There is a risk of bias as the subject line says "poll regarding steam users" rather than "poll regarding steam use" or "poll regarding steam".

I initially assumed that the questions were only directed at those already using steam.

Yeah bias from steam haters creating multiple logins/votes.

If you don't like steam don't play cod simple really, just don't forget to wipe the tears from your eyes and sign the goodbye thread before moaning about how bad steam is somewhere else.

I suggest anybody who is refusing to buy cod due to steam should join the flat earth society as you clearly have a lot in common....

It's also now a monopoly, and there should be other means to authenticate besides Steam. At least one other competitor's servers should be an available option. To keep competition going.

(no one is talking about having to use discs or not, the issue is business ethics)

Edit: The thing that people should realize is with STEAM authentication forced even for SP, you no longer own a game, you own a SUBSCRIPTION TO A GAME ONLY. Meaning that when Valve stops supporting the game title or goes bottom up, you don't have a game to play legally. Therefore in my opinion anything being _forced_ to use STEAM should be provided at a very low cost to the end user as it's a temporary use agreement.

I don't think Oleg is running a democracy here it's his game and he can do what he likes with it the same can be said for your money..

Actually, you are the one who needs to join that society.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/anti...erview_en.html

You fool of course monopolies are dangerous just look at apple and Microsoft I hate both companies but I use windows and I'm guessing you do as well... It's not up to you to decide if oleg uses steam on his product it us however up to you to use a product that is linked to steam

Bye bye


P.s. I am sure that steam subscription rubbish people keep quoting is simple there to stop users suing steam when there net goes down or something along those lines.

Hello,

considering there are many fans of Steam here and some even defend it like they have a commerical interest in it, I will repeat maybe the most important question.

What uses does Steamworks have for us IL2 players?

Considering the majority wants to have it and apparently there are better things than VAC and that has been circumvented , someone ought to come up with a different explanation than "Steam is great", "I have 200 games on Steam" , which is especially silly since i can't see the game as being buyable on Steam currently.

The benefit for me is vac, friends list, easy to use and reliable.

What I'm trying to find out us why people are refusing to buy clod due to steam, I can't see any negatives unless you only play single player but even then you can use the offline mode!!

Yes it's annoying that it is a requirement but again steam is the lesser evil of all the other tools around that they could have used.

Why do you feel the need to constantly insult people and call them names? Are you insecure, generally people act this way when they have no other way to control a situation. From what I can see 66% of people don't mind STEAM so you are in a majority. This speaks to psychological issues you may wish to address.

Sorry I did not want to insult you and I dont feel the need to/constantly insult people, you are the first :D, you are not being forced to use steam to play all games just this one it's hardly a monopoly and more people have started to use impulse and direct to drive.

Steam is in no way a monopoly hence the fool part, again sorry about that but don't even try to label steam a monopoly if you want to see a monopoly just look at Microsoft...

Lol at my apparent psychological issues u best agree with me before I go on a murder spree ;), if steam is sued for being a monopoly like microsoft has then I will agree with u until then it's no more of a monopoly than your local fish and chip shop if you don't like the food don't eat there :D

In this case Steam is indeed a monopoly as you must have the Steam client in order to run the game, even offline.

Unlike, say, ArmA II where you can purchase the game on Steam, or not, and anyone can play online in any server they choose, no matter how they purchased it.

And I'm really starting to think that there a a lot of shills on both forums now promoting Steam as if there life depended on it.

Quoted for truth.

Well, I just registered here to reply to this thread.
Ive been playing IL2 since its debut here in the states. Between 1C, TD, and the modding community at large its been my go to flight sim for ~10 years. Ive been anxiously awaiting the release of this since 2005 and now that I find steam is involved, well, talk about a buzzkill. Ive used steam in the past, with bad results. Invasive programs that I never wanted in the first place, running in the background of my computer, stupid long download times and having to run this program even if I want to play offline (which is all I really do)...simple solution though, I'm just not going to buy it.
If there was any other option (short of SH5 type DRM) Id go for it, but this is too much for me to stomach.
I'm not going to cry about it, fact is its 1C's loss. I still have a top noch flight sim thats only getting better with age.

Not at all i think its more the opposite way, people whine and moan about the evil Steam as if their 50$ lifetime investment depend upon it, comparing Steam with spy-ware and viruses just shows the ignorance.
How about take a chill pill, catch up and enjoy the most authentic flight recreation of ww2 ever to be released, or you can simply sit there waiting for Steam to go away, which won't happen.

Absolutely correct, wasn't intended in that fasion. Difficult to be correct all the time when English is'nt my native language, I appologize how it came out.

Still I think those raising their voice in concern shouldn't be dissmissed as anti-progression. I don't mind download versions. That is how I got RoF, Flaming Cliffs and DCS but I just don't like STEAM due to all the facts (as I see them) available in their EULA and in other forums and so on so forth. If that makes me a bad individual and marked as unsupportive of OM and 1C then that be it.

I will still be happy with all other sims on my PC and I don't have all the time in the world anyway with family and fulltime job.

Or, wait for the cracked version at which point Ill send a check for $50 to 1C.
So thats the only argument you steamers have? "get used to it"? Well apparently alot of us don't want to, and for that matter don't need to.
Steam is exactly like any other malicious software in that I dont want it, and wont of my own choice have it.
Not quite sure why the steamers have such a hard time with this concept?

Hows that different to "shills" on both forums creating damaging facts without any base about steam "like there life depended upon it" LOL

NO STEAM IS NOT A MONOPOLY IN THIS CASE, your not forced to purchase clod its a game.... your livelihood does not depend on clod, and if it does i will gladly take over your job :D

I personally am not promoting steam, i am merely trying to understand why people will flat out refuse to use a software which generally very few people have problems with and is FREE.

A crack will still require steam.

Far from the only argument we have, but that post wasn't intended to list all my arguments.
I'm sure you and the rest of the crack-pirates will send your money straight to 1c maddox office....... riight.

Also, I'm pretty sure you won't be doing much online gaming with the cracked version.

Look, steam has many more pro's than con's, it has saved PC gaming. Conservative Grandpa haters have teary eyes for yester year when PC games were stocked on shelves in large numbers. 1C have decided to use Steam to sell more copies of the games, why blame for that. It really isn't that bad, as 56% of people here know.

