Tayl

Well, my answer to that one is that the offline problem has been fixed as far as I know. It doesn't bug you anymore and it lets you play offline indefinitely. From what I've read on the Steam forums, that particular issue seems to have been fixed. I can't argue about being forced to do it in the first place, though, since you make a completely valid point. I'll also readily admit that I don't play in offline mode so I can't say for sure if the fix actually works, so I'll just let that one lie and concede the point. One thing I can argue: You can remove Steam from your system startup. I did that immediately and it never popped up without direct action on my part. You can also turn game updates off so you don't have to automatically download patches when they come out. On the greed point: Um...yep. I can't really argue that. But I don't see how this is any different than any other game. Do you think Carmack doesn't want to make assloads of money? Everyone that makes a game wants to make a critically acclaimed blockbuster. For me I view HL2 as a fantastic game, so I don't hold it against Valve or Newell for wanting to make money. It's their job, it's undestandable to me. On the second point: Wait, I thought Steam was in development before the hacking thing? Wasn't the hacking incident in late August/early september? And wasn't the game supposed to be released in September? I don't profess to being an expert on the history of Valve, but I always thought Steam was something that was out even before HL2 was supposed to be out and used for CS and stuff like that. I looked back at old news sources..Steam was out way before the hacking incident, unless I totally misread the news articles. I'm not trying to be a smartass or convince people to love Steam or anything. I just think it is one of those things people are overreacting about. It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. If you just don't like the idea of it, then more power to you. That's a completely valid point that I won't argue. But the general hostility towards Steam baffles me sometimes and drives me to post. :D Yep, I mod over there. Although there's not much to moderate at the moment. It'll pick up once the english release is announced. I'm not as excited about the game as I used to be, but I have talked to German players who have it and they say it's at least worth a purchase for people who like post-apoc stuff. At least most of the bugs will be worked out for the english release. *shrugs* EDIT: Eeep, posted while I was writing my response. In response to Eldar: good point. If things like Steam start popping up and encroach more and more on the privacy of their users it will be a bad thing. I just don't think that's something I need to worry about. I might be too laid back for my own good here, but until I start seeing concrete problems related to privacy associated with Steam I just can't get worried about it. Maybe that's just me, though.

You know that? I think I will. TF's forums have died off on the english side, they won't pick up until the english version is announced. I check these forums daily, but I only post when something really gets me interested. I should make more of an effort here. <_<

Steam works perfectly for me. Only problem I have had was with the SDK. When they released their new update for it they changed the directory system, so I had to move some folders and files around to get everything to compile correctly. Other than that it's been golden. I like the updates, they save me some hassle. Registering it took about an hour, but I did try and do it at 10 AM on the day it was out, so I forgive them for that. I like it. I like how everything is intregrated into one client. I would buy other products through Steam without hesitation. Just out of curiosity and not as an insult to anyone, but does anyone have any kind of concrete number on how many people have legitimate problems with Steam? By this I mean problems that are definitely Steam's fault and not something that could be fixed on the user's machine or connection. I have absolutely no intention of trying to say anyone in this thread is guilty of this as I have no prior knowledge of what happened to them, but I've read a lot of the threads on the Steam forums and most of the 'problems' are client-side and not Steam's fault. Stuff like dialup taking forever and other user related things. There are minor mistakes that seem to crop up, and I'm definitely not saying Steam/HL2 is perfect or without bugs and glitches, but...I've personally seen two people's machines that were having Steam problems(i.e. Steam not loading right, system crashes, weird memory issues, etc) and both of them turned out to be because they had not taken very good care of their systems. Lots of spyware and in one case viruses along with weird graphic driver versions. I was able to get Steam working perfectly on both of their machines by resolving these issues. In the case of dialup, well...I don't know what people expect with dialup. It's slow. Of course the updates are gonna take a long time to download. Just turn off auto-updates. Then all you will have to worry about is Steam updates. *shrugs* I suppose the counterargument to what I have been saying is that your machine shouldn't have to be well-taken care of in order to run the game, and that other games don't care if you have problems with your machine. Another counterargument is that it automates everything so you are 'forced' to download updates for all the games and this is bad for people on dialup. But that can be turned off, so if you have dialup just turn auto-updates off! And the CD checks for retail and offline mode bugs have been fixed(according to the patch readmes, at least). I take good care of my machine and HL2 runs perfectly. I'm just wondering how many of the problems could be taken care of simply by making sure your machine is in great condition and optimized before trying to play. Once again(because I know that despite my overall calm tone and saying that I didn't mean this as an insult someone is gonna take it personally), I am not saying this about anyone in this thread. For all I know everyone who has ever had a Steam problem had an immaculately clean machine and it's all Steam's fault. I'm just going by what I have seen. Steam seems to work on most people's machines in my experiences, and all of the problems I have personally seen have been user issues. Is Steam perfect? Of course not. Is it as bad as some people try to make it out? I don't think so, based on my experiences.

Ew.

Very true. And while I understand why the ending might have fit the Star Wars genre, that doesn't mean I have to totally like it. The endings in KOTOR were the worst part of the game for me, hands down. Nothing like playing a game for 40+ hours and then having a generic crappy ending to great you. <_<

Yes. Yes yes. Good god yes.

Crappy romances need to be removed. But...I guess I agree with you then, since I have yet to see a good romance in a cRPG.

I would buy it.

Yeah, small price to pay for being able to fly around a room with a lightsaber and cut people up.

Cool. So I guess that those mags are wrong, then. Sounds good to me. Although it is sounding more and more like the Nameless One won't be the main character. And that makes me sad.

If that happened, it would make my year...no, decade...no...LIFE. It would make my life.

Eh, I don't care how long it is. We are never going to actually write the whole title. KOTORII Or Sith Lords will be enough. And they will want to cash in on the successful KOTOR name. Yeah, the SW license doesn't need any help, but I kind of doubt they will just drop a successful game name when it's available. And I dislike roman numerals as well.

How 'bout Kumquatq3's questions? Hope he doesn't mind me reprinting his questions here, they are good ones: First one: Other one: @Ivan: No, that's normal.

I was going to say something about having Mandalorians living in a Jedi's bloodstream, but then I realized just how nerdy I was sounding. God, I suck.

Not funny. :angry: But unfortunately totally true. <_<

As much as I want a complete inventory overhaul, I would probably be content with just an option to organize my loot better. Not saying I liked the system, but....sheesh, it was hard to find stuff. Just making that small fix would make it tons better, in my opinion.

I don't know if I expect a change, but I sure as hell want one.

w00t! More galaxies = more fun.

If you made a game with that in it, I would buy 12 copies.

Yeah, must be nice to finally be able to talk about it. Must be hard to work on something for a while and not be able to tell anyone. @Kumquatq3: Not me, but then again I'm an idiot. No, you know what I meant. We all knew, just glad it's finally past the whole "IT'S A SECRET! SHH!" phase.

Cool. Glad all the secrecy is finally over.

Heh. :D Just glad that it's finally official. I know that we've pretty much known for a while, but good to get something said by some of the higher-ups.

Oh, I agree. While I may want an original game, I also fully understand the reasons for jumping at the chance to make a game like KOTOR2. It actually makes me happy. I mostly enjoyed KOTOR, so I'll probably mostly enjoy KOTOR2. And in the process of playing a game I like I'll probably be helping get a cool original new game out of them. Hopefully it will be a win-win situation.

I would like an original piece of work. It would just be a nice change of pace.

Fair enough. Thanks for taking the time to explain what happened.