On a side note, the DS portrait set works fine in Rebellion.  I was able to do a direct port with no issues.

I don't really care about that since I can mod those out.

I get this one:

The free Steam application is required to install and play Rebellion.

oh ya forgot about that one

Actually, there's one, but it is pretty tiny.  Impulse was owned by Stardock, so they required a first-party application to update Sins.  Steam is a third-party application.  Impulse was also used for updates, not installation.  That being said, I don't really get why people are opposed to Rebellion being Steamworks since the differences between how Impulse and Steam are used are pretty minor.  One installs via the client, the other just does the ton of patches that are released by good developers.

And steam having an offline mode..... nullifies most arguments. 

Time to get with the times I say

And btw, I can not wait for DS to go rebellion !

Your gonna have to wait for it folks. 

We are gonna port over the Diplo version to Rebellion just as soon as we can. We be busy people. Pay our bills and we do it faster!!!

But a true version of Distant Star: The Rebellion, is gonna take some time. A good long time. As Ive said before, we just started to share notes and what not. My list alone is worthy of just one mod

After we get on the same page, we will started playing with the new toys and what not. Changing what we want, adding what we want. etc etc

As with the 1.0 version expect this to come in updates over time and such. We are excited to tweak it to fit the style of Sins we like to play!

For now though, please enjoy the great version the Devs have made! 

Not really, because you still have to have steam running to play, and you have to go online to switch to offline so that makes any argument in favor of steam's offline mode moot.

Impulse was a first party downloader that only needed to run IF I chose to run it.  If I chose not to run it, I didn't have to, and I could uninstall it and suffer no ill effects.  Someone go right on ahead and show me that you can uninstall steam and still play Rebellion like I could with Impulse and the other versions and I'll think about getting it.

This has nothing to do with getting with the times.  I don't have a problem with Digital Distribution (I bought Sins from the store and both expansions on Impulse, I had to buy the expansions for my C&C games through EA's online store and DD service), nor with copy protections (Starforce, SecuRom, CDs/DVDs in the drive, Serial codes, Registrations, etc. have never given me any problems that couldn't be sorted out), nor even with someone trying to make a buck at my expense (I do buy a lot of stuff, I am a working adult with two kids, girls who like to have a lot of stuff).  I do have a problem with having two accounts locked out of Steam for no other reason then 'modding of game files' for personal enjoyment and preventing steam from 'fixing' them by reverting them back to the originals so that I can keep my modded files and enjoy my game play experience they way I felt it should have been from the beginning.  Granted this was in the early days of Steam and they've probably become much better at dealing with this, but no one can't sit there and tell me they'd be okay with buying a few games through them and never being able to play them again because someone on Valve's end couldn't 'Get with the times' and just assumed that all such activities were indications of being a hacker and a pirate and took away all of your games because of it.  Not just once, twice.  Even to this day they will not go back and revisit the issue, they just say, "our decision was final then, it still is now." even though by current standards they would probably publish those changes and try to make more money off of them.  Some of you guys have 100's of games through them.  How would you feel if one day they said, "Nope!  You're done, go play somewhere else."?  Would you just accept it and get on with life, or would you be majorly pissed that you've spent thousands of dollars on stuff that you no longer can enjoy because of some asshat in an office decided you're out?  I gave them a second chance and got treated the same way the second time through.  The most peaceful of you would take my approach.  I will not buy from Valve or use any of their stuff anymore. The rest of you would probably bitch and moan and rant about it and try to convince everyone you know never to use them.  I just say I won't use them, I don't give a rat's ass what you do.  You using them or not is none of my concern.

Another thing to consider is that Brad has stated that the move to Steam is to improve multiplayer with player rankings, ladders, auto matchmaking, yet from everything I've been told, Steam has nothing to do with the multiplayer outside of selling more copies of the game to increase player counts...  Which they did with Trinity simply by selling it on Steam.  There's no ladders, there's no player ranks, there's no achievements to unlock that didn't exist before, you still use ICO...  Basically, the choice so far was a marketing move even though he's trying to tell us with a lot of BS that we get an improved experience out of it.  His choice to do.

He also said that he's not against DRM, but rather, against stupid DRM.  I accept that and I agree with it.  Let's say that I have Rebellion installed on my laptop so I can take it with me places and play it whenever I'm in the mood.  Now let's say there's a power outage where I live, or in the case of what usually happens in the summer, sanctioned blackouts in the form of rolling blackouts and my area is one of the area's who's number get's picked.  Now normally I would play plugged in, but I know my battery life would last three hours while playing the game because honestly, I've been in this exact situation before.  I fire up Sins and get a few hours of entertainment and see just how far I get before the battery dies.  However, with Rebellion, I can't do that because I cannot log into my Steam account and switch it to offline mode because without power, the whole area is an internet dead zone.  I can't really use the 'What if I take the train up north to visit family?' argument anymore since Amtrak started equipping their trains with WiFi, but what if I hop a flight across the country and visit college friends in New York?  Airlines tend to frown on you trying to keep electronics on and running while they're trying to take off.  They don't care that you have no internet access at 30,000 feet.  They just want assurances that they'll get there and back to the ground as safely as possible.  Needing internet access so you can turn it off so you can play a single player game?  Sounds like pretty stupid DRM to me even if you assume these events aren't typical or common.  You move to Southern California and tell me that the greater Los Angeles area doesn't suffer from blackouts all Summer long and then tell me that these things aren't typical or common...  Because they are for me.

There's also stuff about there not being an alternative even though Rebellion was supposed to use and be built around Impulse::Reactor which was going to be the alternative until Impulse was sold to Gamestop...  I don't live in a fantasy life and for as much as I'd have liked to have seen I::R be that alternative, it just never happened, and based on the current state of things in Rebellion, I have to wonder if it would have ever happened, or if it would have only happened because it was to be part of the game.  Lots of things have been said and then not done by Stardock, but I'm not in charge over there, so I have no control over this.  All I can do as a consumer is give my opinions when asked, and vote with my wallet.  I've done both.  These are my opinions, and I refuse to buy Rebellion as it currently is. 

/TLDR/

So like I've said many times before, as soon as there's a version without Steam, I'll be one of the first to buy it.  Until then, enjoy Rebellion (and modding it) without me.  I can try to mod it, but with no way to run it to test things, the best you can get out of me is giving the files a good once over and making sure there aren't any stupid mistakes in them, but that's no fun for me.  It's like working for no reward and who willingly does that?  Exactly nobody.

I'm with Stant on that one. Recently downloaded Steam and a free game. So far, unless you pay money, you don't even get a friends list or anything beyond the ability to download crap and have it suck ram while your game runs.... given Sin's past with ram I can't really afford the leech. Like Stant, I haven't personally had any kind of issues like that with valve, but I've had a few friends who have lost a lot though them. Main reason I'm using a free game to test the waters.

I'll wait with Stant for the Steam free Rebellion with what I've made of steam so far. Being a former pirate doesn't make it any less unsettling when I see their heavy handed methods for dealing with customers, especially innocent ones.

Blablabla

Steam is a great app. I've never had a single issue with it, except the first year it was launched lol.
All games work great, no issues with disconnects. No issues with downloads. No issues with anything.
If any game ever borks up, it is because the game itself was a buggy piece of shit (cough Sots2 cough).
In fact I've had MORE problems in the past pre-digital era with cd's and dvd's failing to read properly in my cd/dvd drive, or DMR (that was forced on us DUE to the physical nature of the discs to prevent cd burning etc).
Any problems like that have next to vanished since the gaming industry went digital, no longer is Starforce or other nonsense an issue. All you have to contend with is a simple Steam overlay and a tiny application running in the background (that does NOT affect the preformance of any games as long as you run anything higher than a Pentium 3).
How you think this is a step back is amazing to me.

All this steam animosity is ridiculous. You're basing your arguments on how it was on the first year of release, that is a very long time ago now, it's time to give it a fresh look. It is nothing like it was the first time it was released. All the "i hate steam cuz its the cool thin to do, it shows i'm knowledgeable about computers" nonsense online is based on severely outdated problems that no longer exist in any way, and principles that no longer apply since our gaming industry HAS moved to nearly fully digital. And there is NOTHING wrong with that unless you live in a village that has no internet connection at all. But frankly sorry but it's time to get with the times, it is 2012, not 1992. Frankly I think it's incredibly selfish and stupid to just say "muh i dont like steam so fook it, i wont help update this mod anymore".

Well then, screw you too. If this is the official stance of the Distant Stars modding team, then you've just lost a fan. Ridiculous behavior.
I used to be a pirate, but then Steam got their act together, and it was no longer needed. Now i support the devs by buying their games, and i have no fear of intrusive drm or cd / dvd issues ever again. What the hell is bad about that?

Just Stants.

Nacey (the official keeper of the mod), Carbon, and myself have not issues with Steam now.

Well if that your offical stance then you can GTFO.

Why your taking offence to someone personal preference is beyond me. If the man doesn like it, he doesnt have to like it. Period. What makes you so digified to judge a person's preference based on experience? 

I dont like WoW, is that Ridiculous behavior? Lord forbid I just dont like it. Guess we just lost another fan b/c I dont like a popular software.

As it been said...oh like 4 times now. The majority of the team has Steam, uses Steam, will keep using Steam.

Now take your high horse and go away. I dont care if you dont play our mod. I dont care if anyone plays our mod. All I care about is making a new experience that fits more to my playstyle for SINS. Im thinking I should push to keep the mod private for Rebellion now, if people are gonna start blasting each other over stupid shit.

Dont temp me, Ive had enough bullshit in the rest of the forums. DO NOT bring it here.

P.S. I dont like pirates. Just like I dont like Advent. So, in celebration of pirates coming out of the closet, I just murdered 1000's of your kind, In a glorious wave of missiles.

If I was in Stant's situation, I'd buy the game, then download the crack and be done with it.

If SD (Does Brad count for this?) claims to be against "stupid DRM" then I see no fault in using a crack for the game, in that particular situation, IF and ONLY IF you bought the game.

What can be more of a stupid DRM then being unable to use something you bought without being connected to the big daddy servers.

Note: I'm not in Stant's position, I was just stating an opinion. I rarely go on steam except to get patches, and then switch to offline mode. Specifically because I dont need my game's dying if my net drops. I've had a problem with it after a reboot & net was down like 1 time in my life.