Cry some more.

Hello,

apart from the shills/false-flag operators , thanks for the information on steam use. :)

I don't see the point of a friends list when there is IRC, ICQ, Skype, MSN, Facebook and forums or knowing people.

The reason I don't like this news of Steamworks installation is that is by definition a bloated packaged. If I had to sign up somewhere for Anti-Cheat software to be run when I play on certain servers , I would do that.
But Steamworks is linked with the Store and all the social/achievement gimmicks I really see as useful for casual gaming , but don't think are at all useful for a sim like ours.

Apart from that I don't see why 1C wants to cut out potential customers on the accounts of being lazy. This whole Steamworks thing could be completely optional in my limited view.
If you choose to opt out and buy it somewhere else , you just wouldn't have the Steamworks features or couldn't play on some Steam-Enabled servers.
Who would be hurt by that? Steam-User and Non-Steam-Users happy.

If 1C wants to ship DLC , I think all other Digital Distribution retailers do that too, so I fail again to see the point of only going with Steam.

On another note I don't think you can prove Valve to have a monopoly or it's competitor would have already done so. But the fact that they use Steamworks to draw customers to their store is certainly evil and will hurt competition and innovation in the long run.
We might end up having Steam as a proprietary industry standard and all your games belong to Valve which nicely grants you a subscription :grin:

I just wanted to BUY CoD, I was even ready to have to be connected once and ONLY once, to activate the sim upon install, and then use MY game whenever I want WITHOUT having that Steam thingie somewhere in my PC ...

I did BUY IL2 way back in 2001, and then everything published by Oleg ... but I WON'T BUY Cod with that totally USELESS Steam thingie ...

I never particularly wanted Steam, I had to have it for some of the Total War series, but now I've got it it's just fine. it's never been a bother to me.

Feel free to post a poll on SAS or AAS then. Watch your mouth too. I've seen how many problems Steam has caused for the ARMA2 community (The group I'm in for example) - the majority being among the less PC competent people. However, we must not forget the strange method of running Combined Operations. I don't want to see the same happening to the IL-2 community.

Regarding the Maths, even a 2% loss is massive. Lets say 1C sell 1,000,000 units. Now, factor in the lost sales: what is 2% of 1,000,000? 20,000. 20,000 units at £30 of revenue each is £600,000 lost. So, that is nothing, of course. Would you turn down £600,000 of revenue?

If I was as rude as yourself, I would say you're deluded. However, I will refrain since I respect you.

Respect not sure if I deserve any after my last few post... I have been a bit outspoken with my replies.

I don't mean to be rude but i just can't get my head around the moaning on this forum.

:) Its not me, I'll be buying it for sure. I'm just speaking for others.

If you want your freedom back, go build yourself a hut and live there with no electricity and toilet paper. Quit your job, if you have one, and feed yourself with what you can hunt.
No trolling on internet forums either.

I just want to thank the last two poster for making my posts look be tad more articulate... cheers :D

STEAM? No thanks.

If i will ever want to install a Spyware/Malware that monitors my activities like STEAM and also if i would like to LEASE a game Instead of Purchasing it and use it Wherever i like then I'll think about Steam.

Until then no thanks.

P.S.
I couldn't imagine how things for SoW/CoD could go worse than its ~5 years delay. I guess i was wrong. Well done :D

Even if you buy a boxed copy these days, you are still only "leasing" the product.
Read the EULAs.

I say Steam is OK but you should have an option to use Steam or another form of DRM.... as long as isn't GFWL.

And why not? $50 pales in Comparison to the amount of money Ive bought buying all the IL2 iterations, and then the replacements because they inevitably get lost over the course of a decade of duty station moves and deployments, etc.
Ive got no problem paying for it. Hell Id pay more for a non-steamer version happily.
Im not even going off on the freedom viewpoint, thats neither here nor there, I simply do not want to run steam after my horribble experiences with it.
And I wont.

Speaking of, this is all I can find for 1C's address:
21, Seleznevskaya str.
Moscow
Is this right? I'm serious about sending them a check when I download the non steam version.

Im pretty sure even cracked games require the steam interface.

Don't be so sure, not even for the multiplayer part ;)

Oleg said we can still use Hl and the like.

This raises something of an interesting question...how do we define "Cracked" ?

Will cracked be a version you download that completely bypass's Steam and solidshield or will cracked be a program that does nothing more than bypass Steam and allow you to register/activate your hard copy through SolidShield?

I would say the latter would not be defined as "cracked" but more on the lines of a "NO-CD" program.

S!

Well then i guess you have never used steam and come across vac...

I would be very surprised if the crack worked online.

Don't guess... you are not good at it it seems ;)

You'll get used to it ;)

Why is there never an option in these polls for: ' I don't know enough about it to comment'. ?

Because they would have clicked the "No I do not have Steam and will not for CoD" option anyway.

Wow. Doom and gloom, it's the end of the world. The more I know about people, the less sense they make to me. The funny thing is I bet the vast majority of the naysayers here are devout socialists. Oh, well no skin off my butt. I'll have COD one way or another (and I'll pay for it).

Because the majority of forumites could never admit such a thing anyway.

You assume that everyone who says they will not buy will stick by that and thus is a lost sale never gained when its highly likely having the game on Steam will see it gain some sales, perhaps even replace those who say they will not buy it on Steam.

Even the most ardent boycott groups have broken down once the game is released. I remember the boycott groups for Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 being full of members who were seen playing the game on Steam days after they released, so much for their resolve.

I guess you do not buy new games very often cause if you did you would have steam installed for quite some time

False premise.

I buy new games often, and I don't buy them on Steam.

Have any other baseless arguments you care to try?

The following is directed entirely to the people who think that if they repeat something enough times, it will somehow gain more validity. It is by no means meant to insult or aggravate the people who can keep a cool head and be civil in expressing their opinions, regardless of whether they support Steam integration or not.


Ok, this is going around in circles so let's summarize.

1) A few uninformed people post inaccurate stuff about Steam.

2) A few Steam fans get their panties in a twist.

3) Lot's of other people on both sides of the argument who have something valid to say, can't get their point across because they are caught in the above stupid crossfire.

