steam in particular is bad. Which just means that if they listen to you, they'll pick some other DRM product and you'll be just as screwed as ever. Except we all will be, because the DRM product will probably be of significantly worse quality with more draconian limitations.

Feel free to hate DRM - but if they choose to have one (and they will), I really pray that they choose Steam.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

You're just saying Steam in particular is bad.

Show me where I said anything to that effect.

I really can't be bothered wasting time arguing this with you. Perhaps you'd like to check the OP again. Here, I'll repeat it for you.

Title: Will it be steam based?
Quote:

I took a quick look around the forum, but didnt find any info.

I just hope from the bottom of my heart that steam will not be required (dropped Empire Total War and will drop SupCom 2 cause of steam requirement).

JOA

You can't accuse me of not paying attention when actually I am the one staying on topic.

As I said IIRC several times already, my position is one that is against it being a steam-only game. I couldn't care less whether steam is available or not as an optional method of distribution. I also don't care whether or not it's the best modern DRM available - it probably is. That doesn't change my opinion of whether it should be steam exclusive.

By the way, just for the heck of an odd analogy, I'd imagine that most "gamers" (whatever your definition is) have a toaster in their household. Does that make it reasonable that a system requirement for playing Civ5 be that your computer can connect (via wire or wireless, it doesn't matter) to your toaster, even only periodically like every month? After all, any person that can afford a gaming PC or a video game can afford a $10 toaster. So gamers who have no toaster in their household and who can't afford a cheap toaster is an extremely tiny minority. Therefore their opinion doesn't matter.

If you are not arguing that Civ 5 should be steam only then I have nothing to disagree with you about.

 

[cspyr0]

As I said IIRC several times already, my position is one that is against it being a steam-only game. I couldn't care less whether steam is available or not as an optional method of distribution. I also don't care whether or not it's the best modern DRM available - it probably is. That doesn't change my opinion of whether it should be steam exclusive.

By the way, just for the heck of an odd analogy, I'd imagine that most "gamers" (whatever your definition is) have a toaster in their household. Does that make it reasonable that a system requirement for playing Civ5 be that your computer can connect (via wire or wireless, it doesn't matter) to your toaster, even only periodically like every month? After all, any person that can afford a gaming PC or a video game can afford a $10 toaster. So gamers who have no toaster in their household and who can't afford a cheap toaster is an extremely tiny minority. Therefore their opinion doesn't matter.

If you are not arguing that Civ 5 should be steam only then I have nothing to disagree with you about.

Maybe he's confused because that's too easy of a question. Yes it will be Steam based, and yes there will be other options. Is anyone actually arguing this? It seems way too obvious to even discuss.

As far as the analogy goes, if the toaster prevented piracy and actually added features (as Steam does), then sure - why not?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Yes it will be Steam based, and yes there will be other options.

Can you clarify what this means exactly? If you call a game steam based, does that imply it requires steam? (i.e. steam running in the background).

I could've sworn it was suggested in this thread that making the game steam-only (including physical distribution of discs where to install the game still requires steam) was a good idea, mainly because Steam is supposedly the least invasive modern DRM available and it is assumed that going without any DRM whatsoever is infeasible.

As far as the analogy goes, if the toaster prevented piracy and actually added features (as Steam does), then sure - why not?

Nice answer.

 

[deanej]

I don't care one iota about the features steam adds at all. Who needs automatic updating for a game that's updated once every six months at best? If I want community, I'll post here at CFC.

I don't see how steam prevents piracy any more than other forms of DRM. Could you explain that?

 

[Fredric Drum]

Look up the copy protection of Assassin's Creed II. It requires you to be online all the time and the game apparently pauses if it loses the connection to the Ubisoft server, see here.

Compared to that, Steam is not intrusive at all, since it only requires one singular verification per install and at least gives you something in return - the ability to play and re-download your game without a disk.

Cheers, LT.

Thank you very much! I was planning to get AC2, but you've saved me that mistake and money. Not that I don't have a permanent Internet connection, but I just don't want to support that junk.

