Steam Sale Dom3 players might like. - Page 2

Sombre · #11 February 14th, 2010, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vfb

Oh, flashback! Anyone remember the 'secret decoder disk'? It was a cardboard wheel with holes in it, on top of another disk, and you had to align some runes and find the hidden copy protection code. Maybe in some SSI RPG or something?

All of the golden era D&D pc games had these - Pool of Radiance and its sequels (I forget their titles) - also the Death Knights of Krynn series using the same engine and the Savage frontiers series, also using the same engine.

Don't remember if they were SSI. Anyway they had a 'fun' bit of copy protection, which was asking you for the code not only every time you started the game up, but also during the game - here's an example.

There's a maze in the game which takes ages to navigate. At the end of the maze there is a door which has some symbols on it. You're supposed to use the decoder wheel to work out what the symbols mean (they are in elvish and dwarvish). If you do use the decoder wheel it spells out 'NOKNOK'. If you put anything other than NOKNOK in then you get a bit of descriptive text that a monster comes out from under the door and kills your entire party, then the game deletes your previous save as well. Now I had the codewheel, but the first time I ran into this, I just put 'dunno' because I had saved the game and I couldn't be arsed to bother with the codewheel (it was kind of a pain and I was about to shut down the pc). So yay, the game ****ed my only save up. Yay copy protection.

Ink · #12 February 14th, 2010, 11:37 AM

yeah all golden era (aka early 90 late 80) games used copy protection schemes similar to that.

it was pretty effective before the internet had to ruin everything.

Sombre · #13 February 14th, 2010, 01:05 PM

They also used to ask stuff like 'what's the third word on the second line of the twenty fifth page of the manual?'

But honestly I don't think this form of copy protection was ever effective. Those who would actually copy the games were connected to the 'scene' and knew the workarounds. Even when I was very young there were cracked copies of games being passed around. Nowhere near as prolific, but then games were nowhere near as prolific either. I doubt the actual % has changed.

PsiSoldier · #14 February 14th, 2010, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ink

also, I'd bet M&B is on sale because warband is slated for release next month; its a form of get the old out while you still can and get press for your new game at the same time.

but like I said, would never work for a game like dominions, not in a million years.

Yeah of course, I have no doubt Its a form of advertisement for the new Warband game. They Say Warband is an Expansion but it doesnt seem that way considering they say it is stand alone and all that. (So yeah, out with the old and in with the new) I think for something to really qualify as an expansion it has to be an addition to the original game and not something that can entirely replace it. I suppose they probably call it an expansion because its not exactly a full fledged totally improved sequel. But it will have some cool new things the original didn't have like multiplayer. I suppose I could possibly be wrong and Warbands may actually have large parts of the game missing IF you dont have the original as well, but I doubt it. I'm downloading the Beta right now actually so I might know before long.

And I totally disagree that Dominions couldn't sell on something like Steam. If they can sell a million different Nancy Drew titles then they could certainly sell Dominions.

Although I do kind of doubt they could sell Dominions on Steam at its current price point... Or at least not too many copies.

Sombre · #15 February 14th, 2010, 04:32 PM

Dom3 wouldn't be sold on steam via Shrapnel would it? So no need for the price to stay the same?

As I say every time this comes up, I know like ten people who I basically had convinced that they'd like dom3, then I told them the price and they told me to GTFO.

cleveland · #16 February 14th, 2010, 05:05 PM

Back to the OP, Mount & Blade is made by Paradox. Anyone here play any of their other games, like the Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron series?

slMagnvox · #17 February 14th, 2010, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cleveland

Back to the OP, Mount & Blade is made by Paradox. Anyone here play any of their other games, like the Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron series?

Paradox is the publisher. Taleworlds is the developer, basically just a handful of people from Turkey.

Analogous to Shrapnel publishing Illwinter, basically just a couple guys from Sweden.

Taleworlds haven't released any other games besides Mount and Blade.

Sombre · #18 February 14th, 2010, 08:05 PM

I was part of the mount and blade community, which had its fair share of problems, but also did a lot right. One thing M&B definitely has going for it is some badass mods. It also has some horrible but strangely popular ones which are largely history based and have insane amounts of historical detail, but are coincidentally also terrible to actually play.

AstralWanderer · #19 February 14th, 2010, 10:40 PM

I purchased this about a year ago, found out it required online activation (*without* making it clear on the packaging) and sent it back. It's bad enough having to deal with CD checks or cardboard codewheels, but online activation means the program dies when the servers shut down (see Shamus Young's Authorization Servers article for more on this).

Steam has its own problems though - as well as its own online activation system, you have all your purchases tied to one Steam account, meaning that it becomes very possible (and very profitable) for Valve to slap on an annual (or even a monthly) fee to keep accounts open. Who'd refuse to pay a $10 monthly fee if it mean losing access to several hundred dollars of previously purchased software?

Ink · #20 February 14th, 2010, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AstralWanderer

I purchased this about a year ago, found out it required online activation (*without* making it clear on the packaging) and sent it back. It's bad enough having to deal with CD checks or cardboard codewheels, but online activation means the program dies when the servers shut down (see Shamus Young's Authorization Servers article for more on this).

Steam has its own problems though - as well as its own online activation system, you have all your purchases tied to one Steam account, meaning that it becomes very possible (and very profitable) for Valve to slap on an annual (or even a monthly) fee to keep accounts open. Who'd refuse to pay a $10 monthly fee if it mean losing access to several hundred dollars of previously purchased software?

It will *never* be profitable to charge a repeating fee of any kind to digitally access one-time purchase software[1]. The reason for this is a thing called elasticity of demand. People want new games, and if Steam won't give it to them for free, someone else will.

Steam charging the users to use the service would be like credit card companies charging users to use their cards; everyone would stop using them, and the company wouldn't make any money.

[1] - for that matter, Steam has not even found it profitable to force users to use their servers, and charge a fee, for a game like Team Fortress 2, which is necessarily an online multiplayer game.