Old Steam Poll posts split and 'archived'

Laden Swallow · Post by **Laden Swallow** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 00:57

Best time to use steam is around Christmas, as they go through massive sales seeing entire publisher's catalogues (sometimes up to 100 games) for ~£30, or individual games with 90% off the price. Likewise in the middle of the Summer.

There is always the daily "&" weekend specials. And sometimes they offer full access to a full version of a product for a weekend. And a while back they offered Portal (1) for free to anyone who would claim it.

strude · Post by **strude** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 01:02

greypanther wrote:Just find a UK citizen and get them to send airmail?
Always said Uk was way better than Aus!

Shouldn't even need air mail. Just get someone in the UK to buy it through Steam as a gift. Dunno how that works across regions though.

As for UK better than Aus..... we coming into Summer time!

Snowship · Post by **Snowship** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 01:17

my answer to the OP is this;

Yes I've got Steam, but I'd like not to use it for activation/association with X-Rebirth, I'd much prefer what they do now, CD-check then later on no-cd requirement.

kotorone1 · Post by **kotorone1** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 01:44

I love steam, but i really dont want to think of all the money ive pissed away on steam games.

and, if not released on steam, i probably wont be able to find anyone who sells it, beside amazon. I'm in portland oregon, and i have only found one copy of any X game, and it was at fry's electronics.
And why the problem with steam? YOU CAN PLAY OFFLINE. It auto updates, and saves some of your time. (sorry for the tone, it just annoying to see people whining about something that actually works)

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 02:14

A couple of comments from the overnight pages of posts here.

Technically, I have ADSL2. Practically, at times its as bad as dial up was. On any file over 100mb, the average download speed drops to about 20. This is not because of speed itself, it is because of many periods of zero bandwidth that often last for minutes at a time.

Something as simple as the firewall updates, I sit and watch them take an hour sometimes to download less than 10mb. The program has a nice little indicator that shows the transfer, and sometimes it can go for 10 minutes without moving a byte.

At the moment, I'm restarting the modem about 3 times a day, after all web activity just stops dead.

The ISP cant find a problem. And actually, most of the time, the problem isnt with them, its with the pipeline systems on either side of the pacific, which get so overloaded that you cant get through.

An 8gb download is total insanity as far as I'm concerned. And no, I dont leave my computer or internet turned on during the night and have no plans to start.

Regarding a Steam FAQ - Not only a good idea, but essential. Start building it now, and post it when the game is released.

T.S.Zatoichi · Post by **T.S.Zatoichi** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 04:56

kotorone1 wrote:I'm in portland oregon, and i have only found one copy of any X game, and it was at fry's electronics.

Heh, I'm in Wilsonville. The problem is retail outlets just don't stock that many games anymore. Fry's had two copies of 2.0 and three of X3 Gold (I considered sticking a post-it note endorsement on this.) and when I left there was one less copy of each on the shelves. Someone at Fry's is aware of the X series, so assuming X:R gets released over here and your fast enough, you should still be able to get a copy there.

Observe · Post by **Observe** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 05:01

T.S.Zatoichi wrote:
kotorone1 wrote:I'm in portland oregon, and i have only found one copy of any X game, and it was at fry's electronics.
Heh, I'm in Wilsonville.

Troutdale by the Columbia river here.

David Howland · Post by **David Howland** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 10:41

I would not trust an internet company for delivery of anything:-
1. Viruses, hackers,criminals, ect. is just not secure enough. The most secure links on the net are banking links, yet millions disappear from peoples accounts every year on the net. If the tech. forum cannot sort a problem what is the excuse that comes back, 'Oh you must have a virus or software corruption'. Yet they want us to use a delivery system that virtually has software corruption built in.
2. Internet delivery companies succeed by becoming a monopoly. They are just too power hungry. Look at facebook, suddenly turn round earlier this year shocked everyone by declaring that all the personal information on their site belonged to them and they could use it for whatever commercial purposes they wanted. The fact that a trusted personal info. site could even think that never mind publicly declare it is corruption beyond belief!
3. Then there has been this farcical Rebirth promotion this year, denying for months the most dedicated fans any info they needed to know, if the game had been released on time they would have been lucky to sell a single game. Steam and Deep Silver have stolen most of Egosofts control of their own game!
No I am sorry its disks or nothing for me, Egosoft may want to sell-out but I WILL NOT!

mcjomar · Post by **mcjomar** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 10:46

I use either/both methods for purchasing games.

