The Lesser of Six Evils : Othor Games

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:17 pm

Oh, so you mean expansion packs/DLC.

Patching implies you shipped the game with bugs and are trying to fix them.

No, click the links in my previous post and read all the content that comes with FREE patches. That's why there's no excuse to not have an internet connection on a gaming PC these days.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:03 pm

Disk Check. For three years my gaming rig has never touched the internet.

Pete confirmed today Skyrim will be a Steam game.

Source?

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:25 pm

No, click the links in my previous post and read all the content that comes with FREE patches. That's why there's no excuse to not have an internet connection on a gaming PC these days.

Yeah they're bug fixes. What's your point?

Why do I need them? Unless it's FO:NV I don't see a reason to NEED bug fixes or an internet connection(Unless activation requires so). In fact you can easily go to your local library/internet cafe/whatever, download the patch onto a flash drive, and install it.

Why is steam necessary to do updates? http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3tc/patches_en.php does fine both with and without it.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:47 am

Steam is the lesser evil since I don't consider it "evil" at all. I just bough Magicka through them last night. It took 2 seconds to buy, 4-5 minutes to download, and, as long as I can log into my account, I have available.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:05 pm

Yeah they're bug fixes. What's your point?

Why do I need them? Unless it's FO:NV I don't see a reason to NEED bug fixes or an internet connection(Unless activation requires so). In fact you can easily go to your local library/internet cafe/whatever, download the patch onto a flash drive, and install it.

It makes no sense to choose not to improve something.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:00 pm

Disc Check.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:09 pm

It makes no sense to choose not to improve something.

Not everyone sees every patch as improvements. Perhaps they liked the way things worked before.

And it's definitely not exclusive to steam, so why is this being used to defend Steam as DRM?

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:12 am

Yeah they're bug fixes. What's your point?

Since you apparently can't click links:

The Witcher:

Spoiler

New In-Game Features

Code Features:

# Improved inventory:

* Filtering of alchemy ingredients by content
* Auto-sorting of items in satchel
* Special slot area for sorting alchemy ingredients in satchel

# Auto-save option (on/off).
# Character differentiation mechanism (effectively generating approximately 50 new character appearances).
# Look-at feature (characters look at Geralt, deepening player immersion).
# Auto-looting of containers (player may collect all contents of a container without opening the container panel).

Graphic Features:

# 100 new gesture animations in dialogue and cut-scenes, giving conversations with NPCs a more natural feel.
# Improved facial expressions.

Civ V:

Spoiler

[CITY/BUILDINGS]
- Added "National Treasury" national wonder, which requires Markets in all cities. Provides +8 Gold per turn to the city in which it's built.
- Added "Circus Maximus" national wonder, which requires Colosseums in all cities.. Provides 5 Happiness.
- Library now has no specialist slots.
- Wat now has two specialist slots.
- Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
- Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
- Research Lab has two specialist slots.
- Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.
- Watermill now provides +2 good and +1 production for 2 gold maintenance.
- Paper Maker now has no specialist slots.
- Circus now has +2 happiness and no maintenance.
- Theatre now has +5 happiness.
- Stadium now has +5 happiness.
- Reduced production cost and maintenance for the Courthouse.
- Courthouse can now be purchased in a city (although it is expensive).
- Removed maintenance from city defense buildings (Walls, Castle, Military Base).
- City defense buildings now help cities heal.
- Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology.
- Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city).
- Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes.
- Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this).
- Ironworks now gives 10 hammers instead of a % bonus.
- National College now gives +5 science in addition to the % bonus.
- Hermitage gives 5 culture in addition to its previous bonus.
- Raze/Unraze exploit fixed.
- Cities being razed are unhappy about it (only during the razing process).
- Cities heal more quickly.

