Wouldn't having the Hard Copy be better for modders?

[Kruelgor]

Don't you think having the hard copy of the disks would be more beneficial for those who are going to do modding?

It seems like the digital download versions could prove to be somewhat of a hinderance during those times of altering files and file transfers. Say if you need to retrieve a file or something from the disks then that could be a little tough or at least take a very long time to get from the download.

Yeah, I think I'll pick up the hard copy at the local walmart or something.

 

[Zelig]

I don't expect it would make any difference - there will probably be something like the customassets folder in civ4, so you very rarely need to alter the original files.

 

[hunhau]

I'm not familiar at all with modding in Civ, so I don't really know what you mean exactly with "altering files and file transfers", but Steam can "rollback" to a "stable copy" of the game if you alter something and you screwed up somehow.

The thing about hard copies and Steam is that if/when the game is patched, the hard copy well be less useful to retrieve game files, unless you plan to run offline all the time.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

First cardinal rule of modding: always back up the files you're editing.

If you do that, you don't have an issue.

 

[Ahriman]

I think though that the point is you might want to make an entire backup of Civ5 (or of the SDK and XML files anyway), because of Steam's irritating auto-patching feature might over-write stuff.

But this is easy enough to do with a downloaded version.

 

[hunhau]

You can also configure Steam not to update the game automatically, and if you're working on a mod you probably want to do regardless of whether or not you have the physical copy. You right click the game on Steam, go to Properties -> Updates -> "Do not automatically update this game".

 

[Ahriman]

That doesn't actually seem to work for all games on Steam. I've seen people complain of auto-patching even when they had this option selected.

 

[hunhau]

Yeah, Steam can have a mind of its own sometimes... can't hurt to enable it on top of having a backup I guess.

 

[PieceOfMind]

From what I've read, including what 2K Greg said IIRC, basically anytime you launch the game while steam is in online mode it counts as "give the game permission to update itself right now!" regardless of whether auto-patching is on or not. Probably going to be a pain in the rear end for any modder who enjoys the occasional MP game.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Thats what was said, but other posters with steam experience also claimed this to be wrong.
Which either means, that Civ 5 is specifically designed to force updates upon you, or that Greg was misinformed. I hope for the latter, but the former seems more likely (though - why the hell would they do that? ).

 

[kattana]

you all are talking about 2 different things.

auto updating means that as long as the steam client itself is running it will constantly be looking for patches to all games installed, and if given the OK, will patch them without you having to do anything.

when you manually start the game, then it will do what ever it wants, like patch. but that has nothing to do with the auto update function within steam

 

[Terxpahseyton]

But can't you tell Steam to not update at all?

 

[Tridus]

This assumes the files on the disk aren't compressed in some way, and thus harder to get off.

In terms of the updater, all copies behave the same way, no matter where you get them from. They all act like the Steam copy.

 

[Kruelgor]

This assumes the files on the disk aren't compressed in some way, and thus harder to get off.

In terms of the updater, all copies behave the same way, no matter where you get them from. They all act like the Steam copy.

This is true, but if for some strange reason I had to reinstall files it would be a tedious pain in the butt to download that massive file. So much easier just to pop that disk in.

 

[Tylerryan79]

This is true, but if for some strange reason I had to reinstall files it would be a tedious pain in the butt to download that massive file. So much easier just to pop that disk in.

Steam lets you make a back up of your game if you want. So if they release a 0 day patch you can then make a hardcopy of the game, that also includes the 0 day patch, for instance. Then you never have to download that either, only patches after you made your hard copy.

 

[Zhahz]

This is true, but if for some strange reason I had to reinstall files it would be a tedious pain in the butt to download that massive file. So much easier just to pop that disk in.

My Civ 5 DL from Steam took about 45 minutes - not the end of the world. If you catastrophically screw up files while modding that often you should probably come up with a good local backup system for files you're messing with or learn to be less catastrophic mistake prone.

 

[Seven05]

The only thing that will really mess with mods are patches when you have a modified DLL. Since we can't modify the DLL (probably until after the first few patches are released) it's not going to matter very much at all. If you mod the original files in the original locations you deserve whatever wrath Steam's patch process brings down upon you. Consider it part of the learning process

 

[Ahriman]

But can't you tell Steam to not update at all?

Only if you stay in offline mode forever - or only run the game while in offline mode.

Steam is a good way for making patch distribution easier, but its a bad way for letting you handle version control yourself.

So, its great for less tech-savvy users, but not great for savvier users.

 

[alpaca]

Firstly, you shouldn't actually have to overwrite vanilla files. Secondly, steam allows you to "verify your game cache" which means that it'll download any file you corrupted but not all the intact files. So unless the files you change are typically huge packs, this won't be a problem for you.

All things equal, I still like hard-copies a little better, but I generally buy them because they are cheaper. I usually only buy games with steam or something if there's a special offer (steam has these a lot).

 

[Kruelgor]

Cool. Sounds like Steam should not be much of a problem from modders then, but I'm still getting the hard copy. It took me 3 hours to download Napoleon Total War from Steam.