System Shock 2 GOG and Steam Release

[Kirtai]

I prefer digital distribution (I love having entire libraries in the palm of my hand) but fancy boxes, manuals and especially maps can definitely be worth getting.

Cheaparse packaging can go to hell though.

 

[Menckenstein]

In the argument between physical and digital copies all I need to do to win is hold up the Fallout manual like Simba at the start of The Lion King.

 

[felipepepe]

In the argument between physical and digital copies all I need to do to win is hold up the Fallout manual like Simba at the start of The Lion King.

It might be true in the 90's, but what good are today's manuals? Last physical pc game I bought was Starcraft 2; the manual has 20 pages, most of them just basic retard instructions and the EULA... there's no glory to be found here.

 

[Menckenstein]

In the argument between physical and digital copies all I need to do to win is hold up the Fallout manual like Simba at the start of The Lion King.

It might be true in the 90's, but what good are today's manuals? Last physical pc game I bought was Starcraft 2; the manual has 20 pages, most of them just basic retard instructions and the EULA... there's no glory to be found here.

Reminds me of the individual slips of paper in so many game cases with the CD key inside and nothing else

Manuals were like half the fun.

 

[tuluse]

When I bought Fallout, I got a 2cd set with Fallout 1 and 2. It was in a cardboard--I'm loath to call it a case--wrapper that was just barely bigger than 2 jewel cases. It didn't come with any manuals

 

[felipepepe]

The BR version came with shitty papaer-thin manuals, but some years ago I went to eBay and purchased a lot of classic manuals I wanted, like BG's, Fallout, Alpha Centaury and the likes all for dirt cheap prices.

 

[T. Reich]

Talking about manuals and great inbox paper fluff - The ones that came with Wing Commander 1 and 2 and Sam and Max Hit the Road were just beautiful and lots of fun.
And floppies, dem crazy amounts of floppies!

 

[Lilura]

When I bought Fallout, I got a 2cd set with Fallout 1 and 2. It was in a cardboard--I'm loath to call it a case--wrapper that was just barely bigger than 2 jewel cases. It didn't come with any manuals

Fallout had one of the best boxes/manuals of any cRPG, I guess you should have bought it back when it mattered, when it went Gold.

 

[MessiahMan]

When I bought Fallout, I got a 2cd set with Fallout 1 and 2. It was in a cardboard--I'm loath to call it a case--wrapper that was just barely bigger than 2 jewel cases. It didn't come with any manuals

That hideous "Dual Jewel" bundle! I did NOT know what I was getting into when I nabbed THAT at EB games. They had Planescape Torment and Soulbringer in the same horrible style packaging, and that was the birth of another proud (mostly) Codexer.

Still haven't played Soulbringer, either.

 

[Absalom]

If game developes still gave out "feelies" (sounds perverted lol) and had quality manuals, the case for physical copies might be stronger. Course, I only collect the good stuff

The Doom manuals were pretty funny. Hell, all the ID game had pretty kewl ones.

 

[Gord]

Agreed, the boxes of yore could be pretty cool.
A lot of work and creativity went into them sometimes.

Guess they would have to be more expensive nowadays to be profitable, though.

 

[Zewp]

The only game box I still own is that of Icewind Dale. Never got around to playing the game, though.

 

[Average Manatee]

MessiahMan

The only thing, really? Torrents and thumbdrives don't auto-install and auto-update. You need to store them locally. They can be lost.

If those benefits aren't worth 5 bucks to you, that's okay, but don't deny that they exist.

Physical copies are overrated and a lot of the Codex's favorite developers from the 90s would have still been around today if digital distribution had showed up on the scene earlier than it did.

Auto-install? Installation for a steam game is clicking it and hitting next a few times. Installation for a normal game is clicking setup, finding the directory to put it in (not being able to categorize steam games in a directory structure pisses me off to no end), then hitting next a few times.

Auto-update? Downloading patch is hard? What are we, consoletards? It takes about 5-10 seconds to find the latest patch for most games. 99% of my games are never going to get an update anymore anyway. In fact I often have to go scour the net for unofficial patches/mods anyway, and steam only makes that harder by sometimes/usually introducing compatibility issues that may or not be fixed once the modders themselves are long gone.

Need to store games locally? No big deal? Hard Drive space is so huge that I can't see anyone having problems with this.

Can lose games? How? Torrents never go dead except for the oldest of old and unpopular games, which steam isn't carrying anyway. How about the potential doomsday when it turns out gabe newell killed a hooker and Valve gets sold off the EA/Activision? Online services are never 100% reliable, and when they fail they fail hard and for everyone at the same time. Torrents are naturally resilient.

 

[Infinitron]

Torrents are naturally resilient.

Until some evil SOPA law of some kind kills them off, anyway.

I repeat:

If those benefits aren't worth 5 bucks to you, that's okay, but don't deny that they exist.

In any case, the main benefit of Steam is that it popularized digital distribution. The Kickstarter revolution would not be possible without massive-scale, reliable digital distribution.

