Regarding Steam & DRM-Free

lol EA don't own em I doubt it.

 

The next poll-like post should be:

When do you wnat the Beta to come out?

1- Next week
2- Tomorrow
3- By the time we reach 10k replies

*Foruns crash*

 

Steam lets you decide where to instull stuff nowadays. You can have everything installed where you like.

But that is beside the point. I understand people who do not want to use steam (for wahtever reason) dont want to use steam (because they dont) Looking from the developers perspective (as stated by molly) steam is the quickest way to get the update out to everyone.
As we all would like the game, isnt the best way that everyone can enjoy the game the way where they update the Steam version more often than the non steam version. But both come out at the same time initially. SO yes the Non steam people will have a disadvantage, BUT it is less hassle for the devs so more time can actually be spent on fixing bug! So in the long run this would benifit everyone most!

 

Seriously? This is a very cheap excuse to use and not the way it is understood normally.

 

I'd choose option number 3! 2 seconds.

 

How about UPlay only?

 

Well, the best option to me, is the last option. In view of the situation, it is better to have steam key but keep the game with game updates off steam. Thus they can have the version without steam, with constant updates and sways, while the Steam version, which is updated every two weeks, but yet balanced, with large packages of updates.

 

Either I misunderstood your statement mate or I think you are understanding the 3rd point incorrectly. Option 3 would present a Steam version of the beta right from the start, which would allow the constant updates the devs are expecting for that phase, and later on, probably during phase 2 onwards from my understanding, they would provide a DRM-free version, since by then it wouldn't require such frequent updates and hence wouldn't be such an extra amount of work for the devs and consequently delay the development even further..

 

I would prefer to see Option 3. Though there are sure to be many dedicated, and high quality, testers who do not use Steam, it seems like enough of the community will be in for Steam side to get at least to stage 2. Once sufficient stability (as defined by the programmers, not by the player base) is brought into the game, maybe then get it open to non-Steam. Much love, and always respect, to all Starbounders. Let's do this!

 

Thanks, nice to know and makes my 'statement' irrelevant.
and it also shows how often I use steam .

 

I'm not sure what kind of build system y'all are using, but Cataclysm - Dark Days Ahead (Open source, zombie survival roguelike that's eating my cycles until Starbound exists) allows folks to access the binaries put out by the build system.
They simply allow a link to the most recent, successful build for people to download.
If y'all are doing proper nightly/integration/release testing and building, this might not be a hard way to get the DRM free version out to people.

Of course, I may be completely missing the boat, as you may not be able to lock down something like that well enough, or the sheer size of this community might shut down your build server's bandwidth (<--- most likely).
Just a thought from a concerned software engineer.

Also, Option 3. Y'all need to spend as little time on the minutia that makes every developer sad (namely getting 6 builds a day tested, verified, polished, and out to this wonderful community) and spend your time doing what makes you (and us) happy: building a glorious game.

As always, good luck, God speed, and congrats on $2.0M in backing before the game even exists!!!

 

Choice three seems good to me in my opinion.

 

Option 2 or 3.

 

ill vote for the 3rd way.
It may takes a bit more time but better than fast and bad.

Sherm0!

 

> 2) Provide a Steam key and DRM-free direct download from the start, but update the DRM-free version less frequently. This could work, but the DRM-free version of the game would be incompatible with the Steam version most of the time, which isn’t so great.

I'd vote option #2. I personally use Steam but can understand while others do not. I think that the non-Steam users should be able to understand that it is much simpler to do the Beta updates through Steam and at least they will be getting some Beta releases.

 

my vote is #3

 

I get the whole 'don't like DRM' thing with steam, But this isn't EA we're dealing with; It's Valve. They aren't going to mess around with your computer like EA would.
As for "can't run it", That's generally nonsense unless you haven't purchased a/upgraded your computer in the last 5 years.
And if it's 'but i don't like always online'. Unless you're in a poverty area, In which case not having internet is the least of your problems.
Or if it's 'I want anywhere access', Install steam to a large flash drive with starbound installed to it; Bam. Starbound everywhere.

No I'm not saying steam is the be all and end all, I'm just failing to find any rational explanation why steam is so bad/can't use it except for maybe being incapable of running it, But that's an easy $35~ fix with a trip to a computer store to buy some ram.

 

I think that #3 is the best as steam will advertise the game and piracy will not come into much effect until the DRM-free version.

 

Don't forget, Steam has an offline mode after you logged in once on the computer.

 

Indeed.
5 years ago this offline mode was kind of messed up, but now it works pretty good, apart from the steam-cloud synchronization thing (which you can disable, so no problem).