Valve Releases Updated Alien Swarm For Free With Code Base 164
baronvoncarson tips news that today Valve released an updated version of Alien Swarm, a popular Unreal Tournament 2004 total conversion mod. The creators of the mod were hired by Valve, and they've helped turn it into a stand-alone game running on the Source engine. Valve is also releasing the code base for Alien Swarm and an SDK. The game is available for free on Steam.
Great - spread the word (Score:1)
So that those who are already downloading 2Gb at 30kb/s get it even later.
Nah I'm just trolling, there must be a lot of interest as nobody's getting a decent speed - well, a few have it completed, but its just a case of changing your settings and finding a location that's not suspended.
Anyway, good job Valve on a free open source game that might actually be half decent :O)
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The Ukraine and Siberia usually work well for me.
That is, if I can even start the download.. as with most new releases and all TF2 updates, the content servers are overwhelmed.
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A solution begging to be put to use ... (Score:2)
This is one game that is just begging to be a torrent...
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Indeed. I wonder if it's actually illegal to get this game off piratebay, it being freeware and all?
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Freeware != public domain.
It's still copyrighted and as such the copyright owner is the only one with the right to distribute copies.
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"...there's no way that Valve can know whether or not the torrents have been tampered with."
It's not Valve's job to worry about _my_ risks.
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Actually, the .torrent popped up on a couple of private forums. Not a haxxored cracked copy, but the basic game file, simply because the Steam servers couldn't keep up. I know a couple of people ended up sharing it via sneakernet on 4GB flash drives, too :) Once the download starts, you can close steam, copy the full game into the specific folder, restart steam, and resume the download, and the game will install normally on your steam account, assuming your account is authorized to play that game. Works gre
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We did something similar last year at Quakecon (2000+ person lan party) when Valve released a major TF2 update the afternoon the event started. Had to update about 100 people via sneakernet, and then tether them to an iphone to get steam to verify the data and go into offline mode. What a farking PITA, but it worked!
And this is why I gave up on Steam, and why everyone else should, too. I'd want back the time I spent making a workaround to play a game I couldn't play because of some bullshit DRM. And in fact I do want the time back I've spent making Steam work properly on Wine back before it was a shoo-in (had only DRM problems) but I can't have that either. Why pay to be abused?
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Well, it just took me a whopping 8 minutes at 3.5MB/sec max to download those 2GB here in Austria - sure, it's 2 in the morning, but then again installing a bunch of games (15-20GB) some weeks ago during the day was chugging along at 2-3MB/sec also...
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I would go for a "Download a copy, seed 1 copy" thing. As long as i could throttle it, that wouldn't be bad at all. My house already does this, one person downloads the game and the rest copy it from his steamapps folder. I don't need any more apps competing for bandwidth though.
Nightblade (Score:3, Interesting)
Does this mean Nightblade is officially canceled?
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I should have guessed, it's been years and I haven't heard much.
(BTW, who the hell modded my post offtopic!?)
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Topic is about folks at Black Cat Games getting hired by Valve, so is my post.
So that isn't it. Any other ideas?
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So we're not allowed to ask questions that relate to the topic? See, if that were the case, then there were a LOT of off topic posts about Java when Oracle bought Sun. Yet they were NOT modded that way.
I'm just not following your logic here.
Re:Nightblade (Score:5, Funny)
Someone who's capable of discerning the topic at hand.
You must be a thrilling conversationalist.
"How are you doing?"
"Fine."
"Hey, have you seen that new movie?"
"Sorry, this isn't about movies. The topic at hand is about how I'm doing."
Mac version? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm, am I the only one who is disappointed that there is no Mac version?
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I don't have a Mac so I can't be disappointed.
However, I'm also not surprised.
Valve made a big deal about how Portal 2 was going to be their first simultaneous Windows/Mac release. Since Portal 2 hasn't come out yet, they clearly didn't plan a simultaneous release.
