Fallout: New Vegas uses STEAM, but why...?

[nosisab]

I just wonder if that will prevent the pirates playing in peace while the registered users will be getting all the toll (and I'm not talking about money).

[Skotte]

I just wonder if that will prevent the pirates playing in peace while the registered users will be getting all the toll (and I'm not talking about money).

 

I doubt it,

[evilneko]

It won't. Steam is not really a DRM platform, and New Vegas does not require an active internet connection to play. Even Ubisoft's constant-online DRM got defeated, so of course whatever protection they come up with for New Vegas (if they even bother, IMO, publishers'd be better off if they spent less money on that junk) will be too.

 

Fallout 3's DRM model was, IMO, good. Doesn't bother you, and heck if you know enough about what to change in the ini files, you can avoid it entirely. Doesn't complain about virtual disc drive programs running in the background, interfere with the operation of real ones...doesn't even try to connect to the net, completely non-invasive.

 

I don't think I'll be buying New Vegas at-release anyway, even though I don't really have anything against Steam. I got it just so I could get Portal when they offered it for free. It bugged me a little at first but I tamed it.

[gormonk]

Bethesda Softworks...the companny it self form fallout newvages on is going to use steam with ALL of there games i think

 

as for it being steem... thank god for locail PC mod shops witch let ya use there bandwith...for free

[KDStudios]

Hmmm well console New Vegas will obviously suck...

Fallout 3 on consoles was so bad, I played it on a 360 at a mates. Crashed like 5 times.

Crashes none stop on my PS3

and even with LOADS of mods on my PC version it doesn't crash unless I add a mod that causes it!

And if New Vegas get's DLC I bet the PS3 gets shunted off again for the 360.

New Vegas will eventually get the ability to make mods with it's own Geck so it will crush the 360 version.

 

So all in all... PC beats a gaming console again.

Show's how much developers care about what platform you want to play the game on.

 

Steam, steam, steam, steam.

That's all modern games want to be on.

 

I miss the days when they used to be: buy at shop, put in disk, install, play.

Now you have to do other stuff now like: register or download with steam or put in codes or pull your hair out if you don't have internet or be unable to sell the game on after you get bored of it.

 

I know piracy is a problem, but it will ALWAYS be a problem.

All it takes is one guy to make a rip and it will be all over the internet.

It's a waste of time!

 

and it's becoming more increasingly so with every passing year.

Steps to prevent it are pointless.... Resistance is futile (Sorry haha)

The harder it gets, the harder people will try!

 

Like I said, it only takes one person to figure it out.

 

So I think they should quit with steam and do it like the old days!

It won't happen... But hey... =P

[leetgamer]

This is old news. There's no point bringing it up again.

 

Anyone that hates steam most likely hasn't ever used it before and have extremely misguided opinions about it.

 

I have friends that use it, and they don't complain whatsoever.

 

Biased opinion is biased.

 

Steam causes a heapload of problems for some people (such as myself) because of their PCs. A lot of things can go wrong between the actual game, Steam, and your PC.

 

Take my Modern Warfare 2 for example. Steam causes the game to freeze on startup. What I'm forced to do is unplug my ethernet cable, start MW2 (while waiting for Steam to tell me that the said cable is unplugged and that I can only play offline), plug it in again, and play. And I'm not the only one having this issue, go over to the MW2 section in the Steam forum.

 

Neither Valve nor Infinity Ward bothered fixing this problem. Here's never buying a game from them again.

[XSoldier]

Take my Modern Warfare 2 for example....

 

Please give a different example.

 

Modern Warfare 2 isn't the only game that uses steam you know.

[leetgamer]

Take my Modern Warfare 2 for example....

 

Please give a different example.

 

Modern Warfare 2 isn't the only game that uses steam you know.

 

I very well knew that. MW2 has simply been my biggest issue of all.

 

Mount & Blade Warband's been giving me a lot of headaches. Despite all the patches TaleWorlds have been throwing at us the game still crashes once in a while. I've had a few minor issues with both Napoleon and Empire: Total War but luckily they somehow managed to disappear. That's all I can think of at the moment.

[Vindekarr]

You want examples? here is another,

 

The problems caused by using steam would normaly make games about 40% worse online. But when you take into account steam's unreliability, steam's history of falsely banning people, (17,000 and growing in MW2 alone) and for causing incredible lag, you soon find that it actualy RUINS some games online.

