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Shogun Total War 2: Buyers beware!
It requires steam to play.
While people may like it or love it, I personally hate it. Ruined my Civ 5 experience and I no longer play it due to steam. I am even considering reselling my newly bought copy because I detest this 3rd party program so much.
So beware if you dislike steam and want to purchase Shogun 2. You cannot play it without this computer slowing, game hitching, download-requiring, hard to modify your purchased game, 3rd party program.
I don't need a "facebook" for my video games.
I will expand slightly...(By the way I purchased a hard copy from best buy, not a digital download)
I install Shogun, and instead of installing it within 5 minutes, it has to go through steam, which takes 30 minutes. Upon having it installed, I am then forced to download a (patch I assume) which downloads at a whopping 23-43kbs, taking another few hours for it to complete.
I have yet to even get in and play it though because my free game time was taken up by the long installation process.
I just don't understand why these developers are forcing me to use this 3rd party program to play there games. It should be optional, I shouldn't have to run steam in the background, nor have it properly updated to play. If I like patch 2 versus patch 10, I should be able to stick with patch 2 and PLAY it.
Not have some 3rd party program refuse to let me play because it isn't up to date.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Comments
What's irritating is how (I think) you have to have an internet connection in order to install the game. Many of my friends are interested in buying it, yet they live in a college dorm which blocks connections to Steam.
Gosh, I do love steam.
But it is silly if you buy it at the store you are forced to use steam.
I think you are right. You don't have to be actively connected to the internet to play the game, but I think to install you need an internet connection.
When I put in my "code" for my shogun copy, it had to verify it through the steam server (which I assume you have to have an internet connection for)...((And now in retrospec, the code is linked to my steam account, so even if I wanted to get rid of Shogun 2, it would be worthless as they cannot use my code anymore, nor just install it and play, because steam won't let you)
Ugh, this really peeves me. I was looking so forward to this game, just like I was CIv 5, and now I am dealing with the same BS all over again.
And for those who enjoy steam, I just wish I had your outlook on it. More power to you!
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
I don't see too big of a deal. Most people have net connections, and once it's installed, you can always access it offline on steam. By navigating to the folder and starting from the exe manually.
1. Steam takes literally no system resources. If steam is throtteling your system you are better off not playing games like Totar War and Civ 5.
2. You need internet only when installing it. But you now have internet everywhere. If you don't, well.....time to get yourself wired. After that you can play in offline mode with no friends, no facebook in your games, no updates! etc.
Well, I am in college and my personal connection in my room has no restrictions. And neither does the wireless uni conection.
I guess that uni is pure evil -_-
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I'd get used to it. Retail game stores are like 8-track and HD-DVD. I still buy from my game store but I never actually go there - all done online. That and services like steam are the future. Steam is much improved from the horrible, buggy mess that it was when it first came out. I buy most of my games there - it's cheaper than from local shops 90% of the time. And they let you back up the game files now (conveniently chopped into dvd or cd sized chunks) so you can have a disc copy if you want it.
All the games I play via Steam I never have any issues with them performance wise - it doesn't bog the system down (not like it used to do sometimes). It only requires connection to steam servers when installing games anyway. The problems tend arise when the game companies that provide thier titles to Steam/Valve try to layer over thier own DRM crap. C&C4 is a perfect example - waste of $20-$20 thier I guess Oh well, you live and learn I suppose. Steam itself only got involved at install and initial verification. It was the games creators that baked in the rediculous allways connected rubbish. Plus I like the Steam overlay you can bring up - I can chat to friends even while we are in different games.
I would expect more and more companies to sign up to services like Steam, D2D, GoG, etc. Much less costs than producing physical copies and higher profit margins - good business sense I guess. Plus it automatically patches and the download speeds are good. Way of the future and all that I 'm thinking.
I like Steam, but I prefer having a hardcopy of a game in my hand. Just like being able to display my games on my shelf.
Just an update:
Steam aside the game is awesome, I am loving it very much.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
So you went ahead with something you dislike? The only way to change these things is to boycot them, they only take account of the money they make, nothing else.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Just pirate it to begin with... A free game that gives you trouble, is better than a game that cost 50 bucks, and still give you troubles.
Check out our official review over at RTSGuru: http://www.rtsguru.com/game/200/features/47/Total-War-Shogun-2-Review.html
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I dont get why people have issues with steam. I really dont.
You can play offline. Hell I usually offline my account on my kids computers so they can play my steam games. Try doing that with a copy protected CD...
You can allways download your games on a new pc. With the steam cloud-saves I dont even have to worry about loosing my save games.
What is it, that is so horrible about it?
Then they aren't going to play any games as almost all of them require online authentication of some sort to install. Windows Live games, EA games and many others all require an active Internet connection to install and authenticate. You'd better get used to it or just stop playing games all together.
