Steamed!!!!!!

[Boris Godunov]

I toyed with multiplayer CIV at release, but a game that can usually take 20+ hours to complete jsut isnt multiplayer friendly. So now that steam is mandatory because they have a MP focus, does this mean a C5 game will only last 3 or 4 hours start to finish?

The scaling of turns is the same as in Civ IV, I believe. You can choose between very fast games to Marathon level ones with 1500 turns.

[Dinner]

Didn't the time scale also change depending on which era you were in (the pre-ancient had the longest time step, ancient second longest, medieval third, etc...) so by the time you get to the modern era the time step isn't that big.

[Boris Godunov]

Oerdin, that's been true of every civ game.

[Asher]

Another perk of Steam: I just migrated data from my dying 1.5TB HDD to a new 2TB HDD. All I did was copy the Steam directory from one to the other. Games work. No install bull****.

It was about 20 games, 160GB.

[MxM]

Who buys the PC version if there's an xbox version? PC gaming is dead except for the strategy game genre. Name a major PC release that wasn't a strategy game.

This is a joke, right? Because FPS, RPG, MMORPG are doing just fine in addition to both TBS and RTS. In fact PC is the preferred platform for MMORPG (did you forgot about WoW, which expansions generates HUGE interest and $$?), and many would argue that FPS is also much better and things like orange box shows it (nothing beats portal and TF2 on PC).

If I am to split gaming between console and PC then it is
Console, - sports, platformers, driving (though there are good PC driving games, consoles are better at this)
PC - TBS, RTS, MMORPG, and FPS (though consoles do have lots of FPS, nothing beats graphics on PC plus mouse+keyboard control). Also, do not ignore "social gaming", i.e. things like farmville, that creates lots of users and revenue.

RPG is a wash. There are things like Diablo III for PC but consoles have lots of very good RPG exclusives.

Also, somehow people compare all consoles bundled together with PC, because if PC is compared with any single console, it obliterates it in number of games and gamers.

Edit: see here what people in industry say.

[Boris Godunov]

And while it's not a game I play I SWEAR, the Sims series is very strong on the PC. I don't think the console versions have done all that well, as far as I've heard.

[Proteus_MST]

I for my part don´t even have a console.
As I prefer Simulation games, TBS and (MMO-)RPGs I also don´t have any desire to buy a console in the foreseeable future

[Boris Godunov]

Edit: see here what people in industry say.

Heh, he credits Steam with pretty much saving the PC game industry. Heads will explode in due course. Well played.

[MxM]

Heh, he credits Steam with pretty much saving the PC game industry. Heads will explode in due course. Well played.

While STEAM made lots of good for the industry, I just wish it were more like Impulse - light, tight and non-intrusive.

[Asher]

Impulse has been a nightmare for me. I've had never-ending issues with Dragon Age: Origins that I bought through Impulse. Never again.

[MxM]

Yeah, EA screw up the Impulse version of Dragon Age: Origins installer... With EA games it is better to buy them direct an use their downloader. I end up using DA:O code and have installed from EA downloader. Oh I hate all those multiple programs I have to install on my computer to play games. But Impulse is THE best out of those, by design.

[ColdPhoenix]

DA:O has worked perfectly for me, bought via Steam. I'm happy enough for Civ5 to be released this way.

[ColdPhoenix]

I've got a steam question. What's to stop a group of friends sharing a steam username and password and then downloading a game onto all their pcs? I know only one can be logged in at a time but couldn't they all mostly play offline?

[MxM]

I've got a steam question. What's to stop a group of friends sharing a steam username and password and then downloading a game onto all their pcs? I know only one can be logged in at a time but couldn't they all mostly play offline?

I guess nothing stops you from doing it. Though I do not know if there is a limit of how many STEAM installations you can have (if there is, it is more than 3). However, the games themselves quite often have limitations, like not to be installed on more than 3 computers at once (checked through Steam). At the same time, I did not hear that this is the case with Civ V.

Realistically, unless it is new and clean account, the problem may be only that you already have some games on it, and you will purchase more games on it, and sharing the account info with friends, may be not the best idea, because it may prevent you from playing other games, if they start installing them (you know how friends sometimes are). And if you make a special account just to play Civ, you may forget about it in, say, 5 years, and the game will be lost...

I think the main reason why game studios like STEAM as anti-piracy measure, is that even if you can do something like this, it is quite cumbersome, more over, you can not do it for mass copying (like put game on torrent or something)

[Asher]

Yeah, EA screw up the Impulse version of Dragon Age: Origins installer... With EA games it is better to buy them direct an use their downloader. I end up using DA:O code and have installed from EA downloader. Oh I hate all those multiple programs I have to install on my computer to play games. But Impulse is THE best out of those, by design.

I've also had issues with Sins and GCII. I'd "update" only to be notified "update failed" and it'd have to redownload the entire game again. When I've got a bandwidth quota, it really pisses me off.

Those are the only 3 games I've ever purchased on Impulse, and every one of them has had issues.