Some things that Steam COULD bring to the table

[xnomad]

Originally Posted by Fearfactor

Don't need it get auto updates, I can install patches and such manually, thank you.

First of all Steam makes it easy to release small updates frequently. If they did it the old fashioned way they have to wait for bug fixes and add-ons to accumulate till they release them. Bugs can be around for months, even though they've been fixed but not released yet. Imagine doing it the old way with frequent updates, people would go nuts and lose track which patch they need.

Also you might update manually, but there are quite a few gamers who don't regularly check the official website to see if there are updates, and if there are it can be days before they decide to patch. This way it's more likely that the community is all up to date. We've seen how updates have split the community before in online lobbies. Our game is in a niche market, the more players per server the better.

I can't understand why people are so anti steam. Is it because their bittorrent version of the game won't work? If that's the case that's great!

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by xnomad

First of all Steam makes it easy to release small updates frequently. If they did it the old fashioned way they have to wait for bug fixes and add-ons to accumulate till they release them. Bugs can be around for months, even though they've been fixed but not released yet. Imagine doing it the old way with frequent updates, people would go nuts and lose track which patch they need.

This is also a problem for those with not that high connection speeds. My squad plays both Il-2 and Red Orchestra/Darkest Hour, and the updates to maps and other stuff are downloaded when you join a server. Great, except the moment I've redownloaded the 40-50mb map and possibly another 20mb of textures the round is over, and I have to do this again until theres a map with no updates for the current week. Approx 60mb of updates a week... Not that much of a problem, but if CoD will, as Oleg has said, allow limited modification, I can imagine it to become one, when servers start having custom mods of their own to maps and aircraft. As it is, I dont have the time nor will to download an Ultrapack's worth of stuff a month in small pieces before I'm let in a server. I would imagine many people to be in the same situation. 1mb in is little enough to ruin a good evening if your game happens to have some updates you hadnt had the time to download.

Steam's autoupdates that cant be stopped are another thing. It doesnt even tell about them. If you exit Steam, it runs in the background until the download is finished, or I terminate the process.

[Tacoma74]

Originally Posted by Erkki

This is also a problem for those with not that high connection speeds. My squad plays both Il-2 and Red Orchestra/Darkest Hour, and the updates to maps and other stuff are downloaded when you join a server. Great, except the moment I've redownloaded the 40-50mb map and possibly another 20mb of textures the round is over, and I have to do this again until theres a map with no updates for the current week. Approx 60mb of updates a week... Not that much of a problem, but if CoD will, as Oleg has said, allow limited modification, I can imagine it to become one, when servers start having custom mods of their own to maps and aircraft. As it is, I dont have the time nor will to download an Ultrapack's worth of stuff a month in small pieces before I'm let in a server. I would imagine many people to be in the same situation. 1mb in is little enough to ruin a good evening if your game happens to have some updates you hadnt had the time to download.

Steam's autoupdates that cant be stopped are another thing. It doesnt even tell about them. If you exit Steam, it runs in the background until the download is finished, or I terminate the process.

If you have such poor connection speeds then I don't see why it would be enjoyable to play online in the first place. And seeing as CoD will be much more complex, I would imagine that it will require more bandwidth than 1946 does (but don't quote me on this). Surely it won't take up much more (awesome programming ) but might not let some people enjoy the online aspects of the game. Thankfully decent quality internet is available most places in the world now so I doubt it will be a bad problem.

As for Steam and it's constant updating, I have absolutely no problem with it. Windows is always updating, so why should it be such a nuisance for Steam to do the same. And I don't really care if it doesn't tell me, that's just less crap that pops up on my desktop. If i have to wait 5 minutes, or even 15 minutes for an update to install it's not going to ruin my game experience. No, I'll simply get up, make a cup of coffee or something, come back and it'll be done. Besides... a match on CoD is going to last MUCH MUCH longer than any other game matches do, so joining a match in time shouldn't be a problem. And, it's not like it'll do it every time you get online... Surely they're not going to load us up with big updates all the time. But this is all speculation, much like everything else at this stage. Can't wait to finally see it all in action.

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by Tacoma74

If you have such poor connection speeds then I don't see why it would be enjoyable to play online in the first place. And seeing as CoD will be much more complex, I would imagine that it will require more bandwidth than 1946 does (but don't quote me on this). Surely it won't take up much more (awesome programming ) but might not let some people enjoy the online aspects of the game. Thankfully decent quality internet is available most places in the world now so I doubt it will be a bad problem.

