Civilization V

[Blackadar]

Turn it the way you want, facts are here :

You can’t play Civ V LAN with a single copy. And…

I noticed you failed to address this: When you’re LAN playing Civ 4 with your friend, do you each own a legitimately purchased a copy of the game?

As I said before, presumably you only have one copy since you’re lamenting the fact that you can’t do this in Civ V with Steam. So if you don’t (and that’s not an unreasonable assumption at this point) does Civ 4 allow under the licensing agreement for more than one user to play the game at the same time? In other words, do they allow for a LAN-only install? If they don’t, you’re committing software piracy. I don’t care if you are or aren’t, but those are the real facts.

It just seems to me that a giant double-standard was opened on the board to allow for the tacit approval of software piracy in some instances and not in others.

[SorenJohnson]

There’s no reason to start a piracy thread. The comment stands as perfectly legitimate. Or is there some sort of Qt3 exception to the no advocating piracy rule if it’s just being used for LAN gaming?

Unless the game specifically allows it, then you each need your own copy to play it. While some companies were more supportive in the past, let’s face it - the days of a LAN install are long gone. It’s gone the way of manuals and speech add-on packs. Even in the “good ole days”, it wasn’t always supported. In fact, I don’t remember it being supported in Civ IV. You could get around this by loading up computer 1 with the disk, removing the disk and then loading up computer 2 on local LANs. But if there wasn’t a true LAN install in Civ IV (and I’m truly not sure), then this is software piracy pure and simple. Seems rather cut and dried.

We unofficially supported LAN play with one copy for Civ4. It’s sort of murky waters, which means we didn’t talk to the press (or the suits) about it much, but we thought the ability to do it was a plus for the game’s sales in general. (The simple example is to imagine a friend who comes over and is able to try out a coop mp game of Civ4, gets hooked, and then buys a copy for himself when he goes home.)

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I’m not getting Tom’s argument - are you saying that if I own a copy of Civ V I should be able to play with my son even though he never bought a copy of the game?

[Ben_Sones]

I’m not getting Tom’s argument - are you saying that if I own a copy of Civ V I should be able to play with my son even though he never bought a copy of the game?

At the risk of sending this discussion somewhere it doesn’t need to go: yes. Or at least, that used to be a fairly standard option in games that supported LAN play. Blizzard popularized that with their “spawning” system, and I think you can lay a pretty big portion of their meteoric rise to fame on their generous support for LAN play. That’s really what got a lot of people playing the Warcraft and Diablo games. And Starcraft. I think that it was a mistake for them to pull back on LAN support with Starcraft 2. I guess we can all thank Bobby Kotick for that.

Tom is lamenting how much stingier the industry has gotten with LAN support. And he’s right: it has, and it’s unfortunate.

[darkurthe]

I do REALLY regret that Steam features are killing LAN games. You may not agree, but trust me that there is STILL many plaers who are looking for games being LAN playable.

Steam is only killing Civ V LAN games for people who are breaking the law. I suspect you are being disingenuous with your argument. If Civ V via Steam will not let you play as you like (legally or not) then choose a different game that you can.

That said, it would be nice if multiple clients for an owner were a possibility… but that is not the case.

[darkurthe]

Titan Quest pre-dated Steam and the developers and the publishers intended that local LAN games would be supported. I was told so personally by someone who worked at THQ at the time.

If the person wanting to do a LAN game can install multiple copies of a game on their network this argument holds water. If the license is only for one PC (even if there is no DRM) then it doesn’t.

There is absolutely no grey area here beyond an end user’s willingness to work around DRM or simply ignore license restrictions.

I think it would be great to see a client version of Civ 5 that only worked for multi-player games where one player had the full game. If they want to play Civ 5 outside of that limited install, then they have to pay. But that is not a card that is one the table…

[Quitch]

It should also be remembered that many of those games that supported LAN play did so by offering a more restricted “spawn” version of the client which didn’t allow hosting, eliminated the single-player element, etc.

Perhaps the reason this has died a death is cost, the same reason many developers say they don’t do demos.

[Lilan]

If Civ V via Steam will not let you play as you like (legally or not) then choose a different game that you can.

That’s what i said. And what i’m doing.

That said, it would be nice if multiple clients for an owner were a possibility… but that is not the case.

Agree.

