Bloodlines now $9.95 on Steam

[Deleted member 7219]

Perhaps our resident Bloodlines expert Wesp5 knows if the Steam Bloodlines is compatible with his patches?

I already have a nice boxed copy of Bloodlines but $9.95, that's about £5.00, that's an extremely good price for one of the best RPGs of the past few years.

 

[Wesp5]

Perhaps our resident Bloodlines expert Wesp5 knows if the Steam Bloodlines is compatible with his patches?

As far as I know my patches are compatible to the Steam version.

 

[aweigh]

Steam versions are always the same as retail versions. We're not talking about Direct2Drive here, folks. This is Steam.

 

[Nalanod]

Not to derail, but...

Can anyone tell about this Steam service? I am a bit leery of the whole thing, but they have X-COM 2 and some other stuff I wouldn't mind playing (already own Vampire: Bloodlines).

Call me a skeptical, bitter, cynic, but I don't really need a service to play games. I like those old days when the game came in a box and that was all you needed. I don't want to constantly be downloading updates and whatever else Steam deems necessary just to play.

Thoughts? Am I wrong?

 

[Cassidy]

Troika is definitively gone, so now is too late to support them buying their games, Valve sucks(Most of their recent games at least) and Steam began as a crappy system full of bugs and even managed to ate genuine CD-Keys in its early days. Therefore, why not fuck off Valve and its Steam?

 

[NiM82]

That's a bit short sighted.

In buying it, your helping to show 'the suits' that there is a viable market of paying punters for cRPG's of a similar nature. It won't help Troika, but it may help preserve the genre as we like it to some extent. In pirating good games your simply contributing to the general demise/dumb fucking that's been going on, by validating 'the suits' assumption that no one buys dialogue heavy games any more.

Steam is fine in my experience, the Valve games (and a few select others) have annoying DRM, but most older 3rd party games don't. They just download and run independently of Steam, you can back them up and do whatever you want with them. For older games there are no patches or updates, they simply come with whatever the last patch was. You can also re-download it as many times as you like, should you lose the data.

 

[MLMarkland]

Bloodlines @ 9.95 is too good a deal to pass up if you've never played it that's for sure, just generally speaking.

As for Steam, I think it's a pretty damn good system and I think Valve produces quality games (if you like those sorts of games).

I've bought a ton of stuff off of there and been only happy with it so far. I'm sure there are folks that have had problems though as well.

I'd rather give my money directly to game developers and/or publishers than filter it through Wal Mart or Best Buy (I despise Best Buy) or some other chain store that has nothing to do with games.

Alternative distribution channels like Steam help keep the power and control at a lower level, so as a general rule, supporting them helps keep the mass market effect at bay.

 

[aweigh]

In answer to the guy asking about Steam: it is the best online games distribution service available, with cheap pricing and excellent service/servers. Anything you buy there is yours forever to download and re-download at your leisure. There are no gimmicky limits or code-castration like what D2D does with its games. It's also leaps and bounds better than GameTap.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Not to derail, but...

Can anyone tell about this Steam service? I am a bit leery of the whole thing, but they have X-COM 2 and some other stuff I wouldn't mind playing (already own Vampire: Bloodlines).

Call me a skeptical, bitter, cynic, but I don't really need a service to play games. I like those old days when the game came in a box and that was all you needed. I don't want to constantly be downloading updates and whatever else Steam deems necessary just to play.

Thoughts? Am I wrong?

Games through Steam may not come with a box and paper manual but for some thats a good thing. Those like myself with limited storage place and who are fed up with fishing through boxes for CDs to put in the drive will find Steam much more suited to their needs. There's no installation either, you just download and play, the games are automatically extracted as they are downloaded. There's no online activation needed everytime you play, only when you first buy at which point you are connected to the internet anyway. You can uninstall and re-install as many times as you like.

On to the last point, you aren't constantly downloading updates, many are too small to be noticed. And Steam itself takes up a tiny amount of memory.

Troika is definitively gone, so now is too late to support them buying their games, Valve sucks(Most of their recent games at least) and Steam began as a crappy system full of bugs and even managed to ate genuine CD-Keys in its early days. Therefore, why not fuck off Valve and its Steam?

