How is battle.net different from Steam? I guess I see battle.net as somewhat more restrictive than Steam in that it has less support for playing offline. Of course, its only for Blizzard games and the grand majority of their users are playing online multiplayer.Originally Posted by Disappointed
Plus, battle.net doesn't have all the features Steam does. AND, they don't have sales.
Do you need to run battlenet for singleplayer? (I belvie, you do not, Unless its changed since Warcraft3) If you do not need to run battlenet for singleplayer, it is superior to steam by a mile.
Stay tuned, then.
The new form of battle.net for Starcraft II and Diablo III puts gaming sessions in two forms: Normal (you log in to battle.net) and Guest (you don't need to log in, but you can only play the single-player missions). There is no LAN play and there are no local profiles for "guest" mode.
Now, Diablo III isn't out and I'm not sure how some of this could work for D3. How can you have no local profiles for guest mode? There would be no point to guest mode unless they saved your character.
And, of course, even if you are playing in Guest mode, the battle.net client is still up and running, its just not connected... which sounds shockingly similar to Steam.
Hi! I am going to buy a new desktop computer in order to play Civ5. Unfortunately I will have the computer in a little studio in the city where I work, and not in my main residence (I want to use the many lonely nights without my wife playing Civ :-) As you may immagine, I do not have internet there so I am thinking about getting mobile broadband, which has a limitation of 2gb a month.
Will I be able to install Civ5 (provided that I buy the boxed edition)? Is there any chance that the patches will exceed 2gb?
Thanks!
I don't see why not. Obviously the DVD install is the way to go for such cases. You'll install from the DVD and only need a very small amount of traffic to validate the install and then you should be off and ready to go. Now, its possible there will be a release-day patch. If so, then you'd have a patch to download as well, but that question is answered below...
Of course, depending on how Direct2Drive is doing their distribution, you might be able to go that route, as well. Direct2Drive may only give out keys and then force Steam to do all the downloading. Or, they may let you download an installer which is more-or-less a copy of the content on the DVD. If they do this, you'd be able to buy from D2D, download the image onto a DVD from a computer without bandwidth limits and take that DVD to your computer in the city. The benefit from this would be that you'd be able to take advantage of the free DLC Direct2Drive is offering. However, you will absolutely want to verify this with Direct2Drive before you purchase.
Now, obviously this isn't an official response, and I doubt that even 2K/Firaxis would be able to give you any guarantees, but...
Based on my experience with similar games, the patches should be fairly small, easily under 2GB per month. Since Civ5 is made use mods, the game structure should be modular (shocking) and this usually means that game patches are fairly small in size.
Now, (again) this isn't a guarantee and it's possible (albeit very unlikely) that something might need to change in Civ5 that requires updates to a lot of large files. In that case, the updates might be large. I suspect that would be a rather extreme and unexpected situation.
Also, if you ever have to restore/re-install your OS or Steam, the cumulative update from the image on the DVD to the current version on Steam may be small or significant. You can avoid the worry about this by using the Steam client to make a backup of your game data. Burn that backup to a writable DVD and when you re-install Steam, you can ask it to restore your Civ5 game data from the backup on that DVD. This will avoid having to download the full Civ5 image and, in most cases, any patches at all.
As one last bit of encouragement: If the game is 8GB in size, with all its image files and movies and animations, then I find it difficult to believe that any update will change 25% of that data in a single patch. Remember, Steam doesn't charge you a monthly access fee. They have to pay for their bandwidth, too, and they're not going to like having to send a 2G update to a few thousand Civ5 users.
Last edited by slowtarget; 08-15-2010 at 09:38 PM. Reason: Forgot to answer the main question...
If you have external HDD or large flash disk you can install Civ5 at home, copy entire folder to external HDD (or flash drive), bring it to work and simply copy it to Steam folder in that PC. You will only need to validate those files via Steam (which will thake care of registry entries etc.).
Last edited by Rebel44; 08-16-2010 at 10:35 AM.
Flesh drive.
Eww.
If you're going to do this, then at least use the supported version: Run the steam backup from the computer at home and take your flash drive (or... flesh drive... if that's how you roll) to work, then use the backup restore.
There shouldn't really be a problem with just copying the files, but as an engineer who occasionally has to do customer support: just do it the supported way.
