I looked at 2 sites I normally pre order from. One place stated it was a mock cover , the other had no qualification and on top of the box had games for windows and 18+ rating. There is no preoder on Steam. Are all covers mock ups? Wil it use steam with potential region locking?

I bet 1 whole penny that it'll be on Steam.

I believe it's a given that the PC version will be Steam mandatory. I will be shocked if it is not.

The game will be released and on Day One you will be foreced to download a 1-2 gig patch to finish of the game.
So far this seems the new way to install games now. Either download early or buy from a store, and then use
Steam to finish of the install of the game.

Well let me add my voice here for NO STEAM!

One of the great strengths of the Elder Scrolls games has always been their replayability. over the long term. After a post earlier today I started setting up a new Morrowind game, for example. (Lot's a mods to download.) Relying on an online service to give you permission to play is an annoyance that no one needs. I want to be able to install and play a game 15 years from now without having to download a new copy (assuming it's even available).

Other than that, it's ridiculous to to require an online service for a single player game.

Steam provides nothing of value to me. It is only a privacy violation and technical headache waiting to happen.

I really hate steam on some games. It will make it easier to fix bugs but I've had issues with like AVP where they kept altering the game with patches because they could and tweaking the damage of different weapons and races. If that happens with Skyrim I'm going to be pissed. Oh yeah, and steam makes it more difficult to mod the game.

It will most likely be Steam and Steam is great. Besides the people who have no internet connection, no one should really have a problem with Steam. It never forces you to do anything except patch it. It's far less annoying than any DRM out there and also allows you to do good things.

You don't need to be always connected to the Internet to play Steam games, only the first time when you activate, or if there is some sort of patch or update that needs to be made. Then you can set the game to "offline mode" and you don't need to be online to play.

Even if there was a version available to purchase without steamworks, whenever you install a game from a DVD, most likely you also need to be online the first time to activate the game.

I have no issue with steam. Just trying to get confirmation if the covers are mockups and if games for windows is still involved like Oblivion. I did a check on steam and could not find it for pre order. I don't know where Bosstealthagent saw it for $10 - Im guessing it was a joke.

Well I like steam for multiplayer games. I could really do without steam on single player games if I can. I love CoD on steam and such but not sure why I need steam for TES.

To activate it, to make sure you aren't pirating it, to update it, etc.

Region locking is determined and decided by the publisher and/or country not VALVe.

yet technically if a game was on DVD only with no online check I could import the game. This way I could buy a game overseas and my use of that product is blocked by software. And BTW PS3 is not region blocked while steam can potentially block regions - regardless of who sets them. Free market please.

You can do the same with steam.

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? I meant betting $10 bucks that it would be on Steam.

Ill bet $50.

what about games for windows? any one seen any info on that. A pre order cover had that. Or am I confusing that with games for Windows - Live as used in Oblivion.

"Games for windows" is fine it's the "Games for windows LIVE" that some consider horrible

I Don't mind a Steam option for Single-player games but it really shouldn't be a requirement for the retail disc AKA "Steamworks" the only version that should require Steam is the one purchased through Steam.



as a customer I prefer having actual control over a game I paid for.

Such as letting me download & archive the patches so I can apply as I see fit (no forced update on installation)

Steam is the business. Well for me anyways.

I have had no problem with it, and i actually quite like not having to check for patches all the time to stay up to date, the bloody thing does it for me haha.

My only gripe is that here in NZ, our internet isnt exactly a world leader. So once it packs it in for the month anything related to steam and downloading then takes days to finish.

This is why there is the upgrade option though. Which i will do in due time.

WOOO Skyrim!

As a Steam user, I would have no problems with full Steam integration. Though I understand the position of non Steam users. For this reason, I vote no to mandatory Steamworks for the boxed copy, but yes to full Steam integration with the Steam version, of course.

I think it's funny watching anolysts sound the death knell of PC gaming. Oh, PC gaming has dropped in sales about 60% the past year eh? A quick glance at Steam's numbers shows exactly where all the PC gamers are making their purchases. Brick and mortar software distribution is fading away.

You can't blame Steam for developers tweaking their game with patches, they could have done that regardless.



No it doesn't.

