Civ 5 requires Steam? or Gabe Newell touched me riiight... there.

[Morfiend]

I have always been pro Steam. Even when everyone here riled against it. I think its a fucking fantastic service. I have never bothered to take it offline ether. You know what, if my internet goes down and I cant play, Ill go play my console or go outside or something.

I would take steam style activation over Starforce or SecuROM any day. The fact that a few of the Steam games come with DRM (Bloowbowl) makes me mad. I returned Bloodbowl then scrubbed my system.

Also, the Steam sales are fucking great, for both sides of the sale.

[Samwise]

This community was always too conformist, if you aren't anti-PK, pro-Furry, pro-Steam, pro-Whatever you are called troll.

HAH! Seriously? You clearly weren't around for when Steam launched. You couldn't open a Steam/Steam Game thread around here without being sandblasted by a bunch of vaginas.

[Ironwood]

Nix is not wrong though.  There was a lot of negative reaction (much like any industry reacting to The Cloud at the moment) and I remember being one of them.

That said, I was on FUCKING DIAL UP AT THE TIME.

YOU TRY DOWNLOADING HALF LIFE TWO ON DIAL UP.  YOU CUNTS.  YOU TRY IT !!!!

Ahem.

Aye, Steam at the start wasn't really for me.  Nowadays, I think this kind of thing (plus GOG without the shitty marketing ploys) because it's all about convenience. 

[Yegolev]

[Ironwood]

Oh Fuck, that's got me giggling.

[HaemishM]

Win.

[Yegolev]

I don't feel like I won.

[Soulflame]

After years of Pyroraven link abuse, I seriously doubt the internet could do that to me anymore.

[Chimpy]

Can someone lead sinij back to his cave so we can go on with our lives?

[tgr]

I'd say he's slinked back all on his own.

[HaemishM]

After years of Pyroraven link abuse, I seriously doubt the internet could do that to me anymore.

Never bet against the Internet's ability to skullfuck you with the sheer freakydeekiness of the rest of humanity.

[ghost]

I think Steam is now providing excellent service to caves all around the world.

[Tannhauser]

As a recent convert to Steam I have to endorse it.  I got Tropico 3 for like $8 and I pre-downloaded Civ V so as soon as I got home from work, clicked a couple of times and I was off and playing.  No CD swapping, no patches, easy peasy.

The lack of DVD's does bother me a bit (and no farking rulebook), but Steam is just so damn user-friendly.  I wonder what would happen, though if Steam was discontinued? 

If you're a serious PC gamer I've got to think you'll have Steam. 

[Samwise]

I wonder what would happen, though if Steam was discontinued?

The absolute worst case scenario, in which Valve went out of business overnight and shut down the Steam servers without warning, is that your local copy of Steam would go into offline mode and you'd be able to keep playing the games that you already had installed at the time.  (If you're a paranoid nut who backs up all his Steam games, you'd still have those as well, and of course you could always just go bittorrent them with a clear conscience.)  Games that themselves depend on Steam for multiplayer would of course be broken, much like Blizzard's games would all be broken if b.net were discontinued and not replaced.

[tgr]

The thing that makes me literally have to support steam, is all the awesome indie games I've found as a result. Games like Galcon Fusion, Eufloria, osmos, shatter, VVVVVV, AI War, Hacker Evolution, ghost master ... and so on and so on. I might have heard of them if not for steam, but I probably would never have bought them.

[Miasma]

Sinji if you let steam into your life and join the f13 group I will "gift" you a game come on now that's a free game.

[Miasma]

We should set up an f13 secret santa revolving around steam.

[Merusk]

After years of Pyroraven link abuse, I seriously doubt the internet could do that to me anymore.

Never bet against the Internet's ability to skullfuck you with the sheer freakydeekiness of the rest of humanity.

Yeah, I used to think the same way then discovered /b/ and some of that stuff STILL fucks with my head.

While I am not familiar with specifics of the case you are talking about, such course of events holds very little appeal to me. Rentership to me implies that goods/services can be withdrawn at any time and/or require on-going payments. While some things, like utilities, are difficult to purchase, other things like goods and services are not. There is very definitive line between you owning a game and renting access to in from Steam.

Now, when this applied to computer games, despite what ELUA and other non-enforceable crap says, you do outright own the game by virtue of having ability to install and play it at any time you want to for as long as you want to. This is not the case with 'online' (Steam et al.) distribution model where your access can be removed/modified for any arbitrary reason.

