Curse

pamelf · Jan 06, 2008, 12:15 PM // 12:15

i put a shortcut on steam since I play a lot of valve games, but it's not imperative for me. I don't think it's a stupid suggestion though like some people seem to, so good on the OP for thinking outside the square.

Nevin · Jan 06, 2008, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Steam is a great distributor for games I doubt Anet would ever cross over to them though. Why when they have NCSoft? I mean yes they're not at all the same, but its an online distributor none the less. But why use steam when you can get the same stuff for free..-Well actually I don't think its appropriate to discuss illegal conduct on forums.

Divinus Stella · Jan 06, 2008, 12:59 PM // 12:59

I hope not, as much as i love the games on steam, i think the client itself is just a memory leech.

Steam isnt FPS only, theres games like GTA, Medieval and Civilisation IV.

Coraline Jones · Jan 06, 2008, 03:35 PM // 15:35

I think that people are getting very confused about what Steam really provides. Steam is basically like Xbox Live on the Xbox 360. But unlike Xbox Live Gold, it's free. There are many, many different companies providing Steam-like offerings already, but Valve has a large one because all of their games practically require Steam to play. In some ways, this has irritated some fans that all of Valve's games require an internet connection, but I don't find it too annoying myself.

Right now, you can buy games like Bioshock or Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in just about any electronics store. Or you can buy it from Steam and get the same thing. So what advantage does Steam get you?

* You can purchase, download, and play any Steam game without ever leaving your house.
* You can have a list of online friends setup so you can see when they are online or playing and you can (try to) join their game.
* By ordering and playing a game on Steam, the game is actually registered to your account, not a computer. You can then install a Steam-based game on as many computers as you want, as it can only be accessed via your login anyway.
* You never need a CD/DVD in your computer drive to play a Steam game as you use your Steam login to start up a game. In fact, you don't ever need a box or CDs to play any natively-installed Steam games.
* If a game is fully supported by Steam, you don't have to look for software updates, the client will let you know and it will often auto-download and install the patches for you. (Well for Valve games this is true... Dunno about other companies.)

A lot of people are claiming that Steam will not pick up Guild Wars because GW is a RPG and they are a mostly FPS game house. First of all, that's totally wrong because Steam has plenty of RPGs available for you to buy and download. Steam is pretty diverse about what they carry and they even include silly family-oriented puzzle games.

The real problem is that there's zero advantage at all to having Guild Wars on Steam. If anything, Steam is just extra overhead that you don't need and doesn't help the end-user at all. Let's go through the list again:
* You can purchase, download, and play Guild Wars without leaving your house.
* You can check to see if your friends are online and playing with your Friends List.
* Game is registered to your account, not a computer, and you don't need CDs in a drive to actually play the game. Again, that's the whole GW system by default. You can be a thousand miles away from your house and install Guild Wars on a friend's computer and play it without having any CD-keys, original disks, etc. The GW client can be downloaded for free right off of the web page.
* Patches are automatically downloaded and installed. Again, GW gives you that from day one.

=====

The reason why people associate Steam with FPS games is because it's extremely well suited for that. Without Steam, you'd have to use some other third-party software anyway to find out if your friends are online or playing. PvP in FPS games is very quick and dynamic--you can often enter and leave arenas anytime--so it's easy to join a server that your friend is playing and have a lot of fun.

For other games, there's really not a lot you can do. Yes, you can play "The Longest Journey" on Steam, but it doesn't really help you any. I mean, your friend can't exactly hop onto your single-player adventure game. At best case, he or she will see that you're online, and that person can ping you via the instant messenger--most likely to complain that they are bored and want you to go play something else like Team Fortress 2.

Numa Pompilius · Jan 06, 2008, 03:53 PM // 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solange

lots of games are turning up on steam, why not Guild Wars? Its an extremely easy and popular service to use...steam that is, i think its good exposure as well for the game

Does not compute. The guild wars rights management and content delivery system is already much better than Steam, so the only reason NCSoft would have to switch would be ad revenue. And whatever ad revenue they'd get wouldn't pay the fees to Valve.

EDIT: OK, upon closer thought, there is another reason: it'd give tons of people easy access to the Guild Wars 2 demo. That might be a reason good enough to offset the lower quality content delivery and the fees to Valve.

Croco Clouds · Jan 06, 2008, 04:06 PM // 16:06

More CS players play GW!

Therefore more ragequitters... but make more money from them...

GourangaPizza · Jan 06, 2008, 04:43 PM // 16:43

Why fix it when it ain't broken? NCSoft already did a satisfactory job in distributing their products.

To the OP: Stop snapping at others who disagree with you.

Bryant Again · Jan 06, 2008, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Man, that would be pretty bad-ass to open my Steam friend's list while I'm out-a doing some GW...

Nonetheless, I think it'd be a great idea for Guild War's publicity.

Okay and normally I don't care about what people say, but dude:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solange

wow is that really in that picture? HAWWWWEttttt

Be a gentleman.

Arkantos · Jan 06, 2008, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Seeing as this thread keeps getting derailed and the OP can't even stop himself from flaming, I'm going to close this.