Duke Nukem Forever: Steamworks and Sexy Hats

[EvolutionKills]

Using steamworks, one more game that I will have to cross of my buy list. I am now down to one or maybe two games this entire year.
When I first heard about this years line up there where 11 game on it, but one by one DRM has strip them from the list, only one was removed because trouble with the game itself.

A game has to be on a way cheap sale before I will put up with the hassle that is steam.

Wha-

Bu-

You have 53 games on Steam!

And I never paid more than 15 for any of them and if you remove three never more than 10. I might stress it to 20 if the game seemed really good but any more and the DRM would make it a no go for me.
I never said steam was bad it is for older game that GOG doesn't have and you can't get anywhere else or game on a really good sale where the cheaper price make up for the DRM. But buying a new game, never.

But that doesn't make much sense. If you hate Steam and it's rather mild DRM (the really nasty stuff is usually part of the game anyways, irregardless of Steam; see Assasin's Creed 2), they why use it at all? It's not like at a later time, Steam removes part of it's DRM; Steam is Steam. So since Steam's DRM doesn't change over time, only the price does. So price is correlated to time, the longer since a game's release, generally the cheaper it gets. But it's still the same DRM. Now you don't hate it enough to never use it, but once it gets cheap enough you'll put up with it? That just seems like very weak reasoning.


So, for still putting up with the same DRM (that you hate), you don't play the game until it's on sale. That's fine, I been using Steam since 2004 (back when it actually was buggy and obtrusive) and I love their sales. But if there is a game that I want to play day one (the upcoming BRINK comes to mind), and it's on Steam, that's where I'll get it. All you're doing is trading time for money. To me, you hating Steam's DRM just seems like an ancillary excuse. Either you hate it enough to never use it, or you put up with it and enjoy games on your own time.

You do put up with it and you do use it, but don't act like you're on some big anti-DRM bender. You're being thrifty, and that's cool in and of itself. But that's all you are, is being thrifty. So please don't pull the 'I hate all DRM including Steam' card while also making use of Steam to save yourself a lot of money. You're not making a stand or taking the ethical high ground by waiting for something to drop in price on Steam, as opposed to paying full price for it on day one with the same DRM.

This isn't meant as a personal attack, I just don't understand/agree with your logic and/or train of thought.

 

[Ringwraith]

Spoiler: Long quotes of wordy stuff

EGO is the game's name for the health bar if I remember correctly from some of the gameplay videos, which sounds like a bit of a cop-out if you get a bigger health bar as a distributor-exclusive pre-order bonus.
The best pre-order bonuses are the ones that don't upset the balance of the game very much (if at all), as otherwise it's slipping down the slope of paying extra money making things much easier by making you more powerful.

Which would be more of a problem in a competitive multiplayer game or MMO, but this is Duke Nukem. If you have more health in single player, turn up the difficulty. Hell, not that I agree with it, but haven't the last three Call of Duty games had some sort of pre-order bonus that gave you early access to certain weapons in their online multiplayer?


Personally, I like this kind of stuff. I liked all of the different pre-order packs for Fallout: New Vegas, and the fact that as a PC gamer, I could get all 4 of them. I did pre-order from GameStop to get the Special Edition, because I'm a sucker for Fallout memorabilia. Still it was nice to have the binoculars from one pack, the bonus weapon from another, and the armor from the third.

Though what if you wanted to make the game as hard as possible? Surely it messes up the difficulty curve of the entire game somewhat by lowering the difficulty across the entire game by a flat amount. Also, having extra health hasn't got the physical presence of something like a new/earlier-that-usual weapon has so it's probably more likely to go unnoticed and unappreciated.

 

[SovietSecrets]

Sigh through Steam again. Looks like I have to accept a lot of PC games are going to be through Steam now.

 

[BRex21]

I still haven't gotten a decent anti-Steam argument.

how about, i am currently locked out of my account because of an "error verifying humanity" so no games for me.