As for Steam and it's constant updating, I have absolutely no problem with it. Windows is always updating, so why should it be such a nuisance for Steam to do the same. And I don't really care if it doesn't tell me, that's just less crap that pops up on my desktop. If i have to wait 5 minutes, or even 15 minutes for an update to install it's not going to ruin my game experience. No, I'll simply get up, make a cup of coffee or something, come back and it'll be done. Besides... a match on CoD is going to last MUCH MUCH longer than any other game matches do, so joining a match in time shouldn't be a problem. And, it's not like it'll do it every time you get online... Surely they're not going to load us up with big updates all the time. But this is all speculation, much like everything else at this stage. Can't wait to finally see it all in action.

Perfectly fine connection, 1mb in and max 80-ish ms latencies to everywhere in Europe. Just the actual bitrates are a tad low.

Windows updates I can choose to download whenever I want.

I have it preordered and we'll see like you said.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Hi, I've got a question for those more knowlegable about steam.

How does steam handle it when you plan to buy multiple copies of the sim.

I want to buy and play CoD on my lan, I want to have it installed on two computers and running in multiplayer at the same time.

Does this operate through a single steam account or do you need 2 accounts, one for each copy?

Anyone had experience of a similar setup in other games?

Cheers!

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Hi, I've got a question for those more knowlegable about steam.

How does steam handle it when you plan to buy multiple copies of the sim.

I want to play CoD on my lan and have it installed on two computers and running in multiplayer at the same time.

Does this operate through a single steam account or do you need 2 accounts, one for each copy?

Anyone had experience of a similar setup in other games?

Cheers!

Offline mode... Il2:COD will most likely still have the ability to search for LAN games or join directly an IP.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Cobra8472

Seriously? Really?

Steam brings a ton of features and advantages that have nothing to do with challenges, including- but not limited to the Cloud Service, the fact that you are not dependant on your disc (IF you loose it you simply download the game through Steam), ease of patching and version compatibility, Steam infrastructure & Support, and much much more.

You don't actually have any counterpoints in your post, just a lot of "Steam doesn't need to do this for us because we could already do it ourselves.."

-which is actually a load of nonsense, seeing as some of the things you're listing are about 100x bigger nuisance than doing it via Steam. Manually patching? It's 2011 for fucks sake.

The level of ignorance in your post seriously boggles the mind.

I think it's the level of expecting everyone to conform to your personal standards that boggles the mind. You want auto updates and a cloud service? Go ahead and use it, no problem. Just tell me why i am forced to use something that serves your needs instead of mine

Granted, fearfactor didn't provide any choice in the matter (he seemed to imply that there shouldn't even be a steam version) so i can't agree with him either.

What i want is the title to have a steam version and the exposure that brings, i just don't want it to be the only version because i prefer not to use one and i can provide no benefits to the title through word of mouth advertising (i don't have or plan to get any other steam games, don't have buddylists or join groups, etc). There should be two versions, or at least a choice during the installation. But since we're so close to release now the best we can hope for is a patch at a later date or a community work-around to provide the mission options.

It seems this board is full of people who expect to tell others how to use their software and what they should be liking, instead of focusing their energy on providing options to satisfy as many people as possible.

Originally Posted by Erkki

This is also a problem for those with not that high connection speeds. My squad plays both Il-2 and Red Orchestra/Darkest Hour, and the updates to maps and other stuff are downloaded when you join a server. Great, except the moment I've redownloaded the 40-50mb map and possibly another 20mb of textures the round is over, and I have to do this again until theres a map with no updates for the current week. Approx 60mb of updates a week... Not that much of a problem, but if CoD will, as Oleg has said, allow limited modification, I can imagine it to become one, when servers start having custom mods of their own to maps and aircraft. As it is, I dont have the time nor will to download an Ultrapack's worth of stuff a month in small pieces before I'm let in a server. I would imagine many people to be in the same situation. 1mb in is little enough to ruin a good evening if your game happens to have some updates you hadnt had the time to download.

Steam's autoupdates that cant be stopped are another thing. It doesnt even tell about them. If you exit Steam, it runs in the background until the download is finished, or I terminate the process.

This is a perfect case of why manual updating can be a better choice under certain circumstances. If i have a couple of hours to spare i don't want to spend them downloading an update right friggin' now neither do i want some client updating, i want to spend them flying the sim and update when it's convenient. Like you know, set it to download the patch when i go to bed instead of wasting two perfectly good hours of gaming time.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by Erkki

Offline mode... Il2:COD will most likely still have the ability to search for LAN games or join directly an IP.

I'm asking if it's like ROF was where you could only register one copy of the game to an email address.

Does anyone know how does Steam handles this?

Cheers!

[ghodan]

More easy for the dev to release small / large DLC packs.

[ATAG_Doc]

Steam is a brilliant solution.