[DIPLOMACY]
- AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
- Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
- New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request, etc.).
- Not agreeing to a friend's request now results in a relations hit.
- Third party AIs can now respond when a player makes a DoF or denounces someone. What they say is based on the situation - e.g. if you make friends with someone they don't like, they'll scold you.
- AI leaders will now sometimes ask their friends to denounce one of their enemies as a show of support, and refusing to denounce someone when an AI asks can now make them very upset.
- AI is now capable of denouncing friends (aka, backstabbing) and added backstabbing info to diplo overview screen.

Mount & Blade

Spoiler

Features and Gameplay:

* NEW! Gameplay features have been added, now players have the ability to build production houses that produce valuable goods such as iron, wine, velvet and more. The building of production houses is accessible through guild masters in towns. Also players may visit these newly modeled scenes via the town menu.
* New Swadian houses have been added to major Swadian towns.
* New, AI Behavior enables more realistic AI lord behaviors, such as AI lords collecting taxes.
* Campaign difficulty has been rebalanced, hard mode is now even more challenging with AI lords recruiting troops faster.
* Economy parameters such as taxes from fiefs and raiding outcomes, have been balanced.
* The Khergit faction has been given some much needed love and as a result has had their troops and items rebalanced.
* Khergits get modified hats and steppe armor instead of leather vests in multi-player.
* Man-hunters and high tier slaver troops have been given an overhaul and have top tier troops equal to other top tier army troops.
* Weapons that cannot be used to block can now do feint attacks.
* All items from hammers to warhammers and spiked clubs to iron maces now have knockdown capabilities.

Not going to bother debating with someone with no reading comprehension, bye.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:48 pm

You should read your own articles carefully.

This is what comes up on your Civ V article
Civ V

Spoiler

STABILITY]
- Fix for various rare crash bugs

[MODDING]
- Re-enabled LUA library unused in the core game. It was removed because we didn’t think modders were using it, and apparently many, many are using it.(We're removing access to stuff you used! Glad you like it! Oh, whoops, our bad.)

[GAMEPLAY]
- Fixed bug where as Siam, food from Maritime City States didn't provide the expected result.
- Make a few more negative promotions not pass through on upgrades
- Made the Mandekalu mounted unit have the same negative vs city as the other mounted units
- Increased the chance that the AI will improve sea plots

Does it look like they always do universal improvements?

Or Mount and Blade

Spoiler

Gameplay:

Rhodok Sharpshooters' ironflesh skill has been decreased.

Sarranid infantry & archers now have jarids added to their inventory.

Some other minor game balances.

Fixes:

Numerous game bugs of all shapes and sizes have been squashed.

Minor fixes to scripting files.

Some collision issues fixed.

Some operations for modders are now "fully operational".

Other:

Plenty of new operations and features have been added to aid our amazing mod community.

Nothing that urgent there either. If I don't like their 'balances' why do I care to download the "improvements"?

Witcher Enhanced was SOLD in stores or downloaded through their site. Steam wasn't necessary. Nor has it ever been.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:15 pm

Since you apparently can't click links:

The Witcher:

Spoiler

New In-Game Features

Code Features:

# Improved inventory:

* Filtering of alchemy ingredients by content
* Auto-sorting of items in satchel
* Special slot area for sorting alchemy ingredients in satchel

# Auto-save option (on/off).
# Character differentiation mechanism (effectively generating approximately 50 new character appearances).
# Look-at feature (characters look at Geralt, deepening player immersion).
# Auto-looting of containers (player may collect all contents of a container without opening the container panel).

Graphic Features:

# 100 new gesture animations in dialogue and cut-scenes, giving conversations with NPCs a more natural feel.
# Improved facial expressions.

