Split from X-Rebirth Steam poll thread - Round 2

[Slashman]

I have a workmate from the UK who I asked about it and he said unlimited connections aren't that uncommon in the UK.

I'm in Barbados and our internet packages are all unlimited...of course we only have 2 ISPs to choose from.

I was under the impression that usually, caps are applied to the most basic packages and it was possible to pay for a sufficiently higher cap or unlimited cap in most cases.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

I see egosoft is just about giveing AP away on steam ie 75% off,they must be desparate to increase sales.Also in the AP forum they are saying that a lot of it was made by the community for the community ,it sounds a bit conmanish that egosoft should sell it back to the community instead of saying thank you to all the loyal supporters over the years and haveing it as a down load from egosoft,whats the world comeing to i do not have a clue,the old one

It was made available as a free download to those 'loyal supporters' who'd bought the Superbox.

<tinfoilhat>
As for conmanish, I don't recall seeing any indignant posts by the community authors that contributed to AP that their work was being released as a paid download option. I guess all those mod authors must be taking a cut from the Steam sales..
</tinfoilhat>

I have a workmate from the UK who I asked about it and he said unlimited connections aren't that uncommon in the UK.

It depends where you are of course, less so if you live down a coal mine, but unlimited internet options are widely available across the UK.

[ollobrains]

Egosoft is obviously pushing AP to keep interest up in rebirth, they did push terran conflicht a bit further into AP and if rebirth drags out i half expect more of this DLC plus type stuff pushed along a little further.

Egosoft could really be innovative and push out a minecraft type beta of rebirth with regular updates to those that are willing to purchase and provide feedback either automatically etc with regular patching that could generate goodwill ill start another thread on this elsewhere

[strude]

Also in the AP forum they are saying that a lot of it was made by the community for the community ,it sounds a bit conmanish that egosoft should sell it back to the community instead of saying thank you to all the loyal supporters over the years and haveing it as a down load from egosoft,whats the world comeing to i do not have a clue,the old one

Good grief. Egosoft has been more than generous to their loyal supporters over the years. TC has had multiple complete plots added since it's release, none of which have been charged for. You think you deserve even more for nothing?

The term "made by the community" probably represents about a dozen community members who contributed their work to AP. The entire community consists of many people who don't mod or script or contributed in any way to the new AP content. Why should the work of a few committed people just be given to the rest of the community, even after the volume of free content that has already been provided over the years?

Then made "for the community". From what I can tell all the community contributors for AP have done much more than just porting a few scripts from TC. These changes were made specifically for AP, and not for community general release. Plenty of community mods and scripts have been converted to AP for the community, and these are still available on the Script and Modding Forum for AP.

"What's the world coming to?" is a fair question, and your own answer from your post is sufficiently accurate.

[ollobrains]

made for the community no its proabbaly a good idea, some may see it as a quick commercial grab given the mission storyline was weaker than expected i think the lack of information on rebirth is frustrating a lot of the player base more regular dev blogs and lifting the cone of silence might help there, paradox is a good example a twice weekly dev blog on all the individual features that go into the game just to keep us interested the cone of silence from a big games company is nothing new but is just bad

[Quester91]

No problem for me, I always have steam running in background

[Nova Scotia]

Nice to see so many have unlimited use, which make Steam more useful but no less problematic for some.
Unfortunately it does not deter from the fact that business like steam,netflix,voip providers, software retailer and the such, all rely on the internet to deliver there services , whilst not giving back to the maintenance of the Super Internet Highway.
These business make there profit from Your access to the internet .
They take but do not give back.
Your isps are paving the highway and maintaining it and your are paying at the toll booths to use it.

They do not support the World Wide Web they just reap the profits

[Slashman]

@Nova Scotia

Wait, what?

Are you suggesting that Steam should somehow pay us so we can use its services? Or that they should shell out money to put internet infrastructure in place so we can purchase and use their services?

I thought developing communication infrastructure was the province of the government and ISPs.

Also, I pay for the internet because I make frequent and heavy use of the internet. How is that Steam's concern in any form or fashion? If there wasn't a market for the services they provide, they would have no business.

The online businesses you mentioned(including Steam) offer an online service which is optional. If you want to take advantage of it, then you need an internet connection(they state that on their website and in their terms of service).

They do not support the World Wide Web they just reap the profits

Every online business reaps profits from the internet. And each one has to pay for it's bandwidth and internet access. In the case of MMOs and the like they need to pay for maintenance of multiple servers across several states and countries. Same goes for Steam.

Bandwidth needs to work both ways. If you download at 30+ MB/s from Steam, they need to have the bandwidth on their end to serve at that speed.

[Chris0132]

If it wasn't for online businesses then nobody would bother with high speed internet.

Services which offer large amounts of downloaded content are the primary driving force in the development of better internet technology, just like video games are the primary driving force in the development of better graphics cards and processors.

The best way to make something develop quickly is to find some way for people to make money off it, that way it's self funding and everyone wants to see it develop.