Grammar Nazi.
ewwww
Spelling NaziGrammar Nazi.
ewwww
No grammar, no grammar
Thanks for good input. I will proceed with my purchase. I almost don't believe that I am investing 1400 euros in a computer to play Civ5. That says something about how much I enjoyed the previous 4...
DUDE, this is the way I got into steam, and it was the best decision of my gaming career; first download; L4D demo, and now I own, L4D1/2 TF2, all of HL2, GMOD, CIV 4, Borderlands...you get the point.
Edit: And of course Civ 5
Last edited by Ivan2294; 08-18-2010 at 06:51 AM.
Same Here sad to say!
.
Why wouldn't you buy Civ5. It's an awesome game. Caring whether it has Steam or not is like caring whether you get a certain computer. It's performance. If you want to get a good computer, you get the one that costs more. This is the same question, but with a different answer. Firaxis wants the best DRM for their game. So they choose the better one. That one is Steam.
And if you don't believe me, go back and play civ4 on Gamespy.
Why do you need gamespy to play Civ4? You do not even need to install gamespy when installing Civ4. So, if you call gamespy the DRM of Civ, id say its really superior. (Yes, its for online multiplayer, I know, just trying to be funny).
Second, steam IS IN NO WAY NEAR THE BEST DRM, its closer to starforce type drm than the best. Just a example of a better DRM would be GOO, hell, even securom IF only Diskcheck is selected as part for it. (Yes, devs can choose what parts of securom they use, so its mainly as bad as the devs choose). steam best? that is delusional.
That was a really.... nonexistent joke.
He was pretty clear: Gamespy is for online multiplayer. It was repeatedly listed as one of the parts of Civ4 that people wanted to improve.
What would you suggest they do to fix that?
Not do it at all? I've heard this a couple of times. "I don't care about multiplayer, I just play single player." That's great for you. However, there are loads of people who only play multiplayer and don't care about single player. Firaxis wants a game for both types. Improving multiplayer by removing it isn't an improvement.
Third party websites? That's not terribly better than a Third party application, and means less integration and more frustration for people new to Civ who want to play multiplayer. You just don't build a community on a system like that and that's exactly what Firaxis wants to do.
Make their own? This seems to be the most popular one, mostly tossed out by people who have no idea how much time and money it takes to build software. Firaxis could spend a year building an online multiplayer system and still not get close to the reliability and scalability of any of the pre-existing solutions. You can do this if you're only expecting a small number of players. Firaxis was hoping for something more.
From an objective point of view, using Steamworks is pretty enticing. Your view of it as only DRM is both incorrect and lacking realism. No matter what happened, the game was going to use DRM. That's has nothing to do with the use of Steamworks. Steamworks was chosen to provide game capabilities so Firaxis didn't need to waste the money making their own (less tested, less reliable, less scalable) version of a multiplayer system.
Its ok for them to improve multiplayer. BUT NOT AT THE COST OF SINGLEPLAYER (only) experience. And steam is NEGATIVLY effecting singleplayer. That even you can not deny. steam is nothing but a bad drm (that do not even prevent piracy), and tons of useless fluff (archivements, IM, VOIP, etc), and a semigood multiplayer system. NOTHING to offset that steam crap for SINGLEPLAYER. steam is a hassle, not worht it.
That's your opinion. Others see it differently.
I hate to point it out to you, but you do know that when people discussed improvements to make to Civ4, some of the most popular suggestions were achievements, friends lists, and voice chat.
Why should I have to subscribe to a third-party service to obtain permission to run a program purchased at a retail store?
Why are we being denied our rights under the first sale doctrine to resell the software if we have uninstalled the software?
How will we know who to go to for support when something goes wrong? I can't wait to get the support runaround where 2K tells us to talk to Steam support and Steam tells us to talk to 2K...
Why should you have to purchase a license for Windows in order to run a program you purchased at a retail store? Microsoft is a third party, too. You're fine with that requirement. You're fine with being forced to install drivers for your video card. nVidia, ATi (AMD), and Intel are all third-parties. Are you certain you don't have a game that requires IE to be installed? There are more of them than you think. Were you okay with that game requiring that you have a web browser from a specific vendor installed?
