I'm sure the game will have controller support, which brings up another question. In many multiplatform games there are problems like persistent low FOV or persistent mouse acceleration, because multiplatform games are primarily designed for consoles, i.e. TV's and controllers.

As for achievements, my guess is they'll be integrated into Steam because the game won't use GfWL.



At least they provide mod tools to fix the interface. But yes, it would be awesome if they provided a usable interface out of the box.

"Infected by it"? Over dramatic much?

Seriously I have no idea what the issue with Steam is to begin with, and your trashing it without ever having used it. I have over 100 games on Steam, and have used it for years without issue... its a very solid system, and as a bonus it has great community features. Sure, once in a great while the servers might be down for a bit but its far rarer then the Steam haters will have you believe. Don't be afraid to try Steam, and try it with an open mind... you'll be supprised at how much its NOT like everything bad you hear. Most of the people who trash it, are people like yourself who hate it before they even use it because they see it as big, bad, scary DRM.

Fallout New Vegas was a great example. The game has/had almost zero issues related to Steam... yet some people blamed every single issue they had on the fact it was a Steam game. Game lags bad, must be steam. Broken quests, well that has to be steam. Game crashes? Of course its Steam. In reality, it was just a seriously bugged, and often broken game... which was par for the course when it comes to Obsidian. Yet people who hate Steam blamed everything on it, and people who don't know better just hop on the band waggon. Hell, people were even yelling at Valve to fix the game over on the Valve forums, and someone from Valve had to remind the community that they did not make the game..... thats pretty damn sad if you ask me.

Hey, if you have used Steam a lot and have a serious complain about it, that's fine. I'm not exactly trying to defend Steam in general, I'm defending it from frivolous attacks by people such as yourself (and all but calling it a virus, is attacking it). If you have never used it, don't comment on it.

Anyway, DRM should be a PC gamers LAST concern... a bigger concern would be how much of a strait port is the game going to be, and is the PC version going to see some PC specific love? That's always the big question these days.... if there even is a PC version btw (I'm sure there will be from Bethesda... but you just never know).

I'd say to BGS: don't bother. Your game will be cracked within three days of release, before that if a copy finds its way onto the net before 11/11/11. Don't punish honest gamers, they are often the only ones hurt by DRM.

Completely disagree. Even a shoddy port would still technically be playable - there are DRM solutions that prevent even that (see: Ubisoft's current system). DRM can definitely be one of the biggest concerns with a PC game.

That said, "I've never used Steam but it's terrible and I hate it" really isn't sensible at all. The only issue Steam really has is that you have to be online and have an account to install (not play) games with it.

EDIT:
You're missing three points:

1) Those three days (and it does sometimes take a fair bit longer for games to be cracked - never months or anything like that, but it can take a while) are enough to actually sway some pirates to purchase the game. I've seen it happen - some people are just very impatient.

2) DRM like Steamworks prevents second-hand sales of their games, something that cuts into their sales quite a bit more than most people realize. This is a huge incentive for them to use it.

3) A lot of people (me, for one) consider Steamworks integration a bonus more than a detriment. Saying that a game uses Steamworks is actually a good way to promote it to some parts of the audience.

Why don't we get a big fat poll of what users would prefer.

A. DRM like Oblivion.
B. No DRM like Fallout3
C. Steam like New Vegas
D. Steam Option but mostly like Fallout3
E. An oath on the blood of your first born that you will not pirate.

Let Bethesda know what you want with numbers.

Myself I prefer option B. Fallout3 the most. I know steam can be modded but really I don't consider it a convenience - just an extra layer of BS to play the game - each of their games has what like less than 10 patches and once they are done patching ... you know Bethesda - that is it they are done.

Then from a modding point of view looking at all that is done to Morrowind and Oblivion - up to and including altering the exe on them - Steam would offer hassles on updates with that. Plus since when is virtual ownership real ownership?

I use Steam and buy bargain games on it, but I don't consider any of them the games I will mod or want to mod.

1) A poll on this forum wouldn't provide anywhere near a representative figure of what their overall fanbase wants, and Bethesda would ignore it.

2) Fallout 3 and Oblivion both use more or less the exact same system of DRM.

