First post, by Zup
- Rank
- Oldbie
So I found that you can get specific versions of games on steam...
Steam auto patches you games, and in some cases that patches came with bugs/glitches that you don't want or change the assets of your game. Even in some cases, they delete contents from your game (or you uninstall your game and after reinstalling discover that some content has dissapeared). Some examples:
Deep Space Waifu
This game got (at least) four releases, I'll call them "sd", "hd", "patched" and "reverted".
The first release was "sd", but after a while they upgraded it to a "hd" release with remade girls and had a "retro" mode that included "sd" girls. When Steam announced that it would censor games, the developer felt that some models felt underaged so it launched a "patched" release with new artwork (increasing breast size and putting some pubic hair in some girls) to avoid his game got delisted. Also, they removed retro mode. After a while, they launched a "reverted" release that changed again to "hd" but didn't restore retro mode.
So, if you want retro mode and old style girls or wallpapers you need to download a earlier (something about April 2008 would do the trick). To download "patched" release, you'll need to search for 1st week from June 2018.
Deep Space Waifu: Flat Justice
Another game with three releases... "gold", "patched" and "reverted".
Again, "gold" was the first release from Steam, and "patched" is a patched release made to circumvent the censor threat of Steam. But when Steam said it wouldn't censor any game, they launched a "reverted" release that got the old style artwork (and again, it lost the wallpapers).
So, if you want to get the "gold" version, you'll need one from April 2018, and to get "patched relese you'll want a release from 8 June 2018.
Hitman (maybe its elusive targets?)
I do not own this game, so I don't have tried this. The game have some time limited events called elusive targets. In this events, a new target appears at some map and you've got only a weekend to finish it before it gets removed from the game. I wonder if they can be replayed via depots (and maybe changing dates on your computer)...
List of elusive targets, with dates.
Grand Theft Auto (3, Vice City, San Andreas, IV?)
I've got this games, but I don't know what games are affected. Rockstar licensed music from various people for this games, but they only did for a limited time (it has happened to other developers and games).
So, at some time they lost the rights to use that music and released new versions that didn't feature all the songs from previous versions. I don't know if they removed songs from already installed games, but surely new installations won't have that music. Some examples:
- GTA Vice City was removed from Steam because of music on November 2017, I guess later versions were "fixed".
- GTA IV cut some music on April 2018. Be careful, as GTA IV was patched on November 2016 to get rid of Game with Windows Live.
Some music games:
I remember having read about some guitar game (Guitar Hero, Rock Band or Rocksmith) lose music licensing and removed DLCs... but I thought that the game was only for consoles and forgot about it.
Online games:
Do you want to play pre-cataclism Azeroth? Sorry, you're out of luck because:
a) World of Warcraft is not a Steam game.
b) Online games needs every player having the same version. So, if you have an unpatched version you won't connect with your friends.
In some games (that don't rely on dedicated servers) maybe they can connect if the difference is only about content (levels/music) and the executable version is the same but, as a rule of the thumb, unpatched versions can not play online.
A shady thought... (feel free to edit/delete this part)
Although it seemed that Steam could download any depot, it can only download depots known to the user. That includes free games and bought games, but not listed but unbought games. So unbought delisted games (like Stalin vs Martians, a bad game with a funny trailer) are lost for anyone that didn't bought them.
What specific releases do you consider interesting or would like to play rather than/besides the current, patched, modern version (i.e.: someone would want to run the bug-ridden first relese of Skyrim)?
I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...