I'm not going to force you to like Steam, but the inevitable truth is this: The requirements for playing Civ5 include Windows, DirectX, hardware video drivers, some video codecs and Steam, all of which are third-party software.
Also: You're not "obtaining permission". You're getting the software provided by a third-party. I know people don't always see a difference, but its there.
Because you didn't buy software. Like it or not, Civ5 is sold as a subscription to a service. You have a right to transfer a license, but not to transfer a subscription. No rights are being denied to you. You're just not being given any more rights than you're required. The fact that many people don't understand the difference between a license and a subscription is unfortunate and worrisome, but not something you can blame 2K/Firaxis or Valve for.
Well, that is one down-side. Generally, most people blame whichever company suits their purposes at the moment. In truth, you should pretty much always go to the developer for support if the problem is observed with a specific game. If the problem happens with all games, then you pretty much always want to talk to Valve.
Of course, instead of complaining before you even know what the situation will be like, you could look at other examples. People who had issues with the Dragon Age installation called Bioware and Bioware worked with Steam to fix things. On the other hand, people who had problems with Empire: Total War sent emails and complained on Valve's forums and generally got no solution. Those who went to Creative Assembly were able to get some of their concerns addressed.
Support is always going to suck. It just seems silly to refuse to buy a game because you're not sure who will provide support for those problems that you're probably not going to call in about anyway. But, I'm not here to make decisions for you. I will, however, be here to try and figure out how to solve your problems if you buy the game.
I can see how this one could, conceivably, be a problem. Any indication that this happens already?
On an entirely separate issue to that of recent posts, is there any indication of whether CivV will support SteamCloud for distributed access to saved games? Greg, could we get news, clarification, or at least a 'that information isn't available yet', and maybe an ETA?
Microsoft and the others I have an existing relationship with as I have purchased one of their products. I don't see Steam as one of the companies behind Civ 5 - perhaps their logo should be on the box next to Firaxis and 2kGames?
Funny, I don't see anything on the box images telling me that I am purchasing a subscription. There is nothing in your product description on Amazon telling me that I am purchasing a subscription. So how exactly is the average consumer to know that they are purchasing a subscription?
I'd hope that its on the box, yeah.
Even if its not, Steam is just a free software package. Either you view that the purchase of Civ5 involves Valve because Civ5 integrates Valve code or you view Valve as only a distributor. In the first situation, Steam becomes part of the product which you did pay for (thus negating its third-party status), in the second it becomes a free utility with the same status as Firefox or Yahoo Messenger (or Gamespy). You have "bought" the product simply by installing it. The product just happens to be free.
I find it weird that you're okay with required third-party software packages when you are forced to pay for them (Windows), but suddenly not okay with them when they are given to you for free (Steam). Price doesn't change the fact that you are being forced to use software from some company that had no part in the creation of your game. I can only conclude that you're using some other criteria to distinguish them. I certainly hope its more than "I like Windows, but not Steam" or "I'm forced to use Windows, but Steam is only occasionally required".
Well, with normal games, there's nothing on the box to tell you that you are buying a license not a game. That has been going on for well over a decade and even with all the effort to make this clear, most people still don't make the distinction. Notably: even you didn't note that a "game" was actually a "license to play a copy of a game".
Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I totally agree with you. I really do want people to know that they are buying a subscription to a game service. I said long ago that I hope the box clearly states that the game makes use of Steam and that the included DVD is used only to set up Steam and do an initial installation. I haven't seen the final box presentation, so I don't yet know how well this is stated, if at all.
What might be disappointing to you is just how many people will hear that and just not care about the difference.
A license to play the game is quite a bit different from a subscription to a game. Many courts have found that licenses are subject to first sale doctrine - that is a person who purchases a license to a game is allowed to resell that license if they are no longer using it. (and that is even when the EULA explicitly forbids transferring the license)
A Subscription on the other hand can be much more tightly restricted.
With a license I can break out my old copies of Might and Magic and play them decades after they are no longer supported. With this subscription, if Valve goes out of business (or even just decide to stop supporting the game) 5-6 years from now then all I have is a shiny coaster.
Well, assuming you can find an operating system and hardware (or an emulator for ancient hardware): Yes.
I have a number of games from the late 90's that simply won't run on any modern computer using a non-guest OS. Actually I don't have them because I threw away the CDs after I learned enough about operating systems to realize that they would never play again.
