ArmA 3 on Steamworks?

[tremanarch 6]

So what will you do with that fancy auto-update? Now I prefer to read some reports about patches, both stable and beta and only after this install them or stay at current game version to prevent complete re-installation because of some craeppy patch.

Oh, and I don't want another resource-hungry soft running together with the game. Especially when the game itself is far from being resource-friendly.

It makes life much easier.

And it has nothing to do with Age or IQ. It has more to do with time you want to put into administration, when you could put it into playing.

I am sure you will still be able to read patch changes and reports. And in the rest of your post you are drawing hypotential events.

It may seem that you lose control of your game in some ways. but steam doesnt force you to update the game, and in the past my BIS games did end always being updated to the last version, so I really dont see the problem here.

when you talk about ressource hungriness you clearly might get something mixed up here. todays CPU and Memory can easy handle a small thread like Steam. Windows itself has a lot of threads going. It wont slow down the game. I guess most people would be happy if A3 will use 4 GB or more and 2 GB RAM like A2. That little 20.4 MB Steam uses really doesnt make adifference here with most ppl having 8GB!

Maybe you should calm down and rethink your options. I can understand when ppl get mad and negatively excited when being forced to use something they dont know!

But then the first thing rather then being angry could be to know that new thing. And in this case its a well documented well respected and used for years software by so many gamers that i am sure you will find information you need about it!

Edited February 22, 2013 by tremanarch

[chortles 263]

many old time modder and community members have already stated

they will not switch over or even purchase ArmA 3 due to steam being a forced platform on A3, moderators included so go back and read a few pages before you state I'm making

predictions based on what might happen if everything goes wrong. But I'm not supposing you'd care as long as everything works correctly for you since you are the majority and

the other members of the fanbase who supported BIS since OFP are all negative exceptions?:rolleyes:

It seems to me that Maruk and company made a calculated and conscious choice about who are "the other members of the fanbase", and that that idea is broader than yours... I mean, when Maruk is saying that the majority of Arma 2 players are on Steam, that should have told you something right there.

[tremanarch 6]

I would feel rather happy if someone could point me to some good contra arguments versus steam. Because as it seems now, there is really no real issue I can see.

ANd additionally I think a more factional discussion would help the whole topic and most ppl to calm down!

I guess most fears come out of the feeling being forced to use sth. you dont know! I can understand this on the one hand, but an intelligent person would then rty to gather information about said thing rather than just being angry which wont change anything...

[sapped 10]

It seems to me that Maruk and company made a calculated and conscious choice about who are "the other members of the fanbase", and that that idea is broader than yours... I mean, when Maruk is saying that the majority of Arma 2 players are on Steam, that should have told you something right there.

You mean the dayz players who purchased ArmA 2 just to play some mod due to the zombie craze and will leave as soon as standalone is released?

No, that doesn't tell anything. :D

[markocro 66]

we all knew this was coming, but i don't mind, i trust them if they think its best.

Just think for how much copies of arma2 CO was sold on steam, moments after dayz released. (big numbers $$$$$$$)

Yes, game is more "available" on steam for customers.

[maddogx 13]

Sapped, I'm not sure what your problem is, but I'm pretty sure arguing with you isn't going to get this thread anywhere productive. Let's agree to disagree.

[Steiner34 12]

I would feel rather happy if someone could point me to some good contra arguments versus steam. Because as it seems now, there is really no real issue I can see.

ANd additionally I think a more factional discussion would help the whole topic and most ppl to calm down!

I guess most fears come out of the feeling being forced to use sth. you dont know! I can understand this on the one hand, but an intelligent person would then rty to gather information about said thing rather than just being angry which wont change anything...

These are my reasons why I dislike binding a game to steam. I posted it earliere here:

1.Account binding

You as a paying customer are being forced to bind a full priced game to an online account of a second company which means that youre vurneable to fraud and hacking. Just imagine Steam gets hacked or your pc gets hacked and someone steals your personal information and effectively takes over your account. In the worst case you can rebuy the game and create a new account. Also with account binding youre on the mercy of Valves policys(False claims of hacking/cheating) which can also lead in the worst case to the banning of your account.

2.So called Steam offline mode is in fact a fraud

As many others have already stated the offline mode will only work for 30 days after the last login which in effect will force you to login every 30 days just to play it in Singleplayer or Edit missions. Of all the the DRMs I have seen so far its comparable to the ridiculous DRM of UBISOFT where are you being forced to always stay online just to play in Singleplayer. I personally develop small realistic missions for a small ARMA 2 community and I dont want to stay online just to develop a mission.

