The version of OOTPB that runs entirely on Steam...

1998 Yankees · 07-14-2011, 12:13 AM

...will be the first one that I will not buy. Said conversely, the version prior to Steam exclusivity will become the last version of OOTPB that I ever will buy.

I recently acquired a new laptop. I thought I would reward myself with an upgrade from Civilization IV to Civilization V. I should have read the fine print on the back of the box.

Civilization V is entirely, irrevocably integrated with Steam now. In fact, the boxed DVD seems to merely install Steam! Once that is completed, the game is downloaded, installed, verified, and launched by Steam.

Which means a couple of things. First, Steam better be up and running if you want to play Civilization V. Earlier this evening, it was not.

During the installation process, you are required to either log into an existing Steam account or make a new one. Not a problem, except that at the time, Steam was not making new accounts. I verified that by going directly to the Steam web site and trying to make my new account there. Nope, the process was down due to technical difficulties.

Granted, I had to go out soon thereafter so I don't know whether the outage was minutes or hours. Much later, I tried again and was successful. Still, that bothered me. I wanted to install the game and look at it before I went out and I could not even though I had the game on DVD, in my computer.

OK, so I installed Civilization V. You have to be logged into Steam to start the game. All right, just an extra step. But then, this:

I noticed that the computer started a bit slower now, so I checked. Sure enough, Task Manager shows a Steam process running in the background even when Civilization V is not loaded. Steam is starting itself when the computer boots up. Why?

When I manually ended Steam (or when I refused to allow it to remember my password), the Steam sign-on screen pops up shortly after start up. Sure, I could cancel out of it every time I started my laptop but that was the last straw.

Why do I need this program running in the background, possibly tracking and transmitting what I am doing with my laptop, when I'm not even playing Civilization V? I uninstalled Civ V, uninstalled Steam, did a System Restore (I always create a Restore Point prior to program installations), ran CCleaner, and Civilization V is now in the dustbin.

No big loss. Besides, there are threads on Amazon and CivFanatics that argue whether Civ V is better than Civ IV. I'd say the IV crowd has the upper hand.

Moral of this story: I love computers and I love computer games. However, I hate arrogance, stealth, dishonesty, inconvenience, and invasion of privacy even more.

Back to Civilization IV. Good luck in the future, Sid.

rudel.dietrich · 07-14-2011, 01:16 AM

I frequent another forum that has Steam wars about once a month. Between the haters and those that love it. I come down on the side of those that love it. I have never had a single problem with it in the 5 years that I have been running it. 95% of my game purchases are through the service now.
On the forum I mentioned most of those who hate the service are older PC users who think the service is the devil itself. There are also quite a few who are among the tin-hat brigade who think the service secretly spies on you and collects personal information while at the same time installs spyware.

I have gotten pretty used to the service and leave it going non-stop. I just checked and at idle it uses 13.7 k of memory. That is minuscule for my 12 GB desktop and even on this 2 GB of memory netbook I am using I don't even notice a difference in performance.

I guess you can hate the service on principal that it is a 'stealth' piece of software running on your system. But I have yet to hear any practical reasons for hating it and I also have yet to see one single piece of evidence that it is a spyware distribution system that spies on you.

1998 Yankees · 07-14-2011, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

I frequent another forum that has Steam wars about once a month. Between the haters and those that love it. I come down on the side of those that love it. I have never had a single problem with it in the 5 years that I have been running it. 95% of my game purchases are through the service now.

On the forum I mentioned most of those who hate the service are older PC users who think the service is the devil itself. There are also quite a few who are among the tin-hat brigade who think the service secretly spies on you and collects personal information while at the same time installs spyware.

I have gotten pretty used to the service and leave it going non-stop. I just checked and at idle it uses 13.7 k of memory. That is minuscule for my 12 GB desktop and even on this 2 GB of memory netbook I am using I don't even notice a difference in performance.

I guess you can hate the service on principal that it is a 'stealth' piece of software running on your system. But I have yet to hear any practical reasons for hating it and I also have yet to see one single piece of evidence that it is a spyware distribution system that spies on you.