 

The biggest problem with steam is the lack of game moderators. I'm yet to see a steam game that isnt hacked, and full of absuive trolls and flamers, wheras non steam games usualy have some degree of much needed moderation to atleast ensure people dont hack or try and spread viruses.

 

Take MW 2 for example, no moderators, fairly unreliable, very crash prone online, has no dedicated servers, frequent bad lag, and one of the worst communities in gaming because of that. Simply by moderating they could make it a thousand times better, but steam and activision dont want to spend the money on a quality product.

 

I for one hate steam. I hate the problems the system causes. I hate that it's mandatory. And I absolute HATE the way they treat users. In particular the condecending, arrogant email I got after being falsely banned from MW 2 for "cheating" when doing nothing the sort.

 

The email was valve's idea of an apology. It consisted of three paragraphs and the general meaning was that they took absolutely no responsibility for their failure, had no interest in keeping their players happy, and really didnt give a damn about their community.

 

They also stated in a press release that players involved would get an apology, a free copy of left 4 dead 2, and be re instated. I was re instated a LONG time later, got no free copy of left 4 dead 2, and didnt get any sincere apology at all. When I rung customer support, I was called a leach and hung up on.

 

People say infinity ward were only interested in your money, well, valve are a lot more extreme an example than them.

 

If you want even more examples:

 

Empire: total war: patch system barely worked, patches downloaded at 25 KB/s on a system that manages to get about 300 KB/s pretty much globaly(where the hell IS their dowload server anyway?) patched or unpatched, the game was incredibly unstable, barely able to run at all for periods beyong 15 minutes, also had a UI glitch that meant it flickered madly, patches failed to solve any of these issues.

 

Medieval 2: total war: Steam version suffurs greatly reduced performance compared to disc version, greatly slowed loading, and frequent crashed relative to non steam variant.

 

Aliens VS predator: Abysmal graphics despite being only months old, matchmaking systen unable to find other oponents, or even friends who are on at the same time, payed DLC required for multiplayer, utterly ridiculous slowdown even on a crysis shatteringly powerful pc. unplayable lag.

 

Dawn Of War II: Steam fails to recognise the map editor included with the game and hides it, matchmaking system struggles to find oponents, friends, and trueskill ranking system has an exploitable error that matches all high ranked player to one team and all low ranked players to another, like in most steam games.

 

just cause 2(no capitals for this lump of trash) Only about half a game's worth of content sold in original download, all else available as highly priced DLC, regular crashing, broken physics, some issues with installing, registering DLC, game unable to register itself or recognise it's special addition content. Steam attempts to charge you for free premium pre order content without obvious warning.

 

Supreme Commander Two: some steam UI errors in game, steam friends list fails to work, attempting to add someone as a friend automaticaly fails.

 

Interface: full of typos, , frequent glitches, occasional random disconnects, some games not registering as being owned despite being legititmately purchased, some very old games priced as much or more than brand new ones, most prices not competitive with prices for the disc versions with almost all older games.

[XSoldier]

That's some good detail with your other examples Vindekarr

 

I remember you mentioned about the false bannings before, and I can sympathize. The legitimate player would feel very bitter after that if a similar thing happened again.

 

Empire: Total War patch problem, I can understand the download speed, we're both in Australia after all, though I use the 3FL server (Part of iinet) to download stuff from it, therefore getting the 300 kb/s. Doesn't change the fact that we have internet speeds that are behind the rest of the world.

 

The Interface part, if a game requires steam, then it can be more questionable compared to retail. Right now, the price of the PC version of New Vegas at JB Hi-Fi is $89 AUD. On steam, it was around $54 AUD ($49.99 USD). The problem comes that with a retail version, the retail disc is technically rendered useless since you could just download the files anyway.

 

But let's face the fact, the PC version of New Vegas will use Steam. If it is not implemented properly with Steam, then we have a problem, but so far, there are no signs from Obsidian Entertainment that they've implemented steam in a bad or obnoxious manner yet.

 

At the end of the day, it's the game companies that choose during development whether or not they want to use Steam or not. If it doesn't require Steam, then you're not forced to buy the Steam version. Only the ones that purchased the game on release are the 'guinea pigs' to see which version is the best.

 

But If a game like Modern Warfare 2 requires Steam, then the companies need to implement it properly, and that's the key here.