Empire Steam FAQ

[Roman Knight]

Steam's a far better alternative to crap like DRM & SecuRom. That, and if it works for multiplayer, then i'll be damn glad it's on Steam.

Sorry to be picky, but Steam is DRM. DRM is digital rights management, and SecuRom is a form of DRM, as is Steam. The problem with the creation of DRM is generally finding the balance between invasiveness and ineffectiveness.

[mrmouth]

Steam's a far better alternative to crap like DRM & SecuRom. That, and if it works for multiplayer, then i'll be damn glad it's on Steam.

Really? The others are passive. Steam is not. Its something installed on my PC, that I don't want, and certainly don't need.

Not to mention, its not safe. I had my account stolen, and lost nearly $100 in games. Its fairly common. And Steam CS is no help. Now I hear they have gotten better, but its still far from perfect.

So you talk about invasive, and this is as bad as it gets. All one person has to do is complain about you activity, warranted or not, and you account can be frozen, or canceled. So some kid you beat badly on some game, can report your account, and you screwed.

There are actual fool proof ways to combat piracy. At least two games released this year still have not been cracked. It has to do with a very innovative system of checks and balances on the DVD itself, that cannot be tampered with. So anyone who does install a pirated version, ends up with a unplayable game.

[Maizel]

[fieldset]

Q: What if Valve decides to shut Steam down?

A: Steam is a complete cash-cow, there's no reason why it should be closed down. Also, Valve has promised (as it has been said many many many many times before) that they'll release a patch that disables Steam from all games if they ever want to close the service down.

I'm still wondering though,

They might release a patch that disables steam for most games, but frommost of the games I have on Steam, I don't even have a physical copy, because I bought the games on steam, not just activating a reatil copy.


What will happen to the digital availability of the games when they decide to shut Steam down?

They'll just release a patch for all games that require Steam to run, and which you happen to have a physical copy of? Will you lose all of your digitally bought games?

[Cougman21]

I heard that files could get corrupted or become missing after dowloading games off of steam. Is this true? If so, is it very rare?

Obviously if it does happen, i'd probably go with retail instead of steam.

[Gonzo89]

I heard that files could get corrupted or become missing after dowloading games off of steam. Is this true? If so, is it very rare?

Obviously if it does happen, i'd probably go with retail instead of steam.

Very, very rare. Retail is best if you dont want to download again for any reason.

[R4nd0M]

I'm still wondering though,

They might release a patch that disables steam for most games, but frommost of the games I have on Steam, I don't even have a physical copy, because I bought the games on steam, not just activating a reatil copy.


What will happen to the digital availability of the games when they decide to shut Steam down?

They'll just release a patch for all games that require Steam to run, and which you happen to have a physical copy of? Will you lose all of your digitally bought games?

For one thing if Valve closes shop and Steam disintegrates then there won't be any more digital availability of games. I suppose in that situation you should be have all of your games on your hard drive, and either use Steam's own backup tool (but this may be depreciated in the face of the fact Steam doesn't exactly work without parent servers), a new backup tool they provide, or just RARing the game files and spanning them over DVDs.

[Running With Scissors]

I'm still wondering though,

They might release a patch that disables steam for most games, but frommost of the games I have on Steam, I don't even have a physical copy, because I bought the games on steam, not just activating a reatil copy.


What will happen to the digital availability of the games when they decide to shut Steam down?

They'll just release a patch for all games that require Steam to run, and which you happen to have a physical copy of? Will you lose all of your digitally bought games?

In the very unlikely event of steam shutting down there would be notification and plenty of time for customers (you and me) to backup our local content of the game using steams own backup process. In the steam "My Games" area right click on a game and select "backup game files..." then select one or more games to backup. The backup files can then be burnt to DVD and later reinstalled if your local content of that game becomes unusable. This also saves on re-downloading the game. I much prefer having my games steam registered as my discs always end up scratched and unusable eventually. (I've brought MTW2 twice now due to the disc having an unreadable file on it). The option of knowing that my games will always be there for me and I don't need to make sure I have the first disc with me to play a game far over rides against the misguided fear of what is this programme doing on my rig.
I've been using steam for years and now use steam friends more than msn.

Give steam a go and I think the bad taste of previous DRM software will be forgotten about.

[jimkatalanos]

This is a FAQ, not a discussion about Steam.

[Cooler King]

Steam annoys me, but its the lesser of all evils (when it comes to playing PC games online)

[Lebowski]

"Not to mention, its not safe. I had my account stolen, and lost nearly $100 in games. Its fairly common. And Steam CS is no help. Now I hear they have gotten better, but its still far from perfect."

You email Valve and they will get it back to you within a day or so. You are the one who messed up and allowed someone to get your password.

"So you talk about invasive, and this is as bad as it gets. All one person has to do is complain about you activity, warranted or not, and you account can be frozen, or canceled. So some kid you beat badly on some game, can report your account, and you screwed."

This is wrong, this isn't paypal. You need proof as in video evidence.

Steam does nothing but better this game, the friends function will help online battles so much. All you do is shift+tab right click on friends name then invite.

