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should I still boycot Steam?

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Smileys last

Smileys last

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Mar 22, 2005
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Paradox was so nice to give me a steam key for EU3 this year and I have fallen in love with the game again. I'm getting killed in slow motion as England.

It is my first time on the Steam platform. So, should I still hate Steam? I fired up EU3/Steam in an airport (great way to pass a couple hours but the suited guys were mad I was using an outlet for casual play while they had emails to check, lol), and without internet I'm sure (unless laptop hooked in somewhere automatically) and the game loaded up and I could play. Can you play Steam games without internet? What about mods? Can you mod a Steam game? I see the files inside the Steam folder and can delete save games. What about the great work the community puts out as mods?

I use Gamergate because of these reasons: I get the software on my hard drive, I can mod it, I can play it anywhere - anytime, and I can have it on my laptop and tower computer at the same time.

Please, oh great wisdom of the masses - should I use Steam?
 
Smileys last said:
Paradox was so nice to give me a steam key for EU3 this year and I have fallen in love with the game again. I'm getting killed in slow motion as England.

It is my first time on the Steam platform. So, should I still hate Steam? I fired up EU3/Steam in an airport (great way to pass a couple hours but the suited guys were mad I was using an outlet for casual play while they had emails to check, lol), and without internet I'm sure (unless laptop hooked in somewhere automatically) and the game loaded up and I could play. Can you play Steam games without internet? What about mods? Can you mod a Steam game? I see the files inside the Steam folder and can delete save games. What about the great work the community puts out as mods?

I use Gamergate because of these reasons: I get the software on my hard drive, I can mod it, I can play it anywhere - anytime, and I can have it on my laptop and tower computer at the same time.

Please, oh great wisdom of the masses - should I use Steam?
Click to expand...

With Paradox games at least, you can navigate to their install location and just start the game directly if you don't or can't use Steam. This does mean it doesn't use any of Steam's features like the overlay and time played and stuff though.

They're also perfectly moddable; just chuck the files into the mod folder like you would with any other service's version.

In my experience, the biggest problems re: Steam and Paradox games are the checksum issue, where the Steam version would have a different checksum, making it difficult to play multiplayer, and the auto-updating (which is both a benefit and a drawback, as it can interfere with games you have in progress. But the former issue isn't a problem anymore (V2 vanilla was the last one with that issue I believe), and I think Paradox said they were working on 2 for EU IV.
 
Smileys last said:
Can you play Steam games without internet? What about mods? Can you mod a Steam game? I see the files inside the Steam folder and can delete save games. What about the great work the community puts out as mods?
Click to expand...
None of these are an issue with Steam, and never were really.

I use Gamergate because of these reasons: I get the software on my hard drive, I can mod it, I can play it anywhere - anytime, and I can have it on my laptop and tower computer at the same time.
Click to expand...
None of these are an issue with Steam, and never were really.
 
mechaerik said:
In my experience, the biggest problems re: Steam and Paradox games are the checksum issue, where the Steam version would have a different checksum, making it difficult to play multiplayer
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I don't know about V2 but in EU3 that was last an issue in 5.0, that is unpatched Divine Wind, which was released in December 2010.
 
I don't get why so many people around here seem to have so many doubts about Steam when the opinions among gamers in general are very positive.

As long as Steam is just a distribution platform I see no reason for you to hate it. As stated above: you can easily run the game without Steam after you have installed it.

The long and short of it is that by using Steam (and Steam only, as they will do from now on) and Steamworks makes things easier for Paradox as a developer. On the latest EUIV stream it was mentioned how not having to write their own netcode (or whatever, I can't say I'm an expert) is a huge weight off their shoulders.
 
Oliver Twopence said:
I don't get why so many people around here seem to have so many doubts about Steam
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Victoria 2's expansion, HoD, is being pre-released everywhere except steam it seems. This is the cause of my "doubts" - especially since I switched to steam BECAUSE of the defence of it in all the other various steam threads.
 
Nickjbor said:
Victoria 2's expansion, HoD, is being pre-released everywhere except steam it seems.
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I don't see how not being able to preorder directly off Steam is such a deal-breaker. I would obviously prefer it if it had been, and I don't know why it isn't, but in the end it doesn't really change anything as it will still be distributed there. And as has been discussed on the forum: preordering HoD from Paradox' webshop will result in a Steam code.

Of course: Victoria 2 isn't Steam exclusive like they say EUIV will be, so that may shift their priorities; and unlike Victoria 2, EUIV will utilize Steamworks for multiplayer. This alone justifies the platform in my opinion. I'm sure there will be problems, there always are, but I am confident that they will get sorted out in due time.
 
No, you shouldn't continue to boycott steam. There are far worse online distributors then steam run by other DRM happy companies that you should be worried about, Steam has been providing quality service for the majority of the last decade or so. Every consumer platform has it's flaws, but there is honestly no reason to boycott steam in it's current state. Especially since PDS are making the switch to the steamworks platform exclusively from now on.
 
