Round 4 of Would you use Steam for Rebirth thread

[Alan Phipps]

It may be of interest that the current host of the very popular XRM X3 Engine total mod is no longer continuing new content support for X3TC alone because most people are now using the mod with the X3AP Steam game. This is shown here.

There really does not seem to be a current major modding issue with Steam and X3 at all. Of course exactly how X-R will be made modifiable is yet to be declared.

[EmperorJon]

Superbox second on Steam's top-sellers list today.

[Slashman]

Steam however are too rich and big to care about the travails of a lone X player. Half the players that give up playing X through Steam do so because the off-line mode is unsatisfactory. This is for a very good reason, the steam malware is designed to maintain control of the games use and the PC it is played on. If you try and break the internet connection it will behave like a spoilt brat that has had its sweetie taken off it. Does Steam care if hundreds of X players give up on it? Of course not, they have millions of happy Steamers used to their system, some do not even realise Steam controls their PC while they play the games!

Where are you even getting this stuff? I play several modded games on Steam(including TC and AP) with no issues whatsoever.

Steam does not do anything even if you pull out your LAN cable in the middle of a game.

There is no game I have modded more in recent memory than Skyrim(a full Steamworks game). I'm up to about 12 or so simultaneous mods and according to the guys at Bethesda, they had to adjust the Steam workshop because it wasn't uncommon for people to run more than 50 mods.

What you posted just isn't true. Steam is not unfriendly to modded games(Are they any games more heavily modded than the Fallout Series and the Elder Scrolls series?). Neither does it require a constant internet connection in the way you are describing.

If you want to blame someone for patches breaking mods in TC, blame Egosoft for creating a game that doesn't handle modding as well as it should. I have mods that I've been running through the last 3 Skyrim patches that I haven't needed to reinstall or update. That includes mods that alter animations, adjust weapons and armor values, change NPC behaviour and add completely new spells to the game.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

that i am afraid is what i have against steam, i could be wrong and then in 12 months i will come here and apolagies i cant see how we are going to run modded games without stupid patch updates screwing that up.

Steam has never been an impediment to running modded games and it doesn't break modded games anymore than an Egosoft patch has ever done either. X games run a fairly mod-friendly sequential cat/dat system as others have mentioned so providing the mod authors are behaving themselves and doing things properly you should have little trouble other than ensuring your cat/dat files are suitably numbered.

Additionally, if Rebirth is written with modding specifically designed in though we have no confirmation either way at present as to whether that has been considered a feature Egosoft wish to implement, then the recent Steamworks feature that Valve have showcased with Skyrim should make modding ridiculously easy for everyone.

Half the players that give up playing X through Steam do so because the off-line mode is unsatisfactory.

Half of not many at all then is vanishingly small. Scoob, along with a few others, for instance seems to have been playing quite happily for the last few months with no significant issues whatsoever. Since he was very kindly keeping us posted on his discoveries I'm sure if he'd been having the horrendous issues you're trying to make out to be commonplace we'd have heard about it before now.

[dillpickle]

The thing to bear in mind is the way X3TC handles its mods dates back to previous games. It only got added to Steam a while after it was released, which could explain why game updates cause problems with mods being removed etc..
Rebirth is being built to be released on Steam, and as Egosoft have said that they will continue to support Scripts and Mods, it is highly likely it will play nicer with auto updates/installed mods - there are plenty of games on Steam which don't have these issues. IIRC there was even an achievement you could get with Civilization V for using a mod...

[Vayde]

Well back in from work and as promised he's my public apology to angrytigerp for cocking up the spelling of his name.

This was the result of several beers and reacting to his post without reading his name clearly first. Before I get told, Yes I know copy&paste is very accurate and should be used when ever possible for reasons of clarity.

So once again sorry angrytigerp, lesson learned...

