You are missing the point Spellcaster, people don't complain about steams functionality as a service (which is pretty smooth) but about the fact that you cannot resell games, your account, that the servers may be shut down rendering your games inoperable and that some guys require an active connection to steam to function.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
DX:HR leak impressions
- Thread starter baronjohn
- Start date
Most games do require you to log in to Steam.
LordDenton
Augur
Of course, opting to avoid a system that removes all right from you as a customer is "counterculture" and "edgy". The normal thing to do is lubing up my asshole and allowing Gabe's cock to rape it.Spellcaster said:
Excidium
P. banal
But that's on the developer part, not steam, I think...I only have two steam games (NWN2 and L4D2) and both can be played offline.Destroid said:
I don't mind steam much, except for the stupid 15 seconds 'loading' to start a game.
Admiral jimbob
gay as all hell
LordDenton dislikes Steam? I'd just like to clear that up, he hasn't really mentioned it before.
He also thinks that Steam's 80% off sales reduce games to the price they normally cost on Amazon. He genuinely thinks this. Just for reference.
He also thinks that Steam's 80% off sales reduce games to the price they normally cost on Amazon. He genuinely thinks this. Just for reference.
LordDenton
Augur
Spellcaster said:
How is that a superlative?
- You can't resell the game (breach of terms). Game is also associated with an account that may have other games, thus making reselling difficult.
- You can't give your account to anyone else (breach of terms).
- You are required to be connected to the Steam authentication server in order to play. No internet for ANY reason? No gaming.
- The game is locked to an account and, if it wants to, Valve can remove access to your game (and it has several times in the past).
- Minimal control over patching. No way of actually saving patch files locally. If you want to play the latest version you need to download 2GB+ every time you install, even though you have "physical" edition.
- You need the massive Steam client running in the background in order to play.
- Steam server down? No gaming for you until it's back up.
- Steam permanently dies for any reason? All your collection is gone.
Excidium
P. banal
This one is bullshit...LordDenton said:
LordDenton
Augur
Excidium said:
Go buy Metro 2033 (or any other Shitworks game), install it on a computer that's not connected to the internet, and see if you're able to play it.
Excidium
P. banal
Ah yes, I thought you were saying that was the case with all games bought on steam. 
sea
inXile Entertainment
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,698
While I think that Steam represents a relatively fair trade as far as features/convenience versus ownership goes, I really don't understand people who seem to begrudge those who don't like Steam. I'm happy with the service for the most part, but I'm not sure why "it's good enough for me" somehow invalidates the complaints or ideological concerns of others. Aside from the fact that we're talking about something as relatively trivial as a videogame store and DRM platform, I don't really see why I or anyone else should have the right to decide what's right for everyone. Ultimately, Steam is a compromise, and not everyone is going to be satisfied with it precisely because it is just that: a compromise. No need to get picky and behave as if someone's "wrong" for not wanting to accept the terms.
Multi-headed Cow
Guest
You're kinda rewording your complaint there. Technically you're not required to be connected to the Steam authentication server in order to play at all times. You have it launch a game once in "Online" mode after installing, after which you can leave Steam in offline mode and play without internet just fine. If you live in a rapin' shack in the woods and don't have satellite internet you couldn't install and play DX3. Unless they've added some "Phone up our support system for an install code to OK your game!" thing, though I'm fairly sure they haven't.LordDenton said:
Actually what the hell FULL LIST:
"- You can't resell the game (breach of terms). Game is also associated with an account that may have other games, thus making reselling difficult." Technically true. Steam cuts down on used game sales. Used game sales on PC have usually been on the low side (Mostly for multiplayer games which use CD keys) but Steam cuts down on it harder.
"- You can't give your account to anyone else (breach of terms)." Also technically true. Valve doesn't seem particularly concerned about it however, and I've run my Steam account on multiple machines and signing in on one machine while another is already signed in just asks you to confirm if you want to sign in while it's logged in elsewhere. The machine logged in elsewhere gets kicked off. Alternatively you can launch one or both machines in offline mode if you wanted to play LAN with Steam games (Which also works on all/most Valve games).
