Why isn't this game on Steam?!

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NeoWorm wrote:

Supporting steam as it is now is always a bad thing. Desura already stepped down from pushing their bloated client to every single thing you want to buy from them and untill steam does the same thing it doesnt deserve any credit that is given to it.

In what way is the client bloated? I like it and it certainly isn't due to brainwashing. I have to wonder if you have ever actually used steam to form your ideas because they are flat out wrong. Let's make this clear for everyone reading this thread:

After purchasing, buying, ordering, downloading an online MMO-isk game through steam, you DO NOT have to run it through steam. I've downloaded Final Fantasy XI, Rift, D&D, Lord of the Rings, Guild Wars and other online fantasy games through steam. After I was finished, I could still launch the game through the developer's client w/o touching steam. Considering the developers will obviously have their own client, why would you think you HAVE to use steam anyway? Log in with your credentials on their platform and don't touch steam if you don't want to.

With that said, steam is a god-sent to small gaming houses, because millions, yes millions of fans who would have not even know the game existed, will see advertisements for it. Simply put, The "oh my goodness steam is so evil and wrong games shouldn't use it attitude" is flat out silly. Have you zero sense for better business practices? Would you tell them not to make a commercial for PoE because commercials are bad for games?

I think people are merely insisting that Valve would censor some of what the POE team is doing.
Which would mean less creative freedom and thus a crappy game where RNG is the primary idea of "Viable Endgame".

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Macronne wrote:

- Excessive Security:

No Modding allowed, even slightest changes to interface,decorations,texture compression etc. => BAN

Excessive security - yes, permabans for hacking.
No Modding allowed - Nope, Valve actively encourages people to design new content through the Workshop. This part is more or less dependent on the developer, not the publisher.

Yeah, Steam won't ban you for modding unless it's strictly forbidden by the game. Look at the Call of Duty games: you can texture edit to your heart's desire, even to the point of cheating. Make enemies bright pink for visibility, make your sniper reticles full-screen, etc. That's all allowed.

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bakerlogan wrote:

I think people are merely insisting that Valve would censor some of what the POE team is doing.
Which would mean less creative freedom and thus a crappy game where RNG is the primary idea of "Viable Endgame".

This has already been said, but bans on modding is determined by the developer, not valve. Why would anyone think something so obviously wrong? If GGG wants to allow modding in POE they will, if they don't like modding, then you won't see it. There are dozens of games on steam (online and offline) that allow modding. Again... it's up to the developer. Sometimes I think hating Steam is just the cool thing to do.

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Chris wrote:

We will probably ban people for modifying the client as well. Client modification is a slippery slope with competitive online games. Even cosmetic changes can infer advantage to players who use them. We have a very strict policy on people trying to cheat.

If you want to mod an action RPG, I'd strongly suggest checking out Torchlight 2 :)

Have you thought about exposing some kind of mod API which would open up the ability for custom modifications in a controlled way? I know that something like this would be a quite long-term goal, but I think it would make both parties happy:
* players can create mods and customizations (other UI, comfort stuff, etc)
* GGG can control in a fine grained way what abilities the mods can have

Many MMOs - also really large ones and even those with an expensive PvP part - do have something like this (WoW, LotRO, Allods Online, ...).

While this isn't the same as "real" modding support (in the sense of being able to create custom weapons, custom enemies, custom levels, etc) I think it would be a nice addition to the game (and another selling point for PoE ;) ).