For practical purposes, a game doesn't have much life past ten years, even if you have the original media. Understand that we got a little lucky with the CD/DVD/BluRay thing. In ten years, or even just six, I don't expect to be able to but a standard CD-ROM into a new desktop and install any game from it. I can't even say that I'm more than 50% sure that computers will have optical drives.
Yes. This is a risk of using digital distribution services. You have to weigh that possibility against the amount of fun you would have with the game 5-6 years from now.
I'm a fairly practical person and I'll be completely honest with you on this. The oldest game that I regularly continue to play with any frequency is Civilization 4. I don't play Civ3 anymore. Other than that, the oldest game is TeamFortress 2, and that's 3 years old. Of course, both of those games have had content added on to them over the years.
The reality of the situation is that I just don't spend much time playing old games. I don't really care if Steam disappears in six years. It's not going anywhere in the next two years, so I'm fine. Beyond that time scale, I'm not concerned because I'll be playing different games then.
And the thing is: I know that there are many, many people who don't even stick with games as long as I do. I also know that there are some Civ players who don't buy many games other than Civ and still like to play old games and that's great. It's sad and it's not a good thing, but they have to realize that technology is going to leave them behind. This isn't about what is best or what is ideal, but what is actually happening right now. PC gaming is moving toward large scale digital distribution and most PC gamers are embracing it. Those who aren't... well, technology doesn't have sympathy for the past.
The problem is I'm not talking about using digital distribution services. I'm talking about going down to best buy and purchasing a copy. And I'll be damned if I am going to pay full retail price for a product that is not actually a retail product.
I'm guessing you don't buy albums or songs from iTunes then.
The truth is that retailers have been charging full retail price on digital products for years. iTunes charges full retail price for albums; people don't seem to mind that fact too much.
Unfortunately for you, the future lies in companies charging full retail price for digital products, and many are embracing that future. I'm sure slowtarget will be able to give a more in-depth answer to your question though.
From another thread, but it will better serve everyone if it joins this one:
I wouldn't expect the manual to be available until the game is released.
Technically you can buy the game off the website version of the store and just do your thing until release day. But, sooner or later, yeah, you're going to need to install the Steam client.
Steam will make sure that you've got all the prerequisites. Lots of games use the C++ Runtimes. Steam actually has built in support for pre-installing the latest version, along with the latest version of DirectX for your OS.
I've never done it so I don't know what steps are involved, but yeah, PayPal is listed as a valid payment method. I know lots of people use that to avoid entering their credit card number.
This one is hard to say. I've pre-purchased games during the pre-download period and had them automatically start downloading. Other people have reported that an announcement is placed on the store and displayed by your client (if you allow advertisements to be shown) once the period starts. Then you go to your Library and tell it to start downloading.
I really thought that it would be automatic with default settings, but I'm no longer certain enough to really say so with confidence. Suffice it to say, if Steam allows pre-downloading of Civ5, I (or a dozen other people) will be sure to broadcast the message on these forums when it starts.
Slow Target you kick Arse
Another Civilization fan that will probably not buy the game on Steam, even though I have bought each and every previous Civilization game (I fel in love with the series in the first game, on my old 286, I believe).
Some things I wanted to say about other posts, though:
- Among players that don't want to buy a Steam game, there are plenty of ideological reasons for it. Some players don't want to be forced to subscribe to an online service in order to play offline games, some are against their computer having to effectively "ask permission" to Steam's servers in order to be allowed to play, some don't like the game files being locked by a third party application, etc. For those of us rejecting Steam for ideological reasons, even if Steam was regarded as the next best thing after sliced bread, we would still not want it.
- About Steam as a DRM, if my 15-minutes Google search is representative, it's a very weak DRM by itself. I found half a dozen diferent, recently updated, Steam cracks that let an user play games he does not own, as well as three diferent tutorials on how to re-package a Steam game to be played without Steam at all. A quick search on popular torrent sites also turned over plenty of games pirated from Steam, including recent ones.