Instead of realizing that your opinion is not shared by everyone, some of you are going around brandishing e-peens the size of the Eiffel tower, ridiculing people with a different opinion and generally taking pleasure on forcing something you like on a bunch of people that will see absolutely no benefit from it, because it somehow makes you feel superior on the internets. You gain a big fat NOTHING, sweet f**k all, from forcing this on others and neither do the developers from having a bunch of unhappy customers and a near 20% drop in sales, but hey, why let common sense interfere with being on a good roll point-scoring on the forums :rolleyes:

I'm generally a poster who can exercise some self-moderation and not fly off the leash at other people's necks but some of you guys (you know who you are) are both getting ridiculously zealot-like and making me dislike steam even more by association with your take it or leave it attitudes. In layman's terms you are of no help whatsoever, even in promoting your own opinion and favorite platform. If this was how Steam fans behaved, then i would hope i could turn turn off my buddylist, voice chat and whatever community feature they have implemented right off the bat, so i wouldn't have to talk to them when playing a game to have some fun and relax.

But you see, i happen to realize that not all of Steam's fans are as narrow-minded and petty as that vocal minority of zealots among the generally reasonable majority of Steam's advocates so i will refrain from tarnishing the rest of them with the brush you've chosen for yourself...which is exactly what you lack the common decency to do when you label everyone who is not interested in Steam as backwards grandpas playing sims in their basements while shut out from the rest of the world. Is this enough of a taste of your own medicine, language and manners or would you like me to continue? :evil:

And now that i got this off my chest and had the chance to vent some steam (ha! see what i did there? :-P ), let's take a calmer look at what is such an easy concept to understand yet you refuse to do so (yes, refuse, because i sincerely doubt that something so simple is beyond the intellect of the average forum member here).


If you look at what the level headed, non-bashing people who don't want to use Steam have been saying all along, you'll see that

a) they are not really making any judgement about the quality of steam because they have limited personal experience (mostly negative, which is why they don't want to use it), they are just making an assumption that applies on the impact it will have on their personal gaming habits. Their Personal gaming habits, as in not yours.

b) they don't want to have to learn about Steam because

c) clear indication has been provided, coming from official sources to boot, that Steam doesn't bring anything new to the game, so it could very well be optional instead of mandatory

d) taking into account all of the above, they have questioned your motives to support forcing the use of this platform on the rest, when it's clear the game could function without it and sell better if both a steam and a non-steam version were marketed.

To this final point, NONE of you have managed to provide a satisfactory answer. So, I take there's not one then.

Don't go twisting things and telling me i don't want them to make money or how they earn more by selling through Steam, because that's exactly not what we have been saying. Of course, the rabid anti-steam hatred that some other people display makes it all the easier for you to discount our concerns by conveniently lumping us together with them, when it's clear that you have more in common among yourselves, if not in the point you are trying to push then certainly in the way you are going about trying to achieve it: by shouting a lot, orchestrating personal attacks on people who don't share your opinion and doing your damned best to keep opinions polarized and the community divided, instead of providing any semblance of a valid argument that could lead to a compromise that would benefit the greater part of the community and the developers alike. But seriously, who can blame you when you can just focus all your energy on making people accept what you say as truth no matter the cost and forcing everyone to use something that benefits you, in a way that benefits ONLY you :rolleyes:

We have no problem at all if it's sold on Steam and you want to buy there, as long as we have a different version. And for the icing on the cake, you can't even order it on Steam yet yourselves and you'll have to also use Solidshield DRM on top of Steam. You are getting shafted too but you're so glad that someone else is also, that you just don't realize it (have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude).

I'll say it one more time

selling on Steam=good and we agree with it

selling ONLY versions with Steam bundled into them=bad, because apparently it causes 1 in 5 people not to buy the game on release if at all, cutting into the profits and long term expansion plans of the series

I'd say that if some of you still don't get it i can get my 5 year old nephew to bust out the crayons and draw you some pretty pictures, but we already established that a certain few don't get it simply because they don't want to :rolleyes:

So, the way it will go from here on out is that those who don't like Steam and yet decide to buy the game will accompany you, voicing their complaints with the added say a legitimate customer has in the matter until it is either bypassed by the community, made optional by an official patch, or a commitment is made to have it as an option and not as a requirement for the next installment in the series.

It does annoy enough people to resurface later on and they will campaign for an option to turn it off just like any other customer of this title will ask for his favorite feature to be included at some point. I hope you like hearing about it gentlemen because it's not going away. Have a nice day :-P

Blackdog, if you don't work for the diplomatic service of your government, you should.

Great post.

+1 on that fact.
Very well spoken Blackdog.

... you guess right, IL2/FB is the ONLY game that I have, simply because I am only interested in warbirds games and IL2/FB is the very best of them all (which doesn't mean it is perfect...)

As for CoD I would like to simply BUY it, I mean the game not any other piece of software that is TOTALLY USELESS to play the game and has NOTHING TO DO with it in the first place ...

If this is possible then I'll BUY it, and it will become MINE, and I'll use it WITHOUT Steam authorization or whatever, otherwise it will remain on the shelves, and I will go on flying FB, I have enough campaigns to play it for years ...

I do NOT NEED Steam, it's as simple as that ... and I am ready to PAY a little bit more for a SteamLESS version of the DVD ...

I've not really seen any good reason not to have Steam. Those against it will cite problems they had years ago with the service or some mysterious unnamed friend who installed Steam which then took over their PC and turned it into a devil worshipping silicon monster that ate their hamster.

Steam has evolved, its improved as most systems do. As someone who has used it since it first came into being because you had to install it for Half-Life 2 I've seen the many changes. It has been sometimes a little annoying. I recall buying a game a few years ago on CD that required Steam but instead of installing from disc it downloaded the whole game from the Steam server - not much fun waiting. Its improved though, recent games including one I installed today - Total War: Shogun 2 installed from the disc into Steam and it was flawless.

PC's are complicated things and you could try to devise the most foolproof system in history but you will never engineer out the rank stupidity of some portions of the human race. People have issues with Windows year on year with each new version and yet here we are still using it. You could argue its forced on us. Some people will have problems just installing IL-2:CoD in the first place but that’s not to say its a bad product. Steam gets some bad press for decisions made by the publishers and developers themselves. I recall someone making a point about ARMA II (may have been another game) having to download huge patches and not incremental ones yet most games on Steam do download small incremental patches, Steam distributes whatever the publishers or developers give to them to distribute so to me that an unfair criticism.

