The first issue of concern is whether Brink will be using steam and if so in what context.
I know you guys have stated that Brink wont be using Games for Windows live, a very good idea if I say so myself as GFWL is terrible.
But what concerns me is whether Brink will be a Steam exclusive, I don’t particularly mind if its just an option to buy the game through Steam but if you have to have Steam to play the game then that could be a big deal breaker for me and possibly many other gamers who don’t particularly like Steam or similar services.
The second issue of concern is kind of linked into whether you guys will be using steam. What anticheat program have you guys chosen for Brink?
Punkbuster?
VAC?
Anticheat?
If you have not yet decided which one are you currently leaning towards?
Punkbuster seems dated and more frowned upon that Steam.
I think steam will have no problem bringing enough people to Brink what with players already there from CS, DoD, various HL mods, L4D 1 & 2 and everyone who just don’t care or think about Steam “issues”.
VAC not reallly heard much about it? Is it just as easily bypassable as PB with custom hacks? At least on Steam a VAC ban haunts your account bringing social repercussions and stigma with it.
I guess with the PC no longer leading the way (money wise) in online multiplayer there just isn’t room for someone to approach this from a fresh start.
[QUOTE=SockDog;212222]Punkbuster seems dated and more frowned upon that Steam.
I think steam will have no problem bringing enough people to Brink what with players already there from CS, DoD, various HL mods, L4D 1 & 2 and everyone who just don’t care or think about Steam “issues”.
VAC not reallly heard much about it? Is it just as easily bypassable as PB with custom hacks? At least on Steam a VAC ban haunts your account bringing social repercussions and stigma with it.
I guess with the PC no longer leading the way (money wise) in online multiplayer there just isn’t room for someone to approach this from a fresh start.[/QUOTE]
There was no change in counterstrike player numbers for MW2s release. I don’t think players of source games play other games, ever!
VAC doesn’t seem to be much good for non-Valve games. MW2 is full of hackers in some game modes.
I recently heard that VAC now allow you to uplift bans off your accout as long as you buy another copy of the game so im not so sure if there is that much of a stigma attached.
VAC doesn’t operate in the same way as Punkbuster; it’s more passive in the way that it doesn’t strike right away. Since it has delayed banning cheaters don’t get feedback on which cheats avoid detection and which doesn’t.
In my opinion VAC is clearly superior to Punkbuster, especially if used in conjunction with admin control (MW2 is a perfect example why – cheaters know that once they’re set loose in a game nobody will kick them because of the way IW-Net works).
Using Steamworks for Brink just makes sense, a huge userbase with a love for shooters, VAC, achievements, friend-lists, server browser, vo-ip, matchmaking, etc are all benefits. Not to mention that Steam is arguably the best DRM there is. Third-party games such as Borderlands and BioShock 2 have been top-sellers on Steam, partly because of them being offered in 4-packs, at a discounted price (something I’d be very happy to see Brink use).
And happily Bethesda aren’t strangers to the platform; Steam already sells Fallout 3 and Oblivion.
VAC bans are permanent. You’ll need to buy the game and register it on a new account to play on VAC-secured servers. Once your account is banned, it’s banned for life.
Not true. Developers can choose to use gcf files, or just pack it in the “usual” way. In fact, Quake Wars on Steam functions in the exact same way as the retail version, only with the Steam backend present (it has its own folder where the files are stored the same way as when you install the game from disc).
Are you sure? I thought VAC had changed its policy since MW2 because people were being banned for trying to access the console and such which isnt cheating.
I know for a fact that VAC bans used to be permenant and you may have as well but if you have not been monitoring the situation recently don’t just assume it is still the case, although I could have heard wrong as well.
Just did a little research; the very first paragraph about VAC on Steam Support states: “All VAC bans are permanent - Valve has a zero-tolerance policy for cheating and will not lift VAC bans under any circumstances.”
However, skimming through the Modern Warfare 2 forums I found some reports that people were banned for modifying cfg-files, however these bans later got revoked when the ones targeted contacted the Steam support. People apparently got banned for changing cvars such as the numbers of bars the ping meter has… -_- Seeing how Bethesda and Splash Damage don’t have the same idiotic policy regarding user-content and modification as Activision/Infinity Ward I don’t see this being an issue with Brink, in the case Brink will use VAC.
Edit: Case-in-point, certain bans have been uplifted, but only under very specific circumstances (see the wikipedia article for more info about bans being rescinded). You cannot, however, get rid of a VAC ban by buying the game a second time, or by appealing to Valve without solid evidence clearing your guilt.
Good that bans are permanent on steam, it’s not much but having real world repercussions for being a cheating shit are better than none at all.
With regards to the CS numbers etc. I was just illustrating that Steam has an apparently healthy number of FPS gamers. It seems unlikely that even if Brink is totally Steam exclusive it’d affect that many sales.
Regarding CS numbers and players playing one game only. Firstly, you can play more than one game in a day, not sure if the data is there but I guess hours played would be a better indicator of shifting playerbases. Secondly I’d imagine people who were moving from CS to CoD/MW would have done so before MW2 was released.
As fun as it is to see you guys speculate, I’ll just provide y’all with this (scroll down and click View Steam players per game).
I can vouch that the number of people playing Counter-Strike haven’t changed too much in the last couple of years. A better correlation can be found between TF2 and L4D/L4D2 – once an update hits on either game the number of players shifts drastically to the recently updated game.
How come this doesn’t happen when a game which should be attractive to the CS community (read: MW2) is released?