Not to mention the amount of non-profit things you can actually do with most things is fairly limited. If nobody was allowed to make any money from the internet you'd have no ISPs, no websites (no hosting being sold) no dedicated internet connection (have to use dial up) and the only thing you'd be able to do is download small amounts of information from places you already know the contact info for.

made for the community no its proabbaly a good idea, some may see it as a quick commercial grab given the mission storyline was weaker than expected i think the lack of information on rebirth is frustrating a lot of the player base more regular dev blogs and lifting the cone of silence might help there, paradox is a good example a twice weekly dev blog on all the individual features that go into the game just to keep us interested the cone of silence from a big games company is nothing new but is just bad

Although considering, say, the release of sword of the stars 2, paradox has a wonderful way of not providing useful information in their press releases.

[Deleted User]

Self-funding money making development aside, the original question stands.

If Rebirth is released steam-works only, what are you going to do about it

[Shugreid]

If Steam only Rebirth. I will leave, if AP is not released as a dvd I will leave anyway.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Nice to see so many have unlimited use, which make Steam more useful but no less problematic for some.
Unfortunately it does not deter from the fact that business like steam,netflix,voip providers, software retailer and the such, all rely on the internet to deliver there services , whilst not giving back to the maintenance of the Super Internet Highway.
These business make there profit from Your access to the internet .
They take but do not give back.
Your isps are paving the highway and maintaining it and your are paying at the toll booths to use it.

They do not support the World Wide Web they just reap the profits

Rubbish.

My ISP makes a profit by providing me with an internet connection. What I choose to use that internet connection for is my business, be it web surfing or gaming or whatever.

Steam, Netflix and other high bandwidth services provide their service over my internet connection and if I want to enjoy a full streaming video service for example then while still usable on lower connections it's nicer to have a high capacity connection for that purpose.

As such demand for high capacity ISP service encourages investment in higher capacity internet backbone capacity and so services such as Steam and Netflix are actually encouraging improvements to internet infrastructure, encouraging consumer uptake of higher bandwidth connections from their ISP (which benefits the ISP) and generally making the whole Internet that much better for everyone.

So yes, Steam et al do support and 'Give back' to the WWW.

[ScytheBlade1]

Probably the most depressing part about this thread is where it is the longest one on this specific board, and is probably the least relevant to the actual game.

[the old one]

Hi NUKLEAR-SLUG,yes i would have liked AP as a egosoft down load but i would have payed quiet willingly had it been steam free.I do have the superbox and could get it free,but,there is a lot of buts in this,it means haveing steam as well which i will not entertain. A lot of posts are saying steam will generate more sales,that may be so but there is another aspect to that,as an example say TC had a million sale and takeing the poll in this thread as its the only figures we have,the poll suggests that 36% will not buy rebirth but reduce that figue by one third to 24%.Now we have the hypothetical figures in place we shall start,take 24% of one million =240000, now say you get an extra 350000 sales through steam makeing total sales of 1110000 sales through steam great you would say for egosoft but you would be wrong.IF egosoft had a steam and none steam release the total sales wou be 1350000 sales,now if the none steam game retailed at say 30 pounds that would be 30 times 240000 that would make a total of 7200000 pounds dont forget these figures are hypothetical and it will depend on the actual figure but i think you can see were i am going. I have always preordered all the games from XBTF to TC and you would not be wrong saying i am an X addict but egosoft invented a cure for my addiction to the X games its called steam,the old one

[Antaran]

Probably the most depressing part about this thread is where it is the longest one on this specific board, and is probably the least relevant to the actual game.

It may seem like the least relevant to the actual game for you, however for me this is the biggest relevance to the game, given that if it is steam exclusively, nothing else about the game matters, since I will not be buying it.

[Nova Scotia]

Not that it matters ,but no I will not be Purchasing X Rebirth if it is not released without being tied in to Steam.

Until Steam and other business models that use the Super Highway actually start purchasing blocks of data for there customers use, instead of relying on there customers 39.99 a month band with , there all scavengers.

If I wanted to start my own isp I would have to purchase/reserve blocks of data for my customers from a first tear provider,same difference

Guess no one as a problem with calling for a cab/taxi and when the driver gets to your house he informs you that he will be using your car


Sure we can deliver your new fridge to your house ,do you have a truck handy





Happy New Years to all

[strude]

I know what you mean. The other day I bought a new printer, and the manufacturer expects me to provide my own electricity supply. They don't even contribute to the maintenance of the power grid. I'm expected to pay to have electricity at my house, and these cheap scavenger manufacturers just free load on the power grid that I'm providing. I'm not buying any more electrical equipment from any manufacturer that doesn't contribute some of their ill gotten profits back to the power grid.