Hardcopy, if I want backups and/or something I can hold in my hands if the game deserves it.

The Superbox got this treatment. That encyclopaedia was nice.

On the other hand, sometimes I'm lazy, and/or don't care so much about the game, and so I'll buy it on steam - case in point, Dead Island and Space Marine.

Bear in mind I'm a 40k fan, so the fact that I only bothered to buy Space Marine on steam is kinda telling, really.

But that aside - I've had little to no problems with steam at all.
Keep security high, and nobody gets in.
If you can't get access, all the games are still installed on your machine, so you should be able to access the .exe files to run them anyway.

Only exceptions are MMOs and other games which require online access (Silent Hunter 5, you awful thing, I'm looking at you).

And if you need backups, then you can burn stuff onto DVDs, use external HDs, I store X2 on a memory stick for when I'm bored at uni/work, etc etc etc.

Mostly, there's little to no issue with Steam.

My only concern is for the modding community, and what support they'd have via Steam to be able to do their thing - but hopefully Egosoft will remedy this, as they have in the past.

Paranoid66 · Post by **Paranoid66** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 10:57

I would like to add for those who like steam that it could be released on and off steam it need not be either or as demonstrated by X3TC.

Why must steam be given the monopoly? My primary dislike of steam is not because of the service (good or bad) it provides but because it is for some people a factor that actually stops them from buying and playing new pc games because they do not have their machines online or do not want to use this specific - third party - distribution service.

However, I have been watching the trend of online activation steadily getting more and more intrusive as well. Too many games now demand constant connection even when playing the single person aspect of the product to for example retrieve saves as if you do not have a hard drive for that. It is online activation today then constant connection tomorrow. To me this is a negative and unwholesome trend.

Post by **Bernd** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 11:41

This poll is manipulative in the way it is asking and therefore far from representative.

Also the poll does not list any of the reasons why a developer or a publisher use Steam, like:

- It helps us supporting our customers. Many problems with PC game are magically solved by auto updating. Therefore the support can be focussed on real problems instead!

- It can help us manage game content and make the game expandable. Customers do not have to worry about what is installed and how.

- In the long run it can help us integrating multiplayer features without having to provide our own platform. Right from the start, we know people can chat and discuss from inside the game.

Note: You do not have to be online to play! You may have to be online to activate the game once, but many of the added community features only work when you are online of course.

- Steam is not the only way to BUY the game! You can buy the game in a box in a store or even with many other online retailers. Steam is only used for activation afterwards. But all the above mentioned advantages are still true in this case!

If you criticize Steam at least you should understand it. Steam is not supported by a publisher because it is a good DRM solution, on the contrary: You may remember, that we had to use tages (a copy protection system) in addition to Steam to really protect our game when X3TC was new (and happily removed it after about a year!).

Everybody here is entitled to their own opinion, but if you start a poll, try to be fair or the poll will be worthless.

-Bernd

A5PECT · Post by **A5PECT** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 11:47

Bernd wrote:- In the long run it can help us integrating multiplayer features without having to provide our own platform. Right from the start, we know people can chat and discuss from inside the game.

...

I hope I don't have to point the gravity of this statment coming from Bernd himself.

This discussion is about to get interesting.

*Grabs popcorn*

supakillaii · Post by **supakillaii** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:02

Oh me, oh my, what do I see? Ponderings of a possibility of a multiplayer mode

Scoob · Post by **Scoob** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:03

Hi all,

Well, my first experience in a while with Steam yesterday was...odd more than anything. I had a fresh install of the Steam Client - and it does looks fairly good - yet downloading a simple demo was...confusing. Lots of "errors" with dialogues popping up, yet Steam appeared to carry on in the background... Not a great user experience, but I got the demo I asked for and played it through.

As soon as I got the demo I wanted and it was really ready to play (Steam got this a bit wrong to start with!) I switched steam to offine mode and left it there! Seemed ok.

So, after some weird teething problems, things are working. Now, the question is were I to buy a FULL game (XR or whatever) through Steam would I have the same weird issues again? Or did I simply catch Steam at a bad time when the servers were genuinely overloaded? I wasn't aware of any big releases out yesterday to explain the initial server issues.