Reasonable assessment. This characterization is sound; I'm definitely old school when it comes to computers and software - I believe there is a line between interactivity and intrusion:

Quote:

...most of those who hate the service are older PC users who think the service is the devil itself.

As far as this goes, my friend, are you sure it isn't spying on you? It's running in the background and it's communicating with the Internet...

(

):

Quote:

There are also quite a few who are among the tin-hat brigade who think the service secretly spies on you and collects personal information while at the same time installs spyware.

But, to each his own. A new generation thinks nothing of being connected to an ethernet 24/7. Time and marketing will sort it all out in the end.

Sagitta · 07-14-2011, 02:47 PM

Steam can also be run in 'offline' mode. Tick that option on, and it will never try to connect to the internet except when you need to update something.

Antonin · 07-14-2011, 04:43 PM

Steam = more trouble than it's worth.

eriqjaffe · 07-14-2011, 04:49 PM

Steam = the best way to cook broccoli.

rudel.dietrich · 07-14-2011, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

As far as this goes, my friend, are you sure it isn't spying on you? It's running in the background and it's communicating with the Internet...

(

):

I am sure they collect data from me. I mean I have given then a home address, telephone number and payment information. They would be stupid not to use that mountain of data to try and market their service.
I also choose to every now and then send them my computer information like hardware as well as what software I have installed.
I am not a software pirate, I have never had child pornography on my computer and I don't run any kind of illicit buisness from my computer. So I have nothing to hide.
These results are fun to look at since about every six months they provide neat looks into the state of PC gaming in regards to what kind of hardware the average user is running.
And maybe I am just altruistic but I do think that participating in these surveys makes games better.

Lately I have been putting job applications in non stop for about the last four months. I have signed up to almost a dozen job boards and given out my e-mail to all of them and my phone # to those that have asked for them.
All of these job boards are respectable and a few you have to pay to use

And guess what? My inbox is now filled with fake job postings, spam and advertisements for resume writing, job placement, interview advice and un-employment insurance

And some of the advertisements are so targeted that I know that the job boards I paid to use are selling my information to outside agencies.

I have not ran into this problem with Steam yet. They seem to be on the up and up so far. Until they do something to break my trust I will continue using them.
I have heard of some horror stories and I do believe the truth to some of them. But most of them seem to center around forgetting your user name and password or using a free e-mail that comes with your ISP and then changing your ISP. That can lead to real problems since Steam sends confirmation e-mails to you every now and then and unless you change your e-mail before you lose your ISP e-mail it can cause problems.

1998 Yankees · 07-24-2011, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sagitta

Steam can also be run in 'offline' mode. Tick that option on, and it will never try to connect to the internet except when you need to update something.

I discovered that, thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antonin

Steam = more trouble than it's worth.

Hmmm. I'm not having that much difficulty with Steam. I'm more annoyed with Impulse (for Galactic Civilizations II) right now, popping up with game ads. See below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

On the forum I mentioned most of those who hate the service are older PC users who think the service is the devil itself. There are also quite a few who are among the tin-hat brigade who think the service secretly spies on you and collects personal information while at the same time installs spyware.
. . .
I have not ran into this problem [privacy invasion] with Steam yet. They seem to be on the up and up so far. Until they do something to break my trust I will continue using them.

All right. I thought about what you said here (particularly the part about "older PC users" - hey, I resemble that!

).

In the meantime, I noticed problems with Windows 7 running Civ IV - BTS. For some reason, the W7/XP compatibility mode works fine for basic Civ IV and Warlords but not BTS. It runs, but reluctantly and not without stupid warnings about changes to my system and the Aero desktop color scheme.

Plus, Civilization V kept calling me. "Bruuuuuce. Oh Bruuuuuce! Come play with me. See what you are missing! You know you want to . . . why fight it?"

So, all right. Now I'm playing Civ V with Steam (not on Steam, as was part of my fears - there is an offline mode). If I log into Steam and save my password, I hardly notice it when I start the game (that's also what enables offline mode, I believe).

I also bit the bullet and upgraded to GalCiv II which requires a similar setup called Impulse. As I said above, I'm not too thrilled with their popups and I'm looking for a way to shut it down until I want to play GalCiv II. Otherwise, I don't want to hear from them.