The official press release confirmed that the PC version will come under Games For Windows, which is basically a set of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows#Certification. Games For Windows - LIVE is a whole different beast entirely. An ugly beast at that.

So going by the press release, Steam will not be mandatory in the slightest unless you actually get it on Steam, and I can't think of a single reason why they would even want to make it otherwise.

That's it in a nutshell, for me. Once I pay for it, I want control. If Steam offered a way to download and archive patches that I can install as I choose, I'd have less to object to about it.

The activation bit is harder, though. I don't want to have to depend on the continued existence of support from a online service to be able to reinstall and replay an old game. The people who don't understand that probably don't have games on their shelves that are as old as mine. The oldest retail game I still have was released in 1982, though, so longevity really is important to me.

Right. Because Steam won't mind at all if I copy the game folder a few times to different locations, having a "clean" copy and several differently patched "modding" ones, and replacing some system DLLs in some of them with self-written / debugging ones. It won't even require me to apply any workarounds to make sure this stuff works, right? Right? :whistling:

Watch this.

Click play in offline mode
/plays in offline mod.

Good times. Also by the physical copy.

There are at least two issues that make mandatory Steamworks a Bad Thing^TM.

1) A lot of people have slow / unreliable Internet connection, and have trouble with games that need activation.

"In this day and age, everybody has fast internet."

Everybody you know, perhaps. In many countries the internet is 5-10 years behind. In western Europe we are very lucky. I guess the same goes for USA. Africa, on the other hand...

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/map/internet-penetration.html

Another thing is the payment model for internet. It's quite rare here in Denmark to pay by data volume. In some countries that's the way they do it. Having a mandatory gigabyte-sized update on release day is essentially an added cost that in some countries could be comparable to the price of the game. The game won't run at all without these 'day one' updates. Granted, it's not Steamworks' fault that developers choose to do this, but apparently the temptation to do so is irresistable for a lot of developers - I guess it means they can send the boxes to the shops without actually finishing the game. Without Steamworks the temptation is not there.

"I have fast internet, so that's not a problem for me."

Good for you. I also have fast internet. Even though I chose the slowest internet connection my provider offers (30mbit up/down, unlimited data).

The point being, access to fast broadband is very dependant on the country you live in, and whether you live in the city or in the middle of nowhere. It's not a problem for me or you, but it's a problem for a huge number of people around the world, some of which really want to play the game.

2) Control (and possibility of activation in 15 years' time)

I don't really agree with the people saying that PC gaming is dying. A lot of the more mainstream titles are selling better on consoles, perhaps, but the creativity on display in smaller PC titles right now is astounding. It's a cyclical thing, and I remember the same discussion in the days of the Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn.

But IF you believe that PC gaming is in trouble, why would you want to give the keys to your newly-purchased game to a company that makes its money from PC gaming? There is no guarantee that they won't close down at some point.

In a bankruptcy situation, the original employees most likely do NOT have the power to spend time / wages on stuff that does not benefit the shareholders - who want to rescue as much of their money as possible. Stuff like going through their back catalogues and unlocking all the games so that they no longer require activation.

"But the reason PC gaming is dying is because of piracy. Steam prevents piracy."

No it doesn't. Steam games get cracked about as quickly as non-Steam games. I have no idea if it's more difficult for the crackers, but it doesn't seem to slow them down very much (and the challenge is surely what makes it fun for these people?). Stardock used to release games with a minimum of DRM. They got pirated, like anything else, but apparently they also sold well (at least according to the hype).

There is also the wider issue of control. You buy the game, it would be nice to have complete control over it. Install it on a computer that is not connected to the internet, install it in whatever folder you want, etc.

I actually think Steam is a really handy tool for some games, especially cheap action games that I just want to play through a couple of times. But Skyrim is a game that a) is completely single-player and thus has little advantage of Steamworks features (online saves are cool, but a lot of us presumably only have access to one computer powerful enough to play Skyrim anyway, and as soon as mods come into the equation it becomes very difficult to play a save on other machines), and B) is hopefully the sort of game we will want to replay 20 years from now, leading to concern about the activation process etc. Therefore, MANDATORY Steam is IMHO a bad idea.