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realkman666: Then I would be calling the red phone to Refundville.
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MaGo72: I edited my post, Lord of Xulima seems not to do anything locally. But for Tower of Guns from the Humble Bundle DRM free it seems, some data gets added to their Steam account.
I see. As long as nothing can look for an update on the net and stop it from working, like the Steam "offline" mode.
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realkman666: It shouldn't even call locally to Steam.
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MaGo72: It does, that is for sure. But the calls run into emptiness if you have not a Steam client installed. If you have, well some people seem to notice data transferred locally to some files.
I have Steam installed and those DLLs don't exist on my machine. Which begs the question are they even Steam files?
So a new form of data gathering?
Drm-free games add data into another drm programs files, so that drm program can share the data?
Does the game "call home" by any chance? That's the important part. I've found that some GOG games have Steam dummy files such as "steam_api.dll" but they don't require a Steam installation to run. GOG's version of Battle Worlds Kronos has a "SteamworksManaged.dll" file, but it doesn't require Steam to run either.
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MaGo72: It does, that is for sure. But the calls run into emptiness if you have not a Steam client installed. If you have, well some people seem to notice data transferred locally to some files.
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Egotomb: I have Steam installed and those DLLs don't exist on my machine. Which begs the question are they even Steam files?
The files in Lord of Xulima are not Valve/Steam components. It is an Open Source API and the files reside in the game directory.
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IronArcturus: <snip> I've found that some GOG games have Steam dummy files such as "steam_api.dll" but they don't require a Steam installation to run. GOG's version of Battle Worlds Kronos has a "SteamworksManaged.dll" file, but it doesn't require Steam to run either.
This is pretty much how I imagine it too.
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gbaz69: So a new form of data gathering?
Drm-free games add data into another drm programs files, so that drm program can share the data?
That was exactly my thought when I created this thread, but there is no call home from the game and the calls locally which maybe made run into emptiness if you have not installed the Steam client. So I am fine with it, although I would prefer it, if no steam related stuff resides in the installed game.
Post edited January 18, 2015 by MaGo72
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gbaz69: So a new form of data gathering?
Drm-free games add data into another drm programs files, so that drm program can share the data?
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MaGo72: That was exactly my thought when I created this thread, but there is no call home from the game and the calls locally which maybe made run into emptiness if you have not installed the Steam client. So I am fine with it, although I would prefer it, if no steam related stuff resides in the installed game.
Well, in realtion to Tower of Guns (my bit from further back in the thread), i've just tweeted the dev on the matter to see what they say.
Being an idiot on these things, I have a simple question:

Can you rename or move those files and then create empty text files with identical file names, to see if they actually do anything? It might be that the game code simply looks to see if those files exist (and not running if they aren't there) without actually doing anything with them.
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HereForTheBeer: Can you rename or move those files and then create empty text files with identical file names, to see if they actually do anything? It might be that the game code simply looks to see if those files exist (and not running if they aren't there) without actually doing anything with them.
Depends how the DLL are used; if thy are statically linked (the most common usage for native code) or added as reference for .NET code then the program will crash/refuse to start if you try do that.
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javihyuga: Kind of rises my steam-paranonia though.
From Joe Mirabello (Tower of Guns dev - via twitter) on the steam dlls in TOG in regards to the steam dlls in the humble version and why its logging playtime through steam client:

"huh..steam should have been disabled--theres a simple ini flag you can switch. I must have forgotten that in a recent update"
" I think UDK autopacks them by default--but it should not be active DRM. I'm curious if the GoG build has that issue since we disabled the flag early and they have a different update method than humble."
Post edited January 18, 2015 by Sachys
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Sachys: From Joe Mirabello (Tower of Guns dev - via twitter) on the steam dlls in TOG in regards to the steam dlls in the humble version and why its logging playtime through steam client:

"huh..steam should have been disabled--theres a simple ini flag you can switch. I must have forgotten that in a recent update"
" I think UDK autopacks them by default--but it should not be active DRM. I'm curious if the GoG build has that issue since we disabled the flag early and they have a different update method than humble."
Well, I think that steam is indeed disabled, as it doesn't prompt its overlay nor give any of its "capabilities". I have tested, and only logs hours if it is already running in the background. I have failed to see an .ini after a light search under appdata, documents and the install dir (again, barely awake, so it might be there laughing while my tired eyes and barely working brain struggle to function :P ), but found some UDK config files. I do not know shit about xml, but they do indeed look like those files, as they repeat words such as "dll" "phone home" "verify" and "digital signatures".

It would be interesting to see:

+ GOG's build behaviour
+ Steam's own one. I doubt they log hours with UDK icon and that generic name rather than the ToG name 'n picture.

I don't think its a game, but an engine issue, as Paranautical Activity or whatever that shit is called (which seems to be based on unity) also features the dll but does not interact with steam whatsoever.
Attachments:
asadf.png (94 Kb)
Post edited January 19, 2015 by javihyuga
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javihyuga: I don't think its a game, but an engine issue, as Paranautical Activity or whatever that shit is called (which seems to be based on unity) also features the dll but does not interact with steam whatsoever.
Aye that was his thoughts as well