Nickjbor said:
Victoria 2's expansion, HoD, is being pre-released everywhere except steam it seems. This is the cause of my "doubts" - especially since I switched to steam BECAUSE of the defence of it in all the other various steam threads.
Click to expand...
steam normally releases games at specific times of the day and it can sometimes take a while til they get it working for some reason, if you want the games/expansions on launch i'd suggest getting them off of other sites and add them to steam through the games' tab on your steam app.
(though im not sure how that'll work with gog with expansions if you bought vic2 through steam since they have a version of their own but it should work if you buy the expansions off of other sites without a problem)
 
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Oliver Twopence said:
I don't see how not being able to preorder directly off Steam is such a deal-breaker
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It's not. It's just extremely annoying.

If I could boil it down into a short skit, this is what it looks like to me:


Bob: BUY A TOYOTA!
Ralph: But I like Hyundai
Bob: NO TOYOTA!
Sally: Are you sure?
Bob: YES TOYOTA!
Jim: Toyota you say?
Bob: TOYOTA TOYOTA!
Ralph: Okay, I'll sell my Honda then
Sally: If you say so, I'll get rid of my Ford
Jim: I trust you Bob, so I'll trade in my Benz

(2 days later)

Bob: I HAVE CARS FOR SALE
Ralph: Oh really?
Sally: What kind?
Jim: Any Toyotas?
Bob: NOPE! ONLY HONDA, FORD, AND BENZ
Ralph, Sally, Jim:
are_you_kidding_me_rage_face_meme_poster-r3726a85aa584458cad9751d80824bbf6_jih_400.jpg




Perhaps Bob (IE those who responded to the anti-steam threads) do not see it this way; but from my prospective, this is exactly what happened.
 
No you shouldn't continue to boycott steam. Steam has greatly evolved from its beginning version years ago, the original faults are far in the past gone and none of your concerns you raised are valid anymore.

Mods are easy to use on Steam and considering the considerable people on steam its easy to get solutions to the few issues you can have with mods with steam. Those which are mostly solved by knowing what to use in Steam's "Set launch options" button under game properties.
 
If anything you should Boycott Origin, that thing is a mess >.>

In all my years on Steam compared to other Online Distributors (Excluding Amazon,Play.co.uk ect ect) It is the best. Well GoG.com is very good for old games.
 
Well, thanks everyone. Impressed with the measured and reasonable thoughts.
Now that I have Steam for EU3, it doesn't seem as big brotherish as originally reported.
And since box versions are, for the most part gone, if I'm going to download, why not?

Now can solve the PC vs console dilemma?
Just kidding!!!
 
The steam browser protocol poses a security risk by enabling malicious exploits through a simple user click on a maliciously crafted steam:// URL in a browser.

As the second serious vulnerability of gaming-related software, following a recent issue with Ubisoft's copy protection system "Uplay", led the German IT platform "Heise online" to recommend strict separation of gaming and sensitive data, e.g. by using a dedicated gaming PC or at least a second Windows installation, or minimally a dedicated gaming account with limited rights on the gamer's own PC.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software)#Vulnerabilities
 
bugwar said:
The steam browser protocol poses a security risk by enabling malicious exploits through a simple user click on a maliciously crafted steam:// URL in a browser.

As the second serious vulnerability of gaming-related software, following a recent issue with Ubisoft's copy protection system "Uplay", led the German IT platform "Heise online" to recommend strict separation of gaming and sensitive data, e.g. by using a dedicated gaming PC or at least a second Windows installation, or minimally a dedicated gaming account with limited rights on the gamer's own PC.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software)#Vulnerabilities
Click to expand...

Right i dont give much credence to such a vulnerability you have the same thing if you click a URL link in any case if your looking at it from some Junk mail. You just have to be careful on what you click on and be sure to have up to date protections and other security software.
 
bugwar said:
The steam browser protocol poses a security risk by enabling malicious exploits through a simple user click on a maliciously crafted steam:// URL in a browser.

As the second serious vulnerability of gaming-related software, following a recent issue with Ubisoft's copy protection system "Uplay", led the German IT platform "Heise online" to recommend strict separation of gaming and sensitive data, e.g. by using a dedicated gaming PC or at least a second Windows installation, or minimally a dedicated gaming account with limited rights on the gamer's own PC.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software)#Vulnerabilities
Click to expand...

So... the problem with Steam games is Steam nongames and nonSteam games?
 
Unless you don't have a credit card there's no reason to boycott steam.

You can play with steam offline.

And you need not worry of damaging the disk and losing the game.

The downside is sometimes steam can get somewhat unreliable. Not often but at those times you're reminded by how much your gaming is dependent upon steam.

Steam is ultimately a gaming infrastructure. It gets you good prices and liberty from the constraints of having physical copy. In trade your gaming becomes dependent on their server reliability but not your internet reliability as you can still play with offline mode so no worry there.
 
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