I could, but I won't. I don't use steam. It is a principle thing. DRM, forced to be online while playing.
Not that it's much of a consolation but you don't *have* to be online while playing. Steam has an offline mode, and you can play all of your games while offline. I do this sometimes when I'm afraid of Steam ramming a patch down my throat when I don't want to be patched. I sometimes like to let others get the patches first, and I will get it once the bugs have been identified and addressed. It's the only fairly reliable way I've found to make that happen.
Even when you tell Steam not to update until a game is launched, sometimes it gleefully ignores you. Just wants to make sure you don't forget who's in charge, I guess.
For the future, back up your software before updating.
And how, pray, is one supposed to do that when there are no installation files? Is it enough to backup the game install directory and the My documents\bgee directory and subdirs? No registry settings that must kept intact or anything?
Yeah, copy/paste the install directory in a different location. I believe the my docs/bgee will still be used regardless of where the back up is.
And once the patcher runs an installs a new version? One can simply overwrite that with files backed-up? It sounds too good to be true... But since I have used Windows since 3.11 I may be somewhat ...prejudiced.
You can just run the backed up version directly. You could have both a 2.0 version and 1.3 version installed at the same time (granted they would share the mydocs/bgee folder which could cause some issues if you wanted to play both at once).
It is not possible to download the 1.3 version. The store right here on this site has 1 version available for download, and that one is already patched to the 2.0 version. Beamdog isn't even giving me a chance to fix the problem myself.
I'm saying if you were worried about this before 2.0 was released you could have done this. Hell the beta was open for over a month and there were lots of screenshots showing what 2.0 looked like. You may not be happy about that but it was possible.
As for what you can do now, when 1.3 branch on steam gets fixed in the near future you can: 1) request a steam key; 2) download 1.3 from steam; 3) move your 1.3 install to a different location; 4) expunge all traces of steam from your system; 5) keep playing 1.3 until the end of time, with out any worries about beamdog or steam messing it up for you.
For the future, back up your software before updating.
And how, pray, is one supposed to do that when there are no installation files? Is it enough to backup the game install directory and the My documents\bgee directory and subdirs? No registry settings that must kept intact or anything?
Yeah, copy/paste the install directory in a different location. I believe the my docs/bgee will still be used regardless of where the back up is.
And once the patcher runs an installs a new version? One can simply overwrite that with files backed-up? It sounds too good to be true... But since I have used Windows since 3.11 I may be somewhat ...prejudiced.
You can just run the backed up version directly. You could have both a 2.0 version and 1.3 version installed at the same time (granted they would share the mydocs/bgee folder which could cause some issues if you wanted to play both at once).
It is not possible to download the 1.3 version. The store right here on this site has 1 version available for download, and that one is already patched to the 2.0 version. Beamdog isn't even giving me a chance to fix the problem myself.
I'm saying if you were worried about this before 2.0 was released you could have done this. Hell the beta was open for over a month and there were lots of screenshots showing what 2.0 looked like. You may not be happy about that but it was possible.
As for what you can do now, when 1.3 branch on steam gets fixed in the near future you can: 1) request a steam key; 2) download 1.3 from steam; 3) move your 1.3 install to a different location; 4) expunge all traces of steam from your system; 5) keep playing 1.3 until the end of time, with out any worries about beamdog or steam messing it up for you.
Standing perfectly still in the game is not an issue. The issues, colour wise, pops up when there is movement. Characters walking etc. Screenshots don't show movements. Beta versions of games I stay away from. Simple as that. I like to play finished and fully functional games.
Steam seems to be the only option here, yes. At least if they keep the 1.3 version available for all time, and don't make the 2.0 version the default version soon.
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Even when you tell Steam not to update until a game is launched, sometimes it gleefully ignores you. Just wants to make sure you don't forget who's in charge, I guess.
As for what you can do now, when 1.3 branch on steam gets fixed in the near future you can: 1) request a steam key; 2) download 1.3 from steam; 3) move your 1.3 install to a different location; 4) expunge all traces of steam from your system; 5) keep playing 1.3 until the end of time, with out any worries about beamdog or steam messing it up for you.
Steam seems to be the only option here, yes. At least if they keep the 1.3 version available for all time, and don't make the 2.0 version the default version soon.