Civ V:

Spoiler

[CITY/BUILDINGS]
- Added "National Treasury" national wonder, which requires Markets in all cities. Provides +8 Gold per turn to the city in which it's built.
- Added "Circus Maximus" national wonder, which requires Colosseums in all cities.. Provides 5 Happiness.
- Library now has no specialist slots.
- Wat now has two specialist slots.
- Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
- Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
- Research Lab has two specialist slots.
- Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.
- Watermill now provides +2 good and +1 production for 2 gold maintenance.
- Paper Maker now has no specialist slots.
- Circus now has +2 happiness and no maintenance.
- Theatre now has +5 happiness.
- Stadium now has +5 happiness.
- Reduced production cost and maintenance for the Courthouse.
- Courthouse can now be purchased in a city (although it is expensive).
- Removed maintenance from city defense buildings (Walls, Castle, Military Base).
- City defense buildings now help cities heal.
- Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology.
- Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city).
- Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes.
- Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this).
- Ironworks now gives 10 hammers instead of a % bonus.
- National College now gives +5 science in addition to the % bonus.
- Hermitage gives 5 culture in addition to its previous bonus.
- Raze/Unraze exploit fixed.
- Cities being razed are unhappy about it (only during the razing process).
- Cities heal more quickly.

[DIPLOMACY]
- AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
- Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
- New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request, etc.).
- Not agreeing to a friend's request now results in a relations hit.
- Third party AIs can now respond when a player makes a DoF or denounces someone. What they say is based on the situation - e.g. if you make friends with someone they don't like, they'll scold you.
- AI leaders will now sometimes ask their friends to denounce one of their enemies as a show of support, and refusing to denounce someone when an AI asks can now make them very upset.
- AI is now capable of denouncing friends (aka, backstabbing) and added backstabbing info to diplo overview screen.

Mount & Blade

Spoiler

Features and Gameplay:

* NEW! Gameplay features have been added, now players have the ability to build production houses that produce valuable goods such as iron, wine, velvet and more. The building of production houses is accessible through guild masters in towns. Also players may visit these newly modeled scenes via the town menu.
* New Swadian houses have been added to major Swadian towns.
* New, AI Behavior enables more realistic AI lord behaviors, such as AI lords collecting taxes.
* Campaign difficulty has been rebalanced, hard mode is now even more challenging with AI lords recruiting troops faster.
* Economy parameters such as taxes from fiefs and raiding outcomes, have been balanced.
* The Khergit faction has been given some much needed love and as a result has had their troops and items rebalanced.
* Khergits get modified hats and steppe armor instead of leather vests in multi-player.
* Man-hunters and high tier slaver troops have been given an overhaul and have top tier troops equal to other top tier army troops.
* Weapons that cannot be used to block can now do feint attacks.
* All items from hammers to warhammers and spiked clubs to iron maces now have knockdown capabilities.

Not going to bother debating with someone with no reading comprehension, bye.

You seem to be missing the point. While patches are often good, saying that "there's no point in even bothering with games unless you have patches" is stupid. If the option is not playing, or playing without patches, I'm going to play. Luckily, I have internet, so that's not a problem. But... really? That's your argument? Just drop it, it's stupid.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:51 am

I voted for a DiscCheck. I know some svckyROM versions are really intrusive and can bugger up your system. I read a bit about SafeDisc and I didn't like it, it seems like it can be prone to effing itself up for no particular reason (that's Microsoft software for ya).

I don't like the phone-home and constant-internet-connection DRM styles of the Ubisoft & other stores. I also dislike Steamworks as DRM.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:37 pm

Not everyone sees every patch as improvements. Perhaps they liked the way things worked before.

That's true with everything. There will always be people who will go against something, even if there isn't a reason for it. In regards to a grounded viewpoint, virtually everyone prefers an updated version of a game. You and the other few people who don't like updating will never be happy, even more so because Steam and similar services are only growing in popularity.

Anyway, since I know you won't take to any other viewpoint on this, and will respond with 'but choice. choice is the choice to choose whether to choose a choice' or something along those lines, I'll just leave it at that.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:30 pm

Steam, the lesser of ~~two~~ six weevils.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:49 pm

That's true with everything. There will always be people who will go against something, even if there isn't a reason for it. In regards to a grounded viewpoint, virtually everyone prefers an updated version of a game. You and the other few people who don't like updating will never be happy, even more so because Steam and similar services are only growing in popularity.

You've never played TF2 I see.

But I already stated many many times, updates aren't an exclusive steam service, so why is that a point for it?

