SEV on Steam?

[Combat Wombat]

Imperator Fyron said:
None of the people I know that play HL are very satisfied with Steam. This is of course a small number of people, so take it as you may. I personally am not very keen on the idea of purely downloaded software purchases, especially not ones using vile DRM schemes. Too much of a hassle for when you need to reinstall Windows periodically.

Now theres no reason to lie to advance your point Fyron. I love steam and there is nothing vile about steam by any stretch of the imagination. It also has a very well designed server browser that is common to all of the games on it. It allows developers to patch games whenever its needed without users having to worry about checking sites constantly. It allows developers a solid way to protect their products and in no way have I found it invasive. No personal information is needed to make a steam account, they are not tracking me and watching everything I do. Steam games can still be purchased from the store so you don't need to give them personal information unless you really really want to.

I have been using steam since it was in beta and I have found it to be the best thing that has happened to computer games in a long time.

Edit: and steam is no slower for dial-up users than downloading a patch from a website so theres really no extra hassel for dial-up users

Edit2: Steam has an offline mode you do not not need to be connected to the internet to use it

[Renegade 13]

Heh, downloading a single patch can take a day of dialup time. That can be incredibly annoying. If I had to be connected for an entire day just to be able to play a game that I'd already paid for the right to play, I'd be annoyed to say the least. In fact, I won't buy a game that forces me to do such things (HL2 and others that use such a system). Catering to only those who have high-speed internet is a very foolish thing to do, since there are millions of people who A) don't have access or B) do not have a need for it most of the time. Any time you purposefully exclude a segment of the market, you are cutting your own throats.

[wilhil]

Atrocities said:
You have to use STREAM each time you want to play, if you don't have an internet connection, your screwed. And this is for single player.

not 100% of the time, you can stay signed in when you restart the computer... just as long as you dont sign out.

at the same time, if you read my post above you will see that I think steam shouldnt be there for solo games, but for multi, it is brilliant

[Fyron]

Combat Wombat said:
Now theres no reason to lie to advance your point Fyron. I love steam and there is nothing vile about steam by any stretch of the imagination.

I was talking about people I know in real life, not Internet... Also, I said DRM was vile... nothing in my post said that Steam was vile.

[Arkcon]

Hmmm... I hate to be a dick(and I only use obscenities when absolutely necessicary), but if SE5 requires STEAM to run, I may just give SE5 a miss, to coin the British phrase.

[Atrocities]

This just out. Ford Motors has adopted the Passive Individual Steam Satellite End Device Owner oF Ford system, herein known as P.I.S.S.E.D.O.F.F.. The purpose of PISSEDOFF is to provide Ford Customers with the latest cross breading of high tech anti piracy software with that of Fords innovative method for boosting revenue. Those customers who purchase a Ford product, often priced at or near $40,000 to $50,000 US dollars, will now be inconvenienced no more with the hassle of having to find ignition keys for their Ford vehicles. The owner simply has to enter their personal activation combination code to enter their Ford vehicle, press the Start button and PISSEDOFF will take it from there. PISSEDOFF will remotely access your authorization to start, drive, and ride in this Ford product. Owners will be required to provide their original Ford Operations CD upon request, placing it in the optional CD ROM dash drive. Upon successful authorization, PISSEDOFF will download the operational control protocols for the specific Ford vehicle that the driver is attempting to operate. Operation authority will be granted on a per use basis through the implantation of the Ford End User License Agreement. Wherein the purchaser of any Ford product agrees to the terms of use in condition and conjunction with said agreement. In that they are the only authorized user of said Ford product and may not allow other users to use said licensed Ford vehicles without first purchasing an additional end user license. Please note that there is a monthly service fee for the privilege of using PISSEDOFF, and that your new Ford vehicle can only be operated after PISSEDOFF has authorized you to use said Ford vehicle. Please be advised that there is often a four to five hour wait while PISSEDOFF installs and that delays of twenty to thirty minutes are routinely expected during day-to-day operation of PISSEDOFF. Ford motors is not liable for any delay, or resulting consequence of said delay that may, and more likely than not will occur.

[Captain Kwok]

I don't think SE:V for sole distribution on this Steam thing would ever happen.

However, I'm against having to get permission to play a game I paid for at home on my computer. For multiplayer, fine, it costs money for them to run these websites etc. and they want to ensure legimate users are playing, but solo games? Come on...

