Skyrim Will Use Steamworks

[Dogstile]

So you still have to install Steam to play, even if you don't want/like it?

That's still kind of silly.

This, i'm an avid steam user but forcing people to use a service is a dick move.

 

[Malk_Content]

I am not a Steam user, so if anyone can explain to me what this steamworks is all about? For what I can asume by reading the comments, is some kind of DRM. So how is this any different from Origin (the reason I will not buy BF3 on PC)? If it is the same thing then is a shame. because I was planning on getting this on PC, because I lost my faith on good Bethesda ports for consoles. Looks like I will simply wont buy it. Its a single player game, the launch date is close to summer vacations in my country, I want to be able to play a game anywhere if the places I go don't have an acceptable connection or a connection at all.

It is DRM but of the most unobtrusive kind. That it is also bundled with a storefront, achievements, integrated voice and text chat (available in games and to people on your friends list not in the same game as you) and the ability to see what games your friends are playing and, if allowed by the game (i.e all Valve multiplayer games) instantly join the server they are on if it has space.

As for being able to travel with Steam, it requires a one time validation of the install then you can switch to offline mode and not have to be connected to the internet to play, so you don't have to worry about that. Also once you've added a game to your steam account, even if it was originally a disc copy, you can download it anywhere using that account. Any additional DRM is purely decided on the whims of the publisher/developer and thus have nothing to do with steam.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Great another non valve, single player game, brough on CD, that I have to install steam for. Just when I got rid of it, due to finishing other steamworks games. This sucks.

People happy about this only have themselves to blame that EA and other company are copying this behaviour. So thanks a lot steamworks DRM lovers.

The more I hear about this game the less appealing it is. A console port that requires me to run a client to connect to the internet first, yay.

Why did you delete it? That just seems stupid seeing as New Vegas required steamworks. Also, steam doesnt need you to log onto the internet every time you log on. As long as you have logged on in the past month you can log on (only play sp games ofc) and play! Also, steamworks has MUCH more benefits than you might think, you can easily speak to your friends, their is instant updates, if this uses cloud you can have your save game on all of your pcs and much more.

(that sounded like an ad for steam, didn't it.)

[EDIT] Also, if this wasnt on steam then there wouldnt be the types of prices you can get for it in the sales.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Why does a program bother you so much?

I'd assume it's because Steam is a completely unnecessary extra program, that does nothing useful and uses up resources. I know it has all these neat functions like chat and no disc required in the drive to play, but what if you don't want to use them? Then it does absolutely shit.

I'll take a "cd-key + disc in the drive" type copy protection over Steam any day.

What if you DONT have those features , then cd key+disc in the drive doas absolute shit. Have you even heard that it does much more than voice and text chat. It saves your game if you want to download it again, it doesn't require you to put in a key all you do is download then play, it keeps all of your games in one convenient place and it gives you instant updates. Why do you think that that is a valid argument, I could say that this fancy car has lots of horsepower, but I dont want to use that horsepower so it is the worst car in the world.

 

[Llil]

What if you DONT have them, then cd key+disc in the drive doas absolute shit. Have you even heard that it does much more than voice and text chat. It saves your game if you want to download it again, it doesn't require you to put in a key all you do is download then play, it keeps all of your games in one convenient place and it gives you instant updates. Why do you think that that is a valid argument, I could say that this fancy car has lots of horsepower, but I dont want to use that horsepower so it is the worst car in the world.

It's like saying "This car has a lot of horsepower, and even if you don't want to use it and would be fine just walking, we're going to force you to use the car anyway."

I wouldn't have as big of a problem with Steam if it was just for the registration. What pisses me off is that it has to be running whenever I want to play. That's bullshit.

Also, why wouldn't you have the disc and cd-key with you, if you bought a retail copy? Did you lose or break them? You need to take better care of your stuff.

