It makes me puke....

(Sebultura) #1

Yeah, really, 'cause if it’s what we’ll get, then I’ll be really disgusted by future mainstream games…

Concerned quote :

“What developers and publishers need to do is come up with distribution plans and new copy protection plans,” he said. “When you see a game that requires you to be online to play, people can’t steal that game.”

That’s the plan for id’s upcoming title, “Enemy Territory: Quake Wars,” developed in association with longtime partners Activision and Splash Damage Games.

Full article:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/videogames/260447_pcgaming.html?source=rss

(Strid) #2

???

its a multiplayer only game, that means u need to be online in order to play it…

(Joe999) #3

i don’t think about that too bad, in QW i have to be online anyway. but that’s different to half life 2 which makes me puke. i absolutely don’t have to be online for that game, it’s only for authentication. so this was the last “steam-powered” game i bought. valve won’t get any money from me again.

what concerns me more in that article is “He says developers need to first find ways to make people pay.” … well said, but after i have paid i have no chance to get my money back like e.g. in quake 4. no demo … that was very wise. i would have never bought the game if i would have played a demo first, Q4 is too boring, i stopped playing it somewhere in the middle, don’t even care to continue. i bought it blindfold, i won’t do that with the next id game, ET:QW is the exception of course.

back to HL2 … i’ve paid and what happened? the messed up copy protection permantently crashed my computer, i could even prove it. money back? no way! they got my money and i got troubles for that. they could have even easily given me the money back and locked the account! but they didn’t bother … neither will i in the future.

(Sebultura) #4

And another quote here, by Todd Hollenshead (sorry admins for big messages):

Valve is at the point with Steam where they may not even believe they need or want a publisher for their next game. I’m reasonably certain that Gabe sees Steam as a future primary distribution channel not only for Valve but for their licensees as well. There’s a strong case that could be made that companies like Valve, Epic, 3D Realms, and id, among others, no longer even need publishers for PC titles.

Consoles are a different matter for the foreseeable future, but there could be huge changes with the consoles over the next couple of generations. Look at the success of Xbox Live Arcade. Microsoft says it’s totally blown away their expectations so far. Personally, I’m not that surprised by it. I mean it’s pretty simple: you quickly download a game demo, if you like it, you pay a reasonable amount of money to fairly quickly download the full game and in a few minutes, you’re playing it. The day is coming when the majority of game purchases will happen this way.

And full article here:

(GlobalWar) #5

I really dont mind if they remove the old fashion publisher/distributor. It only costs you money. Steam is not superb at the moment but its a good method of distributing games.

(Joe999) #6

i’ve read that article before. funny thing: you would want to assume that downloaded content is cheaper than retail one which needs cds, booklet, stock space, and of course copy protection which costs money. but this wasn’t the case, at least when valve was invovled.

(leifhv) #7

Don’t use one poor implementation (Steam) to write off the whole concept of online distribution and authentication! It’s very much possible to come up with a better system than Steam. In addition I’d like to mention that Steam has performed great for me…I understand that others have had problems but that goes for allmost any complex application and game out there.

Also, arguing against systems like Steam is pretty short sighted IMO…either we come up with something good here or all major games will be released on consoles only in a few years time. The old way of distributing/authenticating PC games will not survive no matter how much you whine and complain about Steam and other online auth. systems.

Enemy Territory 2 (and I’m not talking about ETQW here) on XBox 360 only…?

(kamikazee) #8

Do you mean RTCW2?
AFAIK there’s no “Enemy Territory 1”.

(leifhv) #9

No, I’m talking about the unknown game that will come out after ETQW, RTCW2 and <the game ID is working on now>. ID seems to be releasing one game each year now (Doom3 ->2004, Quake 4 ->2005, ETQW->2006, RTCW2->2007?, New IP Game->2008?, ET2->2009?). It doesn’t really matter…what matters is solving the PC piracy problem before it’s too late.

(Joe999) #10

that’s an easy one: quality. and with quality i don’t mean the graphics.

has anyone ever checked the games lately, especially the EA games? quantity instead of quality.

has anyone ever asked why so many people are playing WoW? and why they are willing to pay 40 euro for a game and 10 euro each month in order to be able to play the game? i do ask that myself as i don’t like that kind of games, but my answer is: there’s quality behind that.

some companies have seen this and now flood the same market with their low quality trash only to get a piece of the cake.

and as it’s mentioned that often: BF2. anyone asked why so many people hate BF2? have you seen the commercials? who gives a $*** if a rocket can fly through an open-door helicopter. where’s the quality in that when the gameplay is c***?

(RosOne) #11

It’s a great way to distribute games, but the prices aren’t ok. You can’t really expect to have the same price tag for a global market. Often smaller prices means more sales since more people buy it. I’ve bought 3 copies of Painkiller when it came out just to support them and thank them for an incredible price of $6. I don’t think buying Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for just $20 was a waste even though I never finished it. Same for Trackmania - $20 + huge free expansion. I wish ET:QW would cost those $30 less than it does.

(Sebultura) #12

Well, multiplayer doesn’t mean “online only”: what about a simple LAN party with your friends ???

Again, I may repeat myself (and I’m sorry for that, but I need to see the people’s reactions, ‘cause I don’t find it acceptable) I’m totally against games that can’ t be played without internet connexion.

(Dazzamac) #13

You can’t have a LAN party every day of the week now can you? I’m lucky if I get one every 2 months. n another note, I’ve played HL2 whilst on a network that wasn’t connected to the internet, its only for verification the first time which I don’t see a problem with if you cough up for the game.

(leifhv) #14

What if the alternative is that the major games aren’t released on the PC at all? Because that’s the reality of the situation even if alot of you refuse to see that.

(Sebultura) #15

The only reality that I see today is people trying to take us more money everyday by selling worse games & saying that all this is due to piracy. Same shitty arguments as Valve, and as a programmer myself (which is my fulltime job) and on a freedom point of view, I can’t accept that.

(thepiman) #16

Adobe ‘s copy protection software works and allows you to reinstall the program with out contacting them :clap: and also allows you to use the program with out an internet connection. What game developers need to do is steal their idea and have games register with a hard drive serial number. (Allowing the user to uninstall the user to uninstall and reinstall to a different driver if need be) .

Every time I reinstall windows I spend an hour on the phone with Microsoft and others trying to get them to reactivate my cd keys. :banghead: Adobe Photoshop on the other hand checks my hard drive serial number and activates with out a problem.

If game developers used the same technology not only would do away with inserting the CD to play but it would make it harder to crack games.

(leifhv) #17

I you think the games are getting worse you have nothing to worry about…just continue playing your old and good games!

Anyway, you didn’t answer my question…choose one:

  1. Online authentication of PC games
  2. Less (or no) major games released on the PC

?

(leifhv) #18

Schemes like this have been used for decades now…it’s just not good enough and gets cracked after a few days (or a few hours even).

(Lanz) #19

Well, multiplayer doesn’t mean “online only”: what about a simple LAN party with your friends ???

Again, I may repeat myself (and I’m sorry for that, but I need to see the people’s reactions, ‘cause I don’t find it acceptable) I’m totally against games that can’ t be played without internet connexion.[/quote]

This is nothing new, id has used this method since the release of Q3 and it haven’t stoped you from arranging a LAN party in any way. You set up the server for LAN and start playing.

(kamikazee) #20

All things can be cracked given enough time and resources.
I’d rather have it like RTCW did it: validate the key online. Of course, there’s a small chance to generate a valid key and a larger chance that someone copies your cd key. Still, this seems fair as you could host a local server without an internet connection, but not play the game online with 2 same keys.