From the naysayers I see lots of angry bold type and caps-lock rants about having the right to this, that and the other. Read most EULA's and you'll see you only own the media the software is presented on with a non exclusive license for the software that may be revoked at any time. Steam does not ban or removed access to the system for no good reason. If it did it would not have the support of the biggest publishers in the gaming business and certainly would not have grown into the main digital distribution network it is with millions upon millions of satisfied customers.

People assume that the posters here saying they will not buy the game is already money lost to 1C. They will try to demonstrate this with maths based on figures pulled out of thin air. The reality is that Steam will draw new customers in too, perhaps even replacing the naysayers and more. Again some assume that those who say they won't buy will stick to that though even the most ardent boycotts have broken down with groups against Call of Duty and Left 4 Dead 2 saw many of its members playing those games on or after the day of release.

The benefit is quite clear. An online community under one roof. A system where you don't need to rely on support and updates to a a number of third party clients like Hyperlobby or XFire for example. Groups are already forming in the Steam community groups section to support this new game and I can see where people are playing if I want to join them. If I want privacy I simply sign out of the friends system or choose not to have it log me in when I start up Steam.

There is far too much name calling, people trotting out the tired old fanboy insult or suggesting those who like using Steam and are trying to put forward their happy experience with the system as being 'shills' and somehow being invested in the Steam service. Insults like that and calling Steam a virus really don't help give a balanced view.

Agree, well said.

In this WWII Combat Simulator marked it IS loss. CoD is NOT Arma.

And this is entertaining of yours. First you write:
And then:
I assume yours are based in "careful, scientific calculation", LoL :D
:D :D :D

Again, don't confuse CoD/IL2 with Call of Duty or Left 4 Dead 2. They are completely different markets with completely different characteristics like players age.

And this is the most entertaining of yours:
STEAM IS a Third-Party Software having nothing to do with the Game itself. Perhaps you should check your dictionary as you sound pretty ignorant to say the least.

Agreed on that. STEAM IS Much More than a VIRUS.

P.S.
And to quote a friend of mine:
Informative links, worth to read:

"Trusted Computing"
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

Anti-DRM:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/

Free Software Society:
http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-sof...ree-society-2/

Electronic Frontier:
http://www.eff.org/about

The Sony-BMG Rootkit Fiasco:
http://www.eff.org/cases/sony-bmg-litigation-info

Public Knowledge:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/

Multi quote King!

Not necessarily, I know someone on this forum who most probably voted that he would not order the game in this poll, and seems to have ordered 2 copies (at least one for sure, since he did not cancel the order I placed for him :grin:)

Monopoly on the pc, really? Pretty impossible tbh since it's an open platform(Microsoft tried and failed, one example was trying to prevent anyone from using another Web browser), anyone can start a rival service at any time and offer a better user experience yet devs, and users stick to Steam and i wonder why? Oh wait could it be because, its not a virus and the user experience / service is great.. yup. The consoles on the other hand is a different story, were everything goes via MS,Sony as a developer & player you've no choice to being with.

What you seem to overlook is the tens of thousands extra sales they will get due to using Steam.
Steam has over 30 million "active" (logged into in last 30 days) user accounts and those will almost all see an add for IL2: COD at some point..either while browsing the games list or during sales when it's put in the spotlight.

So the 2% that might not buy the game because of Steam will be dwarfed by the thousands who will discover IL2 thanks to steam and buy subsequent releases+tell their sim oriented friends.

In the end it's a no-brainer for any company really. (even ignoring the provided anti-cheat)

I seriously cannot fathom that some people here are actually against Steam.

Considering it is one of the finest digital distribution platforms in the world, and most of the initial problems have been ironed out, you'd think you lot were actually willing to accept that it is the perfect technology for CoD.

Do you really think it is a coincidence that every single semi-major PC release today is distributed and marketed, primarily through Steam?

Stop being such little crybabies, buy the game, and enjoy the service Steam will provide.

steam works for me:)

i heard that steam was run by Galen Thurber, and a team of oompalumpa Galen clones :)
tis the devil i tell you LOL

Craig

I won't, and i am mature enough to keep my word. Be sure that 1000s will use "other alternatives".

i had steam once on my PC for a game i had nothing but missery and never could play that game in the end. Countless mails to Steam were never answered by them. So i will never allow it back on my PC not even for COD:sad:

Oh terrific another that decides the "other alternatives" are better than installing a piece of software that currently has literally millions of satisfied users.
So much so that every major publisher, pushing every major release, realises that Steam is the best way to market their game; for the good of all PC gamers.

Honestly I truly believe (and I'm not alone) that without Steam pushing hard to keep PC gaming where it is today, we would all be forced to buy a damn console if we wanted to continue with our hobby.

Won't it be great when we're all using "other alternatives" for all of the old games that were released on PC and there are no new games because all of the publishers have decided that because of all the "other alternatives" there's no point in publishing games for PC any more.

Seriously, some people need to wake up and realise that PC gaming will die unless there are more ways to STOP piracy, ensure that publishers actually make a return on their investments, make sure that games developers can continue doing what they do best without their hard work being distributed through "other alternatives"



And instead of discussing all of the things that Steam can do for PC gaming, people moan when they realise they can't have things nice and simple, just the way they like, just like the good old days, sod what the publishers need.

Games publishing is a business, the publishers need to ensure they get a decent return on their investment, otherwise it's not economically viable for them to continue.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that something like Steam HAD TO HAPPEN to keep PC gaming viable?

All those whining that Steam shouldn't be necessary consider this:
There are alternatives to using Windows as an operating system; do you choose to use Linux instead, or MAC OSX? Oh, but if you don't run Windows you can't run CloD.
So shouldn't 1C and UBI be slated for not offering the game on alternative operating systems?

I'd recomend trying it again. it was xxxx when i first started using it when HL2 came out but over the years it's become really not that bad. automatically keeping games up to date, not having to hunt down CDs and keys upon re-installs, shitf-tab-ing to IM with friends while games are running, some games being able to pre-load so you cam play within minutes of the game being released, awesome store specials. for every short-comming there's at least 10 awesome features to more than make up for it.

