Steam will stop support of XP and Vista

[freespace2dotcom]

Come the new year.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?s=d649609391225478209841752ee8f9b8&ref=1558-AFCM-4577

Just lovely. When win 7 meets the same fate, I'll probably be done with PC gaming. Times are a-changing.

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: Would this affect the development of Y2?

@freespace2dotcom: What about Academagia?

[Legate of Mineta]

@Rhi;

Not particularly, no.

[freespace2dotcom]

If you have xp or vista after the new year,the steam client will not run, which means no downloading or playing of steam games, which includes Y1.

I'm going to have to reinstall 7. Truly a pain.

[Schwarzbart]

There other stores beside Steam so maybe for BCS it would be good to expand to 1 or 2 more stores for the games of BCS.

I.e. Epic games opened recently a new store that don't sound to bad for Indi developer:

https://kotaku.com/epics-new-pc-game-store-is-making-waves-even-without-a-1830945313

And there is also itch.io for Indi developer. 

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: Honestly, the only reason why I use steam for Academagia is for the updated interface, auto-updates, and Achievements log. If Y2 were to be sold directly from Black Chicken Studios with these features (or even only updated interface, auto-updates), then I would not need to use Steam to play it.

[Schwarzbart]

Actual in my opinion is Autoupdate a extrem bad idea for everything outside of multiplayer games. The reason I think so is that forced updates (yes steam force the updates to you the next time you want to play) can destroy your current progress in a game if the developer is not extrem careful and it get even worse if someone mod a game.

Stellaris is in my opinion one of the worst example how to not do it! They have change and even removed core functions of the game and still plan to change them even more resulting each time such a major change is pushed via update everyone using steam to complete lose all save no matter if its 10h, 100 h or even 1000h you played a single game. 

Edit Beside that there was already a game before Stellaris that removed parts of the game after it was sold for some time with them and put them in a DLC you have to pay extra for,  thanks to Steam autoupdate this resulting that all who want to play the game es they where used before had to buy this DLC. 

[Metis]

There's BTM if you don't want to bother with Y1 Steam edition.

Incidentally, the updated UI isn't a Steam thing, auto-updates aren't necessary and possibly even detrimental considering that saves aren't forward-compatible, and if you care about achievements than I've no idea what you're doing playing a schedule management CYOA VN.

[Rhialto]

@Metis: I care about achievements because they indicate that one is a skilled or completionist player, and indicate when the thing was achieved. But there is a reason why I mentioned achievements as the lowest priority for me.

@Metis, @Schwarzbart: You raise good points about auto-updates, so let me re-phrase that. I like Academagia on steam because it has an updater. If Y2's non-steam release were to have a similar function that would search out and download patches when the player wants, it would be very easy for players to keep up to date.

[Metis]

For another game's achievements, sure, but in what way do Academagia's achievements mark one as a skilled or completionist player? I'm pretty sure you could get all of them by just hitting the Confirm button something like 2K-3K times.

Personally I'd prefer to bookmark the updates subforum and not rely on a function that can cause the entire game to stop working on a whim. It's less convenient, no doubt, but...

[Rhialto]

@Metis: If I understand correctly, Y2 will be able to take into account many more things in creating achievements. @Legate of Mineta, is this true? Furthermore, since almost all computer games that I play are based upon planning and pressing buttons at given times after enough turns have passed, I regard completing certain things in Academagia to be note-worthy achievements in terms of time management, character planning, etc. See, for example, the final stage of Uliva Valaresso's adventure.

[Legate of Mineta]

Y2 certainly has a lot richer set of achievements planned, but I don't know if they intend an in-game achievement system, or just Steam.

Either way, the intent is to have both Steam and our site again as usual.