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:52 pm

Steam will be good EXCEPT, in the event like with Oblivion, where I bought a copy of Oblivion and couldn't send it to my steam account. If I wanted Oblivion on Steam, I had to buy another copy. Oh well, Steam is great anyway.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:40 am

Steam will be good EXCEPT, in the event like with Oblivion, where I bought a copy of Oblivion and couldn't send it to my steam account. If I wanted Oblivion on Steam, I had to buy another copy. Oh well, Steam is great anyway.

That's not really Steams fault, they have a list that explicitly states which 3rd party games you can register with the service. It's more your fault for not looking and seeing if Oblivion was one of them.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 3:50 pm

Because Steamworks is programmed into the game. Some people like achievements too, so we should take them out because some people are irrationally resistant to change?

Steamworks was designed to be modular, it was one of Valve's main selling features for it. Any game released with Steamworks can also be very easily released without it (if not, Direct2Drive and Impulse would be in a lot of trouble)

And your latter half is just nonsense: It has nothing to do with being irrationally resistant to change: Some people don't like the fact that, no matter how remote, Valve controls your ability to play the game in a very easily enforceable way. Its my game, and I'll play it when I damn well please. Same with the movies I buy on DVD: I bought them, so I'll watch them when I want to. If I didn't want to be able to play it on my time, I'd rent it, not buy it.

Once the following is introduced into Steam, I'll have no complaints with it:

-"lending" a game to a friend -- Amazon was able to do it with Kindle books. You can lend a book you bought for your kindle to a friend for 2 weeks at a time -- just like you can lend a real book to a friend.

-Have a system in place to disable online activation, and have it's implementation be part of the license agreement -- Currently there is only a singular blurb by the PR COO saying basically "Well, I see no reason why we wouldn't do that should we have to" -- Not even nearly good enough. Even worse, the license states the exact opposite: that they have no obligation to do so (and such EULAs have withstood the test of the justice system as being 100% legal). Companies suddenly going under, or being hostilely taken over does not fit into your schedules of "to-dos". Without it being guaranteed, there is no way for their word to be enforced and would be all too easily to snake out of.

While not mandatory, it'd be a wonderful thing if Valve introduced a second-hand market for selling your licenses if you no longer want a game. -- You put a game up for sale and it is instantly removed from your library. Your account is also flagged as having both bought and sold the game, and as such you cannot buy the game second-hand (to keep from the system being abused)

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:41 am

Steam

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:52 pm

No disc? Unhappy dragon.. :angry:

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:42 am

i miss the good old days of CD check DRM :sadvaultboy:

Which is also illegal and very unwise to talk about doing on Bethesda's official forums.

dont forget completely off topic

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:49 pm

I dont and never have pirated. I just know tons about it and how its done

:rolleyes:

I don't really mind Steam's DRM.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:33 am

All of those are bad choices. If we could just Arrest the Pirates and charge them that would be the more simpler way of doing things.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:31 pm

Who are the morons who voted for SecuROM? Are some video game execs members of this forum?

As people have said, DRM serves no purpose except preventing used game sales.

They should use adventure game DRM, where you have to provide an obscure reference from the game manual.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:03 pm

Who are the morons who voted for SecuROM? Are some video game execs members of this forum?

SecuROM comes in multiple flavors, not just the SPORE-type.

Oblivion GOTY edition, Shivering Isles DLC, and FO3 all came with a form of SecuROM

As people have said, DRM serves no purpose except preventing used game sales.

Agreed.

They should use adventure game DRM, where you have to provide an obscure reference from the game manual.

Given the Internet, any such reference would be published in a heartbeat.

I always have, and still strongly do, believed that the best DRM is to include extra stuff in the box that can't be downloaded. A cool figurine, awesome boxart, etc. Unfortunately, that isn't a trend followed, not even in Collector's Editions much anymore.

» Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:47 am

Disc check is the least intrusive, but I have no problem with Steam's DRM either. I like buying games from them, and like not having to have my disc in the tray when I want to play a game.