Hmm. I may have just figured out why Dawn of War 2 plunged in price so rapidly... kinda the same way why Age of Conan is now selling at Tec-Drome for $29.90, perhaps.
I put in my DVD to install it, ran setup.exe.
First thing that popped up onto my screen was a little memo detailing the entire 7-step process of installation.
1) This installation will install some third-party components
2) This installation will install Steam (you will need a Steam account)
3) ...
Blah blah blah.
Kudos for informing me BEFORE the installation started and detailing exactly what was involved. Minus marks for this not being clear on the box on the onset. I did note before purchase a sentence in red that said "Internet Connection Required" but I had assumed this just meant connecting to some server and verifying the activation code.
After some squinting, I note some fine print disclaimers about a Games for Windows - LIVE system requirements and a "You must activate this product via the Internet by registering for a Steam account and accepting the SSA."
No wonder there is DRM drama burninating up the intarwebs.
On my part, since I am a Steam sellout, I admit to being quite calm about the sudden unexpected news that I must activate my code via Steam.
I generally trust Steam, though I hope I never have to contact their customer service as I hear it sucks very badly. This does remind me that I need to make some backups of my Steam folder really soon, however.
One thing that I'm NOT happy with the Steam installation is the retarded assumption of Steam that everything must be installed in the same drive as Steam is on. My C: drive is pushing 15 gigs after I did some heavy deletion... meanwhile, my D: drive is twiddling its thumbs with 334 gigs with only a few singleplayer games and ATITD installed.
(I need to take a tip from the forums and make a copy of Steam in my other drive. Apparently it'll work. Maybe.)
The other thing that I find extremely ridiculous is the necessity for a SECOND registration at Games for Windows LIVE. Apparently because GFWL offers matchmaking capabilities that Steam doesn't.
So apparently now I need a SECOND GFWL account in order for me to play DoW 2?
W. T. F.
Of course, because I am a corporate sellout and a popular games bandwagon whore, I did already play two games that used a GFWL account, so if I can -remember- the damn account name, it should go relatively smoothly too.
As much as I detest the name Securom and all the bad karma of its history, I did also bow down under its yoke for certain games like Bioshock, (and perhaps Spore eventually as well,) and no doubt I have some other game that sneakily installed it without my knowledge under the radar...
...and though I haven't seriously played a non-Steam FPS in ages, since Call of Duty 4, I am aware that I have Punkbuster services active and alive and sucking up a couple Ks of memory every single time I start up my computer because I'm too lazy to uninstall it, and then be forced to reinstall it the moment I decide I want to play an FPS that DEMANDS it.
Disgusting.
And I'm not sure if I'm referring to the corporations, the world, or myself.
1 comment:
As a little sequel, the Games for Windows Live integration went smoothly enough. I am still using my old offline profile - which means I link up with absolutely nobody online, and thus get absolutely 0 Achievements in any of my three games.
Does anyone else think these Achievement systems are overrated? And possibly immersion-breaking?
(See recent Escapist issue on Achievements. Perhaps more in a future post.)
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