Using steam or not?

I'm still kinda paranoid steam will be bought by the likes of Activision(EA has already tried, failed and made Origin) or simply close shop one day .

It won't be around in the same form forever, things change. Broke my heart when Stardock sold Impulse to Gamestop (and they were doing well financially at the time)

Went to check my Direct2Drive account the other day(haven't looked at it in years, and had only 1 game on it) and to my surprise they had become Gamefly.

It's not a big assumption at all. Especially since it's already been confirmed. I don't see why anyone would even think cross-platform connectivity wouldn't be there automatically since they'd have to take extra effort to disable it.

It certainly could happen. Though, it's perhaps important to note that Steam is the most popular system at the moment, and with the new marketplace and badges system, along with of course just selling games, I think they're making quite a bit of money. Also note that Steam is run by Valve, creators of Half life 2, Portal, etc etc. My guess is that they're well to do.

Of course, when you get crappy, crappy implementations like GFWL, you never can be too sure (man I hated that system). At least the games are actually stored on your computer...

I'm going to try uber net and see how it works but if I don't like using uber net ill try steam

Pretty much ^This. I have 240 games in my Steam library, PA will be 241. One of the only game I own which isnt on steam is ME3, but I dont even play that anymore since EA are a bunch of twats.

I bought FarCry 3 when it was on special on Steam. I did not realise I was buying the Origin version of FarCry 3 at the time. I had to create an Origin account (well, reuse the one I had to create for FarCry 2), and the Steam "Launch Game" button just runs Origin, which then asks me to login before it will let me select FarCry 3 and press another Play button to actually start the game.

I don't see why the Steam install for PA can't just follow in EA's less salubrious footsteps and just install and launch UberNet. Having said that, I also don't know what the usual Steam agreements are, whether Valve are open to discussion over these things, and what they do and do not expect from people wanting to use Steam as a distribution platform.

I'll try and run some .exes without logging in to the client first tonight and see what happens, I was pretty sure I could run most of them seperately after the initial install but I may be mistaken.

Most games are tied to the Steam client and will launch Steam if it isn't already running, but some games that use a wrapper like ones made in flash or that use something like dos box where the game developer doesn't have the source for the actual executable can run independently of Steam. There are also a few rare developers offering non-steam .exes that you can use to avoid needing Steam running like X3 Terran Conflict, Valve seem to be fairly flexible with how a developer wants to do things, I'm sure if Uber wanted to do something different for PA Valve would at least be willing to listen.

I got over 570 games on Steam, but hoping with this one I get a DRM free copy that can be installed/copied to any other machine/server without installing Steam on every machine to play. Steam is only on my primary gaming machine for various reasons.

I am still on the fence about converting.

Steam has never let me down so I think I will use Steam. But I want to ask Uber to make the server exe still available on Ubernet as I want total controll on the server location, settings and mods on it.

Far Cry is Ubisoft, not EA. EA hasn't released a game on Steam since Crysis 2.

As for me? Probably Steam, just for convenience.

@Poll: need a maybe in there bro.

As to steam ... it is a program that I do not like. I want to download this game .... oh crap you played another steam game (offline only mind you) your download has stopped and you just waisted 3 hours not downloading the game you wanted to play (must be amazing to live in a country where your net isn't fly's carrying packets to the next cowpie).

No to mention you cannot turn auto updates off. So if your playing a non steam game it will just randomly start downloading 9 gigs of a game you already have installed (yes I know this is in converse to what I said above).

Anyway. I will see how the Uberent servers go first, then I'll decide if steam is better (for downloading speeds / whatnot)

Start the game, then alt-tab back to Steam and resume the downloads, it'll continue downloading while you play.

You can turn auto updates off, right click a game, go to properties, then the updates tab and change it to not update automatically.


Granted neither are great solutions, but both can be done.