- Forcing players to accept Steam is not the same as "forcing" them to use an operational system, drivers, codecs, and an API like DirectX. With opetaional systems, not only they are a requirement for using a computer at al (which makes them acceptable), the user has also a choice on the matter (with 2 stronger players in the form of Windows and OS-X, and the Linux/Wine combo being able to run most older Windows games and plenty of newer ones). Drivers are the same, with the difference that, by choosing the hardware to buy, the user has even more control. Game APIs and codecs are usually either bundled with the OS, besides usually being as unobstrusive as possible.
- The issue of the longevity of the service is quite important to some; I was in the middle of a SMAX game when I first saw this thread, for example, and usually play some of my old games from time to time. One of Steam's advantaqges, BTW, is keeping old games in circulation; I've seen a 17 years old game there (X-Com), and I don't doubt there are even older games. The old Battle.net was very nice in this regard, since all games were downloaded as non-DRMed versions and could be played without having to use a launcher or connect to a single company's servers; if Blizzard went out of business, we could just keep running and playing all those old games.
Reading through this thread, and seeing all the people who refuse to buy CIV V because of Steam requirement, it just makes me wonder: "Why are you guys so dramatic?"
Seriously, why the drama?
You've never bought a game that required you to have "Windows" installed? Never bought one that required "Flash", "Java" or "DirectX"? The simple fact is, all games and all programs are built on other programs and platforms.
Steam requires you to log in once and only once to verify your game, from there on in, you can play in offline mode to your heart's content.
Steam may not be the best DRM out there, but it's serving a duel purpose by also providing the multiplayer platform. Like it or not, single-player gamers, you're becoming the minority. The multi-player community needs to be considered in most games, and steam seems to provide a pretty good and flexible multi-player platform.
I think I'm going to consider any "I'll not buy CIV V Solely because of STEAM!" statements from here in to be just blather spewn by blow-hard drama queens.
Actually, Steam is the best DRM out there. Look at the alternatives. It can be way worse. It can be SecuROM. It can be FADE. Or even something like the Ubisoft homebrew DRM.
Ever heard of GOO? Its much better one than steam, It is the best of the DRMs out there (in userfriendlyness)
And. Heck steam is no better than securom. (depending on settings choosen devs in what parts of securom to use)
The OS part is interesting... yes, you are right: a user can choose Linux or OS-X as an alternative for Windows. But if you want Windows, you will have to live with registration, activation etc.
This is the same with Civ V: as a user you can choose to buy another strategy game, but if you want Civ V, you will have to live with the Steam requirement.
Excellent. Discussion is good. Hopefully you won't mind if I discuss back at you.
Absolutely. And I am a strong supporter of people's right to object to software based on ideology or morality. However, this requires that I also object to those people forcing their ideology on others, since people also have a right to support the software based on ideology or morality.
If you object to Steam based on ideology or morality, then your course of action seems clear to me: Don't buy Civilization 5. Any other actions such as trolling forums, spreading misinformation, pirating the game, or being generally annoying to people who do buy the game only undermines your statement. If you want game companies to see that your objection to their actions is based on ideology or morality, you first have to show them that you are acting in a controlled, logical, and mature manner. If you can't do that, they're just going to assume you're unreasonable and they'll ignore you.
That's pretty accurate.
Of course, what your Google searches don't show is that the majority of those "exploits" result in games that are unstable or missing capabilities of the normal game. In many cases it probably isn't enough to ruin the enjoyment of the game, but there really aren't many ways of completely removing Steam. This gets even harder when the game is based on Steamworks. Still, it's not impossible.
Here's the point that people often pass over: It's not meant to be.
This isn't meant as an attack against you, but merely as a observation on the community: Many people comment about how its possible to bypass DRM and present this knowledge as if they are part of the enlightened few who realize this. I'm absolutely certain that Valve knows that Steam can be bypassed. The whole reason why Steam works is that they understand this better than most other people.
Steam seems to be built on an idea suggested by hundreds of people: DRM doesn't have to stop every pirate, it just has to make it more convenient to buy the game than to pirate it. Steam is effective as a DRM measure because it makes it so easy to buy a game legally. You pay money for the game and Steam will take care of everything else. Installing. Patching. Updating. Security updates. DLC updates. But the only way you get that is if you're attached to an active Steam account. Sure, you can bypass that protection, but then you're on your own for updates and DLC and things won't always work and when they don't you're on your own. The point is to find the people who have money to spend on games but were pirating them because they were annoyed by stacks of DVDs or other DRM or the inability to install on multiple computers and give them a solution that is easier than trying to find a torrent every time an update comes out.