While i can agree with many of your assessments up to the point i inserted the dotted line in your post above, my view starts to diverge from that point on.

First of all, a EULA is not superior to consumer law and wherever they conflict local law will take precedence. In most of the EU countries buying software is for all intents and purposes just like buying a toaster: you can tinker with it if you are prepare to lose the warranty, you can sell it to another person used or you can give it away, you just can't mass-market and distribute it under the same brand name.

With disc protection this is a non-issue, since most people can make use of their right to have a copy with bypassed copy protection as backup for every legitimate copy, they have every means possible to treat their software just like they would do with a material purchase like a house appliance. The problem with electronic distribution platforms and new forms of DRM is that it doesn't stop piracy while making the legally dubious and shaky EULAs enforceable on the legitimate customer.

As for your next point about how many people will buy or stick to their decision, you probably are more optimistic than i am or you haven't seen similar cases in the past. Two years on from its release i still haven't bought RoF. There are still people asking about its online protection system and deciding to take their money elsewhere even today. I just now looked to see if i could find some supporting reference and i didn't really have to try hard at all, see this thread on simHQ started a mere 5 days ago: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ml#Post3232022

The hypothesis that selling on Steam might bring in enough sales to cover the ones who won't buy because of it isn't an ideal situation, it just covers the loss. I'm going to stick with this poll's approximate 20% loss as a nice middle ground because there are other forums where opinion is divided differently, some communities are more averse to steam than others. So, the assumption that steam sales might make up for that lost 20% doesn't negate the fact that it's still a lost 20%: we have -20% who won't buy due to steam +20% who would make up for it, when we could easily have 20% who buy a non-steam version and another 20% who will buy a steam version. It still constitutes lost sales and puts a dent in the long term viability of the series no matter how we try to paint it. And it's sad, because all this happens over something that's completely optional to use and definitely non-critical to the day to day operation of the sim, since it already has the necessary tools to function on its own.

Which brings us to your final point. Forcing things on people and p*ssing off roughly 1/5th of your potential customer bases is not the way to form an online community under one roof.
First of all, the game will still support integration with 3rd party server browsers and multiplayer tools according to the developers. And since steam is pretty much forced on those who would rather not have it, the people who don't like it will switch to a community custom-made solution at the first possible moment, not only out of personal preference but to also reinforce the point that for what they want to do with the sim steam is dead weight.

If by having a community under a single roof you mean flying on the same servers then i can agree, but we had that already in IL2 with 3rd party tools. If you think that the people who dislike steam are suddenly going to be joining groups left and right and growing a buddylist the size of a pirate's beard, think again. :grin:

You are perfectly entitled to your opinion of course, but you seem to miss the fact that the simulator community is not some "won't play call of duty 4" group who will buckle under the slightest pressure. I'm not saying we are superior somehow, in fact i detest elitism wherever it may appear. What i'm saying is that having a bigger average age among our members, it's easier for people who dislike something to stick to their guns and support their convictions. People who are against this decision will buy the game when it's in the bargain bin, if they even buy it at all, neither will they use steam's community features because they prefer 3rd party tools and squad/server forums. This will not only hurt sales, it will fragment the community as well which is the exact opposite of what you hope for.

And since the one person i can speak for with complete authority is my own self, let me give you an example. The modding community for IL2 show a far greater percentage of disapproval for Steam. How long do you think it will take for them, a vast group of tinkerers, to issue a work-around that bypasses Steam without touching the rest of the copy protection (because if they bypass both, then it could be classified as helping piracy)? And when such a work-around appears and CoD is supported in 3rd party server browsers, why would i keep using Steam? I'm going to be getting rid of it a.s.a.p and reverting to a modus operandi that suits me best, there's no doubt about it.

Don't get me wrong, i'm still buying this and i will never pirate a flight sim. However i have no use for Steam, its promotional offers or its social features and since i'm going to be a legitimate customer, i'm going to make use of my consumer rights to my own backup copy that law grants me and bypass something that may very well be something good for you, but it's something i don't need and as a result won't tolerate when there are alternatives around. If i need to use a crack on a game i actually bought in order for it to work in a hassle-free manner, then so be it. The law says it doesn't make me a pirate since i have bought the game, plus it won't be the first time i have used such work-arounds on games i bought in a perfectly legal manner.

I agree that certain people are way too critical of Steam and many spread inaccurate information. However, there is an equal number of pro-steam people who can't really provide a satisfactory answer on what the rest of us gain from using it, they just run around repeating the same things which more or less consists of "it works fine for me". Then they extrapolate that just because they like it, everyone else will. Well, this is not going to happen, at least not overnight.

Not to mention that the publishers have nothing to gain steam-wise from people like us. If you use steam and have a buddylist and so on then yes, steam is cheap advertising because whenever you are flying CoD your friends will see it. In my case however, what's a useful feature for you is unnecessary fluff for me.

Even with steam enabled, i won't be able to use the community features in a way that promotes the game. If i join a group it will be an IL2CoD group where people already know of the game, if i add someone to my buddylist it will be a person i met online in a DF server who's already a customer and the reason is simple: i don't play the majority of the kind of games published through Steam so i don't have anyone to advertise to.

It really baffles me that when we could have a best of both worlds scenario with two separate versions that would keep everyone happy and boost sales, both on steam and outside it, the majority of people is sitting here with horns locked on a debate consisting of "steam is the devil- no, steam is baby jesus".

Steam is a third party tool just like hyperlobby, people who like it will use it and people who don't will not, it's as simple as that. The lack of choice in the matter doesn't mean the community won't create a choice by themselves, let's not be naive about it.

In that sense maybe we're all wasting our time discussing this. I'm not interested in convincing anyone not to like Steam, not like i could if i wanted to. In a similar fashion, you can't convince me to like it either. Nobody can do anything about it if 5-6 months down the line i disable steam on my collector's edition through a 3rd party mod and start connecting to multiplayer through hyperlobby. It will be as if the game never had Steam in the first place.

So what is all the fuss about then, you will ask. Well, the fuss is that while i will take the plunge and endure this in the hopes of a community mod in the future, 1 in every 5 people apparently will not and this means lost money to the developers and possibly endangering the development of expansions for the rest of us.

