Steam Summer Sale is on!

[TooNice]

Ye know, I used to think that Saracen is a bit like the grandpa who refuses to go along with the flow of progress, based on some of the personal choices he makes (no Steam, no smartphone, no SMS etc.). And yet I am about to make a similar complaint about Batman Arkham Asylum. I don't know if I am beating a long dead horse, or if gamers just accepted it as the way it is, but here's my rant:

I just bought it off Steam's sale for a mere £3.74. Awesome bargain if it's as good as I've heard it is. I download it from Steam and I am provided with some kind of activation key. It's the first time I've had a game from Steam that needs further activation. Bit weird, but it was a copy and paste job. I then start the game, press start and I get a message from Games for Windows Live asking if it's okay to send information about my hardware or something. Nothing unusual and no biggie.. but no. Just let me start the game already. Press start again and I am told that I need a bleeping Live profile or I won't be able to collect "achievements" or save my game?! Ah FFS, I just want to enjoy a single player game, I don't give a flying monkey about achievements (that goes for Steam too) and why the hell do I need to sign up to yet something else just to save games??

I am wondering whether I really want to be inconvenienced by yet another account / password to remember :/ I am just going to play something else while I ponder over this. *Puts away X-Box 360 controller*

[oolon]

Has anyone managed to get a firecracker in Spiral Knights daily activity? If so can I borrow it!

[Apex]

I'll bore others round here if I go through my objections yet again. A search on my name and "Steam" would probably bring up previous discussions on this. But just for a taste ....

- if Steam goes bust (and in these times, who knows), you lose access to all the games you've paid for, unless they release unlocked versions, and if they go bust, they won't be there to do it.

- my games PCs do not have an internet connection. Please advise how I can use Steam, and activate games, even if I wanted to, which I don't.

There are several other reasons, but that's two things not to like. I know lots of people like the way it operates, and have reasons for them that, like you, are strong advantages. But for me, it's a non-starter. I want a boxed game that I can use on my own, without having to get it authorised by some overseas company.

Not bought any recent EA games then......

Most of them even for the single player need activation before allowing you to play and then they tie them to one account

[ratbasket]

... I just bought it off Steam's sale for a mere £3.74. Awesome bargain if it's as good as I've heard it is. I download it from Steam and I am provided with some kind of activation key. It's the first time I've had a game from Steam that needs further activation. Bit weird, but it was a copy and paste job. I then start the game, press start and I get a message from Games for Windows Live asking if it's okay to send information about my hardware or something. Nothing unusual and no biggie.. but no. Just let me start the game already. Press start again and I am told that I need a bleeping Live profile or I won't be able to collect "achievements" or save my game?! Ah FFS, I just want to enjoy a single player game, I don't give a flying monkey about achievements (that goes for Steam too) and why the hell do I need to sign up to yet something else just to save games??

I know exactly what you mean, when I brought Dawn of war 2 off steam I had a right nightmare, keys, windows live blah blah blah... It wanted to link my Xbox live to my hotmail to my windows live to my Dawn of war etc.. But then I thought it really isn't steams fault, it's just the way it is now. On the bright side, I downloaded the game and started to play it faster than if I drove to the nearest shop and pay full whack rrp, or if I brought it off a online retailer even. Even if I brought a hard copy, the game will still ask for my windows live info anyway, same with bad company 2 and their own login servers...

It just seems to be the whole industry heading that way, making it more 'accessible' to the mainstream, so people don't complain about having to patch their games themselves and having achievements so they can show off to their mates at school.

Just gotta go with the times!

[Allen]

To be honest, there needs to be a way to integrate GFWL and all that other rubbish into Steam, because Steam itself is DRM. You can't play a game on Steam without buying it, so why is there any need for extra annoying DRM.

I had the same issue with Batman and several other games. I still prefer Steam to buying online or going to a shop though, you still get those annoying DRM's where ever you buy it from.

Sadly offline at home so have missed a few days of bargains.

[Saracen]

Not bought any recent EA games then......

Most of them even for the single player need activation before allowing you to play and then they tie them to one account

No, I haven't, and that's why. I've bought a LOT of EA games over the years, but not for quite a while. The last was, I think, an implementation of either MotoGP or Superbikes, can't remember which, and that must have been three or four years ago.

Frankly, I got fed up with trying to work out which games required what, and rarely buy any PC games these days. It's too much like hard work trying to keep up with who uses what activation method, who installs what rootkit, and so on. So .... a pox on all their houses.

[Saracen]

Ye know, I used to think that Saracen is a bit like the grandpa who refuses to go along with the flow of progress, based on some of the personal choices he makes (no Steam, no smartphone, no SMS etc.). And yet I am about to make a similar complaint about Batman Arkham Asylum. I don't know if I am beating a long dead horse, or if gamers just accepted it as the way it is, but here's my rant:

I just bought it off Steam's sale for a mere £3.74. Awesome bargain if it's as good as I've heard it is. I download it from Steam and I am provided with some kind of activation key. It's the first time I've had a game from Steam that needs further activation. Bit weird, but it was a copy and paste job. I then start the game, press start and I get a message from Games for Windows Live asking if it's okay to send information about my hardware or something. Nothing unusual and no biggie.. but no. Just let me start the game already. Press start again and I am told that I need a bleeping Live profile or I won't be able to collect "achievements" or save my game?! Ah FFS, I just want to enjoy a single player game, I don't give a flying monkey about achievements (that goes for Steam too) and why the hell do I need to sign up to yet something else just to save games??

