IGN Review

what game developers? there is no communication between the developers and the community. The company that created it is disbanded and it's publisher whent bankrupt. The devs who made SupCom (and some of it's modders) are now for the most part Uber employees, so who are you talking about?

FAF is a community made client to be able to persue playing the game after THQ's and GPG's disappearance. It was totally unexpected and out of the blue that GPG would give all of it's keys to steam transforming it into a steam-only (almost ) game. beforehand most of it's playerbase was on GPGnet.

but even with this happy event FA was always played more on FAF than on steam.

I know that that tends to happen alot but FAF is basically the exception to that rule.

You are only furthering to prove my point, that being that most players don't go looking for mods, so they won't know about FAF's superior single player experience because how would they?

I only found out about FAF when I was searching for a way to play multiplayer having lost a separate external lobby hosting whatyoumcallit (which i was searching to find again) after a virus infected my Pc and I had to reset it.

well the word-of-mouth with faf is pretty strong. lots of players go back to steam or have friends there and share the word.

also Steam also promotes faf pretty damn well.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/9420
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ForgedAllianceForever

now steam allows you to have any app in the list of games so all you have to do is launch faf from steam to spread the word to fellow FA players. which is what I do.

The developers of F2P games know that too, and they don't think modding a important factor for sales compare to F2P.

Uber has O, Neutrino, Scathis, Sorian, Elijah Emerson, Steve Thompson and Howard Mostrom, I wouldn't call them the most of SupCom dev team.

It doesn't really rule out the single player only RTS gamers.
Also PA is rapidly losing its players according to steamcharts, even if FAF is the most of remaining playerbase of SupCom, beating a old game before your playerbase get stabilized a bit isn't really a achievement.

Actually it doesn't seem to be dropping, it seems pretty stable actually. (Last time I saw it)

Every large update there's a peak of players, that will always happen. Look at Tf2's charts, it does the same thing.

Three weekends after the release are around 2600, 2200 and 1400, it's certainlly dropping.

The point Squishy is making is that the number spikes, then settles back down to it's base level. Most people who own the game will come and check it out after a major update, the base level is probably around 1000 ish, which is what it was *before* the release. It hopefully will settle a little higher (the 'base' level has increased a bit after each update if you look back, initially it was only 2 or 300 during Alpha, probably more like 500 during Beta and so on).

I disagree, I think this is what happens when you get a retard who thinks it should be possible to view all points on the surface of a sphere simultaneously to write a review about an RTS which takes place on the surface of spherical bodies. Of course, you could always use PIP to view the other side of the planet...but such UI complexity would necessarily be beyond the mental capacity of our erstwhile reviewer.

Seriously though, that is the most poorly written review I have ever read. PA is not perfect, but I'm having an absolute blast with the release version. The fact that he explicitly cites the impossibility of viewing the entire map at the same as being a major fault with the game seems to ignore totally how a little RTS game which you might have heard of by the name of Starcraft 2 manages the player's view; in that game, even the commentators are unable to zoom out to view a larger area of the battlefield, and in that game the restriction is entirely artificial rather than being imposed by basic laws of geometry.

The 'craft' games get away with allot due to people 'in the know' deeming it's correct. The tiny unit cap, completely restrictive view controls and complete lack of any automation are apparently fine in something like Starcarft. As far as I can tell Starcraft 2 is built on exactly the same tech as Warcraft 3 (which is ancient in gaming terms) with a few graphical tweaks.

At the end of the day, PA has gotten some stick and *some* of it is valid. I'm not sure I count the 'I don't like spheres therefore this game sucks' is in that category though.

I bought sup com on a disk like most people, never tied it to steam.

well your disk key is valid on steam.

Fully understood but I never knew that due to not being informed. I bought the game before steam was a thing (like most people, game sales normally start high then slowly decline over time) so I didn't know it was available or that I was entitled to tie it to steam and there by voluntarily enter into a DRM trap. Wait why would I do this, even if I was aware? :/

So as I'm sure you can appreciate being not aware of the game's steam page's and whatnot I was also not aware of FAF until that fateful day I stumbled upon it. I'm sure you can also appreciate how the great majority of sup com owners will find themselves in a similar situation that's provided they even play the game anymore.

(Due to the not existing notice of: ATTENTION GAMER: Please link your CD key to STEAM to take ADVANTAGE of benefits such as KNOWLEDGE of good MODS to improve your SUP COM EXPERIENCE)

One nice perk that owners of FA got when GPG allowed redeeming on Steam was that you got both games (vanilla and FA) in your library with just one key, essentially giving you a free game. Also, adding it to steam doesn't invalidate the key for non-steam installs, so if you already have a steam account, you may as well add it, if nothing else it means you don't have to worry if you lose the box/key. For PA and other games where adding it to steam can have potential drawbacks, then it's a consideration, but for SupCom it's a win-win.

I'd argue Steam is quite a novel way of managing your software. On the one hand it limits you in some respects, but on the other it gives you superb flexibility- on a different computer, 1 login to steam gives you access to your full library which you can install to your hearts content. A friend wants to try one of your games, lend them your login details! I actually quite like the system as I've *lost* perfectly legitimate games due to faulty disk (as a key is usually tied to the version of the game *on the disk*- this happened to me with Warcraft 3, I can't install it despite having a legal copy due to the disk being a bit worn).

If I lost the CD key or CD I would just legally download a pirated copy, as an owner of the game I am entitled to make (or find) copies of the game for my own use.

I've played SC2 quite a bit and *think* I understand Blizz's design decision there. The limited viewing area does add a lot of tension to the game and rewards players who can manage to scout, macro & micro despite the limitations. I still don't quite understand why the same limitations are imposed on commentators though.

The irony I suppose is that PA doesn't impose any such artificial limitations and yet was a major gripe of the IGN reviewer.

The problem is though that *if you don't get the specific version of the game that was on the disk you had* the cd key wont work.... Trust me this thought had crossed my mind also.

I'm in the same case as you.

I found out about the Steam Gold pack freebie frenzy about the same time i found out GPGnet had closed and that was WAAAAAY after the fact, I was only getting back into gaming. I had to be told by a befudled THQ after-sales service employee that GPGnet was closed, he couldn't believe I hadn't heard.

at first I was of the same opinion as you. no use, FAF doesn't care either way.

except I reinstall and change OS'es frequently and I don't like reinstalling programs on top of that (and FA is and SupCom are two LONG AS S games to install (especially counting the countless patches you have to install manually if you are with the CD copy)) and steam has this nifty little feature patching game files to working order by placing what's missing back where it's needed (such as registry files) and ignoring files that are already there.

Hence it takes 10 seconds to install this monster of a game. All I have to do is have the folder on my 2 terabyte hardrive where I stockpile all the files that always stay with me no matter what and direct steam to it each time.

Works on linux + wine too.

that really the one reason I started using steam in the first place : D

but if you registered it with steam you wouldn't need to bother anymore since they can store it for you and you can recover your steam account at anytime.

this.


this this this.

Without derailing this thread into specifics which would likely result in it being locked, there are cracks and such things can be used to get around the problem of not having a CD key. (Obviously I would never use such a thing to illegally access property I did not legitimately own.)

And in fact I have done this, my computer's cd drive stopped working so I had to improvise and find a digital version with a crack. (I wasn't aware I could link it to steam and carry on about my business)

whoa you are so 2000-and-late, man.