As for requiring Steam to install a store bought game I don't really agree with but it's not like this is the first game to require it. This has been going on since Half Life 2. I happen to like Steam if for no other reason than that I don't have to have the CD/DVD in the drive to play. I find that to be 100 times more annoying than any online authentication process.
Bren
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Agreed, I personally love steam. I have 21 games that I can (un)install to any machine I use. I can also say that I have personally not had any negative experiences with steam in the 7ish years that I have been using it.
Hrmm, I actually like Steam. It makes my life easier in some ways. I like seeing games I wanted to buy 2 years ago go on sale for $5.00 on occasion. I like that fact that it updates the games automatically (or you can disable this if you don't care about the game any more and need some free bandwidth) so that I don't have to remember to do it on my own or have the game do it when I try to launch and have to wait an hour to play it.
I like the fact that games running on it have some measure of security. Day of Defeat was probably the first game I conceded to on Steam due to the number of cheaters and hackers that overran it prior to the Steam release.
The first couple years it came out, I hated it. A buggy mess that was always crashing and causing half the games to CTD. I've used it steady over the past 2 years for just about every game I play (available through them at least) now though and it runs fine. It takes almost no resources (even on my old dual-core system with 2 gigs of RAM) and I only occasionally have to tweak some Steam related features to help a game run better.
In this day and age, everyone's going digital. I'd rather put my confidence in a platform that's been around and worked out a lot of the bugs and runs seperate from my OS (Looking at you Games for Windows).
I used to be against Steam but now I really like it. I get some really good deals on games I would have never tried before.
To Clarify: I had already purchased the game, then when installing it I found out/realized that it requires steam.
I am not going to throw 50$ down the drain. As for reselling it, I had already used the code on my steam account, and now is probably un-resellable.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Eh? Where did evil Steam touch you? Come on, you need to start your road to recovery.
I don't get what all the bitching is about. I can understand only one reason: you are upset that you have to connect to the internet to install the game. Yet here you are on forums posting suggesting you have a stable internet connection.
How many PC games do you actually resell? The fact is PC is not a platform for reselling due to piracy issues. You can install, take the CD, and then turn around and sell it or start distributing it. I like Steam as I can access my games no matter where I am or if I lose the disk. All I have to do is log on and redownload. The few people who want to play this game and don't have an internet connection are few and far between.
I know this is the internet and people will find something to bitch about.... but don't bitch about something as dumb as having to use something like Steam to install a game. You're on the internet already.
Also, to Steam not being conducive to game modding, I have Fallout on Steam and have used the mods just fine.
Out of curiousity, does it say Steam is required on the box? I've never really looked at the box so just wondering.
And as much I love Steam, I can agree to that making it required when not purchased through it is lame. There are definitely some games I do not want tied to Steam (again, reiterating, despite really liking the service) simply because if I lose my Steam account, I lose all those games.
So the only games I want tied to Steam are the ones where I wouldn't mind losing. But the ones that I really want, I want to have the boxed version seperate from Steam. Better safe than sorry.
how does steam ruine your game experience? it just makes things more convenient for me just download the game whenever i want, no need to worry about disks or w.e
i dont even use the social aspect of it..
Steam helps with anti-piracy.
The Obama administration is now going after torrents and music piracy. If torrents or online piracy is not mainstream then these extreme measures won't be necessary.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Steam is one of the best things that has happened to PC gaming..
its so easy to get games now anytime i want i just pop into steam and look see whats around and buy a game.. superfast downlaods mean i usually have the game within an hour..
AS for games needing steam to authenticate a key code.. its just another way to try and stop piracy, it wont work as there are always ways around it but still you will be seeing this more and more, if its not with steam it will be with their own onlnie server or another 3rd party..
I really cant see how steam could have messed up your gamnig experience tho lol
Steam has never slowed down a game for me, steam can run in offline mode, also how is it instrusive ? I dont have it popping up all the time while im donig things going hey buy this , look at this special offer.. or whatever.. it just sits happily in the backgronud doing bugger all until i open it...
I just started using steam recently, and have had NO issues with steam affecting my game or computer performance. I have yet to run into any bugs or glitches. When I start steam where I have no net, I get an option to "Start in Offline Mode." This allows me to play the games with no connection without issue.
I have been a long time holdout on Steam (I am a skeptic by nature), and I don't know exactly what problems it has had in the past. All I do know now is that I have no negative experiences to relate.
I really hope that *insert game name here* will be the first game to ever live up to all of its pre-release promises, maintain a manageable hype level and have a clean release. Just don't expect me to hold my breath.
Steam is the best thing that happened to pc gaming and it brought it to another level. I agree some games should not be forcing you to use steam like COD or more recently Shogun 2 but all you can do is stick to the evolution.