3) Steam doesn't cause issues with mods. It hasn't in the past, and it's very doubtful that it will in the future.

4) "Since when is virtual ownership real ownership" doesn't apply if they're still selling retail copies of the game discs, which they will. It's also extremely questionable whether or not it's actually an enforceable position for digitally purchased content.

New Vegas was the first Bethesda game I didn't purchase multiple copies of, and in fact returned the initial purchase because of the inclusion of Steam. If it is in TESV I won't even bother.

I would love to see gamesas follow CD Projekt Red's lead with The Witcher 2 and return to their roots of no DRM at all. As mentioned above it is only the honest gamers that are hurt.

could get off topic:

What really concerns me about the PC version are the controls. I tend to get shoulder pains when I have to use the mouse for an extended period of time, so I prefer to use the keyboard whenever I can. I really, really hope we can put all actions/functions on keys and don't get restricted by the limited console controllers.

I think this is a good time to ask, because a lot of people have been saying things like this: why is Steam such a deal-breaker? You clearly have the internet, so it can't be that it's preventing you from accessing retail-purchased games. So what is it?

Well you see, just because we have Internet doesn't mean it is fast, so thats why I hate forcing Steam upon us. I do not want to spend 50 or 60 bucks, to find out that it would take a week of solid downloading to even play it, when I can just install it off the disc and have fun.

Er... games that use Steamworks usually (actually always as far as I know, excepting some Valve games) have the content on the game disc, and use Steam for verifying and updating. You would be installing off the disc either way.

I got Steam when they were offering Portal for free. I needed it a second time for the Civilization 5 demo. The service itself seems decent enough, but I'm still not buying any games through it because of the built in DRM.

But even though I don't want to use it I have no problem with Steam as an option - as long as it is an option. What really upsets me though is that they have now started to sell boxed versions of games that require Steam. And that's just [censored].

It is my belief that boxed version of singleplayer games shouldn't have an internet connection as a requirement for installation. Yeah, I'm weird like that.


I understand the concern about piracy. But the thing with piracy is that whatever protection you use, it will be cracked in a few days. Maybe if you're really good you can last a week. So here's my suggestion: when the game is first released you offer the Steam version with it's built in DRM. Then after a month you release a DRM free boxed version. A month after release everybody who wanted to pirate the game will have already done so, so DRM is pointless. If you want to be really sure you can make that 2 month. I can wait that long, no problem.

Not weird at all, entirely sensible. The fact that Steamworks games require an internet connection for installation has always been a major issue for me, the benefits just seem to vastly outweigh the problems it causes. It's an issue more because of the precedent that it sets than anything, at least in my eyes - other companies have DRM solutions that create the same issues and don't offer any benefits along with them, and they seem to be expecting them to succeed more or less entirely because Steam has managed to.


See my previous post. DRM isn't only about stopping piracy (or even about stopping piracy at all). It's about making piracy as inconvenient as possible while at the same time attempting to minimize sales of used copies of your game.

Nope. I bough the retail box & disc of portal, and it had to download a butt-load of game files off Steam.

Let me go ahead and quote the sentence directly before the one you quoted. You know, the one that completely and fully addresses absolutely everything in your response, and that you went and intentionally left out.

If I had to guess, I'd guess Steam. For distribution it is well set up and authentication for the disc there seems to work fairly well too. I never cared for steam back when HL2 came out but I have grown to like it since FO:NV's release. Works for me better than what they have used in the past and I can play my game offline and without inserting the disc.

I've become a Steam fan and I would have flamed Steam in a NY minute back when I first used it. They've come way baby!

No one in the gaming or DRM industry has EVER claimed that DRM is meant to be uncrackable. The only people I have seen that say this is either the various cracking groups or gamers that don't know better. And anyway, what is the % probability that Valve will "disappear" in the near future.





See what I typed above. I recommend that you and everyone else who believes that DRM must be uncrackable to work read http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_8.html, in particular; the section headed "Copy Protection & DRM Don't Work". Most telling is right at the bottom of that section, where one of the people involved with StarForce states that, "The purpose of copy protection is not making the game uncrackable - it is impossible."