Lucky for me I only like the NHL series and Space Empires.

[wilhil]

Atrocities said:
This just out. Ford Motors has adopted the Passive Individual Steam Satellite End Device Owner oF Ford system, herein known as P.I.S.S.E.D.O.F.F.. The purpose of PISSEDOFF is to provide Ford Customers with the latest cross breading of high tech anti piracy software with that of Fords innovative method for boosting revenue. Those customers who purchase a Ford product, often priced at or near $40,000 to $50,000 US dollars, will now be inconvenienced no more with the hassle of having to find ignition keys for their Ford vehicles. The owner simply has to enter their personal activation combination code to enter their Ford vehicle, press the Start button and PISSEDOFF will take it from there. PISSEDOFF will remotely access your authorization to start, drive, and ride in this Ford product. Owners will be required to provide their original Ford Operations CD upon request, placing it in the optional CD ROM dash drive. Upon successful authorization, PISSEDOFF will download the operational control protocols for the specific Ford vehicle that the driver is attempting to operate. Operation authority will be granted on a per use basis through the implantation of the Ford End User License Agreement. Wherein the purchaser of any Ford product agrees to the terms of use in condition and conjunction with said agreement. In that they are the only authorized user of said Ford product and may not allow other users to use said licensed Ford vehicles without first purchasing an additional end user license. Please note that there is a monthly service fee for the privilege of using PISSEDOFF, and that your new Ford vehicle can only be operated after PISSEDOFF has authorized you to use said Ford vehicle. Please be advised that there is often a four to five hour wait while PISSEDOFF installs and that delays of twenty to thirty minutes are routinely expected during day-to-day operation of PISSEDOFF. Ford motors is not liable for any delay, or resulting consequence of said delay that may, and more likely than not will occur.

sorry to go against you here, but read my first post here, I really honestly think steam is a good thing.... Everythign has bad sides, there is no "perfect" product, I can even poke a few holes in SEIV, and probably will in SEV, read what I said about steam, and I honestly think the positives outweigh the negatives

[Suicide Junkie]

We aren't talking about the product, but the distribution/installation/registration.

SE4 is perfect in that regard. Keep your CD safe, along with a copy of the patches.
Aaron dosen't try to screw you, and dosen't try to chip away at your rights.

If the US were to suddenly sink under the sea, then once the tidal waves and floods settled down and power was restored in your country, you would be able to buy a new, dry computer.
You would then be back to stomping the EEE with your baseships as soon as you can boot up your new PC.

Half Life 2 becomes completely unusable after far less.
The company could go bankrupt. Bam Game Gone.
An explosion or fire could destroy the servers. Game down.
Lose internet access? Game down.
The company could decide to start charging money for each play. Game held hostage. You do have a choice to pay the ransom in order to keep playing in this case.
Large scale disaster in the US? Game totally gone.

[wilhil]

actually, i think steam works with a distributed system that it can log on to any available server, I know they use servers all around the world for content delivery, would make sense if they used them for logon...

but if the us went under, there is more than just using a little game that you have to worry about!

anyway, everyone thinks of valve and loads of other companies as a big bad place, but really as I tried to say above, this is one of the reasons I love it.

I can move to any pc, install steam, log in, and download ANY game I paid for, and play it in record time, without touching a cd, fine not everyone has broadband, but luckly I am in a adsl2+ area (24mbs) and where I work, I have a 155mb/s (stm-1) connection, the way the world is going, a lot more people will have broadband by the end of the decade...

I am against the loading times that you get from steam'ed games, but apart from that, I love it... read the link in my post further up and that post, and you will know a lot more.

steam and valve DO block your user if you use pirated games/keys that are hacked e.t.c. for other games you own, but really, you only have yourself to blame for that, as for transfering keys, they do charge...

well, as I said, If you have a computer faster than ~3ghz and have a ADSL connection, and do not use pirated games, there is not really a reason for not loving steam, it doesnt need to have cd in drive for games, it just works perfectly... If on the other hand you have a slow machine where starting and running steam in the background interfears with your game, or do not have a fast connection for downloads, then I understand your reasons for not liking it

edit -- just to add to the above, using steam on diffrent machines at diffrent times, I have done at least this, 6 diffrent machines (although at least 2 months between), reloaded HL1 and mods about 8-9 times, HL2 3 times.... they dont charge or question you each time, it is simple to use and works great!