EDIT: One more thing. All of those other features you mentioned, like automatic updates, are useless to me. In fact, I specifically want to update my games manually so I know what's happening on my PC.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

What if you DONT have them, then cd key+disc in the drive doas absolute shit. Have you even heard that it does much more than voice and text chat. It saves your game if you want to download it again, it doesn't require you to put in a key all you do is download then play, it keeps all of your games in one convenient place and it gives you instant updates. Why do you think that that is a valid argument, I could say that this fancy car has lots of horsepower, but I dont want to use that horsepower so it is the worst car in the world.

It's like saying "This car has a lot of horsepower, and even if you don't want to use it and would be fine just walking, we're going to force you to use the car anyway."

I wouldn't have as big of a problem with Steam if it was just for the registration. What pisses me off is that it has to be running whenever I want to play. That's bullshit.

Also, why wouldn't you have the disc and cd-key with you, if you bought a retail copy? Did you lose or break them? You need to take better care of your stuff.

First, you can actually turn off most of the things that might hinder your experience (and those only really do that in really low spec computers). You can turn off the in game overlay in the preferences menu. You can switch to offline mode, thus making all the online stuff that happens in the background go off.

Second, I didnt mean that if you lost your cd key+disc, I meant that those dont have any of those things so even if you want to use them you cant because skyrim is an sp game and if it wasnt on steamworks, bethesda wouldnt even bother putting those features in it because steamworks can do it!

Also, if your being really bitchy about it being open you can just create a desktop shortcut and not even have to open the program to play it!

As for the registration thing, nowadays you have to register for everything. All apple products require and itunes registration to be used (please dont say thats invalid COS ITZ APPLE AND IT SUXORS) and nobody minds that. With steam it only takes about 5 minutes to register, if you dont want to do that then there is no other reason than you being lazy. You have probably registered for about 10 sites, most of which offer less services than steam, so there is no reason not to just REGISTER for steam. If you do and you really dont like it, fine good for you at least you tried and didnt cry at the slightest form of drm.

[/rant]

 

[blaqknoise]

I don't even know what that means...

I'm not a clever man.

 

[Llil]

First, you can actually turn off most of the things that might hinder your experience (and those only really do that in really low spec computers). You can turn off the in game overlay in the preferences menu. You can switch to offline mode, thus making all the online stuff that happens in the background go off.

Second, I didnt mean that if you lost your cd key+disc, I meant that those dont have any of those things so even if you want to use them you cant because skyrim is an sp game and if it wasnt on steamworks, bethesda wouldnt even bother putting those features in it because steamworks can do it!

Also, if your being really bitchy about it being open you can just create a desktop shortcut and not even have to open the program to play it!

As for the registration thing, nowadays you have to register for everything. All apple products require and itunes registration to be used (please dont say thats invalid COS ITZ APPLE AND IT SUXORS) and nobody minds that. With steam it only takes about 5 minutes to register, if you dont want to do that then there is no other reason than you being lazy. You have probably registered for about 10 sites, most of which offer less services than steam, so there is no reason not to just REGISTER for steam. If you do and you really dont like it, fine good for you at least you tried and didnt cry at the slightest form of drm.

[/rant]

I know I can turn a lot of the things off, but the program still needs to be running. It doesn't help if you create a shortcut, that shortcut will still launch Steam. Besides, after turning off all of Steams features, all it does is use up resources.

And what do you mean "don't have the disc or cd-key"? If you buy a retail copy, you will get a disc and a key. That's what a retail copy is. I don't expect digital copies to require a disc of course.

Also, I did say Steam would me more tolerable if it was just for the registration, but it's not. And I do mind that I have to register for everything.

The reason I bought Amnesia straight from Frictional Games' website, for example, was that I wouldn't have to use Steam. I have a Steam account for those few games that can't be played without, but forcing a retail copy to play with Steam is really fucking annoying. Just ask me to put the disc in the drive, I have it right here.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Great another non valve, single player game, brough on CD, that I have to install steam for. Just when I got rid of it, due to finishing other steamworks games. This sucks.

People happy about this only have themselves to blame that EA and other company are copying this behaviour. So thanks a lot steamworks DRM lovers.

The more I hear about this game the less appealing it is. A console port that requires me to run a client to connect to the internet first, yay.

