Old Steam Poll posts split and 'archived'

[Bothersome]

Every game I buy nowadays MUST be on Steam before I'll buy it.

I DO NOT want boxes to lay around taking up space.
I DO NOT want CDs/DVDs/cases laying around and getting lost.

I DO want automatic updates to my games.
I DO want the ability to fix a game install without having to re-install the whole game again.
I DO want to be able to buy on a whim and not have to drive 30 miles to get it.

Steam has been a great service for me. I'll not go back to physical copies.

I've seen most of the posts in this thread that seem to degrade into arguments. I'm not interested in arguing what's best. I've just stated my requirements.

I would however like that IF Egosoft decides to give in to pressures and make a boxed copy and so forth that the costs of those materials and all labor involved in making such, NOT be passed on to those of us that just want our copies from Steam. Let those that need boxes and discs pay for the making of such and not subsidize it in the Steam versions. You guys that want em, can pay for it. Don't pass any of that cost to me.

And that's how I feel about it.

[henkbein]

How amusing. First your posts are about the companies, but now they're about the services themselves

Lost you here. Companies and their services are always linked in my world. Do you come from Mars ?

Duh. Of course there's the possibility...

Yes, there's the possibility. I agree.

Where did I state that Steam will "forever succeed"?

You did not state it. So Steam will not forever succeed. I agree.

[Shimrod]

I would however like that IF Egosoft decides to give in to pressures and make a boxed copy and so forth that the costs of those materials and all labor involved in making such, NOT be passed on to those of us that just want our copies from Steam. Let those that need boxes and discs pay for the making of such and not subsidize it in the Steam versions. You guys that want em, can pay for it. Don't pass any of that cost to me.

• They are not giving away boxed copies for free.
• They would not make boxed copies if they would not profit from it
• Profits would exceed costs otherwise they wouldn't do it
• They're making boxed copies for Steamworks integrated versions therefore boxed copies are profitable.
• Boxed copy costs would be the same regardless of whether Steam is left out of it.
• They would make more money by leaving Steam off the boxed copies as more people would buy the game
• Would it not be a good to retain a non Steam choice in case you ever switched away from Steam?
• Choice is what the issue is about. Its a win for everyone.

[Texhnolyzed]

How amusing. First your posts are about the companies, but now they're about the services themselves

Lost you here. Companies and their services are always linked in my world. Do you come from Mars ?

It was about size. There it sure as hell matters if it's about the service or the people behind it.

Duh. Of course there's the possibility...

Yes, there's the possibility. I agree.[/quote]

Where did I state that Steam will "forever succeed"?

You did not state it. So Steam will not forever succeed. I agree.[/quote]Good job at proving nothing, not that it's important in this thread.

[henkbein]

Texhnolyzed: we've had a fine battle of words, but it's late and time to sleep. I salute you.

[StarTroll]

Every game I buy nowadays MUST be on Steam before I'll buy it.

I DO NOT want boxes to lay around taking up space.
I DO NOT want CDs/DVDs/cases laying around and getting lost.

I DO want automatic updates to my games.
I DO want the ability to fix a game install without having to re-install the whole game again.
I DO want to be able to buy on a whim and not have to drive 30 miles to get it.

Steam has been a great service for me. I'll not go back to physical copies.

I'll have to agree for the most part, once you are used to having no box and all digitilized contet, with all the services STAM offers you quicly stop buying physicval medias.
BUT, not everyone is able to download xhatever Gigs a game takes, and not many people like reading or enjoying artbooks on the screens.

And the point I disaggree

I would however like that IF Egosoft decides to give in to pressures and make a boxed copy and so forth that the costs of those materials and all labor involved in making such, NOT be passed on to those of us that just want our copies from Steam. Let those that need boxes and discs pay for the making of such and not subsidize it in the Steam versions. You guys that want em, can pay for it. Don't pass any of that cost to me.

And that's how I feel about it.

Too bad for you but the prices on Steam are often more expensive then boxed copies, and I doubt selling a hard version of the game is what increases its global price.