"- The game is locked to an account and, if it wants to, Valve can remove access to your game (and it has several times in the past)." Technically true, though the only instances I've heard of Valve removing a game from an account (Beyond the few instances where games were incorrectly labeled as free on the store and removed from accounts that grabbed it) was when Orange Box was released. Valve was cracking down on people buying different region CD keys, and removing the games from accounts. This is the only instance I've heard of it, and they haven't done that (To my knowledge) for non-Valve games as I've even bought some foreign keys for Steamworks games with 0 issue. They've also removed some games from the Steam store (Such as Prey) but anyone who bought the games while they were up still have access to them in their account for redownloading and playing.
"- Minimal control over patching. No way of actually saving patch files locally. If you want to play the latest version you need to download 2GB+ every time you install, even though you have "physical" edition." All true and agree 100% it's a dick in the ass. Even though I'd leave all my games set to auto update anyway, it's a pain you have to tell each game manually NOT to patch and have no way of rolling back patches.
"- You need the massive Steam client running in the background in order to play." Almost entirely true. There are definitely a fair number of games sold on Steam that don't need the client running to play, but the majority do, and all Steamworks games obviously do. Generally only old games launch without requiring Steam, newest game I can think of off the top of my head that didn't was Majesty 2, though I don't often try launching my Steam games without Steam.
"- Steam server down? No gaming for you until it's back up. " Mostly not true. Would only be SOL if you installed a game and wanted to launch it for the first time. Otherwise you could go to offline mode and play.
"- Steam permanently dies for any reason? All your collection is gone." Theoretically (And in my opinion likely) true. Apparently a guy at Valve at one point said they'd release a thing to let you play your games without Steam if Valve suddenly went under, but it was later redacted. I would doubt they'd do such a thing.
STEAM DEFENSE SQUAD, AWAY
M: 
Gord
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,049
If it wasn't for all the people pirating games, we wouldn't need stuff like Steam...
Personally I'm torn over Steam. It's not a no-go for me (not in it's current form at least), but I don't like
1) that you are basically supposed to be "renting" the games, you have no real ownership of them and
2) that Steam/Valve gives me next to no control over my private data. It should be no ones business what I play and for how long.
Much more important to me is, whether DX:HR will feature in-game ads or not.
That would be more of a deal-breaker to me.
Personally I'm torn over Steam. It's not a no-go for me (not in it's current form at least), but I don't like
1) that you are basically supposed to be "renting" the games, you have no real ownership of them and
2) that Steam/Valve gives me next to no control over my private data. It should be no ones business what I play and for how long.
Much more important to me is, whether DX:HR will feature in-game ads or not.
That would be more of a deal-breaker to me.
aron searle
Arcane
Excidium said:
Fuck you.
I avoided buying HL2 for many years because of steam, I gave in when the orange box came out.
By coincidence I lost my connection shortly after for about a month, I set it to offline mode and it worked for a few days, then it just randomly decided that it needed to connect, and that was that untill my connection was back up.
aron searle
Arcane
Excidium said:
Fuck you.
I avoided buying HL2 for many years because of steam, I gave in when the orange box came out.
By coincidence I lost my connection shortly after for about a month, I set it to offline mode and it worked for a few days, then it just randomly decided that it needed to connect, and that was that untill my connection was back up.
aron searle said:
Essentially, steam allows you to play a game a set # of times before it wants to validate it's yours again. I think it's ~10 times or so, but I never tested it. If you go for several days without your computer having internet access in this day and age, you have bigger problems to worry about than steam wanting to validate your warez.
mwnn
Novice
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2010
- Messages
- 19
J1M said:
The forced boss battle really is an awful end to the press review copy.
At least in the original game - you could hack the computers for the kill codes or skip the fights till later.
The trick to beating Barrett is to make use of the chemical tanks which can incapacitate him for a long time, EMP works too. Throw the explosive barrels at him and hope for the best.
