Not flaming Ca

**Vuk** · 03-28-2009, 10:51

Originally Posted by The_Reckoning

@Vuk

Why the hell don't you want Steam? It's a brilliant program. Do you realise how many games are only sold over it now?

If it were flawed in any way then don't you think there'd be a massive amount of complaints?

Why aren't there massive amounts of complaints? Last time I looked there were. :P I have gotten into quite a few debates on quite a few forums since STEAM was announced with Half-Life 2 (one of the games I was looking forward to most in gaming history, but have not and will not buy because of STEAM). I have presented lots of data about it to very STEAM savvy people on the Half-Life 2 boards to explain why no one should support the spyware, but everyone wants convinience. :P I installed it on my traveltop to play ETW, but it will not go on any of the 4 other computers. Also, I find it an inconvienence to have STEAM manage everything for me, and it limits the amount of things you can go in there and mess around with. :P Not to mention it takes a hit on performance.
Market is right though, it is pointless to argue, and I am not gonna get into a debate about it here. Suffice it to say that this is the only STEAM powered game I am buying, and STEAM is not going any farther than this laptop. Also, true to my promise years ago, I have not bought Half-life 2 (even though it is very tempting), and will not.

**gollum** · 03-28-2009, 13:49

Thanks MikeV

**CavalryCmdr** · 03-28-2009, 18:30

To start I am NOT a fan of Steam, however there are a few points about it that I'd like to point out.

1, steam installs only with your consent.
2, Steam can be removed from your system.
3, Steam has an offline option that will stop it from uploading anything (note this dose not stop it's spy-ware capabilities!)
4, A third party (ie. not Microsoft affiliated) firewall with anti-spy-ware can block steam completely.

All these, at least, make it a far better option then SecuRom.
Finally, if your running Vista you already have so much "spy-ware" running on your system one more, whether Steam or SecuRom, will make little difference anyway, whether your worried about the hit on performance or spy-ware it's self.

**gellis23** · 03-31-2009, 19:15

Hi peeps.

The reason I don't like steam is because it gives me nothing. It is a very intrusive security system.

Seen some comments. Loved RTW, MTW2 was very poor.

I love this game CA but you are taking us for granted. Not only with Steam and the "Special forces" but that pamphlet you called a manual.

Next time I might wait until it comes on budget. Well I won't but some might.

Notwithstanding the above this game is brilliant.

**gollum** · 03-31-2009, 19:17

Lets not forget the benefits of steam for mp that opens new horizons for SP only players too.

**Mooks** · 04-01-2009, 02:31

Iv been reading user reviews for a while now on ETW. Iv decided not to buy the game, not only does ETW appear to have massive bugs, but I have privacyphobia (I am extremely private, dont ask me why) and STEAM would bug the crap out of me.

**Daveybaby** · 04-06-2009, 13:35

I'm not a fan of invasive DRM software in any way (there are several games i havent bought purely because of the DRM technology theyve used), yet i really dont have any problem whatsoever with STEAM (once it got patched to the point that it works correctly). It's not invasive (note that steam can be configured to NOT RUN AT ALL on your computer unless you manually fire it up when you want to play a game), it's not spyware (does anyone have any kind of proof of this?) and it doesnt create any performance penalty (it possibly might have in the early days, but it doesnt on any system i've seen in the last 3 years). I'd much rather have steam than securom any day.

Here's what steam DOES give you. Quick and regular patches. And more of them. It streamlines the patching process and makes it cheaper. There have been four patches released already - more than we ever got in total for M2TW. The only people who have a legitimate problem with STEAM are those who it doesnt work for - it's not 100% bug free even now, so there are some people out there who can't play the game they paid for. But some people wouldnt have been able to play anyway due to invasive DRM on a standalone DVD release.

I'm all in favour of being in total control of what's running on my computer, but being paranoid about STEAM violating your precious data privacy when the operating system you've installed it on is microsoft goddamned windows is... beyond ridiculous.

**Gargravarr** · 04-06-2009, 19:45

Whine bitch moan complain!!! complain bitch bitch moan whine bitch whine whine moan!

OK that is my moaning whining and complaining out of the way now a few points:

1. I have seen complaints about hardware incompatibilities. How many different variants of PS3 or Xbox hardware are there?? 1 maybe 2 but the core is the same. How many different varieties of PC are there? conservatively, I would suspect 2000-3000 if you include custom built equipment. Now, as an engineer of both hardware and software, I know how hard it is to write something to work of 10 different varieties without fault first time. 2000? not a hope!
2. Tell me, has anyone even noticed steam doing a patch for your game? I havent I have only found out by checking the logs. Cool, seamless upgrades without them bugging me. On the flip side Rockstar's "social club" fails to upgrade GTA4 and I have to manually upgrade the software even with the ability in the software.
3. I dispute the fact that this software is "full of bugs" I have had a couple of minor faults but it works well apart from that, and I know I am not the only one.

**Gargravarr** · 04-07-2009, 17:08

I think I am going to change my name to "Threadkiller" It seems that every time I post in a forum I kill the thread!

**jsberry** · 04-07-2009, 18:24

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

There have been four patches released already - more than we ever got in total for M2TW.

But none of these four patches appear to be significant. Nothing fixes the real problems: (1) AI cannot transport troops; (2) AI stupid diplomacy; (3) CTD when switching from campaign to battle map.

**Daveybaby** · 04-08-2009, 10:50

But none of these four patches appear to be significant. Nothing fixes the real problems: (1) AI cannot transport troops; (2) AI stupid diplomacy; (3) CTD when switching from campaign to battle map

Uh... So? These are not trivial problems - is steam supposed to help with fixing these bugs?

The entire point is, with steam, once a given issue is fixed, we will get the fix sooner, rather than having to wait months and months for ALL (or actually just most) of the bugs to be rolled up into one big super patch which is all that the budget will allow for (due to the long and expensive patch QA and release cycle we used to have). And once these big bugs are fixed there is more chance that support will continue, and we might continue to get smaller fixes and AI tweaks for much longer, because it's not a long and expensive chore to release a patch.