DNF time, yay!... or not

[Archived Post]

My pre-order of Duke Nukem Forever arrived in the mailbox today. Hooray says I, that's one day before official release! I insert the disc, launcher pops up, I push the install button... and Steam pops up. DAMNIT! This is the second game I've bought in a relatively short space of time now (the other was Fallout New Vegas) that gave no indication of being a steam game, on the I site I bought it or the dvd cover, until the "install" began.

I loathe DRM of most any kind, and I view steam as DRM. If it can be avoided, I always do. Physical copies ftw. And if no physical copy is available, Gamersgate ftw. There's plenty of reasons not to like DRM, one of which I'm currently experiencing; if this was a mere regular DVD-based game I could've been happily playing it right now. Instead I have to wait for steam to "unlock" it.

9 more hours of wait then until the truth is revealed. Is DNF actually, finally, a reality or the cosmos' most cruel joke? Time will tell!

[Archived Post]

Steam is DRM, it's just DRM that doesn't put something nasty in your drink.

I think only GoG sell games with no DRM.

[Archived Post]

Not sure what the problem with steam is. Its not DRM, and infact lets you play your games on ANY computer. Most games nowadays limit you to one install, steam lets you play all your games anywhere in the world. Its the total opposite of DRM.

[Archived Post]

Exactly. The "locking" of games until their actual release dates is kind of annoying, but Steam gives you a TON of flexibility in playing your games anywhere. And there's no annoying DRM-type stuff like "you must always be connected to the internet" with it.

Also, waitwhat? DNF isn't out until next Tuesday. How'd you get yours already?

[Archived Post]

The Dawn of War 2 games are all Steam linked as well. I bought the boxed edition (if you download from Steam then fine, you need to have Steam to run it). I have the physical disk. I only play on my personal computer at home. I hate that I have to not only run it through Steam but it seems like I need to be online to do so (even if I don't play multiplayer, which I don't). So if my internet goes down, I can't play a single-player game? That's lame. Internet access should only be required if you are doing multiplayer or if the game is resident on their servers.

[Archived Post]

You can play your single player STEAM games when you are offline. You can select 'Go offline...' from the 'Steam' button on the upper left corner of the UI at any time. The client will restart in offline mode and allow you to play without issue.

If you're net suddenly goes down & you open STEAM, it will offer to switch to offline mode automatically. It does take some time to do this, as it will attempt to connect for a minute or so, but it does work.

[Archived Post]

My pre-order of Duke Nukem Forever arrived in the mailbox today!

Picture of the box or it didn'r happen ;)

(Seriously, what will we use as the 'Poster Game' when talking about vaporware now?:eek:)

[Archived Post]

Heh. Didn't mean for this to be a thread for me to rip on steam. However, regardless of how you choose to view it, steam *is* DRM. If say my brother were to visit and use my computer, he would not be able to play the games I own on steam, unless I let him use my account. He could play say UFO: Afterlight (from Gamersgate, no DRM, click the .exe and play), Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption (from Good Old Games, again, no DRM) or ******** III (assuming he inserted the disc), to name a few examples. If he'd log onto steam with his account, he could see my games there as "pre-loaded", but would still be unable to play them even though they are physically installed and present.

As a friend annoyingly pointed out to me, if I'd bought the 360 version instead, I'd be playing it by now :mad: But then I'd be stuck playing a PC FPS on a console and... blargh! No thanks.

And while it's true that you can choose to play most steam games in offline mode, that doesn't help if you've lost your connection in the middle of auto-patching. That would hardly be a common occurence and you can disable auto-patching if you're afraid of it happening, but it *can* happen. Quite the conundrum if you're travelling and using a laptop. Then lastly, if you get banned from steam for whatever reason, like for badmouthing the company on their forums or ****ing off people in online games, you lose your entire games collection cause your rights (as in Digital RIGHTS Management) to play said games disappear with your ban.

So I stick to physical copies of games and alternate drm-free digital distributions where available. Steam is great for playing steam games, I love my L4D(2) and Team Fortress 2 but aside from that I like to avoid steam as much as possible for my game collection's security. Again though, I didn't mean for this to be a steam sucks thread, sorry about that. :o

Also, waitwhat? DNF isn't out until next Tuesday. How'd you get yours already?