Probably because CS players, especially those playing competitively and the clueless pubbers who think Counter-Strike is the only game available on the PC, are so dedicated to just playing Counter-Strike that only a fraction of the playerbase migrate to other games.
If its on steam, it should be just an option. I hate steam for buying games. Some times they are glitchy. Good example was cod4. I had a burnt version and legit version on steam. steam version crashed, yet the burnt version + regular cdkey did not. I prefer running games out of steam. The down fall is… steam would increase sales and help with advertisement through their network, so I do think from a marketing pov this is definitely worthy.
Anti-cheats
Vac is garbage and should not be used
Punkbuster is garbage, netcoders themselves have showed why when they uploaded code to players on “mIRC” and when people joined 1.6 servers like 200k got banned… because of their memory searching… eco is also garbage and was recently haxed by a haxer who got mad they wouldnt let him code their anti-cheat…
Developing Multiplayer Worlds (DMW) seems to be “ok” but I dont know a lot about them. They might not even be up to date. I would personally make a developer team specifically for anti-cheat, but since thats not gonna happen… Would probably go with punkbuster just because you need to have something and at least they have a name that might scare off some cheaters.
another downfall for steam I just thought of are updates. steam doesn’t release updates as fast as when they are available. I remember many times I had to wait 24 hours to get an update via steam and it almost made me lose matchs because I was not up to date, because they weren’t available yet.
[QUOTE=SockDog;212377]Good that bans are permanent on steam, it’s not much but having real world repercussions for being a cheating shit are better than none at all.
With regards to the CS numbers etc. I was just illustrating that Steam has an apparently healthy number of FPS gamers. It seems unlikely that even if Brink is totally Steam exclusive it’d affect that many sales.
Regarding CS numbers and players playing one game only. Firstly, you can play more than one game in a day, not sure if the data is there but I guess hours played would be a better indicator of shifting playerbases. Secondly I’d imagine people who were moving from CS to CoD/MW would have done so before MW2 was released.[/QUOTE]
steam would effect the sells if it was only steam they would be smaller, if it was an option they would be greater. CS is not a good example. And being banned on steam means nothing. You are permanent banned when you buy the game off steam also, so that theory makes no sense. Its called banned by “cdkey” steam you just get a new “steam account” not hard… Hardware ID ban is the best way, but this is rarely used. If brink was exclusive on steam it would definitely effect sells… a lot of people rather have a DVD just as much as other people want to download from steam cause its "covenant, but in reality a DVD installs faster and you get faster up dates. Takes some time to download from steam and updates are not “instantly available aka patchs” through steam… They usually release then steam has them ready 24 hours later. Also some people ( like myself ) hates having to have steam running in the background when gaming because it uses up more resources, sorry I’d rather use xfire to talk to my buddies.
[QUOTE=Voxie;212351]Just did a little research; the very first paragraph about VAC on Steam Support states: “All VAC bans are permanent - Valve has a zero-tolerance policy for cheating and will not lift VAC bans under any circumstances.”
However, skimming through the Modern Warfare 2 forums I found some reports that people were banned for modifying cfg-files, however these bans later got revoked when the ones targeted contacted the Steam support. People apparently got banned for changing cvars such as the numbers of bars the ping meter has… -_- Seeing how Bethesda and Splash Damage don’t have the same idiotic policy regarding user-content and modification as Activision/Infinity Ward I don’t see this being an issue with Brink, in the case Brink will use VAC.
Edit: Case-in-point, certain bans have been uplifted, but only under very specific circumstances (see the wikipedia article for more info about bans being rescinded). You cannot, however, get rid of a VAC ban by buying the game a second time, or by appealing to Valve without solid evidence clearing your guilt.[/QUOTE]
yes you can, you buy a new account on steam in general… vac bans because it bans your steam account and information… trust me… I got banned from counter strike source for trying to sell it on ebay… they wouldnt let me use my account again to purchase the game a year later so I had to get a new steam account blah blah blah just to play source again, but thats nothing. same difference as using a new cdkey.
The problems you’re describing, aimology (CoD4 not working, patches being delayed), are due to poor implementation of the Steam framework. When it comes to patches, especially regarding Steam exclusive games, Steam (and other delivery platforms) are flat-out awesome. Being able to instantly patch your games gives developers the ability to frequently release small updates and quickly hotfix them, should any bugs emerge (and they always do, no matter how much you bug-test :)).
It also makes the installation much easier. Installing CoD: WaW is a two-click process on Steam, whereas with the retail version you got to insert the disc, enter your CD-key, install the game, install patch 1.2, install patch 1.4, install patch 1.5, install patch 1.6 and finally install patch 1.7. You also, of course, have to manually download all those patches.
edit:
That in no way disproves what we’ve talked about. Of course you can buy a new game and cheat on that one! What we were discussing were whether you could get rid of a VAC ban after you’ve been banned. The difference between getting a new CD-key versus getting a new Steam account is that you’ll have to manually add all your friends to your new account – and with that comes the stigma of acknowledging to your mates that you cheated and got your account banned.
There is no way, I repeat no way, to assure your game to be 100% free of hacks and cheats as long as game-files are stored locally (and since On-Live et al are far away on the horizon it’ll be awhile till that changes), the best way to keep people from cheating is to render their product useless should they get caught in the act as well as having local policing (read: server admins) present. Sure, hackers can keep buying the game every time they get caught, but how many will put out 40 bucks a month just to keep doing what they do?
And if they do, I’m sure Slash Damage will cry all the way to the bank.
