NCsoft offering games on Steam
By
Carnifax,
Posted on: 2009-04-22 13:07 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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And still they charge retail prices.
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Oh the sheer CHEEK of a retailer daring to charge the full retail price for a product! It shouldn't be allowed, you know! I demand that they instantly sell everything they have for a fair price that doesn't exceed 1p! 
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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And still they charge retail prices.
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Oh the sheer CHEEK of a retailer daring to charge the full retail price for a product! It shouldn't be allowed, you know! I demand that they instantly sell everything they have for a fair price that doesn't exceed 1p!
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I think you missed the point. I believe the issue was that a high-street retailer (for example) will sell you a box with a hard copy of the game and manuals and goodness knows what other stuff with it while, from a consumers point of view about all you get from steam is a code but for the same price.
This is not to say that I agree or disagree with the point personally.
*stays on comfortable fence*
I used to be of that opinion, until I actually used Steam a few times. Sure, you could argue that digital delivery should be cheaper as there's no DVD printing costs, or packaging costs etc, but the distribution servers have to be paid for, and so does the bandwidth to delivery that content to you. It all adds up and could easily match the costs for physical distribution.
Just look upon it as a bit more environmentally friendly. 
Plus, you also get to reach customers in countries where your game might never have been released before.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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And still they charge retail prices.
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Oh the sheer CHEEK of a retailer daring to charge the full retail price for a product! It shouldn't be allowed, you know! I demand that they instantly sell everything they have for a fair price that doesn't exceed 1p!
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I think you missed the point. I believe the issue was that a high-street retailer (for example) will sell you a box with a hard copy of the game and manuals and goodness knows what other stuff with it while, from a consumers point of view about all you get from steam is a code but for the same price.
This is not to say that I agree or disagree with the point personally.
*stays on comfortable fence*
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Personally I find the boxed versions, with their fragile, scratchable DVDs and stupid losable Manuals with the Product Key on them to be more annoying than just logging onto Steam and saying "I want that. Come to me" and just letting it automatically download and install for me.
Plus it saves me walking. 
I'm a self-confessed Steam junkie though.
I think the Steam versions tend to come without horrible DRM rootkits and the like too in many cases which is also a plus (Steam is DRM too of course, but not intrusive / What-the-hell-are-you-doing-on-my-system DRM).
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Personally I find the boxed versions, with their fragile, scratchable DVDs and stupid losable Manuals with the Product Key on them to be more annoying than just logging onto Steam and saying "I want that. Come to me" and just letting it automatically download and install for me.
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That says more about how you store your retail boxes then how 'convinent' this is for the consumer. Steam isnt anything more then the current cohupdater does, except u need to have steam running. Added that it doesnt add any value to already subscribed people.
If, for once, they would release another CE edition (if there ever was one) of CoH, i could at least complete my collection.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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Personally I find the boxed versions, with their fragile, scratchable DVDs and stupid losable Manuals with the Product Key on them to be more annoying than just logging onto Steam and saying "I want that. Come to me" and just letting it automatically download and install for me.
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That says more about how you store your retail boxes then how 'convinent' this is for the consumer.
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In general for most games to me as a consumer it's miles more convinient to be able to download the games and play them without worrying about having the correct DVD in or if I'm reinstalling worrying about a Max Number of Installations or where I left the Product Key.
I agree with you in CoXs case though. In the case of CoX the benefit is simply the attention and advertising it brings to an interested audience via the Steam platform since CoH does update itself anyway and doesn't need the Product Key to hand to reinstall or the DVD in to run.
Found this nice post on the US boards explaining how to register your current version of CoH with Steam.
It also gives you the Steam Overlay which means you can chat to people, they'll see what game you're playing and it's got Voice Chat.
Us Board post detailing how to set it up
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Us Board post detailing how to set it up
[/ QUOTE ]And if you want to create a shortcut that bypasses the updater (You'll still need to access the updater when you want to patch the game), you need to follow those instructions, then go to Steam My Games list, right click CoH, choose Properties and change the Target field to:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> "C:\Program Files\City Of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe" -project "EuCoH" </pre><hr /> Assuming CoH is installed at C:\Program Files\City Of Heroes\, otherwise change it accordingly.
Steam is absolutely great. I can install it and download all of my Half-Lifes, Team Fortress 2, all the iD games, pretty much every game I play APART from CoH, without any hassle. Everything will be installed, verified, defragmented, and updated without any intervention from me. It's absolutely brilliant. With boxed games, if I lose the key, or if a CD gets damaged (very possible on multi-disk games like KotOR), I have to pirate it if I want to play the game I paid for. With Steam, I can download it an infinite number of times on as many computers I want. If I want to put my games on a CD or DVD, I can do that, using the built-in backup tool. As for manuals, they become useless whenever the first large patch, content update, or expansion gets released. This is especially true for Valve's own games, and for City of Heroes itself.
As for the digital distribution sales model, it does yield much higher revenue for Valve than selling their games through regular channels. Bandwidth costs money, but this is irrelevant next to how much game developers are nickel-and-dimed by the bricks and mortar sales channel.
First, the developer makes their gold version of the game. Then they have to sell it to a publisher who will be willing to manufacture and advertise it. This publisher will take the lion's share of the money. They will then sell boxed copies of the game to the actual stores where you buy them from, and THEY will take their cut. At the end of the day, a developer will be lucky to see £5 of the £35 that you paid in.