[Cubit]

I have a strong suspicion that nowadays, LAN support is one of those features that people howl about when it is removed, but in actuality only a very small percentage of customers actually use it. Broadband internet is so much more common than it was just a few years ago, and with that came the rise of good voice chat software. Good multiplayer services have integrated a lot of the benefits of LAN play.

Developers (and publishers) have weighed their options with LAN play, and have decided that the benefits it provides a relatively low percentage of customers isn’t worth the huge piracy hole that LAN play leaves open.

[Dan_Theman]

Very true, along with same-PC co-op (with some notable exceptions in each case). Of course, console gamers get much more love when it comes to issues like this.

[Squee]

However, when it’s purchased from Steam, you have to deal with the fact that Valve’s system inherently prevents LAN games. It really sucks. And it’s absolutely not pure, simple, cut, or dried. Steam distributes games that are supposed to work for local LAN play, but it cuts out the LAN play unless you work around it, at which point some someone will equate it with piracy.

Wait, what? I don’t think this is at all the case. Games that don’t use Steam for the multiplayer at all have LAN working normally in my experience. Hell, I recently played Borderlands a month or two ago entirely over LAN using the same Steam account for both machines. It’s just the ones that are tied more directly to Steam that might give you trouble with it. Or if the game itself has something like an LAN key check to prevent duplicates from playing, which a few games do.

And I haven’t got Civ5 yet BlackAdar, the extent of my dirty Steam piracy has been Left 4 Dead 1 and Borderlands which both support local single disc play on console as I am a clean and virtuous person.
Edit: Wait, I tried Killing Floor but that one got crapped up because of being tied to Steam. One player would end up with the perks and levels gained by the account, the other would end up with all perks/classes at level 1. It actually still worked and both machines could play together on LAN, that just kinda got annoying.

[tomchick]

Games that don’t use Steam for the multiplayer at all have LAN working normally in my experience. Hell, I recently played Borderlands a month or two ago entirely over LAN using the same Steam account for both machines. It’s just the ones that are tied more directly to Steam that might give you trouble with it. Or if the game itself has something like an LAN key check to prevent duplicates from playing, which a few games do.

Good to know! Can you just start Borderlands without having to log into Steam? I was under the impression that you had to start Steam to start any game you purchased, and that it would balk if you tried to quit out of Steam. Is that not the case?

If you guys can verify Steam games that work over a LAN connection without having to fudge the other computers as offline, I’d love to know more about it.

 -Tom

[tomchick]

I’m not getting Tom’s argument - are you saying that if I own a copy of Civ V I should be able to play with my son even though he never bought a copy of the game?

I’m saying that it really really sucks that you can’t.

Or, to put it another way, are you saying that if you own a Blu-Ray copy of Avatar, you should be able to watch it with your son even though he never bought a copy of the movie?

For reasons that I mostly understand but don’t agree with, PC games have taken a hostile stance towards people enjoying them with each other locally. And it sucks, because that is hands-down the absolute best way to enjoy them.

 -Tom

[tomchick]

Actually, I thought Games For Windows Live didn’t let you log onto the same account from multiple places at the same time either. It’s not something I’ve ever tried, but I seem to remember a Penny Arcade news post complaining about it. Or has that changed?

Oops, almost missed this, Robin. GFWL/XBL has its share of problems, particularly if you have a household with an Xbox 360 and PC that might be used at the same time by different people (i.e. my house at least once a week).

However, GFWL supports games with LAN play by letting you set up as many profiles as you want. From there, it’s up to the publisher. For instance, 2K are absolute assholes about it with Bioshock 2, which requires a separate CD key that gets locked into a specific account. But Southpeak with Section 8 and THQ with Red Faction Guerrilla heartily support LAN play with only a single copy, even though the games are tightly integrated into GFWL.

   -Tom

[Razgon]

I noticed you failed to address this: When you’re LAN playing Civ 4 with your friend, do you each own a legitimately purchased a copy of the game?

As I said before, presumably you only have one copy since you’re lamenting the fact that you can’t do this in Civ V with Steam. So if you don’t (and that’s not an unreasonable assumption at this point) does Civ 4 allow under the licensing agreement for more than one user to play the game at the same time? In other words, do they allow for a LAN-only install? If they don’t, you’re committing software piracy. I don’t care if you are or aren’t, but those are the real facts.

It just seems to me that a giant double-standard was opened on the board to allow for the tacit approval of software piracy in some instances and not in others.

