Talk:Steam Versions

Steam Talk

Probably we should create a new page for Steam on this wiki. Also, we could even get support from Valve now and start adding mods onto steam. This would help tremendously, but might remove the original purpose of the game. It will turn it into a easier game, with super heavy lasers (no offense Seb) and the like. This would increase X-COM's rep, but lower its individuality. Still, this is a decision for the Admins to make, certainly not us.

I agree we should have a Steam page now but I'm not sure where to put it. Is there a "distributions" or "where to get it?" section? I couldn't find one. It would be good to make all the mods available on Steam. By the way I don't agree the mods make the game easier. Generally they just remove bugs, restore game balance, and improve playability. Seb76 is very aware his Heavy Laser mod is unbalancing, that's why he has kept it in a separate "development" version of his loader.

I've been playing TFTD for a few days using the Steam version. To my surprise, TFTD Hack and XComUtil command line both work, once you find the game save files which are under "common" in the Steam install directory. They don't seem to be protected by Steam "anti-cheat", fortunately. I'm not sure if any mods that change the executable will work, however - haven't tried that yet.

It's been quite interesting to play TFTD for the first time, unmodded, bugs and all. I suggest that only bugfix-type mods should be distributed with Steam, the tools and cheats should probably stay on this site and others. Also, I think the discussions would need to be with Take Two /2K, as they are the releasers of the games - Valve's Steam is just a channel in this case.

Anyway I'm going to start contributing to the TFTD wiki items and also adding notes about any more Steam specifics. Spike 03:01, 2 October 2008 (CDT)

Spike, I think you were looking for Where to Get the Games, and I agree that listing all known mods there would be advantageous. Personally, I think there should also be an article investigating what changes, if any, were brought to the game with 2K's release. In particular, does the difficulty stay at what you chose, now? It seems to, but it's hard to know without looking under the hood. I do know that they didn't make proximity grenades remember being armed after loading a save. NightChime 19:41, 20 January 2009 (CST)

You don't really need to look under the hood to find out what difficulty level you are at. If you have a Mind Probe or Psi-Amp, check the stats of an alien and compare that to the tables in my Alien Stats page at StrategyCore. --Zombie 20:14, 20 January 2009 (CST)

Thanks for the tip, will do. NightChime 17:25, 28 January 2009 (CST)