Add to that that the two most recent Source games before this (L4D & L4D2) still haven't been ported to the Mac...
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Well, the "two previous games" comment is actually the most important bit, even if it is at the end. This game uses a modified version of the Left 4 Dead 2 engine, with some updates to it.
The problem is that the engine it's based on hasn't yet been ported to the Mac.
This makes me wonder if this isn't part of the reason for Portal 2's delay... the Mac version (and also the PS3 version) wouldn't be ready by the end of this year.
Heck, Valve doesn't even have a working Linux dedicated server for the game right
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That's nothing compared to how disappointed you'd be if you actually got to play it.
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Kinda sad that the game the mod came from (UT2K4) had a Mac version.
I'm hoping Valve has it in the works.
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I could care less about grammar nazis... but it'd be difficult. ;-)
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You are a buffoon. A complete idiot.
I mean that as a compliment. Don't go all "grammar nazi" on me and tell me I'm insulting you - I know what I mean even if I didn't actually say what I mean.
Great Job Valve (Score:1)
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Well L4D was a co-op blast fest. Except in that game it was zombies and not aliens.
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You do also have to pay for that one... but then again, that really is to be expected.
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Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter also offers co-op and is mostly a run and gun game. It's a minimum of story, and a lot of blowing shit up. Not sure if the first encounter has co-op as well, I only have the second because it was on sale after a free weekend.
Three Cheers for Valve (Score:2, Interesting)
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Valve is a pretty cool company. The DRM they implemented is really a compromise, and aside for the offline restrictions, its pretty much the best middleground you can have today for a game digital delivery platform (compromise as in publishers agree to it and players can still have fun). And while not open source across the board, they ARE very open as far as game industry goes.
If there's only one thing that you could blame on them, is allowing publishers to use custom DRM on top of the Steam DRM. It should
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Overall, I think you are creating a false dichotomy by saying Valve is good for some things, therefore people shouldn't complain about other stuff (it's what you're implying, not sure if you mean that). If you want a
Good job guys! (Score:2)
We're /.ing steam!
"The Steam servers are currently to busy to handle your request. Please try again in a few minutes"
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Incredible (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, 149 comments and not a single one modded up about actual gameplay?
I'll go first - it's a pretty fun game. It's a squad based top-down shooter based on the Source engine. Multiplayer using either shared or dedicated servers. You choose one of 4 roles - Commander, Special Weapons, Tech, or Medic. There can be more than one Medic for example, but most missions require at least one Tech to hack open doors.
You choose your weapon load-outs and characters/roles and enter the mission. You can carry two main weapons and one off-hand weapon. Some of the main weapons are unique to the character type - for example only Special Weapons can carry an auto-gun, and only a Medic can carry a medic gun, and some are available to all players. As you complete missions you gain XP and levels, which unlocks additional weapons. The levels are account specific, not character specific - for example I can get to level 9 playing as Special Weapons, which unlocks the Medic gun, and then I can switch to Medic so I can actually use it.
The controls are fairly simple - W,A,S,D for up/down/left/right, and the mouse controls aim/firing, but since it's top-down you do have to aim in 3d space - you can aim close or far away. Friendly fire does happen with all but a couple weapons so you need to be careful not to hurt your teammates.
Aliens swarm from almost everywhere - I guess that's how it got the name. They do come from creative places - climbing up from hatches in the floor, jumping down from the ceiling up above, climbing walls and tunnels. You can never be sure where they will come from. The missions seem to be mostly linear objectives, like gain access to this area, go here, destroy the alien biomass, escape, etc. and are filled with choreographed sequences of alien battles to keep you on your toes. If you stay too long in one area you will start to get random alien attacks as well, so it's not 100% choreographed/scripted.
There are only about 7 or 8 missions in the game, and a group of friends and I were able to complete all of them on Normal mode in a few hours last night. We got to level 10 or so and unlocked a lot of weapons in doing so. I guess now the only thing to do is play it on Hard modes or wait until they release more maps/content.
