And once you're up and running with a Steam installation, and a group of people who also use Steam, it gets interesting, like this.
User A purchases 'Borderlands', via Steam, and downloads all 6gb of it. Over the next six months, Steam automatically keeps it updated through patch revision 1.14, and in addition, handles the installation of the DLC packages, which the user has purchased.
User B purchases 'Borderlands Game of the Year Edition', which includes all the DLC, hops in the truck, cruises over to User A's house, and copies the game folder (%SteamDir%SteamAppsCommonBorderlands, I think) onto removable media, to the tune of 12gb. After dinner, User B returns home, plugs in the media, and copies the directory onto his machine.
Steam is then started, the 'download' begins, and at around 75% of Disk I/O speed, Steam validates the copied file, then gives it's OK.
User B now has a fully patched DLC enabled version of the game, with ~4mb of data transferred.
I'm User B. Later on, I threw my laptop onto my LAN, installed Steam on it, and copied the Borderlands folder over - worked just the same.
Steam authenticates on startup (of the Steam client - lots of people have it run on windows start, I do not), and from then on it is very unobtrusive. Handy chat and friend interface, and it mediates voice comms.
As DRM frameworks go, Steam is possibly the Least Worst available.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
User A purchases 'Borderlands', via Steam, and downloads all 6gb of it. Over the next six months, Steam automatically keeps it updated through patch revision 1.14, and in addition, handles the installation of the DLC packages, which the user has purchased.
User B purchases 'Borderlands Game of the Year Edition', which includes all the DLC, hops in the truck, cruises over to User A's house, and copies the game folder (%SteamDir%SteamAppsCommonBorderlands, I think) onto removable media, to the tune of 12gb. After dinner, User B returns home, plugs in the media, and copies the directory onto his machine.
Steam is then started, the 'download' begins, and at around 75% of Disk I/O speed, Steam validates the copied file, then gives it's OK.
User B now has a fully patched DLC enabled version of the game, with ~4mb of data transferred.
I'm User B. Later on, I threw my laptop onto my LAN, installed Steam on it, and copied the Borderlands folder over - worked just the same.
Steam authenticates on startup (of the Steam client - lots of people have it run on windows start, I do not), and from then on it is very unobtrusive. Handy chat and friend interface, and it mediates voice comms.
As DRM frameworks go, Steam is possibly the Least Worst available.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies