GoG or Steam ?

[Luckmann]

 

 

 

Are games downloaded and maintained via steam actually moddable? Is there some kind of hashing to prevent modifying the game base? That imho would make the decision for me; I want a game that allows me to mod it.

 

You can mod Steam games as much as you want, don't worry about that.

 

Eh.. while arguably true, let's not pretend there hasn't been huge issues with modding Steam games, with few exceptions (Skyrim, etc). Steam Workshop basically exists to circumvent those issues. Especially modding games that aren't specifically intended to be modded can be a bitch.

 

 

Modding is pretty much always a pain in the ass. I have not had any specific Steam related problems, though. 

 

 

It's mostly an issue with data invalidation and patching. I honestly haven't tinkered with non-cracked Steam games in ages. I also remember some games refusing to work in multiplayer if you've changed the files ever so slightly (DoW2 comes to mind; but it was a long time since I worked on it).

 

It is unlikely to be a big issue in PoE, since PoE will probably not use Steam Workshop, and it doesn't have any multiplayer support anyway, and Obsidian/Paradox does not appear to be the kind of douches to do force-patching. So I realize it's a bit of a moot point, and I fully concede that, but Steam as a platform has definitely been unfriendly to mods in the past, so I wouldn't be so fast to jump the gun on saying that there's no problems.

 

 

Modding is usually not a pain in the ass, but while we're on the topic, want to see pain-in-the-ass modding? Divinity: Original Sin. It supports mods, but no-one wants to mod for it. You can't access the assets of the main game (so you have no idea how anything works), a lot of **** is hardcoded in the .exe itself, a cardinal sin of modern-day modding, there's near-zero documentation on the issue, and if you turn off or remove a mod after playing with it, it breaks your savegames.

 

It's a horrorshow. D:OS is amazing, it's widely recognized as being amazing, but less than a year down the line, the entire community is dead, despite the fact that the game came with a really good editor. It's crazy.

 

Edited March 5, 2015 by Luckmann

[GrinningReaper659]

 

Can one play the game with Steam without internet connection?

In any case, I'll go with GOG!

I own... ~30 games on Steam, and I can play every single one of them without an internet connection. Now, maybe I'm just super lucky, and every other game available on Steam requires an internet connection. But... *shrug*

 

I only had to be on the internet and logged in to buy and download them (which is the same with GOG), AND to install them (GOG doesn't require this, but, at the same time, if you've just downloaded a game, why not go ahead and install it real quick?). The only other advantage is that, should you lose your hard drive or something, and both Steam AND the internet have been shut down, you could still use your installer from GOG to re-install the game and never ever patch it (assuming you have the installer backed up somewhere).

 

Which, admittedly, IS an advantage.

 

 

Have you really checked with every single one (I'm genuinely curious)? My Steam library consists of the three games I got with my Wasteland 2 pledge: W1, W2, and Bard's Tale; the PoE and Age of Decadence betas; and Counter Strike and Path of Exile, which I haven't actually played. Since the first three are the only non-beta single player games, they're the only ones I've tried, and they do work offline but they also are all from InXile who decided to use the most minimal DRM option possible with Steam. Also, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I think that offline mode will run into problems or not run if a game isn't completely up to date.

 

Anyway, I can run Wasteland 2 and the others from the executable file while offline so Steam may as well not apply to them (meaning it doesn't much bother me in the case of these games, but also doesn't do anything for me). I only redeemed my Wasteland 2 stuff on Steam because a friend convinced me to try it out. Well, the auto-updates don't appeal to me too much; I don't really care for the in-game achievement pop-ups which, yes, I know can be disabled, but once again the point is that it's not doing anything for me; and getting chat notifications while trying to play a game was even more annoying than achievements, if I want to talk to people while playing a game I'll use mumble overlay or something. The chat notifications can be disabled as well but again these are all the supposed advantages and none of them really appeal to me.

 

So, since it doesn't feel like there are any advantages for me, and a pretty big advantage to GOG in that I can back up my install files and use them forever essentially, while with Steam I may just not be able to play some games unless I'm online and if Steam ever goes under or they decide to ban my account for some reason I'll lose access to all the games I have through them.

 

 

But, I just wish people would kill the ridiculous Steam rumors. "I heard you have to feed one of your organs to a DEMON every time you play a game on Steam! If you're out of organs, you can't play the game, AND you die! o_o!!!"

 

This is where you completely lost me because, when I installed Counter Strike on Steam, the installation instructions did direct me to summon a demon and pledge a blood pact to him that I would give him an organ every time I played, and then the very first time he takes my freaking heart, and I died! o_o!!!