Why did you delete it? That just seems stupid seeing as New Vegas required steamworks. Also, steam doesnt need you to log onto the internet every time you log on. As long as you have logged on in the past month you can log on (only play sp games ofc) and play! Also, steamworks has MUCH more benefits than you might think, you can easily speak to your friends, their is instant updates, if this uses cloud you can have your save game on all of your pcs and much more. Now there may be someway to tell steam to take a hike and that you will get the update later, but I have not found how to tell it that yet.

(that sounded like an ad for steam, didn't it.)

[EDIT] Also, if this wasnt on steam then there wouldnt be the types of prices you can get for it in the sales.

Ok, so my post should have said.

"The more I hear about this game the less appealing it is. A console port that requires me to run an external client first, yay."

So first, I am a gamer, so I don't have any friends. So steams friends functions are irrelevant.

Second the patch thing. You come along one day to play your game and steam says hey you can't as there is new update, but it will take a while to download. It seems that you can't play the game then until it has been patched. Where as if I am doing the patching I can download it later and do the patching when I want without having steam refusing my play while it waits for the patch to come across my slow internet connection.

Last I only play on one PC, so cloud saves I am not bothered about.

So since I am not interested in any of the positives steam brings to the table, can I then opt out of the negatives. No, of course not which is the core of my problem with steamworks.

 

[Balobo]

Why does a program bother you so much?

I'd assume it's because Steam is a completely unnecessary extra program, that does nothing useful and uses up resources. I know it has all these neat functions like chat and no disc required in the drive to play, but what if you don't want to use them? Then it does absolutely shit.

I'll take a "cd-key + disc in the drive" type copy protection over Steam any day.

Oh boo hoo, it uses up a couple hundred MB of RAM. You should have at least 4 GB anyway.

It's not that hard to launch Steam. I just click on the icon and enter my username and password. It doesn't reduce my frame rate by any considerable amount (and I'm running on a crappy 2.2 GHZ dual core cpu) AND has a whole bunch of nice additions, such as chats and an internet browser... wait, what's so bad about it again?

 

[Llil]

Oh boo hoo, it uses up a couple hundred MB of RAM. You should have at least 4 GB anyway.

It's not that hard to launch Steam. I just click on the icon and enter my username and password. It doesn't reduce my frame rate by any considerable amount (and I'm running on a crappy 2.2 GHZ dual core cpu) AND has a whole bunch of nice additions, such as chats and an internet browser... wait, what's so bad about it again?

What's so bad about it? That I have to use it. I don't want to "just click on the icon and enter my username and password", I don't want to have extra programs running, especially when they don't do anything, and I don't need any of the "nice additions". I don't like to fill my computer with useless crap that I never even wanted in the first place. And a couple of hundred MB of RAM is a lot for something that doesn't do anything useful.

I understand Steam is a lot better than some other DRM systems. Just like a sandwich with just a little bit of shit in it is a lot better than one with a lot, but either way there's still shit in my sandwich.

 

[Malk_Content]

Great another non valve, single player game, brough on CD, that I have to install steam for. Just when I got rid of it, due to finishing other steamworks games. This sucks.

People happy about this only have themselves to blame that EA and other company are copying this behaviour. So thanks a lot steamworks DRM lovers.

The more I hear about this game the less appealing it is. A console port that requires me to run a client to connect to the internet first, yay.

Why did you delete it? That just seems stupid seeing as New Vegas required steamworks. Also, steam doesnt need you to log onto the internet every time you log on. As long as you have logged on in the past month you can log on (only play sp games ofc) and play! Also, steamworks has MUCH more benefits than you might think, you can easily speak to your friends, their is instant updates, if this uses cloud you can have your save game on all of your pcs and much more. Now there may be someway to tell steam to take a hike and that you will get the update later, but I have not found how to tell it that yet.

(that sounded like an ad for steam, didn't it.)

[EDIT] Also, if this wasnt on steam then there wouldnt be the types of prices you can get for it in the sales.

Ok, so my post should have said.