[ConCorDian]

can i answer your question concordian

no i dont trust ego to make a great game they never have, what they make is a great framwork that the comunity modders hang a great game on, i havnt played any vanilla games once the xtended boys and apricotslice etc and others get to it and release their mods.
Egosoft have great ideas that fall short of working, they have poor plots boring repetertive missions and terrible economys in fact medioca games

what ego have done is let the boys (and girls) with no financial pressures turn it into great games and then and i think this is what makes them a great company not only allow, but assist in allowing us to mod their game too our desires.

that i am afraid is what i have against steam, i could be wrong and then in 12 months i will come here and apolagies i cant see how we are going to run modded games without stupid patch updates screwing that up.

sorry david i hope you didnt have a better answer thought out

i suppose that means it depends on your definition of a great game... EGOSOFT are the best hands down in my book, and the games they make should probably be marketed with the X Modders as a selling point... but i have played Vanilla X from the beginning and still loved the game, what scripts i have added have been small, not large scale total conversion mods.

ConCorDian,
I would trust ES implicitly to fix problems in the game but my belief is the complexities I refer to are out of their hands, in the Steam system. ES does care about every X player or at least did until the Steam exclusive policy?

i just feel like EGOSOFT are getting written as this big bad wolf when they are moving down an avenue which seems to be the direction most if not ALL game developers are moving to. and i just feel like with EGO's mentality towards their fans i am almost sure they hav had these discussions prior to making the STEAM move. id be surprised if they dont have their own Anti-Steam people within the team itself and thats why i have enough faith in EGO to come up with a way to protect their fan base from the bad side of STEAM but allow people to reap the benifits, only time will tell.

Steam however are too rich and big to care about the travails of a lone X player. Half the players that give up playing X through Steam do so because the off-line mode is unsatisfactory. This is for a very good reason, the steam malware is designed to maintain control of the games use and the PC it is played on. If you try and break the internet connection it will behave like a spoilt brat that has had its sweetie taken off it. Does Steam care if hundreds of X players give up on it? Of course not

i do agree with a lot of what your saying, small companies like EGO can be swollowed up by companies like Valve BUT that doesn't give STEAM all the power... they are inevitably reliant on the companies who publish their games on their servers as well.

although i will say, and its nothing personal but:

some do not even realise Steam controls their PC while they play the games!

does start to go down the boarderline paranoia stage, every program we ever install on our computers control our computers to some degree, look at Windows 7 as an operating system, Microsoft have pretty much 100% control of everything you have on your computer.. but we all use their operating systems, in my mind Control is a matter of prespective, thats all, im not saying its right, im not saying i agree with it all the time, but its simply just the way things are.

ive said before im not exactly a pro steamer... (unless it involves alchohol ) but ive came to grips with the fact that these cloud based systems are the way the PC gaming industry is going, and us complaining about it wont change that, so i have jumped on board and trying to learn to use it all as best i can... but i do have faith in EGOSOFT and hopefully they will show us that we are still important to them, meaning if Steam do screw us about, i would hope EGOSOFT will show them the cliff to jump off of and find a different way, if steam dont, whats the harm?

i am only on one camp within this arguement and thats the PRO EGOSOFT camp!!

[Deleted User]

Big post directed at Slashman

I lied, this is my last post. I invite you to view my second-to-last post, though:

People who 'support' Steam (use it) and those who are against it (intentionally don't use it) are pretty much set in their opinions, and I think we can agree to disagree.

I think we've pretty much settled all there is to both pro- and anti-Steam arguments, so I think the subject is best left in the dust. Both sides feel the need to keep repeating themselves, which only serves to reignite a discussion settled dozens of pages ago in the old thread.

Exactly what are you trying to do, Fox? You aren't going to change Slashman's mind, you weren't able to a few days ago so you won't be able to now, so why do you feel the need to keep trying to argue?

It's over, just agree to disagree. You're not saying anything that wasn't said weeks ago. We all just got reprimanded by the mods to not do this, and yet here you are trying to stir the pot again.

Unfortunately, you posted just before I submitted my post, which is a bit of a shame because you made some very valid points for all sides.

I am going to agree to disagree.