I like Steam generally. Steam games can also run in offline mode, and some don't even require the Steam application to be running (FM09 is like that, just double-click the exe, and the game starts without Steam). And Steam keeps the games for me. My Half-Life 2/CS disk is gone years ago, but it's always there on Steam if I want to play it again, which I do occasionally And I figure that Steam has such a big base of users and clients that if they go bust, they will be bought up and the system kept running. It's a worthwhile concept. Civ 5 will of course only have Steam as an option, not a requirement.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Freedom of choice. Limit the choices, limit the freedom.

Is that so hard to understand?

If the choice is narrowed down to Play CivV only on Steam or don't play CivV, then for me Only I won't play (can't speak for others nor do I want to).

Now if steam is one of Many ways to enjoy/acquire the game then there is no beef. All the rest of this discussion is just rhetoric and oneupmanship.

 

[azzaman333]

Because it takes away your basic freedom of choice. It is a socialist concept. I am not going to be told I have to have a program to play a game, I just spent 40-50 bucks on. To me it is just not worth it. I do not and will not play civ 5 or any civ online. It is a single player game to me. I have not played multiplayer since call to power 2. It's just not for me. So if I do not play online, I should not need to be online to run the game. Simple as it gets. I am just not into multiplayer never really have been. Not with any video games I play.

Although, I am not sure about Mogul Baseball 2010. It seems the database is online, for my historical players. I am running the demo, and have the boxed set coming in the mail. If it is online I guess I could live with it, but I used to play another baseball game a few years back, like mogul, but it did not require the internet.

I feel the more we are off the internet the better it is for us. Who needs it really, unless you are big into multi player.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE ONLINE TO PLAY.

I'm not sure how many times it has been said, but this is getting ridiculous.

Freedom of choice. Limit the choices, limit the freedom.

Is that so hard to understand?

If the choice is narrowed down to Play CivV only on Steam or don't play CivV, then for me Only I won't play (can't speak for others nor do I want to).

Now if steam is one of Many ways to enjoy/acquire the game then there is no beef. All the rest of this discussion is just rhetoric and oneupmanship.

Freedom of choice causes problems. The greater the number of different version of the game there are, the harder it is for Firaxis to make patches, and there's a greater scope for problems.

Freedom of choice is not a legitimate reason for Civ5 to not be hypothetically steam exclusive.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

I don't care one iota about the features steam adds at all. Who needs automatic updating for a game that's updated once every six months at best? If I want community, I'll post here at CFC.

I don't see how steam prevents piracy any more than other forms of DRM. Could you explain that?

While the examples are rare, HL2 took something like 6 months for hackers to get a full working version out to pirate. Other newer games have code build into their exe's and such to simply look for steam, and if your connected to the net, verify your ownership of said game. Problem is, very few games are actually STEAM exclusive beyond Valve's own games. While i stopped my pirating ways, limiting my knowledge of whats avalible, the one thing for SURE STEAM does is keep pirates from playing multiplayer, and conversly, making griefers who crash games instantly reportable and trackable.

Steam is nothing more than a medium in which to organize all your games, including non-steam games. As a gamer who keeps many games installed at one time, knowing all i have to do is launch steam ( or re-open the window) and i can see all my games on my PC at once. All it requires is one desktop icon vs. the hundreds i could have. Steam-based Friends lists are a nice feature if you want to play CIV4 over Direct IP as well. Instead of using the in-game chat, i generally send offers over my friends list while playing with my MP friends.

The problem with this thread is there are the knowedgable, the brass, the fearmongers and the misinformed. As a diehard Steam user, i could go and point out every flaw in every statement made about Steam, but it doesn't matter. People fear change or try to force it (chalks, be more informative and less brass. Your giving steam users a bad name.)

I said it before, STEAM is the least invasive DRM out there. D2D still has outdated concepts of DRM, Stardock has gotten better, but pure Boxed versions are still the worst offenders. I wont buy a DRM'd game after the whole Securom debacle, and i still wont even if the Steam version has the same DRM. *see bioshock2 and Assassins Creed2.

I wont be returning to this topic, but if anyone has questions about how STEAM works, please PM. I am always happy to inform and bust myths made by the ill-informed.