Some standouts: Your off-hand weapons are very unique and can be used for tactical advantage. For example, you can get combat flares that increase auto-aim effectiveness when dropped, hornet swarm missiles that are heat seeking, even adrenaline that makes the game go into slow motion - which has to be the coolest effect. In slow motion everything goes into The Matrix-like mode where you have tons of time to aim and line up your shots. The game also does it at certain times on it's own just for dramatic effect.
Conclusion: A fun but short game - it will be interesting to see what type of content the mod-community creates for it. The squad-based tactics can be surprisingly deep if you have a good group of players on voice communication. Definitely worth a download for at least an afternoon or evening of fun with 3 friends.
Elf needs food badly! (Score:3, Interesting)
So.. it's basically gauntlet?
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Well, kind of - I love Gauntlet. It's really a lot different because the aliens can come from any direction also above or below you, so they quite often have the element of surprise. There also aren't really monster generators, except there are some biomass you have to burn with a flamethrower or a mining laser.
But yeah, it's kinda like Gauntlet in space...
Re:Free (Score:4, Funny)
If only the summary mentioned how they ported it to the source engine...
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Valve hired the team that made the original UT2004 mod. Source [steampowered.com].
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From the summary: "The creators of the mod were hired by Valve, and they've helped turn it into a stand-alone game running on the Source engine."
They hired the team that made it for the Unreal engine, and had them re-create it with the Source (Half-Life 2 etc) engine.
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You're kidding me, right? Surely your reading comprehension can't be THAT horrible.
The creators of the mod were hired by Valve, and they've helped turn it into a stand-alone game running on the Source engine.
First bolded text shows, that YES, they were paid, second bolded shows that it's running on Source, NOT the Unreal engine.
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Are we having reading comprehension problems today? Valve hired them, of course they are getting paid. And they re-made it for the Source engine. While the UT2k4 version no doubt still exists this is not it.
Not reading TFA is one thing, not reading the fucking summary is another, but not reading the posts you are responding too is just too far.
Re:Free (Score:4, Funny)
not reading the posts you are responding too is just too far.
Psh, I don't even read the posts I quote. Were you talking about puppies or something up there?
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Pfft, I don't even read.
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Bah, I don't even read the posts I write!
I don't read the posts you write either.
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For this game, it's not a UT engine game anymore, it was ported to Source.
Aside from that, the Unreal Engines have a free development kit that's free for free games. It doesn't have everything their commerical game engine license gets (no engine source code and nobody's going to answer you if you call them at 3 in the morning the day before release).
See http://www.udk.com/ [udk.com]
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um not only did u not read the article, you didn't even read summary, but for a FP not surprising. They wrote THIS version of the game to run on the source engine. ;)
but just as a note: when you license a game engine it's not required that you must charge money for the products you create with said engine. obviously it would be sorta stupid because you do have to pay for the license, but you know, maybe recoup those fees by asking for donations? just sayin'
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No. Tremulous uses the Quake 3 engine from iD, which is now open source.
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Oh I'm sorry, I meant Nexuiz!
Nexuiz says it's a Quake 1 engine modification, but those menu widgets and fonts look awfully familiar.
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Nexiuz uses the Darkspaces engine, which has Quake 1 roots. Unless you actually have evidence that they are actually using Unreal code you shouldn't accuse them of doing so. Copying look/feel is one thing, but accusing them of having proprietary code is a very serious allegation.
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Show me the source, or STFU.
Of course, you probably don't even know what that means.
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I just realized there is no way to moderate you as "-1 wrong", so I'll comment.
In addition to be wrong about Alien Swarm (if you can't RTFA, at least read the summary), you're wrong about Tremulous too. It's based the GPL Quake 3 source code. [tremulous.net]
Re:Free (Score:4, Funny)
daemonc (145175)
I just realized there is no way to moderate you as "-1 wrong"
Greetings! Welcome to Slashdot!