Before many shout hurrah! I would just like to point out that I will resume posting the moment I see the same old faces (of which I am one, though oppositely camped) start to turn this thread into a pro-steam thrust. Of course I would expect no less from the same old faces who feel the argument was becoming an anti-steam thrust.

Hopefully that is me over and out

[DnBrn47]

ConCorDian,
I would trust ES implicitly to fix problems in the game but my belief is the complexities I refer to are out of their hands, in the Steam system. ES does care about every X player or at least did until the Steam exclusive policy?
Steam however are too rich and big to care about the travails of a lone X player. Half the players that give up playing X through Steam do so because the off-line mode is unsatisfactory. This is for a very good reason, the steam malware is designed to maintain control of the games use and the PC it is played on. If you try and break the internet connection it will behave like a spoilt brat that has had its sweetie taken off it. Does Steam care if hundreds of X players give up on it? Of course not, they have millions of happy Steamers used to their system, some do not even realise Steam controls their PC while they play the games!
The obvious answer would be for ES to provide a Steam-free alternative, as they used to, we do do keep asking, without result.
Good for you EmperorJon!

You didn't really answer my question, you made an argument against things I didn't say. It's ok though, I'm sure you meant to direct it toward someone else and it's really not important.

EDIT: I obviously quoted the wrong post but my reply still stands.

[DnBrn47]

can i answer your question concordian

no i dont trust ego to make a great game they never have, what they make is a great framwork that the comunity modders hang a great game on, i havnt played any vanilla games once the xtended boys and apricotslice etc and others get to it and release their mods.
Egosoft have great ideas that fall short of working, they have poor plots boring repetertive missions and terrible economys in fact medioca games

what ego have done is let the boys (and girls) with no financial pressures turn it into great games and then and i think this is what makes them a great company not only allow, but assist in allowing us to mod their game too our desires.

that i am afraid is what i have against steam, i could be wrong and then in 12 months i will come here and apolagies i cant see how we are going to run modded games without stupid patch updates screwing that up.

sorry david i hope you didnt have a better answer thought out

You do realize you can tell steam to not update a game right? So you can basically wait for the mod to come out with a compatible version before you patch. And modding is exactly the same for steam, the files just go into an extra steamapps folder which contains the normal X3 file structure.

EDIT: In other news, I'm not agreeing to disagree on anything here. I honestly believe there is some crazy theories going on here but that's fine, do as you guys will. Steam will continue to flourish without you and so will X:Rebirth. My only wish is that someday you will at least give it a try so you can enjoy both X:Rebirth and what Steam has to offer to avid gamers.

The only thing we can agree on is that this thread has run it's course and all arguments have been made. So with that, I won't contribute anymore to it simply to avoid anymore heated scuffles.

Good luck, have fun, so say we all. o7

[thetack]

have tried steam, have tried breaking six bones in my foot and i will take the brakage anyday.

if you want owls ,bats, newts, badgers and fresh air, the ability to walk pissed safely the 100 yards from the village pub, live where i do if you want internet that works or when it does works faster than dial up dont.

what exactly has steam to offer then, adverts for games i dont want, social interaction that i dont want, gimics for tenagers <edit of inappropriate comment - Alan Phipps>, sorry no one has yet given me one thing steam offers i want, and seems too offer the one thing i dont want contact with a online company i have no wish to contact, i am buying an ego game i would be buying it from their shop, i would be registering it on their website and downloading from their website what do i need steam in the way for.

sorry i am not interested in steam and if rebirth is steam only another game will be on my "well they dont want my money" list

[andrewas]

You do realize you can tell steam to not update a game right? So you can basically wait for the mod to come out with a compatible version before you patch.

No, you can't. Steam will update the game as soon as you launch it in online mode. All that setting does is keep steam from wasting bandwidth updating games you have installed but aren't currently playing.