"The more I hear about this game the less appealing it is. A console port that requires me to run an external client first, yay."

So first, I am a gamer, so I don't have any friends. So steams friends functions are irrelevant.

Second the patch thing. You come along one day to play your game and steam says hey you can't as there is new update, but it will take a while to download. It seems that you can't play the game then until it has been patched. Where as if I am doing the patching I can download it later and do the patching when I want without having steam refusing my play while it waits for the patch to come across my slow internet connection.

Last I only play on one PC, so cloud saves I am not bothered about.

So since I am not interested in any of the positives steam brings to the table, can I then opt out of the negatives. No, of course not which is the core of my problem with steamworks.

I don't see how being a gamer equates to having no friends. I'm a gamer (literally all I am) and I have plenty of friends. Being a gamer doesn't mean living in a bubble and I'm glad that services like steam promote friends and communication even during single player gaming. I've also never had a problem with patching as you can just pause the download and go right ahead and play, then later when you aren't playing you can set it going again. If you don't like auto-patching, turn it off!

Even if you play on one PC cloud saves are extremely useful. Saves me having to make backups in the event that my hard drive might one day die on me without warning.

Finally, you not using the pros of a service doesn't mean it is a bad choice for the majority.

 

[Balobo]

Oh boo hoo, it uses up a couple hundred MB of RAM. You should have at least 4 GB anyway.

It's not that hard to launch Steam. I just click on the icon and enter my username and password. It doesn't reduce my frame rate by any considerable amount (and I'm running on a crappy 2.2 GHZ dual core cpu) AND has a whole bunch of nice additions, such as chats and an internet browser... wait, what's so bad about it again?

What's so bad about it? That I have to use it. I don't want to "just click on the icon and enter my username and password", I don't want to have extra programs running, especially when they don't do anything, and I don't need any of the "nice additions". I don't like to fill my computer with useless crap that I never even wanted in the first place. And a couple of hundred MB of RAM is a lot for something that doesn't do anything useful.

I understand Steam is a lot better than some other DRM systems. Just like a sandwich with just a little bit of shit in it is a lot better than one with a lot, but either way there's still shit in my sandwich.

But it DOES do a lot and barely hits performance. It barely takes up much space on your computer so it's not like you're "filling your computer up with useless crap". Starting Steam up really doesn't take much longer than inserting the CD into the tray.

 

[gbemery]

Oh boo hoo, it uses up a couple hundred MB of RAM. You should have at least 4 GB anyway.

It's not that hard to launch Steam. I just click on the icon and enter my username and password. It doesn't reduce my frame rate by any considerable amount (and I'm running on a crappy 2.2 GHZ dual core cpu) AND has a whole bunch of nice additions, such as chats and an internet browser... wait, what's so bad about it again?

What's so bad about it? That I have to use it. I don't wand to "just click on the icon and enter my username and password", I don't want to have extra programs running, especially when they don't do anything, and I don't need any of the "nice additions". I don't like to fill my computer with useless crap that I never even wanted in the first place. And a couple of hundred MB of RAM is a lot for something that doesn't do anything useful.

I understand Steam is a lot better than some other DRM systems. Just like a sandwich with just a little bit of shit in it is a lot better than one with a lot, but either way there's still shit in my sandwich.

This pretty much. Sorry that some of us don't want to jump on the Steam train here.

Now time for a "rough" comparison, and it is rough I know. If I wanted to buy a new car I just want the car nothing else that controls how I use the car I bought. Now the "Steam" for the car would be the car company hiring a guy to stay with the vehicle and I have to give him my keys when I am done driving. That way they make sure I am not selling my car or loaning it to other people they didn't sell the car to. This way they can make more money by getting people who might borrow one's car to actually buy a car themselves. Sure they gave me the "help" of this guy for free and he may give me "perks" such as tracking my how many miles I drive, my achievement of how many different states/cities/countries I've drove through, connect with all my other friends who have cars, and a hot cup of coffee everyday, but I dont' like coffee. Plus before I start my car he'll tell me to wait as he calls the car company to see if there were any recalls for my model. If there were then I can't drive until the mechanics get there to "update" my car. Then no matter what I want to do or where I want to drive he is always there in the back seat telling me about these "great deals" that the car company is offering on oil changes and new tires etc. Shit I don't care for right now. Now they advise me I can use the car "offline" but this just means that the guy will still be sitting in the background but he'll be quiet and throwing a big sulk because I am not using him and he wants to tell me about all the deals I'm missing out on.

