STEAM

Why should they give someone two keys if they only bought one copy of the game? The game is DRM free and you can choose to use Steam if you want to. I think that's perfectly reasonable.

Since it's DRM free, a key won't be used for activation except to bind it to your ubernet account correct (and of course to register on steam)? Thus you could log into any game client (steam or otherwise) and play on your account?

It doesn't even need to be 2 keys. The same CD-key could easily be used to unlock the game on additional digital distribution platforms as has been done many times with other games.

See:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=1852109

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_art ... 3601#which

Considering that this would be for the early backers making this game possible I don't think that's an unreasonable request. Given the choice, I'll take the DRM-free version over steam, but I'd still appreciate having the game in my steam Library with all of the extra little bells and whistles that brings.

Yes, it's reasonable, but all it shows is that Uber don't trust the very people who have put down A LOT of money to help them make the game.

There's no difficulty in giving us Steam keys, and dozens of games have done so.

LOL!
This is business dude. You bought one key, so you get one key. Uber is already friendly enough to let you choose your platform!

But if we only payed for why why should we get 2?

Whether you launch Via Steam or not doesn't change the game in any way. Think of it like Games For Windows Live games, you might still Launch the game via Steam, but you still need to use the GFWL service to make use of the game's full feature set(online play, machmaking ect ect.) just replace GFWL with UberNet.

Mike

And it's why we're openly allowing people to chose how they access the game. Why is this a problem? You're throwing the word "trust" around a lot, but I can't think of many legitimate reasons why someone would be upset by this.

Again, to everyone saying "you only paid for one key" sure, but why shouldn't that 1 key work in more than one place? Lots of other games have done this on steam (refer to the links in my previous post).

Is there any practical/business reason not to? I'm just assuming here, but wouldn't selling or giving away your only CD-key be bad for the person doing it(like giving away your account)?

Edit: Okay thanks Garat, I was operating under the assumption that 1 key = 1 account, and that giving away your CDkey would basically be like sharing your PA account.

Because it is literally two different copies of the game, that would allow two different people to login to our servers at the same time. For full retail launch, that's less of a problem, though from a business perspective, less desirable. But for alpha and beta, where most gameplay will require a connection to our servers (until we release the server to the public), it is literally giving away twice as many alpha and/or beta access keys.

I don't really care about using steam that much, but from a technical standpoint:
Why not just treat the steam-key like your own key on your system?

So if a person converts his key to a steamkey you store both keys together and only allow one connection from one of the keys at a time.

Well, for a lot of people who's steam account is linked to their UberNet account, that will likely work anyway. But there's no small number of people who have more than one account, and for any new people coming in purely through steam, how do we tell the different? One steam key looks identical to another. Basically, once we give a Steam key, we have zero control of what happens to it. All we know is if the user in question has a valid copy or not, regardless of source.

To bad...
I would use Ubernet but want a backup on Steam too. Any possibility?

Solution:

Tied to Uber account with always on connectivity.

Get a steam-smurf.

This is kind of the point. If you are scared about us having multiple keys and spreading them about, then you don't trust us to keep them to ourselves.

Right now, what I see is:

1. Go on Steam. Be stuck with using Steam, not being able to play without Steam installed, and have to download via Steam (very much an issue for when you want to play off of a USB stick or on a PC without Steam).

2. Go on Ubernet. Be stuck without auto-updates (or at least, not on a platform you already have), have no Steam achievements, and lose a bunch of integrated Steam features.

What about after official release, when having keys floating about isn't an issue? Woud it be possible to retrofit the old non-steam keys onto our account so we can have the best of both worlds?

Edit:

If we can link our Ubernet account to our Steam ones, and get PA on both, that's fine. The issue isn't with keys - it's where we can get PA and what we can do with it.

Why would it have to be always-on?

I doubt they will implement steam-achievements. Steam will probably not have more features than UBERnet.

It'll have all the Steam downloading/updating and community features, at the very least.

Why would you want to put PA on steam anyway?

Why is the Steam store page listing this as a launch feature:

While you guys seem to be saying if we purchase through Steam's store or exchange our key we are required to download and play through Steam? Just FYI, that is a form of DRM.

I was hoping the Steam key registration would just give us additional Steam access on top of our current preexisting options. So I can have PA on a USB Flash Drive to play it anywhere, anytime, but play through Steam at home when it's fitting (like other non-steam games later registered on Steam). Not lose the freedom of the original deal, because you register your key with Steam and now got to install Steam on every platform you want to play PA on -- then hoping offline mode works when you need it to.