 

I was steaming mad about that, those people at Valve are demonted!!     

[Emerwyn]

I won't depend on a third party program and don't want to have to worry about if that third party program feels like running well, loading up, bugging out or just pop sales offers in my face or track whatever I'm playing/doing whenever and with whoever I feel like both offline and online. So here's the easy choice: GOG.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Emerwyn

[Skie Nightfall]

I actually consider "manual install" a huge plus. GOG doesn't do jack **** unless I tell it to. Of that I can always be sure.

 

You do realize that last part about manual install was sarcasm, right?

[kryadan]

I went with Steam because I read it has Steam Achievements.

[Luckmann]

 

I actually consider "manual install" a huge plus. GOG doesn't do jack **** unless I tell it to. Of that I can always be sure.

 

You do realize that last part about manual install was sarcasm, right?

 

 

I do, and my post was to clarify that I actually consider it important, not just a token thing.

[Lephys]

That's not entirely true, though. Once you've downloaded the game from GOG, it's always yours, always and forever, and you can back it up or copy it a thousand times, uninstall, re-install and beat it with a wrench into submission as often as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

Not to be hostile, but I believe you misunderstood me, for I never said otherwise. I specifically stated that needing to purchase and download the game were identical requirements of both Steam and GOG (you cannot make an offline purchase, and you cannot download a game whilst offline). And patch. That's the only other thing that's the same between the two services. I mentioned, in particular, that once downloaded, the GOG installer is yours to do with as you please, and that this is not the case with Steam.

 

Have you really checked with every single one (I'm genuinely curious)?

I'm fairly certain I have. Admittedly, there might be a handful of games I haven't tried it with. But I've definitely launched the vast majority of them with no connection to any network whatsoever.

 

Also, though, I will say that, even when offline, if I try to launch a Steam game, the Steam Login dialogue window pops up, and I have to type my credentials in. At which point it basically tells me it couldn't connect, and asks if I'd like to retry or "Run in offline mode." But, my roommate said that was strange when I told him about it, and that his just lets him launch things in offline mode without ever having to arbitrarily perform a login attempt first. So, I'd imagine there are some settings to be tweaked for the person that wishes to most-conveniently run games in offline mode regularly.

 

I've heard people say that you can launch games without even running the steam client at all, but I've never done that. It's always at least a background process that launches. Doesn't have to connect to anything, though, for me. It just basically acts as a software manager. Kind of like if you open an MP3 on your PC, and it launches iTunes, or Windows Media Player or something. *shrug*. I can see people not wanting that. I mean, "good" or "bad," GOG games just launch by themselves, just like the original game did. So, fewer resources are used by your PC, I guess, even if it's only like a handful of MB of RAM and .05% processor time (just guessing at the values... I've never seen Steam using many system resources on my machine at all, and I've looked a few times.)

 

Again, I'd never tell people to love Steam and hate GOG or anything. GOG is great. But, I just really think Steam gets a worse rep than it should because of a lot of misconceptions.

 

That whole demon-summoning thing? You should probably contact tech support, so that they can finish the rit... I mean, help you out with that. >

Edited March 5, 2015 by Lephys

[Lychnidos]

I've heard people say that you can launch games without even running the steam client at all, but I've never done that. It's always at least a background process that launches. Doesn't have to connect to anything, though, for me. It just basically acts as a software manager. 

 

Two games I own, Crusader Kings 2, and Europa Universalis 4, can be launched directly from the executable, no need of Steam or them being in the steamapps folder.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Lychnidos

[Lephys]

^ Spiffy, . I don't have any, that I know of, that can be launched like that.

 

But, really, other than "Oh noes, if Steam were to shut down, or to spontaneously decide they want to piss off everyone on the planet by revoking my license to use the games I've bought and installed through them, then my game licenses would suddenly be useless!", I really haven't experienced any restriction from Steam.

 

Don't get me wrong. That's a legitimate concern, at some point in time. But, For what it's worth, I've gotten some games through GOG, and the only advantages I've experienced are:

 

1) "I can always, forever install these games wherever I want, whenever I want, after I've initially purchased and downloaded them"

2) "I can install and play these games on multiple computers simultaneously without having to worry with a Steam account at all."

[Vasid]

I like both, but I'm going with Steam for the deeper support and Achivements (I know, I don't know why I care).

[deekin]

I got the key in GOG because i have my loved D&D collection there and Pillars of Eternity belongs to that library, in steam would look just awful and wrong, and i could not even sleep properly tonight