OK, so I've taken a step to move into 21st Century gaming. Are you happy now?

(

) [Thanks for the helpful feedback.]

07-14-2011, 12:13 AM	#1
1998 Yankees Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yankee Stadium, back in 1998. Posts: 8,645	The version of OOTPB that runs entirely on Steam... ...will be the first one that I will not buy. Said conversely, the version prior to Steam exclusivity will become the last version of OOTPB that I ever will buy. I recently acquired a new laptop. I thought I would reward myself with an upgrade from Civilization IV to Civilization V. I should have read the fine print on the back of the box. Civilization V is entirely, irrevocably integrated with Steam now. In fact, the boxed DVD seems to merely install Steam! Once that is completed, the game is downloaded, installed, verified, and launched by Steam. Which means a couple of things. First, Steam better be up and running if you want to play Civilization V. Earlier this evening, it was not. During the installation process, you are required to either log into an existing Steam account or make a new one. Not a problem, except that at the time, Steam was not making new accounts. I verified that by going directly to the Steam web site and trying to make my new account there. Nope, the process was down due to technical difficulties. Granted, I had to go out soon thereafter so I don't know whether the outage was minutes or hours. Much later, I tried again and was successful. Still, that bothered me. I wanted to install the game and look at it before I went out and I could not even though I had the game on DVD, in my computer. OK, so I installed Civilization V. You have to be logged into Steam to start the game. All right, just an extra step. But then, this: I noticed that the computer started a bit slower now, so I checked. Sure enough, Task Manager shows a Steam process running in the background even when Civilization V is not loaded. Steam is starting itself when the computer boots up. Why? When I manually ended Steam (or when I refused to allow it to remember my password), the Steam sign-on screen pops up shortly after start up. Sure, I could cancel out of it every time I started my laptop but that was the last straw. Why do I need this program running in the background, possibly tracking and transmitting what I am doing with my laptop, when I'm not even playing Civilization V? I uninstalled Civ V, uninstalled Steam, did a System Restore (I always create a Restore Point prior to program installations), ran CCleaner, and Civilization V is now in the dustbin. No big loss. Besides, there are threads on Amazon and CivFanatics that argue whether Civ V is better than Civ IV. I'd say the IV crowd has the upper hand. Moral of this story: I love computers and I love computer games. However, I hate arrogance, stealth, dishonesty, inconvenience, and invasion of privacy even more. Back to Civilization IV. Good luck in the future, Sid. Last edited by 1998 Yankees; 07-14-2011 at 12:15 AM.

07-14-2011, 02:47 PM	#4
Sagitta Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Bouncing between Phillies and Red Sox territory Posts: 357	Steam can also be run in 'offline' mode. Tick that option on, and it will never try to connect to the internet except when you need to update something. __________________ I'm a lifelong Phillies fan - "Hey, at least we beat the Braves in '93."

07-14-2011, 04:43 PM	#5
Antonin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 2,544	Steam = more trouble than it's worth. __________________ "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" - Johnny Rotten (Sex Pistols), San Francisco, 14 January 1978

07-14-2011, 04:49 PM	#6
eriqjaffe Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2003 Location: Under The Christmas Fish Posts: 7,729	Steam = the best way to cook broccoli. __________________

07-14-2011, 01:16 AM	#2
rudel.dietrich Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Zürich, Switzerland Posts: 8,608	I frequent another forum that has Steam wars about once a month. Between the haters and those that love it. I come down on the side of those that love it. I have never had a single problem with it in the 5 years that I have been running it. 95% of my game purchases are through the service now. On the forum I mentioned most of those who hate the service are older PC users who think the service is the devil itself. There are also quite a few who are among the tin-hat brigade who think the service secretly spies on you and collects personal information while at the same time installs spyware. I have gotten pretty used to the service and leave it going non-stop. I just checked and at idle it uses 13.7 k of memory. That is minuscule for my 12 GB desktop and even on this 2 GB of memory netbook I am using I don't even notice a difference in performance. I guess you can hate the service on principal that it is a 'stealth' piece of software running on your system. But I have yet to hear any practical reasons for hating it and I also have yet to see one single piece of evidence that it is a spyware distribution system that spies on you.