PS : @Texhnolyzed
you should fix you quoting, right now it looks like you have a multipersonnality disorder

[Slashman]

They would make more money by leaving Steam off the boxed copies as more people would buy the game

Please stop making statements that you can't conclusively prove. You have no idea if they would, in fact, make more money by leaving Steam off the boxed version. That you'd like this to be true, I have no doubt.

Having Steam as a single unified point for updates, patches and DLC may well offset any losses due to non-Steam users avoiding the game. This may be especially true if Steamworks is the only form of DRM on Rebirth. Each DRM method you use costs money. Supporting two different versions of a game costs money.

In the end, only Deepsilver and Egosoft can determine what the best course of action for them is on this matter.

[Shimrod]

Please stop making statements that you can't conclusively prove. You have no idea if they would, in fact, make more money by leaving Steam off the boxed version.

I'd be buying it if they left steam off it, and I can be pretty sure about that. It follows that with buying it, they'd get more sales.

Having Steam as a single unified point for updates, patches and DLC may well offset any losses due to non-Steam users avoiding the game

The cost of producing patches is in the testing. Linking it for download through their own website as well as sending to Steam doesn't strike me as a crippling cost.

I could equally argue the product would be easier to test without the Steam chicanery built into the executable.

[strude]

I hope that we don’t have to be connected to the internet to play the game. Not everyone has their main computer online, and this one is not exactly a gaming rig (it can barely play Human Revolution on high settings). That’s the reason I skipped Silent Hunter V. I bought games that do not require internet connection to be either played or updated, but it would be nice to buy Rebirth too. Did Oblivion ship with online verification? Will Skyrim ship with one? If you have to be online to play Rebirth, I don’t think this computer could handle the game on high settings.

Skyrim uses Steam, same setup as Rebirth.

What does being online have to do with if what settings your PC can run the game?

Too bad for you but the prices on Steam are often more expensive then boxed copies, and I doubt selling a hard version of the game is what increases its global price.

Not sure if you could back up "often" but it does happen.

[TrueSanity]

Any patch that changes something changed in a mod generally breaks something. So if a plot is added that relies on new ships for example, any ship mod will break that patch and the new plot. Until of course its updated, which depends on the modder.

True for the way modding works in TC and previous. One would hope that they have a system in place to mitigate much of the problems caused by changing versions.

In response to your expected response, I know it doesn't work all the time, especially in the games like X where games can be ongoing for a long time. The "broken ships" example you gave results from having all the ship definitions in one tships file, that may be over written by patches, and also that it has all the ships listed in order, and referenced in game by their place in that order. (The same can be said for pretty much most moddable elements in the game). If the modding support is done well, ship mods should be able to be used independently from each other, and new ships be added without any effect on existing ships.

You absolutely nailed what I wanted to say here. A well-coded moddable game should account for mods so that updating the game or its data will not affect how mods are applied, thus not breaking the mods.

[apricotslice]

You absolutely nailed what I wanted to say here. A well-coded moddable game should account for mods so that updating the game or its data will not affect how mods are applied, thus not breaking the mods.

That is something I raised in my email to Bernd.

IF the patch system remains the same, then Steam is a disaster for everyone who uses false patches.

IF the patch system is replaced with something more dynamic, where multiple mods can co-exist without the need for false patching or extensive merging, then maybe the autoupdate will work.

BUT we dont know how the game has been designed yet, so I'm assuming the worse that its the same design as TC and autoupdating will be a disaster. At least until informed otherwise.

[Slashman]

I'd be buying it if they left steam off it, and I can be pretty sure about that. It follows that with buying it, they'd get more sales.

That's not what you said though. You said they'd make more money. The implication is that they would make more money overall if they didn't lose the sales of people who refused to use Steam. That's very difficult to prove since several factors are involved. And additionally, it depends on how many people actually follow through on their no Steam threat in the first place.

The cost of producing patches is in the testing. Linking it for download through their own website as well as sending to Steam doesn't strike me as a crippling cost.

I thought that it entirely depended on the nature of the patch. If you make a patch to adjust weapon damage...then this is probably true.

If you're making a patch that rewrites a large part of the NPC AI or adds significant art resources to the game, then you need to pay the people who are writing that code and creating those assets.

