Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

Steam hate.

From what I remember, Fyron, wasn't the MoO2 combat system such that the attacker always got to start? I remember eradicating entire Doom Star fleets with a single Doom Star of my own, simply because I always got to start and had massive amounts of plasma cannons. Guess it might have been fixed/balanced in a patch, as I only played it unpatched.

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

The 1.31 patch added a decent initiative system. This is what I was refering to. The original release did indeed have a crappy combat model. If you ever play MOO2 again, make sure to get the patch.

Of course, you can still abuse it with phased cloak and the temporal device that gives you 2 turns for one... But that's not necessarily an issue with the combat mechanics themselves, more with not thinking about the consequences of these two high end components.

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

I kind of have to disagree here. For example, the whole idea Steam is based upon assumes the entire user base has constant access to high-speed internet. This is one reason I don't like Steam. I'm stuck with dial-up internet, and really don't have a choice about it until I move to a larger population center. Second reason I don't like Steam is the very fact that you don't have a hardcopy. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I like something physical that shows I own the product, something that isn't just on my computer and in someone's database showing that, yes, I'm allowed to own that product. It opens up a host of potential problems, from people hacking into Steam's database to allow whoever they want to download whatever they want, or even simple database errors which could cause Steam to reject whatever I'm trying to legitimately download.

Sorry for the rant about Steam, it's not really the topic this thread it about! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

Or with Valve deciding to ban you, thus locking out access to *all* your Steam based games, with no appeal possible.

Given how often I've been marked as cheating when I'm NOT, that's not a small concern. (one popular anti-cheat method thinks I'm speedhacking any time I get packet loss, for example)

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

I have to agree with you whole-heatedly on the steam issue. I for one will be looking in my local EB for SEV (I hope they will carry it) as I hate steam with a passion, the hate was emphisied when I tried to fire up old copy of Day of Defeat one day and steam in its infinate wisdom tells me its already registered to a steam account... OF COURSE IT IS MY FEAKING STEAM ACCOUNT YOU PIECE OF ****. And this was with having a hard copy, which is another thing that I HATE about steam is even if you get HL2 off the store shelf they make you go through steam to access the freaking game! Anyways im just glad it was a game i didnt care to much for, what if it was a game I forked out 60 hard earned dollars for and I liked?

Say no to steam!

(sorry for the rant)

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

I for one really like steam - I dont have to bother carrying a hard copy around with me, and unlike the lame D2D service which I hope is already dead, with steam you can install on as many comps and redownload as often as you need. Patches are all taken care of, downloads are fast (most games its quicker for me to download than go to town and find the game) and prices are good. Its got an easy interface, doesnt mess me about, and the 'friends' feature is really handy.

As for torrents...cant you just spoof the tracker and upload garbage? How much validation on data can a client perform? Assuming they use a CD image, broken bytes here and there could cripple it. If that were possible, imagine how hard it would be to get SE:V off a torrent if every leagal owner was uploading junk data.

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

Steam does not block access to all your games. If you are caught cheating, your license for THAT GAME ONLY is banned from all VAC secured games. And it's very hard to set off the VAC anti-cheat system. At least from what I read, anyway.

Steam is nifty(for broadband users at least), in that you get automatic patches, and that the anti-cheat system that they use scares cheaters into not cheating. It's not as effective as they say, but the permanent ban serves to scare users into playing the game how it's meant to be played. Not to mention the authentication system hampers pirates that steal games, without invasive software such as Starforce. Just log into your account once, identify yourself as who you are, and then you can go play offline mode without the internet as long as you want.

Some of this stuff may be inaccurate, so feel free to point out inaccuracys. But in my experience, Steam runs flawlessly and gives you a lot of convienent features.

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

I don't see how Steam is any different than invasive software such as Starforce. It's just the implementation that is slightly different.

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

I think Steam works alright as an *addition* to the hard-copy packages, but it should never become a replacement.

Re: SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money?
 

Draxis said:
How much validation on data can a client perform?

Quite a lot, actually. The entire protocol is designed with perfect file transfers in mind, so each piece of the whole is validated with hash checks and such, as is the final copy.

You can't make a CD that will change how a CD image is created unless you use illegal (or at the least, highly immoral) rootkit garbage like Starforce that damages your CD drivers in such a way that it can prevent CD images from being made.