Epic Online Services

[R3v]

What the hell BBI? I don't want anything to do with Epic, why did the game start downloading their crap? I specifically bought the Steam release to avoid them and now you are straight up forcing me to use it? Please fix this.

[Dorsai!]

Edit: I can still play SP without signing in, but as soon as I put Steam in Offline-mode or (god forbid) pull the LAN cable, the game starts ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself. "Continue" is greyed out, and the "Start Campaign" button does nothing. When I leave the confirmation dialogue is in French (wtf!) and then it hangs and I have to kill the game...

Why is ♥♥♥♥ like this allowed by Steam TOS? Add this crapware to your new games so I know not to buy them but maybe ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ don't damage existing games.

♥♥♥♥ like this is why people return to piracy in droves after decades of only buying legal copies...

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Dorsai!:

Edit: I can still play SP without signing in,

Even if you do that, EOS is still running in the background, and connects to Epic's servers.

Signing in is just for "extra features", like using the EOS overlay, I believe.

Originally posted by Dorsai!:

but as soon as I put Steam in Offline-mode or (god forbid) pull the LAN cable, the game starts ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself. "Continue" is greyed out, and the "Start Campaign" button does nothing. When I leave the confirmation dialogue is in French (wtf!) and then it hangs and I have to kill the game...

This is what happens when you stop EOS from doing its thing.

You can read more about that in this thread:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/281610/discussions/0/3818543331793589170/

Originally posted by Dorsai!:

Why is ♥♥♥♥ like this allowed by Steam TOS? Add this crapware to your new games so I know not to buy them but maybe ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ don't damage existing games.

An excellent question. I keep wondering the same myself.

This is unfortunately not a new thing. It's been going on for years, and has happened to multiple games.

The only thing I can think of is that given how hands-off Steam is, they pretty much let developers/publishers do whatever they want.

Steam gets their 30%, and as long as something's not outright illegal, they don't care what happens next.

This should be illegal, but clearly it's not, so Steam doesn't care.

[inga26r]

From my testing.

If you uninstall the game you also uninstall EGS unless you have the launcher. And It a clean wipe from what i'm seeing.

[Mag [ZF]]

This may actually be illegal in Europe, as they changed the product substantially after the sale. Some hefty fines on that

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Mag ZF:

This may actually be illegal in Europe, as they changed the product substantially after the sale. Some hefty fines on that

I wouldn't be surprised if it was, but I suspect it's one of those grey areas where a court case actually has to be fought and won before anything gets done about it.

I'd love for that to happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

[xPidge]

sensors indicate some serious RTS skill issues in this thread, and whinging newbs.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by xPidge:

sensors indicate some serious RTS skill issues in this thread, and whinging newbs.

Did you post in the wrong thread by accident...?

What do RTS skills have anything to do with EOS?

[xPidge]

no i was surmising the thread. at least EOS hasn't broken this game as much as Denuvo does any it's applied to *shrug*

[R3v]

Originally posted by xPidge:

no i was surmising the thread. at least EOS hasn't broken this game as much as Denuvo does any it's applied to *shrug*

It's not about being broken. I as a customer have preferences, and my preference is NOT to buy the game from Epic because I don't want to have anything to do with Epic, my reasons. Now when I buy it from Steam and I get forced into something from Epic two years down the line it's pretty much violating customers right of choice.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by xPidge:

no i was surmising the thread.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what that's supposed to mean. Was there some autocorrect issue?

I still have no idea what skill has to do with EOS.

Originally posted by xPidge:

at least EOS hasn't broken this game as much as Denuvo does any it's applied to *shrug*

Between the two, I'd probably prefer Denuvo. I wouldn't touch a game with either, but at least Denuvo gets removed sometimes.

It also doesn't get added to games many years down the line (though Anno 2205 did add it some months after initial launch, with its first DLC).

Originally posted by R3v:

It's not about being broken. I as a customer have preferences, and my preference is NOT to buy the game from Epic because I don't want to have anything to do with Epic, my reasons. Now when I buy it from Steam and I get forced into something from Epic two years down the line it's pretty much violating customers right of choice.

Exactly.

[xPidge]

no, there's no grokking of any autocorrect issues. without getting too semantic and pedantic about this, The Apple & Epic Fortnite litigation a few years ago probably highlighted what little right of choice any single endpoint has when it comes to any specfic DRM or telemetry concerns

[michaell8000]

yeah i decided to finally play this game since i got a comp that could handle it at a high setting and what do i see? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ epic ♥♥♥♥ no i want nothing to do with epic it tried to bring the console wars to PC i hate the console wars god i wish i could get a refund

I am going to launch an actual complaint to steam to get the sale locked down hopefully. spotted this in the comments https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3056780392 as another method to stop epic from DLing.

[Paladin Dawnheart]

Hey, clowns. I didn't consent to you shadow downloading Epic Games on to my computer. I come back to find out this game locked by being constantly online and downloading another companies launcher. When I bought this game, I did not agree to any of this.

I am with MIchaell8000. Launching a complaint and suggest anyone willing to type a few sentences will take a few mins out their day to help make it so this doesn't happen again.

This should be ILLEGAL! At the very least Steam should have sort of policy in place to prevent this happening on their platform. We all took the L on physical games no longer existing, but constantly online and downloading what is basically spyware is completely different.

[Kiros]

Unacceptable behavior, I do not want anything to do with Epic. I looked forward to replaying the franchise before Homeworld 3 released but not like this. Can someone drop a link so I can lodge a complain to Steam? I never consented to this, they modified a product long after purchase. I would leave a negative review if I could.

[xPidge]

unlike DoK which was developed with the Unity3D ide, Homeworld 3 is rumoured to have been ported from UE4 to UE5 (which may explain why the release date was rescheduled to Feb 24) so it's likely that some of the online components, such as EOS, will be required for multiplayer if not also the solo campaign aspects of the game.