1. Bloodlines is not vapor-ware, it is still illegal to pirate it.

2. Buying Bloodlines will help sales statistics and will encourage more Source Engine RPGs and RPGs set in the White Wolf universe.

3. Many would disagree. Just because Valve doesn't make RPGs doesn't mean it 'sucks'. And I actually think its two most recent games, Portal and Episode Two, are fantastic, I had tremendous fun playing them. Episode Two in particular is story and character-driven which I love in games.

4. Steam might have been chaotic in its earliest days but it has been stabilised and updated out of all recognition since then. It offers a lot of great games and great service (you can download as many times as you like, because of course once you buy something it should be yours for life). You shouldn't judge what the platform was like back then to what it is now.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Steam is far from perfect, but a the pros outway the cons in my experience. Yeah, you don't get the box goodies (which now adays is pretty much down to just a box), but it general it WORKS and is EASY to use. Buy a game, its included on your "Games" tab where you can keep track of what you have and haven't got installed, and play it straight from there.

I pretty sure it isn't required you actually buy a game to try out the Steam client. You can get an account and check out free demos and what not and come to your own conclusions regarding Steam.

Oh, and pirating is bad.

 

[cardtrick]

will encourage more Source Engine RPGs

Oh, please, God. Why can't developers see that the Source Engine is perfect for mainstream-ish RPGs that require some eye candy? The facial animations are just . . . so . . . good, and the engine is beautifully optimized and runs great on any semi-modern PC.

 

[Cassidy]

MOTB is an exception to the rule. I don't believe we'll ever manage to change the corporate mindset of any mainstream company on CRPGs and the downfall of Troika and utter success of Oblivion are enough points for them to claim that "Dialogue heavy games are commercial failures" even though PS:T 500,000 sales(I'm optimistic) isn't bad for a dialogue heavy non-mainstream game. However, a few hardcore RPGers from Codex buying such games won't help much and the much more common console masses won't stop buying crappy games in a much higher proportion to incentive them to continue developing those, so it's basically a lost cause in the mainstream.

I still have my hopes high on the indy developers of CRPGs, and I'm waiting for Age of Decadence eagerly.

Oh, and pirating is bad.

When you are stubborn enough to ignore the points posted in Codex and give a try on Oblivion to uninstall it 15 minutes later, it definitively isn't. Same about companies that don't release demos of their games and as reviews are usually hypefests, only games that are mentioned with praise here might be really worthy their price. If Troika was still alive, I wouldn't have suggested it. Plus, MAFIAA <s>vampires</s> lawyers are getting more ruthless about it and $9.95 is a good price and viruses and trojans may be found in such stuff, to the point getting it for free can become much costlier if whoever does it isn't careful.

it is still illegal to pirate it.

On the other hand, doing Fallout franchise or profiting from the intellectual properties of dead men or from dying people aren't. Law and Justice sometimes diverge, specially when it involves money and it is always influenced by the perceptions of society and its economic nature. I always prefer finding an open-source/freeware alternative to pirating a game when I don't or can't spend some money on it, but Open-source gaming unfortunately is still an underdeveloped activity and besides Prelude to Darkness It's hard to find good CRPGs that aren't JRPG clones..

I just got a big gripe with steam as a bug ditched my Steam Account when I was a multiplayer gamer and then I sent a mail to the technical support and never was answered back, blocking me from playing most multiplayer HL mods that required Steam for updates. At least there was some nice singleplayer stuff to keep me entertained for a while.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I love how it's under the action section, whereas games like The Shit, BioShit, Shitterfall, Shit Shitpire, Titanic Shit, and S.H.I.T.T.E.R. are considered RPGs. Way to go Valve! Now all you have to do is make an okay FPS that totally rips off Marathon and have it praised as the first coming then making a tech-demo sequel that is praised as the second coming....oh wait...

 

[Rohit_N]

So Valve can't tell the difference between an RPG and Action game. Big deal.

 

[Zinc]

The Shit, BioShit, Shitterfall, Shit Shitpire, Titanic Shit, and S.H.I.T.T.E.R.

