alanschu

The problem I have with that Oatmeal article is that, while they're correct that HBO is stupid and should just deliver Game of Thrones digitally somewhere in order to prevent fans from just pirating it, is this notion that "because I wanted to watch it and it was convenient, I pirated it." It does little to dissuade me of entitlement issues that many people seem to have IMO.

Skeptical. Steam likely works better because it's a reasonably well polished, heavily iterated and mature platform for delivering games. The presence of Steamworks has very little to do with Steam's capabilities as a digital developer. It might ensure Steam's success, but only because by incorporating Steamworks they ensure Steam's relevancy, since Steam is required. Steamworks typically provides benefits to developers (which is non-trivial). I'd argue that this has no benefits, as it reduces the cost to the developer. Sorry, even as a steam fan this is starting to grate on me. It has nothing to do with "an easy avenue for devs to sell their games." The presence of Steamworks is not required to sell something on Steam. The only thing that mandates that a game must be used through Steam is Steamworks. While there are advantages to a developer for using Steamworks, as a consumer - if you aren't a fan of Steam (for whatever reason), then the presence of something like Steamworks sucks if there's a game that you want that has it. As a consumer, it's perfectly valid to feel that Steamworks' contribution to the gaming population is a net negative because to them, all Steamworks really does is mandate that Steam is required. That said, Steam's my preferred platform and as long as Steamworks delivers on what developers need of it, and Steam remains top dog, it's easy for developers to go along with it. The problem with this, from a competitive standpoint, is that barriers to competing becoming very, very high. Another company can offer everything Steamworks has to offer, and more, but ultimately their position is undermined because Steam has the install base to support it. So while you may be happy that Valve and Steam are whooping ass and taking names, a product you would otherwise find superior to Steam (and that developers themselves may find superior) has additional barriers because of things like Steamworks. At this point, Valve has minimal incentive to continue to make Steamworks as awesome as possible. It needs only do enough to make it enticing for developers, while leveraging the market share that Steam has as it's additional argument, rather than the quality of what Steamworks delivers.

Steamworks works with developers and provides a lot of assistance (for free). Using Steam does not require Steamworks. Valve just knows that using Steamworks helps ensure Steams relevancy. Hence, they provide a service to the developers by providing Steamworks. If you're going to "blame" anyone for this, the developers seem like a better choice.

Reviving someone with their PvP flag on has always been something that would get you flagged for PvP in other games I played. Doing any sort of advantage to a flagged person while not in a decidedly friendly zone will get you flagged. Imagine if there was a big fight and one guy not flagged for PvP just went around reviving everyone and there was nothing you could do about it.

There's an old tape backup I have of some games from way back in the day haha. Although I don't think I even have access to a tape drive anymore. Contains games like first two Wing Commanders and the like.

Moving a lot is what motivated me to get rid of a lot of stuff. When I first started PC gaming, I used to keep ALL of my old boxes just because. I went home to my parents place (to find my old SNES games) and realized just how HUUUUUUUUUUGE those boxes used to be!! Hahahaha. In the end though, they weren't coming with me when I moved out!

He stated earlier that had a keylogger on his machine and presumably his account was compromised in that way.

I wasn't at all impressed with the writing in the first game. The second game, however, was a lot better.

I actually started to sell off some of my old console stuff. Some guys at work are collecting SNES games and I sold them most of my library. Hoping that the one collector will take the Ren and Stimpy game just so his collection has it :D

Errr, the first link requires the user to actively choose to open a link that has the Steam URL (that then does something nefarious. This is akin to someone foolishly clicking on a link in an email. If you use a capable browser and don't autoload external links just by clicking on them, you sidestep the issue completely. Unfortunately the details for how the second one can be exploited are a bit light. As for "I had one game stolen from me already." Well, maybe that just "says a lot about your personality." You were stupid and got taken advantage of because you didn't know any better. People can be just as stupid and let their houses get caught on fire or their doors wide open for people to come walking in and take their stuff. The funny thing is, in that other thread it was someone else's problem, and their own damn fault that stuff fell into disrepair. However, here, instead of going "whoops, I was stupid... but it was my fault" (you don't seem to be to willing to allow other people to make mistakes in their life because they are "young and stupid."), it's big bad Steam's. No responsibility for making sure you don't do stupid things. It's Steam's fault that you were stupid.

This.

GOG typically lets me play classic games I missed out on and never actually owned/finished. On occasion I pick up ones that I have owned previously, but moreso because I prefer it in a digital copy rather than on a disc copy, or because effectively my machine is not actually backwards compatible with it (i.e. I have to jump through a ton of hoops to get it working properly).

It's all good. I don't feel any sort of pressing need to go there and discuss the game. I'm content with how it's shaping up and look forward to it being released.