[David Howland]

Here we go again, an experienced Steam adviser says you can do this or that no problem and an ordinary player says I cannot do it?
If this is gone into by the happy Steamers we will probably find that it can be done if you are expert enough to implement a WORKAROUND the size of which rivals the game program itself. Then you wonder why some ordinary players will not consider playing a game connected to the internet?
Also I suppose when I refer to Steam problems and workarounds in a future post, certain Steamers will object mightily, insisting these references are a mere figment of my <edit *> imagination?

<* Edit because we have already been there and have sorted it. Stop inciting personal comments. Alan Phipps>

[perkint]

There are three update settings in steam:
1. Update if there is a newer version as soon as it's available
2. Update if there is a newer version but only if I run the game
3. Do not update

I understand they are controlled thru 2 different places which is why there is often confusion (well, that and assuming turning off auto update would stop the Steam app from updating without you telling it to do, which isn't an unreasonable assumption ), but it still isn't a huge task to do (& I think it's covered in Egosoft's Steam FAQ)...

Tim

[andrewas]

Thats news to me. Wheres the 'do not update' option hidden?

[Slashman]

Here we go again, an experienced Steam adviser says you can do this or that no problem and an ordinary player says I cannot do it?
If this is gone into by the happy Steamers we will probably find that it can be done if you are expert enough to implement a WORKAROUND the size of which rivals the game program itself. Then you wonder why some ordinary players will not consider playing a game connected to the internet?
Also I suppose when I refer to Steam problems and workarounds in a future post, certain Steamers will object mightily, insisting these references are a mere figment of my <edit *> imagination?

Or maybe it's two people, one of which didn't quite understand what the other was saying.

It's not impossible to prevent Steam from updating a game, just deny it internet access. Set the game to not auto-update and set Steam to offline mode. Even better, just disable internet access while you play. I dunno...maybe that counts as a workaround rivaling the size of the program itself. It takes about 4 clicks to disable my ethernet adapter.

I also just backup the entire game folder in a separate location.

Its already been covered that Steam is a pain to people with very poor internet connections. No one has denied it, but that doesn't mean Steam is generally a pain to use universally. I usually just leave auto-updates on unless I specifically want to prevent a given game from updating.

It's funny. There have been people here who said that if not for Steam, they'd buy/build an entirely new rig to play Rebirth. Why not do that and keep that rig offline?

We still don't know how updates will affect mods with Rebirth. It could very well be that updates work like they do for Skyrim. That is, unless an update changes something affected specifically by the mod, then there would be no further effect on the game.

[Gavrushka]

You know, this rolling 'debate' about Steam is really making it difficult for milder voices to air their feelings. I keep revisiting this forum, checking for info on Rebirth and I see the same names, the same arguments, just slightly different wording.

I really do wish one group or the other would just let it drop. - I'd come here to say that I'd just bought AP, and how easy it was to Mod it, whilst leaving it connected to Steam, but I am worried that one group will tell me I am mistaken, or the other group will hail me as the Messiah.

Don't you think it is time to leave it be?

[CBJ]

But that's precisely why this thread exists Gavrushka. It keeps all the Steam discussion in one place rather than scattered all over the forum, so that people like you only have one thread to ignore when you want to read or post about other aspects of the game.

[A5PECT]

I'd come here to say that I'd just bought AP, and how easy it was to Mod it, whilst leaving it connected to Steam, but I am worried that one group will tell me I am mistaken, or the other group will hail me as the Messiah.

The issue with modding and Steam only occurs when an update rolls around. Since 2.0 is already here and there are no further updates in the foreseeable future, there shouldn't be any more problems.

Actually, Egosoft changed their patching method from AP, so updates no longer overwrite installed mods. Patches can still cause issues, but nothing that can't be easily fixed.

If mod support can improve from TC to AP while being based in Steam then there's nothing stopping Rebirth from being just as if not even more mod-friendly.

[Gavrushka]

But that's precisely why this thread exists Gavrushka. It keeps all the Steam discussion in one place rather than scattered all over the forum, so that people like you only have one thread to ignore when you want to read or post about other aspects of the game.

Yes, yes I know that... I was merely offering myself up as a common enemy so that peace make break out as they roast my corpulent frame.