 

[lacktheknack]

I still haven't gotten a decent anti-Steam argument.

how about, i am currently locked out of my account because of an "error verifying humanity" so no games for me.

There's a support desk for that.

They fixed my two various issues within three hours.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Is it weird that I assumed the hat would be in Team Fortress 2?

Nope. I was actually disappointed when it wasn't a TF hat.

 

[BRex21]

There's a support desk for that.

They fixed my two various issues within three hours.

lucky you i've been waiting 2 months and been transferred to 3 people.
Edit: wait 3 HOURS? i've never gotten a RESPONSE in 3 hours let alone any sort of actual problem solving steps.

 

[lacktheknack]

There's a support desk for that.

They fixed my two various issues within three hours.

lucky you i've been waiting 2 months and been transferred to 3 people.
Edit: wait 3 HOURS? i've never gotten a RESPONSE in 3 hours let alone any sort of actual problem solving steps.

Time to send in a second ticket.

And yeah, three hours. The first time it was a lost password (two hours), the second was "This game don't work, kthxbai" (one hour) "DXDIAG pls?" (two hours) "Ooooohhhhh lulz adjust settings on this file" "ok it workz thx". (I may have fudged that conversation a bit for my own amusement.)

 

[BRex21]

Time to send in a second ticket.

Are we talking about the same steam here? because yours sounds like a dream. If you send a second ticket for something, which i did when they got stuck on the "did you try turning off your firewalls and plugging it directly into the modem" phase, they just send a reply back saying:

"Please do not create new support tickets for the same or similar issues.
The necessary troubleshooting steps have already been provided for this issue."

This is because they assign an individual to your account as opposed to letting tickets fall onto the first available person.
so if "Paul" decided that the problem has to be the firewall you cant just go and ask someone else. In the specific example i'm quoting i had tried the steps previously, told him i had tried the steps BEFORE he recommended them and tried using different computers which could run other peoples steam accounts and games but not mine.
however this topic is about Duke Nukem specifically and isn't really a place to debate the merits of Steam, if you want to continue this feel free to send me a message or start up a new topic.

 

[linwolf]

snip

But that doesn't make much sense. If you hate Steam and it's rather mild DRM (the really nasty stuff is usually part of the game anyways, irregardless of Steam; see Assasin's Creed 2), they why use it at all? It's not like at a later time, Steam removes part of it's DRM; Steam is Steam. So since Steam's DRM doesn't change over time, only the price does. So price is correlated to time, the longer since a game's release, generally the cheaper it gets. But it's still the same DRM. Now you don't hate it enough to never use it, but once it gets cheap enough you'll put up with it? That just seems like very weak reasoning.


So, for still putting up with the same DRM (that you hate), you don't play the game until it's on sale. That's fine, I been using Steam since 2004 (back when it actually was buggy and obtrusive) and I love their sales. But if there is a game that I want to play day one (the upcoming BRINK comes to mind), and it's on Steam, that's where I'll get it. All you're doing is trading time for money. To me, you hating Steam's DRM just seems like an ancillary excuse. Either you hate it enough to never use it, or you put up with it and enjoy games on your own time.

You do put up with it and you do use it, but don't act like you're on some big anti-DRM bender. You're being thrifty, and that's cool in and of itself. But that's all you are, is being thrifty. So please don't pull the 'I hate all DRM including Steam' card while also making use of Steam to save yourself a lot of money. You're not making a stand or taking the ethical high ground by waiting for something to drop in price on Steam, as opposed to paying full price for it on day one with the same DRM.

This isn't meant as a personal attack, I just don't understand/agree with your logic and/or train of thought.

That is because you look at it all wrong it's not a matter of ethical high ground but purely how must I think a product is worth. Heavy DRM lower a games value for me, just like bugs, annoying gameplay mechanics and that sort of stuff.
If you hear bad reviews of a game you can make the decision not to buy it, but if you then later see it for 5 bucks at a sale you might think well it seem to be worth that so you buy it. For me DRM and therefore Steam is just an other thing that lower a games value.