Arma II Integration of valve's 'Steamworks'

[The_Captain 0]

Arma II, though far along in development, could likely benefit from integration of valve's new 'steamworks' game enhancements.

For free, developers can integrate steam features into their games such as:

-Steam identity

-matchmaking/server browsing

-steam community

-anti cheat

-access from any PC

-voice chat

They can also add publishing services and development tools, like auto updating, key authentication, anti-piracy, etc.

These tools are available to a developer for free, and allow the developer full control over where and how their product is sold and marketed (including retail and alternate digital download services).

Many in the community have called for Arma's availability on Steam. While I would like BIS to retain full distribution control over Arma II, I would strongly recommend BIS' use of the Steamworks features in Arma II. Anti cheat, anti piracy, and any-computer activation will help BIS ensure strong sales, and community features will allow more community integration with the game. Many arma players and groups no doubt use Steam for coordination, and integration into the game would allow more players to connect easier and enjoy a more streamlined play experience.

Valve's benefits are obvious: More games installed on steam mean more eyeballs in their prominent storefront. As well, many users are against steam use, citing outages and program incompatibility (as well as requirement of an internet connection for product activation). However, I feel the benefits in using such a package would improve my and other gamers' Arma II experience.

I would recommend that BIS explore the ways in which Steamworks could streamline the development, distribution, feature set, and post release support of Arma II.

Valve's Steamworks website: http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/index.php

What does everyone else think about Steam features in Arma II?

[max power 21]

Although I would like BI to do as well as possible and their games to reach as many people as possible...

steam community

Yeesh.

[stakex 0]

While I wouldn't mind having ArmA2 on steam... I think you drasticly over state how much Steam will actually help the game.

First off, ArmA had its own voice chat and server browsing capabilities. ArmA's server browsing was fine, and worked just like every other game out there. So the ability to find a sever through Steam adds nothing to the game. Also, I play CS:S, and I can tell you this much.... the Steam/Valve anti-cheat is about as good as ArmA's anti-cheat system... which is to say, not very. BIS would be better off with an in-house Anti cheat system, or something like Punk Buster.  

And the ability to "access from any PC" is fine and dandy... but you would actually have to download the whole game on the other PC from Steam, which often has fairly low download speeds. ArmA's game file is around about 8gigs installed... so your looking at a massive download of several gigs for ArmA2, which could take several hours if not days over Steam. If you had the disk with you, it would take a fraction of the time...  

So as I see it...

Negative

-Steam anti-cheat not very effective

-Very long download times

-If you don't have the internet, your SOL. And if you suddenly lose internet for what ever reason, your really screwed becuase you need to be online to enable offline play.

-Steam Community... its a neagative already.

Possitive

-Of course, more places a game is sold, more people who buy it.

-Would make it easier for players around the world to get the game should there be a stagered release such as the one ArmA saw.

-Auto Patching

Neutral

-ArmA already has voice chat, and Im sure ArmA2 will.

-ArmA already has server lists just like every other game in the world... no need to re-invent the wheel and add the same thing though Steam.

-ArmA already has access from any PC... its called the CD, which is much faster then re-downloading the game.

-I personally doubt many current ArmA players, if any, currently use Steam to keep in contact. Its more likely they use one of the many IM's out there, such as Xfire, AIM, or MSN. Not to mention forums and chat programs such as TeamSpeak. Just an assumption really... but I can't see why anyone would use Steam to communicate for a game thats not a Steam game.

Again, I wouldn't mind ArmA being on Steam... especially living in the US. I don't want to wait 5-6 months to play the game in English when it comes out. But in terms of Steamworks being integrated into the game... it adds very little, if anything at all from what ArmA already had. Its really not worth the dev time.

[NeMeSiS 11]

An ArmA-Steam release would be fine, an ArmA-Steam-only release would be horrible.

[Maddmatt 1]

An ArmA-Steam release would be fine, an ArmA-Steam-only release would be horrible.

Agreed. Race 07 has a good way of dealing with it. The DVD contains both an online and offline version of the game. The offline version does not require Steam but has no multiplayer support. Online version supports MP and SP, but must be activated via Steam.

Banning people from MP servers by their Steam accounts would be much more effective than the current method.

Steam for MP play would be a good idea IMO.

Quote[/b] ]

-If you don't have the internet, your SOL. And if you suddenly lose internet for what ever reason, your really screwed becuase you need to be online to enable offline play.

If you "suddenly lose internet for what ever reason" you will still be able to play offline through the online version if it has been activated beforehand.

If you have no internet access, you could install the offline version if BIS allowed that (like Race 07).

[rstratton 0]

the good points outweigh the bad points i say.

[mrj-fin 0]

Yeag Suma said that they get bigger percentage of sale of internet distributions but I dont know why they havent yet make deal with Steam? Its almost like they are shooting themselves to foot not to getting all those ten thousand extra sale.

[shinRaiden 0]

Distribution of games over steam does not require presence of an active Steam session. I purchased and downloaded Space Empires IV over steam. I can run SE4 out of its install dir without steam loaded or logged in. That's a decision the developer chose to make. Copy control can be left entirely up to the developer if they wish to only utilize the sales and distribution network.

[Mabes 0]

I think a release over Steam would be much better rather than releasing it over Sprocket or one of the other online sources. The main reason being is that MANY, MANY people have had problems with Sprocket (and the like).

Steam has also just either upgraded their lines or fixed their coding and downloads are MUCH faster.

[Stiletto 0]

actually i was thinking of a "Steam" like thing as well. Arma's well.....isnt even there.I like to see who's playing and getting my clan together via steam is really nice. Plus i can keep a constant history of servers ive been to. There's nothing wrong with the Steam community.If you become an island as a community you wont survive. I think a Steam Community type set up would be good. Even if its just there to save your friends and see when there playing. Plus it would help promote a game that i dont see alot of traffic in. I love Arma but....i want more people loving it as well. When it comes down to it every online game sucks if you dont have a good group of people to play with.

Keep up the good work Devs!!

[Dwarden 1125]

Negative

-Steam anti-cheat not very effective

-Very long download times

-If you don't have the internet, your SOL. And if you suddenly lose internet for what ever reason, your really screwed becuase you need to be online to enable offline play.

-Steam Community... its a neagative already.

VAC/VAC2 anticheat is more effective than You think

noone forces it must be used ...

STEAM now use multi block transfers easily able fill 24mbit on my line and from my experience anywhere it maxes the clients download capacity

yeah the must be online is lil problem but then ... offline mode exists

SC again optionable and usable when you want ...

Anyway STEAMworks is very nice package of services worth the chanve (die gamespy die)

and there are several titles coming to STEAM with this used

[.kju 3244]

Probably the way to go.

However I have the bad feeling that the publisher contracts

possibly make this route impossible..

[Commando84 0]

i say go for steam, its good marketing!

But i dunno its Bis decision, time will tell if they wanna go on steam or not.

[AlabasterSlim 0]

Digging up an older thread here, but I'd love to see ArmA II distributed on Steam.

I'm not too happy with how Atari has handled ArmA 1, since they still haven't patched to 1.14 but at least we can manually apply the patch with ArmA.

As for Steamworks integration, I couldn't care one way or the other to be honest, I'd just like to have it distributed on Steam.

[LJF 0]

No steam! NO STEAM! PLEASE NOOOO STEEAMM!