The main thing I have picked up from these threads is that steam users seem to be childish arrogant smug and generally a pain in the butt to try and discuss things with.

Which doesn't make playing online in a community full of steam users overly enticing :P

the resell aspect is something i thought about today...if i buy a box set i can give/sell it to someone...but on Steam i cannot :( unless i make a separate account for every game...which would be a real PITA.

I will use steam for Cod if i have to but will not use steam for any other games.
If i buy a book I should be able to sell it or give it away when i am done...while i do not own the intellectual rights to the book i do own the copy.
With steam those options are removed :( while this may seem tobe a minor irritant it was that same option (someone gave me there copy of RB3D) that got me into flight sims and consequently got me into online gaming and MOH,COD2,BF2,RO,BC2 and ALL the il2 series.

I love the thread tags! I'm waiting for the steam version before I order - much prefer the DL versions over boxed. Most people don't understand that even if you buy a physical copy of a piece of software you are usually just buying rights to run it, not buying the software itself.

Anyway, that's my understanding and even if I'm wrong there are far more important things for me to worry about!

See how that works. The benefits have been shown over and over but some literally can't seem to "think outside the [game]box". I don't understand people afraid of using Steam for risk of somehow losing access to one copy of the game, then claiming to be cancelling pre-orders for a dozen boxes of it. I would bet money Steam will outlast Ubisoft. The developers have decided to use it, either embrace it or punish yourself by missing out on the game you've all been foaming at the mouth for. Not a hard decision.

Funny part is that most of the haters will actually like steam once they understand it.

Funniest part will be all the people who buy the game then can't run it because it isn't Il2 1946 and blame their PC's shortcomings on Steam.

..and many of them will be infected with viruses, root kits etc and/or be running system hogging virus scanners.
My windows install is not normally online. I use Linux. Windows is only for gaming.
I don't mind a one off online activation. Less keen about having to be online to get updates (normally I would download in linux)
With regard to Solidshield I'm less than thrilled to read this:
quote:"NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent
copying that may conflict with some DVD-RW and virtual drives."

uh-oh

and if this is the case how can this:
"Once the activation process has been completed, the activation solution does not install any software on your computer" be true?

So why are you for forcing people to use it? Would you be for being forced to use AOL? All anyone posting so far is concerned about is the lack of getting a choice in the matter, when clearly steam isn't needed to perform multiplayer functionality yet the rumblings are saying it will be required to do so. (And begs to question how dedicated servers will work in that situation).

The funny part, as you put it...is that some of us have had this off and on and off again relationship with steam/valve for over 12 years. There isn't anything to understand, so your point is moot.

Limiting choices and creating control bases in favor of companies like valve are not good for the gaming community as a whole. It is not good for any business market.

if using steam means Oleg and team have more cash for future development then so be it. To all the i'm not buying CoD because...as someone has said before bye bye.... you whinny little kids.

Steam is probably the most important thing keeping the PC gaming industry alive today. It boggles my mind every time a "niche" game comes to mainstream how many PC gamers in this day and age are not using it, and for that matter do not understand how it works.

Fortunately I know that the RRAARRRGH STEAM IS A VIRUS people are simply a small but vocal minority. Even if they really do huddle under tinfoil helmets and boycott the game (most of them end up buying it anyway despite the whining,) the (already mentioned in this thread several times) much higher share of the money going to the devs far outweighs this.

Because the game needs a damn server browser on launch! It's all very well saying that Steam isn't NEEDED to use multiplayer functionality but that relies on third-party software being developed or updated to do so. Would you prefer third-party software to be shipped on the disc? Can you imagine how the less computer-savvy would react to a game with no default server browser? They just wouldn't play multiplayer, or they'd be up in arms about the game being missing something so fundamental. Steam fills that gap for a developer with much less effort, and that's without considering all the other benefits it adds for multiplayer.

If you were making a game and you had no experience of programming server browser software, and someone offered you a deal to use a service whereby you could a) offer your consumers a professional quality server browser with all the features expected nowadays such as friends lists etc., b) get upwards of 60% of the value of sales through the service c) offer automatic updates to your consumers, would you say "OH NO i LOVE spending all my time on unnecessarily duplicating features such as this instead of improving my game", or would you say..."sounds like a pretty sweet deal for everyone"?

Do you anti-Steam people read at all? There have been so many positive reasons listed in these Steam threads, just go read..... As for the 100% definitive reason, you'll have to wait for Oleg to say why they wanted to use it.

To clarify, I couldn't care less if you use it or not. Just pointing out that most of the complaining about it done here is baseless. You have to wait for official reason why they decided to force it's use.