A bit of belated advice, if you're going to buy a user ID on eBay you really shouldn't waste your money on anything with more than 4 digits.
-
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I searched on ebay and saw no Slashdot IDs for sale. How am i supposed to calculate market value???
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I didn't play it back when it was a mod, so I may be wrong... but I would assume they were distributing just the mod, and you had to get the Quake 3 binaries on your own. When the source was freed, they were then able to distribute the binaries as well.
I don't see how any of this would be illegal (illegatry?), or even a copyright violation, but even so, it was never based on Unreal.
Freetards indeed...
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I like it. I have a fairly good connection, so I don't mind the downloads, which I much prefer to managing a bunch of game disks. They also have some very good sales every so often, even with the more popular titles.
You can install games on up to 5 computers, and from what I've heard, you can have that reset if you're the type of person who reinstalls their OS every so often.
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You can install games on up to 5 computers, and from what I've heard, you can have that reset if you're the type of person who reinstalls their OS every so often.
Wait what now? Steam has installation limits? Never heard of that until now...
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Steam doesn't. Some games (Bioshock) had install limits, but I believe that was completely separate from Steam.
Re:Free as in beer; comes with required crapware (Score:4, Insightful)
If by crapware you mean the most excellent social gaming platform in existence?
The stated purpose of steam is to distribute game content; it's a digital distribution network. If you have a game in your library, it will serve you the entire download at high speed any number of times you please, to any computer in the world that you please, at any time. No, it won't serve you the content if you don't have it on your account. Call that DRM if you want.
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Actually it will, but it won't let you use it. You can actually install any game you want, it'll just say "pre-load complete" so if you do buy it, you're all set.
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Which is, of course, DRM. It's a pretty benign form of DRM - my only serious objection is the inability to re-sell games - but it most certainly is DRM. If Steam were really just distributing games, and nothing more, I could copy the distributed bits to another computer and run them from there, without Steam even being installed. Steam is very good at what it does, but do *NOT* make the mistake of assuming just because it's better than the majority of DRM schemes that it isn't a DRM scheme itself.
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- my only serious objection is the inability to re-sell games -
Then create a new steam account for each game you buy then sell the steam account containing a game. Alternatively you could try making your own games and selling those instead.
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Technically possible, but a pain in several ways, from keeping track of all those accounts (and needing to sign in and out a lot) to the fact that your achievements will be only on one game at a time. Besides, as you point out, it *is* possible... so why doesn't Steam let you do this? They don't even have to facilitate the process of making a sale; just let me transfer a game from my account to somebody else's (that person would need to use Steam to play it, so copyrights are preserved). Obviously it would
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so why doesn't Steam let you do this?
Because they would probably lose a chunk of their profits.
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The other problem is that like with all DRM systems, you're in trouble if Valve becomes insolvent or decides to turn evil and shut downs their servers. For now though things seems OK considering:
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While it's true that Valve could turn evil or go under, it's also true that my car might need a new transmission. The latter is more likely and more expensive (and I have a lot of steam games), but I don't lose any sleep over the possibility - why should I particularly worry that Steam might go bad?
Some slashdotteres seemd obsssed over the fact that this "evil DRM" might make them lose all their games some day. Sure. So what? On the scale of life's routine disasters, that's about a "3".
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Games fall into 3 catagories as far as I am concerned:
Games that are never a good value (because you dont even like it the first time.)
Games that are of minor value (because you got most of the value from the first playthrough... you may or may not play it through agai
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When it comes to non-valve games, i think you can consider them just a distributor. You CAN copy the game from one computer to the next and it will run perfectly fine. There isn't an authentication mechanism other than what the 3rd party game company uses. Usually in the form of a CD-key.
Valve games are different and require authentication to launch.