Minor nitpick: Jensen's full line wasn't always shown. If it was a longer line, it would omit sentences from time to time. Still, in general it's a minor quibble and it certainly helped for those that wanted more clarity on what Jensen would specifically say.

I have blasts of nostalgia from time to time (a friend brought his NES into work and I have played through Tyson's Punch Out, Megaman 2, and am in a fun competition in Tetris). As an aside: the big thing I noticed is how well I remember a lot of the games. I made it to Tyson in my first attempt (and things like Bald Bull's Rush I could still hit on my first attempt). Same with Megaman 2. It took me about 8 or 9 attempts to finally beat Tyson, and Megaman 2 I was able to complete things (like Flashman's laser sequence) I was never able to do while younger. It makes me more convinced that part of what made games of the past so much longer and harder was simply because I wasn't as good at gaming (I also noticed this with Ultima 6 and Ultima 7, games I never beat when I was younger despite weeks of investment, yet were a weekend jaunt with my GoG versions)

Eh, I don't know if it's gotten better (I assume it has, as the game is less conceptual at this point), but I haven't been to the official forum in quite some time as in general I found it unpleasant (a lot of Fallout vs. Wasteland type stuff).

The issue with Steam is that it can be restrictive towards competition through things like Steamworks. The counterpoint to that is that developers see Steamworks as an asset, and given that Steam is so prolific, not a significant cost. It undermines other digital distributors though, as in order to provide the game, they must also provide access to a competitor's software that ultimately could remove business from them (I don't know if they still do, but I remember when GamersGate had a policy to not stock games with Steamworks, since the inclusion of Steamworks meant that Gamersgate had to provide the customer with access to a competitor). I know some companies are hesitant about Steam, since financing Steam finances Valve, which makes competing game products. Since (unlike something like Gamersgate) it never has separated itself from the game development aspect (Gamersgate used to be a part of Paradox Interactive, but no longer is), the potential for abuse is there as there is a conflict of interest. Although personally I think this is overstated as Valve isn't really in the game development business anymore anyways.

I don't know if it was so much a "clarification" but rather a degree of response to the conversation system (the keyword becomes similar to a paraphrase or Alpha Protocol's one word synopsis now). It'll mean spending more time writing out the dialogue but ultimately this is something that I enjoy and it was the one real "fault" (for lack of a better term) that i had with their demo.

It makes more sense for it to be an ISP initiative, not a Steam one. If a lot of people are downloading off of Steam, the ISP benefits by caching the common files (they typically cache anyways) as it saves them the money of using the actual internet bandwidth.

My point was more that saying something like "says a lot about your personality" says, perhaps, a lot about your personality. But maybe it just says a lot about my personality that I don't just assume everyone that may have older, worn equipment are somehow lesser human beings. My living room isn't inflatable either, but I still know where all my old consoles are and it doesn't take much time to hook them up to my television. You effectively just said: "You sir, are solely responsible for the destruction of your discs - not my problem. I, however, am lazy and don't really feel like moving my old, immaculately kept console, because it's inconvenient for me. Therefore, backwards compatibility is very important to me. As a result, you should have to pay an additional price premium that you're not interested in purely to support my laziness" All while if you didn't have backwards compatibility, you're not actually prevented from playing your older games. Doubly so because you've evidently found PC emulators (which likely won't stop coming out for consoles ever) and are capable of keeping your old hardware in pristine condition. But then again, I have been rather bullish in my personality in the past, and have a hard time passing up opportunities to call out people that are being unnecessarily condescending. And yes, I recognize there's some hypocrisy since I'm being condescending myself. Woo

If you care about your old stuff, you still have a functioning PSX. If you can't be bothered to bring it out when you want to play it, then I guess that says a lot about your personality...

I'm well aware of the experience that ArmA intends to provide, thanks. As noted, I actually played Operation Flashpoint. It is niche, but it's a game that got a ton of visibility because of a zombie survival horror mod. I'm curious how that affected things, if at all.

I like Steam, but am not married to it. In general I love digital distribution, and love some of the convenience features that Steam has (particularly its overlay). I also like that I can (usually) add it to non-Steam games as well. It's not without costs, however. It's just that the setbacks it has are ones that don't affect me (I don't care to sell used games, nor do I have restrictive download caps, and I'm always connected anyways).

Note that games like Counterstrike are Steam only, and have dedicated servers ran by players, and by the sounds of it Steam gets more and more mod friendly all the time. In any case, I'm very curious how successful ArmA 2 was prior to DayZ. You're right that I was expecting more Operation Flashpoint (which is ironic, as I stopped playing that game once it required me to learn it's clunky helicopter flying controls). It seemed very niche, and while I know production costs are much lower in Eastern Europe, it's still going to scale up with the level of fidelity they wish to add.

Sounds like it's content that expands the citadel that can be played anytime after the Citadel coup attempt and before the run-up to end game.