The fact that all of this is totally preventable makes me consider not Steam per se as a platform but the lack of choice in using it, a completely stupid decision that is against everyone's long term interests. It's the publishers who are cutting their nose to spite their face in this, because they think they can force everyone to use this platform as a cheap advertising vehicle, when the reality is that most of the anti-steam legitimate customers will be running their legally purchased game with some form of no-steam crack within a few months.

People who can't or won't realize this think that someday we will magically come to like it and accept something that is not a matter of facts but personal taste and as such, is completely subjective. Sorry, not gonna happen anytime soon. Remember that old saying "the beatings will continue until morale improves?". Well, it seems like we're in a situation of "the matter will keep surfacing until options are included". ;)

Is a community custom made solution really going to work better than what steam has to offer in the way of server browsers and multiplayer tools? i'm not convinced it will. hyperlobby is good, but it's not even close to the convenience of a good in-game browser.
modding support doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with steam. Mount and Blade have an epic modding community and excellent support for it in the game itself.
is cracking a game and setting up work-arounds really less of a hassle than having steam running while you play a game? or do you just want to satisfy your convictions without missing out on the game?
assuming of course that the extra sales they'll get from the anti-steam elitists will exceed the cost for setting up two different versions of the game.
steam is a bit more polished than hyperlobby, which came around primarily due to the lack of any alternatives.
i wont be, but then again, my actions aren't dictated by childish convictions. i have better things to do than spend my weekends patching and cracking games i legally bought, let alone having to fire up the game everytime i want to join a friggen server FFS. i really can't see people rushing from a perfectly functioning platform to a community-made one.

Steam or no steam...

Piracy is an enormous problem.

Piracy is not abated. If anything it is more pervasive than ever. The pirated download of software, music,movies,games,etc. is enormous. You cannot use any of those piracy facilitating software without noticing they have millions of people online stealing someone's intellectual property 24/7.

Oleg has put his money and efforts into producing an exceptional product for us to enjoy. He is entitled to be paid, even if we are inconvenienced somewhat. Steam may just be that additional sacrifice needed by us to encourage further development by people like Oleg.

So, steam or no steam I plan to accept the inconvenience and invasion of a steam if necessary. I plan to put my BOB COD on my computer dedicated to it. I may be able to just add a virtual drive or hard drive and solve any issues I might have with a steam. I'll have to wait and see, on that.

What is totally insane in that Steam enforced solution, is that around 20% of the people who voted won't BUY the game, and since they probably badly want it, will have no other hope than wait for an "alternative" solution and let's be frank, this means a cracked version, when their goal is NOT to avoid paying for the game and all the talent and dedication Oleg and his team put in it ....!! :rolleyes:

Most of us, the great invisible and silent majority who play and BOUGHT the IL2/FB saga and don't visit and post at forums are strict OFFLINERS, and that Steam thingie is TOTALLY USELESS to play CoD that "already has the necessary tools to function on its own". :rolleyes:

Something tells me that ~50% of that 20% of people who voted will buy the game anyway...

Well, that's fine, said users won't need to use Steam for anything other than the initial activation and updates (if they want the updates). And if they do at some point want to try CoD online, they will have everything needed.

You seem to think i'm going by conviction alone while in reality it's a matter of simple preference and not having to deal with something that upsets my habits. The game is already able to interface with 3rd party multiplayer tools so yes, i do believe that a minimalist custom-made server browser that's specifically geared towards a flight sim and not much else is a very valid option for a lot of people. I don't mind one bit what the majority will use, as long as there's a small minority to justify its development and use i'm switching to that. People who don't like one won't have to use it and can stick with Steam's features, so it's all good.

This will depend a lot on how the in-game front-end is implemented: if all we get is a list of server names with their ping values i'm switching to something that shows a few more things, like which realism settings are in use and so on (aka Hyperlobby or something similar).

My comment on the modding community was not meant to say that mods don't work on steam. What i meant to say was that due to their higher % of disapproval i expect them to provide a steam disabling mod at some point.

As for the rest, i find that taking the time once in a while to bypass anything that potentially causes me trouble is worth my while: it stays disabled and i can focus on enjoying the game without distractions.

Of course your mileage may vary and you don't have to agree with me, just like i don't have to agree with you ;)
What you say in your post is your personal opinion and you are perfectly entitled to one. Your reasoning is valid for you and how you want to use this piece of entertainment software, others will disagree and try to find workarounds to suit themselves.

Edit: As for the cost of having a non-steam version, there is none. If there was any cost in the matter it probably goes the other way around, since we know straight from the horse's mouth that steam integration was done very recently and work hours were spent to integrate something that was pretty much an afterthought and a decision from "above". The game didn't have anything related to steam until a 1-2 months ago, maybe even less. Maybe you should think about labeling us elitists when it's clear that it's some among the pro-steam crowd who are so eager to force their preferences on everyone and not the either way around. I don't care how you guys play your games, i just want a choice on how to play mine and there's nothing elitist about that ;)

Blackdog, you have no idea how much I agree with you :grin:

I have no idea what Steam does or doesn't on a PC, I just don't want it simply because I don't NEED it to play CoD, which as you said, wasn't designed with Steam embeded in it right from the start but very recently ... :rolleyes:

I just would like to BUY CoD and opt out of Steam ... :rolleyes:

Steam is lame spyware imo. I understand having to go through Steam to validate my DVD purchase. If that means I have to have an account with them to get the validation done, so be it. But beyond that initial validation, I do mind. I would much rather download the patches myself than put spyware on my machine. Having it do whatever it does in the background, or getting spammed with Valve e-mails everyday to buy more games...why would I want that???

Also, I am worried about the online gameplay experience under Steam. As it is now, I only like flying WoP server. They make good historical type missions, the server is moderated for following the rules and the players don't suck. And if I don't want to go through Hyperlobby for some reason, I can always just put in the IP address in the game directly and it connects. I guess we won't be able to do that anymore??? I have a bad feeling that playing online on Steam server will become a 128 player furball.:rolleyes:

Anyway, I still waiting to find out technical stuff like Freetrack capability, how many cores it will run on so I know what chip to buy...etc. So, my CoD purchase is on hold for now until this stuff gets cleared up.:!:

I don't get emails from Valve, did you somehow sign up for them when you made your Steam account?