I don't see how. The game uses DirectX. That means I have to use Windows. In order to use windows, I have to agree to a license agreement and have the authenticity of that license checked periodically. The game also uses Steamworks. That means I have to use Steam. In order to use Steam I have to set up an account and verify that my account is allowed to run the game periodically.
The game wasn't forced to use DirectX. You can write a game without it. You can write a game for OSes other than Windows. You can even write a game that needs no pre-existing OS at all (in this case: the game itself would have to operate as the OS). The game developers chose to use DirectX to save themselves time and money. They chose to use Windows, too, it was just a really, really easy choice.
Yes, you need an operating system for a computer to function. There are many to choose from.
Civ5 is forcing you to use just one possible operating system. Eventually it might only force you to use one of two possible OSes. I don't see how this is better than requiring you to use just Steam or just Steam or Impulse.
To me, the only difference is that you've already chosen to use Windows. You had a choice to use BSD or MINIX or PC/GEOS or Microsoft BOB, and you chose to use Windows, in large part, I'd guess, because you wanted to use some of the software that only runs on Windows.
The Civ5/Steam situation is very similar, just at a higher level: Will you choose to run Steam because some of the software you want to use will only run on Steam?
But not Civ5, if I read correctly. In order to (legally, in the US) use Wine to run Steam/Civ5 you still need to have a valid Windows license due to some required libraries.
I understand this and I recognize that this is a weakness in the service model. There's really nothing that can be said to fix this problem. Valve says they'd unlock the apps if they ever stop the service, but they cannot promise this officially and if they were bought out, they'd be powerless to grant this without overlord approval.
The point here would be simply this: The game is being released on Steam. There is an inherent longevity risk involved with that. Depending on your personal evaluation of how much that means to you and how much risk you perceive, you should decide if you would purchase the game with this risk and if so, how much you would be willing to pay for it.
One of the best things about Steam is that they give some stupid-big discounts on software during various sales events. People might not go for a "risky" game at $50, but you might just get it for $25 if you wait until the New Years sale.
Last edited by slowtarget; 08-26-2010 at 02:12 AM.
Generally agree with pretty much all of that, slowtarget, just have to either disagree with or clarify one thing...
As long as 'trolling forums' doesn't include making reasonable, not-repeating-yourself statements about your reasons (helps the publisher know the feelings that are out there) and sharing true, correct information (including correcting misapprehensions), then I agree. I thought you might like the opportunity to make clear whether you include those sort of things under the heading of 'trolling forums'.
Of course not those things. That's not trolling. That's reasonable discussion. Trolling would be more like slinging insults and derailing discussions with disruptive behavior. Thats not at all like the things you were talking about.
The point is that a group of well-spoken, civil boycotters are way more effective at getting what they want than a mob of zealots.
So, if you dislike Steam and you want to convince publishers or gamers to change their minds and agree with you, acting irritating or insulting or spreading misinformation is only ruining your credibility. You might convince a few gamers, but they're not going to be the support that helps to convince publishers. If you present reasonable arguments and discuss things calmly, even if you're not always right, you're much more likely to get others to consider your point of view and they're likely to use the same arguments to gather more people. Get enough of those people and publishers will start to listen.
I'm uncomfortable with Steam myself since I never used it before but I believe I like Civ V more.
Thus, I'm buying the game. I'll probably download Steam and install it on Sep 14, 2010, one week before Civ V is released and then buy the game.
That way, if there is big demand, I may be able to get a locked download before the release date and not be swamped later by server overload.
If for some reason I don't like Steam after the download, I can always uninstall it and forget Civ V. If that did happen, I can always buy Civ IV without any DRM or Steam from Amazon.
Remember, we all have the choice of waiting a couple years and getting Civ V DRM and Steam free from Amazon.
Last edited by SirMaru; 08-26-2010 at 08:08 AM.
That'd be hard, seeing as CivV has Steam deeply integrated in the form of Steamworks. Firaxis would have to actively spend considerable time (which means money) making a steam-free version, and unless they spent even more time, and ongoing money, that'd have to be a version with no multiplayer.
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