Testing is required for every patch(well it should be...some developers make me question this time and again), but I don't have hard numbers of what the comparative costs are of one versus the other. Do you?

I could equally argue the product would be easier to test without the Steam chicanery built into the executable.

You could, but you couldn't prove that you're right.

What I do know regarding the Steam patch process is that the executable requires adjustment to tie it to Steam. That's common knowledge. How much difficulty that entails, I have no idea. I do know that small, independent developers have been using Steam and haven't been complaining about that aspect of patching games.

One area I know for sure that was a headache, was the Steam patch process itself, which originally required that the entire file being patched be downloaded in its entirety by the end user. Steam has recently switched to a delta patch process which now only downloads the parts of a file that have been changed. Its made Steam updates much faster and better for all involved. It's a similar system to the express file installation that WSUS uses.

IF the patch system remains the same, then Steam is a disaster for everyone who uses false patches.

Sorry, but as it stands now, do Steam users not have the ability to apply false patches? I'm asking because I was unaware that this was the case.

I've never applied a false patch for X3TC, but I have applied community patches for other games like Titan Quest, Oblivion and a few others.

[Asmodae]

Since the thread has devolved into retreading old statements, trolls, and flames there isn't much left to say -
I see two arguments here:

anti-steam - arguments tend to invoke historical and economic perspectives, and revolve around user rights and caring about the future of gaming in general, and Egosoft in particular.

pro-steam - arguments tend to revolve around personal ease of use and the cheap prices that steam will ultimately provide while relying on blind hope that no problems crop up, or not caring if problems crop up.

Both are valid positions to take for any particular individual, rational self interest is at work in both cases. I implore Egosoft to also employ rational self interest with a long term view.

[Slashman]

@Asmodae

I have to take issue with your portrayal of the pro-steam arguments. Especially in my case.

I argue for ease of use, of course. But I also made several valid arguments about Steam's overall contribution to PC gaming. Specifically, that it has provided an excellent outlet for smaller, independent game studios and even one-man teams to release their work and gain exposure in an environment that until recently only counted 'AAA' titles as having any value.

The fact that games like Bastion, Orcs Must Die, Hard Reset, Sanctum, Braid and countless others got a chance to shine and make returns for their dev teams is not something that I'd shunt aside when discussing the benefits of a delivery platform like Steam.

Sticking to a boxed game only environment would never allow that to happen.

[apricotslice]

If you're making a patch that rewrites a large part of the NPC AI or adds significant art resources to the game, then you need to pay the people who are writing that code and creating those assets.

But they will be paying them for that anyway.

The only duplication involved is packaging for the download process. And packing a zip and putting it on the forum is negligible time in comparison with making the patch in the first place.

IF the patch system remains the same, then Steam is a disaster for everyone who uses false patches.

Sorry, but as it stands now, do Steam users not have the ability to apply false patches? I'm asking because I was unaware that this was the case.

I've never applied a false patch for X3TC, but I have applied community patches for other games like Titan Quest, Oblivion and a few others.

Yes, steam users have the ability to false patch now. The steam game is identical to the box game in all respects except the directory structure its installed into.

The problem is that autodownload of patches will overwrite a false patch.

TC patch 3.1 is 12.cat/dat in the game folder. If you have a no flog mod installed as 13, thats a false patch. Patch 3.5 then autodownloads as patch 13 and overwrites the no-fog mod. Suddenly in game, you get fog. Thats a simple one.

A more complex example is if the AMS mod (mine) is installed as patch 13. v3.5 overwrites 13 and suddenly the game crashes because all the mod entities (stations and ships) are no longer described to the game so the save file becomes "corrupt".

In same cases, people have mods installed as false patches well up into the 20's.

So take it one step further. 13 is no fog. 14 is Apricot Tree. 15 is AMS.

The procedure for installing a new patch for those that mod, is to start at the highest number and rename it up a number and work your way back until there is a gap between your mods and the last egosoft patch. So in the example above, I'd have to rename 15 to 16, 14 to 15, 13 to 14, then install the 3.5 patch, which is a new 13.

