THQ Drops GFWL

barmyllama

barmyllama

barmyllama

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Publisher THQ (and developer Relic) will not include Microsoft's much-maligned Games For Windows Live tech for its forthcoming Warhammer 40,000 titles.

THQ has been a regular customer for Microsoft's multiplayer and community service, which many PC gamers have decried as troublesome and invasive despite its similarity in concept and interface to the more well-received Xbox Live.

The use of Games For Windows Live in Dawn of War II and its first add-on had also drawn ire due to the games also requiring a Steam account, thus requiring multiple logins to play.

In a move likely to please much of its community, standalone strategy expansion Dawn of War II: Retribution will instead use Valve's Steamworks platform, although its predecessors will not be patched to use the new back-end.

"This new back end will allow players to invite friends into matches from their Steam friends lists," explained THQ in a statement, "and take advantage of the full set of Steam community features including groups, achievements, and Steam overlay chat channels.

"We are also going to include an all new matchmaking and ranking set up, built specifically for Dawn of War II – Retribution.

"The move to Steamworks will also allow us to provide features like guest passes, free multiplayer weekends, pre-loading and the ability to provide fast turn-around on future patches and updates.

THQ last month confirmed that another Relic/Games Workshop title, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine would ship with Steamworks rather than Games For Windows Live, which would seem to signal that the publisher is set to move away from the service entirely.
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Hopefully another nail in the GFWL coffin that will see it disappear completely sooner rather than later.
 
Sensible, there really isn't any gain to them using GFWL (well unless they were getting paid) and as end user it was damn annoying to have to log in to 2 things. Just a shame that this won't apply to "legacy" products and only the new releases.

As for GFWL, MS have had a very long time to sort it out for the PC. They have made some promises to concentrate on the market some more lately, but then again none of their last ones bore any fruit. Still if Win 7 anything to go by, if they do decide to do something right they can do it.
 
Yay!

But GfWL is unlikely to disappear unless Microsoft Game Studios stops publishing for Windows entirely. Capcom are the worst culprits - Lost Planet 2 and Dead Rising 2 are both going to use GfWL. :( :(
 
thats good as GFWL is crap but i what will happen with DoW2

since relic are now integrating their games and expansions into one package
how will they integrate Retribution into Dow2 & Chaos Rising if one uses GFWL and the other uses steamworks? :(
 
NZXT30 said:
so far in 2010 so many games have switched to steamworks which is only a good thiing.
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Its no surprise. Microsoft have made absolutely no effort to make GFWL more usable, even though it'd of been in vain since its nicer to have it all on 1 system. I utterly despise GFWL and my hatred was renewed after installing RFGuerilla on here and to have to suffer (slower than last time since this pc sucks) GFWL wanting me to login, update, close, 'update', restart, login, update, etc, another 3 damn times.
 
SkeeterUK said:
gfwl is not that bad
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No it's really bad. Sticking offline and online profiles and then making it impossible to access saves is terribad. I lost a lot of progress in GTA4 because I started in offline, reinstalled my OS and then found I couldn't access my backup saves because of GFWL.

Thankfully there is a workaround that disables GFWL and lets you load savegames regardless.
 
Gzero said:
No it's really bad. Sticking offline and online profiles and then making it impossible to access saves is terribad. I lost a lot of progress in GTA4 because I started in offline, reinstalled my OS and then found I couldn't access my backup saves because of GFWL.

Thankfully there is a workaround that disables GFWL and lets you load savegames regardless.
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exactly the save system is the worst part of it

lost my Gears of War and GTA4 saves had to start over :mad:
 
Evilsod said:
Its no surprise. Microsoft have made absolutely no effort to make GFWL more usable, even though it'd of been in vain since its nicer to have it all on 1 system. I utterly despise GFWL and my hatred was renewed after installing RFGuerilla on here and to have to suffer (slower than last time since this pc sucks) GFWL wanting me to login, update, close, 'update', restart, login, update, etc, another 3 damn times.
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yeah steam works is superior in every way apart from gamerscore. steam needs sth similar.
 
Potentially bad news actually, I don't in any way love GFWL, at all, however, I'm starting to HATE, with a severe passion, having to have an account, and points, and logins for every damn game I ever play these days. Bioware account and sorting stuff out, buying points to buy a ME 2 DLC, some games on GFWL, Steam, Ubisoft, and more, and more, and more.

I personally dislike steam, but at least one set of login, and account, and DLC adding, and code adding for any game I buy from a different company.

If they ditch GFWL thats one thing, if they ditch because they see the almighty sign of the dollar and open up their own little account system, and their own points system, and make you jump through 8 new hoops to get into your new game. I fear it will be the latter situation in which case, dumping GFWL is not in any way good news.
 
The patching with gfwl games is good, you just load the game and if it needs updating, you dont have to root round on the internet you just wait for it to update itself.

Could you tell I was really stuck to think of something good to say about it...
 
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