I think re-selling games is mostly a console thing, not pc. I have expected cd-keys with my games for a long long time and any previously used copy with sus
Re:Free as in beer; comes with required crapware (Score:5, Insightful)
Strictly speaking it is DRM, but it's in a form that isn't about punishing the end user to make some high-rent manager with delusions of IP feel better.
Re:Free as in beer; comes with required crapware (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. I understand why certain people rag on Steam, it is DRM in the most literal sense. But it's DRM done right. It isn't engineered to be as obtrusive as possible. It does exactly what it's built to and compensates for it's shortcomings by providing a lot of free services as an incentive to use it. Couple that with it's excellent prices, and I don't see any reason to complain.
Furthermore, if there's any company that's going to make damn sure to unlock it's games if it goes under, it's Valve.
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I'm not actually sure I'd call Steam's prices "excellent" aside from their frequent sales. Sales are nice, of course, but overall I've found Steam to typically be a little bit above what I can find from online retailers, and occasionally above what I can find on a physical shelf. I very rarely buy Steam games at more than half their list price; it's just not worth it. They also charge just as much for new titles as anywhere else, which is to say they charge a hell of a lot for new releases (over $60 for a s
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If you deliberately exclude the discounts when evaluating Steam's prices, then you're missing the point. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head and making you buy every game at full price, there's nothing stopping you from stuffing your account full of AAA games at prices you just don't find anywhere else.
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Aside from needing to wait until the game I want to play is actually available at that price, you mean. A store that sells everything for 5%-10% more than I can find it elsewhere, except for a few items a week (which are only occasionally things I want) is still an expensive store, though it's one worth checking out now and then to see what their sales are. Basically, Steam is a good choice for impulse buys, but it's not usually a good choice for "I want to play game X, let's see what it costs."
Mind you, th
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The thing is that it's unobtrusive until it becomes obtrusive. For free games and as a way of getting game files for use with 3rd party game engines it's great, I just don't personally trust it beyond that.
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Of course, I've never heard a first-hand account of Valve disabling/crippling someone's account, so I have no idea
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My account was disabled by Valve once (or it got hacked and had the password changed... either way, I couldn't access it). I had to take photos of my physical discs and CD-keys (the only thing on the account at the time was Half-Life Platinum Collection) and email them to Valve in order to prove that I owned the games so that they would reinstate it.
If I'd actually bought the games on Steam, rather than as physical boxed copies, I doubt I would have gotten them back.
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Whilst DRM is a big issue with me.
Steams DRM is relatively benign compared to that of Securom and co.
Steam does deliver a great deal of extra value.
Which is why we put up with the DRM.
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Live in Australia,
Steam servers are in America.
Steam never logs in on the first go, Impulse also takes forever (same story as above, authentication is done on a server in the US) but it at least logs in on the first try. My internet connection is actually quite good I can get 1 GB off local servers in less then 45 minutes.
I have the same problem in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and the Philippines. For the most part I just put Steam into offline mod
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They provide good games, and they provide good service, but in the end, they're still a business.
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Furthermore, if there's any company that's going to make damn sure to unlock it's games if it goes under, it's Valve.
I love Steam, but this argument has always been bunk. If Valve goes under, Valve will be in bankruptcy. It won't be up to Valve. Valve's debtors will be in charge, represented by the bankruptcy trustee. There's no way that a bankruptcy trustee will *ever* authorize deploying the Steam kill switch, and that's assuming that there is a Steam kill switch that could be easily deployed when nec
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Sorry, but "All DRM is evil, period" is just plain wrong, and speaks to your prejudices more than anything else. Of course, it's perfectly understandable why you have those prejudices in the first place, considering how abusively the technology has been used by the entertainment industry, but still.
The issues with the first sale doctrine are valid - but honestly, the real reason people want to sell these items second-hand is to recover some of the punishing prices that the games are being sold for new. Valv
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All DRM is evil, period, because DRM inherently violates the doctrine of first sale. QED.
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All DRM need to take control of your computer to (kind of) work. So, all DRM is evil. Ok, that may be a bit exagetared, any DRM that (kind of) works is evil, nonworking DRM may not be.
I don't know it Valve (kind of) works, tough. I've never cared to read about it or to test. And I'm pretty dam sure it won't run on Linux, so I'm not even thinking about giving it a try.
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With the possible exception of free games, there's never a legitimate reason to do it.
Huh? Only free games should have DRM? How does that make sense?
Perhaps you've got a good reason as to why people who pay ought to have to put up with it when pirates don't.
So that they can verify that I have actually paid for it so that they can provide me with a good service that they don't provide to pirates and would be unable, financially, to provide if everyone was using their service without paying.
Why is that evil?
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Free games, as in commercial games released for download for a certain period of time free are a great reason to use DRM. You aren't stuck making it free permanently or selling it at all points so i
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Actually reading posts before you reply is generally a plus.
I did, Mr Snarkypants. Which bit do you think I missed?
Pirate copies will always have the DRM stripped or in some other fashion disabled, meaning that you're not actually doing anything other than pissing off the customer base, seeing as pirates won't ever actually see the DRM when they're installing it.
So why would a free game be any different? Either you can protect your game with it - whether people are paying for them or not - or it doesn't work in which case you shouldn't use it.
Free games, as in commercial games released for download for a certain period of time free are a great reason to use DRM. You aren't stuck making it free permanently or selling it at all points so if you want to do an anniversary give away you can do so somewhat legitimately.
But you said DRM didn't work and is evil! Now you're saying there's a "great reason" to use it!
But since DRM doesn't work, it's kind of limited in its effect.
Hmmm.
For the record I'm not a fan of DRM generally but I do like steam. I was sceptical when it first came out but I like it. One thing that is worth noting is the fact that on S
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From what I can tell from your statements, you hate DRM, and you have this theory that all DRM is evil. Now, a fairly unobtrusive DRM has come along that actually balances the needs of the consumers and the needs of the producers, one that people are aware of its shortcomings but still flock to it in numbers. So what do you do? Does it prove your theory wrong? No. Do you admit that it's the lesser of several evils? Hell no! You call it the most evil, because it actually appears not to be evil! Truly, cognit
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Riiiiiiight. So I guess the only reason we pay for... well... anything is abject greed on behalf of the producers?
Yeah, you just go ahead and let me know when you've discovered a away to meet the consumers needs without staying in business.
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That's like saying "Genocide done right".
All DRM is evil, period.
I'd just like to point out that you're exactly right - in everything but the assumption that you are going to spark some form of outrage.
Look at what the expansionists in the United States did to the natives that were living there. 'Genocide done right' isn't too horrible of a way to phrase it. There was an enemy culture there, and now they're either all dead or assimilated.
It happens, and isn't always a 'bad thing' so long as you're on the winning side. Or, if you disagree, I assume you could always dee
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It also won't serve you content if you don't have internet access - something a CD would - but thats all apples and oranges anyways. It's still DRM, just some people like different kinds of DRM.
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That being said, I personally prefer physical discs in most cases, places like GoG and free Steam games being the exceptions.
Re:Black Cat Games is irrelevant (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, poor Black Cat. They got offered and accepted a hiring from one of the most successful development houses in the world and then got paid to finish their free volunteer project and release it for free anyway. Life's a bitch.
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So it's like the Starcraft/Warcraft map editor?
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Maybe we can help you, what game is it? What are you computer specs? What about the game doesn't run? Some things aren't obvious, like the game needs SSE2 and your proc only has SSE.
You could try getting onto the steam support forums and asking your question there. I have never tried to contact valve, so i cannot help you there. You could try visiting the game creators site and looking for contact info. For example.. if you bought Spore, that is an EA game and you could visit ea.com.