[Slashman]

Hi NUKLEAR-SLUG,yes i would have liked AP as a egosoft down load but i would have payed quiet willingly had it been steam free.I do have the superbox and could get it free,but,there is a lot of buts in this,it means haveing steam as well which i will not entertain. A lot of posts are saying steam will generate more sales,that may be so but there is another aspect to that,as an example say TC had a million sale and takeing the poll in this thread as its the only figures we have,the poll suggests that 36% will not buy rebirth but reduce that figue by one third to 24%.Now we have the hypothetical figures in place we shall start,take 24% of one million =240000, now say you get an extra 350000 sales through steam makeing total sales of 1110000 sales through steam great you would say for egosoft but you would be wrong.IF egosoft had a steam and none steam release the total sales wou be 1350000 sales,now if the none steam game retailed at say 30 pounds that would be 30 times 240000 that would make a total of 7200000 pounds dont forget these figures are hypothetical and it will depend on the actual figure but i think you can see were i am going. I have always preordered all the games from XBTF to TC and you would not be wrong saying i am an X addict but egosoft invented a cure for my addiction to the X games its called steam,the old one

The problem is that all your numbers are hypothetical. All we have from this poll is the feelings of some of the forum members. Specifically, the ones who feel strongly enough about Steam one way or another to actually bother to read the poll and vote.

We don't even know how many of them will stick to their stance(history has proven that in cases like these a decent number of them are likely to buy the game anyway).

With the recent successes of products on Steam, I'd venture to say that it's unlikely you're going to make any headway with your stance.

That's not to say you're not entitled to take your stance. I just personally think that if you're not one of the people who CANNOT use Steam due to lack of a decent connection like apricotslice, and you choose not to get a game you'd enjoy from a company you've been supporting for years, then perhaps you're taking this a bit too seriously.

Gaming is entertainment. I'd say I'm pretty passionate about it and I like it when developers/publishers make games that I like to play. When they do, I buy them and enjoy them. However, when they don't I pass it by. Or if they make a game I can't run due to hardware/software/internet limitations, I pass it by.

I was kind of sad when Just Cause 2 came out and was Vista/7/DX 10 only. I didn't have Windows 7 or a DX10 capable card at the time. I didn't jump on their forums and demand they release a different version. I just waited until I had a system that could run it and got it then.

Trying to start, or take part in, some anti-Steam revolution is just kind of pointless. Its not going away. Even if you manage to stave it off for Rebirth(unlikely), you'll still end having to deal with it again for the next X title in all likelihood.

[Nova Scotia]

I know what you mean. The other day I bought a new printer, and the manufacturer expects me to provide my own electricity supply. They don't even contribute to the maintenance of the power grid. I'm expected to pay to have electricity at my house, and these cheap scavenger manufacturers just free load on the power grid that I'm providing. I'm not buying any more electrical equipment from any manufacturer that doesn't contribute some of their ill gotten profits back to the power grid.

But did he use your electricity to power is factory to manufacture or to make his profit

Let see, your paid 69,99 for your printer and an extra 80 dollars on your power bill for manufacturing cost.

Good Deal for someone

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Hi NUKLEAR-SLUG,yes i would have liked AP as a egosoft down load but i would have payed quiet willingly had it been steam free.I do have the superbox and could get it free,but,there is a lot of buts in this,it means haveing steam as well which i will not entertain. A lot of posts are saying steam will generate more sales,that may be so but there is another aspect to that,as an example say TC had a million sale and takeing the poll in this thread as its the only figures we have,the poll suggests that 36% will not buy rebirth but reduce that figue by one third to 24%.Now we have the hypothetical figures in place we shall start,take 24% of one million =240000, now say you get an extra 350000 sales through steam makeing total sales of 1110000 sales through steam great you would say for egosoft but you would be wrong.IF egosoft had a steam and none steam release the total sales wou be 1350000 sales,now if the none steam game retailed at say 30 pounds that would be 30 times 240000 that would make a total of 7200000 pounds dont forget these figures are hypothetical and it will depend on the actual figure but i think you can see were i am going. I have always preordered all the games from XBTF to TC and you would not be wrong saying i am an X addict but egosoft invented a cure for my addiction to the X games its called steam,the old one

Regrettably tho, from what I can tell, you don't particularly appear to have much understanding of what it is you're actually objecting to.

I've seen plenty of examples of you leaping on some negative point that someone has raised (most of which are a load of rubbish anyway) and then essentially arguing "See? SEE? THIS is why Steam is evil!" etc.. but do you actually have any personal experience from which you're basing your opinion or is it purely cherry-picking the negatives?

You do realise Steam is a free application and there are plenty of freely available demos on it? There's nothing but stubbornness preventing you from downloading the application and trying out the service for yourself. It won't cost you a penny.

Try it. Download a free demo or two. See how Steam actually works for yourself instead of making assumptions of how you think Steam works because someone else told you that's how it is. See how well your net connection works with it.

Maybe, like Scoob and a few others who took the time to find out for themselves, you'll also find out that actually, this isn't so bad and all those horror stories you were told we just that... or maybe you'll decide it's not for you. Either way at least you'll be making an informed choice.