Maniaplanet Forum

I don't know but when I come home from a long day I want to open my door, walk through it, and be in my home.
If I had to open that door only to find another door that may or may not be locked, find the key for that one and open it to find another door that is stuck shut for some unknown reason, beat on it for a while and jiggle it a bit to finally get it to open and hopefully get in and not have to leave and go to a hotel instead... I think I'd look for another home. Why so many people are willing to do this is beyond me.

I like to click an icon and play a game.
I don't mind going online to activate but I don't want to be forced to connect every time I launch either.

Demented, you can consider yourself lucky to be in your own home, but it is certainly not the case for all the people.
I always have to open 2 doors: the main door or the garage door, and then the door to my appartment.
And at work it is even worse: many doors, some are protected with the compagny badge, some are just gates, some are locked with keys. And many different tools I have to use also have different passwords.

Steam is not that bad, the possibility to install and uninstall nearly anytime any game, or to simply move the games over to a new PC, provided you have good internet bandwith, is great.
And the GUI of the store and the owned games library is ok for its purpose.
The discussion "forum" is a bit simplistic, but like the maniaplanet ingame feeds certainly a compromise for console users.

Plesae don't forget, also Maniaplanet does not work properly anymore if you don't have a constant or at least regulary internet connection.

I have no intention to offend anyone with my personal perception of 3rd party launchers. I really just don't understand why people are ok with the extra steps. There must be something I'm missing?

TMarc wrote:Demented, you can consider yourself lucky to be in your own home, but it is certainly not the case for all the people.

In fact, I do not Own my own home, I rent a cheap and crappy apartment but call it home. My analogy was simply to illustrate my question of why do people tolerate the extra steps to access their games?
Statements like:

TMarc wrote:Steam is not that bad,

and

BLaHiTiS wrote:Yes it's annoying,

make me wonder, do people want it? or just keep tolerating it?
Also, just to clarify...

TMarc wrote:Plesae don't forget, also Maniaplanet does not work properly anymore if you don't have a constant or at least regulary internet connection.

I have not connected my gaming PC (where I have Maniaplanet installed) to the internet in over six months and I play TM² nearly every day and have never had an issue with it. I know very few people do that but it's what I prefer and how I keep my gaming system clean. My last game system lasted nearly ten years that way and never had a virus or a crash, ever. I know most like to race online with other people and that's what the game was mostly designed for but it was also made so people can play it the way they prefer and I'm in a minority that prefer to create, race and play offline.

Actually, I'm on the same site as Demented.

A game should be shipped with a box and contain a hard copy. Then the user can install it on as many PCs as he owns. Internet conenction could be required for activation, but should not be mandatory for playing.

Every additional layer should be treated as "malware" (e.g. UPLAY, Origin, Steam) as this just overcomplicate things. A game is a game and that is what a customer paid for. Only because the majority of players is buying all of this shit because they "want" to play the newest best games, it doesn't mean that this is the right way to do it. But as so many companies stick or are bribed to use DirectX over openGL, players are helplessly in the hands of Microsoft and big publishers. My PC is my PC and I want to be able to control what is installed on it. That's why it's called a "Personal Computer", not an advertising/controlling machine for companies and NSA.

tcq wrote:A game should be shipped with a box and contain a hard copy.

What about indie devs who can't afford this kind of distribution? Let them die because they can't sell their games or don't have any DRM to protect it? A lot of players using Steam are buying more indie games than AAA games, so who's in the hands of big publishers there?

tcq wrote:Then the user can install it on as many PCs as he owns. Internet conenction could be required for activation, but should not be mandatory for playing.

That's completely possible with Steam and probably with uPlay too, at least for most of games (don't know for Origin).

tcq wrote:Every additional layer should be treated as "malware" (e.g. UPLAY, Origin, Steam) as this just overcomplicate things.

It overcomplicates things? Steam is "buy -> download -> play", nothing else to do. Boxed copies can take hours to install with the first copy of data, sometimes downloading dependencies they didn't care to put on the DVD, then downloading and installing updates. And you have to stay in front of your computer to validate steps in between...

tcq wrote:But as so many companies stick or are bribed to use DirectX over openGL, players are helplessly in the hands of Microsoft and big publishers.

For many years, OpenGL was way behind DirectX. Even Carmak admitted it. So what were studios supposed to do, stay with outdated graphics when market was asking for better ones? And with Valve launching SteamOS and Steam machines, are they still promoting DirectX over OpenGL?

tcq wrote:That's why it's called a "Personal Computer", not an advertising/controlling machine for companies and NSA.

