Widescreen Gaming Forum

That logo scares the hell out of me...



I'm not familiar with online activation, I'm a *single offline player* and don't want to rely on anything remote to just install, reinstall and play a darn game whenever I want. (That's basically why, although I consider myself a gamer, I don't have a Steam account yet.) Anyway.

Windows Live for games is supposed to be a cost-free, hassle-free system for online multiplayer. Fine, except that from what I know of it it can also be a nightmare for singleplayer.

-I don't own this game but in Gears of War, users report numerous Live-related crashes and bugs; there's even an unofficial patch to remove Live from the game and still keep your savegames and profile. Feedback seems very positive, many players (I mean people who bought their game and know how to handle a PC) report they could finally finish the game, which they couldn't before because of Live causing chaos.
-I first encountered Live in Flatout : UC. I've not played the game a lot but it seems you can play without connecting to a Live account; except that your progress won't be saved. WTF??
-then I recently installed Lost Planet for the first time, and *had* to connect - can't get past the opening screen, access options or start a singleplayer game. Conection went ok, Live downloaded an update and restarted the game. And tadaaa - now it won't connect anymore, saying my account registration is not correct for the game. Only way to correct it would be to connect to the account through the game, which is precisely what I'm being denied. :evil:

I know there's been loads of DRM discussions and the like these days, and I don't want to debate this. Please !

I'd just want to know if Live is gonna ruin my GTA4. I don't want complex/broken/unavoidable online logon system to meddle in my *single offline player*'s amusement !! :(

Fallout 3 has GfW Live in it, and I've not had an issues playing it. Or saving. So hopefully it won't be an issue.

I kinda like GTA4 on the PS3, but I'll probably pick up the PC version to play that instead - provided that it doesn't have nasty DRM in it, of course.

Fallout 3 has the GFW Live thing ^^ but you don't even need to run it to play the game, save or whatever. Only achievements are linked to the "Live" part. Kind of annoying if you're into the achievement lameness and started a game and didn't start that game on a Live saved game because then you just missed 5-6 achievements....

Also the new GFW Live update sucks. It's slow. My mouse has to be about 2 cm below a button to actually click it. It logs in annoyingly, doesn't store saves in the same folder, so you end up with two different save sets (i know just copy back and forth between the two)

I personally have no problems with GFW.

I have Fallout 3 with it, and the only time it actually asked me to use an activation key of any sorts is when I attempted to use the "Windows Live" service.

Works pretty well without Fallout 3, IMHO.

Same, GOW didn't give me any troubles, but I only played single player.

Fallout 3 same deal. I like the live system, it doesn't ask for cd-keys or anything until you want to hop online.

Should be a good game...

As others said, Fallout 3 has it, but it doesn't require you to register anything as far as I know... You can skip it if you don't want to, but I like hooking up my Xbox Live account to my PC games, kind of neat actually.

It's basically just an optional thing for single player games, and provides you with achievement points, although for multiplayer you'll probably have to subscribe to Xbox Live to be able to play online.

It's basically just an optional thing for single player games, and provides you with achievement points, although for multiplayer you'll probably have to subscribe to Xbox Live to be able to play online.

Nope, the service is free now for Windows users.

Fallout 3 only needs the GFW DLL service running. I installed FO3 in Vista then tried to run it using the .exe when I had booted into XP. It gave me a 'GFW (or whatever) DLL not running' error and wouldn't start. I browsed the FO3 DVD and installed the GFW service on XP then it ran fine, even though installed on vista. Bizarre.
But apart from that GFW is AWFUL every other thing I have had with it hasn't worked; GoW, some racing game I can't remember. If, and it is an if, GFW is required for SP functionality on GTA4 I won't be buying. But is it just requires the bl00dy DLL to be running I don't really mind.

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9

It's basically just an optional thing for single player games,

Unfortunately, that's wrong. I mean, it would be optional if you didn't need an active internet connection just to login to some stupid (useless for me) online account everytime you play.
Just tried Flatout UC again. I can play without connecting, but my progress won't be saved :evil: I could create my account though - great, you can't read more than 4 lines of the EULA in a row, so I didn't bother and now I don't know why they needed my telephone number. :? Anyway, here I go, and I can play Lost Planet too at last.

Had I known an internet connection was required to play this game, and save progress on that one, I wouldn't have bought them. The boxes and manuals however only mention Live for "online multiplayer, achievements, friends". I want none of that and feel cheated and robbed. :evil: To play a PC game I shouldn't need anything but a PC - unless the box says otherwise. To save my game I shouldn't need anything but free space on my hdd; now I must pray their servers don't get hacked and my modem doesn't die (yeah, it's a bit far-fetched, but you know what I mean).

If GTA4 needs online logon for singleplayer savegames, I'll pass until it's a bargain bin classic, unless there are ways to circumvent that friggin' Live. I won't pay full price to get annoyed by a "service" I never asked for. Sadly, I've been waiting so long for that one, that I guess I can wait some more.

How I hate this "Internet is the center of it all" era of gaming...
Thanks for the replies anyway ;)

My current rig doesn't meet even the minimum requirements for GTA IV due to my single core CPU. I just hope it plays as well as Stranglehold does, which also requires dual core but plays OK on fast singles. I can also play Assassin's Creed, another game that requires dual, but not with as good frame rates and since GTA IV is shooter vs melee, I'll need better FPS than I get in AC.

As for Games for Windows and GoW, I still think it's a joke that Microsoft and Epic are major partners of the PC Gamer's Alliance. They have sold out to consoles more than most and don't seem to care about PC gaming period anymore.