 

[Wesp5]

In answer to the guy asking about Steam: it is the best online games distribution service available, with cheap pricing and excellent service/servers. Anything you buy there is yours forever to download and re-download at your leisure.

This is not true for Valve games at least. Just recently Valve deactivated imported versions thus taking games away from people that legally bought them. Or they plan to do this. Also in case of Valve's server breakdown or Valve closing down altogether you'll probably end up with games you won't be able to install and play ever again. Luckily this is not valid for Bloodlines, but just imagine Troika had taken that approach to their games...

There are no gimmicky limits or code-castration like what D2D does with its games. It's also leaps and bounds better than GameTap.

I don't know about GameTap and other games but the D2D Bloodlines version seems to be completely normal and working with my patches!

 

[WalterKinde]

Yeah i was unaware how secretly invasive steam was when i purchased HL2 way back when.
Being unable to play the game offline unless steam was connected to the net was a bit jarring.
Which was the reason why i purchased the physical product and not the steam version back then i didn't want to have the game phoning home all the tmie and i thought a dvd copy would stop that.
How wrong i was
Not to mention even when i tried blocking the steam ads with my firewall the game would not function everytime the game did an update or connected to steam there was always an add popping up.
Finally in disgust i downloaded the special HL2 non steam version and played that.
Haven't looked back since.
Maybe by now steam has changed but i doubt it.
Especially after reading about the forced deactivations, account suspensions with people buying games from another region to play early, can you believe that crap?
Now video games that have to be activated via steam are being treated like movie dvds.
As for VTMB, i have my physical copy and if you look around you can still find it for sale but i guess 9.95 is a good deal but the steam platform is not something i would inflict on myself or anyone.

 

[Kingston]

Steam is pretty nifty should your computer blow up. You just install steam again and all the games can be downloaded right away.

 

[aweigh]

This is not true for Valve games at least. Just recently Valve deactivated imported versions thus taking games away from people that legally bought them. Or they plan to do this.

This isn't Valve's fault, the problem lies with the vendors. It sucks for the consumer, but there's no point in blaming Valve for it.

Also in case of Valve's server breakdown or Valve closing down altogether you'll probably end up with games you won't be able to install and play ever again.

Obvious.

I don't know about GameTap and other games but the D2D Bloodlines version seems to be completely normal and working with my patches!

Some D2D games require specific versions of the game patches. I remember shaking my head whenever I saw a new thread pop up in a games forum about someone not being able to patch to the latest version of their game because D2D still hadn't released a compatible version of the patch. Not being able to use the developer's official patches is a deal-breaker for me.

Also, I don't know if D2D still does this but they use an activation system for the game installs which is similar to the crap fouund on Bioshock. Again, another deal-breaker.

 

[WalterKinde]

I say blame vlave :D
Since when are PC games region protected?
Heck i purchased the Euro Version of Sacred and its addon from a legit online store.
just imagine if it was a steam product then i would be out of one game and its expansion
From what i have read on this.
Its not only the orange box thats affected but folks who bought imported versions of older steam games, hard copies of course that need to be verified/activated with steam.
When valve decided to cut off access for the Orange box games they also removed folks who had bought HL2 from overseas vendors as well.
Legally purchased games that worked for years.
Not as if they went to the pirate markets of Asia and purchased a copy where the cd key was fake or a duplicate.

 

[Black]

10 bucks for Vamp? Kinda... too cheap.

 

[RuySan]

i bought a physical version for about 8 euros about 6 months after the game was released on ebay. I'm still not sold concerning this downloading business model

 

[Jasede]

I never understood the business model anyway.

How do you pay the guys you buy games from over the internet? Do you send them stamps? Or do they give you their bank account and you transfer money from you bank?

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Have you heard of those fancy little things called "credit cards"? They've been around for quite a while.

 

[Jasede]

Credit cards? Only rich people have those in Germany. I am not rich and so aren't most people. Why make a business model you have to use credit cards for? You only get those when you're rich already...

God do I hate credit cards. In Germany, everyone I know hates it when people insist on paying with them - it's always the same sort of people who uses them: rich, fat people. When they use them in a grocery store, everyone is annoyed because real money is much faster.

Besides, the concept of storing my money on a card scares me.