Also, issues aside, Steam should actually provide CORRECT information to the user as to what's going on! I mean I was told that i) My Download had failed as the servers were busy, ii) My Game was ready to play, and iii) eventually shown a download progress bar at the bottom of the page showing that my game IS downloading - ALL this information presented within a few seconds...literally like this:

- Downloading...
- Failed! (dialogue box)

- Click! (Ok, on dialogue box)
- Game ready to play!
- Click! (On Play button presented)
- Servers busy!

- Download progress bar at the bottom...yet game still showing as ready...but I waited.
- Game really downloaded
- Double-click! (Magicka Icon on desktop)
- "Command line option syntax error. Type Command /? For help."

- Click! (Ok on Dialogue box)
- (ponders for a while, post on forum)
- Double-Click! (On game icon again)
- WORKING!

Thing is, every time there was an error type dialogue box, after clicking OK to clear it, Steam carried on as if no such error occurred and as a result ran into additional errors as things weren't yet ready.

Shouldn't be that way...let alone for a dead simple demo...only a couple of hundred megabytes...

Still, doubtless like many before me, I'm learning the quirks of Steam and now know a few more things to look out for.

Bernd:

I just noticed your reply while previewing this one...good of you to post & nice to hear from you

I had originally been attempting to create the basis of a possible FAQ for Steam to, hopefully, put peoples minds at rest to a certain degree by documenting my first foray into the world of Steam for some time. Along with this I was hoping to gather peoples responses, information on some of the "quirks" of the platform and work-arounds. Unfortunately my topic got merged in with this one, so a lot of the very good information, including little tips about offline mode (and how it works) as well as backing up games and restoring them, is getting slightly lost in this (I agree) slighty biased poll-topic.

Views on Steam seem to be either i) It just works, or ii) It's the spawn of satan! Now, my early experiences with Steam were...horrible, however I'm willing to give it another go now something I know I want may well only be available this way. Yes, I've experienced some quirks certainly, and a little confusion at times, but I'm gathering valuable information from both my experiences and that of seasoned Steam users.

I will be compiling my notes to hopefully have an FAQ to help those who may be using Steam for the first time just to play your upcoming game. I'd hope that reading this prior to launch will give a certain degree of confidence and, maybe, people will do what I have a simply try out Steam in advance with a demo download, get it all working on their system, then feel confident that Steam is an acceptable platform for them...and buy your game

At the end of the day, while I had a few quirks (from which I have learnt) my Steam download WORKED, I played the game demo I wanted - while running in OFFLINE mode - just fine. I've seen the options available for automatic patching etc. all of which can be turned off. The only pre-requisit for playing is that the Steam client is running...and, from what I've seen, it doesn't seem particularly heavy or intrusive when it's sat there minimised!

Cheers,

Scoob.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:03

Bernd, thankyou for responding.

Bernd wrote:This poll is manipulative in the way it is asking and therefore far from representative.

Please post an alternative poll that you are happy with. As long as it contains an "I dont want steam under any circumstances" option, I'm happy and will answer that way.

Also the poll does not list any of the reasons why a developer or a publisher use Steam, like:

- It helps us supporting our customers. Many problems with PC game are magically solved by auto updating. Therefore the support can be focussed on real problems instead!

Yes, but your forgetting the number of patches that actually made things worse and we had to remove in order to play the way we wanted to until you made a new patch that solved the issues, old and new.

Steam will not give us the chance to back out a patch that causes problems, whatever we define what a problem is to us.

Steam will not give us any option as to when we update.

For those of us who mod, steam will clobber our mods before we even know its doing it, meaning if we forgot to backup one day, it could be gone the next.

- It can help us manage game content and make the game expandable. Customers do not have to worry about what is installed and how.

But some of us WANT TO.

- In the long run it can help us integrating multiplayer features without having to provide our own platform. Right from the start, we know people can chat and discuss from inside the game.

I dont want that.

I dont know a single person here. I dont chat with a single person here. I have no interest in chatting to anyone while playing the game.

I'm a stand alone game player. Evey single game I've played, even when it had multi-player capability, has always been played on my own.

I dont ever anticipate playing a game in multiplayer.

I play alone. Why are you going to force all this multi-player stuff on people who play alone ?

Note: You do not have to be online to play! You may have to be online to activate the game once, but many of the added community features only work when you are online of course.