The fact you can download the game again if you lose the discs, the fact you don't need the disc at all.

I really do support CA's move with going with steam. Those who complain about how it uses resources really need to upgrade their 1998 PC's.

[TOLAROscipii]

lebowski
you are the most rude disrespectful person i have seen online today

my experience with steam and empire is horrible
the game takes for ever to load and i know its steam and not the demo

steam is a disgrace and an insult to gamers

[mrmouth]

You email Valve and they will get it back to you within a day or so. You are the one who messed up and allowed someone to get your password.

This was around 3 years ago. Steam CS was non existent in regards to stolen accounts. Aside from that, my account was hacked, nobody stole my password. They hacked a sizable number of accounts, and changed the passwords.

This is wrong, this isn't paypal. You need proof as in video evidence.

No you don't. Look at the disabled Steam accounts FAQ.

Those who complain about how it uses resources really need to upgrade their 1998 PC's.

Its not a matter of old PC's. Its a matter of a bloated program eating up resources. Steam runs a few utilities in the background that people don't know of. Now if you read the fine print, those utilities gather information about your habits. That's how they develop games. So its essentially spyware.

Look, if you want Steam on your PC, fine. You have the choice to install it. Key word is choice. CA isn't giving us the choice. I don't play games online with other people, so I don't want Steam on my PC. And I am certainly not a fan of direct download.

While Valve certainly spends the money on security and expensive servers, its still not outside the realm of possibility that they crash, and lose info. In fact, its only a matter of time.

As far as piracy, the proof is in the pudding. Every game on Steam, or a Steam activated game, has been cracked. The scene is already talking about a release of this game. So whether it happens a day after the official release, or a week, it will happen.

When it does, I might buy the game, and then use the crack to bypass Steam. That is, if the game is in good shape out of the box. After M2, I wont take it for granted.

[Lebowski]

"the game takes for ever to load and i know its steam and not the demo"

Its either your computer or the game. I'm not being rude, nor does anyone making false claims against steam deserve my respect.

I have a lot of experience with steam and have used it since 2004. Steam is not the cause for the loading times.

[Valkraye]

I dont have issues with Steam itself, but i have issues with CA using Steam for game registration.

With previous Total War's, me and my brother could install them on both the family computer and his computer, we didnt crack it or anything, we just had to share (not that that was easy )

But now with steam and its registration system, even if he didnt want to play it online, we BOTH have to copies because, as far as i have read, there is no dual/multiple install system.

Thats an extra AUD$90 plus for a game only one of us is going to play online at all.

If someone could show me proof of being able to use one copy on two computers it would be much appreciated.

[HordeOfDoom]

If someone could show me proof of being able to use one copy on two computers it would be much appreciated.

Although I haven't tried it myself, theoretically you should be able to download/install it on multiple computers, and play on them (but not at the same time), as with all Steam games. In fact, that's one of Steam's best features, the ability to download games from computer to computer -- they're tied to your account. You should also be able to set Steam to 'Offline Mode' on one computer, and both play at the same time.

[TOLAROscipii]

i am sure somewhere in the license agreement it says you can install it an unlimited amount of times on any computer


and i do not make false claims
steam is an insult
case closed

[Wartz]

You should be able to use 1 copy on several+ computers at the same time... but only in singleplayer or LAN multiplayer (all the PCs must be on the same network). It's been that way for every Steam game I've ever had.

[Valkraye]

Wow, looks i may have just slightly jumped the gun on this steam issue. But thanks for sorting that out, makes things simpler.

And just to clarify things a tad more, ill assume each copy can only be registered onto one steam account, meaning we will have to share steam accounts?

You should be able to use 1 copy on several+ computers at the same time... but only in singleplayer or LAN multiplayer

So if we have it on more than one comp, no multiplayer online at all or just one at a time?

Please, excuse my ignorance but I know you can't completely miss it

[Marcus Caelius]

I get this message when i try:

Sorry!

An error was encountered while processing your request:

This item is currently unavailable in your region

Here's a link to the home page.

My region is Japan - do you know if this is likely to be a specific user-related error, or when the demo will be available here?

[Raiden]

I'm not sure if anyone have successfully done this, however, I wondered if any of you might know how I'd go about running ETW (Just the demo for now) outside steam.
My problem is that when I try to run a game from steam, I get the small launcher dialogue/box and then I get a BSOD with a "*** STOP: 0x0000000F4" error. I googled it and tried some solutions but I haven't managed to fix it as of yet.
So I figure I'd run the ETW demo outside steam until I fix it. I've done the same with Red Orchestra, Mare Nostrum and Darkest Hour so I take it, it shouldn't be a problem, simply click the exe and you're good to go. But as you probably know, if you try to start it, it will just pop up with the steam login screen. I've tried looking through the different dll files and the ETW exe file itself in hopes of finding the string that makes it go through steam but to no avail.

So, if any of you had an idea of what to do to make it run outside steam, I'd appreciate it very much - I've been dying to play the demo for about 24 hours now and I'm slowly starting to loose my sanity
Thanks in advance.