Additionally, I hate the "only honest gamers are punished by DRM" argument in that it completely fails to take into account of the fact that DRM also causes suffering for pirates (even more so if the DRM is patched out after the game gets cracked). Perfect example is Ubisoft's overkill DRM where people were using this argument even though pirates, for nearly two months, had either a game that didn't work or an empty husk of a world devoid of even a single mission.


My personal preference is that Skyrim has no DRM at all. However, it needs to have DRM due to the fact that we have selfish free-riders (pirates) who think they are entitled to everything without contributing a cent towards it. So for all of you that want DRM to disappear, that is not going to happen until piracy, at the very least, drops to manageable levels. So next time you see piracy happening, make a stand against it.

Because there is no other forum that is actually monitored by the company. Because they did listen when it came to forum design. Because I haven't heard a better way.

Except I need my Oblivion disc to play it and fallout 3 doesn't require the disc be in the drive - so you are wrong.

Provided the modding does not alter the content of what is downloaded. If you optimized the meshes of a BSA or even removed the compression - steam could re update and replace them with originals when doing a simple update. (though granted there are probably settings to prevent that - but again another layer of BS for a game that would run off of my computer as is).

It does apply because it matters - to me.

Just wait till STEAM starts charging monthly fees.

There is no better way. Bethesda has access to far better means of gauging reactions and input than this forum, and those are what they use to make these kinds of decisions.


http://bethblog.com/index.php/2008/10/30/fallout-3-uses-securom-only-for-disc-check/. You're wrong. If you can run Fallout 3 without the disc in the drive, it's likely because you're using a modified EXE, not because the game allows it by default.


Steam could, sure. Doesn't change the fact that Steam doesn't. I have the Steam version of Fallout 3, I've run mods on it, and no updates or anything else has ever broken any of them. Not because I fiddled with settings, either - it just isn't something that happens.


I... wow, no. Not even worth responding to this, it's hilariously ridiculous.

This is false. The launchers have disc checks, the executables never have. Why it is like this I do not know, but the fact remains that an unmodified executable, as it is shipped, does not have any protection on.

I've always been able to run F3 without the disc and no it is not a crack and I did not alter the exe.

Perhaps because I use FOSE, but no I do with Oblivion and it does require the disc.

Ah, right, I'd forgotten about that (mainly because I haven't used an unmodified executable on a Bethesda game for a pretty long time - Oblivion and Fallout both require it for several of the mods). That applies to Oblivion and Fallout 3 though, so the point still stands that they use the same system of DRM. Bethesda themselves say that it does, so it's not really possible to argue that point.

Fallout: New Vegas managed to sell over 300k copies on Steam alone (not the retail versions even though steam is required to play them) which for a PC game is pretty friggin insane. Piracy is the primary reason why either A. many companies don't even bother with a PC release and B. the ones that do don't put much TLC into it at all. The way Steam holds on to the .exe and encrypts the data prior to launch day more or less makes PC games impossible to leak in advance which means if you want to play a new game the day it comes out (and a lot of people do) then you almost have to buy. No you cannot prevent piracy at all, but Steam reduces it quite a bit. The sales they have on games, especially during the holidays, are generally inexpensive enough where a lot of gamers will be like "hmm... I guess for $5 I'll buy it instead of pirate it. So currently it stands as the best form of DRM to use for PC game publishers that wish to maximize their profits. The fact that more copies of NV were sold digitally also means they saved on packaging (although I'm sure it costs to host the data it's probably not nearly as much as packaging)

All the internet polls in the world aren't going to change this, they want to make money. Most PC gamers are fine with Steam and no they will not be charging monthly fees for the features that are currently free. The only problem it caused with NV were save game related issues for the first few days of release. Anybody that says that Steam in the background causes the game to crash is full of crap. You don't have to use the steam cloud or any of the in-game integration if you're paranoid about that sort of thing. And no, having the .exe resident in your 4GB of ram is not going to interfere with the game either, it doesn't work like that.

Not really, no. The PC market is smaller than the console market for games like this. That doesn't mean that it's anorexic.

oh god I'm so ordering the collectors edition when it gets available!