EDIT: sorry forgot about the OT

I will be getting Skyrim but not for the PC anymore. I will settle for a console version.

 

[Llil]

But it DOES do a lot and barely hits performance. It barely takes up much space on your computer so it's not like you're "filling your computer up with useless crap". Starting Steam up really doesn't take much longer than inserting the CD into the tray.

True, starting Steam is about as inconvinient as inserting the disc, but that's the thing. If I have to do busywork before I can play, I prefer the option that doesn't require programs I don't want. I keep my things clean, and that includes my PC.

And I don't use any of the nice features Steam has so to me it's useless crap.

 

[Balobo]

I will be getting Skyrim but not for the PC anymore. I will settle for a console version.

So because the service has more features than you will be using, you will settle for an inferior version of the game? Just because it's using Steam? Really? And the consoles' online systems are that much better than Steam?

True, starting Steam is about as inconvinient as inserting the disc, but that's the thing. If I have to do busywork before I can play, I prefer the option that doesn't require programs I don't want. I keep my things clean, and that includes my PC.

And I don't use any of the nice features Steam has so to me it's useless crap.

But you can start Steam while you're browsing the internet and immediately start the game when you're ready. With the disk, you have to go get the disk, put it in, and wait for it to be read.

Unless you have 500 MB of RAM, Steam running in the background really shouldn't cause you as much distress as it seems to be doing right now.

 

[SwimmingRock]

bah, this might seem cool, but compared to both Morrowind and Oblivion, this is a huge step backwards. Both those games let me use CD-less options instead of installing securom or some other shit. By making it Steam only, they are screwing over a lot of people who don't want to have anything to do with Steam.

Personally, I'm OK with it because I like having Steam track my progress and launch my games, but I know there are going to be people out there pissed by this.

like myself.

to me, this is just another reason to get it on a Console. but I'm still not sure.

Really wouldn't suggest that. I probably won't convince you and I share your dislike for Steams "we're sort of lending you these games unless we decide we don't like you anymore" model, but I bought Oblivion on console and regretted it immensely. The controls made me rage. This may be connected to the fact that I'd played Morrowind on pc about a week before. I ended up trading in console Oblivion and buying it on pc anyway and was filled with joy by the pc controls.

 

[Llil]

But you can start Steam while you're browsing the internet and immediately start the game when you're ready. With the disk, you have to go get the disk, put it in, and wait for it to be read.

Unless you have 500 MB of RAM, Steam running in the background really shouldn't cause you as much distress as it seems to be doing right now.

The only extra program I want to have running in the background is the antivirus. In my experience, using Steam is more of a hassle than inserting discs and typing cd-keys, both when installing and playing. I want to know what's going on in my PC, and I want to be in control of it. Steam takes some of that control away from me and I don't like that.

 

[Balobo]

But you can start Steam while you're browsing the internet and immediately start the game when you're ready. With the disk, you have to go get the disk, put it in, and wait for it to be read.

Unless you have 500 MB of RAM, Steam running in the background really shouldn't cause you as much distress as it seems to be doing right now.

The only extra program I want to have running in the background is the antivirus. In my experience, using Steam is more of a hassle than inserting discs and typing cd-keys, both when installing and playing. I want to know what's going on in my PC, and I want to be in control of it. Steam takes some of that control away from me and I don't like that.

Why would you be running antivirus in the background? It uses up resources and you're not in control of everything it does.

You're in control when Steam is running. You know that Steam is running, you can control what games it's running, if it uses its online features or not, etc. It doesn't look through your files for credit card information to sell to companies. It doesn't take any control away from you. Maybe if it picked what games you wanted to play for you I would agree with you.