3.In the case of a Steam bankcruptcy all your games not only Arma 3 are srcewed.

[roberthammer 582]

1. Account binding - you have many options how to pay for a game/dlc even Paypal you can use or you can buy the game from different store

There is no false VAC ban if you get banned its your own fault.

2. Steam offline works just fine ,but you must do this > https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGCB-2555

3. I doubt that Valve will go down any time soon ...

Edited February 22, 2013 by RobertHammer

[TSAndrey 1]

1.Account binding

You as a paying customer are being forced to bind a full priced game to an online account of a second company which means that youre vurneable to fraud and hacking. Just imagine Steam gets hacked or your pc gets hacked and someone steals your personal information and effectively takes over your account. In the worst case you can rebuy the game and create a new account. Also with account binding youre on the mercy of Valves policys(False claims of hacking/cheating) which can also lead in the worst case to the banning of your account.

What can happen? If you get falsely banned by VAC (which Arma 3 won't probably use) they will lift it. Vulnerable to hacking? So what? Everything is. This is not an excuse.

2.So called Steam offline mode is in fact a fraud

As many others have already stated the offline mode will only work for 30 days after the last login which in effect will force you to login every 30 days just to play it in Singleplayer or Edit missions. Of all the the DRMs I have seen so far its comparable to the ridiculous DRM of UBISOFT where are you being forced to always stay online just to play in Singleplayer. I personally develop small realistic missions for a small ARMA 2 community and I dont want to stay online just to develop a mission.

This is not true. My friend has been playing GMOD in Steam offline mode for the last 4 months

3.In the case of a Steam bankcruptcy all your games not only Arma 3 are srcewed.

Yeah, like that will happen...

[jibemorel 10]

I would feel rather happy if someone could point me to some good contra arguments versus steam. Because as it seems now, there is really no real issue I can see.

ANd additionally I think a more factional discussion would help the whole topic and most ppl to calm down!

I guess most fears come out of the feeling being forced to use sth. you dont know! I can understand this on the one hand, but an intelligent person would then rty to gather information about said thing rather than just being angry which wont change anything...

Unacceptable end user agreement from a consumer point of view including no refund policy which is illegal in many European country (just read it, it's mind blowing)

Intrusive client

Monopolistic company

Not really well suited with how arma works (see the huge steam issues thread for arma 2), though Dwarden assure it's getting better

Each one of this argument is or should be a show stopper on it's own

[chortles 263]

Not really well suited with how arma works (see the huge steam issues thread for arma 2), though Dwarden assure it's getting better

Whereas it's clear to me that "Steam issues with Arma 2" are part of why we're getting Steamworks integration for Arma 3...

You mean the dayz players who purchased ArmA 2 just to play some mod due to the zombie craze and will leave as soon as standalone is released?

No, that doesn't tell anything. :D

Then you missed my point, about when the DayZ craze hit and demand was high, why the majority of the influx would come through Steam... Wasteland's existence and popularity kind of dilutes your claim about "the zombie craze and will leave as soon as standalone is released"... ;)

[nuxil 2]

I would feel rather happy if someone could point me to some good contra arguments versus steam. Because as it seems now, there is really no real issue I can see.

ANd additionally I think a more factional discussion would help the whole topic and most ppl to calm down!

1 * Offline mode is a joke/fraud. it only works for 30 days.

2 * steamupdater updater behavies like shit sometimes (actually many times)

3 * Steam service is unavaileble for some reason. on your end or on steams end. doesnt matter. the end result is no multiplayer.

4 * there are people who play only for its single player / campain. see * 1

5 * have to running a bloatware to be able to play a game. and get unwanted popups. advert thrown down your throat.

oh i could go on.

The bottom-line: we feel that without going Steam-exclusive, we would not be able to release Arma 3 in 2013.

i dont get this. i would have thought it would be the other way around.. developer need to spend time learing the steamworks api.

Unless this was a decision from day 1, it would be too late to do anything about it now thats why they state this.

delta-patching is one good thing about steam. but why cant bis create a simple app themself that does this. its not rocket sciense. and they dont need to spend 1 year on developing a simple app for updating.

Some of you will remember the huge amount of different distributed versions for Arma 2, and all of the problems associated with it. We needed to spend far too much time on creating and testing all the master copies. Every patch had to be tested for every conceivable combination of distribution, patch and DLC.

And now you have experiance on how to do it. just improve your workflow. and/or is this a hint that there will be a bunch of DLC's for arma3 aswell ?

[NoRailgunner 0]

"Alpha"/"Beta" means nothing except it's just done to skip a demo version of a game. Which leads to another question: Will there be an A3 demo and if yes - will it be a real standalone or leashed to Steam?

[tremanarch 6]

These are my reasons why I dislike binding a game to steam. I posted it earliere here:

1.Account binding

You as a paying customer are being forced to bind a full priced game to an online account of a second company which means that youre vurneable to fraud and hacking. Just imagine Steam gets hacked or your pc gets hacked and someone steals your personal information and effectively takes over your account. In the worst case you can rebuy the game and create a new account. Also with account binding youre on the mercy of Valves policys(False claims of hacking/cheating) which can also lead in the worst case to the banning of your account.

2.So called Steam offline mode is in fact a fraud

As many others have already stated the offline mode will only work for 30 days after the last login which in effect will force you to login every 30 days just to play it in Singleplayer or Edit missions. Of all the the DRMs I have seen so far its comparable to the ridiculous DRM of UBISOFT where are you being forced to always stay online just to play in Singleplayer. I personally develop small realistic missions for a small ARMA 2 community and I dont want to stay online just to develop a mission.

3.In the case of a Steam bankcruptcy all your games not only Arma 3 are srcewed.

thx Steiner.

So let me go into your thoughts. I hope that you can accept my thoughts as I am a steam user since 2004, and have many games with it. I played PC games since the late 80's - so I can also understand the more traditional viewing point here.

That said, your first point is very good!

let me analyse it. "You are vulnerable to hacking."

I know, that when your account is hacked, you can contact steams support and if you can prove that you bought a game of said account (you can prove it with bank data or paypal history) they will give you the account back. There might be difficulties when you cant prove it. All I can say here that this is a hypothtical problem, some kind of risk you have when doing stuff on the internet!

The same can be said for online banking etc. Everything in life comes with risk, and I can understand people that try to avoid as many as possible.

I can give you this advice: use a safe Password and an updated PC and the chances you are being hacked will decrease drastically. I am an IT Professional and in my whole carrer non of my workstations got hacked ever. I had to deal with many hacked PCs but in every single scenario I could point the error to the user not being careful enough. Hackers seek weak prey and wont attack safe PCs.

Your first point is now also a little bit vague. If youre PC got hacked then you might also have much more serious trouble than some PC game I guess if you dont have a dedicated gaming machine.

So in the end I could just encourage you to contact steam support prior using it, and ask if there are things you can do to prove you are the owner if your account might be hacked in the future!

Your second point might be a big problem for you when you have no way to be online once a month, which could easily happen when youre are in the wilderness or if you move or if you have serious internet problems.

I can see your problem here, but I doubt that most ppl suffer from these kind of scenarios. All I can say here is that is just the way the cookie crumbles.

Your third point is also hypothetically. What will happen if steam goes bancrupt. do you think all the companies that had games in steam also go bancrupt? That could be maybe if some atomic war happened etc. But I really doubt that that is a very realisitc scenario at least with you in it having time ti play PC games.

If steam will go down, I am very sure that all these game companies will find another way to sell their games.

In the past games got DRM Free Patches after a while - these were non steam games using those CD Check algorithms that were very unstable on sime machines.

But I have a game that has a non steam patch also. So steam in no point prohibits this. Its the games companies choice. Dont you think that BIS wants us to play their game when steam is bancrupt?

all in all you seem to draw many hypothetical scenarios. Your only real point is your second point. And although it might be a big problem for you to be online once a month, I doubt this will be the case for most of the users here.

So I still dont see a real negative argument here. Sry but this did not convince me when I put it in to relative views.

[chortles 263]

i dont get this. i would have thought it would be the other way around.. developer need to spend time learing the steamworks api.

Someone noticed that, I believe before the end of 2012, BI was soliciting for developers with Steamworks SDK experience...

delta-patching is one good thing about steam. but why cant bis create a simple app themself that does this. its not rocket sciense. and they dont need to spend 1 year on developing a simple app for updating.

Do you understand two things:

#1: The most basic things are sometimes the most difficult, especially for BI? I mean, when Jay and Ivan were poking fun over the summer about Arma's infamy...

#2: The devblog implied that there was a lot, lot more wrong with Arma 3 development than "it takes so long to make an updating app".

And now you have experiance on how to do it. just improve your workflow. and/or is this a hint that there will be a bunch of DLC's for arma3 aswell ?

Let me focus on "Just improve your workflow" and reiterate this for you, in case you missed what I just said -- the Arma 3 project lead implied that there were bigger, worse things going on than just inefficient workflow. As far as DLC... I have no idea where you got the idea about Arma 3 DLC, he was clearly talking about BAF, PMC and eventually ACR.

P.S. For anyone talking "push Arma 3 into 2014 to keep it Steam free"... that devblog is basically saying that Maruk specifically ruled this out as unacceptable.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Chortles

[Azrael000 5]

Is there an announced and valuable reason to preorder/pre-purchase A3? BIS has quite a bit history releasing their "overambitious" projects in "unfortunate" conditions - see A1 and A2.

Yes for me there was a reason i first bought OFP when it was released in 2001, then Red Hammer, resistance, i bought OFP platinum, i bought ArmA I and preordered Queens Gambit, Then ArmA II, Operation Arrowhead, then again ArmA II and Arrowhead for Laptop, then preorders of all the DLC's, that was the first game that gives some realism and that's my reason, another is that it was first company witch show that they respect the community, but guess what, I will not buy ArmA III not for steam at least, they want to release on steam, go ahead its their right, but unless it will not be released as retail i will not buy, and its my right, and i don't expect that anybody would care! I, as anyone, still can say my opinion!

[Kuskov 1]

Admittedly I do believe that Arma3 sales will benefit from Steamworks and the success of dayZ, lots of dayZ gamers who normally wouldn't have been interested in a milsim will buy Arma3 simply out of curiosity, and it's just so damn convenient to buy games online.

[spooky lynx 73]

I would feel rather happy if someone could point me to some good contra arguments versus steam.

Once again.

1) Another software that is needed to run the game. I don't want my game to be dependent on some third-party soft (that may became broken).

2) Internet connection dependency. So no play offline if you hadn't switched Steam in offline mod before any trouble with your connection.

3) Steam EULA.

4) Auto-updates, sometimes client is unable to run without them.

5) Lots of stuff (friends list, achievements, library, advertisement) that I don't need at all.

6) Problems with mods and addons (look at the number of Steam-related topics here).

Fresh news:D My Steam client just CTDs in a second after I decided to run it and switch from offline to online mod. And it does it for 5th time in a recent 5 minutes already. Great, so I lose my ability to play Black Mesa source.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Spooky Lynx

[tremanarch 6]

1 * Offline mode is a joke/fraud. it only works for 30 days.

2 * steamupdater updater behavies like shit sometimes (actually many times)

3 * Steam service is unavaileble for some reason. on your end or on steams end. doesnt matter. the end result is no multiplayer.

4 * there are people who play only for its single player / campain. see * 1

5 * have to running a bloatware to be able to play a game. and get unwanted popups. advert thrown down your throat.

oh i could go on.

i dont get this. i would have thought it would be the other way around.. developer need to spend time learing the steamworks api.

Unless this was a decision from day 1, it would be too late to do anything about it now thats why they state this.

delta-patching is one good thing about steam. but why cant bis create a simple app themself that does this. its not rocket sciense. and they dont need to spend 1 year on developing a simple app for updating.

And now you have experiance on how to do it. just improve your workflow. and/or is this a hint that there will be a bunch of DLC's for arma3 aswell ?

okay this gets a bit exhausting so many ppl answered thx. But I try to concentrate the arguments cause it seems to me that they are all kind of very similar to each other.

And I can only comment on my own personal view: ( I am you standard User guy, I dont live in the jungle, I have semi secure passwords and 20 years experience in PC gaming)

1 I am online nearly every day, so this offline mode is not a problem for me. The people I know personally that play games, and would be interested in Arma are at least online once a months so they wont have a problem too. There might be people which have problems but I dont see how a possible minority should dictate how things go for the majority?

2 I use steam since 2004. It worked always. Sometimes byung and downloading games was slower than usually. But in the end I got what I wanted. I dont see the problem here. Are there statistics or do you have general problems with the service?

3 Interesting. Never had said issue too. Do you have any examples or statistics, or is it just hypothetical fear?

4 I only get pop ups when I restart steam which happens when I restart the pc, which happens once all two weeks. For me this aint a problem. What is so bad about making three clicks once a month or so? even if you restart steam every 4 hours, and I clearly see no point in that, what is so bad about making those small clicks?

Most games have some videos when you start them you can click too to make them dissapear is this so bad for you too? I really dont see the problem sry.

[sapped 10]

Sapped, I'm not sure what your problem is, but I'm pretty sure arguing with you isn't going to get this thread anywhere productive. Let's agree to disagree.

You came in here making random statements and assumptions of my reply to a previous poster, which I proved you wrong in several replies.

Then you continued states I am basing everything on a worst case scenario of the future simply because I disagree with your opinion,

which I showed you is also not the case.

So no, I'm not sure what the your problem is, barging out at random and leaves when provided with reasonable arguments.

But alas at least we can agree this is rather pointless and going nowhere, so let's just stop it at here and not continue on with this

[tremanarch 6]

Once again.

1) Another software that is needed to run the game. I don't want my game to be dependent on some third-party soft (that may became broken).

2) Internet connection dependency.

3) Steam EULA.

4) Auto-updates, sometimes client is unable to run without them.

5) Lots of stuff (friends list, achievements, library, advertisement) that I don't need at all.

6) Problems with mods and addons (look at the number of Steam-related topics here).

1) Do you have evidence that steam got broken in the last 10 years that prevented users from playing the game or are you just drawing a more or less probable scenario here? If so, that will only be a valid argument if you can give the chance of this happening. Because if its not likely to happen - why care?

2) Bad for all the people that have no internet for at least once a month or so. (Minority I guess, dont think this is a true negative point for most of the users)

3) could you give a bit more details. What are realistic actual problems that occur when you use steam?

4) I dont understand your point. I had never problems - I use it for 10 years and have about 50 games. Is this again hypothtical or do you have a real issue here?

5) what is bad about hings you dont need but could use if you wanted?

6) I used skyrim and the X series with extremely modding (about 10 - 20 GB modds for each. Hands down I never had a single problem.

--

I understand that most of the problems people have with steam might be fear of some hypothetical scenario that might or might not be happening.

ALl I can say that none of these scenarios I have read of have ever happened to me or a person I know, and that some of them are so unrealistic that I might feel that people should maybe rethink or give more detailed explanations.

[dekster 1]

http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/356-arma3-steam-dev-blog

I don't want any of the benefits Steam brings me, so why should I care?

There was a very real chance there would be no Arma 3 this year otherwise.

Seriously, what were you thinking when writing this BIS? Threatening us that a game wouldn't be possible without it.

The whole text is bad communication, for real, it feels like a whole load of bs.

That's no way to communicate.

[cuel 25]

Once again.

1) Another software that is needed to run the game. I don't want my game to be dependent on some third-party soft (that may became broken).

2) Internet connection dependency.

3) Steam EULA.

4) Auto-updates, sometimes client is unable to run without them.

5) Lots of stuff (friends list, achievements, library, advertisement) that I don't need at all.

6) Problems with mods and addons (look at the number of Steam-related topics here).

Fresh news:D My Steam client just CTDs in a second after I decided to run it and switch from offline to online mod. And it does it for 5th time in a recent 5 minutes already. Great, so I lose my ability to play Black Mesa source.

1) This is how it works today. If you cannot support BI with their decision to use something that saves them a lot of headache and money, why would you consider yourself as a supporter? The thing within the parenthesis makes no sense either.

2) First time, yes.

3) ok?

4) Good. Everyone is up-to-date and do not have to install it manually.

5) Then do not use them.

6) Which are problems with the game or the person itself, not Steam. There are no problems using Steam and addons for A2 today.

That's sad for you, my steam client has never crashed.

[Alwarren 2765]

I know but to go to off-line mode you first have to be on-line to turn off-line mode! and sometime i can forget it!

http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/19234/is-there-any-way-to-start-steam-in-offline-mode-without-logging-in-first

[zoog 18]

"Alpha"/"Beta" means nothing except it's just done to skip a demo version of a game. Which leads to another question: Will there be an A3 demo and if yes - will it be a real standalone or leashed to Steam?

If alpha/beta is just to skip a demo version, why even ask if a demo is coming? Seems you already made up your mind about the goal of the alpha (to skip a demo version) :rolleyes: