Although I heard if they release it on disc as CE I think you may or may not need Steam. I have to emphasize that is a guess.

The collector's edition will be in a boxed set, or so Stardock says. They have not released much of any details on it except that they are making one.

I don't know if it will require Steam or not. I hope not, because I also boycott Steam.

Man, so much steam hate around here.

Like Mr. Haze said, when a game uses Steamworks, it requires Steam to play. 

It does sadden me though when people get so emotionally involved in what software they use to launch a game though. It's silly to me that software I may write someday will not be liked because of the brand name in front rather than it's own merits. 

The issue with some people is how Steam has treated ones in the past. Some have had credit card issues and then suddenly had their games frozen when they reported only a minor issues. Others enjoy breaking down a game and then using in their own way but Steam takes offense to it.

Hmmm... Well it has never happened to me.  When was the last time this has happened?

once the beta is done hopefully they will open rebellion up to like impulse and whatever else lol

The other issue that I haven't heard anyone talk about is the fact that once you buy a game that requires Steamworks, you are required to have Steamworks installed on a computer forever more if you still want to play that game. 

Plenty of people here installed and (used to) use Impulse before GameStop (rarely such an apt name for a company than GameStop) and were thus already required, at least some of the time, to have Impulse installed. Now lets take that a little further to others who might (or might in the future) have another such program installed to buy and run their games and it starts to get bloody ridiculous.

How many programs (even one or two is bad) do we need to have installed and running to play our own dam games? I am already sick of bloatware and programs adding sneaky toolbars/software onto free downloads and this is compounding an already growing problem.  

Of course, the other side of the coin is that if you go ALL Steam then it is wonderful in many respects. Cheap deals, only one platform, solid infrastructure etc. but if you don't want to go all Steam or simply want the freedom to choose then you are out of luck if a game you want is forever tied to Steam (unless you are happy with even more bloatware).

I don't really want to go all Steam and tie so much of my money with a single company like that. So for me, it is quite sad Stardock has gone this road. 

Its wasn't modding. Deeper then that.

Well not sure how much you are fundamentally changing the game since modding tends to modify every file. Generally disabling the auto update feature works if you decide to get a bit frisky with the executable.

But I must admit you do give me a chill. 

Well, with "Dragon Age  Origins", there was some problem with the expension "Awakening"... modded files was needed to be placed differently if the game was buy on EA or Steam... well, a simple mod installer who check if yourr game is Steam or not solved the problem...

Well, in some case, it make "where you buy" relevant... specialy if you buy a boxed game who need Steam... let say that you are on holiday in Thailand and buy in store some boxed game who need Steam there... install it, and play it during your Holiday without problem... back to US, you try again and ... bang ... the game don't work anymore...

Some game are protected in a way that you can only play with them in the zone where you have buy it !!!

Well, one of the thing that i hate the most with Steam is their price, specially for European like me... their 1$ = 1 euro make my game cost at least 30% more on Steam... by example, if Rebellion is released on Steam, for US people, it will cost 39.95$... for me, it will cost 39.95 euro ( 50.89$ )... lucky, i was able to order directly with stardock and enjoy a discount... have pay 23.51 euro ( 29.95$ ) with the Stardock pre-order...

In fact, i advice any european who read this post to pre-order the game now, same if they don't have the discount, they will spare at least 10$ by buying directly on the Stardock store...

There is a work around in some case... by example with the Total War game, in place to start the game in the usual way who start a launcher.exe, you directly start the game exe... will not work with game who have steamwork embedded in them...

Well, steam is not perfect... by example, it is the only software that i use who lead to the BSOD at boot time ( not always )... something about a protected area of my main memory used by my bios for initilize my hardware raid that Steam overwrite... Reply from Steam was simple : "dissable your raid system" !!!

On the other hand, Steam work perfectly with Linux ( no problem with my raid drive, so maybe the BSOD on windows is due to a communication problem between the OS and Steam )... Impulse have never work on Linux !!!

I like very much the "add a non-steam game to my library" option... all my game in one single place is very easy... and the Steam "GUI" is very easy to use...

Steam is not better or more bad that a other client... and having Steam being the main digital distributor have one advantage... Steam will not die ( soon ) like it have happen with direct2drive where some people have loose between a few games and 2/3 of them when direct2drive was buy by Gamefly... Maybe the same thing will happen someday with Impulse, seeing how Gamestop handle it... 

Wow quite the response, thanks.

Yeah back in the early days of Steam I had problems with it and most importantly had it creating problems with the computer.  I got crap for support, etc etc, uninstalled Steam and swore to never install it again.  Bad enough of an experience I was really hoping it would fail and something better (less controlling/offensive) would come along.

Also on the moral side of things I believe that after paying a whack of money for a game I should be able to play that game.  Being forced to run/deal with another program first in order to get access to my copy that I bought and paid for that's installed on my computer offends me.  Do I need to call GM to get their permission every time I want to start the car I bought from them?

On the more practical side since I only have a laptop extra drains on system resources are not welcome.  Also I only have access to high speed internet when I'm at home -  a grand total of 5 or 6 days each month since I'm a long haul truck driver in North America.  Luckily I don't enjoy multiplayer and there has been a nice bit of backlash against games requiring an internet connection to play even single player (for damn good reason - that's ridiculous) so that doesn't seem to be getting any traction.

However...

Impulse was great for me with my situation/limitations but now it's been whored out to Gamestop and isn't an alternative to Steam anymore.  Also EA's Origin has changed from something like the old Impulse to more Steam-like without warning or notice which pisses me off everytime I am forced to deal with it but unfortunately that seems to be the way PC gaming is going.

As annoyed with Origin as I am, I've been able to set it so it doesn't load up on system startup so I only have to deal with it when playing Origin based games and can shut it down completely when I'm done playing.  Keeps the "necessary evil" to a minimum basically - how invasive/meddlesome is Steam these days in comparison?

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When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye.  I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now.  The child is grown the dream is gone I have become comfortably numb - Pink Floyd