Some things that Steam COULD bring to the table

[Extreme_One]

Seems that there are a few people that are a little unfamiliar with Steam and it's features other than it's DRM so I thought I'd make a couple of points about some of the features that may (or may not) be included in CloD as a result of Steam integration.

The following list is merely to illustrate what is possible.

Steam Region Censorship

In a few games there are slightly different versions for players in different territories.

The German version of Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 are two games that usie region locking to censor the violence.

In Counter-Strike: Source instead of dead bodies covered in blood you see submissive avatars covered in paint.

In Team Fortress 2 instead of flying body parts you see flying robot pieces to mask the (cartoon) violence.

German players can play with players from other regions, they don't see the violence whereas those in other regions see the uncensored content.

Perhaps in IL2: Cliffs of Dover the German players (and any players in other territories where it's banned) may not see the Hakenkreuz but in other territories it is displayed.

Steam Cloud Synchronising

Steam cloud provisioning has expanded from 1 MB per user to 100 MB per user, per game. The Steam Cloud API allows your game to write and retrieve files for each user. Use it for personalized settings like keyboard, mouse, and gamepad configurations, multiplayer sprays, or even saved games. Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability that Steam affords gamers. Shipped first with Left 4 Dead, Steam Cloud is now a proven resource and is becoming an integral part of the Steam experience.

Perhaps in IL2: Cliffs of Dover our joystick settings, our preferred skin choices, our avatar selections will all be synchronised with the Steam Cloud.

This feature is optional, users can always choose NOT to synchronise with the Steam Cloud for any of the games that support it.

Steam Achievements

For those that care about such things, a great many Steampowered games offer gamers the chance to collect Achievements.

Achievements are rewards for completing game objectives or performing pre-determined actions in a game. The Steam Community Overlay will notify you when you have unlocked an achievement in Steam. Your achievements can be viewed in the game's main menu or through the stats in the Steam Community.

In a game like CloD you might receive an achievement for your first landing, for your first confirmed kill, for flying a certain number of campaign missions etc. etc.



So maybe, just maybe there are a couple of other reasons that this game is coming to Steam.

I'm not expecting those of you that are unhappy that Steam is being utilised to suddenly change heart, but I'm merely informing people of the things that Steampowered games can offer.

Disclaimer: There are plenty of games that are sold through Steam that contain none of the above features.


ps. Steam is now on MAC and coming soon to PS3 with the release of Portal 2.

There are now several games where if you own the game you can play it on MAC or PC with the same Steam account.

[Prefontaine]

I don't really ever post on these forums, just lurk really. Loved the ubi boards back in the IL2/IL2 FB days but anyway...

Just wanted to comment a bit on steam -- when I bought CoD MW2 I complained incessantly about having to install steam to play it. Well, as it turns out, MW2 introduced me to steam, and now I truly believe it's an outstanding tool. Hopefully others will agree with time.

[xnomad]

Also:
Automatic updates.
No mods which is a good thing, keeps everyone on the same version, and a bad thing e.g. stuck with poor development decisions e.g. the bar in the FW 190 forward view.

[Fearfactor]

You kidding me?? I'm supposed to get excited about steam because I might get an achievement award for landing or getting a kill?? That's not a big enough deal to convince me to get steam. There's really no advantage to steam, despite what people say. Don't need it for a community. IL2 had plenty of "community" in many online forums and you could "match make" with friends you met on those forums. Don't need it to play online. Don't need it get auto updates, I can install patches and such manually, thank you. Nor does COD need steam for "exposure" or to attract newcomers. IL2 certainly didn't, it got plenty of players and exposure well before Steam ever existed. Don't need Steam for making easy backups. I have made backup copies of IL2 for years and it's not that difficult!! So no advantage there either. Steam or it's DRM will not prevent anyone from cracking or hacking it, never has for any other Steam game so far, as I have researched about this. So no advantage there either.

So what you DO have with Steam is a impediment bad enough for many of us to refuse to buy the game at all. So it would be far better for 1C to offer it no steam. Even for those that love steam, if it were to be offered with without steam they would still buy the game. There simply would be nobody refusing to buy it because it was NOT on steam!

But offering it steam only apparently will stop about 25% of the people otherwise interested in the game from buying it at all. And a stubborn lot we are. Don't expect many of us to cave and later buy the sim unless the steam thing is dropped or a way comes up later to thwart the steam.

[B25Mitch]

Fearfactor, if you want to rant about Steam, use another thread. Your post is off-topic here. We are speculating about possible features CoD may use in conjunction with Steam, not whether CoD should use Steam at all.

[K_Freddie]

You're trolling...?? A steam fan thread - dig your own grave then

[Cobra8472]

Originally Posted by Fearfactor

You kidding me?? I'm supposed to get excited about steam because I might get an achievement award for landing or getting a kill?? That's not a big enough deal to convince me to get steam. There's really no advantage to steam, despite what people say. Don't need it for a community. IL2 had plenty of "community" in many online forums and you could "match make" with friends you met on those forums. Don't need it to play online. Don't need it get auto updates, I can install patches and such manually, thank you. Nor does COD need steam for "exposure" or to attract newcomers. IL2 certainly didn't, it got plenty of players and exposure well before Steam ever existed. Don't need Steam for making easy backups. I have made backup copies of IL2 for years and it's not that difficult!! So no advantage there either. Steam or it's DRM will not prevent anyone from cracking or hacking it, never has for any other Steam game so far, as I have researched about this. So no advantage there either.

So what you DO have with Steam is a impediment bad enough for many of us to refuse to buy the game at all. So it would be far better for 1C to offer it no steam. Even for those that love steam, if it were to be offered with without steam they would still buy the game. There simply would be nobody refusing to buy it because it was NOT on steam!

But offering it steam only apparently will stop about 25% of the people otherwise interested in the game from buying it at all. And a stubborn lot we are. Don't expect many of us to cave and later buy the sim unless the steam thing is dropped or a way comes up later to thwart the steam.

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.

[Tacoma74]

Originally Posted by Fearfactor

And a stubborn lot we are.

Indeed. Perhaps the only point i would agree on. Good day.

[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.