Why? It will mostly be the same people running servers and creating missions, Steam is replacing Hyperlobby, not hosting the servers itself.

I'm going to stick tin foil on my head, disconnect from the internet as Valve is trying to take over the global economy via my pc and steam...probably. Go live in a cave somewhere, put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes really tightly and whine some more about conspiracies (the Cornwall conspiracy is my favourite) which don't really exist but in my mind they do.
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD PEOPLE, CAN'T YOU SEE IT?

Either that or grow a beard and buy an Apple Mac as you can't run anything remotely bad on 1 of those beauties.

Oh and btw, I've never received any emails from Valve\Steam with any offers except to tell me when I've bought something. They must not like me or something. :(

Actually, I'm sure they like you a lot since you are buying games through them. I wonder why that it is??? What's next??? Spend $800 on a stupid warthog??? Sucker!!!:-P

Hello,

I don't know where the logical disconnect here is.
Especially considering Blackdog_kt makes such excellent posts explaining the situation.

Why are all the Steam fans / Valve fundamentalists / Valve employees so annoyed at people wanting to have a Steam-free version?

Would this stop you from using Steam? Not it would not.

Would you not like for Maddox to get additional sales from people that do not want Steam for whatever reason?

What personal disadvantage would you have if while you have a Steamworks-Version of CoD , someone else has a Steamworks-free version of it?

I simply can not understand why consumers would be against having more choice. It does not hurt you at all. It also does not hurt Maddox , for they would get additional sales.

As for the technical aspects. As pointed out , from the news we have Steamworks is not at all needed for the game. All it brings are unecessary social features as the DRM is covered by SolidShield.
Also Bohemia Interactive can for some reason ship Arma2 with Steam and without it. Do you think Maddox are not technically able to do so?

Can't we stop going in circles with people pointing that out only to have Steam-fans reply with "Old grandpas, steam saves PC gaming yo! Luddite nutjobs,I buy all my games on steam".
I have no problem with people using steam or steamworks , but that just doesn't make sense and people pointed out several times why making Steam optional has nothing to do with any of that.

This is not about being against STEAM , but for making STEAM optional

Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but being overly aggressive usually detracts from our arguments. I too would like a non-steam version, but i don't think steam is lame spyware.

It's a delivery platform that has certain benefits for certain gaming genres and people with certain gaming habits, in return for the drawbacks of specific infringements on certain consumer rights and their EULA might even be illegal in certain countries, but i wouldn't go as far as calling it downright spyware.

What i'm trying to say here is, let's try to be calm and make a clear case of our point so that people who like it can keep using it and the rest of us can get an option to opt out of it in the near future ;)

lwlooz and Blackdog you said it all, and what's more, calmly ...

I am OK to BUY the game

I am OK to activate it through SolidShields

I am NOT OK to install Steam on my rig, simply because i don't NEED it to fly offline ...

Steam has NOTHING to do on my puter ...:rolleyes:

But I don't want anybody to be deprived of Steam if they like/need it ... :grin:

They should release the game in such a form that it only requires SolidShield activation for online or off-line use.

But the default built-in multi-player browser should still be linked to Steam, so that you require a Steam account to use those default built-in multi-player features.

That way, anyone can play off-line with or without installing Steam, and play online with or without installing Steam, though not using Steam would require connecting to a server via direct ip or by using a third-party browser.

Anyone see a problem with that?

SolidShield for DRM online activation, Steam registration for optional use of the default built-in multi-player browser.

Patches and extra content released through Steam and through the traditional channels.

I can't see any technical issues with that, and in terms of reaching your greatest potential audience and market, it's a better solution than what's been proposed so far. In my case, I'd buy a Steam version and a stand-alone version, as that's what I originally intended to do before all this bs blew up.

If you agree with this proposed solution give me some feedback in this thread, as it might be worth making a one-sided poll just to put some more solid numbers up on the board and perhaps make UBI/1C aware of the situation that's developed around this issue.

That would be just great since Steam would be OPTIONAL ... :grin:

That's true, of course. Maybe they didn't want to implement another online matchmaking system than Steam to safe time / resources. Afterall, nobody knows except Oleg and the rest of the team... But there definitely seems to be a trend when it comes to using Steamworks (forcing retail buyers to register the game on Steam), look at THQ. They just recently signed a contract with Valve, making all of their coming games being Steamwork titles.

What I don't really like is the thought of this game using Steam and the Solid Shield DRM. I'm pretty sure they have their reasons to do so, but afterall Steam performs pretty well as a DRM itself. Yes, of course games can be copied illegally on there too, but I doubt that Solid Shield is gonna be fully working, too. And how badly the gaming experience can turn out if two different systems (Steam and GFWL in this case) are used at once players of "Dawn of War II" and its' first expansion "Chaos Rising" might still remember...

the bad is that we can't change things. If they decided that should work in a way we can do all the polls that we want but it seems that nobody care about us, and a prove are the 2 threads about freetrack, not a developer came in just to write a single word, and also on the question Tree-uk made on the other thread about the poppings buildings...

I see no reason to call it something else (i.e. "distribution platform"). That is a marketing strategy by Steam to make it more acceptable to the gaming population they are trying to manipulate. Steam admits to collecting personal information, sending e-mails...etc. in their privacy policy that I link to below. That's spyware in my book. Opt in or out doesn't matter except to the gullible. They collect the information and use it to their monetary benefit. The basis of their business model. So let's all be good Steam boys and buy all our games through Steam. Let's tell our friends about Steam and convince them to buy games through Steam so they can tell their friends about Steam so Steam can make a lot of money for doing something you really don't need at all. And make sure to tell your friends that it is really dark ages to click on an executable to install a patch. "So 20th Century"! Wouldn't you rather have Steam take control of your computer and do that for you??? Lets all be Steam bots!!! We can all talk on the Steam forum so Steam social engineering team can track our responses and behaviour more effectively so Steam can sell even more games! And if there is something buggy with CoD, we won't give much support in the forum because we hope you will get tired of playing CoD soon and buy another game from Steam instead. The wonderful world of Steam. ;)

http://www.valvesoftware.com/privacy.html

Seems like comprehension isn't a strong point, either that or you didn't read it correctly.
I'll make it easier for you.

