[thegrindre]

Kazareh, on 17 November 2018 - 05:03 PM, said:

I myself despise steam. It's a resource hog out the wazoo, as ckawahara mentioned the Ads are ridiculous at best among quite a MASSIVE number of other issues I have with the platform. I'm rather highly against that, truthfully. ORTS is doing fine without Steam, and has absolutely no need for it.. If it ain't broke...

I also agree wholeheartedly, NO steam.

[lineman]

Another vote for NO steam!!

[dforrest]

And another NO.

[Mike B]

I've avoided Steam for all the reasons noted above. Another reason is that once it's on Steam it seems to become unavailable in any other way - don't want that to happen, especially with open source stuff.

[James Ross]

Mike B, on 11 January 2019 - 10:03 AM, said:

I've avoided Steam for all the reasons noted above. Another reason is that once it's on Steam it seems to become unavailable in any other way - don't want that to happen, especially with open source stuff.

I can't see any reason that something on Steam wouldn't be available elsewhere and, even if it did, anyone would be able to make a version straight from the source code (that's kind of the point).

[EricF]

Some publishers do go through Steam exclusively, but others offer their software through other channels as well as through Steam. Steam is just a well-known, well-promoted platform, therefore it reaches a lot of market share.

[ErickC]

Realistically, you'd need to provide content with the game if you wanted to have a release on Steam. And that content would need to be new (think about who owns what IP and what kind of work you're going to have to do to get permission), optimized (don't use 500 materials when you only need to use one - MSTS models often had this problem because of the colour depth problem, which OR doesn't have), and up to current standards (no Xtracks with its five-foot-wide french fry rails). Otherwise, people are going to say one of two things:

1.) I downloaded the game but there's no world and no trains. It must be broken.

2.) This game's graphics are bad.

Either of which will cause the average user to uninstall OR and run TS instead. So this means, we would need, at the bare minimum:

1.) One complete trainset - with 3D cabs. While I respect that some of you still like 2D cabs, the rest of the rail simulation world doesn't. I could build a trainset, given enough time, but I have to pay my bills, and I'm also a student, so my time for public domain projects (what it would realistically have to be, so that people can build on the default content) is limited.

2.) One self-contained route with all-new, optimized shapes and textures, which would need:

3.) A new track system (I'm working on it, but am still in the planning stages)

4.) All-new audio (and no 11KHz or 22KHz sample rates - nobody likes trains that sound like they came in over the telephone)

Is this a worthwhile goal? Absolutely. Am I willing to do my part? Sure. I already put a new set of freight car sounds in the public domain, for example. But it would take some serious time because we're talking about building a new environment (to be fair, this is already a long-term goal of mine).

[darwins]

Another vote for avoiding steam.

Steam is the reason that I gave up even attempting to use railworks / TS. Difficult to work offline. Anytime I go online it is difficult to stop it randomly updating what I do not wish to update. It overwrites third party content... and what a ghastly front end / platform.

If steam is to be used then please let it be an option for those who wish. If there is no alternative to steam then I shall give up Open Rails.

[Goku]

Steam is awesome, but it requires a lot of work with maintaining it. I think that with shortage of developers in OR team it is better to stay away from Steam at the moment.