Then we go to digital distribution, the biggest one-finger salute to publishers and retail stores in the history of the games industry. You pay the developer directly, and they pay for the bandwidth. £20 for several gigabytes worth of data, to the developers, is printing money. And without The Suits meddling in the game to make it more saleable, developers can make whatever they want, without any deadlines but their own.
Now. What will Steam mean for us existing CoH players? Not a whole lot. Steam is great, I already have it running in the background all the time, but it's still running the regular updater and whatnot that we already use. It will give NC a sales peak and mean more players on our servers, but that's about it. I'm all for any change that means a bigger playerbase.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
So, possibly a stupid question, but I'm presuming you still require an NCSoft master account and get provided activation keys from Steam that you apply to said account.
Basically what I'm getting at is that buying the Architect Edition is better value for money (1 month play plus booster pack of choice) than buying the booster pack standalone, but as NCSoft have so far not offered the Architect Edition as a digital edition on the EU NCSoft store Steam appears to be the only game in town for this route at the moment.
Can anybody confirm that purchasing through Steam would behave as expected (ie much like purchasing from the NCSoft store as far as being provided valid keys to upgrade your CoX account with)?
find me: @Ebon Hawk or @Jayd Dragon on Union
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So, possibly a stupid question, but I'm presuming you still require an NCSoft master account and get provided activation keys from Steam that you apply to said account.
Basically what I'm getting at is that buying the Architect Edition is better value for money (1 month play plus booster pack of choice) than buying the booster pack standalone, but as NCSoft have so far not offered the Architect Edition as a digital edition on the EU NCSoft store Steam appears to be the only game in town for this route at the moment.
Can anybody confirm that purchasing through Steam would behave as expected (ie much like purchasing from the NCSoft store as far as being provided valid keys to upgrade your CoX account with)?
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It's my understanding that you can buy the game via Steam, and use the key you get in the regular NCSoft site to upgrade your existing account. A redname US side posted instructions on how to do just that.
I just don't know if the Steam version available to UK players is the EU edition.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
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I just don't know if the Steam version available to UK players is the EU edition.
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As I posted above:
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It should be the EU version. I know we supplied them an EU installer.
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So if I buy the game off Steam for 15, will I get a code for the 9 booster pack as well as a code that'll grant me 30 days of subscription, even if used on an existing account?
I shall be trying this out later to see if that's exactly what happens.
So Far:
Purchased game on Steam
Selected the download client option and paused it.
Right Click on the City of Heroes listing and then select View Game CD Key.
Write key down.
Go to the extremely slow today Play NC Account Management page.
Add CD key to account? (Key is now processing)
???
Profit?
Annnnd timed out.
Same here, having a hell of a time trying just to get into my NCSoft account to add the code
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
Maybe a whole influx of new players are coming in from Steam and causing everything to slow down? Right?
Still trying to attempt to apply it, but I keep getting page load errors when processing the account key.
Yup
One more thing in the long list of things that stop this game doing so much better!!
honestly, how is anyone supposed to sign up for this game if it takes this bloody long just get to your account page!! I shouldn't have to wait for over 10 minutes just to apply a bloody code, this should be instantaneous!!
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
Maybe it's due to the new store site? Or the fact that Guild Wars players will be using their FREESTORAGE coupon to get a new bank page for free for the 4th Anniversary?
Code processed, applied to main account, had a choice of booster pack, went for Booster 2, now that's processing... and page load error. Going to wait a few minutes to see if I get any e-mails through before resending.
And the e-mail just came through! Time to boot her up and see.
Booster and Code Applied. :>
What's causing it is somewhat irrelavent, I think. For something like this, for the purposes of actually being able to accept peoples money, it's should work smoothly and flawlessly. It's basic common sense for any company, Business 101. Make it easy to for the customers to pay you!
Alongside the fact that they have had issues with accepting certain types of peoples cards through the game shop, difficulty for people to find time cards, etc., this is yet another issue for people not being able to get to play the game and it's stupid, plain and simple.
I know some factors are beyond their controls, the changing os the Maestro cards for instance, but honestly, NCSoft, let us pay you money!!
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
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Booster and Code Applied. :>
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Well, at least we know for definite it works, now I just need to get onto the account to do mine
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
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Booster and Code Applied. :>
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Well, at least we know for definite it works
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/em Jeremy Paxman
Yeeeeessss, because it's hardly conceivable that they'd have an automated payment system reporting things unreliably, is it? 
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Booster and Code Applied. :>
[/ QUOTE ]30 days of extra gametime applied? Just want to make sure before I buy it.
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Booster and Code Applied. :>
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Well, at least we know for definite it works
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/em Jeremy Paxman
Yeeeeessss, because it's hardly conceivable that they'd have an automated payment system reporting things unreliably, is it?
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When I say works, I mean the code applies ok to a EU account, it's not a US only code that Steam gives you.
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
Ok.
It's now been over 90 minutes of trying to do this and due to a crappy response time from the NCSoft account pages, I'm having no luck.
Worst of all, when i finally thought I'd done it, it timed out on me. I tried again, it tells me that the code has already been used, yet there's nothing new in game, no new powers, no new cossie options......so where the hell has the code been used???
And it's taking so long for me to get into the account pages, I can't see if it's been used elsewhere or not!!
Why do I see several days of dealing with the support team to get this fixed coming up......
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
It should be the EU version. I know we supplied them an EU installer.