Appearently, according to Mr. Soren Johnson, they were allowed to do so.

[Chris_Nahr]

Clearly Soren is a filthy pirate supporter and Tom should ban him.

[Squee]

Good to know! Can you just start Borderlands without having to log into Steam? I was under the impression that you had to start Steam to start any game you purchased, and that it would balk if you tried to quit out of Steam. Is that not the case?

If you guys can verify Steam games that work over a LAN connection without having to fudge the other computers as offline, I’d love to know more about it.

 -Tom

Nope, that would require cracking. Sharing a Steam account and going into offline mode for LAN play is only a particularly viable option if it’s someone you really trust. Or I guess you could sign in to the account long enough to get into offline mode and make sure it doesn’t remember the password.

Oh, man, this is weird. I got a wild hair up my ass to try launching Borderlands’ executable without Steam, and sure enough it loaded up peachy keen without starting Steam or complaining about it not running.
The DLC might give you guff (Mainly Zombie Island and Moxxie due to the DRM on 'em) but looks like you can play that one without Steam running at all.

The following is a random smattering of Steam games I’ve got installed that have multiplayer that I just tried running the executables on.

Games that give an error message and say they want Steam:
1701
Alien Breed
Madballs in Babo
Titan Quest Immortal Throne

Games that launch Steam/use Steam if it’s running:
Call of Duty Black Ops
Red Alert 3
Jedi Academy
Serious Sam HD
Supreme Commander 2
Unreal Tournament 3

Games that launch fine without Steam:
GTA4 (Though who knows how well Rockstar Social Club and GFWL would handle LANing)
Majesty 2
Borderlands

Not terribly common, but apparently some games you can buy on Steam don’t require it running.

[djotefsoup]

Can you just start Borderlands without having to log into Steam?

Seems to work like that. For the last time we set it up on the LAN, we just shared \steamapps and copied the borderlands folder to onto the clients. Ran fine from borderlands.exe without needing to start steam or crack it or anything on any clients. Not sure if they only allowed this in a later patch but it was much appreciated :)

[tomchick]

Thanks for trying all those, Squee. So you and Mr. Soup are basically telling me that you can set up LAN games of Borderlands with a single copy? There aren’t any CD key restrictions over a LAN? So awesome.

Games that launch fine without Steam:
GTA4 (Though who knows how well Rockstar Social Club and GFWL would handle LANing)
Majesty 2
Borderlands

GTA4 and Majesty 2 require unique CD codes for different installs to connect to each other. So it looks like Borderlands is the real anomaly here. And that’s doubly weird considering how uptight 2K is with Bioshock 2’s multiplayer.

 -Tom

P.S. You’re a filthy pirate!

[Rywill]

Or, to put it another way, are you saying that if you own a Blu-Ray copy of Avatar, you should be able to watch it with your son even though he never bought a copy of the movie?

But anyone could “support” their preconceived viewpoint by taking the paradigm from some other industry. It would be like me going “Are you saying that if you buy a ticket to see Avatar, you should be able to take your son in for free even though he never bought a ticket?” Especially since the DVD market works on an ownership model (like books), while the computer game market works on a licensing model (like theater movies). You say you understand but disagree with that, except it sounds like you don’t really understand it that much. Of course we all would like more free stuff, but we’re not entitled to free stuff. I wish my DVD copy of Inglorious Basterds came with free DVD copies of Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill. I also wish it came with a free home-theater setup, because that’s hands down the absolute best way to enjoy an Inglorious Basterds DVD.

It doesn’t really surprise me that when you’re talking about a fairly valuable product (like a $50 computer game), the industry wants you to buy your own copy to play it with friends. Of course playing by LAN is super-fun. That’s why they want you to pay them to have that experience. I was annoyed when I realized I couldn’t do L4D1 LAN play without multiple copies of the game, but pretty quickly I was like “Well, that makes sense. It was only a matter of time.” I agree with Blackadar, though, that it seems weird to take a position as a super anti-pirate (not even wanting people to talk about pro-piracy stuff) but then also try to help people circumvent games’ anti-LAN security. I mean, the guy’s got a point: what’s the meaningful difference between downloading a cracked game for your friend to play, and spawning a duplicate by installing it twice and putting a computer in offline mode? In both cases, don’t you have an illegitimate copy running on one machine?