SuicideBunny
(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻
- Joined
- May 1, 2007
- Messages
- 8,943
some people, like me for instance, often have to go out for prolonged times to backwater shitholes where the only internet available is the shitty mobile connection with a low transfer volume on a stick the company gave them, but would still like to play their installed games after a hard working day.Ulminati said:Essentially, steam allows you to play a game a set # of times before it wants to validate it's yours again. I think it's ~10 times or so, but I never tested it. If you go for several days without your computer having internet access in this day and age, you have bigger problems to worry about than steam wanting to validate your warez.
and no, you can't log into steam from a throttled mobile connection because unlike the codex, the bloated gmail webclient, any online software activation that is not steam, and a fuckton of other things you can do on the net, fucking steam requires broadband to perform something as simplistic as logging into your account.
mwnn said:
Yeah I finally got him. I wouldn't have minded so much if his grenades didn't instagib you and it had such long load times to try again. On a few tries I would literally spend more time loading than fighting. Is he actually bullet proof? I ended up killing him with liberal use of explosives.
When I was ghosting I didn't bring any weapons with me except the rocket launcher with 3 rockets.
I thought it would be enough. I was mistaken.
As it happens it took 3 rockets and 1 bullet from the machine pistol that's lying around. Like, literally, I picked up the pistol, fired one bullet and he went down.
I thought it would be enough. I was mistaken.
As it happens it took 3 rockets and 1 bullet from the machine pistol that's lying around. Like, literally, I picked up the pistol, fired one bullet and he went down.
The fight is overall pretty awkward. It's a pattern based boss in a game that isn't really about shooting and indeed has punishingly difficult combat (on the highest difficulty) compared to sneaking/talking etc. your way through problems. I don't know if the 'bosses' in DX1 were like this, I killed Gunther and Anna with killwords and took out Simons so fast I didn't really have time to see how he battled.
Radisshu
Prophet
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2007
- Messages
- 5,623
I always thought Gunther was really difficult. Anna could be if you had the wrong build (headshotting with the stealth gun didn't do very much, I resorted to just running back and firing a missile at her one time). When I got to Simons I had the Dragon's Tooth, so.. Heh
Kaanyrvhok
Arbiter
- Joined
- May 1, 2008
- Messages
- 1,096
I'm thinking about posting this on the escapist as proof that the ‘PC elite’ will appreciate the umpteenth action RPG if it has decent gameplay. The quotes from this thread could really sell the game. So much surprise in this thread.
mwnn
Novice
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2010
- Messages
- 19
Radisshu said:
Anna was definitely the weaker of the pair.
Usually pick her off in the jet with Lebedev - a few headshots with the 10mm pistol and she drops quickly through - bit tricky if she appears to cloak. If I died it's usually in her post-death explosion - rather amusing really.
I don't remember Gunther being that difficult - but Simons plasma gun is plain nasty. Never did use cheap tricks and/or foreknowledge.
Whilst Human Revolution isn't quite up to Deus Ex quality - I'm definitely adding it (back) onto my radar. I'd completely forgotten about it believing it would turn out like Supreme Commander 2.
Like the way the FEMA plot ties into the current real-world conspiracy plots, the references to old characters and all the other stuff mentioned.
Few niggling problems with the game as is...
- the inventory --> total size/certain item sizes, certain items don't stack (beer!, grenades), 3 (!) upgrades for full inventory size.
- if a weapon type you pickup is already in your inventory - the weapon will simply disappear - and you'll lose the credits you could've earnt from selling it.
- the removal of the skill system. (thanks Invisible War)
- no basic melee attacks.
- lack of hackable ATM's.
- hacking game is far too chance based - even with full stealth tree. I'm finding the XP + item bonus from hacking to be too good to pass up - even when I have the opening code.
- removal of lockpicks and multitools (simplified in Invisible War, completely removed here, AUDs don't count!)
That kinda sums it up really some good, some bad - but the stink of Invisible War still lingers...
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.