I will prolly use steam. Eventually. Personally I like it. Plus I will be able to track the number of hours spent playing

The only thing I hate about it is the DX installing before first run. It's something origin does better IMHO: run that stuff right after the download, before playing, AUTOMATICALLY. Other than that, I like having 90% of my games in one folder. Makes for easy backup/re-install. When I upgraded my comp last year it was a breeze. No extra downloading, just a lot of checking what was already there.

Plus, I like the idea of getting stuff from the steam servers. Valve seems pretty well established, and it's nice to know that if I loose EVERYTHING, at least I can still GET the 400+GBs of games I have. And I've actually used steam chat quite a bit.

One thing I am a little worried about is how different levels of the game will be handled. I (eventually) pre-ordered the cosmic edition (eek). I'm assuming that all the extra commanders will be listed as a DLC pack. There's nothing on how different editions will be handled in the FAQ (last time I checked though), and that's pretty much the only thing that worries me.

At least to begin with, I will be using Ubernet, after release, if steam seems like a better option then I will migrate, it depends on whether the pro's & con's of either out weigh the other.

Steam ofcors, showing my friends that I play in alpha of most awesome game on the world is cool. And I never had any problems.

And I dont get that "DRM" part of Steam, so, you need to use internet (but not really, you can go offline any time) to play the multiplayer game? And thats bad? LoL.

And I test Uber system also, I must login to UberNet anyway, so using Steam isnt so bad for them.

The problem is that you may not share your Steam games with friend, not even with your family if you have multiple computers. In old GPG times I just give my account to a friend if he want to try the game, but I can't show him Steam version of PA because one account may be only used on one computer in the same time.

If I use DRM-free version I need only UnerNet account, with Steam-version I need Steam+UberNet, so I prefer to DRM-free.

PS: I use Steam as update-manager for my big collection of single player games and happy with it. Most of these games may work without Steam, but without functions like achievements which I don't need at all. Uber have other rules and steam-PA won't run without Steam.

But somehow thats support Uber! You have to buy more games - more games = more money for devs. Yeah, thats not an perfect pro's, but still.

And thats not an con for me, we dont have many PC's, because we're more or less poorer comparing to USA etc. So yeah, there's more chance that I will play with friend that plays on his PC in other place, than big lan party.

And another thing, Steam is not an DRM! If dev wants DRM he gets them, if not, no DRM. Example, Gnomoria, no DRM whatsoever. You can launch it with or without Steam, how many times you want.

Me and my friends want to support Uber and we already did it, on Kickstarter and after. I spend big amount of money to support Kickstarter projects, more than I spend on games in last 5 years.

But I'm from era when we bought CD and were allowed to give it to friend, most games even allow to play multiplayer games with one CD, usually only host should pass CD-check. I don't see why its bad to give my account (if I'm not playing in PA at moment) to friend if I paid for it.

Steam is DRM, сall a spade a spade. There was tons of discussions about that before, you may find it in Wikipedia/GOG/etc.

It's awful when you paid for 300+ games, but can't run two of them in same time on different computers. Isn't it?

This forum is about Planetary Annihilation and Uber make it clear that you won't able to use UberNet in Steam version of game without Steam.

Other problem is legal question. Yeah, some game developers won't stop you to run their game directly, but where is guarantee that is 100% legal?
When you buy games on GOG they give you clear and specific license which say what's you allowed to do and what's not. How about Steam?

Actually with just about any game you may not do that, even if it's not on Steam, it is illegal, violates the EULA you agreed to and technically after violating the EULA even you wouldn't be able to play the game legally anymore as the license has been voided.

However I would agree that it is not a good thing that we aren't allowed to share the game in some limited fashion similar to the old multiplayer spawns seen in TA, Starcraft and Diablo 1&2, it allowed your friends at LANs to play with you and experience how good the game is but afterwards they would need to buy their own copy to play by themselves or online.

Steam does have a guest pass system that would handle that sort of thing, but sadly too few companies are taking advantage of it .

I likey Steam. I shall be using it.