Then stay away from the Internet, throw out your phone, don't watch the TV, don't listen to the radio, and find some secluded place to live self-sufficiency. Seriously, I'm not saying Steam is perfect but this is simply ridiculous...

Demented wrote:I really just don't understand why people are ok with the extra steps. There must be something I'm missing?

Steam is the easiest way to install a game you'll ever see. It requires less steps than with a boxed copy, it's way easier to add/remove shortcut on your desktop and you can even launch a game from a web page with a simple link. What are those extra steps you're talking about?

First of all @ TMarc, I respect your replies. Even when I don't agree with your opinions you usually seem to have a way of responding that avoids offending people or escalating tension and I think that deserves to be commended.

@ TCQ, I'm completely with you on those points.

The_Big_Boo wrote:Steam is the easiest way to install a game you'll ever see.

In fact my experience has been the exact opposite. The most annoying experience installing a game I've ever had was through steam and they were absolutely of no help in solving my issues. I swore at that time I would never use them again.

Bottom line: If I want steam on my pc I'll take a warm crap on my keyboard because it will be easier to clean up the mess.

?

Steam : You click the game, download starts, wait , click the title , game opens & play.
How can it be easier than that?? U dont even see the installation process.

Enjoy your crap.

Thanks, Demented
You have also good thoughts and it is always nice to discuss with you

By curiosity, might we get to know which game it was?

Perhaps this time I'm lucky that I never had issues with Steam until now, but I don't have that many games.
If something went wrong with a game I got from Steam on my PC, it was/is either a issue with the video drivers, or with the game itself.
The Steam client did never cause trouble, except when it did not want to connect.
But then I do something else.

From the Steam forum for our Nadeo games, I can tell that sometimes individual players have issues.
One was caught in a endless update-restart loop of Maniaplanet for all three Trackmania² titles, but I'm sure that either the player, or Steam messed things up with the installation of the games at some point in time. Probably because there was a mess with the maniaplanet user data folder(s).

I've also heard of updates of other games that completely break a game's function (it happened to my brother with GTA V, but he purchased it directly at the release date, and it appeared that the issue was caused by a bad patch from the game creators). This was fixed perhaps after a few days, up to one week.

It is of course each player's decision which kind of games and which kind of distribution he/she prefers.
But one thing is sure, the game companies will always find a way to annoy the players by forcing them in some way.
Online related services and the necessity of nearly constant online connection will increase even more.

One thing in Steam I do not like is their change of the payment method.
Earlier it was required to enter all the personal data (ok, quite annoying), but now you only need to select the payment method, click on Proceed, and it's done.
Parents will have difficulties to hinder their kids to purchase all the stuff they suddently want, unless there is a good child security I'm not aware of at the moment

In some middle future, if we have more game distributors portals than the count of games we're actually playing regularily, then something is certainly wrong.

Instead of the crap, I prefer a fresh made crêpe

Ok, the crap on the keyboard was really meant to keep it lighthearted and I hope it wasn't taken as offensive by anyone.
What game was it? To be honest it was a long time ago and I'm not 100% sure. It was the first time I'd heard of Steam and it was something I tried to install for my brother. It might have been Portal and just after installing it I got a new pc and wanted to move it but was never able to activate the game on it. After nearly a year of no support and no replies from them, I gave up and swore I'd just never use it again. No one really liked them at that time. I'm sure it works just fine now for most people, in fact it's obvious a lot of people do like it. It's just not for me and won't be.
I ran into a similar and even worse issue from Yoyo games with Gamemaker Pro. (a game creation software I had used for years before they went 3rd party it stopped working) and most recently, the subject of this topic: Uplay. I wanted to Buy Trials Evolution but found that I couldn't play it without being connected to the internet. I can't create, save and reload a track offline.
That is my biggest issue with these digital distribution systems; I just don't want to be forced to play online.
~
fresh made crêpes sound tasty.

the steam client takes long to startup, it's slow, has issues of it's own i got to deal from time to time, has a lack luster interface and it just another hoop to go through (sounds like i'm talking about maniaplanet), if it wasnt for low prices i wouldn't use it at all. i prefer my games without DRM but i guess each one to its own.

never tried origin, can't launch uplay, can't wait for the cracked version of TMT, woohoo...