Horizons Any disadvantage to converting to Steam for play?

Guddler · Dec 16, 2015

Want to say right up front that I have no issues with Steam, been using it for over 8 years and I'm fine with it.

From an Elite / Horizons point of view. I played in the original beta and bought a lifetime pass when they were available. But I get woeful download speeds if I try and install updates from the usual ED:Launcher (dial-up modem speeds). So I just redeemed the optional keys for Steam that you can get, primarily because I get decent fibre speeds from Steam.

Will there be any "gotchas" if I now start to play on Steam that are not obvious? I'm OK with starting a new save if I have to. Will my freebie paint jobs and things like that be available? Anything else?

Thanks.

Kershek · Dec 17, 2015

No, the Steam version will just get you to Frontier's launcher which then connects to your account. And Steam will keep your game up to date.

buellpilot · Dec 17, 2015

Not for you.

I think it looses FD some money, although not 100% sure about that when you originally bought from FD and then redeem a Steam key, but more than likely steam take few quid for their troubles.

As a lifetime pass owner you will probably still be going back to FD downloads for beta downloads.

Grumpy181155 · Dec 17, 2015

As the others have said Steam just activates the FD Launcher when you select to play the game and it will keep your game up to date. You won't lose your original save as that is on FD's servers.

Guddler · Dec 17, 2015

Thank you people. I downloaded the new Horizons game over steam last night. It took 20 minutes. From FD's servers directly it was running at 0.06kb/s and wanted 2days. Not hard to see why I opted to go with steam

BillD · Dec 17, 2015

For me it was a huge advantage. The standard launcher was coming in incredibly slow for the update (estimating 2 days).
I grabbed the steam key and had the upgrade completed in 6 minutes.
The last two nights I fire up the other launcher in between sessions, but it is still saying 12 hours on my 256MBps connection. Steam download rocks.
I will still keep the other one for future beta etc

Cyda · Dec 17, 2015

I like using ED via steam because the download speeds are far better than directly from FD, and I like the steam overlay, so I can chat to friends playing other games whilst I'm in ED plus it's easy to take & share screenshots to your feed.

Guddler · Dec 17, 2015

Yeah, have to say, I'm not actually interested in Beta's any more. My experience with the original ED beta was a harsh lesson for me. There was nothing wrong with the beta. It was very enjoyable and I loved playing ED. Problem was that by the time the game was released I'd had my fill, was bored and moved on and have barely played it since. So, lesson learned, I now stay away from Betas of all games. I will only buy access to a beta if it's a game I know I will really like and there's a good financial incentive to do so.

I know that's not really in the spirit of bug testing and helping the devs get the product out, but I can't do that at the expense of my enjoyment. Sadly it's looking like Horizons isn't going to be any different for me. I played for about 45 minutes last night and couldn't wait to get back to the Witcher 3

Something I have a problem with is that all of the people that I know locally in real life and therefore have much contact with are console gamers, so I tend to play alone. And I've already read on here that ED is most fun if you play with friends. I think I tend to agree. I really want to love this game, I really do, just at the moment I've not clicked with it. Oh well.

Anyway, that's kinda OT to my original question!

tomimt · Dec 17, 2015

buellpilot said:
Not for you.

I think it looses FD some money, although not 100% sure about that when you originally bought from FD and then redeem a Steam key, but more than likely steam take few quid for their troubles.

As a lifetime pass owner you will probably still be going back to FD downloads for beta downloads.

To my knowledge Steam allows for the developer to create as many free keys they want, that's how it's viable to use it for free games as well. It's been discussed a lot around the web and other game forums.

Khelder · Dec 17, 2015

One small thing that I've noticed is that if you run through Steam, the standard ED screenshot hotkey (F10) doesn't work. But you can still use Steams hotkey (which saves as PNG instead of BMP).