There is not a single thing that Steam offers that I actually want. I dont want its community features.

The only community I want for your games is this forum and it does me fine.

- Steam is not the only way to BUY the game! You can buy the game in a box in a store or even with many other online retailers. Steam is only used for activation afterwards. But all the above mentioned advantages are still true in this case!

Can you please clarify that ?

If steam is used for activation and thereafter, is never accessed again, that is acceptable. However, as I've said before, if I need a username and a password to log into steam in order to activate the game, I wont buy it.

Please be very clear on what you mean by "only used for activation afterwards". Does that mean we have to load the steam software, be a member of steam, and keep the steam software on our computer and be online to run the game ? Or what ?

I dont mind if the setup program accesses a steam server and validates the game, without me even knowing its doing it, and without 3rd party software. But anything else is not on.

If you criticize Steam at least you should understand it. Steam is not supported by a publisher because it is a good DRM solution, on the contrary: You may remember, that we had to use tages (a copy protection system) in addition to Steam to really protect our game when X3TC was new (and happily removed it after about a year!).

I never had any problem with "tages". Use that on the disk version and we will all be happy.

Everybody here is entitled to their own opinion, but if you start a poll, try to be fair or the poll will be worthless.-Bernd

I really do invite you to do an official poll, that covers all the bases from love steam to hate steam.

I seriously recommend you do your research on your existing fan base before you shoot yourself in the foot. I would really hate you to do that, since Egosoft is the only company around doing decent space genre software.

Interesting, the lights flickered just then....... And yes, globe just blew over my desk. lol I love signs. Spooky.

chew-ie · Post by **chew-ie** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:04

I´d suggest dumping this thread ASAP and create a new poll with no manipulative options.

X2-Eliah · Post by **X2-Eliah** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:11

apricotslice wrote: I never had any problem with "tages". Use that on the disk version and we will all be happy.

I seriously recommend you do your research on your existing fan base before you shoot yourself in the foot. I would really hate you to do that, since Egosoft is the only company around doing decent space genre software.

Could you please stop extrapolating your views and assigning them to 'most of the fanbase'? You have a problem, yes, Ok - good. Don't dress it up in words of 'majority of your fanbase has this exact problem that I am expressing on their behalf'.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:19

Bernd wrote:- It helps us supporting our customers. Many problems with PC game are magically solved by auto updating. Therefore the support can be focussed on real problems instead!

Actually, thats only true up to a point.

Since you dont support anyone who adds mods to their game, you dont see all the times when steam clobbers a false patch and buggers up someones game until someone gets them to check if they have a false patch missing or not.

Steam does create a lot of problems for modders and the people who use mods as false patches.

So unless you can say that the new game engine doesnt have the same false patch methodology and so wont be affected by steam overwriting mods unexpectedly, then an existing problem will continue. Albiet one you choose not to recognise and support.

I repeat what I've said here a number of times already.

I DONT WANT AUTOUPDATING.

I dont mind if someone chooses a steam option and wants autoupdating, thats their choice.

All I want is the option to choose to avoid steam and all that goes with it, and stick to the tried and true way of installing and updating games.

GCU Grey Area · Post by **GCU Grey Area** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:20

chew-ie wrote:I´d suggest dumping this thread ASAP and create a new poll with no manipulative options.

I agree with that - if Bernd doesn't like the poll would be best to make a new one as soon as possible. What's the concensus on the German forum poll options - any complaints in that thread about it being manipulative? If it's ok might be good to run an identical poll here.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 11. Oct 11, 12:22

X2-Eliah wrote:
apricotslice wrote: I never had any problem with "tages". Use that on the disk version and we will all be happy.

I seriously recommend you do your research on your existing fan base before you shoot yourself in the foot. I would really hate you to do that, since Egosoft is the only company around doing decent space genre software.
Could you please stop extrapolating your views and assigning them to 'most of the fanbase'? You have a problem, yes, Ok - good. Don't dress it up in words of 'majority of your fanbase has this exact problem that I am expressing on their behalf'.

Let me be very clear.

I want us all to ahve the option to choose.

Those who want steam can have steam.

Those who dont want steam dont have steam.

Then we are all happy.

That what I meant by "we will all be happy". Everyone gets their choice, everyone is happy with their choice.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Old Steam Poll posts split and 'archived'

Internet Delivery=crap!