Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

In the United States at least they would not be able to do that. They would need to give you your previously purchased content without the monthly fee. They could start charging a monthly fee, but it would have to apply to new content only. If they tried to do it the way you suggest, they would have a huge lawsuit on their hands.

Back to Mount and Blade...

Where can I ransom captured lords? And I think the most fun I have had in the game so far is recruiting the Peasant girl "Ymira" and turning her into an all out warrior :).

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

Yeah, I actually captured a king (due to participating in a ginormous battle at which I was a bit player), but the ransom broker didn't want anything to do with him, no special options when I talked to my king...even took him back to his country but just got chased around by P.O.'ed dudes. After awhile he just escaped...

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

In some mods you can "ask" captured lords to join your kingdom (that is if you have one) or kill them (1 less army for your enemies) - I really don't know why you'd want to play vanilla if there's 100s of good mods around. In the vanilla game you will eventually be offered ransom money via a messenger.

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

hang on to captured lords/kings for awhile and eventually their 'families will offer to pay you for their release'

that's all there is to it, just have to wait. the message will just pop up as you are wandering around the overland map. they usually pay from 3-6k. also, while talking to other lords they will occasionally offer to take them from you for a lesser amount.

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

Why not? There's plenty of precedence for changing contracts and charging regular fees (certain credit cards being a clear example) and Section 2-209 of the Uniform Commercial Code specifically allows for such amendments. In Steam's case, there wouldn't even need to be a change - section 4B of the Steam Agreement includes the following:

"...Valve reserves the right to change our fees or billing methods at any time and Valve will provide notice of any such change at least thirty (30) days advance. All changes will be posted as amendments to this Agreement or in the Rules of Use and...you are responsible for reviewing the billing section of Steam to obtain timely notice of such changes."

Now whether Valve will go down this route is purely conjecture, I'll agree. But it would be immensely profitable for them (the only downside is deterring new customers, which could be countered by having more "Steam-exclusives") which in the world of business makes it a "when" rather than an "if".

As Mount and Blade has its own online activation system too, this means that it will almost surely die if Taleworlds shuts down also.

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

you need to read up on more economics to go along with your archival knowledge

http://www.investopedia.com/universi...economics4.asp

the service steam provides is very elastic, it isn't essential and can be supplied easily by any number of other existing competitors providing similar services. Therefore, it will never be profitable to levy a subscription fee for a steam account because people will just leave steam.

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

I didn't say they couldn't change their billing scheme. I said they can't hold your purchased content for ransom.

And there is no way it would be profitable. Steam has several near competitors that would be the ones to reap the benefits of such a change. It would take more than just some Steam exclusive content to make people want to pay a monthly fee, it would take A LOT of content, and that content would need to be premium and would be expensive to negotiate exclusive rights to.

What you guys are suggesting sounds less like business and more like evil conspiracy that goes against making profit and more into the realm "Lets screw our customers".

No business is in the business to piss off customers. Or they won't be in business for long.

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

This is not quite true, or at least not the full picture:


http://www.taleworlds.com/salesfaq.aspx

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.p...c,12982.0.html

So, if the activation service dies one day, you could still run M&B indefinitly on those 2 machines you installed it to as long as you don't change the hardware too much - even if Taleworlds goes under so fast that they can't provide the no-activation patch, or even the founder and programmer can't do this "privately" (Would basically require that a meteor hits the programmer and all his code backups, but you never know ...)


That said, the base M&B game is just that - a base game. But there are tons of great mods out there, which could provide you with quite some fun besides doing the "Knight Lance-The-Whole-Lot" thing ;)


PS: Personally, I wouldn't touch Steam with a 20-foot pole ... so no 5 buck M&B for me ..

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

You dont ransom captured Lords. You just hold on to them as your prisoner usually you will want to build a prison tower or something for this so they wont escape as easily and when that faction wants them back they will offer you a ransom for the lord without you seeking out someone to pay for them.

If you want to make it easier to defeat the faction you can turn down their ransom offer so they start to run out of lords to fight against you and you will loose a little bit of honor, not that that matters too much. I usually turn down the offer unless its a hugely generous offer and I need gold.



As for the whole Steam discussion. Thats absurd they could never get away with ransoming things you had already paid for. Regardless of anything they put in their EULA they would be sued and loose.

However... It might would be a good deal for them if they went for an optional subscription based service where you could download and play any game on Steam for a monthly fee while you still maintained the rights to any game you had previously purchased if you subscribed or not. I could actually see that happening.

Re: Steam Sale Dom3 players might like.
 

All capitalization is that of Steam, not mine. All of this is from the Terms of Service that everyone agrees to when they start an account on Steam.