FOR ONCE the release date in Europe is ahead of America. Yay! Technically it's not supposed to be out until tomorrow, but seems the postal service were quicker than they normally are this time around, so I got the game a day before intended. Not that it matters though, since it's a Steam game apparently.

Picture of the box or it didn'r happen ;)

(Seriously, what will we use as the 'Poster Game' when talking about vaporware now?:eek:)

Here you go (http://imageshack.us/g/18/imag0005pf.jpg/). Excuse the poor quality, took with cell-phone and used imageshack's resize thingie to reduce size slightly. EDIT: Argh, I see the second pic of cover only got stretched in a silly way due to the resize. You get the idea though.

[Archived Post]

Picture of the box or it didn'r happen ;)

(Seriously, what will we use as the 'Poster Game' when talking about vaporware now?:eek:)

Daikatana remained the poster game for vaporware for about a year or two after it came out until DNF hit the point that not even fond memories of Duke Nukem 3D could keep the optimism train going. Heck, before that, Heart of Darkness was still the go-to definition of vaporware, and it'd been out for three years.

At this point, unless Infinium Labs comes back from the grave and releases the Phantom for the next console generation, Duke Nukem Forever will define vaporware forever. I just don't think a developer will ever again convince a parent company to invest so much money over so many years ever again, and I don't think it'll happen simply because of this game.

[Archived Post]

Heh. Didn't mean for this to be a thread for me to rip on steam. However, regardless of how you choose to view it, steam *is* DRM. If say my brother were to visit and use my computer, he would not be able to play the games I own on steam, unless I let him use my account.

Im not quite sure of your reasoning here. What is stopping you giving your brother your steam details (or just logging in yourself and saying 'ok play the game now') ?

Even if you wanted to allow him to 'borrow' the game and take it away with him, what is stopping you giving him your steam account details (unless you dont trust him)?

Taking away the steam factor all together you could just as easily say that your PC is DRM with the same logic. As your brother would not be able to play ANY game, unless you let him use your PC.

To requote: "he would not be able to play the games I own on steam, unless I let him use my account"

How is this different?

[Archived Post]

The difference, Equinox, is that my steam games are tied to an account. The rights to use that account's content is restricted to me both as a matter of security and legality. If I give away my account details it's a security risk and I'm pretty sure sharing those details is a legal no-no also which can easily result in a ban. All non-steam games I have can be played by myself or anyone at any time, regardless of internet connection or account logins.

But lets drop this. Any proponent of steam will never acknowledge it is actually DRM, that's something I've learned long ago, and none of them are going to convince me otherwise either.

[Archived Post]

Seems like they could find other ways to protect software other than making everyone and their brother have an internet connection, but oh well, without a revolt things are going to stay the way they are.

I have always prefered getting the actual game the actual physical dvd/cd version vs the digital version that I could not hold on to.
Things are going too digital / connection required and that does worry me a bit and the OP mentions some of the reasons why.
In some ways it is better the way it used to be at least consumer side and imo.

Also to the OP, grats on getting your game bud, hope it turns out to be a blast after that lengthy development time.

[Archived Post]

and I'm pretty sure sharing those details is a legal no-no

Your logic is still faulty as when you buy a game the licence is for you and you alone, if you are worried about legality of lending/allowing people to play games you have a physcial copy of, there is little difference in legal terms.

[Archived Post]

Also to the OP, grats on getting your game bud, hope it turns out to be a blast after that lengthy development time.

I certainly hope so too. Loved Duke Nukem 3D, this will be the long-awaited sequel sort of. Though even if the game turns out to be total crap at this point, there is a certain novelty to having the game that seemingly would never ever appear :D

[Archived Post]

FOR ONCE the release date in Europe is ahead of America. Yay! Technically it's not supposed to be out until tomorrow, but seems the postal service were quicker than they normally are this time around, so I got the game a day before intended. Not that it matters though, since it's a Steam game apparently.
I suspected that was the case. Europe's getting games released there first a LOT more often now. Guess it's to balance stuff like the US getting all the cool contests. :p

[Archived Post]

(Seriously, what will we use as the 'Poster Game' when talking about vaporware now?:eek:)

Starcraft: Ghost.