I didn't say I was a fan either.  Get familiar with it via this thread: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19806.0

It's going to wind-up being the law of the land and it will sucketh for everyone.  As for the "non enforcable" crap.. why do you think everyone in business is pushing so hard for cloud apps?  Most software I've encountered in the last 2 years already have "Must hit server to authenticate" DRMs as it is, regardless of you having a physical copy or not. That not only meets step #2 of the ruling requirement, it provides a real easy way for a company to turn your "owned" software into a coaster.  The same argument you're giving against steam, only with more physical clutter.

Hell, with the online capability of consoles, we're already seeing it move that way there, too.  EA(?)added the whole "This game was previously registered; no free content for you" to their games, expect it to move to "This game was previously licensed, transfer is invalid *brick*" shortly,  Ubisoft added the "Must hit the internet servers" crap with Assassin's Creed 2, already allowing them to do that.  You don't even own console games anymore.

[Nevermore]

Sinji if you let steam into your life and join the f13 group I will "gift" you a game come on now that's a free game.

We shouldn't be rewarding people who are being dumbasses.

[Samwise]

Sinji if you let steam into your life and join the f13 group I will "gift" you a game come on now that's a free game.

We shouldn't be rewarding people who are being dumbasses.

He didn't say what game.  I wouldn't assume it's a reward.

[Ingmar]

I'm guessing Space Siege.

[Chimpy]

The problem is, with sinji how can you know what he would take as a reward?

For all we know, E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial on the Atari 2600 is his favorite game of all time.

[Xuri]

The only issue I have with Steam these days is that they are being total ass-monkeys by no longer letting me shower them with money using my Norwegian VISA-card, just because I happened to drag my sorry ass across the Atlantic.

[tgr]

You're obviously a viking terrorists then. They don't deal with viking terrorists.

[sinij]

Last night I decided to see how un-obnoxious Steam could be and reinstalled it. When I logged in it greeted me with an add for some game I didn't care about. Assholes. Fuck you in the ass with your adds! Unist...

... but wait, I am on a mission here. I am giving Steam 'Second Chance'TM because Lantyssa would cry if I don't, and I really, really (no ORly!) care about hurting her feelings. Plus there is a promise of free game in it for me. Maybe I can exchange it for alcohol or blow?

I methodically went through all settings and disabled anything and everything I could. I took it offline. Run Civ5 and it worked (ugghhh why is water so ugly?!)! Now I am about to try it again, see if I have to do anything extra-ordinary to keep it offline.

[sinij]

Steam is currently set to be in Offline Mode. Many features, such as Friends and the Server Browser, will not be available while offline.

[Go Online] [Start In Offline Mode]

Nagware :/

[tgr]

Whiny little bitch. Start steam on boot, never reboot like real men, never see nagging. Problem solved.

[sinij]

I am going balls deep into this thing!

[bhodi]

All you have to do is check 2 boxes in Settings->Interface - Run steam when my computer starts and Notify me about games, new releases, upcoming releases.

It's a checkbox. Seriously. I mean I'm the biggest pirate around and even I love steam.

[Lantyssa]

Oh gods.  The thought of Sinij having to endure Steam is almost as much of a turn-on as if the Trammel split happened every year.  I can barely contain myself.

[Malakili]

I am going balls deep into this thing!

My fucking god, either you are just deliberately trying to be annoyed by everything possible, or you have the patience of a 3 year old.

[Nevermore]

I am going balls deep into this thing!

My fucking god, either you are just deliberately trying to be annoyed by everything possible, or you have the patience of a 3 year old.

He's just some idiot who thinks that martyring himself on the cross of Steam gives him some kind of bizarre moral superiority.  If he truly believed half the crap he's posted he'd have returned the game days ago instead of constantly coming back here showing off all the horrible scars Steam has left upon his very soul.

[Chimpy]

Hello, this is sinji we are talking about here. He has a similar relationship with the idea we like to call 'sanity' as Britany Spears does.

[Sheepherder]

I mean I'm the biggest pirate around

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsJyfN0ICU

[Sir T]

I Bought Supreme Commander 2.

Took It home. It forced me to Install Steam. THEN IT FORCED ME TO DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE FUCKING GAME DESPITE THE FACT I HAVE THE FUCKING DISK.

I look on the forums and basically the only way to stop steam doing this is to fuck with configuration files and the registry. Whoopy fucking do. SO I had to wait 14 hours to play the game I had the disk for. Thanks a lot steam.

And every so often if I get a urge to play sup com 2, I have to sit through an hour of steam patching the fucking thing and there's no option to turn this off.

Fuck. Steam.

Impulse, Gamersgate and GOG 4eveh. Why do you think Steam does specials? Because the other sites started doing them and they had to compete. Most of the good Indie stuff on steam you can get on the other download sites anyway, and anything that's not I can live without.