Much the same as any other internet site you register for or many other pieces of software you already run on your PC.

@ MadBlaster:

Don't forget your tinfoil hat, for otherwise Valve will intrude into your cranial spheres with their Steam death-rays of doom. It's true!

And beware of google.com, for...

I read it perfectly SteamBoy. You copy/pasting/formating what I already linked to is waste of server memory.

Following your logic makes it impossible to use the internet without being "violated".

Is Valve really a company that is in the business to make money?! That's downright immoral for a wanting to make money like that! There they are, all over the internet, offering consumers a platform that enables online purchase of PC games and automatic upgrades. Outrageous!

And what really makes me sick is that they collect information! It's my information and I will never give it to anyone, especially companies! If I do they might be able to offer me products that I'm interested in!
That alone would have been enough to abandon ship but now hearing that those bastards have the nerve to send their customers an email! That's it, no CoD for me! I will never be their Steam Boy!

Viva la liberación!

It's a matter of degree. We all expose our IP address. At the same time all of us our using pseudonyms to converse on this forum. We each draw our own line on internet privacy.

My point is about privacy and end user control over their own PC. It is not about the morality of making money in a business venture. Example. Door salesman used to come to my house all the time to try and sell me something. I used to be polite and answer the door and listen. After a while it got to be a real drag having to listen to their sales pitch and waste my time. So now I just don't answer the door and they leave me alone. Life is better.

You still have complete control over your gaming though. Don't buy the game. The industry is on a course towards digital distribution and ball grips, the only real solution to put an end to that is not buying and massive protests. Loss of profit for the industry.

Then we have to ask ourselves, how bad can it be? ;)

that all seems fair enough. the quality of most of the anti-steam wingefest posts here really just seem childish and pathetic. as for your concerns, i highly doubt there will actually be a void that will need to be filled by something like hyperlobby, and yes, in principle, steam should be optional. in reality they must have their reasons for making it mandatory.

That's what i've been bitching about all the while, excellent solution that keeps everybody happy ;)

Not to mention that it's also going to benefit the steam users if we have separate versions, because of what Fritz X accurately points out:

The current situation will be equally cumbersome both for non-users and fans of Steam: they are forcing the copy protection i'm more comfortable with on the steam users and vice versa, when we could have an option to choose during installation. I think battlefield bad company did it this way? Players were presented with a choice when installing, one time online activation or disc in the drive to run the game.

How can you agree with a direct contradiction? You can't both require Steam for online play AND have it be optional at the exact same time! The "Steam built-in multi-player browser" is what Steamworks is. It is the MP service that is causing all the contention of it's inclusion. You literally can't have it for MP while simultaneously not having it for MP.

We don't know for sure that both the DD version and the box version will use the TAGES DRM. I can't weight in on the BC issue as I didn't get a box copy. I just know that I had to make a Punk Buster account, and that xxxx is whack since it seems for many people (myself included) it occasionally decides my valid copy isn't.

And yet you still decided to use the term "spyware" in conjunction with Steam.

You claim to have read it correctly but appear not have really understood it.

The privacy policy you're so afraid of is very much like any other privacy policy.


http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/fullnotice.mspx

http://www.google.com/intl/en/privac...cy-policy.html

http://www.ubi.com/US/Info/Info.aspx...=PrivacyPolicy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/privacy/our-privacy-policy.shtml

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/info.php?do=privacy

All using very similar disclaimers about the data they collect about you.

Scary stuff. Big brother is watching!

Thanks for putting my mind at ease. I totally trust STEAM now.:-P

I was under the impression that the Steam lobby is just a 3rd party server browser that lists available servers, much like Hypperlobby or Xfire is. Oleg Maddox also said himself that it will be possible to use external server browsers. Finally, there is another precedent/example: it works exactly this way with ArmA2 (both steam and non-steam versions can play on the same server) that's why i believe it can be optional. Since someone has already done it, i don't see why including Steam in the equation suddenly makes the multiplayer functions exclusive to Steam.

Steam version: log-in to steam, open the in-game lobby, choose server, join
non-steam version: run 3rd party server browser, select server, click join, game launches and connects

As for the DRM, the info from Ubi is just like it is for Steam, ie mandatory and vague with no mention of version: "the game will use Solidshield DRM and require a steam account". It's on the official Ubi page for the game, so unless we hear otherwise you're pretty much as screwed as the non-steamers are ;)

A) It's a 3rd party server borwser yes, but the reason you include Steamworks is for the purpose of having it in place of building your own server, and server browsing software.

B) That's not a precedent as ARMA 2 doesn't use Steamworks. You can buy it through STEAM like many multiplayer games, but unless they specifically use Steamworks they use their own MP platform.

C)If 1C Maddox does make it so you can choose to use another server browsing service that would be pretty neat.

D) That's the only thing about all this that stinks imo. TAGES has proven to be awful so many times, so I am going to hope against hope that some of the conclusions I've come to are correct.

... looks like the DVD version will NOT have/need Steam ....

"Finally, if you buy the physical version of the game, there will be no need to download anything additional in order to play the game. An internet connection will be required to activate the game, and for online play, but that is it. The game only uses SteamWorks for match-making and not the Steam DRM."

Source :

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/t...9/m/1751069519

That one made my day guys ... :grin:

^ I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but so far Steamworks always required Steam to work (big surprise). And I doubt this is going to change only for CoD.

I dunno what's going on, don't people understand that this game will require Steam, or don't they want to understand?

I read that at the community forums. I thought that Steams digital distribution did not have DRM's and the Update function on steams digital downloads is the ability to do away with DRM's.
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/03/steam-update-ma/

Kinda like double speak. It sounds a little better though. Now the other question. Are the digital downloads region specific? Meaning can I buy a digital download from the UK and have it unlocked in the US on its Steam activation day in the UK?

From what I've read, no. Steam looks at where you're logging in from and your content has to match that. Doesn't matter where you download it from, what matters is if that content is 'suitable' for your region. There have even been cases where people have moved to different parts of the world and had access to their games denied because those games aren't allowed in the part of the world they've moved to.