 

[baturinsky]

If game developes still gave out "feelies" (sounds perverted lol) and had quality manuals, the case for physical copies might be stronger. Course, I only collect the good stuff

What would be a SS2 feelie? Shodan pillow plush doll?

 

[sea]

Auto-install? Installation for a steam game is clicking it and hitting next a few times. Installation for a normal game is clicking setup, finding the directory to put it in (not being able to categorize steam games in a directory structure pisses me off to no end), then hitting next a few times.

Actually you can now specify multiple Steam directories. Unless you mean storing your games in endless sub-folders such as categorizing by genre, but I think only aspies do that anyway.

 

[Kirtai]

Unless you mean storing your games in endless sub-folders such as categorizing by genre, but I think only aspies do that anyway.

Folders? How quaint. A database with dynamic filters/smartlists/saved searches is the way to go.

Now if there were only a front end for games that did it...

 

[Average Manatee]

Auto-install? Installation for a steam game is clicking it and hitting next a few times. Installation for a normal game is clicking setup, finding the directory to put it in (not being able to categorize steam games in a directory structure pisses me off to no end), then hitting next a few times.

Actually you can now specify multiple Steam directories. Unless you mean storing your games in endless sub-folders such as categorizing by genre, but I think only aspies do that anyway.

Not endless subfolders, but when you have lots of shit you need some kind of organization.

e.g. D:\Looking Glass\(games they made), with a secondary catch-all folder for each game's additional mods/backup files (e.g. System Shock 2 stuff) and additional folders for the various modding tools/editors for the games.

 

[Zewp]

Can lose games? How? Torrents never go dead except for the oldest of old and unpopular games, which steam isn't carrying anyway. How about the potential doomsday when it turns out gabe newell killed a hooker and Valve gets sold off the EA/Activision? Online services are never 100% reliable, and when they fail they fail hard and for everyone at the same time. Torrents are naturally resilient.

Actually, I sometimes choose to buy something through Steam rather than torrents because Steam is much more reliable. If I leave a game downloading overnight on Steam I can rest assured it will be done when I wake up. With torrents and their wildly fluctuating seeds I often have to wait much longer because there are so many factors influencing the speed at which I can pull the files.

Also, torrents are naturally more resilient? Okay. Except that in the past I bought games on Steam after getting frustrated with supposedly well-seeded older torrents that run at 10 - 15kb/s for hours/days on end.

For every game I buy on Steam I still end up pirating three others, but I prefer Steam over torrents. The only download service I find that rivals Steam's reliability is news servers, and with those unless you pay a monthly fee for a premium server, most of the free servers only allow you to download nzbs that are under 30 days old. Also, with the recent DMCA takedowns chances are by the time you're halfway done with a download it might be taken down already.

 

[Average Manatee]

Weird, I've usually always gotten 200-300 KB/s for most torrents that have at least 10-15 seeders. Steam and my connection max out at around 350-400 KB/s, so it's basically the same.

Never seen a DMCA takedown. Are you trying to get those day 0 torrents or something? I generally don't pay attention to games until a few weeks have passed and (actual) reviews are in.

 

[Zewp]

DMCA takedowns are for NZBs. Don't think they really happen for torrents because the files being hosted come directly from client PCs. My ISP shapes my P2P traffic between 8am and 5pm, so I tend to use news servers during the day because they don't get shaped at all. I don't really know how they work, but it seems to be a much easier way to get things than torrents. As an example, I downloaded Metro LL the day it released, whereas with a torrent I would likely have waited a few days.

 

[Average Manatee]

Any game that I can't help but need to play on release day is a game that I would buy before pirating anyway.

 

[Jack]

Can lose games? How? Torrents never go dead except for the oldest of old and unpopular games, which steam isn't carrying anyway. How about the potential doomsday when it turns out gabe newell killed a hooker and Valve gets sold off the EA/Activision? Online services are never 100% reliable, and when they fail they fail hard and for everyone at the same time. Torrents are naturally resilient.

Actually, I sometimes choose to buy something through Steam rather than torrents because Steam is much more reliable. If I leave a game downloading overnight on Steam I can rest assured it will be done when I wake up. With torrents and their wildly fluctuating seeds I often have to wait much longer because there are so many factors influencing the speed at which I can pull the files.

Also, torrents are naturally more resilient? Okay. Except that in the past I bought games on Steam after getting frustrated with supposedly well-seeded older torrents that run at 10 - 15kb/s for hours/days on end.

For every game I buy on Steam I still end up pirating three others, but I prefer Steam over torrents. The only download service I find that rivals Steam's reliability is news servers, and with those unless you pay a monthly fee for a premium server, most of the free servers only allow you to download nzbs that are under 30 days old. Also, with the recent DMCA takedowns chances are by the time you're halfway done with a download it might be taken down already.

Private trackers, bro.

 

[Psquit]

20 years old games should be freeware.

 

[evdk]

Don't count on it, friend.