ARMA2 & OA's Steam Thread: All Steam Q's/discussions go here [covered by Dwarden]

[galzohar]

Q: What copy protections are used in Steam release?
A: Steam copy protection and BI internal solution.

I wonder what "BI internal solution" means...

[NoRCoN]

I wonder what "BI internal solution" means...

I wondered as well. But from what I read, the STEAM release is SecuRom free. So, I am not sure.

[CplBlakeman]

"Bohemia Interactive Internal Solution"

It means they hardcoded some prevention into the game to make it hard/buggy to copy/hack. I would think fade from the other game would be similar to what this states, or something we have no idea of.

[Big Dawg KS]

I wonder what "BI internal solution" means...

Fade, most likely.

@Dwarden,

I know Steam allows you to run the game exe with start parameters, but for all other games I've seen on Steam you (or at least I) can't create multiple shortcuts that can launch the game through Steam with different parameters (in other words, only one set of parameters can be saved at a time). What can we expect with ArmA2?

[NoRCoN]

@Dwarden,

I know Steam allows you to run the game exe with start parameters, but for all other games I've seen on Steam you (or at least I) can't create multiple shortcuts that can launch the game through Steam with different parameters (in other words, only one set of parameters can be saved at a time). What can we expect with ArmA2?

I know your question was directed at Dwarden, but I would be very surprised if you could not just do the same. Many of my non-Valve games through STEAM allow you to launch the game w/o STEAM running, or directly from a shortcut anyway. Also, if you create shortcuts, you can just add them to your STEAM game list as a non-STEAM program/game.

[Aced170]

Does anyone know if we will get to pre-load it?

[mcbane]

Yeah, I'd like to know about the pre-load as well.

[Big Dawg KS]

I know your question was directed at Dwarden, but I would be very surprised if you could not just do the same. Many of my non-Valve games through STEAM allow you to launch the game w/o STEAM running, or directly from a shortcut anyway. Also, if you create shortcuts, you can just add them to your STEAM game list as a non-STEAM program/game.

Last time I checked creating a shortcut through Steam still launches the game through Steam, as in the shortcut is directed to Steam itself rather than a standalone game exe. This means it that you can't direclty modify start parameters, and that it will just use whatever paramaters you have entered in Steam (only one per game). I know how to add non-Steam games to the Steam games list, but from Dwarden's Q&A it seems that ArmA2 on Steam will fully implement certain Steam features, meaning that in order to use all those features (Browser, Friends, etc..) it would need to be launched through Steam. I had this same problem with DoWII on Steam, and found no practical resolution.

[thedudesam]

CAN steam players play with non steam players? or will the steam version have its own servers?

[Crazy Chris]

CAN steam players play with non steam players? or will the steam version have its own servers?

My understanding from the FAQ posted earlier in this thread, is that there are "no limitations" in terms of features specific to the Steam version. I would also interpret this to mean that you are not confined to Steam's servers. If this IS the case, then it is definitely a deal breaker for me.