The order of these things is super-important. And 1 cobbered mod in the sequence can crash your game as soon as you start it up. In the above case, its not major, but if AMS had to be the first mod, that would be fatal if overwritten.

Unless the patching/modding methodology of XR is radically different, autopatching is disasterous for a lot of people.

The other issue is the files themselves. If the ship file is updated in the patch, then any mod that has ships automatically becomes out of date. So if a new plot that uses a new ship is in the patch, then the mod will clobber the ship and the result is unpredictable, depending on how the plot uses the ship. eg. if the next ship slot has a M2 in it, and the plot is expecting a cargo ship and needs more space than the M2 has, its a plot breaker. So is a ship with no guns, when the plot needs you to kill something. At worst, this kind of thing can crash a game.

[Edit: Actually its worse now. The plots are written in MD, which uses the ID of the new ship, which a mod will overwrite and so when the plot goes to use the ship, it wont exist in the file and the plot will crash.]

So for people running mods, the timing of the patch is essential, as it cannot be installed until the mod is updated to match the patch.

Patching for vanilla game is not an issue.

Patching for the modded game, MUST be controlled as to when its done.

[strude]

Patching for the modded game, MUST be controlled as to when its done.

No. The modding system needs to be completely replaced.

The examples you sighted in your post are the result of a poorly implemented modding system, most likely due to features being pushing into the game over the course of it's evolution. False patches are more of a hack than anything, to circumvent the limitation of only being able to select one mod from the game launcher. The enable multiple mods, they would need to be merged (not intuitive to do), or put into false patches (as I said, a hack that works).

Regardless of Steam or not, a game with proper modding facilities should be able to be patches without the entire game falling apart.

EDIT: There are benefits to controlling when the patch is applied. Breaking mods shouldn't be a consideration though.

[Slashman]

[Edit: Actually its worse now. The plots are written in MD, which uses the ID of the new ship, which a mod will overwrite and so when the plot goes to use the ship, it wont exist in the file and the plot will crash.]

So for people running mods, the timing of the patch is essential, as it cannot be installed until the mod is updated to match the patch.

Patching for vanilla game is not an issue.

Patching for the modded game, MUST be controlled as to when its done.

False patches are done when you want to run multiple mods right? I'm wondering why Egosoft doesn't allow for an easier way to run multiple mods and scripts in the game.

[apricotslice]

Patching for the modded game, MUST be controlled as to when its done.

No. The modding system needs to be completely replaced.

I dont disagree with that.

Egosoft have not made any mention if the modding system has changed or not, so I'm assuming it hasnt. (I have brought this up in my Bernd email).

If it hasnt been changed for XR, then its too late to suggest it be changed, as the game design is dependent on that.

Its not a modding system, its the way the game is packaged.

The first 4 patches contain all the on release game files.

If they stuck to that, it cannot now be changed.

If they redesigned it, then there is hope. That would alleviate a lot of the autodownload worry for many if the patch system wasnt done the way it has been.

[Observe]

Egosoft have not made any mention if the modding system has changed or not, so I'm assuming it hasnt. (I have brought this up in my Bernd email).

We know the cat/dat file system is gone from what Apoch told us some time ago. We don't know any details beyond that however.

[EDIT] Found the post I was looking for from this thread:

@Egosoft:

1. Does 3DS Max remain the modeling program?
2. Are you keeping the cat/dat compression format?

Those are a couple of fundamental modding questions.

1. Yes.
2. No. We're using a compression/light encryption system of course but it differs from that in X3.

[apricotslice]

Egosoft have not made any mention if the modding system has changed or not, so I'm assuming it hasnt. (I have brought this up in my Bernd email).

We know the cat/dat file system is gone from what Apoch told us some time ago. We don't know any details beyond that however.

[EDIT] Found the post I was looking for from this thread:

@Egosoft:

1. Does 3DS Max remain the modeling program?
2. Are you keeping the cat/dat compression format?

Those are a couple of fundamental modding questions.

1. Yes.
2. No. We're using a compression/light encryption system of course but it differs from that in X3.

Thats not enough info.

If all they did was change the compression files (cat/dat to big for example), then nothing changes.