I am wondering whether I really want to be inconvenienced by yet another account / password to remember :/ I am just going to play something else while I ponder over this. *Puts away X-Box 360 controller*

Aha, a convert.

But in relation to smartphones, SMS and Steam, they're different issues as far as I'm concerned. Or at least, Steam is different from the other two.

I won't use steam for several reasons, some pragmatic and some on principle. I've already been through some of those.

As for SMS, it's about how I want to communicate, and my lack of interest in smartphones also rather descends from that. I don't want to be contactable all the time, wherever I go and whatever I'm doing. All I really want a mobile phone for is for immediate family and a few close friends to be able to get me if it's urgent. If it's not urgent, call me at home, when I'm there. Otherwise, if I'm in a meeting, at a restaurant, in the theatre or cinema, visiting friends, driving somewhere, etc, I do not want to be pestered.

So, the thing is, re:

"refuses to go along with the flow of progress,"

I don't regard being in touch, at all times, to anybody who wants to get hold of me as "progress". I value my privacy, and peace and quiet, pretty highly and don't want to be at everybody's beck and call, whenever they feel like it.

A mobile phone, and for that matter, a home phone number, is a tool to be used to suit my needs, not the whim of every Tom, Dick and Harry.

So I have no particular objection to smartphones, just no interest in them, because, a large percentage of the time, my (dumb)phone is either turned off, or regularly, at home when I'm not.

All I want from a mobile phone is to be able to call when it's urgent, and for people to call me when it's urgent. Why pay £400 (or whatever) for something when £5 will do the job?

And as for SMS, it's like this. If it's urgent, talk to me in person. If it's not, don't pester me. My experience is that about 95% of text messages are meaningless drivel that I am well off without, and that's without allowing for junk messages and pestering adverts. So I simply don't send them, and don't read any that people are naive enough to send to me. Ever.

None of this means I expect others to feel likewise, or that smartphones aren't great if people want what they offer. I just don't, is all. That's not failing to keep up with progress, it's defining "progress" as being something that enhances my life, and all that meaningless background drivel and noise of trite and irrelevant communication doesn't enhance my life at all. So I forego it.


The latter part of your post sums it up .... it's about devices and what's convenient to you. My philosophy exactly.

[Pob255]

I understand where you're coming from Saracen, I got very feed up with steam for a long while.
Started back when I was still on dialup and you had to have a stesam account and be online to be able to play the hl2 demo, I wasn't massively impressed at the time (probably a weak gpu) and steam was too much assing about, yes you can run it in offline mode but you have to still log in every 30days or mess around with setting files to trick steam into thinking you've logged on that day.
So it didn't start off well for me and only got worse from there.

it was DOW2, badlands and FO2 that finally got me to give in, not that I bought any of them through steam (was only on a 1mb connection up until recently)

What I don't like about steam and things like it, is not the DRM, that I don't mine too much, it's all the additional rubbish, that I don't want or use.
That and I don't like having programs running in the background, occasionally polling the internet just in case there's an update to something I'm not using or running at this time.
Something that checks for updates when you run a piece of software is ok.

As to steam keeping all the games in one nice place . . . I've always done that myself anyway, I loath and detest anything that does not allow you control over where it goes.

edit: that said I'll probably check it out, that valve bundle sounds good esp as I don't have any of them.

[Splash]

CoH set and Audiosurf today for me (sorry to distract from the serious chat)

[Bagnaj97]

CoH set and Audiosurf today for me (sorry to distract from the serious chat)

Audiosurf is fantastic and at 89p it should be a compulsory purchase for everyone. Wipeout crossed with tetris and the best soundtrack ever.

[Digisword]

Still got my eye on the Valve complete pack. It's just 4 pound more than portal 2 on its own and it has a LOAD of games.

[Singh400]

Nabbed Audiosurf!

[Singh400]

Mods please merge: http://forums.hexus.net/current-barg...m-deals-5.html

[Output]

Just thought I'd point out the following for anyone who hasn't already got them:

QUAKE Collection - £4.24
Counter-Strike Complete - £4.24

[j.o.s.h.1408]

nothing great to buy so far in these sales

[oolon]

I had a play of counter strike source, my impression of that was even less favourable than TF2. Even when lying in wait it seemed that people could round a counter and one shot kill me! Where as i only wound them at best. Ok I am a noob and suck, but really I am that bad! Atleast with TF2 I could stay alive for a bit and do something useful, and learn to play the game. I also played the LFD2 new campain, man that is an insane amount of zombies on "easy" level. I think I am not getting much value out of my 25 quid for the Valve complete pack I am definatelty not going to be able to get those summer tickets they are way to hard. No chance of sniping anything let alot 2 people or me completing that campain.